Modern Valve is basically the epitome of the Ron Swanson quote: _"Normally, when I'm given a choice between doing something and nothing, I'd choose to do nothing. But I will choose something if it helps someone else do nothing. I''d work all night if nothing got done."_
The idea of “just play a community server” is not fun, they develop their own culture, and trying to do something out of the norm just, doesn’t happen. There is a certain charm about casual, such a mixed bag you will enjoy rummaging in. Talking about the bot problem is a losing battle. Give them the attention they want by making a video, or ignore and they still ruin the game at day end. Unfortunately, such a beautiful game is suffering due to basic corporate practices of ditch the old and churn out more new stuff. Best of luck finding places to play everyone, I hope you find some way to still enjoy the game we all love.
Also for those curious and not up to date on how the bots even can exist. It boils down to how VAC works. That whole delayed system? An outdated mindset. The idea was to confuse the hack creators by having the bans be delayed… you can see where this goes wrong right? Bots do get banned in mass… just like a week or two after they caused disaster.
Don't forget a lot of these community servers have freaks on them that genuinely have no lives outside the internet and will get you banned for things as simple as making jokes. Happened to me on Uncletopia and Skial. At-least I can play Casual with free speech when there are no bots (Australian servers btw).
Ouch, that sounds horrible. Admittedly, I’m US east, so bots are a 50/50 u have good days or terrible. And when I do uncletopia with friends, we always end up aiming for nearly empty servers to screw around in before they become sweatfests. I want goofy haha random crits, I want Joey2007 gibus engi staring at the wall on 2fort. Can’t get that outside of casual.
I’m not saying community servers are bad, that’s not what’s meant to be taken away. Something is better than nothing. But, can’t you realize how poor of a state casual is in if the solution is “well just search for a better community server.” I’m not knocking your statement, more power to you if you found a proper server. But honestly… my opinion is that true casual, that button that 90% of players will click, that mixes and mashes everyone together, that gives you purely magic moments at sheer random, is special, and not something any community server can mimic (imo)
It was evident back in 2017 that TF2 was over: no content, no maintenane, no recognition of community efforts. Pretty sure there's still someone waiting for "things to go better". See you in another 7+ years, then.
Dude you gotta realize I just can't get the same gameplay and entertainment from any other video game, it's a video game that I have played for almost 9 years now and I'm casual as hell, I have a full time job and a truck that I constantly work on and am a huge family man, but this game just makes me giggle and smile like no other, I can be so sad, miserable and borderline wanting to just give up on my hopes and desires and I boot up tf2 and see a goofy looking heavy giving out sandwiches and thanking everyone who walks by him is just something that warms my heart dearly, and that's just ONE EXAMPLE, I hope this game never dies, because a good GOOD part of my happiness will die with it, cod is no more for me, so is dying light, and overwatch, and dbd, and far cry series, and grand theft auto, and even half life, but tf2 still feels like the game my dumbasss 7th grader me fell in love with
Who cares? Personally I just play the game all of you claim to love so much. I swear people enjoy talking about how good TF2 is/was more than actually playing it, with or without bots.
Pretty sad to see the state of TF2 these days. Thanks for giving the game another shot and speaking up on this from the perspective of a long-term player/creator. Even though it's not a new issue, it's always a good thing to see people continuing to talk about the issue in the hopes that SOMEONE at Valve will wake up and decide it's worth their time to try to do something.
It would be insane if they fixed those issues. Someone tried to fix those issues but just ended up hurting the f2p experience in casual. I don't quite remember if it was someone from Valve or someone Valve outsourced.
I'm really glad that you always had infinite fun playing TF2, even without the updates. While most people hated updateless Overwatch from 2020-2022, I still really enjoyed it because I knew there was so much more I could learn.
I mean the game felt really unbalanced and a ton of the new heroes were miserable to deal with but I'd always come back and love the feeling of improving in ranked. OW2 though? Don't even get me started, I played for a few days and never again and that was more than a year ago. That was legit the biggest fumble of the decade in gaming.
I played Overwatch both before, during, and after that. And the period with no updates was really fookin' nice for learning the meta at a higher level. I heard a lot of good stuff about the lower level where EVERY hero was viable even Genji who was considered the worst hero for a good portion of the time and was a taboo to play in scrims. Some even considered playing Genji very bad sportsmanship because it was effectively the same as going rocket jumper showing there's such a big gap between the teams that one player doesn't need to try.
@@doug2555 gotta say i agree with the ow 2 part, ranked never felt worse than ever before, however i kinda disagree in the ow1 part, yeah the game was at some peace for some time, however wasnt like that for all the players due to some heroes being in the dumpster and they got no balances
I have never played this game and I completely understand the frustration from you Elliot. I only play Fortnite and Apex. Hacking is the main reason why I uninstalled Warzone. I find every developer who remains ambivalent to their players.
You should try it bro. TF2 is free and amazing. Each class has so much diversity it's less like having 9 different classes in the game, and almost like having 9 different games to choose from. Game's old and optimized as hell too so it'll run on, like, anything. Office computers. Anything really. Just... stick to community servers, like Uncle Dan's servers. Otherwise the hacking issue is insufferable.
why Fortnite? out of all the shooters and Battle Royales you picked the one with the most crappy, cringe and terrible Creators, Content and Community on the planet. Epic is a blatant liar when it comes to reporting their MAU count and you know it. 90% of those 80 million at least are there for the free games they don't even touch and nothing else. they have excessive ties with TENCENT of all companies. considering they own an ANTICHEAT? please this is just asking to have literally ALL your data stolen. please take care of yourself when gaming and don't touch untrustworthy companies like Epic.
Y'know, I used to love this game. I'd play it every day, and when I wasn't playing it I'd be thinking about finally going home just so I can play it. Ever since the bots started showing up in servers I just haven't been able to have fun in the game anymore. I can play 1 match if I'm lucky without bots and eventually I just gave up trying and quit. It's been 2 years since I last played.
Played since 2011, spent an ungodly amount of money, put in 3500+ hours and i feel like i'm being treated like shit. Sure, valve can do what they wanna do but i can't. I spent money and time on the game and i used to have very little of either. TF2's my reminder to never hold hope, just expect the worst and embrace the good.
The worst part of it all is after they made their last twitter post, twitter added golden checkmarks for brands, and the official tf2 account has one. Which means they: logged back into the account, haven't used the account for anything since then, and they've spent about 21,000$ maintaining that check mark. So valve is more than comfortable spending money for some pixels on their screen on an account they never use, but refuse to spend any money on fixing the bots. The thing that confuses me the most, is them paying for a checkmark suggests they have some form of pride for the game, but they care so little about it at the same time
Why would they care? It's difficult to work with, and it doesn't make nearly as much money as CS and Dota. If you choose to play a game they don't care about and have no reason to care about - well, that's your choice. Don't blame developers for your own choices.
Impersonators is easier to be dealt with by throwing money (golden checkmark) than bots in TF2 which come in THOUSAND accounts rather than 1-3 accounts. And if the impersonator spread misinformation (like heavy update next week or TF2 shutdown next day), some of the TF2 community is too insane to not check it first before believe it's true. Bots on the other hand, require the perfect anti-cheat which is impossible, even the most aggressive and literal privacy breaching anti-cheat like Vanguard still have blind spots for cheater to cheat in Valorant, just more expensive and harder to cheat.
Also, the feeling I think he’s trying to say is that, tf2 the way it was made and played was that, it wasn’t looking for the competitive area, the money it can make from that, almost all new games want competitive first and not gameplay first, ow2 is a prime example of it. But when valve did meet your match update happen was from valve looking at the success of cs:go comp scene and kinda shoving it into tf2 hoping it would work and make possible more money for valve. Not a lot of people liked it and put a hard stain on the tf2 community
Yeah, i honestly love the tf2 comp scene, id really suggest watching rgl highlander games on steel, bc those csn really get some into the scene! But valve jumped the gun, mym shouldn't have come out at all so early, it obviously had a great idea but it was shoving a grassroots scene of extremely passionate gamers into thr limelight of a game that never was really too aware of them presence, trying to bridge that gap in a slow but healthy way would have been much better, because all things considered i remember enjoying mym besides the actual system changes. The balances were pretty fun! Its a shame that the noisier community parts loudly blame the small comp scene for valve's failure and eagerness
That was around the time Overwatch came out - or was in Beta - and all the OW vs TF2 BS was going on. And OW had competitive, and TF2 players wanted that too, only to prove that their game is better than OW. Valve gave what the people wanted for once, in a base game that didn't need it; because the real comp players allready had a comp scene - but people cried and Gaben gave.
It's worse when Valve themselves are now pulling a Nintendo by killing community projects such as TF2 Source 2 which is kinda ironic since Team Fortress 2 only existed because of a Quake Mod. This kinda makes me worried for the future of TF2 especially since the bot problem is still ongoing with it almost being two years since the #SaveTF2 protest and Valve have barely done anything to resolve the issue. The only way I can realistically see Valve sorting out this problem is to either hand TF2 to another trusted developer/company or them making a Team Fortress 3 in Source 2 because I really don't know how this problem is going to get sorted out and it pains me to see my favourite game of all time being treated like this.
It's a shame, but as someone who avoided casual servers and such for years. I loved modded and community servers. Since I knew cheaters were less likely to be found there. But then the missions came in and to unlock certain items I had to play those dreaded servers... needless to say I gave up.
valve didnt kill the source 2 port, the devs were already going to cancel it as they stopped working on it due to the leaked soruce code they were using becoming incompatible with s&box's newer updates. unliek gmod s&box doesnt hold a source engine license which is why the github of leaked tf2 code they were using was struck down.
Both those DMCAs were done with actual reason though, as sucky as it sounds. The TF2 Source 2 one was running on old code from S&Box and the N64 Portal port (which was around the same time) was more on Valve warning the dev to not do certain things as it was their IP and didn’t want to get involved with Nintendo. I do agree, TF2 is still huge in general, maybe not as it was in it’s prime, but the game genuinely needs some kind of actual successor because the game is so old and bots won’t get better. Realistically a Source 2 port would be nice, but we’re at most getting the 64 bit engine update and that’s it.
same boat as you, stickman. i've been a small tf2tuber for years and if this game dies ill have no motivation to upload. no other game has the silliness, character, community, or discipline. its the only game that feels like a different genre depending on the class you play, it's just.... impossible to describe
the thing is this topic is hard to say, to new people or aren't as big of a fan of tf2 as the game it is a game you would just have to play to get. these classes that before they used to put so much love and care into to there story, gameplay and the role they play in it, while still making it feel like the communities still have a helping hand in it of keeping this game we all fell in love with alive
Oh btw, They recently released a new Beta for Team Fortress 2, it's basically a 64-bit port of the game, they're updating the game for 64-bit, this means the game will finally be capable of far more than it is now... Hitreg will be snappier, you can add more weapon slots and cosmetic slots, because object limits will increase to triple the current amount, etc etc... FPS will improve significantly, avg fps will increase slightly, but percentage lows will quadruple or more, it's fking fantastic! :D They released it at the beginning of this year, i believe, january, early february, somewhere. You can play that beta any time you want, no casual servers, only community servers can be made (there are barely any, since the news of this is slow to come out), but best of all... 0 bots. :] It's got some mild bugs though, but that's nuthin'! :3
valve released it? That means they must be trying something to get rid of the bots. No casual servers must mean they are thinking of something to fix the bots or are just trying to get everything into casual. I could just be hopeful but 64 bit may be the saviour for tf2.
@@whythehandletho No casual is because it's still in beta, when 64-bit stops being beta and releases as retail, the casual servers will be converted to 64-bit version too. And the 64-bit version in of itself isn't gonna fix the bots, but it may allow the game the capability to allow new forms of cheat-detection and such, which requires additional work. THE POINT IS, that updating the game to 64-bit, is a pretty SOLID sign that they're preparing to game for FURTHER updates... I mean there would be no need to update to 64-bit otherwise.
I'm not sure I understand what making a game perform slightly better has to do with the bot crisis exactly. The issue to me is developer neglect because as far as I'm aware, Community servers for over 10 years have had fairly solid anti-cheat measures. You cannot tell me a group of highly intelligent game developers, for over 2 years, couldn't detect the very recognizable behavior of a bot & issue a kick at the very least? They walk the same paths as nav files I'm sure, in a completely rigid matter, fully zoomed in at all times, then below any possible human reaction time instantly headshot, while also spamming binds for their discord or website. Even if you had to hire people to stay one step ahead of the way hackers recover & pivot to bypass the new anti-cheat system, I refuse to believe they couldn't assign even a few dedicated people to do this as a billion dollar company. Anti-virus companies do this everyday with their software, detecting & updating for *multiple* different threats as these hackers inevitably bypass the latest detection methods. I also don't see why they couldn't issue IP bans. Valorant does that I believe.
It’s sad how rampant that attitude is across the industry. Development studios no longer seem to want to make and maintain good products and support their communities. They just put in the bare minimum to keep the cash flow going and leave the rest to die. One of the more recent one’s been Bungie with Destiny 2, where that business model made almost the entirety of the core playerbase apathetic towards the game and the company. Got so bad Bungie had to come out and apologize to try to rebuild some of the trust they lost. Wish we could get back to having studios care more about making a good product than how much money they can rake in for the least amount of work.
I believe it's more like today's TF2 dev is made of only 1 person (Eric Smith) other left because the problems TF2 have, which are thousands of bots is too much for 1 guy let alone the source spaghetti. TF2 need more developers that are WILLING not valve is lazy, the proof is x64 bits upgrade which fix the performance part of the problem.
Man hearing you mention the updates and things that have happened over the years, the SFMs and the economy and so on. Its incredibly nostalgic but as you mentioned it has unfortunately been disrespected and its down right unfair because of all the bots that are in the game. The community servers are pretty much the only respite we have as a community, which is sad to say. But I have played both games 1000hrs plus is both, and I completely agree there is always something new to learn or master in TF2 which so many games just don't replicate. I hope something happens but as of the moment it seems everywhere in the world is being rampaged by these bots and the attempt to kill the game after so many years.
This is a great video. I think Valve created a product that is so good, that they can simply afford to let the game fall into this state. Next month marks 10 years of playing TF2 for me and honestly I feel like the game doesn't need any new content, other than maybe tweaking some weapons nobody uses like the pompson or something lol or adding maps. But it DOES need to be preserved, and the company letting all these bots run rampant on their servers is embarrassing. I hope they fix it someday. We might be able to keep playing this game 50+ years from now but I'm probably just very optimistic.
A scriptkiddie hints at that it’s actually a human behind the screen, but it reality it’s just the computer running an open source program with no human interaction, they’re just bots
Tf2 is a game I consider to have the freedom to play Every other game you have to play a very specific and consistent way in order to win and not get yelled at but tf2 you can pick up doing whatever you want and still have fun around the central core gameplay.
I feel you, kicking around since 2009, I feel like Valve is pretty much done and went "Here, bye!" and left us in the dark. Part of stems from CS2 being their #1 Cash-cow baby, another stems from DOTA2 being the second favorite child on the e-sports scene. Heck, even Half-life and Portal get more love via VR tech demo games not many of us get to play due to hardware requirements. TF2 never really fit in those roles and Valve shows their disdain for it. I know Robin Walker said "We made TF2 as a more competitive Quake." and yeah that's true, but tell me how many people are still playing Quake, more so competitively? Let's face it, Valve got burned trying to make TF2 "competitively viable" and as such, doesn't want to touch it, leaving unfinished features as a testament to their failure. The MvM community servers are the only place I go to now to feel a sense of belonging, and stuff that actually is good. Part of me wants Valve to say "We're shutting it down." at least then we'd have some sort of closure, not whatever this is.
I've been here since the Beta, & this neglect sickens and angers me. What angers me is that people spend money on this game. People spend money on their overpriced, garbage store (for keys at the very least, and possibly much more for a less savvy newer player), and then for all intents & purposes they cannot utilize these items in the main avenue that is being advertised & endorsed by Valve- Casual mode. These people are getting ripped off. We have been shown a game we are expected to work correctly, and it is not. It is not only broken, it has not been addressed for over a year and a half, let alone fixed. I'm no lawyer but these legit feel like grounds for a lawsuit to me. How practical would it be to win? No clue, but it feels borderline fraudulent. Sick of this company & the way they've allowed the soul of this game to rot away.
2023 was a year when I saw _a lot_ of UA-camrs "discover" TF2 for the first time by them watching the old Meet the Team and other cinematic trailers and even community-made Saxxy Awards TF2 films, even LazyPurple's "What it feels like to play [insert TF2 class here]" videos. And each one of them said, "This looks like an awesome game that I had heard so much about, and I want to try it." And it pained me physically to have to leave comments warning them of the cheatbots that invade Valve servers en masse and ruin any game experience a newbie will have with TF2. TF2 is _still_ popular. In 2023, it was having a mini-Renaissance. But the cheatbots will scare new players away. Tell Valve that. No new players means the player community will dwindle as more and more of the old players get annoyed by the bots or just play other games they have equal or more fun with... or die. (A few years back I knew a 73 year old German TF2 player, Ingo, who mained Heavy and I was his pocket-Medic... but the last I heard of him was that he couldn't play anymore because of health reasons. Then our old community server and Mumble voicechat server we had frequented folded when the person who had organized the Schlachtfestchen website and servers left. People migrated to Discord, but Ingo wasn't tech-savvy enough to get it running on his PC. I tried to keep in contact via Steam, but... then the pandemic happened. And then one day he didn't respond anymore. I couldn't reach him over phone anymore, either.) Maybe someone at Valve _wants_ the players to leave so they can finally shut down the servers?
Community servers were always the best thing ever... But when we HAD to play casual for event maps and item unlocks.. thats when I tuned out. I saw TF2 adding things that I didn't sign up for. Unlocks behind missions to play on their casual mode/competitve mode. Sure when hackers werent around I didnt mind halloween maps on quick play/casual. But when jungle inferno came out.. Let's say I still don't have a gas passer cause I don't wanna play like that. When games force me to play in a certain way in a pvp game like TF2, it's always a bad decission.. cause now I am forced to play in a way I don't love and this kinda missions breeds in team competiveness. "YOU STOLE MY KILL I NEEDED FOR A MISSION!" It makes something as stupid as kill stealing have weight and be a crime. Now I only go on TF2 to play with friends.. on community servers. Since I was always a modded community server kinda guy!
I mean,not really? İf I didnt misunderstand I assume you are talking about the contracts which are..completely optional? Like you dont HAVE to do them. They just made it for people to be able to unlock the items without straightup handing them out.
most stuff like contracts are actually bad for games like these. And they did lock 3 pyro items behind it and forces you to play in a specific way and mindset that I consider breeds toxicity. If a game where you have to work together with your allies to win a game, having something that gives you stuff counteracts the point of the game. Example: Get 100 kills as Pyro with the gaspasser. (not actual quests) But to get kills you gotta be the one last hitting them. Now anyone who kills your targets during the gas passer effect is your enemy too, as it stops progression. Add the incentive to cheat to "get the job done" and you have accidentally bred toxic stuff. But if it's "Do 1000 damage with the gas passer" and any damage done by allies counts too, suddenly it doesn't matter since now you are encouraged to work with your allies. Anyway that's the jist of it.. and the contracts were the 1st step to knowing TF2's casual servers were gonna go to crap. Since it was the only place where you are allowed to do missions (wich is fair considering achievement servers exist)@@piemanpeek2357
Let me pass you a secret, make a friend and tell the which items you are still missing. I still haven't touched contract, no power in this world can make me do so I just like playing casual with my usual loadout. But if you are in need join a trade server fairly early and you can stablish some neat friends :3 That's how I got some essencial stuff for demoknight-ing. Now the only bad part of casual is the bots and hackers I am from north america so they're not as frequent though some days are pretty bad, I'd love to play uncletopia but that's mostly and only payload and I like Koth and At/Df too... and there are more sweaty players than usual in those I didn't like getting screamed for taking a 4 second break. However some of the balance changes that were thought out for competitive and were included as part of jungle inferno still hurt my soul. That being said where I've been playing no one takes those "contract players" seriously it's on them for risking not getting their stuff complete and playing something that's pretty much padding for content. I suggest you to mute them or ignore them and if they blame you you can tell them git gud lol.
Ooh yea but I just mean in general as well. Find a friend and give me an item is the way to by pass it.. unless you are new. Also in TF2 contract players aren't serious but in these games contracts that basically turns your allies into competitors are bad. A mission or objective where YOU need the kill is always bad in a cooperative sense, cause it forces you to break cooperation to get your mission done. My example is grossly exeturated but it's a problem regardless@@Bluestlark
I admired Valve, too. As a gamer, some might still do, as they make great games still, like Alyx. But as a TF2 player who played for a decade, I have to admit that I have more anger than gratefulness now.
1:36 I'd say around every 5th lobby ISN'T like this on US servers (meaning around 80% of lobbies are bot-infested), and even then they often get taken over after 1 or 2 people hop off the server. It's been a pain recording TF2 casual games on my second channel.
There is a rumor that someone already did, cosplaying as spy and smiling and then Valve tweet the "We hear you..." statement then do nothing (because who the f--- want to switch your easy Dota coding or VR development to fighting relentless and neverending bot crisis that get replaced by another bot in community that some of them can be extremely toxic and will cheat to win or gain attention that their parent doesn't give).
Well said. Really valuable insight from a veteran player and content creator. I would love to see more content similar to this from you. I'd be fine if we got no new updates, as long as either the bots were gone or Valve weren't actively making money from the game.
I mean, Valve does tend to outsource updates to their HQ janitors and rogue office monkeys for their older games. And by older games, I mean like 90% of their games.
Midway in you were talking about how TF2 doesn't seem to have a skill cap and always seems to have more things to do or to learn. I'm almost 5k hours into tf2 having casually played for about 13 years or so. I decided to try to actually learn how to surf last year, and it was so incredibly difficult. It was impossible. I couldn't understand how anyone did it at all. The "easy" maps started with impossible jumps. The movement seemed nonsensical. It was crazy. But I learned a little and could stay on ramp pretty well. And I started picking up little things. And now I've beaten a decent number of maps and I can sail around on most maps in all manner of dizzying feats, but I look at where I am, and I'm still way closer to when I was jumping and sliding off the sides of ramps almost immediately than I am anywhere near "good". I'll watch a video of some kid effortlessly gliding through impossible three dimensional puzzles of interlocking chutes and ramps and it boggles the mind how much further I could go. I would hope Valve will never drop the game completely. If it comes down to it and they simply cannot muster the will to beat the obnoxious bot runners, it would be better to dump matchmaking and let people just use the community server browser again. I remember the mod hell that existed back in the day, and all the folks that continually tried to wedge in ads or sell pay-to-win, but at least that would give us the chance to keep playing. This game is a comfortable place I can go once a week or so to get away from the world. I hope it sticks around.
very well said, sticking to comp and community servers is what works for me but it shouldnt, causal players make up a large majority and valve still makes a lot of money from tf2, and should at least support it a little.
yeah i’ve really struggling to find the desire to play this game after the fiasco that was oce scream fortress servers. i’m not exaggerating when i say all halloween maps were completely unplayable which was just so frustrating when like a lot of people scream fortress is my favourite event of the year and i kind of count on it to rejuvenate my energy for tf2
I felt the same way during the holidays, although it seems that many of the community servers are able to stop the bot waves I feel like it's going to take a class action suite by users who have spent a lot of real money on buying cosmetics and keys from Valve for use in a game that is often unusable and that Valve refuses to fix when it is very obviously possible. I had read that the key issue is that the Linux implementation makes it difficult to programmatically detect Linux based bots to ban them. Does anyone know enough about the issue to comment? It is sad. TF2 is unique. If it dies, I may be done with gaming.
The thing that always saddens me about TF2 in particular is that as one of Valve's premier properties, one that really highlighted their potential to take something and make it better than previously in a whole new way. Compare the early concepts of TF2 where it was gritty and modern to what we ended up with and it really was the best choice. Like LazyPurple said, the TF2 they were making wasn't gonna last 10+ years, but the TF2 we got has gone on 16 years and is still a globally known and beloved game. You know how many companies would KILL to have something as prestigious as team fortress 2 with its strong community backing and beloved status even with virtually 0 content updates in years? If you play a live service game, Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, you know how badly those players just CRAVE new content, every month there's gotta be something or you risk losing a huge chunk of players, the seasonal model looks like the ocean, waves followed by calm, sometimes a tsunami. TF2 gets results and brings in some money when valve do nothing. The reward-effort ratio is insane. Speaking of money, I know exactly why TF2's not been touched: Business. It's not as financially incentivised to dig your claws into a game whose community play it regardless of its state when there are simply other, more profitable games, to dedicate time to. But this stings so much more when you remember that Valve could discontinue all their games, all ongoing production, fire every dev and still be rolling in cash for the rest of their lives, because they have Steam, an IRL infinite money glitch. They don't NEED to care about money and whatever mere pennies they dedicate to continued game development is not going to TF2, but other games. They don't need the financial security or the guarantee of return on investment, they very easily could do something nice for the fans who've stuck with TF2, some of them since it launched nearly 2 decades ago, with no need to make a profit because money isn't a concern from them, but won't because they'd obviously save the few extra thousands or so of dollars from not developing TF2 further. I know I am an individual, not a clever or business oriented one, but if I was Valve and had all the money and attention a game dev could ever want with a comfortably cornered PC gaming market, I'd personally go insane on game dev to my hearts content. Billions of dollars sitting around, a faucet of money coming in comfortably from every sale, store, trade and hardware sales, every chance to bankroll game after game after game, give a loan to some indie devs, hire new programmers, make whole departments. I'd definitely spare some money for one of the longest suffering game communities going whose game of choice is in my control. But that's me, a person and valve is a business. I know we're too different.
There is NO EXCUSE for letting bots be on servers for THREE YEARS now. Valve employees doesnt care about fixing it, because they get nothing out of it and its down bottom on the workpile due to other things at Valve.
hopefully despite this we will get to see more tf2 content from you muselk. It’s always been a blast to watch you play the game despite all its flaws this current day
I have about 1.5k hours on tf2 I have played pyro and spy for most of my time and I’m still learning new things the skill ceiling on every tf2 class is nearly if not infinite although as you said community is completely carrying the game I’m pretty sure only one person works on tf2 consistently literally some people in the community have used old game files and updated the game themselves (it’s called tf2 classic btw) not to mention even if some old players aren’t playing if they hear of a new proper update they will come back in a heartbeat I love this game to death I got into rgl recently but still it’s just sad to see the state of tf2
I had just gotten into TF2 the last Few days i have encountered those bots which is dissapointing but i switched to community servers and been having a blast
whats interesting about valves work culture is that whilst there is no formal structure, there is a hierarchy within valve where people who have been working there longer have greater power when it comes to employee evaluations. This means that these people are basically deciding what gets worked on and what doesn't, there have been new employees that have joined valve and expressed interest on working on TF2 but cant due to the higher ranking employees threatening them with poor evaluations. Basically if valve had a more traditional work system, tf2 would probably still be getting regular updates
valve is NOT the worst developer. just because something happened that you dont like doesnt mean the people who did said thing are the worst people in the world. EA, Activision, and ubisoft all still exist and whining about valve doesnt put them on the same level regardless of the amount of tears
About a month ago I got in a game with someone with the name "Muselk" which had the UA-cam profile picture added onto it. And at the time I was freaking out cause there's no way I'm playing casual with a gaming celebrity. So I took the opportunity to ask what he thought of "Emesis Blue" the TF2 film and he responded with "It's Gay." Average gamer answer I know, but it was so weird and the horde of people just agreeing because this guy didn't like it was strange. It didn't help that he was also the best player in the server... So it was really relieving to see that it might've been a poser judging by the difference in the profile picture on the stat screen (7:39) but then again, I'm not too sure.
This is how Valve have been for many years now. There's a small subset that are still doing things they're passionate about (ie. hardware, HL Alyx) but the vast majority is all about the minimum amount of effort for the maximum profits and that's not just a tf2 thing either. Hell, they even optimise screwing people over to maximise their profits too (ie. the October "bug"). It's funny how people forget things like the paid mods controversy back in the day where you quite literally had Gabe Newell posting on Reddit outright saying that all they actually care about is money. And how them backpedaling on that wasn't because it was a bad idea, but because of the unforseen costs involved with it.
I didn't even get to try the Christmas maps this Christmas because I knew that the bots would be swarming it, leaving the regular servers relatively clear
Even in highly populated areas such as US - East, while most matches are full of players, if there is a singular open player slot, there will be an unending stream of bots joining that we have to kick until a real person joins, lasting nearly the entire match
Thank you for sharing this, Muselk. I don't say this enough, but you are one of a few youtubers who really make me happy with every upload. It's been a decade since the last time I played TF2 - and yet I still watch every TF2 videos you make.
7:00 on this point, tf2 is very much the smash melee of shooters. An old game meant for casual gamers that for some reason has an insanely high skill ceiling.
Valve desperately needs to just take the people running these bots to court. Even if they don't get everyone, even throwing one or two of them into the slammer or fining them for everything they're worth could scare the rest into laying low.
I fell like we need to unify and do something about this, NO longer accept this. Stop playing for a week, stop buying crates, sent compaints (Still not rude or asshole like but genuine concern). THIS HAS been going on for WAY TO LONG
Bots bots bots bots bots. It's so bad that, ironically, I ended up downloading the bot overhaul mod that just makes a separate offline version where you just play with bots that got cosmetics and shit and have upgraded ai just to emulate fucking TF2 because it's almost impossible to play the normal game. However, my lust for TF2's perfect gameplay still grows
Literally almost 2k hours on my end, and as someone who kinda looked up/respected the TFTubers to an extent I Honestly was hyped back then to enjoy this game, and Muselk you were one of them when looking back when Tf2 was on your main for the most part, I saw someone who loved this game with a lot of others, that were optimistic somethin good would come for the game. and I would agree, That Tf2/Valve has become more so an "Abusive Ex" (metaphorically), that could care less to what happens to their players, Community servers are nice but they aren't the end all solution, while I do have some idea as to what _could_ be a slight counter to the bot problem in Tf2 is to incorporate Community servers that run the normal, and holiday maps that way mods could ban them on sight and pretty much have a safe haven for the most part, But where my idea falls apart is _It would get Tiring and become a thankless job_ to a point the mods would even say "screw it, it's not worth my time anymore." I have some optimism when the game does get what it needs _Someday_ but for the most part I may stick with MvM just to chill with peeps new and old with each individual mode of it, Boot/Mann up. otherwise I'll just put the game up and cherish what I currently have and be proud that i've put that many hours into the game out of love and respect for what we had, for those we lost, and those who still have love for their characters (referring to the VAs and some of the community.) and go onto something like Payday 2 and etc. and hope you have a wonderful day Muselk, same with everyone else who sees this, just want to remind you no matter what happens throughout the day or game you play, You are always a Champion in my eyes. 🫶
I have flashbacks when you mentioned how your feelings towards valve are going downhill is basically me in 2015-2016 with CSGO's sound updates and the fact that steam support couldn't recover a stolen account even with provided evidence and told me to piss off basically
Outside the MMO space, this game probably has the most hours in it, over everything else. It was fun, complex and had (has) a great community. It's the game that really took the idea of vastly different classes with very different personalities, and made it work. Without it, you wouldn't have Overwatch IMO. I got it as part of The Orange Box and I played the ever living crap out of it. But it felt like Valve hated the community. I still think the match finder was a terrible idea as for me, it instantly killed off communities building around servers on a whim. My mates and I found a server and kept going back to it for years, we ended up being good friends with the server admins. They policed it, kept the maps rotating and had a good laugh with the other players. It was one of my gaming highlights. Now, every time I log in, I just play 1 or 2 rounds and get frustrated. Hackers are common, skins are often broken, "balanced" weapons have been changed to the point of unrecognition.
I have 3.5k hours on this game, i went through my soldier/ rocket jump arc, my pyro arc, the sniper and now im halfish way through my medic arc. 3.5k hours and ive only truely learned 3.5 out of 9 classes. Tf2 is just too good and so deep!
theres still stuff to play on TF2, especially their community servers, as casual is flooded with bots, but there's plenty of different stuff TF2 has to offer like VSH, FF2, the community 24/7 2fort, harvest, and dustbowl servers, engineer fortress, slender fortress, etc. The dev's don't care, so at this point TF2 is what you make of it. TF2 also still has a thriving SFM/YTer community and doesn't seem to have any point of stopping..
Probably undefeatable but very easy to minimize especially considering valve’s resources they could probably get rid of 90% of the bots if they gave it a good month
You want change? Go for the wallet, people give Valve money for free, valve doesn't care, people still give. Valve: Cheaters, meh - bots, meh - they ruin your fun, meh. People still buy our stuff so they must like the game as it is, why change anything....
You brought up Overwatch and that reminded me of the time leading up to Sombra's release. The community searching for clues, the fucking skysong debacle, just fans of a game coming together to solve something. As someone who didn't play TF2, I can only imagine how grand the sense of community was in terms of the aforementioned events and just throughout the game. I'm sorry to hear such genuine disappointment at the deterioration of a beloved game.
I was never as big into TF2 as some but hearing all this is wild because you can take everything Muselk said here and replace "Valve" with "Rockstar Games". It's tough because they do make good games and have never developed anything short of a masterpiece and will continue to do so I believe but as for the Online modes, they have utterly failed. They monetize it but don't care about the quality. At least it gets updates, well GTA anyways, not RDR2. It's not enough though. They let cheaters run rampant, they don't put any care into the stuff they DO put in the updates. It's a crapshoot. I hope Valve turns it around and hires some community people. Valve and Rockstar Games seem so similar here like they are "godlike" companies which you can't simply get employed at. So many people willing to work on something like TF2 or GTA 6 and yet they just don't hire that easily for reasons unknown. They are almost too well-regarded and they let it go to their head.
We rly wear our hearts on our sleeves due to the unconditional love and timeless experiences with TF2...this also makes us, the community, all the more vulnerable to Valve's negligence.
Atleast they aren't Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Epic Games or any mother fricker in between. When it comes to game companies Valve has atleast cared about their games for more then a year after release and with that said release good content when other companies are releasing unfinished garbage or extremely underwhelming crap.
I'm not sure what to think of Valve as a whole. While I don't like them monetizing TF2 without maintaining it, I know much of their efforts are being put into the Steam Deck and other such hardware. As much as I like TF2, I like PC gaming as a whole more and I'm so glad we have accessible handhelds that aren't restrictive bloody consoles. Another thing I like Valve for is that their games aren't always-online and genuinely in the hands of the community. The bot situation may suck but there's community servers and there are mods like TF2 Classic and Open Fortress. I'm even hosting a 2007 version server of the game for people who want to see what it used to be like. In comparison, even if you like Fortnite or Overwatch, these games are tied to online servers and sooner or later they will cease to exist. In fact, in the case of Fortnite, previous versions of the game are being replaced entirely and in regards to Overwatch 1 it already happened. I like that Valve makes their games in a way that they don't depend on them and their servers to exist. It will outlive Fortnite and Overwatch purely by design, even if there are only two people left on the planet who play it
Finally, someone who has put how I feel about this into words! TF2 was so good because there's no 'most correct' way to play, and even the existence of a 'wrong' way to play is debatable. The game was the right mix of 'appears simple' and 'actually complex', 'silly' and 'semi-serious', 'casual' and 'competitive, and so on. I *want* to play TF2 again, but I believe Valve deserves *zero* support for the way they have acted. "Hey, look, we gave you new stuff!" "Did you fix the bot problem?" "Bot problem?"
Normally, a playerbase would be sad to see the servers get shut down. But with TF2, I would almost be kinda glad if servers would get plugged. Glad in a way like ending an relationship with a partner who used to be a active & cheerfull person but has since a few years become really lazy and apathetic. You still like your partner, you really cherish the memories when they where active & cheerfull, you still hope that one they change back to the person you loved. But in the end, its better to end the relationship & move on.
First of all - TF2 is actually going through it's biggest restructuring yet, moving from 32 to 64 bit support. Taking a look at it's beta branch makes it obvious they spent quite a lot of work on that. Secondly - while I see the sentiment, Valve is uniquely positioned with TF2 since TECHNICALY community servers can keep the game up and they could just drop it. But they are the only ones maintaining the item servers and that costs money. Sure, we did see about a week long period without access to them recently and people had fun with it still, but I think we can all agree that it's a no-go long term. And yea TECHNICALLY what keeps the items up is the steam branch, and they can justify it with the comissions from community market but with how much of inventory space is getting taken up by free weapons and third party solutions out and about providing little to no comission at all capable of snatching up the rest, all while not being ran by the very company who did hypothetically just drop the very game in question - it'd be a tough call to actually drop any part of the game.
@@UCgx7OseCrundqkE8oEVeobgI think it might've been location depebdebt, aince I've seen people quote like 6 days, but I might be missremembering tbh, didn't have time to play at the time to play then myself
Honestly I remember Valve stated a response to the community en large bringing up "Why not just hire the community to do this stuff for TF2?", and they said they don't do that because then other projects would get "jealous" and demand they get new hires hired on specifically for what their working on. It really do just be... frustrating that they have the money and resources to help the game, but they choose not to, honestly the bot problem probably could've only been solved if Valve somehow put in the effort to find some legal thing to have gotten the original github these bots come from down and the creators of it tossed into jail or said creators actually had better moral compasses and just took the github down when they were asked to. At this point, I think it's just been way too long where these bots have just gotten to a point, since no action was taken when it could've been stomped out, where the stuff for them is just too wide-spread, too many people have their hands on it, and it'll just be a constant back and forth of getting rid of bots and then having them again. I honestly don't believe within TF2 this issue is going to resolve and it's going to continue to be a big issue since Valve takes any excuse not to work on TF2 (with saying we don't get new weapons or anything super major anymore being due to "Would disrupt the economy too much"). Whether that's because its code is outdated 2007 spaghetti or Valve just doesn't have any employees anymore that are passionate about the Team Fortress IP. Which frankly, just ties into the fact we're probably not going to get the solution to the issue at all either. That being Valve counting to three and just giving us a Team Fortress 3 with new code and everything that'll take quite awhile for a bot issue to ever become an issue again, but this probably won't happen due to how projects at Valve just struggle to get anything actually done as a side-effect of how they run their company, being there's no employees passionate enough about Team Fortress to really make the game, and/or a similar pressure like there is with Half-Life 3 is present due to the fact you'd somehow have to top TF2 which has existed for 17 years and meet the community's expectations which at launch would probably way too high expecting all the things TF2 has now and more.
In my experience, the bots are even more a problem for TF2bers than they are for normal players. I'm looking for a job nowadays, and I observed that at odd hours, where others are working, the bots are much more oppressive. Instead of being spread among many servers with many players, the same number of bots are playing against much fewer players, which drown in them. So maybe try playing in the evening, or on the weekends ? Because waiting for Valve to take action may take a while ... Also hi. And thanks for teaching me English 10+ years ago. Love to see you come back to TF2.
no effort is not true because im sorry to say but this is specific to tf2 because the ppl doing this to tf2 have a hatred to this game in particular. running virtual machines, paying 3 cents for dupe cell lines and literally nothing for steam acc generators means this issue can technically be done in every single game as long as the ppl doing it are dedicated enough. sadly we have those dedicated ppl in our game
3:38 Dota 2 player here, The International went from a prize pool of 40,018,195 USD in 2021 to 18,930,775 in 2022 and then to 3,380,455 in 2023. The reason for that is they ditched battle pass in favor of *"more updates"* and the pace of content feels pretty much the same before. (If not slower) lmao
I've got 3000 hours on TF2, I started the game in 2017 and played it every single day after school. I stopped playing in 2021 after there was an astounding wave of bots coming, every single game was filled with huntsman bots and stock bits. Absolutely frustrated with the lobbies, I stopped. Came back again late 2023 and was surprised as to how little bots I found within each game. There were still one or two here and there, but nothing a good ol' kick couldn't handle. Once again stopped playing due to a massive wave of bots with the name of a trading website swarming every single lobby. Finally had enough and put the game to rest.
You can't knock a business for not updating their game if it's not profitable. But there's no way that fixing the bot problem wouldn't increase their revenues more than their cost of getting workers, etc to make a solution. Like if other games can prevent hackers, I can't imagine it would be that difficult/costly to fix tf2. And by doing so, more people would play and likely buy cosmetics and keys.
EU player here. Bots are a major problem on our servers as well but they get kicked pretty quick. The issue with full bot server happens very rarely and at that point you just requeue and you find another match without bots pretty easy. So sorry to hear that in Australia you have much bigger issue with bots. Such a shame valve didn’t do anything past few years about hackers. They literally are trying to cut off the hand that feeds em.
The only future possibility that I can think of where tf2 will finally be fixed is if a group of passionate tf2 gamers device a plan to take over the game development team by force. This way they can fix the game themselves without waiting for valve to act, which will never happen.
Over the years i became more and more annoyed with TF2 fans. I only started to play the game after jungle inferno came out. I seen the bot crisis, I saw that valve tried to do something, whatever they could to stop it. But with the behaviour of TF2 fans, failing to acknowledge any attempts of valve, I came to the conclusion that it's time to go. The community is full of frustrates screaming about how Valve bad because they abandoned their one and a half decade old spaghetti mess of a game, whcih has came upon a problem no other game came prior. I've seen people play down upon the bot issue, acting as if valve had a simple "remove all bots" button in their offices (They do not.) Calling valve the worst game company is just lying to everyone. Valve ramains to be the best AAA company of them all. Lack of much controversy, often listening to critique, not abusing their power and, as far as we know, no firing employees over not wanting to sleep with the higher ups. People may say that valve promised things to come after first savetf2 and didn't deliver, but I am not sure if that is the case. The bot problem has no clear cut out solution. And to quote Gabe - 'These things, they take time.' They take time when people want to work on them, yet i sincerely doubt anybody actually wants to work on TF2. This game is a mess. Both in its state of affairs (bot crisis) and code (spaghetti codonese) and there's little to no to gain over working on it. Additionally, with valve radio silent policy, we can't be sure what they are really doing. They may be working on the game. They may be not. They may be working on the third installment. They may decide it's not worth. I know I myself would not want to work on TF2.
![The Original Soldier! [TF2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RnmCluF22yU/mqdefault.jpg)
Why does this feel like it was made 5 years ago in the best way possible
He even changed his voice back a little bit
only if he uses face cam and the white/purple circle crosshair again
it's cause it feels really genuine and there were lot more of that 5 years ago
Cause he is still trash at the game
@@fatzyfatzy8322 bruh
Modern Valve is basically the epitome of the Ron Swanson quote: _"Normally, when I'm given a choice between doing something and nothing, I'd choose to do nothing. But I will choose something if it helps someone else do nothing. I''d work all night if nothing got done."_
Wut?
Wut
I love ron swanson
Scarily accurate.
i heard that in his exact voice and his big bushy moustache.
The idea of “just play a community server” is not fun, they develop their own culture, and trying to do something out of the norm just, doesn’t happen. There is a certain charm about casual, such a mixed bag you will enjoy rummaging in. Talking about the bot problem is a losing battle. Give them the attention they want by making a video, or ignore and they still ruin the game at day end. Unfortunately, such a beautiful game is suffering due to basic corporate practices of ditch the old and churn out more new stuff. Best of luck finding places to play everyone, I hope you find some way to still enjoy the game we all love.
Also for those curious and not up to date on how the bots even can exist. It boils down to how VAC works. That whole delayed system? An outdated mindset. The idea was to confuse the hack creators by having the bans be delayed… you can see where this goes wrong right? Bots do get banned in mass… just like a week or two after they caused disaster.
Don't forget a lot of these community servers have freaks on them that genuinely have no lives outside the internet and will get you banned for things as simple as making jokes. Happened to me on Uncletopia and Skial. At-least I can play Casual with free speech when there are no bots (Australian servers btw).
Ouch, that sounds horrible. Admittedly, I’m US east, so bots are a 50/50 u have good days or terrible. And when I do uncletopia with friends, we always end up aiming for nearly empty servers to screw around in before they become sweatfests. I want goofy haha random crits, I want Joey2007 gibus engi staring at the wall on 2fort. Can’t get that outside of casual.
i mean, its worth *trying*. hell, thats a lot of what quickplay was.
if you havent at least tried finding some servers, then its on you at that point
I’m not saying community servers are bad, that’s not what’s meant to be taken away. Something is better than nothing. But, can’t you realize how poor of a state casual is in if the solution is “well just search for a better community server.” I’m not knocking your statement, more power to you if you found a proper server. But honestly… my opinion is that true casual, that button that 90% of players will click, that mixes and mashes everyone together, that gives you purely magic moments at sheer random, is special, and not something any community server can mimic (imo)
It was evident back in 2017 that TF2 was over: no content, no maintenane, no recognition of community efforts.
Pretty sure there's still someone waiting for "things to go better". See you in another 7+ years, then.
Worth the wait.
Yet the game is still alive albeit in a messed up state with the bots 🤖 but still kicking.
Dude you gotta realize I just can't get the same gameplay and entertainment from any other video game, it's a video game that I have played for almost 9 years now and I'm casual as hell, I have a full time job and a truck that I constantly work on and am a huge family man, but this game just makes me giggle and smile like no other, I can be so sad, miserable and borderline wanting to just give up on my hopes and desires and I boot up tf2 and see a goofy looking heavy giving out sandwiches and thanking everyone who walks by him is just something that warms my heart dearly, and that's just ONE EXAMPLE, I hope this game never dies, because a good GOOD part of my happiness will die with it, cod is no more for me, so is dying light, and overwatch, and dbd, and far cry series, and grand theft auto, and even half life, but tf2 still feels like the game my dumbasss 7th grader me fell in love with
Who cares? Personally I just play the game all of you claim to love so much. I swear people enjoy talking about how good TF2 is/was more than actually playing it, with or without bots.
@@doom7872 Keep enjoying your mediocrity then, if you like it so much, no one is stopping you from eating dogshit and enjoying it.
Pretty sad to see the state of TF2 these days. Thanks for giving the game another shot and speaking up on this from the perspective of a long-term player/creator. Even though it's not a new issue, it's always a good thing to see people continuing to talk about the issue in the hopes that SOMEONE at Valve will wake up and decide it's worth their time to try to do something.
It would be insane if they fixed those issues. Someone tried to fix those issues but just ended up hurting the f2p experience in casual. I don't quite remember if it was someone from Valve or someone Valve outsourced.
Does it affect DotA 2 or SFM?
Over 5k hours in TF2 and I still never was able to master rocket jumping xD
I am sure you mastered something else instead, congrats on 5k, much respect.
relatable
you and me pal.
You must be cheeks then fam
same i can do basically everything but rocket jumping the jump maps didnt really help ngl
When a roblox parody of tf2 has better server quality than the real tf2, you know valve really dont care
Lol??
Fr I played the roblox version of the game 10 times more than actual tf2 in the past year
I'm really glad that you always had infinite fun playing TF2, even without the updates.
While most people hated updateless Overwatch from 2020-2022, I still really enjoyed it because I knew there was so much more I could learn.
That's when I started getting into Overwatch. It was probably the best time around then. Then OW2 decided to ruin it's name...
I mean the game felt really unbalanced and a ton of the new heroes were miserable to deal with but I'd always come back and love the feeling of improving in ranked. OW2 though? Don't even get me started, I played for a few days and never again and that was more than a year ago. That was legit the biggest fumble of the decade in gaming.
@@doug2555completely agree with all of that
I played Overwatch both before, during, and after that. And the period with no updates was really fookin' nice for learning the meta at a higher level. I heard a lot of good stuff about the lower level where EVERY hero was viable even Genji who was considered the worst hero for a good portion of the time and was a taboo to play in scrims. Some even considered playing Genji very bad sportsmanship because it was effectively the same as going rocket jumper showing there's such a big gap between the teams that one player doesn't need to try.
@@doug2555 gotta say i agree with the ow 2 part, ranked never felt worse than ever before, however i kinda disagree in the ow1 part, yeah the game was at some peace for some time, however wasnt like that for all the players due to some heroes being in the dumpster and they got no balances
I have never played this game and I completely understand the frustration from you Elliot. I only play Fortnite and Apex. Hacking is the main reason why I uninstalled Warzone. I find every developer who remains ambivalent to their players.
Why would you play warzone let alone cod at all? Cods sucked since after bo3 ESPECIALLY the new mws
@@Hoodini2253 I will never play another CoD game ever.
@@jeremymiller6264play tf2 instead
You should try it bro. TF2 is free and amazing.
Each class has so much diversity it's less like having 9 different classes in the game, and almost like having 9 different games to choose from. Game's old and optimized as hell too so it'll run on, like, anything. Office computers. Anything really.
Just... stick to community servers, like Uncle Dan's servers. Otherwise the hacking issue is insufferable.
why Fortnite? out of all the shooters and Battle Royales you picked the one with the most crappy, cringe and terrible Creators, Content and Community on the planet. Epic is a blatant liar when it comes to reporting their MAU count and you know it. 90% of those 80 million at least are there for the free games they don't even touch and nothing else. they have excessive ties with TENCENT of all companies. considering they own an ANTICHEAT? please this is just asking to have literally ALL your data stolen. please take care of yourself when gaming and don't touch untrustworthy companies like Epic.
Y'know, I used to love this game.
I'd play it every day, and when I wasn't playing it I'd be thinking about finally going home just so I can play it.
Ever since the bots started showing up in servers I just haven't been able to have fun in the game anymore. I can play 1 match if I'm lucky without bots and eventually I just gave up trying and quit. It's been 2 years since I last played.
theyre not hacking your just really really bad
@@blob5907 did you even watch the video? Have you even played TF2 within the past 4 years? Or are you genuinely just that stupid?
Same, not point in trying anymore.
Played since 2011, spent an ungodly amount of money, put in 3500+ hours and i feel like i'm being treated like shit. Sure, valve can do what they wanna do but i can't. I spent money and time on the game and i used to have very little of either. TF2's my reminder to never hold hope, just expect the worst and embrace the good.
@@blob5907 they got a more expensive gaming chair, obviously.
The worst part of it all is after they made their last twitter post, twitter added golden checkmarks for brands, and the official tf2 account has one. Which means they: logged back into the account, haven't used the account for anything since then, and they've spent about 21,000$ maintaining that check mark. So valve is more than comfortable spending money for some pixels on their screen on an account they never use, but refuse to spend any money on fixing the bots. The thing that confuses me the most, is them paying for a checkmark suggests they have some form of pride for the game, but they care so little about it at the same time
Why would they care? It's difficult to work with, and it doesn't make nearly as much money as CS and Dota. If you choose to play a game they don't care about and have no reason to care about - well, that's your choice. Don't blame developers for your own choices.
@@ForOne814they still make money off cases💀
@@ForOne814and the tf2 marketplace
Impersonators is easier to be dealt with by throwing money (golden checkmark) than bots in TF2 which come in THOUSAND accounts rather than 1-3 accounts. And if the impersonator spread misinformation (like heavy update next week or TF2 shutdown next day), some of the TF2 community is too insane to not check it first before believe it's true. Bots on the other hand, require the perfect anti-cheat which is impossible, even the most aggressive and literal privacy breaching anti-cheat like Vanguard still have blind spots for cheater to cheat in Valorant, just more expensive and harder to cheat.
@@ForOne814 They make thousands by doing absolutely nothing but ok
Also, the feeling I think he’s trying to say is that, tf2 the way it was made and played was that, it wasn’t looking for the competitive area, the money it can make from that, almost all new games want competitive first and not gameplay first, ow2 is a prime example of it. But when valve did meet your match update happen was from valve looking at the success of cs:go comp scene and kinda shoving it into tf2 hoping it would work and make possible more money for valve. Not a lot of people liked it and put a hard stain on the tf2 community
Yeah, i honestly love the tf2 comp scene, id really suggest watching rgl highlander games on steel, bc those csn really get some into the scene! But valve jumped the gun, mym shouldn't have come out at all so early, it obviously had a great idea but it was shoving a grassroots scene of extremely passionate gamers into thr limelight of a game that never was really too aware of them presence, trying to bridge that gap in a slow but healthy way would have been much better, because all things considered i remember enjoying mym besides the actual system changes. The balances were pretty fun! Its a shame that the noisier community parts loudly blame the small comp scene for valve's failure and eagerness
That was around the time Overwatch came out - or was in Beta - and all the OW vs TF2 BS was going on. And OW had competitive, and TF2 players wanted that too, only to prove that their game is better than OW. Valve gave what the people wanted for once, in a base game that didn't need it; because the real comp players allready had a comp scene - but people cried and Gaben gave.
the reason the bots are named megascatterbomb, is because he is another aussie tf2 creator, working on some kind of anticheat project for tf2
So the bots are named after him to slander his name?
@@ceoofcapitalismyes, happens a lot
It's worse when Valve themselves are now pulling a Nintendo by killing community projects such as TF2 Source 2 which is kinda ironic since Team Fortress 2 only existed because of a Quake Mod. This kinda makes me worried for the future of TF2 especially since the bot problem is still ongoing with it almost being two years since the #SaveTF2 protest and Valve have barely done anything to resolve the issue.
The only way I can realistically see Valve sorting out this problem is to either hand TF2 to another trusted developer/company or them making a Team Fortress 3 in Source 2 because I really don't know how this problem is going to get sorted out and it pains me to see my favourite game of all time being treated like this.
It's a shame, but as someone who avoided casual servers and such for years. I loved modded and community servers. Since I knew cheaters were less likely to be found there.
But then the missions came in and to unlock certain items I had to play those dreaded servers... needless to say I gave up.
valve didnt kill the source 2 port, the devs were already going to cancel it as they stopped working on it due to the leaked soruce code they were using becoming incompatible with s&box's newer updates. unliek gmod s&box doesnt hold a source engine license which is why the github of leaked tf2 code they were using was struck down.
Both those DMCAs were done with actual reason though, as sucky as it sounds.
The TF2 Source 2 one was running on old code from S&Box and the N64 Portal port (which was around the same time) was more on Valve warning the dev to not do certain things as it was their IP and didn’t want to get involved with Nintendo.
I do agree, TF2 is still huge in general, maybe not as it was in it’s prime, but the game genuinely needs some kind of actual successor because the game is so old and bots won’t get better. Realistically a Source 2 port would be nice, but we’re at most getting the 64 bit engine update and that’s it.
same boat as you, stickman. i've been a small tf2tuber for years and if this game dies ill have no motivation to upload. no other game has the silliness, character, community, or discipline. its the only game that feels like a different genre depending on the class you play, it's just.... impossible to describe
Threaten the bot hosters with legal action like they did with fan projects🤷♂️
the thing is this topic is hard to say, to new people or aren't as big of a fan of tf2 as the game it is a game you would just have to play to get. these classes that before they used to put so much love and care into to there story, gameplay and the role they play in it, while still making it feel like the communities still have a helping hand in it of keeping this game we all fell in love with alive
Oh btw, They recently released a new Beta for Team Fortress 2, it's basically a 64-bit port of the game, they're updating the game for 64-bit, this means the game will finally be capable of far more than it is now... Hitreg will be snappier, you can add more weapon slots and cosmetic slots, because object limits will increase to triple the current amount, etc etc... FPS will improve significantly, avg fps will increase slightly, but percentage lows will quadruple or more, it's fking fantastic! :D
They released it at the beginning of this year, i believe, january, early february, somewhere. You can play that beta any time you want, no casual servers, only community servers can be made (there are barely any, since the news of this is slow to come out), but best of all... 0 bots. :]
It's got some mild bugs though, but that's nuthin'! :3
valve released it? That means they must be trying something to get rid of the bots. No casual servers must mean they are thinking of something to fix the bots or are just trying to get everything into casual. I could just be hopeful but 64 bit may be the saviour for tf2.
@@whythehandlethoi think the reason for no casual is because its still in beta
@@whythehandletho No casual is because it's still in beta, when 64-bit stops being beta and releases as retail, the casual servers will be converted to 64-bit version too.
And the 64-bit version in of itself isn't gonna fix the bots, but it may allow the game the capability to allow new forms of cheat-detection and such, which requires additional work.
THE POINT IS, that updating the game to 64-bit, is a pretty SOLID sign that they're preparing to game for FURTHER updates... I mean there would be no need to update to 64-bit otherwise.
@@MyouKyuubi ah I see. Yeah why would they make 64 bit if they aren't going to keep updating the game? That's a very good point myoukyuubi
I'm not sure I understand what making a game perform slightly better has to do with the bot crisis exactly. The issue to me is developer neglect because as far as I'm aware, Community servers for over 10 years have had fairly solid anti-cheat measures. You cannot tell me a group of highly intelligent game developers, for over 2 years, couldn't detect the very recognizable behavior of a bot & issue a kick at the very least? They walk the same paths as nav files I'm sure, in a completely rigid matter, fully zoomed in at all times, then below any possible human reaction time instantly headshot, while also spamming binds for their discord or website. Even if you had to hire people to stay one step ahead of the way hackers recover & pivot to bypass the new anti-cheat system, I refuse to believe they couldn't assign even a few dedicated people to do this as a billion dollar company. Anti-virus companies do this everyday with their software, detecting & updating for *multiple* different threats as these hackers inevitably bypass the latest detection methods. I also don't see why they couldn't issue IP bans. Valorant does that I believe.
It’s sad how rampant that attitude is across the industry. Development studios no longer seem to want to make and maintain good products and support their communities. They just put in the bare minimum to keep the cash flow going and leave the rest to die. One of the more recent one’s been Bungie with Destiny 2, where that business model made almost the entirety of the core playerbase apathetic towards the game and the company. Got so bad Bungie had to come out and apologize to try to rebuild some of the trust they lost. Wish we could get back to having studios care more about making a good product than how much money they can rake in for the least amount of work.
I believe it's more like today's TF2 dev is made of only 1 person (Eric Smith) other left because the problems TF2 have, which are thousands of bots is too much for 1 guy let alone the source spaghetti. TF2 need more developers that are WILLING not valve is lazy, the proof is x64 bits upgrade which fix the performance part of the problem.
Reboot COD MWIII is another good example. Many recycled assets, rushed story, reused maps and released after about a year in development.
ever since Meet Your Match update came out things have never been the same.
watching this video with Retire (final) - Alvedon was pretty emotional
this is honestly main channel worthy with how important a message it is.
Man hearing you mention the updates and things that have happened over the years, the SFMs and the economy and so on. Its incredibly nostalgic but as you mentioned it has unfortunately been disrespected and its down right unfair because of all the bots that are in the game. The community servers are pretty much the only respite we have as a community, which is sad to say. But I have played both games 1000hrs plus is both, and I completely agree there is always something new to learn or master in TF2 which so many games just don't replicate. I hope something happens but as of the moment it seems everywhere in the world is being rampaged by these bots and the attempt to kill the game after so many years.
This is a great video. I think Valve created a product that is so good, that they can simply afford to let the game fall into this state. Next month marks 10 years of playing TF2 for me and honestly I feel like the game doesn't need any new content, other than maybe tweaking some weapons nobody uses like the pompson or something lol or adding maps. But it DOES need to be preserved, and the company letting all these bots run rampant on their servers is embarrassing. I hope they fix it someday. We might be able to keep playing this game 50+ years from now but I'm probably just very optimistic.
call them anything but a hacker, they aren't hackers, because hacking requires skill.
A scriptkiddie hints at that it’s actually a human behind the screen, but it reality it’s just the computer running an open source program with no human interaction, they’re just bots
@@McJuggins "Scriptkiddie" means a person who uses AHK or any other type of script for Bhopping or similiar
@@McJuggins Saying "hacker" is more relevant to saying "script kiddie" than what it is to bot, and they are by definition bots
Tf2 is a game I consider to have the freedom to play
Every other game you have to play a very specific and consistent way in order to win and not get yelled at but tf2 you can pick up doing whatever you want and still have fun around the central core gameplay.
same problem on the server i play on, for the longest longest time no pause of bots being in every casual match.
Glad you’re making the videos you want to make. This is terrific.
Clown: Critics Valve while playing Valve`s TF2. Please go back to circus
I feel you, kicking around since 2009, I feel like Valve is pretty much done and went "Here, bye!" and left us in the dark. Part of stems from CS2 being their #1 Cash-cow baby, another stems from DOTA2 being the second favorite child on the e-sports scene. Heck, even Half-life and Portal get more love via VR tech demo games not many of us get to play due to hardware requirements. TF2 never really fit in those roles and Valve shows their disdain for it. I know Robin Walker said "We made TF2 as a more competitive Quake." and yeah that's true, but tell me how many people are still playing Quake, more so competitively?
Let's face it, Valve got burned trying to make TF2 "competitively viable" and as such, doesn't want to touch it, leaving unfinished features as a testament to their failure.
The MvM community servers are the only place I go to now to feel a sense of belonging, and stuff that actually is good.
Part of me wants Valve to say "We're shutting it down." at least then we'd have some sort of closure, not whatever this is.
I've been here since the Beta, & this neglect sickens and angers me. What angers me is that people spend money on this game. People spend money on their overpriced, garbage store (for keys at the very least, and possibly much more for a less savvy newer player), and then for all intents & purposes they cannot utilize these items in the main avenue that is being advertised & endorsed by Valve- Casual mode. These people are getting ripped off. We have been shown a game we are expected to work correctly, and it is not. It is not only broken, it has not been addressed for over a year and a half, let alone fixed. I'm no lawyer but these legit feel like grounds for a lawsuit to me. How practical would it be to win? No clue, but it feels borderline fraudulent. Sick of this company & the way they've allowed the soul of this game to rot away.
Drop this on main.
2023 was a year when I saw _a lot_ of UA-camrs "discover" TF2 for the first time by them watching the old Meet the Team and other cinematic trailers and even community-made Saxxy Awards TF2 films, even LazyPurple's "What it feels like to play [insert TF2 class here]" videos. And each one of them said, "This looks like an awesome game that I had heard so much about, and I want to try it." And it pained me physically to have to leave comments warning them of the cheatbots that invade Valve servers en masse and ruin any game experience a newbie will have with TF2.
TF2 is _still_ popular. In 2023, it was having a mini-Renaissance. But the cheatbots will scare new players away. Tell Valve that. No new players means the player community will dwindle as more and more of the old players get annoyed by the bots or just play other games they have equal or more fun with... or die.
(A few years back I knew a 73 year old German TF2 player, Ingo, who mained Heavy and I was his pocket-Medic... but the last I heard of him was that he couldn't play anymore because of health reasons. Then our old community server and Mumble voicechat server we had frequented folded when the person who had organized the Schlachtfestchen website and servers left. People migrated to Discord, but Ingo wasn't tech-savvy enough to get it running on his PC. I tried to keep in contact via Steam, but... then the pandemic happened. And then one day he didn't respond anymore. I couldn't reach him over phone anymore, either.)
Maybe someone at Valve _wants_ the players to leave so they can finally shut down the servers?
it's been a while since I listened to a speech where I agreed with every point and wished that I didn't.
Community servers were always the best thing ever...
But when we HAD to play casual for event maps and item unlocks.. thats when I tuned out. I saw TF2 adding things that I didn't sign up for.
Unlocks behind missions to play on their casual mode/competitve mode. Sure when hackers werent around I didnt mind halloween maps on quick play/casual.
But when jungle inferno came out.. Let's say I still don't have a gas passer cause I don't wanna play like that.
When games force me to play in a certain way in a pvp game like TF2, it's always a bad decission.. cause now I am forced to play in a way I don't love and this kinda missions breeds in team competiveness. "YOU STOLE MY KILL I NEEDED FOR A MISSION!" It makes something as stupid as kill stealing have weight and be a crime.
Now I only go on TF2 to play with friends.. on community servers. Since I was always a modded community server kinda guy!
I mean,not really? İf I didnt misunderstand I assume you are talking about the contracts which are..completely optional? Like you dont HAVE to do them. They just made it for people to be able to unlock the items without straightup handing them out.
most stuff like contracts are actually bad for games like these.
And they did lock 3 pyro items behind it and forces you to play in a specific way and mindset that I consider breeds toxicity.
If a game where you have to work together with your allies to win a game, having something that gives you stuff counteracts the point of the game.
Example: Get 100 kills as Pyro with the gaspasser. (not actual quests)
But to get kills you gotta be the one last hitting them. Now anyone who kills your targets during the gas passer effect is your enemy too, as it stops progression.
Add the incentive to cheat to "get the job done" and you have accidentally bred toxic stuff.
But if it's "Do 1000 damage with the gas passer" and any damage done by allies counts too, suddenly it doesn't matter since now you are encouraged to work with your allies.
Anyway that's the jist of it.. and the contracts were the 1st step to knowing TF2's casual servers were gonna go to crap. Since it was the only place where you are allowed to do missions (wich is fair considering achievement servers exist)@@piemanpeek2357
Let me pass you a secret, make a friend and tell the which items you are still missing.
I still haven't touched contract, no power in this world can make me do so I just like playing casual with my usual loadout. But if you are in need join a trade server fairly early and you can stablish some neat friends :3
That's how I got some essencial stuff for demoknight-ing.
Now the only bad part of casual is the bots and hackers I am from north america so they're not as frequent though some days are pretty bad, I'd love to play uncletopia but that's mostly and only payload and I like Koth and At/Df too... and there are more sweaty players than usual in those I didn't like getting screamed for taking a 4 second break.
However some of the balance changes that were thought out for competitive and were included as part of jungle inferno still hurt my soul.
That being said where I've been playing no one takes those "contract players" seriously it's on them for risking not getting their stuff complete and playing something that's pretty much padding for content. I suggest you to mute them or ignore them and if they blame you you can tell them git gud lol.
Ooh yea but I just mean in general as well.
Find a friend and give me an item is the way to by pass it.. unless you are new.
Also in TF2 contract players aren't serious but in these games contracts that basically turns your allies into competitors are bad.
A mission or objective where YOU need the kill is always bad in a cooperative sense, cause it forces you to break cooperation to get your mission done.
My example is grossly exeturated but it's a problem regardless@@Bluestlark
I admired Valve, too. As a gamer, some might still do, as they make great games still, like Alyx.
But as a TF2 player who played for a decade, I have to admit that I have more anger than gratefulness now.
there's only 2 Devs working on TF2 at Valve.
Jill and DRiller.
its been that way for years now. :(
The janitor and the office plant keeping the lights on, ey?
Isn't it Eric Smith?
these are literally neither of the people working on TF2. It's Eric Smith and Joshie.
Me sad tf2 gone
TF2 still here. Just bot hosters decide to waste their money and time on a video game.
1:36 I'd say around every 5th lobby ISN'T like this on US servers (meaning around 80% of lobbies are bot-infested), and even then they often get taken over after 1 or 2 people hop off the server. It's been a pain recording TF2 casual games on my second channel.
Somebody should stage an in person protest at valve headquarters
There is a rumor that someone already did, cosplaying as spy and smiling and then Valve tweet the "We hear you..." statement then do nothing (because who the f--- want to switch your easy Dota coding or VR development to fighting relentless and neverending bot crisis that get replaced by another bot in community that some of them can be extremely toxic and will cheat to win or gain attention that their parent doesn't give).
Well said. Really valuable insight from a veteran player and content creator. I would love to see more content similar to this from you. I'd be fine if we got no new updates, as long as either the bots were gone or Valve weren't actively making money from the game.
I mean, Valve does tend to outsource updates to their HQ janitors and rogue office monkeys for their older games.
And by older games, I mean like 90% of their games.
the day valve fix bots is the day i come back
Midway in you were talking about how TF2 doesn't seem to have a skill cap and always seems to have more things to do or to learn. I'm almost 5k hours into tf2 having casually played for about 13 years or so. I decided to try to actually learn how to surf last year, and it was so incredibly difficult. It was impossible. I couldn't understand how anyone did it at all. The "easy" maps started with impossible jumps. The movement seemed nonsensical. It was crazy. But I learned a little and could stay on ramp pretty well. And I started picking up little things. And now I've beaten a decent number of maps and I can sail around on most maps in all manner of dizzying feats, but I look at where I am, and I'm still way closer to when I was jumping and sliding off the sides of ramps almost immediately than I am anywhere near "good". I'll watch a video of some kid effortlessly gliding through impossible three dimensional puzzles of interlocking chutes and ramps and it boggles the mind how much further I could go.
I would hope Valve will never drop the game completely. If it comes down to it and they simply cannot muster the will to beat the obnoxious bot runners, it would be better to dump matchmaking and let people just use the community server browser again. I remember the mod hell that existed back in the day, and all the folks that continually tried to wedge in ads or sell pay-to-win, but at least that would give us the chance to keep playing.
This game is a comfortable place I can go once a week or so to get away from the world. I hope it sticks around.
11:20 "That's not to say community maps are any less good"
*cries in Wutville*
very well said, sticking to comp and community servers is what works for me but it shouldnt, causal players make up a large majority and valve still makes a lot of money from tf2, and should at least support it a little.
yeah i’ve really struggling to find the desire to play this game after the fiasco that was oce scream fortress servers. i’m not exaggerating when i say all halloween maps were completely unplayable which was just so frustrating when like a lot of people scream fortress is my favourite event of the year and i kind of count on it to rejuvenate my energy for tf2
I felt the same way during the holidays, although it seems that many of the community servers are able to stop the bot waves I feel like it's going to take a class action suite by users who have spent a lot of real money on buying cosmetics and keys from Valve for use in a game that is often unusable and that Valve refuses to fix when it is very obviously possible.
I had read that the key issue is that the Linux implementation makes it difficult to programmatically detect Linux based bots to ban them. Does anyone know enough about the issue to comment?
It is sad. TF2 is unique. If it dies, I may be done with gaming.
The thing that always saddens me about TF2 in particular is that as one of Valve's premier properties, one that really highlighted their potential to take something and make it better than previously in a whole new way. Compare the early concepts of TF2 where it was gritty and modern to what we ended up with and it really was the best choice. Like LazyPurple said, the TF2 they were making wasn't gonna last 10+ years, but the TF2 we got has gone on 16 years and is still a globally known and beloved game.
You know how many companies would KILL to have something as prestigious as team fortress 2 with its strong community backing and beloved status even with virtually 0 content updates in years? If you play a live service game, Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, you know how badly those players just CRAVE new content, every month there's gotta be something or you risk losing a huge chunk of players, the seasonal model looks like the ocean, waves followed by calm, sometimes a tsunami. TF2 gets results and brings in some money when valve do nothing. The reward-effort ratio is insane.
Speaking of money, I know exactly why TF2's not been touched: Business. It's not as financially incentivised to dig your claws into a game whose community play it regardless of its state when there are simply other, more profitable games, to dedicate time to. But this stings so much more when you remember that Valve could discontinue all their games, all ongoing production, fire every dev and still be rolling in cash for the rest of their lives, because they have Steam, an IRL infinite money glitch. They don't NEED to care about money and whatever mere pennies they dedicate to continued game development is not going to TF2, but other games. They don't need the financial security or the guarantee of return on investment, they very easily could do something nice for the fans who've stuck with TF2, some of them since it launched nearly 2 decades ago, with no need to make a profit because money isn't a concern from them, but won't because they'd obviously save the few extra thousands or so of dollars from not developing TF2 further.
I know I am an individual, not a clever or business oriented one, but if I was Valve and had all the money and attention a game dev could ever want with a comfortably cornered PC gaming market, I'd personally go insane on game dev to my hearts content. Billions of dollars sitting around, a faucet of money coming in comfortably from every sale, store, trade and hardware sales, every chance to bankroll game after game after game, give a loan to some indie devs, hire new programmers, make whole departments. I'd definitely spare some money for one of the longest suffering game communities going whose game of choice is in my control. But that's me, a person and valve is a business. I know we're too different.
There is NO EXCUSE for letting bots be on servers for THREE YEARS now. Valve employees doesnt care about fixing it, because they get nothing out of it and its down bottom on the workpile due to other things at Valve.
Thank you for saying what needed to be said, the lack of care is insane and seeing one of the best TF2 content creators talk about this speaks volume.
hopefully despite this we will get to see more tf2 content from you muselk. It’s always been a blast to watch you play the game despite all its flaws this current day
Frick it I’m playing tf2 classic.
Decent but why did they add new weapons to it
@@TCLG6x6 because it’s fun
I have about 1.5k hours on tf2 I have played pyro and spy for most of my time and I’m still learning new things the skill ceiling on every tf2 class is nearly if not infinite although as you said community is completely carrying the game I’m pretty sure only one person works on tf2 consistently literally some people in the community have used old game files and updated the game themselves (it’s called tf2 classic btw) not to mention even if some old players aren’t playing if they hear of a new proper update they will come back in a heartbeat I love this game to death I got into rgl recently but still it’s just sad to see the state of tf2
I had just gotten into TF2 the last Few days i have encountered those bots which is dissapointing but i switched to community servers and been having a blast
whats interesting about valves work culture is that whilst there is no formal structure, there is a hierarchy within valve where people who have been working there longer have greater power when it comes to employee evaluations. This means that these people are basically deciding what gets worked on and what doesn't, there have been new employees that have joined valve and expressed interest on working on TF2 but cant due to the higher ranking employees threatening them with poor evaluations. Basically if valve had a more traditional work system, tf2 would probably still be getting regular updates
if this is the case, can we please slap those specific people with a higher power
valve is NOT the worst developer. just because something happened that you dont like doesnt mean the people who did said thing are the worst people in the world. EA, Activision, and ubisoft all still exist and whining about valve doesnt put them on the same level regardless of the amount of tears
About a month ago I got in a game with someone with the name "Muselk" which had the UA-cam profile picture added onto it. And at the time I was freaking out cause there's no way I'm playing casual with a gaming celebrity. So I took the opportunity to ask what he thought of "Emesis Blue" the TF2 film and he responded with "It's Gay." Average gamer answer I know, but it was so weird and the horde of people just agreeing because this guy didn't like it was strange. It didn't help that he was also the best player in the server... So it was really relieving to see that it might've been a poser judging by the difference in the profile picture on the stat screen (7:39) but then again, I'm not too sure.
About the mega scatter bomb bots, they’re only that accurate if you stand still if you move and strafe anough they can’t hit shit
Simple answer.
They don't care about the game anymore.
This is how Valve have been for many years now. There's a small subset that are still doing things they're passionate about (ie. hardware, HL Alyx) but the vast majority is all about the minimum amount of effort for the maximum profits and that's not just a tf2 thing either. Hell, they even optimise screwing people over to maximise their profits too (ie. the October "bug"). It's funny how people forget things like the paid mods controversy back in the day where you quite literally had Gabe Newell posting on Reddit outright saying that all they actually care about is money. And how them backpedaling on that wasn't because it was a bad idea, but because of the unforseen costs involved with it.
I didn't even get to try the Christmas maps this Christmas because I knew that the bots would be swarming it, leaving the regular servers relatively clear
Even in highly populated areas such as US - East, while most matches are full of players, if there is a singular open player slot, there will be an unending stream of bots joining that we have to kick until a real person joins, lasting nearly the entire match
Thank you for sharing this, Muselk. I don't say this enough, but you are one of a few youtubers who really make me happy with every upload. It's been a decade since the last time I played TF2 - and yet I still watch every TF2 videos you make.
7:00 on this point, tf2 is very much the smash melee of shooters. An old game meant for casual gamers that for some reason has an insanely high skill ceiling.
Valve desperately needs to just take the people running these bots to court.
Even if they don't get everyone, even throwing one or two of them into the slammer or fining them for everything they're worth could scare the rest into laying low.
I fell like we need to unify and do something about this, NO longer accept this. Stop playing for a week, stop buying crates, sent compaints (Still not rude or asshole like but genuine concern). THIS HAS been going on for WAY TO LONG
In Asia, instead of sniper bots, we have wreak it ralph heavy bots.
Bots bots bots bots bots.
It's so bad that, ironically, I ended up downloading the bot overhaul mod that just makes a separate offline version where you just play with bots that got cosmetics and shit and have upgraded ai just to emulate fucking TF2 because it's almost impossible to play the normal game.
However, my lust for TF2's perfect gameplay still grows
Literally almost 2k hours on my end, and as someone who kinda looked up/respected the TFTubers to an extent I Honestly was hyped back then to enjoy this game, and Muselk you were one of them when looking back when Tf2 was on your main for the most part, I saw someone who loved this game with a lot of others, that were optimistic somethin good would come for the game.
and I would agree, That Tf2/Valve has become more so an "Abusive Ex" (metaphorically), that could care less to what happens to their players, Community servers are nice but they aren't the end all solution, while I do have some idea as to what _could_ be a slight counter to the bot problem in Tf2 is to incorporate Community servers that run the normal, and holiday maps that way mods could ban them on sight and pretty much have a safe haven for the most part, But where my idea falls apart is _It would get Tiring and become a thankless job_ to a point the mods would even say "screw it, it's not worth my time anymore."
I have some optimism when the game does get what it needs _Someday_ but for the most part I may stick with MvM just to chill with peeps new and old with each individual mode of it, Boot/Mann up. otherwise I'll just put the game up and cherish what I currently have and be proud that i've put that many hours into the game out of love and respect for what we had, for those we lost, and those who still have love for their characters (referring to the VAs and some of the community.) and go onto something like Payday 2 and etc.
and hope you have a wonderful day Muselk, same with everyone else who sees this, just want to remind you no matter what happens throughout the day or game you play, You are always a Champion in my eyes. 🫶
I have flashbacks when you mentioned how your feelings towards valve are going downhill is basically me in 2015-2016 with CSGO's sound updates and the fact that steam support couldn't recover a stolen account even with provided evidence and told me to piss off basically
Outside the MMO space, this game probably has the most hours in it, over everything else. It was fun, complex and had (has) a great community.
It's the game that really took the idea of vastly different classes with very different personalities, and made it work. Without it, you wouldn't have Overwatch IMO.
I got it as part of The Orange Box and I played the ever living crap out of it. But it felt like Valve hated the community. I still think the match finder was a terrible idea as for me, it instantly killed off communities building around servers on a whim.
My mates and I found a server and kept going back to it for years, we ended up being good friends with the server admins. They policed it, kept the maps rotating and had a good laugh with the other players. It was one of my gaming highlights.
Now, every time I log in, I just play 1 or 2 rounds and get frustrated. Hackers are common, skins are often broken, "balanced" weapons have been changed to the point of unrecognition.
I have 3.5k hours on this game, i went through my soldier/ rocket jump arc, my pyro arc, the sniper and now im halfish way through my medic arc. 3.5k hours and ive only truely learned 3.5 out of 9 classes. Tf2 is just too good and so deep!
theres still stuff to play on TF2, especially their community servers, as casual is flooded with bots, but there's plenty of different stuff TF2 has to offer like VSH, FF2, the community 24/7 2fort, harvest, and dustbowl servers, engineer fortress, slender fortress, etc. The dev's don't care, so at this point TF2 is what you make of it. TF2 also still has a thriving SFM/YTer community and doesn't seem to have any point of stopping..
bots are undefeatable in every game
Probably undefeatable but very easy to minimize especially considering valve’s resources they could probably get rid of 90% of the bots if they gave it a good month
You want change? Go for the wallet, people give Valve money for free, valve doesn't care, people still give.
Valve: Cheaters, meh - bots, meh - they ruin your fun, meh. People still buy our stuff so they must like the game as it is, why change anything....
You brought up Overwatch and that reminded me of the time leading up to Sombra's release.
The community searching for clues, the fucking skysong debacle, just fans of a game coming together to solve something.
As someone who didn't play TF2, I can only imagine how grand the sense of community was in terms of the aforementioned events and just throughout the game.
I'm sorry to hear such genuine disappointment at the deterioration of a beloved game.
that was right in to the heart, even tho i'v talked about this exacly topic it still hurt to think about it again
TF2- The Videogame equivalent of the Emperor of mankind from 40K aka being kept "alive" by some people buying new hats each new case drop
This video needs to be seen by everyone
Clown: Critics Valve while playing Valve`s TF2. Please go back to circus
I was never as big into TF2 as some but hearing all this is wild because you can take everything Muselk said here and replace "Valve" with "Rockstar Games".
It's tough because they do make good games and have never developed anything short of a masterpiece and will continue to do so I believe but as for the Online modes, they have utterly failed. They monetize it but don't care about the quality. At least it gets updates, well GTA anyways, not RDR2. It's not enough though. They let cheaters run rampant, they don't put any care into the stuff they DO put in the updates. It's a crapshoot. I hope Valve turns it around and hires some community people.
Valve and Rockstar Games seem so similar here like they are "godlike" companies which you can't simply get employed at. So many people willing to work on something like TF2 or GTA 6 and yet they just don't hire that easily for reasons unknown. They are almost too well-regarded and they let it go to their head.
We rly wear our hearts on our sleeves due to the unconditional love and timeless experiences with TF2...this also makes us, the community, all the more vulnerable to Valve's negligence.
Atleast they aren't Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Epic Games or any mother fricker in between. When it comes to game companies Valve has atleast cared about their games for more then a year after release and with that said release good content when other companies are releasing unfinished garbage or extremely underwhelming crap.
I'm not sure what to think of Valve as a whole. While I don't like them monetizing TF2 without maintaining it, I know much of their efforts are being put into the Steam Deck and other such hardware. As much as I like TF2, I like PC gaming as a whole more and I'm so glad we have accessible handhelds that aren't restrictive bloody consoles.
Another thing I like Valve for is that their games aren't always-online and genuinely in the hands of the community. The bot situation may suck but there's community servers and there are mods like TF2 Classic and Open Fortress. I'm even hosting a 2007 version server of the game for people who want to see what it used to be like.
In comparison, even if you like Fortnite or Overwatch, these games are tied to online servers and sooner or later they will cease to exist. In fact, in the case of Fortnite, previous versions of the game are being replaced entirely and in regards to Overwatch 1 it already happened. I like that Valve makes their games in a way that they don't depend on them and their servers to exist. It will outlive Fortnite and Overwatch purely by design, even if there are only two people left on the planet who play it
Finally, someone who has put how I feel about this into words! TF2 was so good because there's no 'most correct' way to play, and even the existence of a 'wrong' way to play is debatable. The game was the right mix of 'appears simple' and 'actually complex', 'silly' and 'semi-serious', 'casual' and 'competitive, and so on.
I *want* to play TF2 again, but I believe Valve deserves *zero* support for the way they have acted. "Hey, look, we gave you new stuff!" "Did you fix the bot problem?" "Bot problem?"
Normally, a playerbase would be sad to see the servers get shut down.
But with TF2, I would almost be kinda glad if servers would get plugged.
Glad in a way like ending an relationship with a partner who used to be a active & cheerfull person but has since a few years become really lazy and apathetic.
You still like your partner, you really cherish the memories when they where active & cheerfull, you still hope that one they change back to the person you loved. But in the end, its better to end the relationship & move on.
First of all - TF2 is actually going through it's biggest restructuring yet, moving from 32 to 64 bit support. Taking a look at it's beta branch makes it obvious they spent quite a lot of work on that.
Secondly - while I see the sentiment, Valve is uniquely positioned with TF2 since TECHNICALY community servers can keep the game up and they could just drop it. But they are the only ones maintaining the item servers and that costs money. Sure, we did see about a week long period without access to them recently and people had fun with it still, but I think we can all agree that it's a no-go long term. And yea TECHNICALLY what keeps the items up is the steam branch, and they can justify it with the comissions from community market but with how much of inventory space is getting taken up by free weapons and third party solutions out and about providing little to no comission at all capable of snatching up the rest, all while not being ran by the very company who did hypothetically just drop the very game in question - it'd be a tough call to actually drop any part of the game.
@@UCgx7OseCrundqkE8oEVeobgI think it might've been location depebdebt, aince I've seen people quote like 6 days, but I might be missremembering tbh, didn't have time to play at the time to play then myself
There are more communities servers than comptopia, that are actual vanilla casual tf2
After this, Tf2's X will post 1 thing and dip out again, classic move
Honestly I remember Valve stated a response to the community en large bringing up "Why not just hire the community to do this stuff for TF2?", and they said they don't do that because then other projects would get "jealous" and demand they get new hires hired on specifically for what their working on.
It really do just be... frustrating that they have the money and resources to help the game, but they choose not to, honestly the bot problem probably could've only been solved if Valve somehow put in the effort to find some legal thing to have gotten the original github these bots come from down and the creators of it tossed into jail or said creators actually had better moral compasses and just took the github down when they were asked to.
At this point, I think it's just been way too long where these bots have just gotten to a point, since no action was taken when it could've been stomped out, where the stuff for them is just too wide-spread, too many people have their hands on it, and it'll just be a constant back and forth of getting rid of bots and then having them again. I honestly don't believe within TF2 this issue is going to resolve and it's going to continue to be a big issue since Valve takes any excuse not to work on TF2 (with saying we don't get new weapons or anything super major anymore being due to "Would disrupt the economy too much"). Whether that's because its code is outdated 2007 spaghetti or Valve just doesn't have any employees anymore that are passionate about the Team Fortress IP. Which frankly, just ties into the fact we're probably not going to get the solution to the issue at all either. That being Valve counting to three and just giving us a Team Fortress 3 with new code and everything that'll take quite awhile for a bot issue to ever become an issue again, but this probably won't happen due to how projects at Valve just struggle to get anything actually done as a side-effect of how they run their company, being there's no employees passionate enough about Team Fortress to really make the game, and/or a similar pressure like there is with Half-Life 3 is present due to the fact you'd somehow have to top TF2 which has existed for 17 years and meet the community's expectations which at launch would probably way too high expecting all the things TF2 has now and more.
In my experience, the bots are even more a problem for TF2bers than they are for normal players.
I'm looking for a job nowadays, and I observed that at odd hours, where others are working, the bots are much more oppressive.
Instead of being spread among many servers with many players, the same number of bots are playing against much fewer players, which drown in them.
So maybe try playing in the evening, or on the weekends ? Because waiting for Valve to take action may take a while ...
Also hi. And thanks for teaching me English 10+ years ago. Love to see you come back to TF2.
started watching since you stared tf2 zombies that was fun to watch, hope you do it some other time
I love the video documentaries on this channel! It actually makes my day when you upload here
no effort is not true because im sorry to say but this is specific to tf2 because the ppl doing this to tf2 have a hatred to this game in particular. running virtual machines, paying 3 cents for dupe cell lines and literally nothing for steam acc generators means this issue can technically be done in every single game as long as the ppl doing it are dedicated enough. sadly we have those dedicated ppl in our game
3:38 Dota 2 player here, The International went from a prize pool of 40,018,195 USD in 2021 to 18,930,775 in 2022 and then to 3,380,455 in 2023. The reason for that is they ditched battle pass in favor of *"more updates"* and the pace of content feels pretty much the same before. (If not slower) lmao
I propose a class limit option to the matchmaking settings
Its good to know that Muselk at least still cares about tf2. Ps turn the zombie servers back on in tf2.
I've got 3000 hours on TF2, I started the game in 2017 and played it every single day after school.
I stopped playing in 2021 after there was an astounding wave of bots coming, every single game was filled with huntsman bots and stock bits. Absolutely frustrated with the lobbies, I stopped. Came back again late 2023 and was surprised as to how little bots I found within each game. There were still one or two here and there, but nothing a good ol' kick couldn't handle. Once again stopped playing due to a massive wave of bots with the name of a trading website swarming every single lobby.
Finally had enough and put the game to rest.
If you are in eu, servers are decent now.
You can't knock a business for not updating their game if it's not profitable. But there's no way that fixing the bot problem wouldn't increase their revenues more than their cost of getting workers, etc to make a solution. Like if other games can prevent hackers, I can't imagine it would be that difficult/costly to fix tf2. And by doing so, more people would play and likely buy cosmetics and keys.
EU player here. Bots are a major problem on our servers as well but they get kicked pretty quick. The issue with full bot server happens very rarely and at that point you just requeue and you find another match without bots pretty easy. So sorry to hear that in Australia you have much bigger issue with bots. Such a shame valve didn’t do anything past few years about hackers. They literally are trying to cut off the hand that feeds em.
Meet your match update killed tf2. Quickplay was a great system we didn't know how good we had it until we lost it
The only future possibility that I can think of where tf2 will finally be fixed is if a group of passionate tf2 gamers device a plan to take over the game development team by force. This way they can fix the game themselves without waiting for valve to act, which will never happen.
Makes me miss the days as an admin on the ol' server. Long time since those days, eh boss? Hope you're doin' well.
Over the years i became more and more annoyed with TF2 fans. I only started to play the game after jungle inferno came out. I seen the bot crisis, I saw that valve tried to do something, whatever they could to stop it. But with the behaviour of TF2 fans, failing to acknowledge any attempts of valve, I came to the conclusion that it's time to go. The community is full of frustrates screaming about how Valve bad because they abandoned their one and a half decade old spaghetti mess of a game, whcih has came upon a problem no other game came prior. I've seen people play down upon the bot issue, acting as if valve had a simple "remove all bots" button in their offices (They do not.)
Calling valve the worst game company is just lying to everyone. Valve ramains to be the best AAA company of them all. Lack of much controversy, often listening to critique, not abusing their power and, as far as we know, no firing employees over not wanting to sleep with the higher ups.
People may say that valve promised things to come after first savetf2 and didn't deliver, but I am not sure if that is the case. The bot problem has no clear cut out solution. And to quote Gabe - 'These things, they take time.' They take time when people want to work on them, yet i sincerely doubt anybody actually wants to work on TF2. This game is a mess. Both in its state of affairs (bot crisis) and code (spaghetti codonese) and there's little to no to gain over working on it.
Additionally, with valve radio silent policy, we can't be sure what they are really doing. They may be working on the game. They may be not. They may be working on the third installment. They may decide it's not worth. I know I myself would not want to work on TF2.