@@moho472You still can! If you're crit boosted via crit pumpkins, or a kritzkrieg, headshots with the sydney sleeper gain the headshot icon and kill effect.
Maybe the projectile weapons could benefit from being huntsmaned that'd be an idea if he decided to start it back up Maybe that would be an overcorrection but hey
That weapon generator with headshots on a rocket launcher would finally make sense PS: it'd cool to see a mod that makes every weapon the strongest it's ever been: DR with 90 resistance, Tomislav with 75% faster spinup etc.
Ok, real talk, this is casually one of the best videos I've _ever_ seen on the discussion of TF2's balance. Being able to actually test the ideas presented in the video is a massive change of pace, turning the video from a glorified reddit argument to an actual, in-depth exploration of TF2's design philosophy and balance decisions, with tangible experience to back up any conclusions. Having the discussion of the effect of the change be framed as a testable hypothesis rather than an argument makes the video significantly more enjoyable, along with the conclusions at the end being significantly more informed. Please do more of these, the TF2 community's in a bit of a state right now when it comes to balance discussions, so doing something like this to put people's money where their mouth is is sorely needed.
Maybe keep a server with this mod around permanently, I think there's a market for it. Just have the server include instant respawning. Would be a great place to level up more niche stranges.
This mod was the only time I really consistently enjoyed playing Heavy, which was fun lol, though I absolutely need to give shotgun Trolldier a shot. Mantread instakills sound awesome, but highly mobile Scout with how powerful shotguns are sounds so cool
Oh hey i pocketed your heavy yesterday when I went medic And yeah shotgun trolldier is incredibly fun with headshots, it was the first thing I tried with the headshot mod
It's insane how TF2 would've been infinitely more annoying to play if headshots existed for all weapons. I'd hate being a Medic with full Uber just to get headshot by a Scout.
I think the problem with Heavy Shotguns even in this Headshot Mod is mostly just that doubling up on bullets when you're already tanky enough to take a few shots and respond with a fully revved minigun just keeps being redundant.
Imo it's honestly a pretty solid pick against demos and scouts, if you aren't already revving the minigun. Both can burst DPS a heavy faster than he can output from zero and are typically close enough to eat a meatshot. For any amount of sustained damage and longer ranges you'd always default to the minigun, but even without crits I sometimes like to switch to a shotgun when I want to be moving quickly or notice a scout trying to flank in something like KotH.
@@SethAbercromby of course there are use-cases for it. We just hear how often the shotty is left to gather dust 90% of the time for most players so much, and that being true even in this mode, there's got to be a reason
The reason is mostly a lack of imagination on the players part. They tend to be hyper focused on sandvich related meta and don't build their loadouts around the idea of carrying and using a shotgun
if i could ask anything of valve to add one last item or item set it'd be a non minigun primary for heavy to facilitate an alternate playstyle. It feels so bad to play fat scout sometimes cause i know im just wasting my primary slot. like I'd literally take +1 max health as a whole item instead of a minigun valve plz
@@shoelariatthe problem with fat scout is that it's a playstyle that overcompensates in another whole direction instead of using the whole kit you're not a heavy with just a shotgun you're a heavy with a shotgun carrying the minigun to a good position
Eeh i think that they will bitch less as its something everyone can do with skill instead of relying on rng. Lots of soldier and sniper mains are probably gonna complain as there is way more counter play to sniper and soldiers can just be deleted with decent aim from hitscan weapons
A very obscure perk of the Enforcer is that completely deletes overheal. No matter the range, a single bullet can delete 150hp worth of overheal out of a heavy, so i guess that might've favored the vaccinator matchup even more
Is this true? I looked it up and have only found 1 Reddit comment that is pushed by google when I search for it, and even then I can’t find it when I actually open Reddit through said link
@@waitingfortheequinnox Kind of? It says in the stat that "it pierces through damage resistances AND bonuses" and overheal can be considered quite literally a health bonus
@@thishandlefeaturesucksyep, also Scouts, since they already flank like spy, but now they can punish you for not being an owl. Also every class with mobility gets GIANT buffs. Though Soldier and Not-knight-Demo don’t get as much out of it besides being able to market garden with everything. Also, I imagine swords would have super janky trickstabs.
No,payday shotguns deal same damage so long as at least 1 pellet lands, crit, headshot, very generous, easy to land multi kills Tf2 does damage x # of pellets hit, less damage overall almost never the on paper maximum in 1v1
@@Gustavofrompizzatower at close range the tf2 shotgun reaches its full power, but still just cannot keep up with pd2 shotguns, theyre just 2 different types of weapon
Demoknight is always a good pick for anything that ends up relying on Vaccinator Medic combos because melee damage isn't accounted for in any of the three Vaccinator defensive types, not to mention it's a great flank and surprise tool in most any scenario
If I could recommend something for the next mod, how about giving Scout and Engineer access to Spy’s Revolvers, and giving Spy access to the Pistols? Both are classified as Secondary Weapons, and it’d be nice to see if they are of the same tier of damage. For stat changes, I’d imagine the Letranger would reload your primary (only once, not a full clip), the Diamondback would reward revenge minicrits, and the Enforcer would still be the Enforcer. For Spy, I’d probably make the Wrangler mark a target like the spawn wall hack does, and the Short Circuit would use the cloak pool as if it were a 100 metal pool.
I can think of an Engineer loadout named the Revengeful Engie which consists of Frontier Justice, Diamondback and the Jag. Completely defensive but he will be full of crits all across him when you destroy his 10 kills (20 Assists) sentry gun on 2Fort
Dude, You should keep it up permanently, unless Valve decides to make it official. This was the best change of pace mod I have ever played in ANY game. It was (surprisingly) balanced, familiar and breathed new life into overlooked sub-classes.
@@calebbarnhouse496passive aggressive whining isn’t productive. If you had a counter example you should’ve said it, because now everyone thinks you’re a salty cod kid and you’ve lost the benefit of the doubt.
@@Skullhawk13 it's not passive aggressive whining you moron, it's an insult, believe it or not tf2 shotguns aren't even close to well balanced, for starters, on 2/9 classes they are required to be ran, the other 7, 4 can't use a shotgun, 3 of them can, soldier, pyro and heavy, all of them don't work with what the class wants to do at all, so yea, jerking off a game for having 2 out of 5 shotguns as viable isn't impressive, and of course that's ignoring the fact that engineer is one of those 2, whose shotgun is so bad that to make it a viable combat tool you have to make a variant that basically has infinite ammo if you can land your shots at close range, and the scout's main reason for being good is his high speed, if he wasn't locked into a shotgun he wouldn't use them
I dunno about that. The whole "shotguns are way too strong" thing existed long before COD did, and games like the original Doom duo didn't have headshots.
I'm very glad you're actually doing the tests now! Seeing the predictions was always nice, but the dynamic between them and the new results really catapulted this video into rewatchable territory. :) What about a follow-up with mini-crits instead of full crits? Maybe it would solve the instant-death issue and also boost explosive and fire damage?
Went into the server and was one other guy. We just kinda messed around and it really wasn’t that broken. Maybe if there was more people it be different but it was pretty chill
16:16 I don't think it's an actual disparity in their effectiveness but a disparity in their perceived effectiveness. Everyone and their grandma has it ingrained in them that only lunchbox items are worth using. With the Tomislav, maybe they have a point, and I'll give it to them that the Tomislav is probably Heavy's best all-around option, but with any other minigun there's some serious versatility to having a shotgun to let you deal with enemies without revving up. Especially in a mod where fights end so quickly, I think shotguns were simply underutilized.
A cool experiment could be similar to the shounic sentry buster video - bruteforcing balance but this time by giving a class's worst weapon guaranteed crits. It would be interesting to see which weapons are so bad that even crits can't save them and which ones become stupidly broken
I get you didn't want to make new weapons for this mod, but it would've been cool to see the Ambassador get *some* buff that gives it some sort of edge over the other revolvers for head shots. Maybe reduce that 1s delay before you're accurate again, so skilled spies can get their well aimed kills faster, and bad spies (me) can go for the one headshot they need more times in one fight, increasing the chance we get the lucky hit.
I think maybe a successful headshot can lessen or remove the cool down, that way lucky shots and skilful shots can be followed up on without rendering the other revolvers unappealing.
@@Wolf-oc6txTrue. You have the enforcer, which when disguised, allows you to become pocket sniper in this mod with a 144 crit headshot. Definitely agree amby should get some tweak, same with some of the more weaker weapons like machina.
I think not just for balancing, but TF2 came out in an environment of both Counter Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source having headshots and low TTK. Not having headshots for every hitscan was a great way to make the game be more mechanically distinct and interesting to develop for the game designers at Valve.
@@tailez606 I'm sure it also helped to lower the skill floor, which was important for what was intended to be a casual game. Casual players who might not have the best aim wouldn't need to worry about headshots unless they were playing the dedicated headshot class, and could just focus on the much easier center mass shots without losing damage potential.
This video is literally how a science experiment works. You have the theory, the hypothesis, the experiment itself, then finally the results. Amazing video. Did not expect such an in depth science video from tf2
one idea for a mod can be letting heavy equip the shotguns in his primary slot, it would mean that fat scouts would no longer have to completely ignore an entire weapon slot, and allow them to use both a shotgun and a lunchbox item. and the ability to run 2 different shotguns, that perform better in different situations would possibly make way for interesting strategies
This was a fantastic experiment! I think one takeaway from this in how it reflects the game balance is that wow, hitscan weapons in vanilla currently have it ROUGH, namely the automatic weapons. It's interesting that by ratcheting up the potential damage, certain classes feel more like they're being played in what I believe Valve originally intended them to be played; it feels like the "emergency" or "finisher" secondary weapons like Scout's pistols or Soldier/Pyro's shotguns actually feel like something you want to use in tandem with your primaries because it's fun and rewarding rather than just a perfunctory option to boost your gameplay to the skill ceiling. I rarely play Heavy because his slowness in movement and lacking in actually dangerous DPS beyond close range makes him a bore and hard to feel like the impactful frontliner he's supposed to be, but giving him sincerely deadly and fast DPS in mid-ranges would probably make me actually wanna try him, because it feels like he's more than just a passive anchor enabled by the support around him, and he can instead forcefully assert himself as the game's "tank" class. Certain weapons would still need to be retouched to accomodate the shift (Kritzkrieg sounds miserable lol) but I think adding regular headshots to the base game would be fantastic in helping encourage diversity in playstyles -- TF2's balance is stupidly frontloaded towards projectiles and shotguns, it would be so rad to make automatic weapons feel like a worthy option and justify their existence in the game rather than relegating them to a tertiary "emergency" role.
Back in 2007, everybody had shotguns and pistols and SMGs so they all felt useful. That's because everyone would dish out some chip damage, so putting in your 25 damage was enough to delete Scouts. Heavy also felt great back then, because 450 health wasn't something you could chip away at. It was also a time before Counter-Strike professionals *really* grew in numbers and started spreading into other games, so Snipers were balanced by "being hard to use" at the time.
I'd argue that Heavy is how a tank actually functions instead of your typical damage tanking class, as they are slow, yet do devastating damages and are heavily armoured.
@@RdTrler That sounds about right, I do believe this current meta was kind of a natural result of not necessarily "power creep", but just certain items and mechanics being added to the game and getting more popular than others that resulted in balance skewing very much in bias towards burst damage options than automatic weapons.
@@giahuynguyenkim6389 He definitely does serve that "anchor tank" function in TF2 for sure, problem is that he still feels very much a passive agent; he lacks options to assert himself beyond his ok DPS, and instead has to rely on his team to enable him any kind of significant power. Here with him actually having lethal DPS, it's the difference between "Heavy is important because he's important to team formation and perfunctory levels of suppressive DPS" and "Heavy is important because HOLY F WATCH OUT"
Maybe adding Mini-Crit headshots to weapons excluding the Flamethrower, Rocket Launcher, Pipe Grenade and Sticky Bomb Launcher. Mini-Crits have Damage Ramp Up, so it wouldn't boost classes too far out of their normal effective ranges, but it would make them stronger, especially rapid-fire weapons. Scout's Scattergun would get a little crazy though, but I think a semi-decent fix would be to have it instead fire say 3 bullets every tick after firing, each click firing 1 perfectly accurate pellet and then 3 groups of scattered pellets across just 0.045 seconds after clicking, the first group going in each direction in a circle around the crosshair randomly, the second going the opposite direction of the 1st one, and the last group randomly filling in between those 6 shots, so if 1 headshots, only 3 get the Mini-Crit boost, and if it's only the first perfectly accurate pellet that headshot, only it gets Mini-Crit boosted, and the Scatterguns bullets would better "Scatter". I know Scatterguns and Shotguns are synonyms irl, but idk, I just always felt like the Scattergun should have a couple more functional differences compared to Shotguns, especially with such a unique design. And then maybe change the Shotguns fixed spread to be in the shape of a circle, for me only, it always bugged me it was in the shape of a square.
Blue the reason you see demoknight is most likely because it is one of the most common counters for vaccinator, because he can work around all available resistances and with crit resistance he still deals consistent large damage while having the mobility to stay up close and work it down in 2-3 hits
Honestly this would be a very satisfactory replacement for random crits in the game. Still essentially random if you spray and pray, and yet actively awards skill. One side still gets the "rare high moments" and the other gets rewarded for actual skillful aiming. Yet everyone still gets the thrill of getting a crit occasionally either way. Just make the slow projectiles use the huntsman headshot mechanics, a few other minor tweaks and balances, and you've got a golden system to legitimately replace random crits.
This mod has made me want a sniper rifle that cannot scope (or charge) but hits for 100 on headshot in the normal game. That sounds so unbelievably fun.
3:12 "I imagine every shotgun shot would be pretty powerful at close range" Yeah, as they should be given it's a close range weapon being used at close range.
Great video, I've thought about this idea myself. I think it could be interesting if headshots functioned more like Mini-Crits: a nice boost of damage, whilst still experiencing falloff. Also, just throwing it out there, but a way to make "Headshots" work on explosive weapons could be increasing their base damage to be in-line with Crit damage at max ramp-up, but giving them way harsher falloff. Just a thought.
I like to think the skulls of the mercs are way too thick to be affected by normal bullets and so you need something as powerful as a sniper rifle aimed extremely well to pierce them, or special revolver bullets that only work at close range.
I guess this video proves that the Huntsman has good headshot mechanics. It would be interesting to do this idea again, except with Lucksman headshots on projectiles (it acts as a good buff to the Bison and Pompson while making one of the weakest classes viable with flares).
ok, 2 things i wanna say: 1. a 23 damage Bison headshot is a war crime, rip Bison 2. this is the server than can probably take down Solarlight. the insane hitscan dps with basically most classes and a very compotent team can most likely snuff out insane demoknight charges way faster and easier due to the insane headshot damage with basically everything exhibit A: 17:05 where a demoknight literally gets one-shot by an engineer before he could do anything
Better version that should be in the game, all hitscan weapons can headshot for minicrits, while full crits are reserved to sniper rifle, ambassador and bows. I think you should rerun the experiment with minicrit headshots instead. It gives ambassador and zoomed sniping purpose while other weapons still get rewarded.
One thing that might make hitscan more balanced in this mod would be to switch them to minicrits and leave projectile weapons (minus maybe medic's) with normal crits to make them a bit more appealing inspite of their jank headshot detection. That probably wouldnt completely fix things but save finding a way to give projectiles good detection I cant really think of anything else that might help balance the mod a bit better as an alternative.
the projectile weapons would probably receive the Huntsman's hybrid hit registration: upon hitting the projectile hurtbox they snap to the nearest hitscan hurtbox, meaning their headshots will be a lot more generous
Now this makes me wonder: with TF2 being in a mid Time-to-Kill game, and this essentially lowering the TTK, how fun would the game be with a higher TTK? Something like equally multiplying each class' health could be a start.
Fun fact: this is in Open fortress as a feature enabled by the server, although usually isn't selected in more casual play for balance reasons. You can set up your own server with bots and use another feature like the TF2 classes being enabled to test these weapons as well!
If this was implemented as a misc game mode, then I think they’d have to apply the amby’s crit falloff (like I said in a previous comment on the post) or else the pistol will be a M40 and the revolver will be a direct upgrade to the amby.
It’s great that you can finally recreate your scenarios with some help. Exploring your old hypotheses and making them a reality would be fun videos for 2024.
Wonder if you could try different variations on headshot rewarding minicrits instead or some variation of Crits that have falloff or change in damage boost, such as a 2x damage boost in other FPS instead of 3x in Standard Crits
in defense of rapid fire weapons, headshots are probably more common then you think, in FAR CRY 5 ARCADE. ARs are actually meta because if you just hold blind fire, theres like a 70% they just die from headshots within a second
@@davidhong1934 just make it say all the blunt melee weapons break the spot where the neck meets the skull, that almost always instantly kills people irl, instead of scout's bat or heavy's fists saying "backstab" it says "breakneck" instead or something like that
with much lower time to kill across the board, wouldn't offence have a massive advantage due to how much more heavily defence is punished for death with the long respawn timers?
Defense has longer respawn timers, but also are usually right back in the fight as soon as they leave spawn. Offense on average has a much longer walk between their spawn and the objective.
Interesting results. Did this experiment give you a firm sense of which class you think would benefit most from an Ambassador-like weapon? It seems to me that this video suggests that a Scout or Heavy with a weapon that can headshot (in the normal TF2) would benefit most.
Wonder how it would change if projectiles were left at full crits but bullet weapons went to mini-crits. Would the inconsistent but massive burst damage of projectiles make them a viable tradeoff? Would bullet weapons still dominate through consistency? Would battle medic actually be op?
this looks a lot more fun to me than normal tf2 and a lot of the classes based on your description seem to work a lot more like I originally imagined they should. Especially Spy and Heavy.
Finally, this is a topic that ive been waiting for someone to discuss about. Also cant the explodives use simlar code of the huntsman. Like detecting the closest body part to the center of the blast?
Considering how crits work in rocket launchers/stickies/pipes it would mean that you could decimate a whole group of people together if you just headshot one of them, which isn't very fun
i know it's late but I bet projectiles are hitting the torso hitbox before they hit the head hitbox because most projectiles are decently large (the exception being the syringe guns, which would be why they're much more consistent)
It is funny how Sniper now feels fair to fight against because He is no longer the only Class to be able to Insta Kill on Headshot Yeah He still has the "Hit Scan From The Other Side Of The Map" kind of "Problem" but outside of that Everyone can now have a legit Fair Fighting Chance against Sniper
Ironically a large part of it is due to the fact Sniper needs to ADS or have less clear pictures of their enemy, combined with the fact Spy is practically a straight upgrade doing 144 burst damage, can cloak, and can disguise so players now have to gamble with where your head is or if you're a non-spy. Once your own allies start 1-shotting you from range anything with less then 144 health should become unplayable with time as you have to anticipate them being anywhere. It is basically like dealing with hackers and cheaters but worse.
Sniper under this mod would be way less advantageous for duels in general now that he can't just stay out of effective range for 5 out of 9 classes because of damage fall-off, and since his balance is inherently based on giving him the least amount of utility tools in general, you'll need a lot more skill investment to get meaningful results (which is a good thing imo)
Honestly, if they really tweaked the hitboxes (and possibly damage) for it, I'd love to see the headshot mechanic on the Flying Guillotine in regular game. Whilst the sandman-guillotine combo left you with a mouthful of vomit, the lack of a crit due to the sandman nerf made me feel a lil sad that the guillotine was stripped of a unique gimmick.
Implementing the experiment as a mod and analysing the result really lifted this one over the rest. And as a university student i can only appreciate a good field test and a great analysis. "CS:GO headshot icon" out of five stars
Snipers are now fun to fight? Heavy and Spy are good classes now? Demoman takes skill? It's the balance patch we've always needed. Maybe tweak some individual items so they aren't the objectively best/worst choices (Widowmaker, Sydney Sleeper, Ambassador) and it could pass as an official alt. game mode.
Turning off random crits I understand, but turning off random spread? I feel like this is a whole different situation when that's the case. There is a reason why all the games you mentioned at the start have bulletspread. 😹
It only turns off random shotgun spread, turning it into a more predictable spread instead of the normal random one, everything else is unchanged as far as I know.
Random spread would actually amplify the issues as opposed to static spread. Random spread lets you land more shots at longer ranges, where you'd normally just land 1-2 while at close range giving a higher chance of failing. Static spreads give up long range gamble for consistency within each range's own profile.
I have an idea that could make another great what if video. What if every class has a tertiary slot? Since Engineer and Spy already has that, you can give both of them a fifth slot. This is something I've thought of, but never delved too deep about it.
![What If Every Weapon Type Had Its Own Slot? [TF2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yIxYGIENSUE/mqdefault.jpg)
Fun fact: the crossbow has the stat "Can't crit on headshots" because it used to use the huntsmens projectile before they made its own one.
you see, this also changes the sydney sleeper.
Finally
I now know why that stat is there
thank you good sir
@@cewla3348Fun fact about the piss rifle, back in 2010, if you were Crit boosted, you can get proper headshots with the gun.
@@moho472 hell when it came out it had random crits straight up.
@@moho472You still can! If you're crit boosted via crit pumpkins, or a kritzkrieg, headshots with the sydney sleeper gain the headshot icon and kill effect.
FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH RANDOM CRITS.
now RANDOM HEADSHOTS are my new BEST FRIEND.
You were friends with random crits???
dont you mean: "skillful kills"?
@@cuenta007you weren't?
@@thymecrafter i am
Huntsman users, rejoice!
this would actually be pretty interesting- imagine getting killed by a rescue ranger engie by a headshot from one of the bolts.
Maybe the projectile weapons could benefit from being huntsmaned that'd be an idea if he decided to start it back up
Maybe that would be an overcorrection but hey
It would kinda make sense because the bolts are batteries and the voltage could turn off the electricity in your brain I guess
@jadenknott bison finally viable afain with headshots
that happened a lot.
@@MarcusFigueras bison machina confirmed?
Absolutely love the "actually running the experiment and looking at the results in depth"!!! Excited for more of that!
That weapon generator with headshots on a rocket launcher would finally make sense
PS: it'd cool to see a mod that makes every weapon the strongest it's ever been: DR with 90 resistance, Tomislav with 75% faster spinup etc.
shame he disabled headshot crits on ronket
Lol
@@TrollGarlicAh yes, ronket
pov: you commented without watching the video
@@tacoforce5
Yeah I was literally about to say
Ok, real talk, this is casually one of the best videos I've _ever_ seen on the discussion of TF2's balance.
Being able to actually test the ideas presented in the video is a massive change of pace, turning the video from a glorified reddit argument to an actual, in-depth exploration of TF2's design philosophy and balance decisions, with tangible experience to back up any conclusions. Having the discussion of the effect of the change be framed as a testable hypothesis rather than an argument makes the video significantly more enjoyable, along with the conclusions at the end being significantly more informed. Please do more of these, the TF2 community's in a bit of a state right now when it comes to balance discussions, so doing something like this to put people's money where their mouth is is sorely needed.
Fully agree
I ain’t reading allat
@@Game-qi7qd ... okay
except this video says nothing other than "nothing changed".
@@shinobuoshino5066 The voices.
Maybe keep a server with this mod around permanently, I think there's a market for it. Just have the server include instant respawning. Would be a great place to level up more niche stranges.
Maybe not instant but maybe reduced respawn times
would be an absolutely killer game mode
Tf2 global skirmish
my thoughts exactly
PIN THIS COMMENT
This mod was the only time I really consistently enjoyed playing Heavy, which was fun lol, though I absolutely need to give shotgun Trolldier a shot. Mantread instakills sound awesome, but highly mobile Scout with how powerful shotguns are sounds so cool
Oh hey i pocketed your heavy yesterday when I went medic
And yeah shotgun trolldier is incredibly fun with headshots, it was the first thing I tried with the headshot mod
It's insane how TF2 would've been infinitely more annoying to play if headshots existed for all weapons. I'd hate being a Medic with full Uber just to get headshot by a Scout.
I think the problem with Heavy Shotguns even in this Headshot Mod is mostly just that doubling up on bullets when you're already tanky enough to take a few shots and respond with a fully revved minigun just keeps being redundant.
Imo it's honestly a pretty solid pick against demos and scouts, if you aren't already revving the minigun. Both can burst DPS a heavy faster than he can output from zero and are typically close enough to eat a meatshot.
For any amount of sustained damage and longer ranges you'd always default to the minigun, but even without crits I sometimes like to switch to a shotgun when I want to be moving quickly or notice a scout trying to flank in something like KotH.
@@SethAbercromby of course there are use-cases for it. We just hear how often the shotty is left to gather dust 90% of the time for most players so much, and that being true even in this mode, there's got to be a reason
The reason is mostly a lack of imagination on the players part. They tend to be hyper focused on sandvich related meta and don't build their loadouts around the idea of carrying and using a shotgun
if i could ask anything of valve to add one last item or item set it'd be a non minigun primary for heavy to facilitate an alternate playstyle. It feels so bad to play fat scout sometimes cause i know im just wasting my primary slot.
like I'd literally take +1 max health as a whole item instead of a minigun valve plz
@@shoelariatthe problem with fat scout is that it's a playstyle that overcompensates in another whole direction instead of using the whole kit
you're not a heavy with just a shotgun
you're a heavy with a shotgun carrying the minigun to a good position
Headshots in TF2 have always been a strange case to me
On one hand, its nice to have different ways to hit enemys while using the same weapon,
@@segadoeswhatnintendont the community will bitch about it the same way they do with random crits
Eeh i think that they will bitch less as its something everyone can do with skill instead of relying on rng. Lots of soldier and sniper mains are probably gonna complain as there is way more counter play to sniper and soldiers can just be deleted with decent aim from hitscan weapons
@@segadoeswhatnintendontbut on the other hand, crits usually look like they would function differently from regular damage.
@@ibymalik4139 you don't get the joke do you
A very obscure perk of the Enforcer is that completely deletes overheal. No matter the range, a single bullet can delete 150hp worth of overheal out of a heavy, so i guess that might've favored the vaccinator matchup even more
Is this true? I looked it up and have only found 1 Reddit comment that is pushed by google when I search for it, and even then I can’t find it when I actually open Reddit through said link
Is that an unlisted stat?
@@waitingfortheequinnox it may be a glitch
@@waitingfortheequinnox Kind of? It says in the stat that "it pierces through damage resistances AND bonuses" and overheal can be considered quite literally a health bonus
@@magnum78923 holy cow it does
Now I want all melees to be able to backstab
Demoknights would be much more powerful
Heavy would be totally obsolete.
FISH-STAB 🐟
@@thishandlefeaturesucksyep, also Scouts, since they already flank like spy, but now they can punish you for not being an owl.
Also every class with mobility gets GIANT buffs.
Though Soldier and Not-knight-Demo don’t get as much out of it besides being able to market garden with everything.
Also, I imagine swords would have super janky trickstabs.
Everybody was Market Gard-ning,
(I forgot the rest, sorry.)
(Kung Fu Panda reference btw)
So if tf2 shotguns can crit they become payday shotguns?
No,payday shotguns deal same damage so long as at least 1 pellet lands, crit, headshot, very generous, easy to land multi kills
Tf2 does damage x # of pellets hit, less damage overall almost never the on paper maximum in 1v1
@@bigdiccmarty9335 but at close range...
@@Gustavofrompizzatower at close range the tf2 shotgun reaches its full power, but still just cannot keep up with pd2 shotguns, theyre just 2 different types of weapon
@@bigdiccmarty9335 take into consideration unlocks, some weapons are much stronger
Yippe kay yay mothafuckas
It was really fun doing this experiment! Was really fun to participate in
Demoknight is always a good pick for anything that ends up relying on Vaccinator Medic combos because melee damage isn't accounted for in any of the three Vaccinator defensive types, not to mention it's a great flank and surprise tool in most any scenario
"Aint no melee resist"
Stickies are still better. The medic could switch to explosive resist but they probably won't considering the main threat in this rule set
We need a permanent server for this. I want to try it and it looks like a lot of fun
Interesting…
A question.
Research.
A prediction.
Testing.
Conclusions.
Yeah, don’t even need to say it.
If I could recommend something for the next mod, how about giving Scout and Engineer access to Spy’s Revolvers, and giving Spy access to the Pistols? Both are classified as Secondary Weapons, and it’d be nice to see if they are of the same tier of damage.
For stat changes, I’d imagine the Letranger would reload your primary (only once, not a full clip), the Diamondback would reward revenge minicrits, and the Enforcer would still be the Enforcer.
For Spy, I’d probably make the Wrangler mark a target like the spawn wall hack does, and the Short Circuit would use the cloak pool as if it were a 100 metal pool.
Ambassador scout sounds like hell
Marking got cut because its buggy, it would be neat if you could use it to wrangle an enemy sentry while the Engie isn’t at the nest though.
Revolver is spy's primary
@@willsmish2837 It's still technically a "secondary" weapon. It's like saying that Engineer's shotgun is his primary.
I can think of an Engineer loadout named the Revengeful Engie which consists of Frontier Justice, Diamondback and the Jag. Completely defensive but he will be full of crits all across him when you destroy his 10 kills (20 Assists) sentry gun on 2Fort
Dude, You should keep it up permanently, unless Valve decides to make it official. This was the best change of pace mod I have ever played in ANY game. It was (surprisingly) balanced, familiar and breathed new life into overlooked sub-classes.
Scout would become a nightmare if this was true
he sure is
This video illustrates why weapons like shotguns are never balanced in games like COD but almost perfectly balanced in tf2. Very cool
It's amazing how little you understand how other games work
@@calebbarnhouse496passive aggressive whining isn’t productive. If you had a counter example you should’ve said it, because now everyone thinks you’re a salty cod kid and you’ve lost the benefit of the doubt.
what about counter strike's shotguns
@@Skullhawk13 it's not passive aggressive whining you moron, it's an insult, believe it or not tf2 shotguns aren't even close to well balanced, for starters, on 2/9 classes they are required to be ran, the other 7, 4 can't use a shotgun, 3 of them can, soldier, pyro and heavy, all of them don't work with what the class wants to do at all, so yea, jerking off a game for having 2 out of 5 shotguns as viable isn't impressive, and of course that's ignoring the fact that engineer is one of those 2, whose shotgun is so bad that to make it a viable combat tool you have to make a variant that basically has infinite ammo if you can land your shots at close range, and the scout's main reason for being good is his high speed, if he wasn't locked into a shotgun he wouldn't use them
I dunno about that. The whole "shotguns are way too strong" thing existed long before COD did, and games like the original Doom duo didn't have headshots.
Your editing has gotten really good recently, keep up the good work!
sounds like a fun half way point to playing in a 100% crit server
with the benefit of not getting deleted by crockets and pills flying all over the place it might just be flat out a better experience
Experiment I'd want to see is just HP multipliers.
What if everyone's at ×0.5? ×2? ×6 even‽
x0.5: Sniper OP
x2: Explosives/High DPS required
x6: Pitfalls/Kill Zones
Shounic did an experiment where medic overheal was infinite and Phlog Pyro became the meta since nothing else could match its dps
0.5x just frustrating spam and quickscopes
2x mainly just heavy, demo and sniper due to very high dps
6x spy becomes near required sniper useless
Overwatch
@@noahhill841x6: also Phlog Pyro.
I'm very glad you're actually doing the tests now! Seeing the predictions was always nice, but the dynamic between them and the new results really catapulted this video into rewatchable territory. :)
What about a follow-up with mini-crits instead of full crits? Maybe it would solve the instant-death issue and also boost explosive and fire damage?
Went into the server and was one other guy. We just kinda messed around and it really wasn’t that broken. Maybe if there was more people it be different but it was pretty chill
16:16 I don't think it's an actual disparity in their effectiveness but a disparity in their perceived effectiveness. Everyone and their grandma has it ingrained in them that only lunchbox items are worth using. With the Tomislav, maybe they have a point, and I'll give it to them that the Tomislav is probably Heavy's best all-around option, but with any other minigun there's some serious versatility to having a shotgun to let you deal with enemies without revving up. Especially in a mod where fights end so quickly, I think shotguns were simply underutilized.
A cool experiment could be similar to the shounic sentry buster video - bruteforcing balance but this time by giving a class's worst weapon guaranteed crits. It would be interesting to see which weapons are so bad that even crits can't save them and which ones become stupidly broken
"I'm sorry, Dr. Einstein. Conventional bombs just don't vaporize people."
Eintein: 0:31
Since stomps already deal 3× your fall damage, hitting a crit should deal 9× damage, which should be fun to watch lol
2:40 This is roughly how Shotguns work in Payday 2 and they're basically sniper rifles because of that.
I get you didn't want to make new weapons for this mod, but it would've been cool to see the Ambassador get *some* buff that gives it some sort of edge over the other revolvers for head shots. Maybe reduce that 1s delay before you're accurate again, so skilled spies can get their well aimed kills faster, and bad spies (me) can go for the one headshot they need more times in one fight, increasing the chance we get the lucky hit.
I think maybe a successful headshot can lessen or remove the cool down, that way lucky shots and skilful shots can be followed up on without rendering the other revolvers unappealing.
@@Wolf-oc6txTrue. You have the enforcer, which when disguised, allows you to become pocket sniper in this mod with a 144 crit headshot. Definitely agree amby should get some tweak, same with some of the more weaker weapons like machina.
This worked out a lot better than I anticipated, well done
sounds like an interesting case
honestly i felt like the reason weapons don't oneshot have just been for balancing, but its nice to see a "what-if"
Mini crits might be a more balanced alternative in line with TF2's design philosophy
I think not just for balancing, but TF2 came out in an environment of both Counter Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source having headshots and low TTK. Not having headshots for every hitscan was a great way to make the game be more mechanically distinct and interesting to develop for the game designers at Valve.
@@tailez606 I'm sure it also helped to lower the skill floor, which was important for what was intended to be a casual game. Casual players who might not have the best aim wouldn't need to worry about headshots unless they were playing the dedicated headshot class, and could just focus on the much easier center mass shots without losing damage potential.
This video is literally how a science experiment works. You have the theory, the hypothesis, the experiment itself, then finally the results. Amazing video. Did not expect such an in depth science video from tf2
one idea for a mod can be letting heavy equip the shotguns in his primary slot,
it would mean that fat scouts would no longer have to completely ignore an entire weapon slot, and allow them to use both a shotgun and a lunchbox item.
and the ability to run 2 different shotguns, that perform better in different situations would possibly make way for interesting strategies
This was a fantastic experiment! I think one takeaway from this in how it reflects the game balance is that wow, hitscan weapons in vanilla currently have it ROUGH, namely the automatic weapons.
It's interesting that by ratcheting up the potential damage, certain classes feel more like they're being played in what I believe Valve originally intended them to be played; it feels like the "emergency" or "finisher" secondary weapons like Scout's pistols or Soldier/Pyro's shotguns actually feel like something you want to use in tandem with your primaries because it's fun and rewarding rather than just a perfunctory option to boost your gameplay to the skill ceiling. I rarely play Heavy because his slowness in movement and lacking in actually dangerous DPS beyond close range makes him a bore and hard to feel like the impactful frontliner he's supposed to be, but giving him sincerely deadly and fast DPS in mid-ranges would probably make me actually wanna try him, because it feels like he's more than just a passive anchor enabled by the support around him, and he can instead forcefully assert himself as the game's "tank" class.
Certain weapons would still need to be retouched to accomodate the shift (Kritzkrieg sounds miserable lol) but I think adding regular headshots to the base game would be fantastic in helping encourage diversity in playstyles -- TF2's balance is stupidly frontloaded towards projectiles and shotguns, it would be so rad to make automatic weapons feel like a worthy option and justify their existence in the game rather than relegating them to a tertiary "emergency" role.
Back in 2007, everybody had shotguns and pistols and SMGs so they all felt useful. That's because everyone would dish out some chip damage, so putting in your 25 damage was enough to delete Scouts.
Heavy also felt great back then, because 450 health wasn't something you could chip away at. It was also a time before Counter-Strike professionals *really* grew in numbers and started spreading into other games, so Snipers were balanced by "being hard to use" at the time.
I'd argue that Heavy is how a tank actually functions instead of your typical damage tanking class, as they are slow, yet do devastating damages and are heavily armoured.
@@RdTrler That sounds about right, I do believe this current meta was kind of a natural result of not necessarily "power creep", but just certain items and mechanics being added to the game and getting more popular than others that resulted in balance skewing very much in bias towards burst damage options than automatic weapons.
@@giahuynguyenkim6389 He definitely does serve that "anchor tank" function in TF2 for sure, problem is that he still feels very much a passive agent; he lacks options to assert himself beyond his ok DPS, and instead has to rely on his team to enable him any kind of significant power. Here with him actually having lethal DPS, it's the difference between "Heavy is important because he's important to team formation and perfunctory levels of suppressive DPS" and "Heavy is important because HOLY F WATCH OUT"
Maybe adding Mini-Crit headshots to weapons excluding the Flamethrower, Rocket Launcher, Pipe Grenade and Sticky Bomb Launcher. Mini-Crits have Damage Ramp Up, so it wouldn't boost classes too far out of their normal effective ranges, but it would make them stronger, especially rapid-fire weapons. Scout's Scattergun would get a little crazy though, but I think a semi-decent fix would be to have it instead fire say 3 bullets every tick after firing, each click firing 1 perfectly accurate pellet and then 3 groups of scattered pellets across just 0.045 seconds after clicking, the first group going in each direction in a circle around the crosshair randomly, the second going the opposite direction of the 1st one, and the last group randomly filling in between those 6 shots, so if 1 headshots, only 3 get the Mini-Crit boost, and if it's only the first perfectly accurate pellet that headshot, only it gets Mini-Crit boosted, and the Scatterguns bullets would better "Scatter". I know Scatterguns and Shotguns are synonyms irl, but idk, I just always felt like the Scattergun should have a couple more functional differences compared to Shotguns, especially with such a unique design. And then maybe change the Shotguns fixed spread to be in the shape of a circle, for me only, it always bugged me it was in the shape of a square.
I hope this mod plug-in gets put into some servers at some point, this looks really fun
Blue the reason you see demoknight is most likely because it is one of the most common counters for vaccinator, because he can work around all available resistances and with crit resistance he still deals consistent large damage while having the mobility to stay up close and work it down in 2-3 hits
Honestly this would be a very satisfactory replacement for random crits in the game. Still essentially random if you spray and pray, and yet actively awards skill. One side still gets the "rare high moments" and the other gets rewarded for actual skillful aiming. Yet everyone still gets the thrill of getting a crit occasionally either way. Just make the slow projectiles use the huntsman headshot mechanics, a few other minor tweaks and balances, and you've got a golden system to legitimately replace random crits.
"Weapons CRIT with headshot"
Me seeing a direct hit (which has a LITERAL sight) soldier shooting it directly in my face: well... _merde_
This mod has made me want a sniper rifle that cannot scope (or charge) but hits for 100 on headshot in the normal game. That sounds so unbelievably fun.
It'd be shit.
@@AziSlays it’s literally the old ambassador with no headshot cooldown it would most certainly not be shit
Isn’t that just the bows?
@@Echs_D33 I think it’s different enough, it wouldn’t have to charge and its hitscan so it can still hit instantly from across the map
Yeah, always want something like M14 or M1 Garand for Sniper
3:12 "I imagine every shotgun shot would be pretty powerful at close range"
Yeah, as they should be given it's a close range weapon being used at close range.
Great video, I've thought about this idea myself. I think it could be interesting if headshots functioned more like Mini-Crits: a nice boost of damage, whilst still experiencing falloff. Also, just throwing it out there, but a way to make "Headshots" work on explosive weapons could be increasing their base damage to be in-line with Crit damage at max ramp-up, but giving them way harsher falloff. Just a thought.
4:31 enforcer headshots, jesus h roosevelt christ.
I didn't know he would say it!!
I like to think the skulls of the mercs are way too thick to be affected by normal bullets and so you need something as powerful as a sniper rifle aimed extremely well to pierce them, or special revolver bullets that only work at close range.
Can we appreciate the heavy being launched into another dimension at 13:20
I guess this video proves that the Huntsman has good headshot mechanics. It would be interesting to do this idea again, except with Lucksman headshots on projectiles (it acts as a good buff to the Bison and Pompson while making one of the weakest classes viable with flares).
ok, 2 things i wanna say:
1. a 23 damage Bison headshot is a war crime, rip Bison
2. this is the server than can probably take down Solarlight. the insane hitscan dps with basically most classes and a very compotent team can most likely snuff out insane demoknight charges way faster and easier due to the insane headshot damage with basically everything
exhibit A: 17:05 where a demoknight literally gets one-shot by an engineer before he could do anything
Better version that should be in the game, all hitscan weapons can headshot for minicrits, while full crits are reserved to sniper rifle, ambassador and bows.
I think you should rerun the experiment with minicrit headshots instead. It gives ambassador and zoomed sniping purpose while other weapons still get rewarded.
One thing that might make hitscan more balanced in this mod would be to switch them to minicrits and leave projectile weapons (minus maybe medic's) with normal crits to make them a bit more appealing inspite of their jank headshot detection. That probably wouldnt completely fix things but save finding a way to give projectiles good detection I cant really think of anything else that might help balance the mod a bit better as an alternative.
The vaccinator being kind of broken in this situation isn't all that surprising considering how broken it is in every situation.
the projectile weapons would probably receive the Huntsman's hybrid hit registration: upon hitting the projectile hurtbox they snap to the nearest hitscan hurtbox, meaning their headshots will be a lot more generous
Now this makes me wonder: with TF2 being in a mid Time-to-Kill game, and this essentially lowering the TTK, how fun would the game be with a higher TTK? Something like equally multiplying each class' health could be a start.
it was really fun taking part in this scenario, although that first day with the minigun sounds was absolutely horrible
I'm wondering what would have happened if the headshots dealt mini-crits instead of full crits.
nothing
@@shinobuoshino5066that’s just wrong. Multiple of the more broken weapons would be less viable, while the weaker weapons would fill the gaps.
Fun fact: this is in Open fortress as a feature enabled by the server, although usually isn't selected in more casual play for balance reasons. You can set up your own server with bots and use another feature like the TF2 classes being enabled to test these weapons as well!
So you turned TF2 into a war themed hero based CSGO?
*class based
Class-based and hero-based are two different things
@@patafian my bad g
13:17 you didn't see me lose my shit on Goldrush with the Beggar's and the Backup.
If this was implemented as a misc game mode, then I think they’d have to apply the amby’s crit falloff (like I said in a previous comment on the post) or else the pistol will be a M40 and the revolver will be a direct upgrade to the amby.
14:53 Wow, that melee clearly did not hit you. Dude is playing with mcdonalds wifi.
It’s great that you can finally recreate your scenarios with some help. Exploring your old hypotheses and making them a reality would be fun videos for 2024.
Im glad i got to participate in this experiment. It was a blast
Wonder if you could try different variations on headshot rewarding minicrits instead or some variation of Crits that have falloff or change in damage boost, such as a 2x damage boost in other FPS instead of 3x in Standard Crits
congrats, you just made one of the best server plugins ever!
in defense of rapid fire weapons, headshots are probably more common then you think, in FAR CRY 5 ARCADE. ARs are actually meta because if you just hold blind fire, theres like a 70% they just die from headshots within a second
16:51 widow maker being the best weapon in a headshot mod feels kinda fitting in a way
Next do what if every melee could backstab
Spy fucking dies
How does a Scout supposed to stab people with a baseball bat?
How is Heavy supposed to stab people wih his fists?
@@davidhong1934 one inch punch
@@davidhong1934 just make it say all the blunt melee weapons break the spot where the neck meets the skull, that almost always instantly kills people irl, instead of scout's bat or heavy's fists saying "backstab" it says "breakneck" instead or something like that
@@Oswaldo_Godoy
N E C K *snap*
Now we need "tf2 but all weapons are pomson"
Altho i dont think muddy would like you making him do that much work for all the weapons
It’s gonna look like mf battle of geonosis up in this
with much lower time to kill across the board, wouldn't offence have a massive advantage due to how much more heavily defence is punished for death with the long respawn timers?
Defense has longer respawn timers, but also are usually right back in the fight as soon as they leave spawn. Offense on average has a much longer walk between their spawn and the objective.
This honestly sounds like a really fun time! I'll have to give it a proper swing at some point in the future.
Interesting results. Did this experiment give you a firm sense of which class you think would benefit most from an Ambassador-like weapon? It seems to me that this video suggests that a Scout or Heavy with a weapon that can headshot (in the normal TF2) would benefit most.
Brings a whole new meaning to Heavy saying "I have yet to meet one who can outsmart bullet."
Wonder how it would change if projectiles were left at full crits but bullet weapons went to mini-crits.
Would the inconsistent but massive burst damage of projectiles make them a viable tradeoff? Would bullet weapons still dominate through consistency? Would battle medic actually be op?
this looks a lot more fun to me than normal tf2 and a lot of the classes based on your description seem to work a lot more like I originally imagined they should. Especially Spy and Heavy.
Finally, this is a topic that ive been waiting for someone to discuss about.
Also cant the explodives use simlar code of the huntsman. Like detecting the closest body part to the center of the blast?
Considering how crits work in rocket launchers/stickies/pipes it would mean that you could decimate a whole group of people together if you just headshot one of them, which isn't very fun
Subscribed to hopefully see more experiments, this was fascinating to see in action!
i know it's late but I bet projectiles are hitting the torso hitbox before they hit the head hitbox because most projectiles are decently large (the exception being the syringe guns, which would be why they're much more consistent)
great blue is the type of guy to find a solution to world hunger without telling anyone
Wouldn't the force a nature be very good aswell since it has more pellets per shot?
The only issue I see would be the knockback it applies, making 2 quick precision hits difficult.
I would love to see previous concepts similar to this one re-done with testing now that you have the means to do it on occasion
It is funny how Sniper now feels fair to fight against because He is no longer the only Class to be able to Insta Kill on Headshot
Yeah He still has the "Hit Scan From The Other Side Of The Map" kind of "Problem" but outside of that Everyone can now have a legit Fair Fighting Chance against Sniper
Ironically a large part of it is due to the fact Sniper needs to ADS or have less clear pictures of their enemy, combined with the fact Spy is practically a straight upgrade doing 144 burst damage, can cloak, and can disguise so players now have to gamble with where your head is or if you're a non-spy.
Once your own allies start 1-shotting you from range anything with less then 144 health should become unplayable with time as you have to anticipate them being anywhere. It is basically like dealing with hackers and cheaters but worse.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 Good Point
@@Buglin_Burger7878 feels more like you just have to be as aware of spies being everywhere as before tbh
Sniper under this mod would be way less advantageous for duels in general now that he can't just stay out of effective range for 5 out of 9 classes because of damage fall-off, and since his balance is inherently based on giving him the least amount of utility tools in general, you'll need a lot more skill investment to get meaningful results (which is a good thing imo)
@@darkness74185 True
13:57 Is tHAt UncLE dAne?!?!
I imagined sniper scope on most of his weapons has a built in eye scanner for headshots since when you unzoomed it doesn't headshot
tf2 but everyone is the sniper class from the hit #1 hat war themed simulator, TEAM FORTRESS 2 MODERN WARFARE.
Honestly, if they really tweaked the hitboxes (and possibly damage) for it, I'd love to see the headshot mechanic on the Flying Guillotine in regular game.
Whilst the sandman-guillotine combo left you with a mouthful of vomit, the lack of a crit due to the sandman nerf made me feel a lil sad that the guillotine was stripped of a unique gimmick.
9:56 i like how that spy just immediate falls to the ground like a family guy character
Video starts at 7:17
Implementing the experiment as a mod and analysing the result really lifted this one over the rest.
And as a university student i can only appreciate a good field test and a great analysis.
"CS:GO headshot icon" out of five stars
Are you talking on x2 speed?
Trust me it is way worse on x2
Bro I just smoked a j and thought I was tripping.
@@scaringthecrowWell there's your problem
He did a shitton of coke before recording
@@scaringthecrow That may be because you were tripping
Crazy how players naturally just evolve to the new settings and found ways to counter, they're like ants
After experiencing this mod, I believe it should be officially added to TF2. Seemed pretty balanced to me.
Woahhh King of upward
Upward map always seemed like a strange case to me...
Snipers are now fun to fight?
Heavy and Spy are good classes now?
Demoman takes skill?
It's the balance patch we've always needed.
Maybe tweak some individual items so they aren't the objectively best/worst choices (Widowmaker, Sydney Sleeper, Ambassador) and it could pass as an official alt. game mode.
Turning off random crits I understand, but turning off random spread? I feel like this is a whole different situation when that's the case. There is a reason why all the games you mentioned at the start have bulletspread. 😹
It only turns off random shotgun spread, turning it into a more predictable spread instead of the normal random one, everything else is unchanged as far as I know.
Random spread would actually amplify the issues as opposed to static spread.
Random spread lets you land more shots at longer ranges, where you'd normally just land 1-2 while at close range giving a higher chance of failing. Static spreads give up long range gamble for consistency within each range's own profile.
I have an idea that could make another great what if video. What if every class has a tertiary slot? Since Engineer and Spy already has that, you can give both of them a fifth slot. This is something I've thought of, but never delved too deep about it.
TLDR: Rainbow Six fortress
headshots have always seemed like a strange case to me
I would love to see a Community Server with this mod kept around, because it sounds like a lot of fun for sure.
headshotting in tf2 has always seemed like a strange case to me