The Meet your Match Update is here – Early Thoughts

The Meet your Match update has shipped, after apparently holding off for a bit as to not disturb a major ETF2L match, which is nice of them.

Honestly though, I’m not sure what to say. I suppose I’m happy that we’re getting an update, and that we’ll be getting more updates in the future.

Of course we got new taunts. The TF2 youtube channel had them uploaded but private for ages. Taunts are basically the new hats, but better because they don’t fuck with the art style in any way.

Of course we got crates. The keyless crates are interesting. The newbie ones are not bad as well, I remember them being in the Mann Co. Store for 99c years back, so it’s good to see them again.

Of course we’re not going to get new weapons because we already have a ton of new weapons that are rebalanced with every update. I would have guessed that. For example, Medic is a whole new speedster class, if anything closer to his old TFC self with this new speed buff. Also the Short Stop now has airblast. That’s kinda a new thing. Really weird, but still, uh… um… I dunno.

Of course we got the weird balance changes. Half the time, I really don’t get what Valve are thinking with these changes. Some of them though are genuinely good. Spy mains have been asking for some sort of mobility buff for ages and they actually finally got one. Also the Soda Popper rewards you for shooting people rather than running around.

Of course we got updates to a minor game mode coming out of beta. Although I’ll admit the Pass Time changes do look pretty decent. It looks like they’ve actually managed to nerf Scout without actually nerfing him, and rewarding teams who stick together with near-the-jack buffs. It’s still a stupid name for the game mode, and I still want it to be called Murder Ball or Death Ball or Catcha-Bomb or something like that, but Pass Time has actually turned out to be a neat little game mode of its own, doing what Robot Destruction, Special Delivery and all that failed to deliver. Not like fucking Mannpower though. Thank heavens it’s not like Mannpower.

Of course we got new community maps made official. That seems to happen with updates anyway. The choices of map though are good but looong overdue…

Ah, I’ve found the problem with this update. The whole thing is long overdue. Everything that has happened in this update should have happened years ago. That’s why it’s not sitting well with a lot of people. The Spy speed buff, the addition of Swiftwater, the creation of competitive and reasons to actually stay in a game… The TF2 team have finally done all of this, but they should have done it years ago, back when the Uber Update came out, or maybe the update after that.

Still, the new art is always good. No matter how much I get angry at TF2 and all that, the art style is always excellent. The propaganda posters, the nice arty backgrounds, it’s all so… wallpaper-able. The TF2 update pages are always simple but excellent.

Anyway, I’m off to fight for Team Heavy. Team Pyro is going to win no matter what because 1. points are easier to gain as Pyro, 2. he’s a more popular class, 3. he’s more broken and 4. everyone but me is a sucker for lolrandompyro bullshit. Sorry, Heavy.