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[Crouton]

Unlucky rolls is why D&D moved away from random treasure tables. The replacement was guaranteed loot over time, which gave players an entitlement complex.

TF2 players already have an entitlement complex.

[Catloaf]

Unlucky rolls is why D&D moved away from random treasure tables. The replacement was guaranteed loot over time, which gave players an entitlement complex.

TF2 players already have an entitlement complex.

Which is fine considering it's a game that somewhat requires all players to have the same options.

It's not an MMO or an RPG.  There's no reason not to have every usable item every other player has.  If you had to do something to get the items it'd be different, but a sense of entitlement is the normal response to seeing a good portion of those around you get something for free with nothing but random chance being the deciding factor.  Like if 99% of people who entered a lottery won, the losing 1% would feel like they deserved to win despite losing.

[Crouton]

The only ones who should really be saying "I deserve new weapons because everyone else has them" are the engineers, because theirs don't exist yet.

[Mongrel]

The only ones who should really be saying "I deserve new weapons because everyone else has them" are the engineers, because theirs don't exist yet.

Imagine this panda is wearing a hard hat.

[NexAdruin]

Items should be gotten only through milestone achievements, and hats should be gotten through relatively difficult achievements (or achievements that take fucking forever, like Pyromancer) or special events (Gentlemann's Service Medal). Crafting, trading, and random drops are all dumb. When someone's play time is 4/5 idle and 1/5 game, something about the game is broken.

Also, lol @ TF2 players feeling a sense of entitlement. They're Valve fans. Of course they feel a sense of entitlement. God forbid Valve should ever decide to charge for DLC.

[A²]

So far it's been suggested that running textmode idling twice while you sleep hits you at the cap. No hard numbers to back it up, but people are just extrapolating from the blog post of "An hour a day will be about fine."

[SCD]

As someone who might come on once in awhile, this is awesome news.  I might get a cap!   

[Royal☭]

I love this becomes an entitlement issue.  "How dare you want a bunch of superfluous hats that have no gameplay impact!  Don't you realize it's more fair to earn them (by standing around doing absolutely nothing)?"

[patito]

As someone who might come on once in awhile, this is awesome news.  I might get a cap!  

Don't get your hopes up, you might have gotten like a flare gun with the old system, but now you're more likely to get a flare gun and a sandvich.

Meanwhile idling will get you item after item and you will have to do it less.

[Lottel]

Unlucky rolls is why D&D moved away from random treasure tables. The replacement was guaranteed loot over time, which gave players an entitlement complex.

TF2 players already have an entitlement complex.

Which is fine considering it's a game that somewhat requires all players to have the same options.

It's not an MMO or an RPG.  There's no reason not to have every usable item every other player has.  If you had to do something to get the items it'd be different, but a sense of entitlement is the normal response to seeing a good portion of those around you get something for free with nothing but random chance being the deciding factor.  Like if 99% of people who entered a lottery won, the losing 1% would feel like they deserved to win despite losing.

I disagree. I like the random drops. I'd rather everyone have to be lucky and idle a lot instead of people going to achievement servers and using bots or whatever to get achievements. It might not seem that different, but it lessens the meaning of the achievements. When I get an achievement on TF2, I actually feel... proud. I did something somewhat tricky on a game that I'm not that great at.
I know there are already achievement servers but making the achievements all about hats would just would feel... whorish.

[Torgo]

The only achievement I've earned that I really had to work for was the Spy's Deep Undercover.  And I tell you, that shit was real when it came down to making the last kill.  The sense of satisfaction and... well, achievement was pretty darn great.

Beyond that, everything else I've ever earned I've got from more or less playing as usual.  Which is kind of how it should be, in my opinion.  Scoring achievements shouldn't fully distract from completing the objective.

[JDigital]

Items should be gotten only through milestone achievements

They did this, and people cheated for achievements, making the achievements meaningless.

[Torgo]

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Kayin (I think it was Kayin): Just give everyone all the new "usable" items outright, and make people earn (or "earn") the hats.  I mean, if people want to cheat or lame their way into the cosmetic changes... well, whatever gets 'em through the night, I guess.  Strictly speaking there's not a lot of harm in that.

I get the premise behind earning new items, and I even like it in theory, but in practice it's kind of a mess.  For example: I would never have known that I actually really like Sniper if I hadn't randomly gotten Jarate once.  Some weeks later, quite bored and somehow on a team with no Snipers, decided that I may as well try it out.  Turned out to be pretty cool, so I stuck with it for awhile, unlocking the Huntsman through achievements, where upon it all made sense.  The Sniper was for me.

Note that the entire sequence of events starts with the word "random".  I'm glad for the existence of random drops at all, but my point is that this kind of discovery shouldn't be at the behest of an rng or earning achievements.  If I had never got that jar of piss or had to earn it through achievements, I never would have at all since at that point I had long since written off Sniper as my least favorite class.

Am I making any sense?  I feel a twinge incoherent.  My base point is that if they're going to put all this hard work into making and balancing these new toys they should just let us play with them.  I'm still waiting on scoring an Eyelander drop so maybe I can find out that I don't actually hate/suck at Demoman, because I sure as heck ain't gonna earn it through achievements unless I go a-whorin'.

[Royal☭]

Hat drops would also make more sense if they were waited with the class you're currently playing.  That way, if you want soldier hats, play more soldier.  Want scout hats, play more scout.

And instead of "crafting", they could have a system that checks your inventory against what you already have, and gives you items you don't.

[Lottel]

Hat drops would also make more sense if they were waited with the class you're currently playing.  That way, if you want soldier hats, play more soldier.  Want scout hats, play more scout.

And instead of "crafting", they could have a system that checks your inventory against what you already have, and gives you items you don't.

Put this in the letters we send to Valve.
Because this would solve basically every problem.

[Bongo Bill]

The solution I'd go with is to give away the first item after one hour of playing with that class, then the second item after the next hour, and the final item after hour three. That way you don't scare the newbies.

[Frocto]

Every one of you need to check your ideas against the concept of, "Does this encourage people to play more, or less?"

That's what unlocks and hats are for. BongoBill, your idea is the absolute opposite of what Valve want.

[Bongo Bill]

I guess you've got a point there: you can bring in more newcomers if the average player sticks around longer, rather than just the really hardcore jerks sticking around after a few years and scaring away anybody who might actually want to enjoy themselves. Players with something to work toward in the long-term are less inclined to stop.

Maybe double the amount of time needed for each unlock. That'll be, what, fifty-four hours of play time, give or take, before you have everything? That is not a small amount of time! The system I've described does encourage people to play more rather than less. The chance of getting a duplicate of a weapon you've already got is no kind of motivation at all.

[A²]

I'd just like to say that the Buff Banner is incredible on 32 player maps.

[Stush]

Hey guys, I have an idea!

Getting new stuff is cool and all, but how about everyone just gets the items and then they can all use the items and have fun.