I can’t even remember a time where the refund button wasn’t available. The research and effort that goes into your videos always makes them among the best TF2 content that youtube has to offer, awesome work as usual!!
Pretty sure I remember the refund button being a thing, but it actually costed you money to use it originally (think something like 500-1000 creds)?. Then they made it free
Wait shit, it wasn't just me?! when MVM first came out even the easier difficulties felt challenging. after watching recent MVM content I always assumed I was just... bad
Same here. I remember it being too hard to be fun for someone who was mostly a Sniper main at the time. He kinda poked why they did it while talking about MvM's balance though, it's hard to keep the exact same stats balanced AND fun across both PvP and PvE gamemodes, a lot of stuff that worked fine in PvP had to be nerfed for MvM's PvE balance and it just wasn't doable to balance for both constantly.
Dude, this video was so good. Infinite upgrades have always been a dicey topic because it's actually a discussion that goes beyond the argument of Gameplay > Loot or Loot > Gameplay. The added variety serves to make things a lot more enjoyable rather than be confined to one class and loadout combo the entire game, on a personal note I enjoy it a lot. That said, it's still fucking broken. Ideally if Valve were going to go this route they should have boosted the numbers on every robot in the game to compensate, be it in damage, hp or sheer quantity. Of course, such an ask is laughable, so I think something worth testing would be an ever-increasing refund price tag. Perhaps it starts at $500 credits and adds another $500 per each use? At least then you get the benefit of the added variety, but something to offset that perk. Idk, just spit-balling. Great video though!
@WeezyTF2 Did you find it frustrating how Valve made it so that you can only inspect the upgrades and weapons of those who were in your Friends List and/or in your party?
@@WeezyTF2 Even DEWILL already made a video about that. Also, regarding MVM just a little bit, do you think Casual should also have a "Join game in progress" option button like MVM?
Alternatively, keep track of how many times a player refunds their upgrades and give players a special reward or badge just for completing a mission or tour "refundless". Maybe an extra weapon at the end of a drop, or even a free "Squad Surplus" ticket if the entire team works together to beat a mission without refunds. That way you can get the best of both worlds: refunds and variety if you just want to enjoy the mission and get your sea legs, or hardcore no-refund challenges for those who want to try something more tough.
I think the addition with the refund button made mvm fun since you can swap around classes to better suit the corresponding wave for an easier time. That said I also miss not having it as it forces the player to spend wisely with their upgrades. Also miss able to inspect player weapon upgrades so I would play around with it to actually finish a wave. I’m not the type to judge your play style and mvm upgrade choices so long you get the job done
I think there should be no infinite refunds allowed in Expert (or at least a different sub-type of Expert that is warned on the select mission screen). Of course, they’ll have to make sure refund tokens are given back when you fail the wave you used them on first.
If Valve were to ever touch MvM again, I'd want them to add special missions that brought back the refund token or removed refund altogether, in exchange for a higher chance at getting rarer loot.
Yes, all the yes. I don't think it should be aussies tho as that would significantly affect value but getting anything else but garbage would be a great, assuming it's the same price as any ticket.
Do you think they can also re-allow the ability to inspect *anyone's* upgrades since they removed that feature in the Summer 2021 update? Oh, and just like MVM, why not also add a "Join game in progress" button for Casual?
for being honest if they add another mvm update i just want new giants imagine a fucking giant with a fucking chainsaw that fucking melts you at melee range making heavy not tank the robot making soldier demo and sniper more viable options or a wave where the tank haves a turret atleast they should just make new aussies how hard is just gold texture the weapons, i really want aussie wrap assasin
@@Thorn4504 Yeah, and even within harder Mann Up missions the refund token is removed entirely. With the idea being harder mission better loot, same aussie drops tho so that market value isn't affect by this change. I don't want more cheaters in Mvm. Killstreak kits would devalue of course as their isn't a way to get rid of them in any useful way which is something I would want to see implemented, but I don't think we're going to get a Mann-Conomy Update 2.0.
While the inability to refund before might have added a lot of a challenge the problem was that you were essentially locked to one class. I honestly think refunds fundamentally was a much healthier choice for the gamestate of MVM.
True, though if you want to compromise you could add missions or make it a feature that if you beat a mission without refunds, you get more loot or something. Or make it so the refund button only appears if you fail a wave.
Refunds don't restrict you to one class because most classes don't really need that many credits to do their jobs. Scout, Pyro, Heavy, Engi, and Sniper have pretty cheap upgrades so if you spend only a few or no credits wave 1, you could easily swap to another class as needed for the rest of the waves.
I'm not quite sure the skill ceiling for MvM has decreased - at least not to the hyperbolic degree of replacing rocket jumping to a single button press, the skill of being able to plan out what upgrades you get so you can tackle every wave in your role has been replaced by the skill of being able to recognize what's not working right with either your build or the team composition as a whole and course correcting for that. And, sure, one can say that skill is made redundant by planning out an upgrade path for a mission in advance or by just looking up what classes are best for which wave in a given mission but, well, in game players don't see what the future waves are, nor how many credits they'll have for the next wave. And while some players like the challenge of minmaxing with all that information in mind, I'm sure others - at least myself included - feel like I'm spoiling myself on my own challenge by having that complete foresight. As for cost-benefits in a general sense, I'm a bit more mixed. I'm not sure preserving the difficulty of Disk Deletion's first wave trap is really worth saving honestly - players aren't told fire damage will literally never come up for the rest of the mission so it's not so much a choice between and early mission crutch and money in the bank but instead being cheated out of their money the first time they run the mission. And without a refund how could one justify playing and learning classes like spy in missions where the first three waves are horrendously spy hostile - sure, the refund token would let you switch to spy, but if it's not working or you miss a key upgrade, you're stuck like that! Without a refund you'd be switching off a class that you know works and which you've invested funds in to play a class where you'd have less funds to work with out of the gate. But, as you've stated, it can be abused to only needing to pull out a class like the pyro when a tank shows up, and while infinite refunds does allow for far more experimentation, players will surely optimize the hell and fun out of doing so. Though, I will say that getting to the last wave of a mission and feeling like you can't tackle it with your current loadout is painful. What are you going to do - ask the other five players to restart to try and optimize? Just leave, or wait for someone else to leave so the drop in player can just optimize for the last wave? Speaking of drop in players, infinite refunds does mean that the drop in player isn't forced to take up whatever role the person who left had, and in general players can be more flexible with teambuilding and how they accomplish their roles instead of feeling like they've locked into a composition and have to run their heads into a brick wall to force it to work because no one wants to call a start from wave 1. I think the ideal solution would be for Value to update the mission design philosophy of harder MvM missions going forward - having waves that challenge all roles (tank destruction, crowd control, etc) simultaneously (or in whatever way would best account for the players' new ability to switch between waves). Or, even if they don't change said philosophy and focus on taxing one role at a time, just making a new Advanced or Expert level tour so that the players can't leverage nearly nine years' worth of experience tackling the same maps and just infinitely switching to what is well known at this point to be the most efficient option each wave. But we know that's not going to happen.
I honestly almost never used the refund button when I played MvM outside of correcting mistakes or change class, and it was actually pretty fun not having the credits for important stuff. But then again, I was really new to MvM and barely knew anything about it, so maybe that had something to do with it.
Part of why I feel that “planing upgrades and class choice” was a bad decision was that it fed heavily into MVM toxicity. It’s information easily available in a guide yes but at the same time it’s incredibly pigeonholing as each tour has pretty much one way to play optimally either you had the skill to play “the right way” or you’re kicked. I don’t even blame people for the kicking as locked in upgrades meant that if your entire team wasn’t playing optimally the entire mission it was possible to outright fail the mission back to wave one wasting your entire time spent.
This is what Alex Jaffe calls "Cursed Problems in Game Design". When you promise players two inherently contradictory things. I think something very similar to the situation in MvM was part of it. In essence, Valve are promising that both 1) You can pick a class and upgrades that is fun for you; and 2) The mode requires strategising with your team to pick the right class and upgrades. These two are incompatible. Given that 1) was already a prominent part of MvM, I can see why Valve opted to drop 2) by default. Though I would also like to see them add a variant where freedom to choose class and upgrades is dropped. I imagine you would have several balanced team comps per mission, with several balanced upgrade paths for the entire team, and decide which upgrade path to pick by vote at the end of each round. This would leave you with 3 flavours of MvM 1) Infinite refunds fun. 2) Balanced challenge. 3) Whatever you want, make your own server and set the flags how you like it, see if you can find a better comp with no refunds than what Valve have on offer, go nuts. Right now Valve are saying that 1) is their vision for MvM and I guess that's ok, but I would like 2) in an official capacity as well. Because there is no point in letting people pick their class and upgrades if there is only a handful of correct choices. Either give players full freedom, or constrain them to picking one of several correct choices. Like, in an MMO I can queue for a raid with a party of all healers for funsies, but the default is to require a standard balanced comp of tank, healers and dps.
@@pleaserespond3984 You say that there should be a way to have strategic high-level play in an official capacity without realizing that it is moronically easy to implement in an unofficial capacity. One only needs to look at TF2's competitive scene to get an idea of what I'm talking about: people have taken the 12-a-side pubs with random crits, really unbalanced design (unless you think 3 demos and 3 medics is moderately fair and balanced) and a ridiculous potential to stalemate and turned it into an eSport. I have no sympathy for the MVM community. If they can be as big and as committed as they are, they can do what communities a fraction of their size do on the regular in speedrunning.
Breaking game balance in a futile attempt to reduce toxicity is a horrible idea. It wasn't even that bad beforehand, most high tours were happy to offer help to people who were willing to hear it. It was mostly the dicks who refused to communicate or adjust who got the boot. A player's upgrades didn't even have to be perfect or completely optimal, just making an effort to upgrade well was usually good enough. Also, sometimes in a co op game people don't want to play with you. Getting kicked sucks, I've been there many times but those players weren't obligated to deal with my shitty performance. I don't know why the modern TF2 playerbase can't handle that.
@@pleaserespond3984adding salt to the wound, there is an achievement you get by playing an entire mission with a single class, for each one of the nine classes Good luck finding someone who lets you play an entire mission as Spy for the achievement
I have always had a vague memory of refunds being limited when I first started playing mvm and being surprised when they weren’t, glad to know I wasn’t crazy! Also explains just how much harder it was
A well made video on the whole. While I disagree with your sentiments on Unlimited Refunds you presented your points well, you gave credit where it was due and didn't marginalize any groups in favor of the change, and everything was excellently researched and presented. Nice job, mate.
I see a lot of suggestions saying to make the refund system be based on the mission difficulty (Normal, Advanced, Expert), but I think it would've made more sense to allow refunds in Boot Camp and disallow them in Mann Up.
Yeah you are more likely to refund more in harder difficulty because robot is way stronger so make it harder to refund in those dosn't make sense it better to make it a separated mode instead.
@@staregineer it does makes sense, it restores the original balance the refund button was made for beginners to reverse mistakes they made, so it makes sense to keep it in beginner mode, but not in expert mode
@@minignoux4566 No it not because even with refund button many causal player can't beat the expert because unlike it on easy you really need a right upgrade to beat strong robot with out Refund button on Expert the causal player can't experiment and learn why they upgrade wasn't work in each round of enemy,You can't compare weak robot in easy mode to strong robot in expert mode that why it make more sense to let normal mode for Causal where they can train and Learn and do no refund or limited use on seperated mode like MannUP,hell you can even make no Refund mode for Normal to use for training for MannUP.
imagine a mission designed around this feature wave1: pyros (fire) wave2: soldiers and demomans (blast damage) wave3: giant crits soldiers and demos (crit and blast damagw) wave4: demoknights and pyros (fire and health upgrades) wave5: huntsman snipers (speed upgrade or airblast) the cycle repeats
before watching the video i will say that my opinion is, i like having refund as an option because it lets you teach newer players what to do if they'll listen. you don't need to kick them for choosing a tour that is way too difficult for them, you don't need to requeue and find another better lobby, you can just tell them what to do and what upgrades to get and everything may end up fine. I don't use it much myself because i do find it boring (and annoying) to swap upgrades around a lot, unless it's just to screw around on the last wave when we're already destroying. Edit: this opinion has not changed from watching the video, i prefer having the option over not having it, but i don't tend to use it much myself because i do find it more fun that way
I think making it so you can only refund if you lose the wave is a compromise. Then we can balance around that. Most people don't even utilize refund THAT much anyway like you're saying. These are good points.
It helpful when one of support class like Engy or Medic drop out mid or near last wave so i can change to fill in those class with full upgrade instead of play the rest of the wave with no support or wait too long for new player to join so everybody left.
@@billyaepicgamer8642 personally i would bring back the refund tokens, but instead of how it worked before you'd have access to it right from the start, and on wave 1 you get infinite refunds until you clear the wave. but i'm also fine just leaving it as is
I forgot about the good changes Valve did to MvM... What also angered me a lot regarding refunds was that you only need ONE player to refund to trivialize a wave. You could decide to not use refunds yourself but the moment someone else does, the need for cooperation between players is pretty much gone and it became pointless to not refund yourself. I will always remember the confusion, the rage, the overall mess when infinite refunds was added. A single-line of a patch note that broke an entire community... I would have honestly accepted if that infinite refund was only available after losing a wave or when joining a mission for the first time, so that it could be used as intended : to help fix mistakes. Not to just cheese through everything.
I think the best solution would be to allow "infinite" refunds, but make it have a cost. You have to lose the round twice before you can get your token, and then it still sets you back a wave the first time (have it be a vote similar to restart mission), and in mann up, add a reward for never refunding. Every time after the vote passes you still have to lose a wave to activate it, but it won't set you back a wave.
Or alternatively, sell it for the credits like canteen charges. You can switch at a low but non-zero cost. (Maybe every refund takes $400 permanently.)
I wonder if needing to spend credits to refund your credits would be a good idea. Similar to canteens, the credits used to purchase them would be lost forever making it more punishing the more you used it. If used every wave, the later waves could yield you with anywhere between 500-1000 less credits, but if used sparingly, some waves would be struggling but the later waves are slightly easier. On another note, I like that you are able to switch between classes. Mainly due to the fact that if someone is lacking in their class/role, you can offer to switch classes/roles with them.
For the longest time, I didn't even know that this button was added. I tried MvM in the good old days and did not enjoy it because people kept yelling at me. When I came back to it, I never even thought to look for a refund button. Then for a while I used the hell out of it until I figured out what worked well for the classes I enjoy. Now I pretty much have a game plan before I go in and don't use the button.
I thought you could only do it once. I had no idea it was infinite lol. Idea: The easy missions have infi refunds, 2 cities and Mecha Engi require tokens, Expert doesn’t have one at all.
Yeah, the vid misses out on a few key things here and there. Like his first scenario, just crit res was what you would use to just counter the problem.
IMO this was completely fine. Pressure and meta is not something that _has_ to be in PvE, it's a PvP thing. In PvE, when there's nobody to steamroll and nobody to steamroll you, you can relax and just *play a game,* not hone your sportsmanship skills and work your ass off. The original design of MvM was centered around a lose-lose proposition, and then it went to a win-win one, simple as that. Those who want constant pressure and adrenaline rushes, who like refined tactics quickly becoming the only viable ones - they are all welcome to join the cybersport leagues. We the scrubs who play for simple relaxing fun won't intrude on you there, so don't come to our sandbox and whine that you can't play the same way here as you could in yours. Because this is not your sandbox. We got over it, you get over it.
great video! unfortunately, i think the infinite refund in a necessary evil. my friends still cant beat the easier difficulties and i can't carry them without it.
But that's the nature of mvm, is it not? At least initially. I mean it's a co-op mode, meaning one person shouldn't be able to carry an entire team, in being able to, it renders the cooperative nature obsolete, right?
@@mayo_-Boom. This is the solid argument here. This is why there are people calling for the nerfing of ScoRes, Sniper, Spy, and EoI. Because people want to play the game. This seems to be a difficult concept for many people. The EOI people will be like, "ummm ScoRes is strong too, I wanna help out." and "something something Tacobot" The ScoRes people will be like, "he takes skill because you have to memorize the waves so it's okay"
@@billyaepicgamer8642 yeah sniper and eoi is op but how would you nerf scotres. scotres is pretty mediocre outside of non 2cities missions due to pacing
@@ihazsucks Maybe lower the value of the ScoRes stickies? But yeah, "make better missions" is the "nerf". In community MvM, what happens is, ScoRes destroys the first giant, maybe the second if Gaben blessed you. But then Demo can't react to the third one quickly enough or the flank spawned another giant. I usually bring up ScoRes because the whataboutism is getting old and it's a handy "stay on topic" card.
Nice vid, but just some info. When MvM first came out you could "refund"; you would leave the server then get re-invited in. The game would not keep your score or upgrades. So you could refund even from day one.
On the bright side, newer community-made MvM campaigns are accounting for this new system, making them a different game of finding the right combination every wave for very unique situations. I'm not unhappy with it since thanks to the community, I still get to face a good challenge!
Re-Introducing refunds in the current year would more or less just make people play generalists classes if anything (e.g. Pyro/Soldier/Scout/Sniper). Although it would bring back the challenge, it'd be certainly stale under certain instances. Also, 5:28 -- Spy used to only do the regular 750 damage backstab which was interesting (for reference, the 188 backstab damage wasn't present unless upgrading 1 tick of armor pen), but it got a slight buff for todays standards (938). Good video nonetheless though, enjoyed the content!
The one thing I like about infinite refunds is it allows for the legendary meme strat of picking random class every wave and sticking with what you get until you beat it. If you play with a party and have never tried this I highly recommend it. Fuck abusing it though.
I think the argument that the button takes away a challenge is something of a stretch. Players who want to be challenged can agree not to refund (save, perhaps, for misclicks, which it also helps with), while others can refund as they please. When I play, I don't usually see it used except for when our Scout switches class on the last wave, with the exception of ultra-high tours.
Lister is saying that waves would be more challenging if you couldn't swap to Spy on Giant Med waves or Pyro vs tanks. Meaning if you went into a mission with I dunno (Scout, Soldier, Heavy, Heavy, Engie, Sniper), the tank is a bigger threat. AND THANK YOU!!!!!! People are making it seem like it's high tours that are forcing people not to refund. If anything, the high tours are the ones that are more likely to swap every wave. Low tours tend to do it more "casually", if that makes sense. The refund police people are a minority of the veterans. You earned my like.
Daaamn, I absolutely love MVM but didn't get into it til after the Infinite Refund patch so until now I actually thought the refund token was a thing original to some community missions. Definitely wouldn't mind seeing it added back into normal MVM.
You've described lowering the skill floor, not the ceiling. The problem here isn't that Valve made skilled play impossible, it's that it's made easily bypassed. You aren't incapable of playing extremely well, or knowing what to expect, that hasn't changed; you can still be better than the game expects (expected, rather, as the rules have changed). You just aren't rewarded for achieving that anymore. I don't have the experience in Mann Up to have weight behind any argument, but I do understand the gripe behind it being completely free. Driving assists in more modern games tend to come with a penalty - the Forza Motorsport games boost your rewards for disabling the racing line, traction control, anti-lock brakes, and introduced in FM3 (or was it 4), automatic braking when you enter a corner way too fast. Some games, as far as I am aware, don't - wipE'out" since HD on the PS3 has an option to steer the agravs away from walls. I don't believe it punishes the player in any way for doing so, but I did try it out of curiosity to see how they did it - and honestly it seems like a great way to make someone think it's a garbage game because it hard steers the craft away from the wall, turning it into a pinball at speed classes above vector because you loose control of the ship as it auto-steers away from walls... into other walls. So I guess my argument is that there _should_ be some form of cost to the refund, albeit possibly reduced/free if players failed their last wave - diminishing refund returns would probably frustrate players just as much as the old system of locking yourself into failing with the wrong upgrades before you could refund at all. The reduction should probably be tied to the difficulty; if you're playing on expert, you should probably know what you're doing first. If you failed a wave there, you knew what you signed up for.
This is the crazy thing about jumping ship on a game for multiple years. I kinda phased out of TF2 around late-2014, only really showing up around Halloween until Valve ruined that too with Merasmissions that don't let you trade the items you get. So I had no idea that the refund button was always-on now, and I've been playing MvM "like a scrub" because that's just how I remembered playing it.
I feel like the rocket jumping and refund comparison was kinda off, while that's an entirely new ability that trivializes rocket jumping, refunding can simply just be a choice
seeing this, I had an idea about it, at the beginning of a mission you have a limited quantity of refund tokens you can use throughout the wave, whether you have the same number of refund tokens as waves, allowing you to optimize the entire mission, or you had exactly one or even 0 throughout the mission. With math set up so that if you typed "retry" in the console, it would calculate the number of tokens you should have being "mission credit # - current wave # + 1", and your loadout and upgrades being saved to the server after wave 1 so you couldn't just "retry" to remove those upgrades even if you had no tokens. This would allow the easy missions to still be easy, with the difficult missions either going for absolute spam but with a large amount of refunds so your refunds have to count to make it through the mission, or have minimal refunds so you have to think about what you should upgrade per wave, like how mvm originally was. An option to either allow infinite refunds or to make them sparse or nonexistent would spice up how future missions would be made.
i played some mecha back in the day before refunds when i barley understood the game, in the last 3ish years i really have gotten into -gambling- sorry, MVM. specifically mecha and 2c and i couldnt agree more. i enjoy it's existence because i like being able to go huntsman sniper (explo headshot is more busted than gas pussies) and other troll classes but i do wish it was actually challenging. i enjoy the rare match where i find 5 newbies and we struggle. those 50-80 min challenging matches so feel so nostalgic
I've played MvM all this time thinking refunds were still limited. Still not inclined to abuse it since I'm pretty confident in my usual upgrade spreads anyway, but it's good to keep in mind I suppose.
Whatever ends up happening MVM should remove ammo. Engineer is already good due to teleporters and the wrangler, he doesn't need me bloodsucking his dispenser all game to feel important.
Did you just forget about the shield, revives and almost every other change in 2cities? Also, Milk syringes are actually extremely powerful, as they build 1% uber for every x points of health healed to allies. Tag a giant on a heavy with low health and watch the uber % fly up
@@zaezae64 Scout exists... but maybe I'll queue up in boot camp and go full syringe medic, for shites and giggles. If only the Syringes had the mad milk slow effect...
@@deskslam4232 Scout does not have a massive projectile shield that makes all robots unable to shoot for 8 seconds, nor does he have uber/kritz or canteen sharing.
I guess I'm a bit split on this, because, you make a great argument about the initial design being based around a trade off system sort of, with you sacrificing either current or future survivability in order to have a bit of easier time against a wave that's dominated by a specific damage type, but, that form of it also feels like you'd either need to know each and every wave like back of your hand in order to potentially not permanently handicap yourself for something you didn't know would happen (like pyros only in the first wave like you showed in disk deletion) or, potentially more likely, need to do a bunch of research ahead of time, which I think many would dislike having to do, along with, as others have made mention of, basically locking you into a class an entire mission if you don't want to use the strategy you make mention of with your example about spy (Though, this is coming from someone who joined long after two cities came out, so, I have zero experience with the pre-refund system)
Honestly... I don't think the refund button is a bad idea! It's mainly because casual mvm players have NO fucking clue what the waves are like. You're only told what will appear before it appears, and during a wave, you are completely blind to what's ahead to kill you. Not everyone is a god at mvm and knows everything about every wave in every mission for every difficulty.
For your next series on the Evolution of the tf2 mercs, could the next character you discuss be scout? I only ask this request because scout had many weapons that held there role as “Scunt Main Weapons” Such as the sandman or baby face blaster. To how others changed from worst to best like pocket pistol and crit a cola. But over all, this was truly a well done education video, props as always man. 👌
As someone who's been failing at the Boot Camp Intermediate missions (Yes, you read that right: _not_ the Advanced or Expert Missions), I appreciate the lowered barrier to entry. That's why my one and only Mann Up ticket is still collecting dust.
I think I went into a hiatus from TF2 before the refund button was a thing. Recently I went back to TF2 after Valve decided to start working on updates a bit more, so going to MvM with refunds was extremely OP. Even not being aware of the meta of MvM was very easy to just go a class and go wild per wave. I'm not going to pretend to be upset about the refunds, it certainly made it much more less sweaty, which I'll argue helped to make these matches more enjoyable. But of course, there was something about making a build and then having to implement strategies to work around certain waves. So how to balance this? Maybe have a different MvM Playlist with a set of waves without refunds / numbered ones, maybe even get better rewards for finishing them. It would certainly help to pit the normal from the sweaty players, because I play PvE for the more lax co-op, I don't want some rando to be screaming on the mic/chat for the littlest thing, it suddenly feels like running a daycare over a videogame. Coordination with randoms will always be an issue with competitive games, it's different from joining a match with randoms than with a group of friends. So maybe the competitive MvM can allow for the more coordinated players to enjoy while the people who just play for fun with randoms don't have to deal with the sweat. With this said, also better information on the entire wave list could be appreciated. Sure you could look up a wiki to see what you will be fighting against, but I think the game should convey that information within. Maybe something that can tell you what upgrades could work for current and further enemies. Just a thought. To conclude, I had made a map for MvM named Total War (based on conker's bad fur day) and it was simple to go through with a couple of players before refunds, I bet now it's a breeze to go by.
I very specifically remember the days when refund tokens were a thing. Then years after, I played MvM with a few friends. They asked me if they should refund, and I told them not to waste their refund token. Then they told me that they could just refund all they wanted, and I was immediately confused. With that revelation, we beat the whole thing easily.
The examples you chose to show refunds making the mode easier are just examples of why they were not well designed early on, not just simply more difficult. Without refunds, classes like pyro and spy would be borderline unusable. Overall mvm was made better by the change.
I see the point you're making here, but I disagree. Yes, it is true that refunds (and several other balance changes, let's be fair) ruined Valve's MVM missions to the point where the oldest "expert" missions barely register as advanced to good players. I think, however, this might have been necessary for a different kind of enjoyment to thrive. Now the "metagame" of MVM upgrades is not planning ahead, but maximizing your effectiveness with the money you're given. Community MVM, in particular, has allowed this mode of operation to become far more dynamic and fun than any of Valve's missions ever were. Community missions often grant less money, and have hoards of robots that make valve's missions look like a cakewalk. For people looking for a challenge, look at any Advanced mission made in the modern day. I understand you're lamenting the death of "MVM as it was intended", but with Valve out of the development picture now the players themselves had innovate, and they made Refunds into a much more fun and balanced option.
@@HistoryRepeats445 The ones from november of 2007 which only 20 people got and out of thoses 20 people only 2 are left today because the other 18 got their accounts ban or deleted by user and thoses 2 left do not want to sell their rare crate because they want to wait for the price go up to the point of being able to buy 3 golden pans by just selling 1 of thoses crates so good luck getting the friends drop from thoses crates since they stop dropping on dezember of 2007
I feel like the obvious solution is to have refunds not work for last round's upgrades. I thought of that in like ten minutes but Valve hasn't thought of that in eleven years.
I started playing TF2 seriously circa 2016-2017. I never knew there was a time where refunds were upgraded, and I've done over 1000 tours across three operations and two accounts since! I always thought it was a part of the game, and that the difficulty levels were more about volume of robots than actual difficulty...
I think something a lot of people miss about this topic is the issue of what happens when someone leaves and someone new joins. Being effectively, that's automatically a free refund, right? It's not like you can lock the new player into the old player's upgrades. They might not even have the weapons used! But if refunds were restricted while new joiners got to choose whatever they want... then doesn't that mean replacing players puts you at an advantage? That you can get a player to take upgrades relevant to the early waves, make them leave, and get someone new to take different upgrades?
I feel like everyone had a chance to shine pre-refund era, you were strapped on cash and had choices to make, but the ace you had was that you had 6 people to make those choices. Sometimes one guy would focus his credits to clear a certain wave, then another guy bites the bullet to make the next one simpler Sometimes you'd have to forgo finishing wave 1 and ask someone to stall the robots as long as possible so you could use wave 1 to refund your upgrades before continuing onwards. I remember struggling to think of how to best use the upgrades I had available to push forwards, but all of that feels meaningless now that I can infinitely refund for the perfect class/build selection each wave. If you're a good player you probably don't need the refund except for a few niche scenarios (in the context of only valve's mvm content), but the fact you can swap to the perfectly optimal setup at any point inbetween waves feels crazy to me, you don't really need to make choices anymore I wasn't familiar with the history of how the finite refunds became infinite but seeing valve's response on it is both... heartbreaking but unsurprising simultaneously
It really seems to me like they should have left all three of these as separate options for MvM servers. Always refund, single token refund, and never refund.
I feel like the waves/missions should just be longer/harder. Instead of adding new gimmicks like not letting the player refund without special tokens, just say you’re only allowed to do it outside of a wave, and make the waves themselves more challenging. I understand the part of wanting a challenge for the veterans, but, MvM has been out for YEARS now. If they’re still being challenged by the same handful of missions, then I say they might want to try a different game. Wave 666 is always ungodly fun for me and I still go back to play it from time to time, that being said, it was once challenging but now it’s a joke with a semi-good team. I want to see more content like it, some new that I can play with. While I agree that mvm needs some new challenges, I don’t feel like limiting players for the sake of challenge is good, at least in my opinion. I’d rather have to fight a new threat that I’m unprepared for and have to adapt than fight the same threat with a hand tied behind my back
You can use the vaccinator and/or wrapped assassin on wave one on any mission with $700 or more starting to literally get infinite credits. A refund glitch lets you create $150 - $200 each refund and increase your money each refund.
despite never having played MvM before infinite refunds, I almost never found myself(or my friends) using it this way. I only ever used refunds when the current set up of my team couldn't beat waves after multiple attempts, especially since i only play in boot camp where this often is needed.
after this video release: we made a refund buttom presser script if anyone press that button i will kick you - tacobots nah seriously i love this type of videos documental story of tf2 is really enjoyable i had the best enjoy time while eating and watching
the problem could be mitigated by making refunds only available if a team of players lose on the same wave multiple times, at least twice. it would give newbie players and teams a chance to reconsider their upgrade options and not make a mission completely hopeless because a group of newer players didn't meticulously study the meta.
Frankly, the comparison between rocket jumping and refunds isn’t applicable. Replacing rocket jumps with a button that makes you fly for a bit is what’s known as a crutch: something that makes it way easier for inexperienced players, but heavily hinders more experienced players. The Refund button, on the other hand, gives more versatility for old and new alike. The problem is with design. The missions weren’t designed with this in mind. If they had, it’d likely be just as fun, because you feel like you’re given every option to tackle a challenge, but it’s more down to skill. The reason the refund token was given in the first place was because letting one mistake at the start of the round destroy the mission in hard-to-foresee ways wasn’t fun. The real problem is that Valve isn’t ever gonna update anything significantly in TF2, short of a miracle, so the waves that needed updating around these balances will never get updated.
My Pitch. A difficulty slider that changes how much a refund your get. Very Easy: Full Refund Easy: Half Refund Normal: Quarter Refund Hard: No Refunds.
i dont think ive ever even considered exploiting refunds in all my time playing MvM, and i actually quite like how its handled in Boot Camp, but i definitely agree that the Mann Up missions should either partially or fully lock you out of refunds
I always wondered how, after so much pain of trying to beat Operation Mecha Engine with competent players was, I was able to beat Operation Two Cities with my friends who barely (in some cases, never) played MvM Despite it feeling unusual to me, I completely forgot that older MvM didn't have a refund button, which now explains everything to me
![[TF2] MvM is in Serious Trouble](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/id_bNTpdG9Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to Fight Every Class With the Dragon's Fury (And Win!) [TF2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8JbyoBhOhcY/mqdefault.jpg)
I can’t even remember a time where the refund button wasn’t available. The research and effort that goes into your videos always makes them among the best TF2 content that youtube has to offer, awesome work as usual!!
Pretty sure I remember the refund button being a thing, but it actually costed you money to use it originally (think something like 500-1000 creds)?. Then they made it free
steve jobs is my dad, he'll sell you crystal meth
Also medic couldn't revive, and had no shield.
Wait shit, it wasn't just me?! when MVM first came out even the easier difficulties felt challenging. after watching recent MVM content I always assumed I was just... bad
My man's got gaslighted
its also really fun now because you can play with multiple classes every game
@@GabrielAidley dude got gaspassed
Same here. I remember it being too hard to be fun for someone who was mostly a Sniper main at the time. He kinda poked why they did it while talking about MvM's balance though, it's hard to keep the exact same stats balanced AND fun across both PvP and PvE gamemodes, a lot of stuff that worked fine in PvP had to be nerfed for MvM's PvE balance and it just wasn't doable to balance for both constantly.
it turns out the game was rigged form the VERY STRAAAAAAAAAAAAAART
Dude, this video was so good. Infinite upgrades have always been a dicey topic because it's actually a discussion that goes beyond the argument of Gameplay > Loot or Loot > Gameplay. The added variety serves to make things a lot more enjoyable rather than be confined to one class and loadout combo the entire game, on a personal note I enjoy it a lot.
That said, it's still fucking broken. Ideally if Valve were going to go this route they should have boosted the numbers on every robot in the game to compensate, be it in damage, hp or sheer quantity. Of course, such an ask is laughable, so I think something worth testing would be an ever-increasing refund price tag. Perhaps it starts at $500 credits and adds another $500 per each use? At least then you get the benefit of the added variety, but something to offset that perk. Idk, just spit-balling. Great video though!
@WeezyTF2 Did you find it frustrating how Valve made it so that you can only inspect the upgrades and weapons of those who were in your Friends List and/or in your party?
@@Loner098 Absolutely, I plan on going extremely in depth on it at a later date.
@@WeezyTF2 Even DEWILL already made a video about that. Also, regarding MVM just a little bit, do you think Casual should also have a "Join game in progress" option button like MVM?
@@Loner098 100%
Alternatively, keep track of how many times a player refunds their upgrades and give players a special reward or badge just for completing a mission or tour "refundless". Maybe an extra weapon at the end of a drop, or even a free "Squad Surplus" ticket if the entire team works together to beat a mission without refunds. That way you can get the best of both worlds: refunds and variety if you just want to enjoy the mission and get your sea legs, or hardcore no-refund challenges for those who want to try something more tough.
I think the addition with the refund button made mvm fun since you can swap around classes to better suit the corresponding wave for an easier time. That said I also miss not having it as it forces the player to spend wisely with their upgrades. Also miss able to inspect player weapon upgrades so I would play around with it to actually finish a wave. I’m not the type to judge your play style and mvm upgrade choices so long you get the job done
It's pretty easy to ignore the refund button.
Myself I don't really use it ever. If all I cared about was winning, I'd lower the difficulty instead.
I think there should be no infinite refunds allowed in Expert (or at least a different sub-type of Expert that is warned on the select mission screen).
Of course, they’ll have to make sure refund tokens are given back when you fail the wave you used them on first.
If Valve were to ever touch MvM again, I'd want them to add special missions that brought back the refund token or removed refund altogether, in exchange for a higher chance at getting rarer loot.
Yes, all the yes. I don't think it should be aussies tho as that would significantly affect value but getting anything else but garbage would be a great, assuming it's the same price as any ticket.
@@patrickcrabb6212 Perhaps the tokens could be restricted to Mann Up; cause I see Boot Camp as a sort of "training mode" for mvm.
Do you think they can also re-allow the ability to inspect *anyone's* upgrades since they removed that feature in the Summer 2021 update? Oh, and just like MVM, why not also add a "Join game in progress" button for Casual?
for being honest if they add another mvm update i just want new giants
imagine a fucking giant with a fucking chainsaw that fucking melts you at melee range making heavy not tank the robot making soldier demo and sniper more viable options
or a wave where the tank haves a turret
atleast they should just make new aussies how hard is just gold texture the weapons, i really want aussie wrap assasin
@@Thorn4504 Yeah, and even within harder Mann Up missions the refund token is removed entirely. With the idea being harder mission better loot, same aussie drops tho so that market value isn't affect by this change. I don't want more cheaters in Mvm. Killstreak kits would devalue of course as their isn't a way to get rid of them in any useful way which is something I would want to see implemented, but I don't think we're going to get a Mann-Conomy Update 2.0.
While the inability to refund before might have added a lot of a challenge the problem was that you were essentially locked to one class. I honestly think refunds fundamentally was a much healthier choice for the gamestate of MVM.
This videos is more about the decision to completely un-cap refunds rather than removing them all-together
True, though if you want to compromise you could add missions or make it a feature that if you beat a mission without refunds, you get more loot or something. Or make it so the refund button only appears if you fail a wave.
Refunds don't restrict you to one class because most classes don't really need that many credits to do their jobs. Scout, Pyro, Heavy, Engi, and Sniper have pretty cheap upgrades so if you spend only a few or no credits wave 1, you could easily swap to another class as needed for the rest of the waves.
I'm not quite sure the skill ceiling for MvM has decreased - at least not to the hyperbolic degree of replacing rocket jumping to a single button press, the skill of being able to plan out what upgrades you get so you can tackle every wave in your role has been replaced by the skill of being able to recognize what's not working right with either your build or the team composition as a whole and course correcting for that. And, sure, one can say that skill is made redundant by planning out an upgrade path for a mission in advance or by just looking up what classes are best for which wave in a given mission but, well, in game players don't see what the future waves are, nor how many credits they'll have for the next wave. And while some players like the challenge of minmaxing with all that information in mind, I'm sure others - at least myself included - feel like I'm spoiling myself on my own challenge by having that complete foresight.
As for cost-benefits in a general sense, I'm a bit more mixed.
I'm not sure preserving the difficulty of Disk Deletion's first wave trap is really worth saving honestly - players aren't told fire damage will literally never come up for the rest of the mission so it's not so much a choice between and early mission crutch and money in the bank but instead being cheated out of their money the first time they run the mission.
And without a refund how could one justify playing and learning classes like spy in missions where the first three waves are horrendously spy hostile - sure, the refund token would let you switch to spy, but if it's not working or you miss a key upgrade, you're stuck like that! Without a refund you'd be switching off a class that you know works and which you've invested funds in to play a class where you'd have less funds to work with out of the gate.
But, as you've stated, it can be abused to only needing to pull out a class like the pyro when a tank shows up, and while infinite refunds does allow for far more experimentation, players will surely optimize the hell and fun out of doing so.
Though, I will say that getting to the last wave of a mission and feeling like you can't tackle it with your current loadout is painful. What are you going to do - ask the other five players to restart to try and optimize? Just leave, or wait for someone else to leave so the drop in player can just optimize for the last wave? Speaking of drop in players, infinite refunds does mean that the drop in player isn't forced to take up whatever role the person who left had, and in general players can be more flexible with teambuilding and how they accomplish their roles instead of feeling like they've locked into a composition and have to run their heads into a brick wall to force it to work because no one wants to call a start from wave 1.
I think the ideal solution would be for Value to update the mission design philosophy of harder MvM missions going forward - having waves that challenge all roles (tank destruction, crowd control, etc) simultaneously (or in whatever way would best account for the players' new ability to switch between waves). Or, even if they don't change said philosophy and focus on taxing one role at a time, just making a new Advanced or Expert level tour so that the players can't leverage nearly nine years' worth of experience tackling the same maps and just infinitely switching to what is well known at this point to be the most efficient option each wave. But we know that's not going to happen.
I honestly almost never used the refund button when I played MvM outside of correcting mistakes or change class, and it was actually pretty fun not having the credits for important stuff. But then again, I was really new to MvM and barely knew anything about it, so maybe that had something to do with it.
Part of why I feel that “planing upgrades and class choice” was a bad decision was that it fed heavily into MVM toxicity. It’s information easily available in a guide yes but at the same time it’s incredibly pigeonholing as each tour has pretty much one way to play optimally either you had the skill to play “the right way” or you’re kicked. I don’t even blame people for the kicking as locked in upgrades meant that if your entire team wasn’t playing optimally the entire mission it was possible to outright fail the mission back to wave one wasting your entire time spent.
This is what Alex Jaffe calls "Cursed Problems in Game Design". When you promise players two inherently contradictory things. I think something very similar to the situation in MvM was part of it. In essence, Valve are promising that both 1) You can pick a class and upgrades that is fun for you; and 2) The mode requires strategising with your team to pick the right class and upgrades. These two are incompatible. Given that 1) was already a prominent part of MvM, I can see why Valve opted to drop 2) by default. Though I would also like to see them add a variant where freedom to choose class and upgrades is dropped. I imagine you would have several balanced team comps per mission, with several balanced upgrade paths for the entire team, and decide which upgrade path to pick by vote at the end of each round.
This would leave you with 3 flavours of MvM
1) Infinite refunds fun.
2) Balanced challenge.
3) Whatever you want, make your own server and set the flags how you like it, see if you can find a better comp with no refunds than what Valve have on offer, go nuts.
Right now Valve are saying that 1) is their vision for MvM and I guess that's ok, but I would like 2) in an official capacity as well. Because there is no point in letting people pick their class and upgrades if there is only a handful of correct choices. Either give players full freedom, or constrain them to picking one of several correct choices. Like, in an MMO I can queue for a raid with a party of all healers for funsies, but the default is to require a standard balanced comp of tank, healers and dps.
@@pleaserespond3984 You say that there should be a way to have strategic high-level play in an official capacity without realizing that it is moronically easy to implement in an unofficial capacity. One only needs to look at TF2's competitive scene to get an idea of what I'm talking about: people have taken the 12-a-side pubs with random crits, really unbalanced design (unless you think 3 demos and 3 medics is moderately fair and balanced) and a ridiculous potential to stalemate and turned it into an eSport.
I have no sympathy for the MVM community. If they can be as big and as committed as they are, they can do what communities a fraction of their size do on the regular in speedrunning.
Breaking game balance in a futile attempt to reduce toxicity is a horrible idea. It wasn't even that bad beforehand, most high tours were happy to offer help to people who were willing to hear it. It was mostly the dicks who refused to communicate or adjust who got the boot. A player's upgrades didn't even have to be perfect or completely optimal, just making an effort to upgrade well was usually good enough.
Also, sometimes in a co op game people don't want to play with you. Getting kicked sucks, I've been there many times but those players weren't obligated to deal with my shitty performance. I don't know why the modern TF2 playerbase can't handle that.
@@pleaserespond3984adding salt to the wound, there is an achievement you get by playing an entire mission with a single class, for each one of the nine classes
Good luck finding someone who lets you play an entire mission as Spy for the achievement
I can kind of see how this dilemma was probably why in Splatoon's PVE mode, Salmon Run, every player is given a random selection of weapons to use.
Now we need a oldschool hardcore mvm server
I have always had a vague memory of refunds being limited when I first started playing mvm and being surprised when they weren’t, glad to know I wasn’t crazy! Also explains just how much harder it was
A well made video on the whole. While I disagree with your sentiments on Unlimited Refunds you presented your points well, you gave credit where it was due and didn't marginalize any groups in favor of the change, and everything was excellently researched and presented. Nice job, mate.
Personally i like the refunds. it makes the game so much more fun.
I see a lot of suggestions saying to make the refund system be based on the mission difficulty (Normal, Advanced, Expert), but I think it would've made more sense to allow refunds in Boot Camp and disallow them in Mann Up.
I agree.
Yeah you are more likely to refund more in harder difficulty because robot is way stronger so make it harder to refund in those dosn't make sense it better to make it a separated mode instead.
@@staregineer it does makes sense, it restores the original balance
the refund button was made for beginners to reverse mistakes they made, so it makes sense to keep it in beginner mode, but not in expert mode
@@minignoux4566 No it not because even with refund button many causal player can't beat the expert because unlike it on easy you really need a right upgrade to beat strong robot with out Refund button on Expert the causal player can't experiment and learn why they upgrade wasn't work in each round of enemy,You can't compare weak robot in easy mode to strong robot in expert mode that why it make more sense to let normal mode for Causal where they can train and Learn and do no refund or limited use on seperated mode like MannUP,hell you can even make no Refund mode for Normal to use for training for MannUP.
@@staregineer remember that there was a time without refunds, it's beatable, just really hard
and, oh, it's trying to be that
0:13 Wait, you can CRIT GAS PASSERS?!
Amazing video as always. Would love to hear your name more often in the tf2 community :)
Congrats on your channel blowing up! I remember when you were under 1K subs!
I get the game could be trivialized but that button is really helpful for playing with randoms.
imagine a mission designed around this feature
wave1: pyros (fire)
wave2: soldiers and demomans (blast damage)
wave3: giant crits soldiers and demos (crit and blast damagw)
wave4: demoknights and pyros (fire and health upgrades)
wave5: huntsman snipers (speed upgrade or airblast)
the cycle repeats
"Try playing without refunds for a change"
Last time i played TF2 refund wasn't even a thing.
before watching the video i will say that my opinion is, i like having refund as an option because it lets you teach newer players what to do if they'll listen. you don't need to kick them for choosing a tour that is way too difficult for them, you don't need to requeue and find another better lobby, you can just tell them what to do and what upgrades to get and everything may end up fine. I don't use it much myself because i do find it boring (and annoying) to swap upgrades around a lot, unless it's just to screw around on the last wave when we're already destroying.
Edit: this opinion has not changed from watching the video, i prefer having the option over not having it, but i don't tend to use it much myself because i do find it more fun that way
I think making it so you can only refund if you lose the wave is a compromise. Then we can balance around that. Most people don't even utilize refund THAT much anyway like you're saying. These are good points.
It helpful when one of support class like Engy or Medic drop out mid or near last wave so i can change to fill in those class with full upgrade instead of play the rest of the wave with no support or wait too long for new player to join so everybody left.
@@billyaepicgamer8642 personally i would bring back the refund tokens, but instead of how it worked before you'd have access to it right from the start, and on wave 1 you get infinite refunds until you clear the wave. but i'm also fine just leaving it as is
@@billyaepicgamer8642 refund after losing a wave sounds good
This video proves that MvM wasn't solely about the loot, which a lot of people don't seem to understand sadly.
Idk i only play mvm for the loot.
10:26 I just cannot believe this, I'm the guy who made that post i just got mindblown.
Small world
Your content is spectacular. You’re my favorite TF2 RUclipsr
I forgot about the good changes Valve did to MvM...
What also angered me a lot regarding refunds was that you only need ONE player to refund to trivialize a wave. You could decide to not use refunds yourself but the moment someone else does, the need for cooperation between players is pretty much gone and it became pointless to not refund yourself.
I will always remember the confusion, the rage, the overall mess when infinite refunds was added. A single-line of a patch note that broke an entire community...
I would have honestly accepted if that infinite refund was only available after losing a wave or when joining a mission for the first time, so that it could be used as intended : to help fix mistakes. Not to just cheese through everything.
I remember getting yelled about me buying upgrades that werent good when mvm first came out and there was no refund button lmao
I think the best solution would be to allow "infinite" refunds, but make it have a cost. You have to lose the round twice before you can get your token, and then it still sets you back a wave the first time (have it be a vote similar to restart mission), and in mann up, add a reward for never refunding. Every time after the vote passes you still have to lose a wave to activate it, but it won't set you back a wave.
Or alternatively, sell it for the credits like canteen charges. You can switch at a low but non-zero cost. (Maybe every refund takes $400 permanently.)
Does that mean that there's community servers with the old token for refund?
Amazing research, I've learned more about MVM and why it feel so easy.
I wonder if needing to spend credits to refund your credits would be a good idea. Similar to canteens, the credits used to purchase them would be lost forever making it more punishing the more you used it. If used every wave, the later waves could yield you with anywhere between 500-1000 less credits, but if used sparingly, some waves would be struggling but the later waves are slightly easier.
On another note, I like that you are able to switch between classes. Mainly due to the fact that if someone is lacking in their class/role, you can offer to switch classes/roles with them.
For the longest time, I didn't even know that this button was added. I tried MvM in the good old days and did not enjoy it because people kept yelling at me. When I came back to it, I never even thought to look for a refund button. Then for a while I used the hell out of it until I figured out what worked well for the classes I enjoy. Now I pretty much have a game plan before I go in and don't use the button.
"video games are for fun"
*every cod sweat hated that*
You never disappoint with these videos, great b roll footage, clearly did a lot of research, your hard work did not go unnoticed
The people who complain about refunds are the same people who go sticky demo with a kritz medic up their ass
just dont press it, like get into a party of sweats and agree not to press it
Honestly it's for the best that infinite refunds exist, i can't imagine how steep the learning curve would become for new players
I thought you could only do it once. I had no idea it was infinite lol.
Idea: The easy missions have infi refunds, 2 cities and Mecha Engi require tokens, Expert doesn’t have one at all.
An ideal change would be that only mann up would have refund tokens across ALL tours.
Yeah, the vid misses out on a few key things here and there. Like his first scenario, just crit res was what you would use to just counter the problem.
*Shia LaBeouf Clapping Gif*
I never even use the refund button personally.
IMO this was completely fine. Pressure and meta is not something that _has_ to be in PvE, it's a PvP thing. In PvE, when there's nobody to steamroll and nobody to steamroll you, you can relax and just *play a game,* not hone your sportsmanship skills and work your ass off. The original design of MvM was centered around a lose-lose proposition, and then it went to a win-win one, simple as that. Those who want constant pressure and adrenaline rushes, who like refined tactics quickly becoming the only viable ones - they are all welcome to join the cybersport leagues. We the scrubs who play for simple relaxing fun won't intrude on you there, so don't come to our sandbox and whine that you can't play the same way here as you could in yours. Because this is not your sandbox. We got over it, you get over it.
great video! unfortunately, i think the infinite refund in a necessary evil. my friends still cant beat the easier difficulties and i can't carry them without it.
But that's the nature of mvm, is it not? At least initially. I mean it's a co-op mode, meaning one person shouldn't be able to carry an entire team, in being able to, it renders the cooperative nature obsolete, right?
@@mayo_-Boom. This is the solid argument here. This is why there are people calling for the nerfing of ScoRes, Sniper, Spy, and EoI. Because people want to play the game. This seems to be a difficult concept for many people.
The EOI people will be like, "ummm ScoRes is strong too, I wanna help out." and "something something Tacobot"
The ScoRes people will be like, "he takes skill because you have to memorize the waves so it's okay"
@@mayo_- except that in every other game on the planet, a single good player *can* carry a bad but not actively malicious team.
@@billyaepicgamer8642 yeah sniper and eoi is op but how would you nerf scotres. scotres is pretty mediocre outside of non 2cities missions due to pacing
@@ihazsucks Maybe lower the value of the ScoRes stickies? But yeah, "make better missions" is the "nerf". In community MvM, what happens is, ScoRes destroys the first giant, maybe the second if Gaben blessed you. But then Demo can't react to the third one quickly enough or the flank spawned another giant.
I usually bring up ScoRes because the whataboutism is getting old and it's a handy "stay on topic" card.
Very good
Nice vid, but just some info. When MvM first came out you could "refund"; you would leave the server then get re-invited in. The game would not keep your score or upgrades. So you could refund even from day one.
On the bright side, newer community-made MvM campaigns are accounting for this new system, making them a different game of finding the right combination every wave for very unique situations. I'm not unhappy with it since thanks to the community, I still get to face a good challenge!
This was a good video and it gets my snurly seal of approval
Re-Introducing refunds in the current year would more or less just make people play generalists classes if anything (e.g. Pyro/Soldier/Scout/Sniper). Although it would bring back the challenge, it'd be certainly stale under certain instances.
Also, 5:28 -- Spy used to only do the regular 750 damage backstab which was interesting (for reference, the 188 backstab damage wasn't present unless upgrading 1 tick of armor pen), but it got a slight buff for todays standards (938). Good video nonetheless though, enjoyed the content!
The one thing I like about infinite refunds is it allows for the legendary meme strat of picking random class every wave and sticking with what you get until you beat it. If you play with a party and have never tried this I highly recommend it. Fuck abusing it though.
I remember the thought put behind each purchase and its upgrade path, and waiting a bit before getting an upgrade to get the money mid-mission
Iv been playing tf2 for almost 7 years and I had no idea that at one point the refund button didn't exist
“Spy is boarderline overpowered against Giant Robots, especially Giant Medics”
Finally someone says it! You have earned my respect and subscription.
Hi
Even before refund tokens there was the dark magic of... Somebody leaving the game and a fresh player joining in. Got full unspent credits
this aged well
I think the argument that the button takes away a challenge is something of a stretch. Players who want to be challenged can agree not to refund (save, perhaps, for misclicks, which it also helps with), while others can refund as they please. When I play, I don't usually see it used except for when our Scout switches class on the last wave, with the exception of ultra-high tours.
Lister is saying that waves would be more challenging if you couldn't swap to Spy on Giant Med waves or Pyro vs tanks. Meaning if you went into a mission with I dunno (Scout, Soldier, Heavy, Heavy, Engie, Sniper), the tank is a bigger threat.
AND THANK YOU!!!!!! People are making it seem like it's high tours that are forcing people not to refund. If anything, the high tours are the ones that are more likely to swap every wave. Low tours tend to do it more "casually", if that makes sense. The refund police people are a minority of the veterans.
You earned my like.
Daaamn, I absolutely love MVM but didn't get into it til after the Infinite Refund patch so until now I actually thought the refund token was a thing original to some community missions. Definitely wouldn't mind seeing it added back into normal MVM.
valve - its not a bug its a feature
You've described lowering the skill floor, not the ceiling. The problem here isn't that Valve made skilled play impossible, it's that it's made easily bypassed. You aren't incapable of playing extremely well, or knowing what to expect, that hasn't changed; you can still be better than the game expects (expected, rather, as the rules have changed). You just aren't rewarded for achieving that anymore.
I don't have the experience in Mann Up to have weight behind any argument, but I do understand the gripe behind it being completely free. Driving assists in more modern games tend to come with a penalty - the Forza Motorsport games boost your rewards for disabling the racing line, traction control, anti-lock brakes, and introduced in FM3 (or was it 4), automatic braking when you enter a corner way too fast. Some games, as far as I am aware, don't - wipE'out" since HD on the PS3 has an option to steer the agravs away from walls. I don't believe it punishes the player in any way for doing so, but I did try it out of curiosity to see how they did it - and honestly it seems like a great way to make someone think it's a garbage game because it hard steers the craft away from the wall, turning it into a pinball at speed classes above vector because you loose control of the ship as it auto-steers away from walls... into other walls.
So I guess my argument is that there _should_ be some form of cost to the refund, albeit possibly reduced/free if players failed their last wave - diminishing refund returns would probably frustrate players just as much as the old system of locking yourself into failing with the wrong upgrades before you could refund at all. The reduction should probably be tied to the difficulty; if you're playing on expert, you should probably know what you're doing first. If you failed a wave there, you knew what you signed up for.
"when you think of mann vs. machine, chances are that you just joined a casual server and was sniped by multiple bots"
This is the crazy thing about jumping ship on a game for multiple years. I kinda phased out of TF2 around late-2014, only really showing up around Halloween until Valve ruined that too with Merasmissions that don't let you trade the items you get. So I had no idea that the refund button was always-on now, and I've been playing MvM "like a scrub" because that's just how I remembered playing it.
I feel like the rocket jumping and refund comparison was kinda off, while that's an entirely new ability that trivializes rocket jumping, refunding can simply just be a choice
seeing this, I had an idea about it, at the beginning of a mission you have a limited quantity of refund tokens you can use throughout the wave, whether you have the same number of refund tokens as waves, allowing you to optimize the entire mission, or you had exactly one or even 0 throughout the mission. With math set up so that if you typed "retry" in the console, it would calculate the number of tokens you should have being "mission credit # - current wave # + 1", and your loadout and upgrades being saved to the server after wave 1 so you couldn't just "retry" to remove those upgrades even if you had no tokens.
This would allow the easy missions to still be easy, with the difficult missions either going for absolute spam but with a large amount of refunds so your refunds have to count to make it through the mission, or have minimal refunds so you have to think about what you should upgrade per wave, like how mvm originally was.
An option to either allow infinite refunds or to make them sparse or nonexistent would spice up how future missions would be made.
i played some mecha back in the day before refunds when i barley understood the game, in the last 3ish years i really have gotten into -gambling- sorry, MVM. specifically mecha and 2c and i couldnt agree more. i enjoy it's existence because i like being able to go huntsman sniper (explo headshot is more busted than gas pussies) and other troll classes but i do wish it was actually challenging. i enjoy the rare match where i find 5 newbies and we struggle. those 50-80 min challenging matches so feel so nostalgic
I've played MvM all this time thinking refunds were still limited. Still not inclined to abuse it since I'm pretty confident in my usual upgrade spreads anyway, but it's good to keep in mind I suppose.
Whatever ends up happening MVM should remove ammo. Engineer is already good due to teleporters and the wrangler, he doesn't need me bloodsucking his dispenser all game to feel important.
"Massive Buffs"
"Mad Milk Syringes Added"
*Demoman Laugh.mp3*
Did you just forget about the shield, revives and almost every other change in 2cities?
Also, Milk syringes are actually extremely powerful, as they build 1% uber for every x points of health healed to allies. Tag a giant on a heavy with low health and watch the uber % fly up
@@zaezae64 Scout exists... but maybe I'll queue up in boot camp and go full syringe medic, for shites and giggles. If only the Syringes had the mad milk slow effect...
@@deskslam4232 Scout does not have a massive projectile shield that makes all robots unable to shoot for 8 seconds, nor does he have uber/kritz or canteen sharing.
I guess I'm a bit split on this, because, you make a great argument about the initial design being based around a trade off system sort of, with you sacrificing either current or future survivability in order to have a bit of easier time against a wave that's dominated by a specific damage type, but, that form of it also feels like you'd either need to know each and every wave like back of your hand in order to potentially not permanently handicap yourself for something you didn't know would happen (like pyros only in the first wave like you showed in disk deletion) or, potentially more likely, need to do a bunch of research ahead of time, which I think many would dislike having to do, along with, as others have made mention of, basically locking you into a class an entire mission if you don't want to use the strategy you make mention of with your example about spy
(Though, this is coming from someone who joined long after two cities came out, so, I have zero experience with the pre-refund system)
After playing Killing Floor 2 since 2017, I can safely say the same is happening in that game too.
another masterpiece, waiting 3 months for a video pays off
Honestly... I don't think the refund button is a bad idea!
It's mainly because casual mvm players have NO fucking clue what the waves are like.
You're only told what will appear before it appears, and during a wave, you are completely blind to what's ahead to kill you.
Not everyone is a god at mvm and knows everything about every wave in every mission for every difficulty.
**plays Scout**
Team: :D
**Switches to damage Scout on the last wave**
Team:KICK EM
and still collect A+
For your next series on the Evolution of the tf2 mercs, could the next character you discuss be scout?
I only ask this request because scout had many weapons that held there role as “Scunt Main Weapons”
Such as the sandman or baby face blaster. To how others changed from worst to best like pocket pistol and crit a cola.
But over all, this was truly a well done education video, props as always man. 👌
As someone who's been failing at the Boot Camp Intermediate missions (Yes, you read that right: _not_ the Advanced or Expert Missions), I appreciate the lowered barrier to entry. That's why my one and only Mann Up ticket is still collecting dust.
Good video. I started playing MvM during the two cities update, but I forgot that refund credits were a thing
I think I went into a hiatus from TF2 before the refund button was a thing. Recently I went back to TF2 after Valve decided to start working on updates a bit more, so going to MvM with refunds was extremely OP. Even not being aware of the meta of MvM was very easy to just go a class and go wild per wave.
I'm not going to pretend to be upset about the refunds, it certainly made it much more less sweaty, which I'll argue helped to make these matches more enjoyable. But of course, there was something about making a build and then having to implement strategies to work around certain waves.
So how to balance this? Maybe have a different MvM Playlist with a set of waves without refunds / numbered ones, maybe even get better rewards for finishing them. It would certainly help to pit the normal from the sweaty players, because I play PvE for the more lax co-op, I don't want some rando to be screaming on the mic/chat for the littlest thing, it suddenly feels like running a daycare over a videogame.
Coordination with randoms will always be an issue with competitive games, it's different from joining a match with randoms than with a group of friends. So maybe the competitive MvM can allow for the more coordinated players to enjoy while the people who just play for fun with randoms don't have to deal with the sweat.
With this said, also better information on the entire wave list could be appreciated. Sure you could look up a wiki to see what you will be fighting against, but I think the game should convey that information within. Maybe something that can tell you what upgrades could work for current and further enemies. Just a thought.
To conclude, I had made a map for MvM named Total War (based on conker's bad fur day) and it was simple to go through with a couple of players before refunds, I bet now it's a breeze to go by.
This game still holds surprises to me, which I found surprising in it of itself
I very specifically remember the days when refund tokens were a thing. Then years after, I played MvM with a few friends. They asked me if they should refund, and I told them not to waste their refund token. Then they told me that they could just refund all they wanted, and I was immediately confused. With that revelation, we beat the whole thing easily.
The examples you chose to show refunds making the mode easier are just examples of why they were not well designed early on, not just simply more difficult. Without refunds, classes like pyro and spy would be borderline unusable. Overall mvm was made better by the change.
Spy would have been plenty usable, if not borderline fun if Valve didn't make the dumb decision of nerfing the YER in MvM specifically, tbh.
You don't need refunds to play pyro or spy. You can perfectly play them from wave 1.
I see the point you're making here, but I disagree. Yes, it is true that refunds (and several other balance changes, let's be fair) ruined Valve's MVM missions to the point where the oldest "expert" missions barely register as advanced to good players. I think, however, this might have been necessary for a different kind of enjoyment to thrive. Now the "metagame" of MVM upgrades is not planning ahead, but maximizing your effectiveness with the money you're given. Community MVM, in particular, has allowed this mode of operation to become far more dynamic and fun than any of Valve's missions ever were. Community missions often grant less money, and have hoards of robots that make valve's missions look like a cakewalk. For people looking for a challenge, look at any Advanced mission made in the modern day. I understand you're lamenting the death of "MVM as it was intended", but with Valve out of the development picture now the players themselves had innovate, and they made Refunds into a much more fun and balanced option.
Man old MvM sounds more fun
You can still play old MVM heres how you do it:
-You do not press the refund button
@@alface935 Teammates
@@HistoryRepeats445 Private room with your friends with all of them not pressing the refund button
@@alface935 Friends? which crates drop those?
@@HistoryRepeats445 The ones from november of 2007 which only 20 people got and out of thoses 20 people only 2 are left today because the other 18 got their accounts ban or deleted by user and thoses 2 left do not want to sell their rare crate because they want to wait for the price go up to the point of being able to buy 3 golden pans by just selling 1 of thoses crates so good luck getting the friends drop from thoses crates since they stop dropping on dezember of 2007
I feel like the obvious solution is to have refunds not work for last round's upgrades. I thought of that in like ten minutes but Valve hasn't thought of that in eleven years.
ah day 1 mvm, 3 maps, 3 tours, and if you were running a heavy you were pretty well and doomed.
So I wasn't insane remembering that there weren't the refund button before
I started playing TF2 seriously circa 2016-2017. I never knew there was a time where refunds were upgraded, and I've done over 1000 tours across three operations and two accounts since! I always thought it was a part of the game, and that the difficulty levels were more about volume of robots than actual difficulty...
This is why I love Wave 666.
I think something a lot of people miss about this topic is the issue of what happens when someone leaves and someone new joins. Being effectively, that's automatically a free refund, right? It's not like you can lock the new player into the old player's upgrades. They might not even have the weapons used! But if refunds were restricted while new joiners got to choose whatever they want... then doesn't that mean replacing players puts you at an advantage? That you can get a player to take upgrades relevant to the early waves, make them leave, and get someone new to take different upgrades?
I feel like everyone had a chance to shine pre-refund era, you were strapped on cash and had choices to make, but the ace you had was that you had 6 people to make those choices.
Sometimes one guy would focus his credits to clear a certain wave, then another guy bites the bullet to make the next one simpler
Sometimes you'd have to forgo finishing wave 1 and ask someone to stall the robots as long as possible so you could use wave 1 to refund your upgrades before continuing onwards.
I remember struggling to think of how to best use the upgrades I had available to push forwards, but all of that feels meaningless now that I can infinitely refund for the perfect class/build selection each wave.
If you're a good player you probably don't need the refund except for a few niche scenarios (in the context of only valve's mvm content), but the fact you can swap to the perfectly optimal setup at any point inbetween waves feels crazy to me, you don't really need to make choices anymore
I wasn't familiar with the history of how the finite refunds became infinite but seeing valve's response on it is both... heartbreaking but unsurprising simultaneously
It really seems to me like they should have left all three of these as separate options for MvM servers. Always refund, single token refund, and never refund.
I feel like the waves/missions should just be longer/harder. Instead of adding new gimmicks like not letting the player refund without special tokens, just say you’re only allowed to do it outside of a wave, and make the waves themselves more challenging.
I understand the part of wanting a challenge for the veterans, but, MvM has been out for YEARS now. If they’re still being challenged by the same handful of missions, then I say they might want to try a different game.
Wave 666 is always ungodly fun for me and I still go back to play it from time to time, that being said, it was once challenging but now it’s a joke with a semi-good team. I want to see more content like it, some new that I can play with.
While I agree that mvm needs some new challenges, I don’t feel like limiting players for the sake of challenge is good, at least in my opinion. I’d rather have to fight a new threat that I’m unprepared for and have to adapt than fight the same threat with a hand tied behind my back
I completely forgot the Refund button wasnt there since release, yet again i was about 10 when i first started playing MvM. Good Times!
You can use the vaccinator and/or wrapped assassin on wave one on any mission with $700 or more starting to literally get infinite credits. A refund glitch lets you create $150 - $200 each refund and increase your money each refund.
despite never having played MvM before infinite refunds, I almost never found myself(or my friends) using it this way. I only ever used refunds when the current set up of my team couldn't beat waves after multiple attempts, especially since i only play in boot camp where this often is needed.
after this video release: we made a refund buttom presser script if anyone press that button i will kick you - tacobots
nah seriously i love this type of videos documental story of tf2 is really enjoyable i had the best enjoy time while eating and watching
the problem could be mitigated by making refunds only available if a team of players lose on the same wave multiple times, at least twice. it would give newbie players and teams a chance to reconsider their upgrade options and not make a mission completely hopeless because a group of newer players didn't meticulously study the meta.
Frankly, the comparison between rocket jumping and refunds isn’t applicable. Replacing rocket jumps with a button that makes you fly for a bit is what’s known as a crutch: something that makes it way easier for inexperienced players, but heavily hinders more experienced players. The Refund button, on the other hand, gives more versatility for old and new alike.
The problem is with design. The missions weren’t designed with this in mind. If they had, it’d likely be just as fun, because you feel like you’re given every option to tackle a challenge, but it’s more down to skill.
The reason the refund token was given in the first place was because letting one mistake at the start of the round destroy the mission in hard-to-foresee ways wasn’t fun.
The real problem is that Valve isn’t ever gonna update anything significantly in TF2, short of a miracle, so the waves that needed updating around these balances will never get updated.
as soon as we reach the last round of rottenberg everyone switches to pyro
Weird to think about a time when Valve gave a damn.
My Pitch. A difficulty slider that changes how much a refund your get.
Very Easy: Full Refund
Easy: Half Refund
Normal: Quarter Refund
Hard: No Refunds.
ok first time i played mvm no joke it took me 5 months to figure out the refund button
i technically challenged myself without realizing
Wait, you're telling me there's a refund button!?
i dont think ive ever even considered exploiting refunds in all my time playing MvM, and i actually quite like how its handled in Boot Camp, but i definitely agree that the Mann Up missions should either partially or fully lock you out of refunds
You can still get yelled at for playing the way you want in normal tf2, but it’s mostly by going friendly or meme strates
I always wondered how, after so much pain of trying to beat Operation Mecha Engine with competent players was, I was able to beat Operation Two Cities with my friends who barely (in some cases, never) played MvM
Despite it feeling unusual to me, I completely forgot that older MvM didn't have a refund button, which now explains everything to me