Team Fortress 2′s Revised Gameplay Mechanics

The people over at Valve seem to believe that scouts were an underpowered class on certain standard maps; my question is, have they ever seen anyone who is good at the class? Sure, the game is not marketed towards elitists who would rather tediously perfect the art of timing and count down in their heads the time it takes for health packs to respawn, but the new functionality of the scout is somewhat overwhelming.

As expected, Valve added one VERY useful melee weapon, and 2 utterly pointless utility items. Although, to be fair, the new drink that replaces the pistol can often substitute for a medic’s ubercharge on a well organized team; and now my complaining begins. Originally, the scout was a class that required a lot of dexterity to excel at. You had to be able to anticipate players’ actions, and jump around them to avoid their attacks.. it rewarded skilled players greatly and made poor players look horrible. Now, the scout is quite easy to use. The new melee weapon allows the scout to stun anyone at range, and while I myself love this weapon and have great fun with it, I think it is vastly overpowered. The ability to stun ubered targets is just an insult to the other defensive classes. Why play something that requires thinking to defend, where you can just hit a ball at someone.

And that energy drink? Man, I hated when valve released the sandvich and the flare gun. Any skilled player will tell you that those weapons are about as useful as the f10 cheat menu [for those that don't know, f10 is a quit game button]. Sure, the flare gun is ‘fun’ to use, but who plays games for fun anymore? It’s all about the competition and testosterone pumping action.. right? I must reiterate how utterly useless the flare gun and sandvich were, particularly because using either meant losing a shotgun, and either class without a shotgun (ESPECIALLY the pyro) would be caught dead in the water more often than not. Well, for this new energy drink, the scout must sacrifice his pistol. Again, for me, this would be an unfair tradeoff. BUT, that is because I would never intend of playing scout as a support class (which is now what it is). Using the energy drink, the scout can play the role of a ‘tank’, and ‘tank’ enemy turrets while a demoman comes in behind him and destroys them to kingdom come. Well folks, the day a scout can single-handedly play the role of an uber, an anti-uber, and a very fast-moving (fastest class in the game) dextrous killer, well that day is the day clans rethink their playstyle.

Coming from Guild Wars, a game that changes what skills do frequently in order to prevent people using the ‘same old thing’, change is welcome and accepted. However, I believe scouts are a bit too over-powered right now. Especially coming from someone who frequently plays sniper and spy, I’m not liking this update much at all (Unless I play scout, of course )