The modern-day landscape of Team Fortress 2 has been a sight for sore eyes, with glitches and bots rendering the game barely playable for fans new and old. Team Fortress 2 had always had issues, but now they had gotten too arduous for fans to ignore. Since May 2022, TF2 fans have been flocking to social media with the #Save TF2 campaign to voice their frustrations at Valve, hoping to make enough noise for the game developer to act. Thankfully, with Valve’s newest update, it seems like the #SaveTF2 campaign is reaching its goal.
On June 21, 2022, Valve released the long-awaited update in response to the recent complaints, going live update automatically when players restart Team Fortress 2. This new update addresses some of the many issues that hindered gameplay, improving the overall quality of online matches. Here are the fixes from the patch notes listed below:
- Fixed an exploit related to clearing the in-game text chat
- Fixed an exploit where players could use sv_cheats on secure servers
- Fixed an exploit where players could teleport back to their own spawn by changing loadout/class while touching the other team’s No Entry gate
- Fixed an exploit with the Huntsman in which a player could change loadout to negate the speed debuff when charged
- Fixed an exploit with the Ap-Sap where players could spam noises
- Fixed an exploit where dispensers could heal through glass on some maps
- Fixed an exploit where a Spy could disguise and create an invisible bullet blocking shield at their feet
- Fixed laggy animations on Halloween bosses, skeletons, ghosts and other ghoul-like beings
- Fixed the Spy using incorrect disguise weapons when disguising as Soldier, Pyro, Heavy or Engineer with no member of the same class on the opposing team
- Fixed projectiles sometimes colliding with teammates too early/late
- Fixed being able to change names during a matchmaking game
- Fixed some HUD images being blurry when using low texture settings
- Fixed the Spy’s feigned deaths with the Dead Ringer not showing up in the matchmaking quick team status bar
- Fixed %killername% and other placeholder names sometimes showing up on the kill cam and stats screen
- Re-enabled ability for servers to send disconnect reasons to clients
- Added ConVar net_disconnect_reason to use the disconnect reason sent from the client
- Removed Headgear option from the Mann Co. Catalog dropdown list
- Updated vote system
- Both teams can have a kick vote running at the same time
- Can have a global vote running at the same time as a kick vote
- Fixed sometimes not being able to vote on maps at the end of the round
- Updated the El Fiestibrero to fix a problem with the model
- Updated/Added some tournament medals
- Updated the localization files
This new update has been a godsend for many fans, simply being thankful that Valve acknowledged their concerns and is working to keep Team Fortress 2 alive. However, other fans have dialed back their enthusiasm into a more grounded approach, after this is just the start of a bigger fix. The #SaveTF2 campaign won’t be slowing down anytime soon, not until Valve continues to deliver with patches that sweep fan concerns.