Last week, Valve launched Team Fortress 2's big competitive mode update and, with it, a new casual mode that took the place of classic quick play. So far, people... don’t exactly love it.
The new 12 vs 12 unranked matchmaking mode has players angrily spitting out their sandviches for quite a few reasons, most prominent among them long wait times, limited options, and the fact that quick play is now six feet under, seemingly forever.
Valve doesn’t seem interested in fixing that last part, but they’re working on addressing other concerns. Already, they launched a patch that removed match abandonment penalties and added an option to let people specify which mode they want to play.
They also outlined change to come in a blog post. In it, they acknowledged that the launch had been rocky. “It’s no secret that Casual Mode has had a rough launch,” Valve said. “We hear you.” Among other things, they noted that a more “comprehensive” casual mode is on the way that will let you select which maps you’re matched into.
Valve added that the current issue with agonizingly lengthy queue times is a bug, and removing it is their “highest priority” at the moment. They also admitted that it might not have been the best idea to initially hold back certain user choice features, like the aforementioned map selection, from casual mode’s initial roll out.
So it seems like Valve has taken a pretty frank look at the situation, and they’re hoping to mold quick play’s ashes into something better. For now, though, a lot of players are still clamoring for quick play’s return. I’ve seen many people openly wonder why TF2 can’t just have quick play and casual unranked matchmaking. Maybe Valve thinks it would split the player base too much?
Change is tough, and perhaps these are just growing pains. Or maybe Valved tried to fix something that wasn’t entirely broken, and now Valve’s got trouble on their hands. What do you think? Is casual mode a total bummer, or does it have potential?
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