#that and Vs saxton hale

[pikkington]

[bracoeth]

"Saxton Punch!"

he couldn't outrun his fists

[brew-berry-a-trash-artist]

How it feels fighting Saxton

Still bad at backgrounds, my apologies

[deskodev]

Was playing VS Saxton Hale yesterday, and there was one guy who had been on the server for a while eventually got Hale, activated cheats and started visually spinning while playing a bass boosted earrape version of Techno Syndrome (yes, the Mortal Kombat one) over the mic. It was genuinely hilarious and I wish I had recorded it

[werewolf-cuddles]

okay, as somebody who used to play the shit out of Freak Fortress 2, seeing VS Saxton Hale become an official game mode has me way too excited

[kellanved-ammanas]

The VS Saxton Hale game mode is finally working properly on the official servers so I got to play it. Not that I couldn't have before on community servers I just never did because of my anxiety about joining servers I'm not sure are friendly or not (and also I just really like Uncletopia's rules so that tends to be where I feel the most drawn). But anyway, I even got to play as Saxton Hale. Which was neat even though I felt like I was being bullied to death. I had no idea what I was doing but punching people was fun.

Saxton Hale doesn't seem to win very often though. The score when I quit playing was 5-17 in the mercs' favor. Maybe that's just because it was a casual server though and it's more balanced with folk who actually know what they're doing are playing him. But I suppose it's probably very hard to balance.

Regardless though, it's super neat that it's an official game mode now. Even if it was taken straight from the community servers that still feels like a pretty big deal considering how long it's been since whatever was the last new game mode added. I'm tentatively hoping that the success of the update might lead to Valve paying a bit more attention to TF2. Not enough to get a big update or anything but maybe enough to help with the bot problem and maybe do some small balance changes on the weapons that desperately need them.

[mstophattii]

im absolutely terrible at vs saxton hale

Do you have any ideia on how dogshit i am at VSH? i literally got DOMINATED BY A GUY IN THE SERVER. I WAS DOMINATED. IN VSH. AND FOR SOME REASON I JUST CHOKE UNDER PRESSURE?? LIKE IF SAXTON IS REMOTELY NEAR ME I JUST START HAVING A STROKE

AND I SUCK AT SAXTON HIMSELF TOO

I JUST CANT CONTROL HIM MY SMALL LITTLE HANDS SUCK AT KEYBOARD GAMING

[dontaskchaosandco]

so. tf2 fandom. the game's gotten a sizable update for the first time in about half a decade, as well as what could technically be considered the 10th class. how do you feel

[artshineaura]

fun fact playing sonic frontiers titan music over the new vs saxton hale tf2 gamemode makes the game like 10 times better

[im-not-a-sheep]

dude maybe tf2 needs like a reset on all the event maps that have been added or smth

theres too many and not all of them are even that good

[cackling-beast]

merry smissmas

[beepiesheepie]

I do have Ideas for Bidwell and Saxton in my Elden Ring au, in The Land Of Shadow, and while the scenes in my head are cool and great I imagine writing it would be boring and reading it would be boring because 99% of fights (bosses and normal regular enemies) would be "Saxton Hale punches the shit out of everybody and Bidwell is There"

[zarla-s]

Bot update: a few people reported seeing bots a day or two ago! I've been checking in myself every now and then and I haven't personally seen any, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. One of the bot hosters apparently was livestreaming himself on youtube cheating and getting bots in to back him up saying that "Valve would never stop him", and he was unsurprisingly banned rather quickly. Some people are like "don't give them attention, that's what they want" but not paying attention to bots is exactly how this crisis started in the first place!! You have to report them!! People need to know!! Other bot hosters have threatened that the minute that Valve stops paying attention, they'll unleash a bot flood on TF2 the likes of which it's never seen. I'd say this is just posturing but they basically did this before already, so I don't doubt they'll do it again if they get the chance. All we can really hope for is that Valve keeps doing its job taking care of the game...

Anyway, since some newer players may not have seen many bots before (sweet summer children, I envy you), here are some things to watch out for. If you see anyone suspicious, report them! Better safe than sorry after everything that's happened.

Similar names, usually with a number after it (Hexatronic [1], Hexatronic [2], Hexatronic [3]). Sometimes a group of real players will just be doing a bit (had a game with a bunch of people with variants on the name "Feral Engineer" who all went Engie) but if you see a lot of the same name, be suspicious.

Names with youtube or discord links in them

No profile pictures or the same profile picture

Usually in groups of 3-6, they don't join a game alone

Almost always picks Sniper (although they do seem to be branching out lately). If your team has more than three Snipers, be suspicious! Watch them and see how they behave, and if the enemy has a lot of Snipers, go Spy and watch them for a while.

Looking straight up and spinning. This is such a classic tell for bots that you'll see it in all kinds of fanart and SFM stuff and such. Number one sign. They're so well known for doing this that Spies imitated them sometimes to sneak past enemy lines.

Erratic, jerky movement. Not like normal lag or bad ping, but weird sharp jerks of the head or spins too fast for a human to make, constantly.

Spams voice commands, usually the "Nice shot!" one. They also like spamming noisemakers like the Birthday one or Winter one.

Never misses a headshot, headshots through walls or shoots invisible Spies. Usually at the top of the scoreboard if they're sticking around. Sometimes has permanent crits on their melee.

Spamming textchat advertising their discord or "bot immunity" services

Spamming voicechat with a lot of awful noise (now that TF2 is healthy again, natural micspam is coming back though, so if someone is playing music or weird sound clips they might not be a bot, just someone being weird or silly. Check for other signs)

No cosmetics, or the achievement based ones like the Pyro goggles, Gibus, or skull hat

Bots are pretty obvious most of the time, so they shouldn't be too hard to spot. Just keep an eye out! A few bots isn't the end of the world, they're inevitable, but we must stay vigilant!

Valve went through and banned a whole bunch of bots yesterday and when I last checked a couple hours ago, the Casual servers are still 99% actual people! If you want to try out TF2 DO IT NOW while you have the chance! Believe me when I say that having matches this clear of bots is RARE. They'll be back in force inevitably in probably a couple days so the window of opportunity here is small. Take the chance to play a normal round of TF2 Casual while you can!

[priestofberath]

Yeah that looks normal

[800db-cloud]

hiiiiii could you tell us what freak fortress is? we haven't heard of it before but we've enjoyed watching tf2 stuff over the years!! :0

I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED !!!

well, honestly. freak fortress is a little hard to describe. yknow how back in the day gmod and sfm videos were needlessly gory and nonsensical? that’s… 70% of freak fortress. But it’s good! It’s good i swear

freak fortress’ main charm (to me) is all the characters people make! if you wanna get started on getting into FF or just learning about freaks in general, i recommend checking out the Freakshow Universe wiki! (the regular Freakshow wiki is fine too, i just prefer the FSU one!)

freaks are, very typically, bloodthirsty and murderous, but there are friendly and neutral freaks too! some “starter” freaks i think are a good starting point are Painis, Intelligent Heavy, Brutal, Weaselcake and Soldine! every freak’s wiki page link to videos featuring/starring them ^_^

there’s also a Freak Fortress gamemode in actual TF2, based on VS. Saxton Hale. and a few freaks appear in the Slender Fortress gamemode too :)

i do also have to say, FF really is a relic of its time, but a lot of content and Freaks themselves are. Outdated, to put mildly. These were characters and videos made in the 2010’s so there are some bad eggs and there’s humor that can be considered very unsavory nowadays, but I really do mean it’s a small percentile in an otherwise very, very charming (and entertaining) look into the sfm/gmod community of the time!

I really like Freak Fortress. and i’m very happy to be able to share it with people 😁