TF2 Blog Update - Repair Node
by Hey You on 03/03/10 at 1:00 am
In the Team Fortress 2 released 2/3/10 titled Dammit dammit dammit dammit! Brandon Reinhart, from the Team Fortress team, talked about the limitations and problems that come with dreaming up an awesome Engineer update. For the most part, he indulged us with talk about one of their failures, the Repair Node. The Repair Node was meant to repair the sentry gun in short bursts, in order to free up the Engineer so that he might run to the front line to get into the action a little more. The one trade-off with this, though, was that the node had to take the place of either the Engi’s teleporter or dispenser.
They ran into several major issues with this new concept, one being that the team was much more limited without teleporters or a dispenser. Another complication came when the Engineer turtled behind his sentry gun the entire time, using the help from his Repair Node to keep his gun up longer. Both of these situations changed the course of action in many of the standard maps and changed the dynamics of the Engineer’s roll as a defensive player in a bad way. In the games where there were no teleporters or dispensers or when the Engi left his nest to help in the front lines, the Engineer was perceived by the team as not being as much of a team player. In the case of the Engineer turtling behind his gun with the Repair Node, the Engineer caused more map choke points which unbalanced many maps. The one benefit from the failed attempt with the Node is that the TF2 team learned two things: That the dispenser and teleporter are both very important and that the Engineer is still tied to his base.
No doubt the TF2 team at Valve will come up with a mind-blowing, genius idea to give the Engi some extra pizazz, but for now we must say… RIP little Repair Node.
