Save Team Fortress 2 (#savetf2)
State of TF2 and Playerbase
- Despite being ~17–20 years old, TF2 still has substantial activity: cited as top 10–20 on Steam by concurrent users.
- Multiple commenters note that a large share of “players” are actually bots; some estimates in thread go as high as ~70% of active users.
- Tools like teamwork.tf are mentioned as giving more realistic player counts, still putting TF2 in a respectable range.
- Some argue it’s “time to move on” from such an old game; others push back, comparing this attitude to discarding classic music, films, or board games.
Cheating and Bot Crisis
- Casual matchmaking is described as “sometimes unplayable” due to obvious bots: sniper bots that auto-headshot, spam voice/music, and coordinate to avoid being kicked.
- Some bots are tied to extortion schemes: they allegedly demand payment for “bot protection” to make servers playable.
- The combination of free-to-play, weak moderation, and loot-based economies incentivizes botting for item farming and real-money trading.
Anti-Cheat Approaches and Controversy
- One camp advocates kernel-level anti-cheat (e.g., systems similar to Valorant or third‑party services) and hardware/firmware attestation (e.g., TPM/Pluton) as effective deterrents.
- Others argue kernel anti‑cheat is invasive, unstable, and still bypassable; they cite crashes, driver conflicts, and arms-race dynamics.
- Some see remote attestation at the OS/hardware level as an eventual replacement for vendor-installed kernel modules, improving reliability but worsening openness for “techies/hackers.”
- A fringe proposal: mandatory “handcam” anti-cheat with webcams and video provenance to observe physical inputs; most responders see this as extreme and only viable for high‑stakes esports.
Matchmaking vs Community Servers
- Several argue the real solution is community tools: whitelisted or admin‑run servers, vote‑kicks, and social accountability.
- Matchmaking is criticized for concentrating cheaters and removing the social fabric that once existed around clan/community servers.
- Some recall that TF2’s move toward matchmaking helped kill many such servers, worsening the cheating/bot problem.
Valve’s Incentives and Organization
- Valve is perceived as neglecting TF2: still selling microtransactions but not investing in sustained anti‑cheat or moderation.
- Its flat structure and self-directed work model are blamed: there’s little incentive for engineers to maintain an old title in a perpetual cat‑and‑mouse with cheaters.
- Commenters suggest Valve focuses on higher-priority titles (CS2, Dota 2, new “TF2‑like” project), leaving TF2 in a long decline.
Economy, Ethics, and Cheater Psychology
- Microtransactions and loot crates are criticized as turning TF2 into an economy/casino rather than a pure game; yet some defend TF2’s implementation as mostly cosmetic and relatively fair.
- Cheaters are linked to multiple motives: technical challenge, profit from selling bots or farmed items, desire for superiority, or streaming fame.
- Some lament that companies are hesitant or inconsistent about bans, while others highlight wrongful bans and poor appeals as a real risk.