Honest question: Was the Saharan Spy item bonus OP without the Dead Ringer?

[SirBongyTheSecond]

I started playing TF2 after the major Summer patch, which removed item set bonuses. And one of the main criticisms of the patch is the beloved Saharan Spy. I've never played the game with the set bonuses in action, but of of curiosity: was the set bonus OP without the Dead Ringer? Most gameplay videos I've seen in action with the Spy set are Saharan Spies running around with the Dead Ringer, and I haven't seen people really use it with the stock Invis Watch or Cloak and Dagger. I ask this because I plan to make a item set at some point for the Spy, and while sitting around thinking for stat concepts for a new invis watch, I remembered: Valve did buff the L'Etranger for extra cloak duration, but they didn't exactly manage to emulate the set's original bonus (for example, Powerjack has extra speed after the removal of the Gas Jockey's speed bonus, and the Darwin's Danger Shield now has bullet resistance after the headshot immunity removal). Basically, people hate Valve because of it, but if similiar stats were intergated in a seperate watch (quieter cloak noise, but longer flicker), would it be balanced because you can't use the still (in my personal opinion) hugely overpowered Dead Ringer with another watch at the same time? Or would it be useless because it's not what people wanted in the first place?
Also, shameless promotion here: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/discussions/-1/558751813531234533/?appid=440
This is my original concept, before I had thought of stats.
Right now, I feel that at the moment, this dicussion should belong in "General Diccusions", as it's a general question, but, as I'm primarily interested in creating good stats and designs for my weapons, if this dicussion starts to veer away and begins focus primarily on weapon designs, I request that the moderators and admins move this dicussion to the "Team Fortress 2 Workshop Dicussion", for the sake of clarification.
Thanks in advance.

[Ace42]

Saharan Spy set bonus was just a headache in general - plenty of players use custom-sounds that make decloak noises louder and more obvious; and Valve haven't taken many measures to cut down on this cheating.

As a set bonus it was thus worthless against anyone who had super-loud decloak noises and thus could still hear the audio.

So unless you want that upside to be routinely made useless, you should think about another perk.

[I am alive!!]

Without the dead ringer, it wouldn't have been as much OP
The saharan spy bonus gives you near silent decloak and +0.5 seconds of blinking time.
It removed the dead ringer's main downside and the dead ringer negated the saharan spy's downside.
With the other watches, however, you would need to be more careful to not bump into enemies or get hit

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Flippy:

The saharan spy bonus gives you silent decloak

*Quieter decloak. It wasn't silent.

[FaelisongTalim]

You thought The Saharan Spy set bonus removal was widely grieved over.

*Laughs*

Oh man, you should really have seen the endless wave of "ESCAPE PLAN NERF'D WUT" and "WAR IS MAI DEGRUSAR NURF" threads

[I am alive!!]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Originally posted by Flippy:

The saharan spy bonus gives you silent decloak

*Quieter decloak. It wasn't silent.

Near-silent
You can't hear it unless they uncloak right behind you or if you had the loud sound mod mentioned above

[SirBongyTheSecond]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Saharan Spy set bonus was just a headache in general - plenty of players use custom-sounds that make decloak noises louder and more obvious; and Valve haven't taken many measures to cut down on this cheating.

As a set bonus it was thus worthless against anyone who had super-loud decloak noises and thus could still hear the audio.

So unless you want that upside to be routinely made useless, you should think about another perk.

Huh, didn't realise that existed. Technically not cheating, but I guess it would be an exploit, like the Chargin' Targe turn script.
Thanks for informing me anyway. Back to the drawing board! Or beg Valve to remove these "loud decloak" noises.

Originally posted by Flippy:

Originally posted by Ace42:

*Quieter decloak. It wasn't silent.

Near-silent
You can't hear it unless they uncloak right behind you or if you had the loud sound mod mentioned above

It's not slient. It's VERY quiet, but even though TF2 wiki removed the vid, the original demonstration proved that yes, there is a minor noise, though in the heat of battle, good luck trying to hear it.

Originally posted by Leevog:

You thought The Saharan Spy set bonus removal was widely grieved over.

*Laughs*

Oh man, you should really have seen the endless wave of "ESCAPE PLAN NERF'D WUT" and "WAR IS MAI DEGRUSAR NURF" threads

Well, browsing around for a bit brought up quite a bit of these complaints, as well as "REMOVE HEAVY FROM GAME," and "DEMOMAN IS OP, HE JUST HAS TO LAY STICKYBOMBS NEAR A ENEMY AND HE DOES LIKE 90 DAMAGE." In all honesty, though, the Escape Plan nerf isn't that bad (it just prevents Soldiers from becoming Scouts instead of using it as a "Escape Plan," and the Degreaser isn't that OP. We only have to remove the Axtinguisher, Flare Gun, Phlog, and Backburner from the game, and Pyro will be balanced again.)

[I am alive!!]

Originally posted by KevinWongyWongy:

Originally posted by Flippy:

Near-silent
You can't hear it unless they uncloak right behind you or if you had the loud sound mod mentioned above

It's not slient. It's VERY quiet, but even though TF2 wiki removed the vid, the original demonstration proved that yes, there is a minor noise, though in the heat of battle, good luck trying to hear it.

I said near-silent, not absolutely silent

[Sentient_Toaster]

Near-silent decloak was a lousy idea that drastically reduced the need to be actually be stealthy and devalued the only detection method one has that doesn't involve frequent gratuitious spinning.

[SirBongyTheSecond]

Originally posted by Flippy:

Originally posted by KevinWongyWongy:

It's not slient. It's VERY quiet, but even though TF2 wiki removed the vid, the original demonstration proved that yes, there is a minor noise, though in the heat of battle, good luck trying to hear it.

I said near-silent, not absolutely silent

Woops, sorry for that. I didn't see the "near" part. Apologies for the confusion.

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Near-silent decloak was a lousy idea that drastically reduced the need to be actually be stealthy and devalued the only detection method one has that doesn't involve frequent gratuitious spinning.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand "frequent gratuitious spinning." How did it reduce the need to be stealthy?

[1bean234]

They sould really bring back item sets, and give them to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ loadut combinations. Or to weapons that are never used.

Like:

Natacha
Steak
Eviction notice

Thats a pretty bad loadout. Not to much harm giving it a slight bonus.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by KevinWongyWongy:

I'm afraid I don't quite understand "frequent gratuitious spinning." How did it reduce the need to be stealthy?

Essentially making them silent => only way to detect them would be to frequently spin around and check everywhere (or to permanently remain within sight of friendly sentries), whereas a spy would previously have to actually not decloak right behind people unless they were very, very distracted (or it's a micspam server and they're all listening to loud music, heh).

[SirBongyTheSecond]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Originally posted by KevinWongyWongy:

I'm afraid I don't quite understand "frequent gratuitious spinning." How did it reduce the need to be stealthy?

Essentially making them silent => only way to detect them would be to frequently spin around and check everywhere (or to permanently remain within sight of friendly sentries), whereas a spy would previously have to actually not decloak right behind people unless they were very, very distracted (or it's a micspam server and they're all listening to loud music, heh).

Ahhh, I see.

[Chara the Explorer]

Originally posted by KevinWongyWongy:

Originally posted by Leevog:

You thought The Saharan Spy set bonus removal was widely grieved over.

*Laughs*

Oh man, you should really have seen the endless wave of "ESCAPE PLAN NERF'D WUT" and "WAR IS MAI DEGRUSAR NURF" threads

Well, browsing around for a bit brought up quite a bit of these complaints, as well as "REMOVE HEAVY FROM GAME," and "DEMOMAN IS OP, HE JUST HAS TO LAY STICKYBOMBS NEAR A ENEMY AND HE DOES LIKE 90 DAMAGE." In all honesty, though, the Escape Plan nerf isn't that bad (it just prevents Soldiers from becoming Scouts instead of using it as a "Escape Plan," and the Degreaser isn't that OP. We only have to remove the Axtinguisher, Flare Gun, Phlog, and Backburner from the game, and Pyro will be balanced again.)

From my understanding the Escape Plan was essentially just a buffed shovel, since there wasn't actually a downside until they added the mini-crits.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by The Milkman Conspiracy:

From my understanding the Escape Plan was essentially just a buffed shovel, since there wasn't actually a downside until they added the mini-crits.

Was, and basically still is, if you consider that a slow-moving heavily wounded soldier is an easy and weak target compared to a fast-moving heavily wounded soldier. If you're hurt enough that rocket jumping away isn't an option, minicrits don't make a difference except for the weakest of attacks -- you're not going to tank much damage anyway.

[Maple]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Originally posted by The Milkman Conspiracy:

From my understanding the Escape Plan was essentially just a buffed shovel, since there wasn't actually a downside until they added the mini-crits.

Was, and basically still is, if you consider that a slow-moving heavily wounded soldier is an easy and weak target compared to a fast-moving heavily wounded soldier. If you're hurt enough that rocket jumping away isn't an option, minicrits don't make a difference except for the weakest of attacks -- you're not going to tank much damage anyway.

But the fast moving soldier is on low health.
And he takes minicrits.
So fire stray bullets from your strange scattergun and you'll finally get a kill under "long range kills."