David I think you need to try and 'ignore' the things they do to the spy for now. Don't get angry at that first statement i'm just trying to find a good way of putting it. How about 'put up' with the changes.
They know he has problems, and aside from bug fixes, or attempted ones (ie when they tried to fix facestabs and made it harder to backstab), the only significant changes they have made to the class (that i can remember) was the removal of the teleporter ring when he cloaks or disguises, and the reduced damage output of the pistol when it was fired at a sapped building.
One was a slight buff and one was a slight nerf. Everything else has been bug/exploit fixes of varying success. As i'm sure you can understand, it's a very complex class and so fixing all his bugs (whether they impeded the player or helped him) isn't easy and is likely to cause other problems, and in some cases has done.
Like the Pyro however, Valve are aware of the Spy's problems, and I think we can all agree that it's very likely that the spy will be next after the Heavy for his revamp. When that happens they will very likely make large scale adjustments to make the class more effective and less buggy. In fact I wouldnt't be suprised if they have a lot of their ideas on how to help the class up and running, but are holding off on releasing them to fine tune/balance/make sure they work.
They said ages ago that they were looking into the class. I think you just need to be patient and see the spy changes for what they are, bug fixes. It may not seem like that since they all seem to be a slight nerf in themselves, but I know that Valve wouldn't go out of their way to nerf the class that has the hardest time of all of them.
Yesterdays update with these 2 'nerfs'. One was obviously a bug fix (the voice spam), and the other one seems to have been intended to get rid of the literally instant cloak that DoctaStrangelove mentioned. The slight delay between stabbing and cloaking sounds to me like an unwanted side effect, much like what happened to the Demoman jumping in the Pyro Update which has now been fixed.
I dunno. It does seem like the Spy gets a kick in the teeth with a fair few of the updates that get released (except the teleporter buff he got not long ago), but i'm sure it'll all be sorted when he gets his update. In the meantime you can look foward to entire enemy teams of Heavys to stab.
Last edited by Spidery_Yoda (2008-07-02 15:04:28)
