Abusing TF2's Strongest Character (Saxton Hale)
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- Saxton Hale is broken in the right hands. But why, and what does an optimal strategy look like?
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0:00 He's broken
1:46 how he work
2:34 Abilities
7:05 Misc. facts
9:30 Strategy
12:08 A balance analysis
14:37 Nerfing him myself
Music: pastebin.com/jGJCFL5g
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / tf2solarlight - Hry
Great breakdown of Hale's mechanics. Also, thanks for explaining to people that *Hale's skill* is the balance issue.
No matter how much you nerf Hale, if an *average* player has a way to win as Hale, a *good* player will use that exact way, but better. Therefore I see no point in nerfing his more advanced mechanics.
To emphasize again: you can't really nerf Hale for experienced players only, because they will win anyway by better executing the same strats average players are supposed to win with.
I don't think you need a 5000 hour skill level to figure out that you can just spam brave jump over and over to win every match
Why the average players has to win if he it isnt good enought? You are just in denial
I do agree that it's a difficult problem to solve without direct involvement with Valve. There's only so much that vscript can do - I don't think it can grab Casual mode MMR.
While I have the opportunity, I'll ask something. Do you think you could add a way to make handicapping more of a "thing"? Maybe a button in spawn that Hale could punch during setup time? (Could be a neat comic reference.) Or a quicker solution - place Distillery meat grinders on other maps for quick health draining?
@SolarLight A hard mode button would be nice. If possible, they could also nerf him based on how much damage/how many points you have when you become Hale. I don't know if that's possible in vscript though.
We often forget that Saxton sells us all of the weapons we use
The terrible quality ones, unless you have a skin
of course hed know how to fight against them, hes running the company making them!
Not the Jarate and Milk, those are organic.
Skinned weapons are also Mann co., fake fan smh my head @@blastmole299
thats true though.
You know Saxton allowing you to hurt him till he feels the fight is fair is a very Saxton Hale thing to do.
He literally trained a Yeti so that he could fight it
Except for the part where they can hurt him
Battle Beast did the same
Hale be standing here taking hits like Senator Armstrong
@@catpurrito5586the memes...
It's shocking how wildly Hale varies depending on the player.
On one hand there's gods like you and on the other hand I've seen Hale trapped in a corner by 20 heavies and engineers, literally not dealing a single point of damage to any mercenary.
hale is just like any other class with hoze gonzales's barely knowing how to move to spy/demoknigjt mains being gods at the class
@@pluggothesluggo5509 yeah but you got no team to pull your dead weight
it happens with every class for example from a new player's perspective class like scout can be very useless(because of lowest hp) but if know how to use it you can easily defeat someone like demoknight or a trolldier with it
@@pluggothesluggo5509José*
It reminds me of people talking about whether or not the zombie game mode is balanced. Its hard to tell how balanced something is from anecdotal experience. Zombies might seem overpowered, but is that because they're too strong, or because a random collection of casual queue players aren't coordinating good team compositions?
Handicapped Saxton Hale in the hands of an extremely skilled player is probably closer to lore accurate Saxton Hale.
Yep
Yep
I feel like it’s the exact opposite
@@mad_goddess2830 comics man comics
@@Deeznuts-ev1nt the skilled players are good through planning and practice which is not something that saxton hale showed in the comics, in fact he’s kinda dumb seeing as he destroyed the engine of a running plane he was on and then lost his company to a little girl
"What is Saxton doing?"
"He is just standing there... MENACINGLY!"
*standing intensifies*
Logan Roy skin for Saxton Hale when?
Australium, son.
17:52 Man had the guts to ask Saxton for a raise, truly the most bravest soul of our times
I kind of want to see an MvM gamemode where it's 1 Saxton vs. the entire wave set with other players acting as player-controlled robots/special giants so the AI bots become far less predictable.
Manly vs machine
@@YourantsallyMannly vs Machine
@@Soldier_Sproutprobably works as The MANN vs Machine since saxton is that stonk
@@cringehandler The MANNN with 3 Ns
Hale vs machine
Fun fact, Saxton Punch counts as a crit, so it does regular punch damage against people under the effect of the Battalion's Backup.
same reason why sentries take less damage from him
thats why alot of soldiers go battalions and zatoichi. They can ignore the damage and just outheal it
No it doesn't. If you see the damage numbers on Saxton Punch when you hit someone they aren't large or bold, meaning it is not a crit
@@theshermantanker7043it is a crit though, otherwise we wouldn't see battalion's backup soldiers with the zatoichi came bumrushing Hale and just face tank the damage for 2-3 hits
@@HungNguyen-vg1zqThe Backup still has a massive 35% injury reduction stat when activated. Combine that with the extra 20 health it gives and the overheal from the Zatochi and it suddenly is no longer surprising that they can eat Saxton Punches so well (Saxton Punch deals 326 directly to whoever it hits)
7:44 The reason this happens is the same as the tposing Hale glitch. If you swap classes at just the right time before becoming hale, you spawn with the health and size of that class. The hitbox appears unchanged however and is still larger than normal
It's like playing OG VS Saxton Hale.
You either play against Admin abuse, or against some guy from India who doesn't speak English, and doesn't know what he is doing.
Still, if I were to tackle the major issues with the mode, it would be adding a check box for opting into being Saxton Hale, plus a tutorial for those who want it.
Outside of that, there is no major way to tackle the skill gap. I mean there are ways to fight Hale without too much trouble; I like playing gunslinger Engineer who runs around dropping sentries with a hidden heal base or placing sentries in hard to reach areas. However, that requires players to learn how to abuse wall climbing, which relies on air strafing, and being smarter about who to protect, and where to set up.
in other words, skill issue
I think the main issue is that since players dont respawn it becomes much easier to get value with a skill gap than you normally could. Since killing players makes you have to deal with much less and actively hinders the enemy's ability to even exist you actively snowball the enemy team but if you're not that good its near impossible to benefit from this. Its also just not fun waiting around. Personally I think they should make it so that when you die you respawn as a "ghost" or zombie and the hale doesnt have to kill you to win but can to send you back to the respawn counter but you can still fight him. With tweaks it'd alieviate the issue of this snowballing effect hale has while not making the mode as boring imo.
@@isaacargesmith8217 Personally I'd have the ghosts visually annoy Hale and amplify alive REDs damage (extending applied debuff length by a %, etc.) or assisting REDs survivability (reduced crit damage by a %, etc.) But I'm just spitballing and this may sound stupid.
Maybe just balance average hours played like casual, for example 1000 hours hale vs 250 + 1750 + 1500 + 500 hours 4 mercenaries which when divided by 4 is 1000 is only allowed but 1750 hale vs 250 + 500 + 1000 hours isn't, i know this limit brand new player or extremely expirneced players to never play hale but that's the cost of balancing.
Serious shout-out to you for the subtitles! A lot of creators just let CZcams's unreliable auto-subtitles do the work, and it really sucks, so it's always really nice seeing creators *actually properly using them.* (And clearly having fun with it, too!)
Also a very good breakdown of Hale's mechanics! Your power still terrifies me.
This is the second time I have ever seen someone do subtitles like that on youtube.
@@iwillslapyou4982 Uncle Dane's done it at least once, and there's an assortment of other creators who do fancy shit with subtitles. Not super common, but it's always fun to see.
Unfortunately even regular subtitles are not exactly common, even for scripted content that's definitionally *very easy to subtitle.* It's a thing that annoys me a great deal!
@@Hexagonaldonut I normally don't pay attention to subtitles unless someone mentions it, so I haven't seen these types very often. One thing that I have seen with them is being able to move them around to put them next to whoever is saying them.
insert tom scott ""ooh i bought a new lamborghini" buy some damn subtitles!"
10:45 is probably the best part of this video, the Darksouls music and sniper screaming in raw terror as a big man moves at maximum velocity is insanely funny.
I love that they let Hale remove bleed and afterburn with a health pack. It's like, "Bollocks, this 80 hp drain will be the death of me! Good thing I have this health kit!"
any health not gained back by mercs is more damage done by you
@@somerandomonethis
@@somerandomoneSheesh. Still harms the mercs by wasting their hp pickup
The video really makes one appreciate how much work they put into making Saxton fun and balanced to play (even if it hasn't fully worked out on the balance front).
I don't really appreciate it since players pit in all the work to make him fun AND balanced 10 years ago and now valve just ripped the new and less balanced version from the workshop without any changes at all
@@JeeblyWBush
You know that the VSH sourcemod as well as the FF2 sourcemod were both developed by the guy that created the Vscript VSH gamemode?
@@redstonewarrior0152 Okay? Doesn't really change the fact that he really did it better on the first go-around
Let's appreciate the work put into the subtitles.
All the way down to the tf2 off-white colour for regular talking. Fucking great
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY THAT
@@d5rcy Hell yeah
I just realised lol
9:53 CONCUSSION
Brain DAM-AAAGE!
3:57 OH GOD I AM THAT DEMOKNIGHT
Literally horror game
The fact that Valve lets you play as lore accurate Saxton Hale is just the most TF2 thing imaginable
i got an ad right as the sniper screamed at 10:46 and it was genuenlly funny
that was intentional. gottem
oh dam you really did get me
10:45 or 10:44.
Bro got me aswell as the sniper screamed an ad popped
@@capistranojerome4565 this was four months ago.
no reason why im saying this, i just am.
I think the best and simplest solution would be to take the idea of giving Brave Jump a cooldown and tie it to Hale's health, just like his movement speed. When he's at full health he would have a substantial cooldown on his jump, meaning that he wouldn't be able to come out of the gate jumping like a mad man so RED has a chance to whittle his health down more easily, but as he takes more damage he also becomes much more mobile, which lets him make a comeback by essentially going back to the way he is now while at lower health. Essentially just make everyone play like you do lol
Even though this has nothing to do with this video, you inspired me to become a Demoknight, Solar.
And i'm really glad you inspired me to become a better Demoknight.
Welcome to The Legion
I like solar but something I dislike is how I have to play pyro for some days after he releases an video
@@B.L.U.Ssounds like a skill issue
@@typedtim why?
Pyro litteray shutdowns demoknight and I'm not very found of battle engi
@@B.L.U.S because you can't kill demoknights without abusing airblast
8:00 damn, that was sooo close to peter griffin death pose
personally, i avoid spamming the brave jump in order to give an advantage towards red. it's also harder when you encourage teams to spread out more. since the tf2 devs intended you to be spread apart, teams who do the same overall do more damage to hale. it's more fun for me since i'm getting a challenge, and it's more fun for red cause they aren't dealing with a jump spamming hale murdering them all within 10 seconds.
Me too. I don't like this "bouncy ball" stragety, because it's unbalanced. Wish they add cooldown for it, like in 1.5 VSH version
@@VivoCubino Even with a cooldown it's a trashy feature. It's super overpowered bordering on unplayable when Hales know how to use it. It was a HUGE problem in the original releases of VSH too, because the intended purpose of this feature is for Hale to reach out of "playbounds" characters like Wrangler Engineers in high areas, but right mouse jumps have completely derailed the function and made him into a hypermobile Demoknight.
The double jump needs to be removed altogether, not just finetuned. Hale has his charge fist to reach hard areas, he doesn't need the double jump on top of it.
@@stellarstar6553 sure. Tf2 devs need to do one of things: nerf Hale's jump or reduce his health in half while red team is full (10k instead of 18k).
I mean, in TF2 lore Hale has endurance and power of a God, but in gamemode... It's unplayable.
Lizard Of Oz (original creator of VSH) will make Smissmass update soon for VSH, and i want some nerfs for Hale and buffs for mercs
This video better revive this gamemode
If valve made alternative game modes on by default when queuing that'd probably revive it honestly.
Fun fact, if somehow there's a medic in Hale's team it will be able to heal it, learned from a bug that happened to me once
that sniper got violated
It's actually very similar in essence to the Yeti Hunt game mode in Overwatch. I've seen games where the Yeti will just completely dominate the entire lobby, barely losing any health and killing everyone very fast, but I've also seen games where the Yeti just gets completely destroyed, barely dealing any damage. It's not that the Yeti is unbalanced, but that player's skill is.
Also the editing on this video was amazing. Keep up the amazing work, but don't burn yourself out doing it!
You could also notice how doomfists kit follows the same as saxton hale
Saxton appears to be a heavy reskin, you can see he's listed as heavy when he wins. In a community server someone tried to equip the zombie skin, which resulted in an oversized heavy. The punch ready and charge skin were visible as uber on him.
You can also get Heavy voice clips from him in certain circumstances, such as occasionally when you killbind as Hale. That's how I figured it out originally!
There was this vsh server I always play in and all the projectile deals explosive damage, so medic and engineer can rocket jump away. Sad the server is gone.
WHAT THE HECK CAN A MEDIC WITH THE SYRINGE GUNS DO
@@yes_and_so_whatAirstrike❤
@@Aaa-vp6ug *everyone goes medic*
saturation bombing
@@soupcangaming662 imagine that in 100 player VSH.
Melee’s gonna need some mighty buffs to compensate for the Saxton’s… you know what, but still.
99 invincible medics, rapid bombing you into submission, all at once
9:05 Spy has the exact same thing happen to him, but he usually just eats fall damage when he does it with a backstab
This is a really good vid.
Although, I wouldn't suggest nerfing Hale. For newer Hales, or even skilled Hale, he is meant to be like a giant boss fight, with insurmountable odds stacked in their favour.
What I would suggest is buffing the mercs in other ways. One idea is maybe to bring MvM's resurrection mechanic into the mode. So Saxton has to be more careful of his targets and what the enemy is doing.
Although thats just spitballing.
@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 You can only revive once though.
@@ghoulbuster1 Even with the 3 Medic class limit, matches quite literally are just a question of "can Hale kill all the Medics before they get Über and are able to revive with no care in the world". And mind you, the official VSH gamemode lets Medics build Über during setup time.
Plus, it forces Medic into your team composition. You are automatically playing with 50% less teammates by not having a Medic, so you don't have a choice but to pick him.
It should be a need like what happened to the B.A.S.E. Jumper. Less experienced players didn't really feel it, but the experienced ones did.
Saxton Hale being overpowered in a good player's hands is less of a problem than Saxton Hale being easy to beat 95% of the time, tbh. At least if SolarLight gets Hale, the round is over quickly.
I've lost a lot of 4-25 rounds against Hale because the team just isn't competent enough to deal damage. I'd say either giving Hale less health per player or giving minicrits to the last 5 players and crits to the last 3 would fix this.
The captions on this video are amazing! It's incredible that you took the time to color and highlight important words. Thank you so much!
10:43 i love this part
Your suggestion makes a lot of sense - given that the original saxton hale servers were kinda based on The Hidden. The balance of that game was predicated on the hidden having a low health pool and limited abilities, but being extremely difficult to hit. Although Saxton isn’t invisible, moving around that much definitely puts him in the same category, making your balance suggestion kinda perfect.
I like to imagine that getting punched by Saxton Hale while on Übercharge feels like you're getting punched by your friend, can still hurt but you know they don't mean it so it hurts less.
but its like those slow-mo fake punches where your friend goes hurrrrr and you go gaaahh but the both of you are just messing about
14:32 Trolldiers in a nutshell.
I feel like Weigh Down and Brave Jump should have a small cooldown, not as big as his abilities, but so he can't spam it to kite everyone or make it incredibly hard to out maneuver him. As you said, with a good player he's hard to kill.
Even like 1 second would be a massive improvement
I agree, skilled players would struggle against him in his current state, only, even sentries struggle to keep up with him movement just a little cooldown so mercs are certain to punish him would be good
I can see why he took so long to make this.
The subtitles
I think it comes down to Hale being strong, and the maps. I used to play the mod version, while it is true that Hale's skill level influences the round, Hale is stronger than he was in the mod. Brave Jump having no cool down is insane, it has a cooldown and a charge up time in the mod. He can't clear out an entire engi nest at once with a single press of a button. No shockwave effects, all you had was super jump, fast fall, and spook. Saxton didn't really need all those abilities. Its nice, in the mod a skilled scout or soldier can kill Hale on their own from half hp if they're the last one left. Engineers nests were a real obstacle too. The maps are also a big difference, in general the mod maps were significantly larger, and weirder. Things like air strafing and platforming were expected. I like the jankiness of the mod.
Fantastic vid as always SolarLight! Also love the Hale montage at the end to the Wishes in the Wind RMX, the 3000hp match was so close!
Amazing video and the subtitles are just 👌 A lot of love went into this video by the looks of things!
These are some awesome captions! It actually adds a lot of the video.
Saxton's weigh down seems to function pretty similarly to how the jump in Hollow Knight works, if you have ever played that game you understand how intrinsically important it is to master that skill.
11:02 -- the commands to practice it offline.
The votekick sounds synced with the music was a nice touch (15:51)
Thanks for another quality video Solar, and for the music list
Very well made and thoughtful video on the mechanics of the game mode where people just make the same FNAF joke and then force you to Rock Paper Scissors or get kicked next round.
7:38
Even Saxton Hale is tinier than Misha. We need a VS HEAVY mode instead.
Solar, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the caption work you've done for this video. It doesn't go ignored!
5:50: 'You can even combo it with other attacks..." This might come up later in the vid, but you can actually do this combo the other way around as well! Hitting an enemy first with the charge punch hit/knockback, then a moment later connecting the melee hit. It's perfect for killing slippery scouts in particular.
And the bit about nerfing him yourself definitely has came to mind for me as well. Aside from letting yourself lose most HP, picking even just one ability of his to avoid using can be very interesting to the balance. How well can you catch the scout with only jumps and not charge punch? Or break the engi nests with no slams at all. Etc Etc
7:55 he just don’t accept gravity
*”Screw gravity!”*
-Saxton Hale
Scaling Saxton's health based on how many times a player has won as Saxton could be a creative solution.
Wouldn’t stop tryhards from sandbagging by just kill binding after they’ve already “won” but it could help
The subtitles are incredibly awesome and detailed
it's heavily recommended to turn it on
I appreciate you placing a pastebin of music in your description
17:15 poor medic
Pause at 1:21 for Maxwell
Everyone else: *dying sounds*
Scout: *“DEAD”*
Red glowing Maxwell.
Loved this video, great one.
Another great video, detailed yet concise
boys, mr. Solarlight has uploaded, we are truly blessed
ong
5:22 how did I just realize you were loarlight when you said that
This is great, always pleasure to see new video from you
i love the subtitles, shows how much effort you put into something most people wont even see
14:06 made me die laughing
6:54 you can block saxton punch by using vaccinator explosion resistance bc it counts as an explosion
The subtitles in this video are absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much!
10:45 I love the sniper scream when saxton flies towards him
OG VSH Hale is incredibly more balanced even if rage is a somewhat frustrating mechanic as a red, especially if you like playing pyro. Hale being much less mobile in OG makes it far more enjoyable as hale and a red, it really makes it feel like a game of cat and mouse instead of b-29 bomber and mouse that official VSH feels like. He feels more in line with a freak fortress x10 boss than actual vsh and its quite a strange choice to use this version.
0:55 No he can't, he had the phlog.
that's the nostromo napalmer
I love seeing you play Saxton - it's the perfect evolution for you, in my opinion. But most of all I love, that this looks and feels just like every other Solar video, in the sense that you seemingly effortlessly and gracefully tear through hordes of enemies. You have always been doing this. Saxton Hale has always been your spirit-animal. ♥
Awesome video
This gamemode has always been one of my favorites to play on community servers for 10 years and seeing you appreciate it and play it like this was extremely satisfying
Hey, I died on 10:24 !
He's not broken he's just lore accurate.
love whoever did these subtitles tbh i thought
it was apart of the video
Makes engineers sad that’s a good way of explaining engineers in this mode and the pain of an engineer main like me
this video is *Saxton Hale approved*
Amazing work on the subtitles! I didn't even realise they weren't baked into the video until after watching the whole video. Really appreciate it as the subtitles made it much easier to follow along with the video for me. 👍
Also, how do you change the colours of text and backgrounds like that? Is there a good tutorial you've found for them somewhere?
Use SubtitleEdit or Aegisub, save it as a .ass file (yes, really) and then convert it to a .ytt file using YTSubConverter
@@SolarLight Alrighty, I'll give that a go. Many thanks. 👍
@@SolarLight .ass is real
I love the custom subtitles for the video
Those are some sick subtitles, cool!
A couple oddball ideas i have for balancing him to be less exploitable by highly skilled players would be something along the lines of-infinite super jump but excessive usage will make it weaker until it stops doing anything and you have to stop using it for a while,saxton losing a large chunk if his health if he takes out say 30-40% of red team before a certain time limit(canonically it signifies a loss in motivation maybe he plays a voice line about being bummed by how pathetic the enemy team is)The exact numbers would need to be played around with but whatever,and an instant deletion of your entire backpack if you bully the mercs too hard.
I’m going to see flying saxtons at Mach 48 coming for me while I’m at Mach 36 😢
shoutout to the excellent caption work on this video
was waiting for this
0:54 ERM ACTUALLY HE JUST PULLED OUT HIS FLAMETHROWER IT HAS TO BE DRAWN FIRST... im so smart.
I kinda thought it was a phlog at first...
The bug where hale has 195 health and is normal size happened to me in early versions of vsh while trying to play with bots
I do so love the inclusion of White Acropolis' theme for the rampage at the beginning. What a fucking great song to have during that clip roll.
I got to play as Saxton, and it occurred to me how easy it feels to play him.
There is definitely something that's been overtuned, but picking and choosing whichever way to nerf him is kind of difficult.
Awesome video! Do you think it would be reasonable to have Hale's health depend on the player's winrate with Hale from the last 5 or 10 matches? Maybe that would make it so over time, each player will find a health pool that moves around their limit, and matches end up stabilizing at around 50% winrate for each team
This is a vscript gamemode, so there's limitations. I don't think it can store and use statistics for each player between multiple matches.
No thank you i dont want to spawn as a 300 health Saxton just because i was doing well as him before
@@theshermantanker7043 I mean, that is probably a bit exagerated, but it does mean that you probably won each and every single match and you could probably use the handicap
Great video!
The subtitles are so good!
doomfist tf2
6:28 someone tell me what is the mod to play as S.H on other maps i cant find any
13:37 I love the reference to Blaze's infamous pogo med kill.
Isn't the bit about not being able to chase rocket jumper soldiers not that important since the control point automatically becomes available?
Also I really agree with a brave jump cool down. I've played years of community VSH and having a no cooldown super jump would make any hale broken. The mobility of the hale is usually the biggest thing determining how good a hale can be ex: gentlespy vs easter bunny
For some reason, a lot of Saxton players will choose to ignore the point in favor of chasing the last remaining player, even if it takes 5 minutes for them to finally get the kill. This holds up the game for anyone who is waiting to respawn, which isn't fun.
I watched some of LizardOfOz's videos and I'm aware that he didn't like people stalling the game like this, so Hale's hypermobility is *probably* there for that reason. It just has the unfortunate side effect of making him really, really hard to hit, and I'm not sure what the best solution is.
He's overpowered, but that's lore accurate!
Your "nerf" sounds like the berserk button in chess tournaments: a voluntary handicap you can activate against weaker opponents if you think you can take them with half time.
I think that would be how you would implement it officially: a button that halfs your HP with each press. This leaves "balancing" to the Hale's confidence, and would telegraph that to the red team that they might get their teeth kicked in.
Edit: this is all also very Hale-esque. Wouldn't be hard to theme.
Yah but lizard will just whine about “the looooooreeeeeee” instead of implementing it.
"so we have a new playable character"
This video took a while hasnt it....
amazing subtitles, very cool
If there was a knockback multiplier that increases with time spent airborne, and it didn't immediately reset on landing (decreases linearly back to zero), it would encourage moving on the ground when trying to make a push, wouldn't punish unskilled players + it could be used deliberately by skilled players to make a quick bullet-surf escape
Though I'm not sure how easy it'd be to code a constantly changing stat value like that