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Team Fortress 2 bug from the latest update has cratered the game's hat economy

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Rickenslacker

Rickenslacker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,415
Team Fortress 2, everyone's favourite war themed hat simulator has had a big blow to its game's economy come through a bug last night which had a number of its crates guarantee an unusual (items with a <1% of unboxing). Unusuals were the big ticket lootbox items, so the sky's falling on the trader end of things.

From our very own TF2 thread:
voodoo said:
As FUBARs go, this is a doozy:


There have been numerous reports, and sightings in the wild, of an apparent serious economy flaw that is resulting in the guaranteed uncratings of Unusual quality items. As a result, demand for certain types of crates believed to be affected has soared, and supplies of Unusual quality items are flash flooding the market.
Scrap.TF has disabled its Unusual banking feature as a result.

  • It is currently not recommended to trade for anything at this time. Real world money trades, although they've never been sanctioned by Valve outside of the Steam Community Market, are especially hazardous at this time.
  • It is not yet known how, or even if Valve will clean up any damage caused as a result of this error.
    • As well, the fates of those known to be actively partaking in such activities are also unknown.
  • DUE TO THE UNCHARTED TERRITORY OF THE AFTERMATH OF SUCH A FLAW'S EXISTENCE IN ANY VALVE MULTIPLAYER GAME WITH ITEMS, THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION! THERE IS ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY, HOWEVER REMOTE, OF A GLOBAL ROLLBACK OF ALL TEAM FORTRESS ITEM TRADING ACTIVITY
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Sure explains why I'm seeing so many of my old crate listings getting sold in the marketplace all of a sudden...
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CommodoreKong said:
Looks like it's crates 1-20 along with 82 and 85 that give a guaranteed unsual. I unboxed all 8 of my 82 and 85s and got an unusual from all of them.
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voodoo said:
Wow:

mUpyexW.png
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CommodoreKong said:
Looks like 20 doesn't actually work, I tried it and it gave me stranges. Everything else worked though. I unboxed a few unusuals.
8B607B21F5EB90111E4908F70AC5CEABD4990F3E



I imagine tomorrow will be the first day in a long time Gabe Newell has thought about TF2.
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ZekeThePlumber said:
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As far as I know this is the biggest mess up to happen in one of Valve's game economies, but it remains to be seen what they'll do, if anything, to "fix" things now that there is a heavy supply of these items out in the wild.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
Wow, this is a big issue. I know TF2's economy suffered a lot of inflation issues over the years but this will basically tank it entirely.
 
Ionic

Ionic

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Oct 31, 2017
2,734
Well, I did my part in helping crater the economy of my favorite game by selling what crates I had.
 

Deleted member 11214

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This blows as the only reason Valve updates the game at all is because it has a still-thriving economy despite their negligence.
 
Cuboid 64

Cuboid 64

Member
Oct 28, 2017
354
If I know Valve they'll remove everyone's hats gotten within the last couple of hours and then not look in this game's general direction for another couple of years.
 
GenericBadGuy

GenericBadGuy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,348
What a strange, strange ecosystem. I haven't played in years, but I remember I once sold a hat for over $200. And this was before lootboxes really became mainstream.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,072
Argh, the one time I could sell the crates for a great price, and I never set up Steam Authenticator so market listings take 15 days, prices would have certainly crashed by then.
 
AnansiThePersona

AnansiThePersona

Started a revolution but the mic was unplugged
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Oct 27, 2017
15,682
Oh fuck if I was still into TF2's economy I would've jumped out a window. Some much shit is worthless lol
 
Ionic

Ionic

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,734
This whole thing is a ruse to get people to set up their Steam authenticators.
 
Mobu

Mobu

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Oct 28, 2017
5,932
oooooof backpack.tf gonna need that suicide prevention link soon
 
Ac30

Ac30

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Oct 30, 2017
14,527
London
There's now a requirement to have bought something in the last year to sell on the market?

Fuck off Valve.
 
SirKai

SirKai

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Dec 28, 2017
7,367
Washington
merf said:
None of it has an impact on game balance. Same with Valve's other successful F2P games (CSGO, Dota 2 and now Underlords).
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Do you remember when the store was first introduced? The hats gave you STAT BONUSES. It was horrible. TF2's implementation of microtransactions was abysmal at launch, especially since the hats-with-stats were $20 each. It caused a huge and deserved uproar (but this was back in 2010).

Valve did patch in a guaranteed crafting recipe for the hats (it was total luck, and BAD luck, to get them at first without paying) quickly, but it still took weeks of playing to get even one of the set bonus hats (and there were five). It was terrible.

They thankfully never did this exact thing again; there were item sets still but with no applied stat bonuses, and years later they eventually removed the introduced stat bonuses entirely. But man what a mess it was for a while. Just terrible from every angle.
 
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Deleted member 11214

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SirKai said:
Do you remember when the store was first introduced? The hats gave you STAT BONUSES. It was horrible. TF2's implementation of microtransactions was abysmal at launch, especially since the hats-with-stats were $20 each. It caused a huge and deserved uproar (but this was back in 2010).
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Yeah. I do.
 

Deleted member 18021

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I'll buy your stout shako for 2 refined.

Ac30 said:
There's now a requirement to have bought something in the last year to sell on the market?

Fuck off Valve.
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They've gradually locked the market down over the years.

I remember when you could just buy like $12 of Dota 2 crates, get everything in them guaranteed, and then sell everything you didn't want on the market immediately and get most of the $12 back. Then they restricted it to waiting 3 months to list the items, and bleh.
 
RandomExpletive

RandomExpletive

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,184
Sacramento
I should go see if I have some 85s...

Ooo 4 and 2, if this is still working I'll pop em open for fun after work

I'm sure one of my friends has a few
 
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Lupic

Lupic

Member
Dec 31, 2017
473
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Man, I remember when hats weren't in TF2 and it was a simpler time.
Kinda wish they release some TF2 classic version that existed around or just before the Engineer update.
 
Mobyduck

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Oct 27, 2017
2,100
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merf said:
None of it has an impact on game balance. Same with Valve's other successful F2P games (CSGO, Dota 2 and now Underlords).
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And yet games like Overwatch get raked over the coals for having a much less addiction-inducing system. It is quite funny how people usually forget Valve's existence when it comes to discussing gambling addiction, loot boxes and mtx in general.

But that's neither here nor there. All I can say is that I hope HotS stay as alive as TF2 for many years to come.
 
ZugZug123

ZugZug123

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Oct 27, 2017
2,412
As long as my Max Severed Head did not lose value, I'm good :)

Man, I miss old TellTale. They gave the hat to both people who bought Sam and Max on Steam and on their own store (which is what I did since I was still a bit iffy on Steam in the olden times).
 

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AntiMacro said:
Neither do cosmetics, but games with only cosmetics are still under fire for having a store targeting kids.
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Yeah and like a lot of single player mobile gacha stuff the operant conditioning for whales operative condition for players is that people, like, want to look at the characters and it's not really a matter of balance. Even people who like, say, that Fire Emblem phone game call it a 'waifu simulator'
 
Dreams-Visions

Dreams-Visions

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Oct 25, 2017
41,368
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Oh this is entertaining. I wonder how many of my Team Captains are out in the wild now? (Sunbeams; was 13 in the world up until now)

edit: still worth 600 keys, eh? nice.

edit: and my Sunbeams beak is still worth 220 keys.
 
Cels

Cels

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Oct 26, 2017
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cheater's lament v2 for anyone who doesn't abuse this exploit lol

AntiMacro said:
Neither do cosmetics, but games with only cosmetics are still under fire for having a store targeting kids.
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kids can't buy shit unless they use their parents' money though so i don't really think it's a problem
 
mute

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Oct 25, 2017
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All my TF2 memories were pre-hat so it would probably be pretty crazy to go back to now.
 
FarZa17

FarZa17

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Oct 27, 2017
1,568
Is anyone able to open TF2 game and check the inventory? I just read this and decided to check my inventory and it loads way too slow than normal, then got the error to try again later.

I guess the market server is kinda busy that related with this bug and I have not done any trading, nor a purchase.
 
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