Valve has decided to clear up a few things regarding their planned major update, the one arriving before the Sniper gets his new stuff.
The main focus was the ”decoupling” of achievements and unlockable gear says Robin Walker, with new wearables all being ”cosmetic only” for now. No random loot drops.
”The primary change here is simply the decoupling of achievements and unlockables, which is the source of most of the negative feedback we’ve received around previous class packs,” Valve’s Walker told Shacknews.
The new achievement-less gear planned is still in the thinking stage when it comes to delivering it to players, Valve are going to ”try a few different things, but the first ones won’t manifest themselves inside the game itself, because it’d allow servers to cheat the system.”
”…they’re all cosmetic only, but it’s obviously more interesting if they become more than that, so we’re still thinking about that.”
”Shipping them without gameplay changes seems like a good way to tackle the first problem, which is to ensure we don’t break our silhouette based class identification. It also starts us on another path that we’re interested in, which is allowing players to have some control over their appearance,” he continued.
”We plan to do more than just cosmetic items, but we like to go one step at a time to be able to measure the effect of each change, both on the game and on the community.”
Walker affirms this update is going to arrive before the Sniper update, so the vanity conscious of us can feel extra special soon enough when we blow away newbs.
