Today an astute TF2 fan happened to catch a slip-up on his phone’s RSS reader, and quickly grabbed a screenshot before Valve took the post back down. Seeing as how much we love you here at Icrontic, I took the liberty to turn it into text and OCR it so that it would be easier to read:
The blog post in its entirety (please forgive any errors introduced by the sketchy OCR process):


In response to various calls from our blog attentive audience, we’re happy to report that the next class to receive the update treatment will be the Soldier.

Playing such a damage-centric role, the Soldier has been extremely difficult to develop beyond the default offensive stance that we commonly see him occupying. As such, we decided we like to blur the line between attack/defence, hopefully causing even veteran players to rethink their conception of the class. Our primary goal when designing the update was both maintaining the balance of the class for newer players, while simultaneously rewarding those who experiment with more outlandish techniques. Thus, the update will focus heavily on the teamwork aspect that the Soldier is well equipped to explore, while introducing players to awide variety of roles that, although tough to master, will allow even the inexperienced to assist their team effectively.

Obviously, designing balanced unlockable weapons for such a potentially powerful class has been difficult, but we’re happy to say that what we have in mind should bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘Shock And Awe’.

As always,we’re looking closely at how we can improve performance across the board for our loyal players, so as a result, the forthcoming update will bring with it our largest collection of hotfixes, mechanic overhauls and engine optimizations to date. The combined effect of these fairly major changes to how you interact with both the game world and other users should help make playing Team Fortress 2 a safer, more accessible experience for everyone.

Finally, we’re extremely excited to announce not one, but two major introductions to the game. The first of these being the long-awaited launch of the Item Trading system, allowing you to put to use the myriad collection of weapons that you may have built up since the drop system was utilized with the Sniper/Spy update. Bundled with the Item Trading will also come a minor tweak to the rates at which random items are placed into the game. We’re keeping quiet about the changes for now, but we’re confident that when released, keeping hold of those 7 Kritzkriegs may not seem like such a bad idea after all.

The second revision, one that we hope will breathe new life into both the player and map-making communities, is our third new game mode to be introduced since release. King Of The Hill, a mode relying on a coordinated approach by both teams, will offer every class a chance to excel at one or more aspects of their gameplay, while raising awareness of their more unusual abilites. Of course,what game mode would be complete without several new maps to battle over? So we’re throwing in a few of those too. Until then, dismissed!

As you can see, the update can be broken down as follows:
New Soldier unlockables
New Soldier achievements
Item Trading
Tweaks to random item drops
King of the Hill game mode
New maps
“Fairly major� engine tweaks that increase performance and “safety�

Keep your eyes open; we’ll talk about the updates as we find out about them!

Source
http://gaming.icrontic.c...ldier-update-info-leaked

I saw this a couple days ago, but the community writers were saying it was believed to be fake. But who knows...maybe valve likes how the spy vs sniper leaked out and all the attention so they do the same with the soldier.

10 cents say they decrease rocket damage and rocket splash damage yet again, remove half of his spare ammo, and make damage falloff even more pronounced. Because, you know, they haven't done that twice (once for ammo carried).

But in terms of the article: I think it's unlike Valve to come out this early and say, "Here's what we're doing," in such a brutish manner. Their previous early announcements have had some more tact and varied, interesting writing. They also say they've designed the update already. Every other update they've claimed to be working on it until 5 minutes before release. The writing is sloppy and long, and the only passing spark of possible reality is the last line. In terms of content? Let's see, nothing that Valve hasn't previously hinted at is being announced either. Soldier update? Yeah, they've talked about that. New unlockables and achievements? Duh. New map type? Yeah, usually one of those, too. (Wouldn't KOTH be the fourth new map type after arena, PL, and PLR, anyway? Not third.) Bug fixes? There are always some of those. Item trading? They've already announced they're doing that.

If it is real, someone is probably being fired for releasing such a poorly written monstrosity and it was removed so Valve could put some life into it and do it their way.

Maybe I'm missing something in the blog post... I'm saying it might be illegitimate because there is neither anything 'nitty-gritty' nor anything entertaining. Unlike some posts, there's nothing extremely technical. There's nothing funny. It wasn't proofread very well, either. If it was real, it was probably removed for one of those reasons. But that's neither here nor there. To me, the style and content is incredibly tacky compared to most other blog posts. Maybe it's just a new writer. But the fact that it was removed (if real) does lend support to the idea that the entire post is just 476 words of nothing. Previous first announcements are far different from this one. Anyway, the two 'major announcements' are neither major nor particularly surprising. Item trading? They announced that a while ago. New game mode? Nothing new about a new game mode.

I'm not saying it's certainly fake, but if it is real, I'll be quite disappointed.

1. Contains nothing insightful, technical, new, or entertaining.
2. It wasn't proofread very well.
3. King of the Hill would be the 4th, not 3rd new game mode.
4. Word choice sucks up to readers like nothing I've ever seen before.
5. Is unlike any other first update announcement because it leaves nothing surprising.

If it is real, though, the new new concept of shock and awe:
Remove all soldier ammo. Remove 50 health. Make him slower. Give the soldier a beacon. Make the shovel do half damage. Well, more like awful, but that's what Valve wants to do with the soldier. (This is inline with everything else they've done to him. Nearly every other game update has hurt the soldier (at least equal to or greater than any other class), so why should his own update be any different?)


Just for fun, what Valve has done to hurt the Soldier in the past:
1. Remove half of his spare ammo.
2. Decrease splash damage.
3. Decrease rocket damage.
4. Increase rocket falloff (read: decrease rocket damage again).
5. Decrease short range rocket damage (read: decrease rocket damage again).
6. Make rockets not shoot through friendlies and friendly buildings.
7. Increased self-splash damage from shooting nearby enemies or teammates.

Things Valve has done to other classes or overall which have hurt the soldier considerably:
1. Added the pyro airblast.*
2. Increased hitbox sizes so everyone's the same size as a heavy. (With the soldier's low speed, he's now even a better target for spies and snipers.)
3. Gave nearly every other class the ability to easily remove sticky bombs when it used to be the job of soldiers and demomen.
4. Gave numerous classes the ability to stun/knockback to the extent of a rocket (or more). Scout: Force-a-Nature, Sandman. Sniper: Sniper Rifle (they increased its knockback last update), Huntsman (large knockback, too). Spy: Ambassador (headshot does a lot of knockback). Heavy: Natascha.
5. Gave scouts and heavies the ability to completely stop rocket jumps. Test if you do don't believe me. Regardless of the direction the enemy is firing at you (even directly behind you), being hit with one of the aforementioned weapons by these two classes will stop your rocket jump for some inexplicable reason.
6. Increased heavy damage and decreased heavy spread. Now the heavy is the master of long range direct damage dealing, doing more damage per second than the soldier over any range.
7. Removed several 'sky-walks' on maps which the soldier (or demoman) could previously jump to.

*The diameter of the airblast is just 2.5 game units shorter than the radius of rocket splash and its front extend roughly that distance in front of the pyro, too. There are a couple bugs with this that severely hurt the soldier. The first is that rockets move like molasses and the soldier can't exactly dodge them. The second is that reflected rockets travel a shorter distance, to boot. The third is that, with lag, and rarely, a point blank deflected rocket can do roughly double damage. It's only happened once or twice to me, but because a point blank deflected rocket is actually deflected before it even leaves the rocket (because the pyro's range extends fairly far), it is possible that the rocket hits the pyro or ground and deals self-splash to the soldier in addition to the reflected rocket. Also, being hit before the rocket is even launched is stupid. Deflected rockets also suffer from slightly less falloff than normal rockets, too.

What Valve has done to help the soldier:
1. Slightly decreased self-splash from rocket jumps. Sometimes. Possibly. If the game doesn't screw you over.

Yeah, long range heavies taking 6 rockets to the face before going down is just a bit absurd. Rockets effectively suffer from double falloff. First, they do less damage every inch they travel which makes no sense. Last I checked, the payload on the rocket was still the same, regardless of how far it travels. Second, the further they travel, the easier they are to dodge. Double taxation is wrong, double falloff should be, too.





This would be so amazing. See that sentry over there? Not any more.

Too bad one pyro would say, "Mmph, mmph," and redirect all four at once.

I have no real problems with it as it is, but I would certainly like his usability to increase. Playing 1 on 1 cat and mouse games with enemies is nice, but in the end not that important to the game (outside of arena). I just want the idiotic huge falloff damage to disappear. It just doesn't make sense. 110 damage if the enemy is 10 feet away, but ~50 (+/- 5) from 100 feet, even though the rocket's payload and velocity are unchanged? At the edge of the splash, that damage can go down to about 20. The soldier can't exactly provide effective covering fire as his teammates run forward. The only thing he can do is hope his enemies get scared of the rockets flying towards them and run. Grenades don't have falloff from distance (yet), so it is possible for Valve to make it that way. Soldiers used to be dominant over long ranges, but even the Heavy does more DPS over long ranges than the Soldier. In every other game, the rocket launcher is something to be feared, but in TF2, only if the soldier is 20 feet behind you and you don't see him.

Soldier as he is now:

Pros:
Can rocket jump
Medium-high health
Strong medium range attacks
Effective at assailing Engie nests if unmolested.
Can juggle enemies
Strong in most 1 vs 1 situations
Shovel instills fear in even the most battle-hardened enemies

Cons:
Slow
Cannot safely use primary weapon at close ranges
No effective long range weaponry despite his intended purpose (in Dev commentary)
Fairly low ammo count
Long reload times
Fat Pigeon has still not found the Soldier's hat
Relatively steep learning curve to be truly effective with his techniques

What I'd like to see is either the falloff removed, or the falloff reversed. Using the rocket launcher at nearby enemies does less damage whereas shooting at enemies afar does max damage. The shotgun is good for medium/close range, anyway. People just don't use it enough. Actually, when typing this, I'm falling in love with the idea. Too bad that doesn't really have anything to do with "shock and awe."

Lol, I love fat pigeon on this, because he is by far one of the best soldiers i know besides war. Ever fuckin since i played tf2 from the beginning, i was NEVER afraid of the soldier. I just wasnt. In TFC, if you see a soldier, you know your going to die, or your going to attempt to run away and die without facing him. He was by far the one of the stronger classes in TFC(it was unbalanced).

In TF2, the rockets are just not that strong. He is sooo slow, the only way i ever kill people is by being medium distance away, hiding behind some kind of cover, and shooting at the enemies feet using the splash damage so they never actually see me, i just know that they are behind the corner. If they get close, you can use your rocket launcher and kill them while taking half your health away, or use your shotgun which every class has. I do know that the soldier is still good (since seeing war and fat pigeon making it look like a work of art) but they need to make him a little stronger, when i see him, i want to rethink attacking or running.

--and to me, falloff damage doesnt make any sense.--

I still manage to own with soldier.......the nerfs aren't that bad really. The only one that kind of sucked was the ammo nerf but even that wasn't too bad. If your semi-competent you should have killed 1 or 2 people before your ammo runs out and picked up the ammo that the dead drop.

Again when it comes to updates people think that it should mean insta-buff for their favorite class. The updates are not meant to make a class stronger, they are intended to add a new strategic element to the game or expand a class's usefulness to a certain extent.