I used to be semi-addicted to TF2, until it became free to play.
The massive increase in poorly balanced weapons and items and the flood of newbie players who were not that interested in the 'team' aspect of 'team fortress' really killed the fun for me.
There was a similar effect with major releases before it became free to play. I particularly remember the engineer update - for about a week that's the only class 1/2 the team would want to play, so good luck being Blue (attacking) on a pipeline map (for example).
I'll try it again one day soon so see if things have settled down, but I think that the commercial success came at the cost of game quality.
I wish they'd do something to encourage the 'team' aspect. Too many people just rack up their own personal score or work on individual achievements. They could slightly increase drops for being on the winning team or open up some new team-based achievements like the Foundry ones.
Sometimes it depends on the servers. I'm pretty good at FPS's and found that weapons aren't really unbalanced and using the default weapon set you can do pretty well (I've mainly played only soldier). A recommended look at servers would be the reddit ones
Personally I liked TF2 when it first came out (before achievement based upgrades came out) and felt that the updates and new weapons and especially after hats and such came out were all too much. My problem is probably that I was a hardcore counter-strike player and TF2 really turned into a pub oriented game.
It is still fun to play a week every few months if you can find a decent server to play in.
I put a bunch of time in recently in getting decent at pyro and the main thing that pisses me off about the game as it is now is that there are a number of hard counters designed into the game system that are hard to overcome. For example, my game plan going against heavies, engineers, scouts and to some degree soldiers is "gee, I hope he's an idiot" which works sometimes but doesn't make me thrilled.
Probably this is the habits I learned on mediocre pubbie servers coming back to bite me, and I need to learn to be less aggressive all the time, but it still rankles.
As someone who plays Pyro a lot, there are two things to realize: playing (good) Pyro is hard, and pick your fights. Being a melee class, you have to know which battles you can win, and which you can't. So the "hope he's an idiot" approach may work, just judge your opponents before committing to the fight. Know how and when to use your airblast, secondary, and melee.
Yes, it can be rather annoying to play, but in the long run, it gets better. In organized matches, the Pyro is a rather critical part of the team. Both the Engineer and the Medic depend on him/her for their protection. If you get any satisfaction from helping your team, that makes it worth it.
The massive increase in poorly balanced weapons and items and the flood of newbie players who were not that interested in the 'team' aspect of 'team fortress' really killed the fun for me.
There was a similar effect with major releases before it became free to play. I particularly remember the engineer update - for about a week that's the only class 1/2 the team would want to play, so good luck being Blue (attacking) on a pipeline map (for example).
I'll try it again one day soon so see if things have settled down, but I think that the commercial success came at the cost of game quality.