We have deliberately not had a tour completion medal for our events (except TT because it was small) because we want the medals to all be reasonably accessible. As is, only about 11% of our players got the top-tier medal, while only 355 people as of now (1.4% of our players) have completed the full tour. If we were to make the crystal a tour completion medal, that number might increase slightly, but not much. We consider it a waste of a medal to make it so restrictive. Unfortunately though, this doesn't matter in the future since Valve no longer accepts new medals.

Originally posted by KKTF396:

Fair enough.
I have one more idea that could possibly work: Is there any way you can make a privet server that requires a password to join? And put the password on the MvM (madness vs machine) website in a special server list, made just for the MvM custom upgrade thing. Warn them on the special server list that they NEED to enable all sorts of download options. Just in case if they still didn't read (or just not bothered to) the warning, maybe make an in-game check upgrade. This is my idea: Maybe before a wave starts, there will be a pre-wave of 1 minute, made just for checking if they have access to custom upgrades. Make a complete immune to fire damage canteen which can only be bought once for free during pre-wave, after every pre-wave finishes disable the upgrade. Make their weapon and canteen unusuable (except the complete immune fire damage canteen) during pre-wave, and make the players all gather around in a specific area (if they don't, just teleport them to there [or kill them and make them respawn there] ). Spawn a bunch of pyro bots around the area, and make them attack the players for 10 seconds. If they died during that time, kick them from the server. The idea is if they allow all sorts of downloads, they will be able to see and use that canteen, which means they won't be dying. If they don't allow all sorts of downloads, they will die to those pyro bots, and get them kicked.

Maybe also make players pay a weapon (0.05 scrap) to join custom upgrade MvM servers, so you guys can earn more profits? And those who got kicked won't be getting a refund (warn them about that too), so they probably won't be even trying.

Just one more question: How many people are currently in the MvM (madness vs machine) team? And how long will it usually take to script and make a new mission?

It's not so much that we can't do an event like this; it's that our goal is to make stuff open to everyone one that wants to play. The more convoluted and non-self-explanatory an event is, the fewer people will want to/be able to play it. If we started making content for the much smaller group of people who would want this, our time becomes worth that much less. It's the same reason Valve stopped making MvM content after Two Cities; only about 10% of TF2 players play MvM, so any time spent on PvP is 10 times as valuable as time spent on MvM.

Regarding charging players, we have never even considered it; the goal of our events is to let as many people play good, custom MvM as possible. Forcing people to pay bars the events from all F2Ps and people stumbling on the servers from the server browser. Also, 1 weapon is worth $0.0023. Even if everyone who played paid that, it'd only amount to $50, not even enough for 1 month of EU servers. (Plus, none of our events have been for-profit. It's all volunteer work.)

When MM started, the team was about 8 people. Then as they got swamped with submissions in August, they added 7 more (myself included) to help judge. Now that Madness is no longer supported and there's no event following it, there isn't really a team anymore, although a handful of us still help moderate the discord. Depending on level of experience, a mission takes about 2-5 hours to plan and write, plus 2-8 hours of testing and revising. Note though that the Potato team didn't making most of the missions, the entire mission making community did; we just judged and gave feedback.

Originally posted by KKTF396:

Originally posted by theAgamer11:

We had Australia servers, but you missed them. Once traffic decreases after a few months of the event running, the servers are no longer worth the money being spent on them. Sorry about that.

In regard to custom upgrades, that's a good idea but unfortunately, it requires players to download a file to their client for that to work. Lots of players have downloads set to only allow maps and we can't force them otherwise, so we couldn't include any special features that are client-side.

What if you can make some servers only made for players who allows all sorts of things? Warn them that the server contains custom upgrades, and tell them that if they want to play, they have to allow all sort of downloads in order to join and play in the server. And if everyone started to like this custom upgrade feature, maybe you can turn more servers into servers with custom upgrades

Btw just wondering, how much money does one server coast?

Unfortunately, a large portion of our players connect via the in-game server browser without ever visiting the website, so it's impossible to tell people anything before they join, and many people wouldn't read about it anyway even if we put it in the server welcome message. Custom upgrade missions would be more suited to communities of maybe a hundred players where randoms aren't so prominent.

Server cost varies by region and how good of a deal you can get. The European servers cost a little over $5 per month per server to run and the Asian/Australian ones cost $10 per server per month. The South American servers we had for a while were even more expensive (like $25 or something ridiculous).

Originally posted by KKTF396:

I'm too lazy to write a fully detailed speech, so I will just skip to the important parts:

The whole game mode is great, maps are challenging (well some advanced and expert ones), really creative custom robots and waves, love it.

The only problem I got is server ping(for me). I live in Australia, and whenever I play I always get 250+ pings. I can't do rocket jumps properly, projectiles always lunch about 500 milliseconds afterward I fired, it's just a little bit annoying.

I also have this idea of having some custom upgrades on weapons, like making weapons that are not so great for MvM at least fun to play with. For example, for Heavy's Tomislav, maybe there can be a super accuracy upgrade, can be upgraded 3 times, each time costing 150 credits. It will make Tomislav 's bullet spread even tighter, making it a great minigun for mid to long range. This is actually an idea by after breakfast, a tf2ber on youtube. Go check out his MvM upgrade idea vides! It's really interesting and I would love to see those special upgrades in game.

We had Australia servers, but you missed them. Once traffic decreases after a few months of the event running, the servers are no longer worth the money being spent on them. Sorry about that.

In regard to custom upgrades, that's a good idea but unfortunately, it requires players to download a file to their client for that to work. Lots of players have downloads set to only allow maps and we can't force them otherwise, so we couldn't include any special features that are client-side.

Originally posted by ╞●✿Fly✿Tower✿●╡:

I dont see a problem. On the site, when connected to the server, you can see how many waves are in the mission. Blind and dumb players were and always will be

The website is neither an intuitive nor convenient place to look for number of waves. Most people likely gloss right over it since, in most cases, the game supplies an accurate number of waves. That said, MM is no longer being supported, so this feature is not going to be added.

This is a Valve issue; I'm not sure why you're encountering it more frequently on Potato servers. Possibly validate your game files to see if that helps and make sure you're on a steady internet connection. Other than that, consider searching google for other people's solutions; this isn't anything specific to our servers.

Originally posted by CyanGlitch:

Server Number:???
Map/Mission name:Sequoia/Forest Fight
Wave number:Doesn't matter (1 tho)
Time the bug happened:Jan 28, 2020
Describe the bug:So yeah, there is this bug that I join a server and boom, I can't see it on potato.tf anymore. it a little and weird bug, but I think its worth mentioning. First, I thought it was nothing but it happened again. And YES I tried resetting the page and f5 SEVERAL times.
Any screenshots:these were both taken at the same time.
The game moment:
-screenshot snip-
The page at the same time:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1utj9Ey5jiS264tUL78WTrK9FhDKQ_jJn/view

Your google drive image isn't public. I don't have access to view it.

Originally posted by Glesas:

Server Number: Na
Map/Mission name: Casino city / Platinum Parade
Time the bug happened: idk
Describe the bug: The mission Platinum Parade i complete all 4 waves and i look at site all ok
meanwhile im looking and wave 4 is gone (early i was having a 102 points)
Any screenshots;
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I_vgPrQuQjFC-BJS-Yya2TN96WjvLicp

Was this today that you played wave 4 or are you recently returning to Madness after taking a break? Platinum Parade was originally only 3 waves and had a fourth one added a few months ago to increase its then very short duration. You will need to complete the new wave to get credit for that mission. If you did play it today, wait until midnight eastern time to see if the daily database sync fixes it.

The medal server only gives out medals when increasing tour points or at the midnight sync. Either complete a mission you haven't completed yet or wait about 11 hours and you'll get it.

The website is not intended for use on mobile devices and no further work is being done on Madness vs. Machines.