As for loadouts, one thing tf2 has always been good at is equal loadouts so that shouldn't be a problem.
HAHAHA. . .
wait, you're serious? You're telling me the Huntsman, the FaN, the Kunai and the Black Box are all balanced, legitimate sidegrades from the stock weapons?
never mind some of the others that completely sidestep the original intention of the weapon it's replacing like the chargin' targe/aladdin's wee booties which basically turn the demoman into an instant kill, line of sight melee character, or the backburner which, for the longest time didn't have the airblast that took all the skill out of pyro, or the milk man set which grants +25 hp (which is more than it sounds if you're a scout) just for wearing a hat and using 2 alt weapons
Honestly playing TF2 with no restrictions would be a huge minus for me. I've played since beta and I still use mostly stock weapons because when last I played (which has been a while because of the issues I stated above) almost every single unlock is easier to use than the stock weapon, with a few caveats. The Dead Ringer and the Cloak and Dagger are obviously made for players who don't care to take the time to properly learn to manage cloaking.
/rant
With all that said, let's play soldner.
I would tl:dr the post I'm about to make btw haha
)
The items that are completely different than the original intended ones (e.g. Demonight set, Huntsman sniper, Gunslinger engineer) are one of the reasons that we are still even talking about an FPS game that's 5 years old, it's like it adds extra classes into the game without actually doing that. Any items that are a "one-hit-kill" (e.g. Scout sandman and cleaver combo) require so much skill and timing that 90% of the time you would be better off taking them out with the primary weapon (blasting them 3-4 times with the scattergun).
If there are items that are blatantly OP, why do 80% of people still use the stock weapons like myself? The only straight up replacements I can think of are the soldier shovel alternatives and that is because the shovel was proven to be UP compared to other classes melee weapons (and then they nerf'd the equaliser
).
Saying that the milkmen set adds 25 health for changing two weapons and wearing a hat is ridiculous, the primary has 2 less shots before reloading and a tonne of other disadvantages and you lose your secondary weapon (pistol) which at times is like a sawn off sniper rifle with 12 shots! The mad milk obviously has advantages but this post is long enough
We could set which items are disallowed but isn't that getting a bit serious, I thought this was meant to be for fun?
/lolrantresponseover