Team Comtress 2 Update - February 4, 2026

• Casual mode pre-match timer fixes:
  • The timer starts at 150 seconds
  • If teams are even, the timer will go down to 30 seconds upon reaching at least a 7v7. Before, there was no timer handling for teams evenly forming.
  • If teams are not even, the pre-match timer will go down to 60 seconds upon 12 players joining the game. Before, it was upon 4 players joining the game.
  • The match will start immediately when reaching at least a 9v9, or if players have been waiting for 90 seconds total, the match will start immediately with at least a 6v6. Before, the match only started with a full 12v12.
  • Fixed various desync in the timer countdown, including 11 seconds being skipped down to 10
  • Fixed demo recording starting immediately after doors close, rather than slightly after
• Casual mode autobalance fixes:
  • New autobalance system now activated for all servers by default (mp_autoteambalance 2)
  • Autobalance now announces during the round it will be active in 5 seconds, rather than working quietly
  • Autobalance now runs instantly at the start of each round, ensuring that teams are balanced before gameplay starts
  • Autobalance no longer runs for the first 60 seconds of a round, or the last 60 seconds of the round timer
  • Autobalance is now less favored for Engineers with relevant buildings, or Medics with enough UberCharge level
  • Autobalance is heavily less favored for players that have been recently autobalanced
  • Autobalance is less favored for players that have been playing for a long time
  • Made autobalance rebalance scoring metric much more intelligent, keeping track of moment-to-moment raw performance levels, rather than biasing towards players who have been on the server for a long time, or by solely long term performance rank (MMR)
• DirectX 9.0c (dxlevel 95) with Shader Model 3.0 is now the minimum supported spec
  • This GPU spec was introduced in 2006
  • This will allow us to streamline certain rendering systems, improve performance, and enable more modern features
  • Some quality levels from lower dxlevels will be introduced through graphics settings rather than a separate dxlevel, based upon community feedback
  • Optimized various rendering systems to take advantage of the new spec
• HDR map data is now required to be enabled
  • This will allow maps to only need HDR lighting rather than also an LDR lit version
  • Graphics settings (Post-processing) will now disable HDR visually rather than skipping loading its data
• Restricted r_pixelfog to be on to prevent a visibility exploit
• Removed support for r_shader_srgb convar, which was unsupported any GPU that matches the new minimum spec
• Dynamic models now compute full ambient lighting rather than a limited number of samples
• Networking updates:
  • Fixed cases of subtick desync
  • Fixed some cases of position desync. This was most often encountered during backstab attempts.
• Fixed player class not being reset when switching teams in competitive modes
• Fixed players who already are a certain class getting the message that they have reached the class limit
• Fixed players spawning as an invalid class in some cases when picking a class that’s over the class limit
• Fixed hitscan weapons not refilling their clip on kill during competitive match warmup
• Fixed bots not fighting in competitive warmup
• High skill competitive matches will now experience fully instant respawns during warmup
• Fixed a possible case of sound crackling
• Fixed a bug with scoreboard consuming mouse input for a tick upon initialization
• Removed pd_atom_smash from bot friendly map cycle, as bots do not function on it
• Reduced the size of overheal health icon overlay
• Minor math performance optimizations and bug fixes
• Disabled weapon sway for now as we have sufficiently tested this iteration of the feature
• Reduced default volume from 20% to 15%
• Merged the following upcoming changes for TF2:
  • Fixed case mismatch in Linux packed file paths
  • Fixed the Rescue Ranger console having incorrect visual effects
• Fixed GENTLE MANNE of LEISURE bot name being duplicated
• Various stability fixes