| Team Fortress stats |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|09:17 pm] |
Fun things in this week's Team Fortress 2 stats:
Everyone's playing pyro. By that, I mean about 20%. Interestingly, 16% are playing Engineer, perhaps because all those pyros are making it harder to play Spy.
Heavy outweighs pyro on average kills. Odds are they're simply out-ranging the pyros, but it doesn't help that nobody bothers to heal pyros.
The flare gun is really rubbish. It looks to deal as much damage as the flamethrower, but with a lengthy reload time. It's good for getting the achievement that requires you to hit a hundred people with the flare gun.
Everyone is still playing 2fort. On average, over one year and nine months of 2fort are played every week, or the entire duration of World War II every month.
While Badlands and Granary are the most balanced, Goldrush is heavily weighted in favour of the red team.
Achievements: 58% of players have the "Hard to Kill" achievement, and just under a quarter have played enough to get Hardcore (1,000 kills). The medic achievements are the hardest to get, or perhaps just the least popular: four are actually less common than "With Friends Like these..." (4.5%). Only one player in five has "Surgical Prep", an achievement which requires you to hold the button down for one minute at the start.
They've made a few of the medic achievements easier to get, now. Chief of Staff requires only one million heal points, not ten million, and Medical Breakthrough only requires you to destroy five buildings with one ubered Demoman (two sentries, two dispensers and a teleporter exit). |
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| Team Fortress 2: Medic Achievements |
[May. 1st, 2008|10:50 pm] |
Team Fortress 2 recently unveiled thirty-nine medic achievements. I'm writing up a list of suggestions on how to get these, as much for myself as anything else.
Easy achievements
A few achievements are trivial, so get these out of the way early on. Play a map with a Setup time, charge an uber before setup for the first achievement and deploy it a few seconds into the round for another (assuming someone on the enemy team deploys an uber at the same time). Joining a game that a friend is already in to give him the uber earns you your third easy achievement. Further, you earn another achievement here if three medics on your team launch their ubers at once - do this soon while everyone's playing medic.
Achievements are available for healing 7000 in one life and healing 10,000 in one life. These are pretty easy if you stay out of combat and heal a sniper on 2fort.
Long-term achievements
There are certain behaviours you should cultivate in order to secure some of the more long-term achievements. Most obviously, heal as much as possible as 1 million points healed earns an achievement. Respond to 200 requests for Medic!, extinguish 100 teammates on fire, and give ubercharges to 10 people on your friends list.
Combat also earns you points. Defeat 50 medics in a bonesaw duel, 20 scouts with the syringe gun, and 5 disguised spies calling 'medic'. Assist in healing to get revenge on a nemesis 20 times for another achievement. Do these at every opportunity to earn the awards.
Class assist
Healing specific classes is vital to earn several achievements. Usually you need to do these within one life (and sometimes within one uber).
Medic: Five kills.
Scout: Three kills while ubered.
Soldier: Five rocket kills while ubered.
Heavy: Twenty kills, with another achievement for two punchouts while ubered.
Engineer: Heal the engy while he repairs his sentry under attack.
Pyro: Ignite five enemies while ubered.
Demoman: Destroy five engineer buildings while ubered.
Situational assists
Some achievements require you to be healing any class, but under specific circumstances.
Heal a teammate as he takes fire from four or more enemies, about to die from landing or earns an achievement of his own (get this one early while the easy achievements are going). Uber a teammate just as he is hit with critical stickybombs (difficult to predict) or is blocking a capture (easy), and switch an uber between two teammates to uber two at once.
Another difficult achievement is to kill assist five enemies on capture points, the tricky part being surviving yourself.
Single combat
In addition to needling twenty scouts and bonesawing fifty scouts, you can earn a few achievements in singular combat. The easiest are to taunt after killing an enemy and make five successful consecutive hits with the bonesaw. More difficult, make five kills while holding the charge on an uber. In addition, kill an enemy spy you've been healing, ideally with the bonesaw.
Difficult achievements
Lastly, some achievements are more difficult than the rest. Score top of the team without killing anyone is pretty tricky, although healing the team's #1 player might help, especially if he quits partway through or you manage to leech off multiple high-scoring players.
The most difficult achievement is described as follows: In a team with no Medics, be the first person to switch to Medic after a teammate calls for 'Medic!', and then heal 500 health.
As we know, this is nigh-impossible because everyone is playing medic. |
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| Pyro is a terrible spy disguise |
[Oct. 28th, 2007|04:42 pm] |
For serious. Pyro should shoot at everything, friend and foe - however, this means you rarely suspect a pyro, should you see one camping around out of flamethrower range.
A spy is uncovered only by inviting friendly fire or acting unusually, which includes refusing to fire or failure to take actions usual to his class. In this case:
Scout disguise is a huge giveaway. A scout never runs into his own base without the flag.
Soldier is a good disguise until the spy is noticed to be refusing to rush headlong into combat. Standing and performing the helmet-whacking taunt can be used as a distraction while an "ally" runs headlong into combat and leaves his back open.
Pyro is an awful spy class, since he should flame everyone all the time; the exception is when you can use this preconception against them; pretending to "guard" the flag room while the engineers rush off for more metal; sap their teleporters to cut off backup lines, and run with the flag.
Demoman is a potentially good disguise, since he tends to be cautious and spends much time hanging back and watching instead of firing.
Heavy can be surprisingly effective as a disguise. TFC players trust the heavy, since a spy's speed used to give away a heavy disguise. Provided combat is quiet and the element of surprise provides a valid reason for not spinning up, the heavy can be a surprisingly good disguise, not to mention a fine way of getting free heals.
Engineer works within certain circumstances. Running around your own base in this guise is foolish, but it's perfect for heading toward a sentry cluster or the flag room. Even if you meet real engineers there, they're far too busy trying to repair their toys to kill you.
Sniper, likewise, works in a few circumstances - perfect on the battlements, at least until someone realises you aren't zooming in.
The spy itself finally, is potentially a disastrous disguise. No spy ever goes undisguised for long. |
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