By the Light, I hate this game sometimes…

There are lots of things I dislike about Team Fortress 2. Everyone else will have already covered them. Random critical hits. Autobalance screwing you over at the wrong moment. Incompetent team mates. The 4th Sniper. That UGC Steel duo with matching unusuals who think they are brilliant when they are stomping a server full of Gibuses. The Gunslinger. The Scout. Lots of things. But none of them single-handedly make me want to uninstall the game. In fact, I haven’t played TF2 properly since the Festive SPUF event, and in my opinion that was a disaster because I fucked up the map rotation. Every time I play, I spend five minutes trying to decide what to play, before entering a random Tough Break server (since everything else is empty) and getting pissed off. The few times I’ve actually played since then, I’ve only lasted about 20 minutes before giving up and playing something else.

I don’t get pissed off straight away. Oh no. Not unless I’m already in a bad mood. It’s a slow, gradual thing. Lots of little things culminating into one big lump of annoyances.

Let’s take the other day for example. My sister wanted help with a contract. It was one of those lame Sandvich ones that need tonnes of grinding. So I dutifully got onto a server with her, eventually, and we played some TF2. The plan was to get the tank damage advanced bit by me going Quick-Fix Medic and pocketing her as she fought enemy Heavies. Didn’t work very well though as the last point of Snowycoast (which I swear at the end is nothing but a giant choke) consisted of a UGC Heavy/Demoman combo surrounded by Snipers and level 3 sentries, and an Ubersaw Medic that everyone kept on feeding Uber to. So to speed things up, I sat in spawn rocket-jumping into the ceiling while she fed me sandviches.

We continued playing for a bit, but we lost. Most of our team were Gibus Snipers or random Pyros, I was the only Soldier on the team and when I switched to Medic to pocket Nommy again, three other people switched to Medic barely healed anyone. A new round started and things weren’t much better. Although the match started alright with me and Nommy getting a few kills, but she died and I ended up trapped in a corner. This Scout offered to melee duel me, but some bastard Soldier decided that he was pissed off and killed me. Dishonorable bastard.

A few more wasted lives and watching four Pyros fail to kill that damn Ubersaw Medic, I gave up and quit the game.

That’s typical though. Better than typical even. I played for a full 15 minutes and didn’t get dominated once. That’s when I realise why I’m getting annoyed. I am incapable of carrying a team. As knowledgeable as I am about Team Fortress 2, I can’t actually put any of that knowledge to good use. I’m not saying I’m a bad player. I’m not. But I’m certainly not a pub-stomper either. Not even close. I’m too reliant on other players doing their jobs (or at least trying) in order to do mine. If there’s even just one other player who CAN carry my team, then we’ll be sure to win since I can look after them, even if I’m not playing Medic. Otherwise I just can’t do it.

I could go and play MvM. I don’t need to worry about being awful there. But shooting bots just doesn’t feel as rewarding as shooting people. It only feels good if you’re playing with other people, or doing something insane like Odoroki’s madness. There’s less of a sense of triumph and achievement. They’re bots and they’re not smart.

After all of that, after all these years of playing, I’ve come to a conclusion. I don’t like Team Fortress 2 any more. And it’s all because I’m not very good at this game. Average. Boring. Only slightly better than the hatless hordes.

So it turns out the thing I hate most in Team Fortress 2 is how bad at it I am.