aabicus – Page 50 – The Daily SPUF

March 17th – March 24th

March 17, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, cosmetics

Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but Valve really does love their community. Really, they do. They’ve given us all sorts of things completely for free that most other companies would never consider even developing without selling it; Source Filmmaker, Alien Swarm and the Steam Workshop being particularly large examples. When we get mad at Valve for seemingly ‘forgetting’ about us, we have to remember that they’ve already gone way above and beyond the call of duty for the gadzillions of free updates they’ve pumped out for so many of their games. All right, Jeeves, I’m done with the soapbox. You… [Continue Reading]

This Week in TF2 History

March 10th – 16th

March 10, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments SPUF, update

March 13, 2009 saw Valve tackle the recently-added Sandman, which some people thought was hideously overpowered. This update’s laughable tweaks didn’t fix any of the major problems and the weapon could look forward to a much more severe nerfing in August. March 10 2011 brought “The First Ever Three-Way Pack Update!” as the Shogun Pack brought new weapons to the Scout, Soldier, and Demoman, because those were totally the classes that needed more weapons at this point. All of the items in the pack were modeled by Larolaro, who also made the Tank Buster set. The next day (which is also… [Continue Reading]

This Week in TF2 History

March 2nd – March 9th

March 4, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments Coaching, medic, update

Been a while since I did one of these, eh? Well, since real time has finally caught up to how far I’d gotten along the timeline, I thought I could take this opportunity to try and keep something of a real regular schedule going. March 5th, 2009 saw a number of limits placed on ‘ducking’, aka crouching. A timer was enabled to prevent spamming of the ability while running and a cap was placed preventing the player from crouching more than once in air. This got changed the next day and Sniper mains are unhappy with it to this day. They… [Continue Reading]

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One Last Heist…

March 3, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, dosh, non-tf2, Not TF2

…until I can go Infamous. That’s what I told myself as I broke into the ATM at the Four Stores convenience mart and waited for the escape vehicle. Despite my best efforts to dislike the blatant grinding aspects of Payday 2, the lure of the co-op Left 4 Dead 2-inspired gameplay and the TLC (and DLC) the devs showered the game with on a weekly basis was too much to ignore. Somehow, despite still feeling like a complete newbie to the world of bank robbery I had reached the $200 million required funds in my offshore account, and after this ATM I’d… [Continue Reading]

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Leave Impracticality 4 Dead

February 28, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments advice, l4d, mod, mods, non-tf2

Every single element in Left 4 Dead 2 is there for a reason. Its features, weapons, zombie types, etc are balanced between each other and have their own role to play. All unnecessary aspects of the setting have been trimmed out, boiling the zombie apocalypse into a polished and nuanced nutshell. It’s a great game for players new and old, as a standard normal-difficulty campaign can throw enough curveballs to keep veterans on their toes while also letting the inexperienced focus on reaching the next safe room and surviving. However, if you limit yourself to only the base game, you’re… [Continue Reading]

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5 Ways to Deal Damage with the Jumpers

February 24, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments demoman, glitches, history, soldier, weapon

What’s the first stat of the Rocket/Sticky Jumper that pops into your head? Probably -100% damage. But it turns out that these weapons have actually had a number of ways to bypass the restriction and deal the damage in weird ways. Some are fixed, some are not, all are here for your reading pleasure. 1. The Rocket Jumper could once hurt enemy Pyros: Who airblasted the rockets. This is probably the most famous one on this list. Supposedly this was fixed at some point, but it was never mentioned in any update patch notes so I didn’t notice when. 2.… [Continue Reading]

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Being the I in Team

February 22, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, comparison, l4d, non-tf2

One of my favorite series on YouTube is Titsonabullsteam’s Realism Expert Solo runs for Left 4 Dead 2, where he beats every campaign in the game without bots, allies, or exploits. Recently I’ve been communicating with him because I’ve gotten into L4D2 modding and wanted to help him finish the last video in the series. After watching his entire run again and reliving the amazement I felt the first time I saw it back in college, I was inspired to look into other YouTube series where enterprising players solo Valve co-op titles on the hardest difficulties. As it turns out, there are two… [Continue Reading]

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Why Scout is Awful and Underpowered

February 17, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments a week of Love and Hate, analysis, comparison, criticism, hate, love, scout, TFC

I don’t dislike any of the classes in TF2. You’d think Engineer, but honestly as a Demoman/Medic main, it’s my job to destroy their nests, and without them I’d have significantly less to do at any given moment. Sniper likewise I’ve never really cared about because I can always seem to find routes that let me avoid them. Not to mention that my favorite weapon, the Sticky Jumper, turns them into my favorite prey. So this article is kinda tough for me to write, because I don’t really hate anyone in TFC either. Pyro, maybe, but he’s too pitiful to… [Continue Reading]

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Why Battle Medic is my favorite class

February 16, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments a week of Love and Hate, hate, love, medic, TFC

Today Medic announced a fun initiative for anyone who’d like to write two themed articles; one on which class is their favorite and one on their least favorite. And I would be remiss not to bring up the class I find more fun to play than all nine from TF2. The Combat Medic from TFC has an unparalleled mix of mobility, firepower, and health regeneration that makes him truly unlike any other class from either game. As this old article goes into detail on, his primary job is to send himself flying through the air with conc grenades deep into… [Continue Reading]

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An easy way for Valve to crank out new maps

February 11, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments game mode, maps

Repurpose old ones! Sounds obvious, but this has been a mainstay of Team Fortress from the beginning. I’ve already mentioned that 3 popular (and one rarely-played) TF2 maps were originally maps in Team Fortress Classic, ported over due to their popularity. TF2 itself is quite fond of self-plagiarism, with there being no less than three versions of Gorge (four if you count Itemtest), Badlands, and many many maps with two different versions. These reskins come for a number of reasons. Sometimes Valve wants to showcase a new game mode and so they release some brand new maps along with a… [Continue Reading]