aabicus – Page 54 – The Daily SPUF

TF2 receives first new Normal Quality item since 2007

October 22, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments halloween, history, loadout, update

I can’t be the only one who thinks there’s something elegantly ground-breaking in that simple, simple change during today’s double-update. To quote directly from the update notes: “Made the Spellbook Magazine a base action slot item for players to equip and use when playing on a server that uses Halloween Spells” For gameplay, this means that if you join a server that has spells enabled (which can be any server thanks to a new cvar, but also plr_hightower_event by default) and your action slot is empty, it’s autofilled with this: A very minor change, at the moment almost inconsequential. Valve clearly… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Straight Downgrades? In my TF2?

October 18, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, balance, cosmetics

Weapons that are just worse than their stock counterparts. Not strictly worse like the Big Earner, where the upsides aren’t worth the cost to equip, but literally worse, as in there aren’t any upsides to begin with. Once in a blue moon somebody on SPUF asks for these, and it’s always seen as a bit odd. There are two main flavors to the argument for adding these; the first is that they’d serve as a sort of handicap in situations where a player wants to limit themselves, either for training purposes or when playing with friends who are of a considerably lower… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Straight Upgrades? In my TF2?

October 16, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, balance, medic, melee, pyro

Weapons with literally no downside. I’m not talking weapons like the Wrangler, where the downsides exist but are negligible in comparison to the upsides (indeed, sometimes the only downside is “you don’t have the stock weapon it replaces.”) I’m talking weapons that literally just don’t have downsides and are just better then their stock equivalent. Not counting ones caused by bugs or bad coding, there have only ever been three straight upgrades added to TF2, and one has since been rebalanced. The Amputator on release granted the healing taunt for free before being changed (for the better in my opinion)… [Continue Reading]

Featured

How to Get Random Critical posts on SPUF

October 14, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments fun, random crits, SPUF

Are you one of those TF2 SPUFers who discuss TF2 despite not actually playing the game anymore? Or perhaps you still play TF2, but you miss the wonder of random criticals when on SPUF and not playing the game. Well, does SPUFer Thorisoka have the plugin for you! If you install this, then whenever you read SPUF threads, you’ll occasionally come across flashy CRITICAL POSTS. These posts are red-bordered and you’re not allowed to disagree with them. The downside is you’re literally not allowed to rep critical posts, because they’re shameful and the poster should feel bad (but if you really, really want to,… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Simple ways Valve could improve offline mode

October 10, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments advice, request, suggestion

The offline bots will always make me smile. They have an earnest determination that really makes it seem like they’re trying their hardest to be the best teammates possible. Not that they’ll ever realize that dream, but good on them for trying. However, as numerous people throughout the years have noted, Valve has restricted them to stock-only for the duration of their existence, and any justifications for this restriction have slowly eroded as TF2 has evolved. Itemtest lets you equip a puppet bot with a number of working unlocks like Bonk! and Mann Vs. Machine bots use unlocks all the time.… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Four Things You Can’t Do With the Syringe Gun

September 29, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, glitches, medic

Recently I wrote an article on Four Things You Can’t do With The Crusader’s Crossbow, because the crossbow is amazing and complicated and lends itself well to causing exploits and that sort of thing. But the design of the Syringe Gun is no slouch in that regard either. Face it; we Medics have a pretty complicated and unique primary with those rapid-fire hitscan projectiles, and that’s caused some trouble for Valve in the past. Here are some things that have been deemed Too Awesome for the poor syringe gun: 1. You can’t boost teammates on a sea of needles. The most… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Making Strange Filters Work For You

September 22, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments advice, defense, Strange, Strange Parts

Strange Filters were integrated poorly. I know of nobody who disagrees with this. They should have been like strange parts, adding a prefix and a subcounter showing how many kills you’ve gotten on a single map. Lobotomizing the actual function of the strange weapon on 99% of maps is not the way to get people to buy them. This article by Brokkoli makes a good case for strange filters by pointing out that it makes your weapon truly unique. Indeed, you are unlikely to ever see a Strange Rigid Market Gardener for the rest of your TF2 career, assuming you made… [Continue Reading]

Featured

On Stealth

September 20, 2014January 15, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, history, On Shooters, spy

Stealth and Shooters have always been strange bedfellows ever since they first met. On one hand the genres don’t appear to mesh well, what with your standard FPS starring a one-man army who plows through hundreds of mooks with an ever-increasing assortment of deadly weapons, and stealth involving slow, laborious sneaking past individual guards and relying on not making sound or setting off alarms. On the other hand, that’s exactly why stealth games have a dedicated niche fanbase, exactly because it goes against the conventions of the genre and uses the core elements of an FPS in a creative new… [Continue Reading]

Featured

How to Attract Medics and Influence People

September 7, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments comparison, demoknight, demoman, heavy, loadout, medic, pyro, soldier

As a Medic main, I’ve had a lot of experience with people who want me to heal and Uber them, and people who I want to heal/Uber but they don’t seem to notice. In this day and age of loadout versatility, it’s no longer enough to be playing the correct class in a situation; you need to have the correct weapons equipped before Medics are going to start considering you a viable Uber target. Here are some tips for those wishing Medics would consider Ubering them more often. These are listed by class, and only cover classes that are considered regular… [Continue Reading]

Featured

The Vita-Saw

September 5, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, medic, melee, weapon

The Vita-Saw is a truly unique weapon. The only item in the entirety of TF2 that can carry an effect over from respawn, it brings up so many questions on a fundamental canonical level that I could make my entire article on that. Instead, I’d like to talk about its practical usage. In-game, it’s far and away the best Medic melee, hands down. Competitive Medics who run the Vita-Saw force their opponent to run the saw as well or be at a constant disadvantage just because dropping the Medic doesn’t automatically equal Uber advantage. How quickly did he respawn? Has… [Continue Reading]