April 9th – 15th

With post-Easter candy on sale and taxes looming on the horizon, perhaps Valve can be forgiven for not doing a heck of a lot this week. Lord knows none of the game teams for whom I’m developing ever do anything of merit around this time; save creativity for a time where it won’t get you audited. Back in 2009 on March 13th Valve did push a minor Sandman nerf; stunned players now took 50% less damage. This gave you a slightly better chance of not insta-dying just because some Bostonian twerp nailed you with a baseball while you were trying… [Continue Reading]

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On Mercenaries and Munchies

Look at that Heavy, sitting there, nomming on his sandvich while his Medic buddy burns alive. Look at that Scout abusing the ever-loving heck out of his over-buffed Crit-a-Cola and critting everyone to death. Look at that other Scout failing miserably at using Bonk! Atomic Punch to sneak behind the enemy team and be useful. Why is it that only Scout and Heavy get to eat mid-battle? Well, first off, eating in the middle of a fight is rather impractical. Both Heavies and Scouts need to find cover to consume their consumables, but anyone who wishes to pause to do… [Continue Reading]

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Assassinating and being hard to kill…

Power in TF2 comes from killing people. You kill your enemies then push forward. But there will always be someone waiting in the shadows to push against you. An Engineer. A Medic with Uber. A Sniper. A camping Heavy. A Demoman and his stickies. You need to take them out, but can’t afford to split up your team and waste men. How? Assassins. Alternatively, you need to quickly take out that Carry? Kill them nice and fast before they ace your team? There’s an answer for that too. Assassins. Ass-ass-ins, if you are that way inclined. What is an assassin?… [Continue Reading]

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Medic’s Sixth and Seventh Ever Competitive Matches – I don’t know any more!

As the season is now over and there’s no more matches, I’ve decided to combine these two articles, as a quick overview of both week 8 and week 9. Both somewhat interesting, both pitting teams of hugely varied experience against one another. Week 8 was the last official match week, and week 9 was the start of the playoffs. The skill levels are all over the place, man! All over the place! And so is the ping. Also included is week 7, which was stupid. Week 7 was a blow out, the other team forfeited. They messed us around, unable… [Continue Reading]

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Why is this still a thing? – Baby Face’s Blaster

Baby Face’s Blaster. No, not Baby Blaster. Not Baby Face Blaster. Not Baby’s Face Blaster. Baby Face’s Blaster. Named after a bank robber of all things. Scout’s not exactly the person to rob a bank, not when he’s smart enough to invest in Tom Jones merchandise. The weapon though is something of a masterpiece – it combines an interesting concept with some stupid as heck implementation. Baby Face’s Blaster – why is this still a thing? Let’s start off with the basic stats. Dealing damage increases boost, which increases movement speed. This is in exchange for 10% movement speed, -34%… [Continue Reading]

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Character Annihilation 2 – Critical

Character Annihilation is a series of short stories based on the people of SPUF. Today’s story features Vintage Keith, or just Keith (whose tagline should be “My name is Keith. Vintage Keith”). Engineer enthusiast, builder of sentries, Shotgun terror and a somewhat rather unwilling Demoman. Keith tapped his foot impatiently. Bastards. Bastards the lot of them. Making him wait around like this. Keith just wanted to dick around and have some fun, but no, he had to wait here, for further instructions. They were all bastards. Everyone’s a bastard. Why was he doing this again? Oh yeah, he signed up… [Continue Reading]

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Confusion’s 4vs4 reflection

I have quite enjoyed reading Medic’s detailed reports about our team’s exploits on the new frontier known as 4vs4, and now the season has conceded for us, I believe now would be an excellent time to write a post about some of it. What have we learned? Silliness is a valid tactic Act bold and audacious, but don’t depend completely on luck. We saw a lot of different weapons and tactics being used; Engies, Phlogs, Demoknights, simultaneous Sniper and Spies… Situational tactics are very useful… in the right hands. A lot of the better teams (on steel at least) have a… [Continue Reading]

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Thoughts on my first season of competitive TF2

Season 4 of 4v4 was my first ever step into competitive TF2, after months of people telling me I’d do really well, that I’d be perfectly alright, that I was plenty good enough, even though I can only play Medic. They may have been right, but I’m still not sure and I’m not sure whether I want to continue or not. At least in 4v4. The first thing I noticed is organization. For 4v4, matches are on Friday, to be completed and scores updated by Monday. But it’s really hard just trying to get a date from the other team.… [Continue Reading]

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