balance – Page 7 – The Daily SPUF

Could a “Flare Jumper” work?

June 6, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, pyro, sticky jumper, suggestion, weapon

Based on the Detonator of course, not the Flare Gun, though I prefer this name as “Detonator Jumper” is clunky and “Det Jumper” is unclear. This is almost certainly the most commonly-requested reincarnation of the orange-colored -100% damage concept, with the runner up probably being the Boston Jumper. (But seriously, why would you want to give up the best way to give your Medic Uber?) A lot of other people are understandably opposed to the idea, especially those who think the Jumpers we already have are useless enough. But I think it could work, especially if Valve drops the training… [Continue Reading]

Featured This Week in TF2 History

April 24th – May 1st

May 23, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, glitches, history, medic, payload, spy, weapon

Well, ever since tax season ground me through the wringer and spat me out (I work in a tax place these days), I took a weeklong break from “This Week in TF2 History”, and now that it’s almost June I should probably dial myself back in. That’s right, this week is: And what a week to start with. April 29, 2008 brought the first major TF2 update ever: the Gold Rush Update! Payload immediately sky-rocketed to becoming one of the most-played game modes ever, the Medic class experienced a renaissance when he suddenly became fun, and future TF2 traders felt the… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Maybe we do need deathmatching after all?

May 17, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, death, fight, game mode, gamemode, team

Team Fortress 2 has a LOT of game modes, not all of them successful. Territory Control, Arena, Special Delivery, Medieval, all rather tired and ignored, lacking in maps or players or both, while King of the Hill, Capture the Flag and Attack/Defense flourish. 5CP and Payload play along, trailing behind slightly. The most popular servers around have always been 24/7 Dustbowl or Teufort or something like that. Why? Because we all really like deathmatching. That’s the one thing Team Fortress 2 has never really had – a pure killing game mode. While every single game mode requires you to kill… [Continue Reading]

Featured This Week in TF2 History

April 16th – 23rd

April 16, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, cosmetics, crates, engineer, glitches, medic, pyro

Taxes are due everybody! Hooray! If you’re anything like me, taxes are a long and laborious chore, and I’m even more qualified than most because I worked as a tax preparer for over a year. I’m only 24 for god’s sake, I’m supposed to be spack-dab in the middle of the part of your life where you look forward to cashing out your W-2s after work and buying a round of drinks with your refund. But the IRS is not a fan of entrepreneurs or freelancers turns out… But I digress. In the world of Team Fortress 2, taxes don’t appear… [Continue Reading]

Featured

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

April 8, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, broken, overpowered, scout, weapon

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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Why is this still a thing? – Mannpower

March 26, 2015 Medic 1 Comment balance, criticism, game mode, gamemode, mannpower, maps

Hands up if you play Mannpower. Come on! Don’t be shy! Hm. Not a lot of you. But I’m sure if we check the server browser, we’ll fine loads of people playing Mannpower! Huh. Lots of people playing cp_orange, that’s a bit like Mannpower, what with its homing rockets and perma-crits, right? Um. No, apparently not. According to my server browser right now, there are only 10 not-empty Mannpower servers. Compared to the twenty five or so 2fort servers. Not looking good. The previous beta game modes, pl_cactuscanyon and rd_asteroid may have had similar numbers. But Asteroid genuinely brought something… [Continue Reading]

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On Tentacles and Lasers

March 22, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, class, laser, non-tf2

I am shit at RTS MOBA games. There’s simply too much to learn. Too much effort for too little gain. That hasn’t stopped me attempting to play Dota 2 and dicking around in League of Legends though. Weirdly though, I understand a lot of the mechanics, but my dumb fingers can’t react in time. Hence I end up playing support. I’ve always been a supporting person. In League of Legends (or League of Leg-Ends, as it says on my desktop), there’s three types of support: Healing helping people like Sona, Tank-All-The-Damage-And-Start-Fights people like Leona and Initiate-With-Some-Sort-Of-Assistance people like Thresh and… [Continue Reading]

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On Snipers and Engineers

March 20, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, criticism, engineer, sniper, weapon

Name your three most hated classes in TF2. I wouldn’t be surprised if Engineer and Sniper were included in that list. People complain about both classes, one which seems lacking in a skill ceiling, the other having an infinite one, but perhaps Sniper and Engineer have more in common than we think? When you look at an Engineer, you see someone locking down an area with their sentry gun. Their sentry makes sure that you’re not getting past without some heavy hitters, preferably a Demoman, occasionally an Ubercharge. Everyone calls the Engineer stupid and skill-less, because the sentry does a… [Continue Reading]

This Week in TF2 History

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]

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Annoying Little Pricks

March 8, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, criticism, hate, scout, weapon

When I announced a Week of Love and Hate, I tried to be different. I wanted everyone else to have a crack at writing something before I decided to write my articles. I ended up writing about Pyro and Medic. What I REALLY wanted to do though was write about Scout. I mean, come on! He’s so hate-able! He’s an annoying little prick. Alright, take a deep breath, Medic. It’s just Scout. Except he’s always there. An Engineer will, nine times out of ten, be whacking a sentry. A Sniper will be a cowardly bastard and hide. Pyros? Pyros are… [Continue Reading]