I was watching this video recently and I had so many thoughts that I had to stop only 15 minutes in and write it all out. It’s Jaeger’s analysis of the badlands mid fights in a Blight vs. EG game.
At the beginning of the video, we see Blu pulling off a strat that orz likes to call “ravine jump”. On rollout, the soldiers and medic go through ravine rather than house. The soldiers jump onto the enemy train when the combo reaches maintanence. The medic makes his way to the point to pick up the scouts and demoman, and hopefully through all of that, a lot of enemies die. It can be a useful strat for catching people off-guard, since you’re throwing your soldiers at the enemy combo. The tricky bit, though, is (usually) what the medic should do during/after the jump. It seems foolish for him to lose seconds of charge walking up alone and unprotected, so last year we tried working on getting a scout to escort him up to the point. I was thinking about this decision as I watched this video, noticing that Blu didn’t do it, and wrote up a bit of anlysis on the situation: Continue reading »
Last week I was linked to this article (by Tom Crowley of Couch Athletics) and even though it deals mostly with elementary techniques that I’m sure everyone knows, hearing these techniques named and explained sparked some interesting ideas.
The author makes an excellent point with the statement “Ultimately the goal of every class is deterrence, and that’s really what area denial is all about – deterring the enemy team from entering a space”. Really, every aspect of one’s role in competitive TF2 comes down to deterrence.Continue reading »
So today someone sent me this interesting animation that illustrates circle-strafing. Basically, the idea is that when Red (the one being circle-strafed) shoots at where Blue is he misses because Blue is constantly changing location, but when Blue (the circle-strafer) shoots at where Red is he always hits because Red is standing still. Of course, this situation assumes that Red does not alter his shots to account for Blue’s movement–he always shoots at where he currently sees Blue–so it is not a perfect model, but it at least could function as an explanation for why one takes less damage when attacking a sentry via circle-strafing instead of head-on.
This post is kind of silly because I’m sure most people follow the TF2 blog, but I assume that I am not the only one that no longer checks it regularly and consequently hears about all the updates on a later schedule. Anyway… I kind of suspected something was up when our server dispensed quite a few more item drops than usual last night, and of course the Valve blog confirmed it: item drops now happen on a regular basis! I don’t particularly enjoy the items/hats aspect of the game, but at least now they have made it regular and reliable. Now there will be fewer disappointing moments of “let’s go join Baldy’s TF2 game! Oh no wait, he’s idling. ” and “how can that dude have played more than 200 hours in the last two weeks?”. So, yeah, it’s cool. Someone on GotFrag (sorry, I can’t find the link) suggested that people could idle all night for one night a week, so they can get all the drops possible that week just in case they are unable to play for whatever reason. It’s an interesting idea!
ALSO, Reddit pointed me to this interesting post from the TF2Stats forums that details graphically (read: with graphs!) the changes in the item drop system. It’s an excellent read! FireSlash neatly sums up the consequences of the new system with “This [item drop system] doesn’t eliminate idling from the game, nor does it in any way punish those who have idled. Instead it merely eliminates the effectiveness of it, since anyone who regularly plays won’t get any more items if they idle.”
I might have some video to post later (pro engie moments), if I manage to get my Spanish presentation put together efficiently tonight. EDIT: Sorry, looks like I won’t have time tonight. I’ll do it soon, I promise. Only two more weeks of classes for me! Then I’ll be able to spend all my free time writing verbose essays about this video game. It’s going to be awesome.
So last night we had a couple hours of very good scrims. We played a lot of Badlands and even some Granary, as usual. Looks like we are finally completely recovered from those weeks we took off for spring break. There was some inorganization but not nearly as much as usual.
Also, since Panda decided to take a little break from competitive TF2, we have picked up a new soldier. His name is Synthos and he used to play for the Thunderkitties team and he is pretty nice. So hopefully now that we have three soldiers again there will be fewer scheduling issues! Yay! We have our qualifier match for TWL Division 2 on Sunday night, so we’re glad that we found him already instead of having to negotiate about using a ringer. Hooray!
Another issue that has surfaced for our team is keeping the blog updated. Everyone is lazy (lazy lazy lazy!), so no one wants to write daily mini-essays or even single paragraphs (I guess I’m the only one with a tendency toward verbosity). How do you get people to do things if you can’t directly physically assault them? The logical next option is positive reinforcement, but I don’t really have sufficient funds to send people brownies every time they write a post. So I guess for now I’ll just have to stick with constantly nagging them.
So we all know that most TF2 teams tend to die within a few months, usually because people are impatient and selfish and those things tend to breed drama etc. etc. A couple of reasons for why teams (or at least, our team) become more difficult to maintain as they age:
The most recent issue that’s come up in the Orz world is scheduling. Though everyone has always had a few nights a week when they can’t play for one reason or another, when we formed back 7 (8?) months ago, it seemed like we would always have to have at least one person sitting out for each scrim. Now, getting 6 people to be online in the evenings has been difficult; I don’t think we’ve played one game this week without a ringer or two. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing, as it’s natural for people’s schedules to change as their lives change, but it does make getting people together more of a hassle. Everyone then has to work harder to perform as well in matches, because most of our practicing has to be done without our full roster.
Another issue that has always been present has been the struggle to improve as a team. Before long, the honeymoon period ends, as instead of seeing improvement with every scrim and beating teams this week that you struggled against last week, you throw yourself at the same group of teams over and over without feeling much change. Maybe your combo is always getting outspammed at mid, or scouts tend to be a problem when pushing spire, or you can never seem to cover all your exits and avoid getting backcapped. This issue is probably number one for why teams break up. If you’re not going getting any better no matter how often you practice, your players start to wonder if it’s worth the time and energy, and soon no one wants to get together and play because they just don’t want to get rolled again.
So today I found this article (courtesy Sesquipedalian) about the Spy’s backstab mechanics. It’s an interesting read, though I do wonder how the author figured out the hitboxes and “hulls” mechanics, as it seems like something that would be impossible to determine precisely through in-game testing. Does it show such things in Hammer or other programs?
Something that the author says at one point is that “the angle calculation [for backstabs] has nothing to do with the player model, and everything to do with where the victim’s crosshairs are pointing at the moment the spy attacks”, which makes a lot of sense in terms of keeping as many players happy as possible, as it lets people not worry about what they look like in-game (their player model) and focus on their playing. Just a little thing that came to mind when I was reading. Another issue that came to mind is Valve choosing to use the hull boxes for melee hit detection as opposed to using the usual bullet hitboxes. Is this a good idea? It doesn’t make a ton of sense visually, but then again, if the player collision detection is being decided by these hull boxes, then the weapons that function by colliding with enemy players should also depend on them, right?
On a completely unrelated note: If your parents ever say that they’ll buy you a laptop under the condition that you don’t take your desktop home with you during fall and spring breaks, consider carefully the pain that those long weeks without TF2 will bring. What am I supposed to do, homework? Pshhhh
Hey! There hasn’t been an update in a few days! I know, I’ve been sad too. But it’s kind of hard to come up with awesome TF2 article ideas in between Spanish essays and Coulomb’s Law labs and Humanities midterms. I can’t wait for spring break!
So I was browsing Reddit tonight in a fit of procrastination and I found this awesome little story thing (courtesy programzeta). It reminds me a lot of my first couple months of TF2. This game was my first FPS, so I had to learn all the basics of movement and such as well as the metagame. I literally thought in the same way as that story was told, focusing on each individual movement and having little brainpower to spare for thinking ahead and devising strats. I was the most pro suicidal pyro ever, though.
I need to get back to writing about “naturalismo y La cuestión palpitante“, but you all (what’s left of you, tiny reader base <3 ) hang in there. Thundeer will be back in a day or so with some hot chocolate and interesting thoughts, I’m sure.
orzTF2 is now sponsored by SavageGaming! ESEA Season 8 registration ends Jan 3rd, make sure you sign up!07:10 AM December 14, 2010from web
CEVO is over! 1-2 loss vs. natures on gpit. best of luck to everyone else. orz is looking for a solly and scout for next season!07:13 PM November 09, 2010from web
ESEA Season almost over - 3 losses in a row :( but 2 last badlands matches vs. carnal gaming and the terribles. Hope to finish strong!11:52 PM October 22, 2010from web
” and “how can that dude have played more than 200 hours in the last two weeks?”. So, yeah, it’s cool. Someone on GotFrag (sorry, I can’t find the link) suggested that people could idle all night for one night a week, so they can get all the drops possible that week just in case they are unable to play for whatever reason. It’s an interesting idea!
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