Random tales~

No, I haven't played at all after the update hit my Steam. Same old story, time zones. And that I'm playing on my little brother's terms. I'm waiting him to wake up, maybe I could get a few hours in before I have to join my friends in a delicious Midsummer barbeque fest.

Aaanyway, now I bring some screenshots of my recent awesomeness. And some random tales.

So I played for, I think, almost ten hours yesterday. My little brother is appalled by the high ping I always play with (what can I do, my favourite servers are all on the east coast of the US, which means at least 150 ping for me), so he talked me over to try playing on some other server with not quite as high ping.
So I just randomly chose some Multiplay.co.uk server from the list. Okay, so, I didn't notice any change whatsoever although my ping was only about 60, but I was once again reminded of the fact that the "newbies" on the Newbies Only servers? Are not newbies by long shot.
The skill level is higher on Newbies Only servers than it has been on any other server that I've played on.

Because it went something like this (and I loved that Medic. Good thing he loved me back. Kritzkrieg mmmm...):



And this (although this has got nothing to do with skill, I just got three insane crits in a row: first one missed, second one killed the first guy and the third got two. I think the enemy team started whining, and even I had to admit that it was pretty fucking ridiculous):



And ended up in this (insane amount of deaths because the highest-scoring Heavy in the enemy team was ridiculously good. I freaking cheered the first time I managed to separate his little Medic bitch from him by juggling him into the air, and then assault him ferociously until nothing was left of him but a pile of gibs. I loved the challenge, maybe I even learned something):



But the most important thing I learned from that server, was that I indeed hate instant respawn and that it completely destroys the game balance. Instant fucking respawn should be mentioned in the server description, dammit.
I've never before played with instant respawn, but I've always figured that it can't be good. How could BLU ever win for example Dustbowl if RED had instant respawn? If the teams are even, there's no way.
Instant respawn is just plain stupid. And if you think it's not, I think you should slowly step away from Team Fortress 2 and go back to playing the deathmatch style game of your choice. I hear UT3 is pretty good.
Because yeah, sure, I was having buckets of fun playing on Gold Rush's first stage only. I was in BLU, we pushed and pushed but never fucking got the last checkpoint because whenever we killed the Soldier trying to stop us, it only took a couple of seconds and the same Soldier was back trying to stop us. And if we died, we had to travel all the way back to the final checkpoint, while RED had all the time in the world to fortify their defenses.
When I was in RED, we just ran out of respawn without any worries, even if BLU had almost reached the final checkpoint. We always made it there in time. Besides, it just felt bloody stupid dying, and immediately being back in the game, just to die again after few seconds. I like the little cooldown longer respawn times provide.
And instant respawn promotes hardcore spawncamping.
The most annoying thing was to get killed three fucking times during humiliation. First near the checkpoint, then in my respawn by some spawncamping fucker and then AGAIN by the rest of the enemy team who had ran to our respawn with their guns blazing. AARGH.

So yeah, I know 30-second respawn can be fucking tedious to wait out on the last stages of Dustbowl and Gold Rush, but it's the game balance. It's the way the game was meant to be played: to offer both teams equal opportunity to win the map, so that it only comes down to teamwork and skill.

What else? I got bored of the instant-respawn-provided endless fragging pretty fast, so I went back to playing on my regular servers and the good ol' 150 ping. Mostly played as Soldier and Heavy.
But then:



YES. I ACTUALLY WENT SPY.
AND I SUCKED!
All because my little brother wanted to know how Spy does the disguising stuff, so I showed him. And then I was standing in the respawn, as a Spy, disguised and cloaked, and decided to fuck it, I'll play Spy.
It took me maybe three tries to even kill anyone, I was so nervous and my hands were shaking and I kept running into people and oh god it was terrible. Then I finally backstabbed someone, felt less nervous, and actually had pretty much fun while trying to be inconspicuous and kill Medics and Heavies, but I'm still a goddamn rotten Spy.
And I facestabbed someone - damn lag.

Also the most embarrassing death ever: I was hanging around on the upstairs of the warehouse cap, undisguised, and trying to remember which was the "last disguise used" shortcut key. And I accidentally pressed G.
And while the taunt animations played through, I saw a friendly Pyro passing me by. And because I have a sixth sense for Spies, I immediately went OH GOD THIS IS NOT HAPPENING, and naturally got backstabbed by the goddamn enemy Spy while taunting. He of course proceeded to taunting right back and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After Granary I tried some Spying on Dustbowl, but missed the first stage entirely because my team just steamrolled right through, and at the second stage I started concentrating on taking down sentries.
And I'm the worst at sapping stuff. Haha. I can't understand how Spies DO IT, I just do drive-by-sapping. I run past the buildings, cloaked, tapping left-click like a maniac and then beeline straight towards some safe place to hide and stop my heart from beating hard enough to hurt, haha. I kill a lot of dispensers! Once I got a level three sentry! Although I started to think that the Engie must've let me just sap the thing, first watching for half a round how I fail enormously at sappin' and stabbin' and then feeling kinda bad for the little newbie Spy and letting me have the sentry. Because I can't imagine why an Engineer wouldn't save his sentry, on Dustbowl's stage two's last point, no less. And I am sure I saw him standing around when I ran past. Grrrr, that Engineer!
And I can't imagine how anyone could sap AND stab, my mind and hands are completely full just trying to sap anything and get out alive.
And there was one server regular playing with me and going all what the hell Chrome, I thought you hated the Spy. Haha. I have no idea why he would think that, maybe because I never play as Spy. I told him that I kinda like the Spy, I just suck as one so I don't play it that often. I'm trying to learn, though.
And fuck yeah, I wanna learn. So more Spying in the future.
I got sick of being a bad sapping-deficient Spy by the end of stage two, though, so I went back to being Soldier. As usually happens.

And I was training for the Pyro achievements:



I have no idea. I saw a completely unaware Sniper, and because axe kills are so much more fun than flamethrower kills, I killed the Sniper with the axe. And then I turned around to see a Demoman, and charged right at him, waving the axe. I love it how some Demomen go into total panic if an enemy gets too close for comfort. Heee. Skilled ones of course pull out the bottle, and the kamikaze ones lay stickies at their feet while backing away, not really caring if they die as long as they take me with them. This one panicked and just started backing away chucking grenades past me. So he got ax'd.
And after that I ran out, still on battle high from the awesome axe kills, saw million Medics and racked four kills within few seconds and the fifth after I was already dead, making it one of the most successful Pyro runs I've had in a while. It was awesome. Even my little brother was pretty impressed.

I guess that wraps it up. Next post, Pyro stuff! I hope.

A quick edit: OH SNAP, did Robin Walker just refer to Pyro as her? Oh u, stop playing with our heads. <3

More achievement stuff and general ranting

Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna add one little thing to that last entry: the number one reason for why I won't farm any achievements, even if it costs me the Übersaw.

I don't want to screw up my stats. I like looking at my stats and it's great to feel like I've actually got better every time I break my previous record for kills or healing or longest life or something. So if I suddenly have the highest life measuring in hours and max kills of fifty or something... that would suck. Then I would never again feel like I've got any better.
And yeah, I'm a total stats whore (if you haven't noticed!), I stare at my own stats waaay too often. The stats parser is my best friend. So I don't want to ruin that for me.

I know there's a lot of whining going on about the new weapon unlockables being tied to achievements that basically promote "acting like an idiot" and thus ruining the game for others. With that in mind I am kinda starting to resent Valve's decision to handle the unlockables this way... don't get me wrong, I don't mind the weapons being tied to achievements (and I like getting achievements, I think it's fun), it's just that some of the achievements are, face it, pretty stupid.
Yesterday was probably the first time I actually saw a Medic act like a total idiot. He didn't ruin things for the rest of us (we had two capable Medics to balance him out, but still we were basically playing 11 to 12), but it was still kinda annoying trying to yell for a heal and this idiot just kept trying to kill people and taunt.
Note to self: do not try to get Autopsy Report in the heat of a battle.
Then again, I did something that constitutes as "acting like an idiot" yesterday too, but uh, it kinda had nothing to do with the achievements. I was just being an idiot on my own accord. I DID get some progress for Peer Review for it, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what the hell was going through my mind then. So, Gold Rush, first stage, final checkpoint. I was defending, and I get out of the respawn and saw an übered Demo rushing towards me and up the stairs to get on top of our respawn building. So I followed. And bonesawed the Medic. And felt really good about myself, until I heard "the cart is nearing the checkpoint!" and got killed just in time to spectate as BLU wins the round. Ehhhh. So I could've been there to keep our Soldiers and Demos going instead of chasing down a Demo-Medic combo who were apparently trying to take down our Snipers. A horrible miscalculation on my part. This is why I don't go combat Medic on Gold Rush or Dustbowl or Gravel Pit. I always have better things to do than kill someone.

But yeah, I was about to say that sure, some of the achievements basically tell you to fuck teamwork and be a drag to your team, but face it: some of the achievements cause the exact opposite. Some of the achievements actually make you a good Medic.
For example, Grand Rounds. I see far too many Medics sticking to that one Heavy like they're Siamese twins or something, and nothing annoys me more than trying to get a heal and the Medic is basically glued to some other dude. Especially if I'm playing as Medic too.
Infernal Medicine. I got it yesterday (hee, I got it when I extinguished Slaverstrike), and that really didn't take very long to get.
But both of those achievements made me do my job a little bit better: I tried to heal everyone calling for Medic (except when my primary target was under heavy fire and I deemed it would be more useful to keep him alive than to fuck him and go heal the lone Soldier in the other side of the map - besides, another Medic would probably get him before I do), and I also tried to extinguish everyone whenever they were on fire. Especially other Medics.
And oh yeah, I'm 11 heals away from getting Grand Rounds, so consider that one done.
And First Do No Harm promotes being a good Medic and doing your job (and I find it extremely amusing how most of the people who have farmed achievements don't have this. HAR HAR). As well as Trauma Queen and Group Health and Double Blind Trial and Intern and Ubi Concordia, Ibi Victoria, which are just basically doing what Medics are supposed to do. Big Pharma and Specialist are taking it a bit overboard, but at least trying to get them teaches you to survive and stay alive and keep your healing target(s) alive. Which is what I should be practicing.

So stop whining about the achievements. If you can't get some of them by playing normally, I have to think that you're a rotten Medic, and thus should go back to playing Soldier and stop feeling butthurt about not getting everything on a golden platter. What the hell would you do with Medic weapons if you don't even play that much as Medic?! You having the Kritzkrieg would mean just one idiot Medic more who just doesn't know when to use it!
I know I won't be getting any Demoman or Scout unlockables once they come out, and whine about the achievements being hard. Because I don't play as Demo or Scout. I don't care. Why should you? No wonder you whine about the MMORPG grinding aspects, you are the one making it a matter of grinding.

Also I don't know what everyone's whining about "too many Medics on every server," because I'm playing on public servers and only remember having an overabundance of Medics on two or three different occassions (okay, last night we started a 12 on 12 match on Dustbowl with only Soldiers and Medics in our team. THAT was horrible. I was a Soldier, btw, and got the only Medic with the Kritzkrieg, hee hee). Change servers, kthxbai, it's not that hard! Or talk to the admin about restricting the amount of Medics to the max of two or three.

Rant rant rant. Okay. I'm just getting so tired of basement-dwelling fanboys whining about every single thing. Yes, I do get the irony. Except that I'm not a basement-dwelling fanboy. Sry2say.

And what IS it with these jealous Medics?! Okay, I get it, you want in on the fun and our Heavy buddy is on top of the scoreboard, but Jesus Christ why do you stick to the same guy I'm sticking to, while there are people yelling for Medic in the direction from where you came from?! Sure, I don't mind, you can have the Heavy and I'll go heal the others, but WHOA. First come first serve, I think.
(Btw, if it's points you're after, you get so much more from actual healing than those precious assists, just sayin'.)
And for fuck's sake, Medic, don't heal the same guy I'm healing during the setup! Goddamn these noobs (or idiots, whatever) are starting to get to me.

Sorry, I'm talking a lot about Medics these days. I could tell you about how absolutely fucking scared I am of (good) Snipers, and how I should be playing more as Pyro now that there are Medics everywhere (I did it yesterday on Well and HEE HEE burning Medic flesh, everywhere), but I'll save those stories for later. I think I'm coming to a stop with the achievements pretty soon, so I'll have to come up with something else to talk about.