Lots of raeg. Again.

ILU VALVE.

Removed health bonus from the Backburner

Finally. The days of overpowered kamikaze Pyros are finally over, I hope. Maybe they'll finally go back to ambushing. And finally I can go back to playing the Soldier! And yes, Backburner Pyros were the number one reason for why I haven't played much as the Soldier since the Pyro update. They were just goddamn impossible to kill with their ridiculous amount of health and I got so frustrated with them.

And the following updates and changes also make me happy:

Added a gear symbol behind the health bar for Engineer buildings, in both target IDs and freeze panels

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Because as a Medic I'm constantly checking everyone's health and it annoys me to hover over a bunch of people, see someone with low health and rush in only to find out that it was a damaged dispenser or something.
And now I won't feel so bad about suiciding as a Demo or a Soldier anymore. Except when I'm feeling like an asshole and the guy who almost killed me before I suicided is someone who's dominating me or otherwise being a total dick to me and I wouldn't want to give him any credit for getting the kill.

Now I'll just settle down to wait for the inevitable Demoman sticky nerf and the Heavy update.

And then back to out usual schedule of wanton babbling:
I was once again playing on a HK's Newbies Only server last night and it seemed like it was an Official Butthurt Day, because people were complaining about something, all the fucking time.
First someone complained about Demomen being overpowered for half a round on Gravel Pit. I was on RED, the whiner was on BLU, and there were two Demos on our team, me being one of them. I wasn't doing very good: I was close to the top of the scoreboard, I think, but I didn't have very much kills or anything, and at least I felt like I wasn't doing very good (which can be taken any way you want to, since I'm known to own everyone and still feel like I suck, so). Anyway, this guy, he kept on complaining about stickies, how even Valve calls them "winbombs" (old fucking news, dude, change the record), how they're ridiculously OP and how Demomen are cheap cheap cheap.
Christ, I raged.
I admit it, stickies are a bit overpowered, and they will be nerfed in some way or the other sooner or later (maybe they'll prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated, or maybe they'll do a damage reduction, or no crits...), but they are not impossible to deal with! I get so angry whenever someone complains about stickies, because it's your own fucking fault if you step on them! What the fuck were you expecting, a simple flesh wound?!
Here, let Auntie Chrome a.k.a. Captain Obvious give you a little lesson on stickies and How To Deal With Them.

Good Demomen of course hide their stickies to their best abilities, putting them to the ceiling or around blind corners, but if there's a very visible sticky carpet on a point, on a chokepoint or in a doorway, why the hell would you stand on them?! You either find another way, try to deal with the Demo (who's undoubtedly somewhere near because he usually has a clear line of sight at his bombs, unless the stickies are on a point, in which case the Demo can be anywhere, because the HUD is all he needs to defend), or simply try to scatter the stickies, which makes them less deadly. One sticky kills weaker classes, but with the ones with higher HP just one doesn't do the trick (unless it's a crit, but that goes without saying. And in stickies' case you can see the crits, so you're a complete fucking idiot if you go near one). So if the stickies are scattered all over the place, they're not nearly as potent. Or you can be The Good Guy and sacrifice yourself for the greater good, ie. your team's cause: walk on the stickies, the Demo detonates and kills you, but the rest of your team are now free to charge the bastard, and he has no time to set his stickies back up. Unless he's very good. But yeah, hardly anyone ever thinks about the Team, at least not on pubs.
Or waste an über to take the Demo down. Stickies send charged people flying (best defense on Dustbowl stage three: just sticky the only way to the first point and detonate when the übered enemies try to charge in and take down sentries. Works every damn time, and people just don't pay enough attention to stickies when they're übered. Which is probably why people whine about them. Dammit, stop being so ignorant and do something about the stickies!), but in case it's a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, it's not like you'll fly anywhere.
Easiest way of course is to find a way around the stickies. If a Demoman is camping some doorway, just go around it, get behind him and hand him his butt. Scouts and Pyros work wonders, Scouts especially tend to be preeetty tedious (my damn nemesis class as a Demo, no, I'm not kidding. I hate good Scouts, can't hit them for the life of me and then they just bonk me to death. But that's how it is, Demos are weak against Scouts, it's part of the game balance, and I'm admittably not that good a Demoman, as you probably know). If there are Demos camping every damn doorway, well, then, maybe you're screwed. Or maybe you should, I don't know, be another Demoman, a Soldier, maybe a Pyro?
Because silly Pyros, so enamoured by the now-nerfed Backburner that they don't realise the awesomeness that is the regular flamethrower and its all-powerful airburst. Airburst scatters stickies very easily and makes a well-planned-out sticky carpet considerably weaker or downright useless (I don't understand why people still insist on standing on Dustbowl's second stage's last cap while it's thoroughly stickied. One airburst, a rocket, or setting of your own sticky clears the point and I rarely ever see anyone do it! Which is why I usually own as a defending Demo on Dustbowl). As a Demoman you hold one of the best weapons against stickies: stickies. Just fire one or two in the middle of the carpet, set them off and poof they roll into every direction, clearing way. I've seen Heavies clear sticky carpets pretty effectively. Shotgun works with lonely stickies, but against a carpet... I'd suggest you go find the nearest Pyro.
So for fuck's sake, the stickies are not all-powerful, not even in the hands of the world's best Demoman! Just learn to deal with them and you make many career Demomen cry in frustration! Although I'm quite sure that good (career) Demos don't really do sticky camping, since stickies are even more frightening when used like any other projectile (which is why I think that the "prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated" nerf would be perfect and force Demos to do sticky camping, which is arguably easier to deal with - like I've just shown you - than those crazy sticky-chucking harbingers of carnage and destruction).

I have spoken.

Now back to my Official Butthurt Day story. So the guy was whining about Demos being overpowered, and I remember at some point I got a Medic with a full charge sticking to me and we went to demolish a sentry nest that the enemy had got up in the hallways leading from A to C.
And in a moment the guy said "There are the cheap Demos again. RED is so cheap."
So you think that an übered, somewhat skilled Demoman shouldn't be able to clear a sentry nest and kill half a team that's obliviously camping a narrow hallway? Really now? Butthurt much? Maybe we should just sit there twiddling our thumbs and watch as you take control of the hallways, and cap the point? You'd like that, huh? Just get your own über and come rape our sentries, for fuck's sake, and don't whine about us doing our goddamn job well.
But yeah, someone's always the sore loser.

So the map changed, we were in Dustbowl, defending, and suddenly some guy tells Slaverstrike to GTFO because his ping is too high. Apparently Slaver kept headshotting the guy through walls. And for the record, Slaver's ping is about the same as mine, 130-150.
And he wouldn't shut up about it. And I raged so hard, almost telling him to shut the fuck up (sure, I get defensive about my friends, don't fuck with them). Instead I kept on owning him with the bonesaw (I was playing as Medic, and he was too. Kept losing the melee duels, poor thing), and waiting him to tell me to leave because I was bonesawing him through walls or some shit. And it felt good to own him fair and square in melee and return to my team, sporting a full charge. Ha.
I don't know if servers compensate for lag, but do you have any idea how the lag works? ~140 ping is not that high. I myself don't notice any freaking difference when I play with 140 ping and when I play with 20 ping. I don't know how much others need to compensate to kill me (but do tell if you've played against me when I'm lagging. All I know is that with over 300 latencies it becomes a fucking job to kill the player who's lagging because they're just twitching all over the place), and since I don't play as high-accuracy classes such as the Sniper, I have no idea how much I would have to compensate to get a clean headshot. My little brother says he needs to shoot just a little bit in advance, so I'm gonna trust him, and figure that it takes some skill to be a good Sniper when you are lagging slightly.
But the point is, 140 ping is not high. Sure it's unacceptable in competitive play, but this is a freaking public server! Which of course gives you the right to whine about every single thing.
I wasn't the only one irked by the guy's whining: someone on his team said after a while that Slaver just got him with a clean headshot, he can't be lagging.
And if I remember correctly, there was a player with ~400 ping, and the guy never whined about him, which kinda proves my point on why's the real reason he was being an asshat. Sigh. Way to get butthurt about getting headshot by a good Sniper. Face it, there are better players than you. Stop whining about it like a little kid (...unless you are a little kid, and still it doesn't entitle you to anything).
Also, it's not a fucking dial-up, you do realise that people from other countries might be playing the game? We're on the other side of the fucking globe, of course our ping is higher.

And the grande finale, the final whine before we capped the last point on Dustbowl and I called it quits for the night: someone said "These pro players need to go play on the advanced server."
At that point me and Slaver were at the top of the scoreboard as a Medic and a Demo with over 100 points (...I think no other player on either team had over 100 points, but truth to be told I think we were kinda steamrolling by ourselves...), so I guess he was talking about us. Oh wow. Whoops?
Honestly, I was just kinda flattered. I've never been called a pro before. Haha. So do I need to find a clan now? I did feel a bit bad since I don't want to seem like an asshole who comes to play on a "noob server" to get easy points and point and laugh at players who are not as skilled as I am. Because that's not the case.

I've actually never played on the Newbies Only Advanced server, to be honest. I still think I'm not that good and I'm afraid I'd just end up getting steamrolled. I like playing with the "newbies" because the skill level is somewhat on par with mine. Except that, uh, yeah, I'm often on top of the scoreboard which might indicate that I'm better than others, and... I don't know! I still get killed very easily, even if I do get lots of points! Besides I don't know if my teamwork is good enough. Sure I keep talking about the importance of teamwork, and I try to be a good team player, but I have no idea if I really am.

And since I mentioned finding a clan to play in... I think I need to make clear that I am so joking, and I'm not interested at clan faggotry at all. Sure I've toyed with the idea of finding and joining a clan and trying out competitive playing, but then I realise that I don't want to do competitive gaming, I just want to play for fun.
Besides I would probably have to join a Finnish clan because of latency issues, and I'm horribly prejudiced against Finnish players. Guys especially. And although I just said that any male gamer with half a brain realises that girls too play FPS, I think it might be a whole different issue in competitive gaming. I don't know! I don't know if there are many girls in TF2 clans in Finland!
But I would sure love to see how an easy-going yet somewhat serious local clan would accept a girl as a member, but I don't think I have it in me. Because I'm not that good.
And I'm still too scared to communicate, so.
And the number one reason I don't want to join any clan, is that I don't want any clan tags ruining my name, haha. I would love to show my support for HK Central with the community tag, but aargh I hate wearing tags! I want to be Chrome, just Chrome, not [Clanfag]Chrome! (Sure it would help with identification, I'm sure there are quite a few Chromes on Steam, but my identification is my avatar: you'll know it's me. And the regulars on the servers I play on probably recognise me anyhow, so).

Lots of rage today. I just have zero tolerance for asshattery and general stupidity.

I'd love to show you some screenshots but alas, they're on my little brother's computer.

Back again!

Had to take almost a week off from my regular gaming routine since I was visiting my parents for Easter, and my little brother managed to break his computer (on which I did my gaming the previous times I was there). So no TF2 for me for a few days. And after that I actually took bull by the horns and continued on where I had previously stopped with PS2's Okami, and spent couple of days with a controller glued to my hands. I wasn't supposed to, I told myself that I would play couple of hours of Okami and then couple of hours of TF2, see, I have plenty of time to do both.
But if you've ever played Okami and liked it, you probably know how it's bleeding hard to stop once you've started.

So after that I noticed how my Steam rating had gone down to four point something and that's unacceptable (I've been EAGLES SCREAM! ever since January), so last night I finally hopped on a server and played for six hours straight.

And I sucked.

I was on top of scoreboard on many maps, my team's number one on Hydro as Pyro, on Gravel Pit as Soldier/Medic (one round top MVP as Medic), on CTF_Well as Soldier and so on, and statistics were telling me I wasn't THAT bad, but it surely felt like it! My kills/deaths ratio was worse than usually and I was getting really frustrated because I kept getting killed by stupid mistakes I made, or because of my poor judgment. And I was getting seriously ANGRY at Pyros who just kept killing me when I was Soldier.
Maybe I just had a bad day, because I know I'm weak against Pyros as Soldier and it's not unusual of me to get killed by them.

Or maybe it's because first couple of hours of playing the other team was so stacked I almost thought of quitting or changing servers.

So, rant time. Stacked teams. I hate team stacking almost as much as I hate all kinds of griefing (which can be fun sometimes, I admit. And almost always when it's not happening to me. Sure I've been laughing at Team Roomba's antics, but I would probably ragequit if it happened to me :D).

Why is it that all the most skilled (not necessarily even clan) players always, deliberately stack in one team map after map after map? Is their sportsmanship so poor? Are they in it just for easy points? Are they griefing?
I could take it as coincidence once, but when the same players go into same team when the next map loads, even go Spectator until there's a free slot in the team, I'm forced to think that they're perfectly aware of their team choice.
And please take notice that this is a public server.
What makes me seriously wonder about those players' motives, is that even I'M not having fun if I'm in a stacked team and we're completely steamrolling the other team and winning CP maps in under two minutes. :< I'm not having fun. I don't consider getting ridiculously easy frags fun (in a game like Team Fortress, that is). If I thought that is fun, I'd be playing some deathmatch game.
It's fun for few minutes, then it gets boring when there's absolutely no resistance from the other team. I start considering changing teams, but I know I wouldn't make any difference, and then I would get pissed off at being steamrolled over and over again.

Because I seriously have less fun in the losing team, that's for sure. :D Last night I got so fucking pissed off at being mowed down again and again that I started going melée only. I know I wasn't contributing anything to my team at that point (because I couldn't kill anyone. Then again, I could kill hardly anyone even when I was playing seriously, so), but if I was going to get killed ten seconds after getting out of my spawn, I wanted to at least make those ten seconds somewhat tolerable and fun. And that was to go at enemies with axe in hand instead of the flame thrower. And there was always the chance that the player I was attacking wouldn't take it too seriously and actually get his melée weapon out and we could duke it out one-on-one, but that only happened once (I ran at a Demo waving my axe and he got his bottle out, and then I was hit by a rocket or something). And so I was getting burned to death by enemy Pyros. Good for them!

I was seriously thinking of quitting, but eventually some of the stackers left and the teams evened out a bit.
And I was seriously laughing with GLEE when we played in Hydro, RED was stacked and we were fighting them off at our control point. And doing very fucking good job considering how superior the other team was (it was probably the best teamwork I've done in a while, everyone was equally pissed off about the stacking). And what happens sometimes in those kind of situations, is that the attacking team sometimes completely ignores their own control point since they're so deep in our territory.
So what happened is that a lonely Spy slipped by the VERY WEAK enemy defense, and went to cap their point. They couldn't do ANYTHING because there was no one even near the point. It was glorious! In the next round the exact same thing was happening, but someone slipped through their offensive sentries again, went to cap their point and they fell back in panic (apparently afraid that the last round would happen again), which provided us a perfect chance to turn the tide completely, and rest of the round they were fighting for their lives close to THEIR point. :3 Those were the most awesome Hydro matches I've had in a while. Just because the enemy was seriously underestimating us and ignoring their defense completely (apparently relying too much on the fact that they were so stacked and had completely kicked our asses before), and it was a perfect example of what a sudden turn of tides does to team morale.
The same happened later in Dustbowl. The teams weren't THAT stacked, but we were still getting our asses properly kicked on Stage Two. RED had pushed us back to first cap point area and time was running out and we were losing. RED had apparently NO defense whatsoever on their point, so a lone Spy capped it before anyone could realise what was happening and it was AWESOME. We totally lost on Stage Three without even capping the first point, but everyone bowed down to the awesome Spy.

And I was always near the top of the scoreboard when I was in the losing team (and still had only like third of the points of the enemy team top scorer), which was, uh, all the time (I go team random every map if none of my friends are playing: in that case I try to get in the same team), so I guess I'm not that bad. :P In the Hydro matches I was my team's top scorer. My deaths/kills ratio was ridiculous, though, but I was playing as Pyro and because of almost nonexistant respawn times (there is sometimes instant respawn in Hydro and I have no idea what it's based on, because I've gotten it when I'm defending and attacking. And this is vanilla server, so there is a respawn timer) I strongly relied of suicide attacks.

That's about it.

And like a good blogger, I'll now address some TF2 related news.

First of all, the recent update -

"Updated CTF mode to remember the player who stole the intelligence from the enemy base and reward that player if the flag is captured by someone else"

- made me SO happy. I'm very often the one who steals the intel and gets it out in the open (I die very often while carrying intel, because more often than not I'm Soldier and I'm slow as fuck, and nervous to boot) where it's easier for a Scout or someone to take it and get it to our base, and I've always been happy that YAY WE WON, but couldn't have helped to feel a bit bitter because I had to go through hell to get the briefcase and then some Scout just takes it and gets all the points.
And I remember once in 2fort I was playing as Pyro and I went to get the intel THREE TIMES. Every time I died (because as a lonely Pyro there's not much you can do when Soldiers and Demos start firing at you from distance) and left the intel to be picked up by someone else. So it was thanks to me we won with a shutout, and I had basically no points whatsoever. :D
And I think it was kind of horrible that one time I capped as Engineer. Someone had gone through all kinds of hardships (presumably) to get the intel just to have some useless Engineer cap it and get all the points. I felt bad for them, I really did. :/ So from now on they get points too, so everyone's happy!

And Goldrush, Medic achievements and Meet the Scout in April!
Then again it's Valve, so I'm not going to trust them. :D The update doesn't exist until my Steam says so. They already nearly broke my heart on Valentine's Day (the whole Badlands thing, if you remember, and my first personal experience on how Valve Time works in practice).
But I'd be lying if I told you I'm not looking forward to that update. Christmas is coming early this year, baby!
I'm just afraid that every server will turn into a Medic only deathmatch because of the achievements (I know I'll be playing lots of Medic).

I had a dream last night in which my sentry chimed in over 300 kills. I was really disappointed when it didn't happen in the game today. :D
But I killed another Engie with a pistol (I've never gotten a pistol kill before, I abuse the shotgun most of the time). The dirty bastard was sneaking around in our base in 2fort, trying to put down teleporters, so I had to plant a few bullets in his cranium.
And I don't know what it is, but übered Heavies don't strike any fear in my heart when I'm an Engineer. I'll just camp behind my sentry and wave my wrench like a nutcase if one is approaching, IF I CAN KEEP MY BABY UP THE HEAVY WILL DIE THE MOMENT THE ÜBER FADES MWAHAHA. Most of the time it works, as long as the Heavy doesn't get too close. Minigun sprays bullets so wide I only take stray hits and my dispenser keeps me pretty much alive.
But if it's an über Demo (or a Pyro with a Medic who knows what they're doing) that's coming at me, I'll be gone in a matter of seconds and putting up another sentry somewhere else. With Soldiers I'm on the fence: even one crit means death and destruction for me and my baby, but if there are no crits, I can easily keep the sentry up and running. Damn crits.

I once again had a horrible team today in Dustbowl. I was once again on top of the scoreboard as a Soldier. :/ But we were pretty much doomed from the start: we started Stage One with six fucking Engineers, one Demo, one Pyro and one Soldier (me). OUCH. Just guess how long it took BLU to cap both points? NOT VERY LONG. Engies kept them away from Cap A for a few minutes, but after that our entire defense fell apart and the second point was capped in a matter of seconds.
On Stage Three we owned for a little while, kept them in their spawn for almost ten minutes, and even after they capped (silliest cap ever, for fuck's sake, one goddamn Spy got through and just capped the point by himself while we were fighting off everyone else. To be honest, I didn't even notice our point being capped (too busy killing Medics) until someone yelled "KILL THE GODDAMN SPY!" over voicechat, and I nailed the bastard like a second too late. :< But hey, we still kept them in their spawn for a few minutes after that, which was pretty cool), they made one of the biggest mistakes BLU can make on Stage Three, and ignored a teleporter exit in our respawn exit (the one that closes once Cap A is capped) and we managed to rape them properly from behind once they had advanced to the last corner. <3
We lost, but like I already told you, I was the highest scorer, so.

And hey, I got a new score record for Demoman today! :D
So I told you how my regular server has new sudden death modes. Everyone goes melée and is forced to be a certain class. It's really lol inducing when everyone goes Medic and abuses the E key all the time, or when everyone goes Engineer and we can't even build dispensers and so everyone spams "We need a dispenser right here!" hehe.
Anyway, on 2fort everyone was forced to go Demo.
And somehow I managed to get three kills and one defense (the guy with our intel ran right at me and I got a lucky crit), so WHOA FOUR POINTS. My Demoman stats look still pretty pathetic, though. :D (For the record, I've played about 12 minutes as a Demo).

And why do I STILL giggle like some idiot when someone asks something silly (like "How can I enable quick weapon switch?") in chat, and someone answers promptly "F10."
And then a few people disconnect. Ahahah, still makes me laugh. So cruel, but so very amusing.
F10 is seriously the answer to everything.

And so much for trying other classes: I went Engineer in 2fort, Soldier in Granary, Dustbowl and Gravel Pit, and Pyro in Hydro. Le sigh. But at least I also tried Pyro in Well! Was a bit lost and didn't score as high as I am used to scoring as a Pyro, but it wasn't completely horrible. Plus hooray for circle-strafing first level sentries.