TF2 Server Symptoms of the Medic Update
Luke has posted a sweet article over at lowpings on the recent medic achievements dumb-assedness that has been going around.
That might seem awesome, every TF2 server a magical medical Mecca with free healing for all where no-one ever dies - but further highly scientific study reveals a disturbing problem:
So true about the retarded medics. I had a heavy on the other team doing non-stop blunt trauma grinding for his medic buddies on gold rush last night. We won the game easy cause every time we started to make progress, they’d respond with an uber. But instead of the usual chain gun of death, we just had this big red glowing lard-ass come out trying to punch everyone helping his team 0%, but getting lots of achievements for the dumb ass medics on his team. Wish I’d gotten a screenshot of it. So stupid…
He also sent me an image that didn’t make it into the article, but it kind of sums up what most public servers have been like since the update (except on the server I’ve been on the medics have been uncontrollably drooling more, with bigger and more mindless s**t eating grins).
The real shame is that medic uses to be my favorite and most played class. I didn’t mind being the helpful healer the whole time. It was a good feeling to know that you’re helping the team a lot. Since the update though, I’ve barely touched medic. Playing that class now just feels… dirty…
Stumble it!
Anthell responded on 15 May 2008 at 11:44 am #
[quote]“The real shame is that medic uses to be my favorite and most played class. I didn’t mind being the helpful healer the whole time. It was a good feeling to know that you’re helping the team a lot. Since the update though, I’ve barely touched medic. Playing that class now just feels… dirty…”[/quote]
I feel the same way…
Wossname responded on 15 May 2008 at 12:10 pm #
I’ve done the “I’m on fire” dance so many times directly in front of these idiots while calling for a Medic, only to die horribly. I guess they must have already fulfilled Infernal Medicine because, oops, there’s a scout they’ve gotta go chase down with the syringe gun…
A lot of these grinders (I don’t care if you grind, just don’t do it in a real match) are down to their last few achievements. Unfortunately “First Do No Harm” seems to be a real popular outstanding one (be top of the score charts in a team of 6 or more, but you can’t kill anyone as a Medic). More than one ass has asked for preferential treatment in getting this one — nevermind it’s actually not too difficult an achievement to get, if you play the Medic as a primary healer (the assist points really rack up). You know, as originally *intended*.
But, yes. Medic is my main, I adore the class, but I can’t bear to play it when grinders are being so obnoxious.
ch1x0r responded on 15 May 2008 at 1:03 pm #
@Wossname: Reminds me of when I was the other night, some dude was trying to get “First Do No Harm” and verbally abused me and another guy because we were scoring higher than him. Bloody drives me nuts!
madlep responded on 15 May 2008 at 1:10 pm #
@ch1×0r - yeah that was probably me
I yell at people who score higher than me a lot. Not cause I’m going for achievements, mostly just cause I’m crap.
I try to turn the microphone off, and it’s usually followed by me punching the keyboard and throwing something across the room. I feel better after that.
Dr. Leh responded on 15 May 2008 at 1:39 pm #
It’ll be a bitch to get pyro achievements- there will be one like “set 20,000 people on fire,” and you wont make any progress cause everyone will be a pyro, and you would be able to set anyone on fire. lulz.
Hain responded on 15 May 2008 at 2:20 pm #
I actually got the first milestone without specifically going for any achievements and that was satisfying. I went around healing people AS I SHOULD, and it worked! Now I guess there is no way you can get all the milestones and that means I’m not getting the ubersaw… but I enjoy the medic as it is, I don’t get it - what’s wrong with healing people, you get a lot of points and you get a lot of assists. It is quite fun to put out burning mates and heal people running back from the hot front crying ‘medic’. Extra goodness when people actually thank thru voice commands or thru the mic.
Why is everyone so full of themselves that they want to be in the lead, being the one who’s doing the killing?
Hain responded on 15 May 2008 at 2:21 pm #
correction : Now I guess there is no way you can get all the milestones - while being actually useful - (…)
madlep responded on 15 May 2008 at 2:27 pm #
@Hain - Yeah, same. I just wanna play medic, heal the team, and get a warm glow from doing good deeds. The ridiculousness of these achievements has made me give up on getting an UberSaw by playing that way.
The fact is 99% of people have not gotten the ubersaw. Literally only 1% of people have Milestone 3 according to Valve: http://www.steampowered.com/status/tf2/achievements.php
That’s a hell of a lot of work that they’ve put into the game right there that only 1% of the players will ever get to enjoy.
General Balls responded on 15 May 2008 at 3:54 pm #
Bah, the ubersaw doesn’t bother me, it’d only really be useful when you’ve found a spy who doesn’t know his cover’s blown. In a properly played game, that is. The Kritzcrieg is interesting, and I’ll use it for a bit after I get it to see what it’s like, but I get the feeling I’ll stick to the original.
Otherwise, where are all these servers with Medics galore? I only started playing again a few days ago, and most servers (GameArena, Internode, and Gamespace Goldrush ones) had only 2-3 Medics at most. I only encountered grinders once, but all the rest of us did was go spectator and chat to each other until they left.
Of course, I understand if you were talking about soon after the achievements were released (which I wasn’t around for), but now the game seems to be normal, but with extras, and people more willing to fill in the empty Medic gaps.
General Balls responded on 15 May 2008 at 4:10 pm #
Also, madlep, just looking at those stats, it shows that only 13% have Surgical Prep (have an ubercharge ready before the setup phase ends) which *any* Medic, self-respecting or not, can get pretty much straight away.
That insinuates to me that either most of the medic players are incompetant zombies, mindlessly smashing their heads against the keyboard, or that most players of TF2 either don’t know or don’t care about playing Medic, even with achievements and unlockables.
Either way, I don’t think those stats are really a viable way to look at things, because not everyone plays as Medic, unlockables or not. If later classes had achievements that were accomplished easier, I think the list would still appear the same, simply because not everyone cares about playing certain classes.
Which sort of reinforces what this is about, rewarding people that like playing their favourite class, for playing it *well*, with alternative ways to play them (of course the Medic achievements are far from perfect in this regard, but the idea in itself is a solid one that I support). Hopefully the Pyro (check the Steam Forums) achievements will be better managed in this regard.
Hain responded on 15 May 2008 at 9:09 pm #
I agree with General Balls, the new medic weapons are not very interesting except for the kritzkrieg, and yes strangely the medic mayhem died out soon after the console exploit was fixed (I’m in Europe). Actually things went back to “normal” as last night I’ve played on various servers trying to defend dustbowl or gold rush with no medics in sight.
Ah, the good old days when you lost consistently because there was never enough medics on your team even if you were playing medic.
Ah, the good old days when the reward of being the only medic was constantly being yelled at over how you messed up “their” ubercharge.
Ah, the good old days when everyone on your team was too cool to play medic and so any friendly medic had to be a spy and would be fired upon passionately.
ok - the last one I exagerrated a bit.
Anon responded on 15 May 2008 at 10:21 pm #
Stop crying about it. All servers only have 2/3 medics max now. Sometimes we’re even back to 0 medics. So cry some moar or shut up about it. And just play the game.
luke responded on 16 May 2008 at 12:51 am #
I’m just glad it’s Valve behind all this - they’re bound to have learned from the Medic upgrade situation, and will take appropriate measures for the next one.
The only way to mitigate the problem would be to release a bunch of character upgrades at once, but that would be an unmanagable nightmare of balance and exploit-correction.
I’m glad to see serveres settled down in terms of Medics again, although that does mean a return to the horrors of things like I saw last night, somebody thinking “Hmm, we’re being steamrolled on goldrush - what this zero-medic team is more defensive scouts!”
So I’ve been able to play medic again, and enjoy the achievements as they’re meant to be - little “Oh, cool” moments as you get them. I’m also looking forward to seeing how kritzkrieg affects play strategies once Valve inevitably unlock all the weapons for all players.
Pinko responded on 16 May 2008 at 3:11 am #
I feel semi-bad because I like playing battle-medic, but haven’t been able to bring myself to play any medic at all since the achievements.
n00bie51 responded on 16 May 2008 at 5:15 am #
I played Medic quite frequently before the update. It used to be nice to be the only Medic doing well. Now, there are tons of retarded Medics that can’t do crap right.
b4dboyz- responded on 16 May 2008 at 5:56 am #
Ohh I want to play medic! *Slaps self* NAUGHTY THOUGHTS NAUGHTY THOUGHTS.
I also liked to play medic since no one else did. Always stacked up points to make me seem 1337′er…
atomicthumbs responded on 16 May 2008 at 6:48 am #
Here’s an idea:
Just release more achievements and tell nobody.
/D/irection responded on 16 May 2008 at 9:25 am #
It’s funny how all the people who played an excellent medic don’t want to be associated with the class anymore. I’m the same, i’ll only play medic now if no one on my team is.
slardeki responded on 22 May 2008 at 3:31 am #
As a medic player, when I first saw all the medics running around, I thought crap, bunch of new medics who don’t know how to heal. But then I turned it around.
For every way I dies before while being a medic, I went and did just that to all of the noob medics. At one point, I saw five medics in a group, all healing each other. As a pyro, I rushed them and burned them all. I normally enjoy kills based on skill, but the mindless slaughter was really fun. I also took advantage of all the medics by being a heavy getting multiple ubers.
Fortunately, it’s more back to normal in the states and I can play the medic like I used to play.
A Sense Of Achievements (part 1) | ubercharged.net responded on 31 Oct 2008 at 8:02 am #
[...] are often talked about on this site. That’s not even all of them. So what new kernel am I bringing to the [...]
Anonymous responded on 31 Oct 2008 at 1:42 pm #
some times I like to be a grinder I mean I still heal my team but it gets annoying when people think just because you heal them once your there bitch