The Answer: Being bad at your favorite game
I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in a week, because one week ago a realized that I’m terrible at it. The realization came to me during a loading screen. I was going to log into my favorite server to just joke around. It’s 100% crits and always is on Mario Kart, so being serious is pretty damn impossible there. It was taking more time than usual to load, and to pass the time I was examining my stats.
Watch in case you don’t know what the Mario Kart map looks like.
There are always a few emotions that come with seeing my stats, my puzzlement when I see my playtime as a Soldier, always so far ahead of the other classes, for some strange reason, a little bit of regret when I see my Medic, Heavy, Pyro, and now Scout stats, which I carelessly Achievement-farmed up to kill sprees in the 200s I didn’t really earn, and a little bit of pride when I see my real best score, a 21-point spree as a Soldier.
But then I realize something. That spree was on duel_duelv2, where I just stood next to a health cabinet in my base and fired out the door. This isn’t my big realization, but it’s the first step. To make myself feel better, I look at my best sprees as other classes. That’s when it begins to sink in. My best sprees are fives, fours, and sometimes threes. I begin to feel uncomfortable, but all hope is not lost, I have the mantra to fall back on.
Team Fortress 2 is not a game about you, it’s about your team. I say this to myself until I feel better again. However, the realization will not let me go. It grabs my throat with cold hard self-discovery. I realize a huge problem with my mantra. Sure, I’ve been on a lot of winning teams before, but I’ve never really helped win the game. I’m not the Scout who rushes through 2fort with the intelligence, protected by the Soldier for the final capture of a long game, or the Engineer who stops the final rush on the last control point of Dustbowl with a dispenser, a sentry, a wrench, and his own sweat, and a friendly Heavy. I’m not even the Soldier or the Heavy helping them win.
In 2Fort, I’m the Demoman who decides to lay down some stickybombs to cover the Scout’s retreat back to our base, and thinks he’ll be a genius by booby-trapping both doors of the enemy base, only to have not placed enough nerfed bombs to kill the Heavy coming out of the first door, and his second trap decimated by a Pyro’s shotgun, only to be final killed from above by a sniper with an SMG.
In Dustbowl, I’m the “Offensive on Defense” Engineer who thinks he’s been so clever by putting up a base in an unexpected place along the BLU team’s route to the final point. I sit there, hammering away at my Sentry, sometimes upgrading my dispenser and my teleporter. I finally get my sentry to that coveted level 3 with just the metal from my dispenser, and in its life it gets off two shots at a passing Scout. Soon I am Stab/Sapped by a Spy.
A bunch of other labels fly into my head, some even from my favorite TF2 site (just guess which site I’m talking about.)
I’m the W+M1 Pyro, I’m the weighted Companion Sniper, and I’m the spider web Demoman. I’ve had the game for a year, and have not gotten any better at it.
I’m a terrible Team Fortress 2 player.
In pure disgust, both at myself and the game, I push back from the desk where my desktop is kept. I sit there for some time, just feeling empty. Back on the desk, my game has finally loaded, and sounds of explosions and laughing drifts through the speakers. I look up and stare at the computer monitor, before I quit the game and walk away. I don’t log out of Steam.
The next week, I avoid the game. I look at the desktop once, preferring instead the surf the web on my five-year-old soundless laptop. I’m extra enthusiastic when my family goes on a four-day trip to the Bahamas, because I can’t bring any computers and don’t have to be reminded of Team Fortress 2. I’m even kind of glad when we spend the weekend back in our terrible summer home in New Jersey, because the desktop there cannot even run Steam, let alone Team Fortress 2. I even delay listening to the new Control Point episode for awhile.
There is one Team Fortress 2 site I keep coming back to, though. The entire week, I keep reading the posts here on Ubercharged.net, and making an attempt to at least lurk on the forms. I don’t really know why, but I just can’t let go of the site.
Then, as I’m checking the forums for about the third time these last ten minutes, I see the answer to my problem. The answer is in the far right corner of the Ubercharged banner, in the back of the RED team. He stands up straight in a spotless white-and-red lab coat, bonesaw in hand, grinning at his teammates like he knows something they don’t.
Stephen Colbert is the answer.
Okay, it’s not really Stephen Colbert, but that’s what I’ve called the Medic ever since I showed my friend a trailer for Team Fortress 2 and he pointed out the (albeit pretty small) similarity between everyone’s favorite terrible doctor and everyone’s favorite terrible Republican.
Regardless, the Medic is still my answer. If I can’t contribute to the team’s win directly, I’ll contribute to other people’s contributions. Every team needs Medics, but sometimes there are no medics. Maybe no one has noticed that there is a Medic shortage, or nobody wants to get all their points through assists.
No longer, though. Now, every team I am one will have at least one Medic. The other team has a right to fear. If they try to stop me, (hopefully) my medic buddy will strike them down with holy rage. If they find me by myself in a hallway, and try to take me out, (hopefully) a barrage of needles will pierce their flesh, actually granting me more health. Then, (hopefully) my upgraded Bonesaw will slice their skull open, and their blood will fuel the last-ditch ubercharge that overwhelms their last engineer and grants my team victory.
I am now A CAREER MEDIC
(Well, not really, since at the time of writing I’m still in my summer house and haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in a week, but hey, I’m gonna try.)
Anyway, I look forward to Ubercharging you soon.
Unless you’re these guys, of course.
Stumble it!
Rythyrix (changes name often) responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 6:17 am #
Finally, someone who will be a Medic regardless of what will happen. Every team needs a Medic, if only to heal that Soldier on fire, two steps away from the health or dispenser. Or that Spy, being chased by the entire enemy team, who just backstabbed their recently ragequit medic, who would have broken through your defenses.
abbe responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 6:45 am #
“I’m not the Scout who rushes through 2fort with the intelligence, protected by the Soldier for the final capture of a long game, or the Engineer who stops the final rush on the last control point of Dustbowl with a dispenser, a sentry, a wench, and his own sweat, and a friendly Heavy.”
Hey, now I know why other people play Engineer so much, they get wenches and I only get a wrench.
And congrats on becoming a medic! I have over 100hours as a medic myself and it is better to be the one to give übers, than the one that does not even get an über. Although, I give and get both, so I’m not lacking.
sheepshifter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:06 am #
Weird, I don’t recall publishing this. Oh well, Westward Ho!
Anyway, thanks for the positive comments so far, and I plan to make my career Medic debut on the UC server as soon as I finish catching up on my shows.
Tanki54 responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:15 am #
Westward ho? Have you been there? Or is there lots of them?
User responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:17 am #
You don’t ubercharge demomen??
sheepshifter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:19 am #
@Tanki: During that week where I didn’t play TF2 I went into the legendary Pyro deserts of Utah.
@User: I would, if only they weren’t nerfed short of the stickies exploding into confetti.
Paper Shadow responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:31 am #
Wow, that was up fast…
Richard responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:31 am #
I don’t get it, Is your answer for being a bad player is being a good medic?
It doesn’t make much sense…
sheepshifter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:37 am #
@Paper Shadow: I don’t really know what happened either, I thought I had just saved a draft, I went on a drive, came back, and find this up.
@Richard: My personal answer to my problem, that I was bad at almost every class, was to stop playing a bunch of different classes and start playing one in particular.
JPSDogs responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:54 am #
Stephen Colbert’s character on the show isn’t a Republican, while running for POTUS he said that he was running for both the Democratic and Republican parties. Not sure if you were referring to the character he plays or Stephen Colbert himself.
sheepshifter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 7:56 am #
@JPSDogs I swear the character is a Republican, isn’t he?
GeneralGoose responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 8:26 am #
The character is a Republic.
Wikipedia says so, and you know Stephen Colbert’s views on Wikipedia: if enough people believe something, it’s true.
Salmonking responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 8:58 am #
Yeah, I gotta agree – whenever I get down on how I’m doing with a class, Medic is always my answer. It is really, really hard to be a useless Medic. It is also hard to lurk at the bottom of the team’s points roster as a Medic. And it offers more responsibility – you’re the one leading the charges, you’ve got to coordinate and steer people toward chokepoints.
Plus, once you gain confidence by specializing in one class, you can work on building skills with other classes and apply the lessons you learned from the previous ones. Medicking doesn’t just help your team – by playing Medic, I learned to always keep moving, what was desirable in a Medic buddy, health pack locations, and a lot more. My team got heals; I got tons of experience that overlapped with other classes. Win-win all around.
Still, though, would this method work for everyone? I’m not sure. The idea of huge numbers of noob-Medics flocking toward servers does kind of chill my bones a little. I’m thinking specifically of a few games in which the Medic involuntarily stonewalled the entire team out of victory by refusing to click M2 at all, but there are other noisome possibilities that we’ve covered here. Just because it’s hard to be useless as a Medic doesn’t mean it’s impossible to be an annoyance. (Band-aid Medic, anyone?)
Maybe the answer is just to make sure you at least know the dynamics of the game well before attempting to play such an integral class. Experience has a lot to do with it. If you’ve been playing other classes, you know what makes a good or bad Medic.
Or maybe the solution is to read more Ubercharged articles. Sure helped me out.
FlyingHat responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 9:26 am #
tl;dr
Summarized as “I suck at playing TF2, I read ubercharged and since I suck at TF2 I play as medic.”
lolwut
sole21000 responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 9:45 am #
Damn, I want to go to the bahamas.
I also want a “MEDIC!”
sole21000 responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 9:47 am #
@Flying hat
If it’d tl:dr what do you read here? All the articles are pretty much paragraphs long.
I appreciate that he accepted that it’s his personal expertise level and didn’t go into a “X is overpowered/underpowered” rant that’s so common nowadays.
ASD responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 9:50 am #
Fine job. It was like looking at myself in the mirror. And Medic happens to be my most played class.
CharlesMan responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 10:32 am #
Don’t worry, I suck at the Fortress (And, in fact, video games in general) as much as you do, and in fact probably more. Sometimes I get a little sad about it, but that doesn’t keep me down, and the next day I’m loading it up, ready to shoot some crits, capture some points, and push some cart.
Just remember that it doesn’t matter if you’re not doing as well as some others, you are more likely then not having fun! And is being a gamer not about enjoying games?
NotPigeon responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 10:59 am #
You know, I used to feel the same way when I realized that, despite my 60 hours of play, my highest Spy score was from when I was dicking around with the unassigned glitch (although it was actually lower than my highest score that got deleted for some strange reason). Fortunately, I found a server with particularly unaware players and went on a massive stabbing spree, which means I get to feel good when I’m loading.
ToastAndButter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 12:40 pm #
I’m guilty of being bad on a few games that I enjoy. ESPECIALLY RTSs. But im not alone
Anonymous responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 12:42 pm #
I only recently noticed my highest score occurred from cocking about as a sniper on 2fort.
But on the other hand despite sucking, I give the sufficient illusion of knowing what I’m doing enough to draw entire teams into putting all their effort into taking me out.
Apparently I was magnetic to weighted companion snipers, the pyros had a field day. (7 snipers and a heavy vs 5 pyros, 3 soldiers and a (shitty)sniper.)
Medic and Engineer may be my favourite classes(also my best as far as I know), but I get bored playing them 24/7(particularly on wanky servers where everything is blamed on the medics). However even in the deepest recesses of sucking people should remember there will always be something useful you can do (even if it’s throw yourself in front of a sentry).
ToastAndButter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 12:45 pm #
Well now that I finished reading it I feel a whole lot better. That open leak in my soul is being mended.
sheepshifter responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 1:32 pm #
Thanks for all the positive comments, folks. I’m overwhelmed.
And as a footnote, if you are useless, but seek instead of getting better to be more useless, check the link at the end of this comment for a complete guide to the subject.
http://www.ubercharged.net/2009/03/15/uselessness-a-comprehensive-guide/
Rigel responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 1:54 pm #
Just a friendly advice – if you ain’t got a microphone, don’t bother playing the class. You are the back eyes of your medic buddy and you need to inform him when theres someone behind you (spy, scout, pyro). Most people on public servers do NOT care about you, so expect to die a lot due to your teammates incompetence or unwillingness to help you in any way.
Stick with soldiers and heavies as they’re your best chance at staying alive. Everybody else is just a death trap.
Scattergunner responded on 23 Mar 2009 at 3:48 pm #
That’s d spirit Pal!!
I suck almost everytime I play any fps, but, u know what? I always watch at d brightside… For instance, if u suck at pc tf2, that means u HAVE a pc version of TF2 (unlike me, I have to “be happy” with d crappy 360 version)…
riDDi responded on 24 Mar 2009 at 4:02 am #
Well, for starters, how about playing better-than-shit-maps?
JPSDogs responded on 24 Mar 2009 at 5:40 am #
@ GeneralGoose:
“Although by his own account he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert is a self-described Democrat.”
pwnd.
Bodjo responded on 24 Mar 2009 at 5:58 am #
teams can always use a competent medic. Bad medics on offense can squash a team. And if you’re having a bad fragging day, the points you get from assists, healing, and ubercharges are always an ego boost. +1 to the “use a mic” post. I don,t get why anyone plays TF2 without a mic, but it’s a necessity to medic well.
Kmria responded on 24 Mar 2009 at 7:15 am #
Ah, the adrenaline rush of a well placed Ubercharge… And the rage at the dumb Demoman who rushes to kill the Heavy instead of the Sentry! Does that only happen to me? Besides, being a medic has taught me a lot on how to kill other medics, so i must agree with Salmonking.
Still, i believe nothing beats “I appear to have burst into flames…”
Nice article anywho
gelugon2105 responded on 25 Mar 2009 at 2:58 pm #
That Mario Kart is hideously psychotic, in my opinion, and a major sacrilege to both Team Fortress 2 and Mario Kart.
THE GREATEST GENTLEMAN responded on 25 Mar 2009 at 4:18 pm #
Y’alls can suck it, Mario Kart ubers my heart 4eva
Matt responded on 26 Mar 2009 at 7:19 am #
Wuh… wait. 3-4 is bad? I’m bad? I thought I was decent… but but… NO! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME! YOU HAVE MADE ME SO SAD!
;_; I thought I was fairly capable…
penis responded on 26 Mar 2009 at 8:04 am #
ive been to westward ho!
gelugon2105 responded on 26 Mar 2009 at 7:33 pm #
I meant the Mario Kart “map”. Sorry, I overlooked inserting the word “map”. I love Mario Kart actually.
Nonomu198 responded on 26 Mar 2009 at 8:29 pm #
Well, I don’t think playing Medic is a good solution. I present to you, the Medic-Skill dilemma. Medics do need skill, and more importantly, they need skiled mates. If you are going to play on low-skilled servers, you are not going to have any good time healing people, and if you are going to play on high-skilled levels, everybody will hate you for being a bad Medic (you said you are a bad player, right?) and you won’t have any fun getting killed all the time by high skilled players.
If you want to get some skills you just need to try and play smart with good teammates. I don’t think Mario Kart 100% crits is the best place to sharpen your instincts and increase your battle awareness.
Notger responded on 26 Mar 2009 at 9:11 pm #
Good choice, the world needs good and dedicated medics.
And a great article, loved it!
taipoh responded on 28 Mar 2009 at 12:50 am #
I understand how you feel. Sometimes I do ok, sometimes I’m just crap, but I’m a crappy player overall. So I played Medic most of the time, especially if my team lacked one/felt my team really needed one or the other medic was doing a terrible job. Sometimes I still do stupid things as a medic, but there have been times I impressed my team so much (especially when I use the Kritz) that at least 3 other medics will pop up in the next round (with me being the only medic the previous round). Its a great feeling, compared to spending an entire round dying over and over again with no accomplishments.
Sehnheiser responded on 28 Mar 2009 at 10:46 am #
I love the Mario Kart map. So colorful!
As for the article itself, I would love to play the Medic more, but, like Salmonkind said, it really is a big responsibility. And since I’m still new, I would probably end up dying and being yelled at… But meh! Medics must be selfless, right? So, you go, sheepshifter! You’ve got mah support!
nineteen responded on 30 Mar 2009 at 1:13 pm #
Welcome to the brotherhood, friend.
Embrace the Medic, and the class shall be good to you.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will rage at useless medic buddies.
But eventually you will realise the power vested in you, and the medigun will feel like the most lethal, overpowered item in the game.
As a battle-hardened career medic from beta days, I can tell you right now, you’ve made the right choice.
The Lord, Your God responded on 05 Jun 2009 at 2:19 pm #
Control Point episode? What are you talking about? Anyway, I suck at TF2 too. That’s why I play. To improve and have fun.