Competitive TF2: Concentrated Training
Yo what’s up?
Wasn’t expecting me, was youse?
Anyway, take this situation; it’s a lazy Saturday afternoon. All your homework (assuming you get homework) and chores are done, and you don’t enjoy just lazing around. So you fire up TF2, but there’s no one to play “competitively” with; only pubs around. Sure, they’re fun, but you don’t feel like it, plus you’d like to try and get a little better, which ain’t gonna happen there. What’s one to do?
Here’s a couple suggestions for Soldiers. And maybe Demomen.
BBall
Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll explain in detail.
ctf_bball is a deathmatch sort of game, meant to be played 2 on 2, but also works with 1 on 1 (gets boring more easily) or 3 on 3 (more spammy). You’re in a basketball court with only moderate-height walls to jump off, and the objective is to land the flag in the enemy net. You run Soldier or Demoman, with a max of one Demoman. Simple no?
But what’s stopping people from playing something other than those two classes? Nothing, but people, which is alright, since most people who look for bball servers are in a similar mindset. It’s that simple really.
Training includes playing with other good sollys and demomen, and it helps airshots (the enemy needs jumping to score). You could also play scout, though only FaN scouts can reach the net, and it’s pretty iffy. It also helps walljumping (based off long jumps rather than height jumps) and airstrafing (scoring).
There’s a few dedicated bball servers that aren’t locked, plus some regular servers have it on the map list; type “ctf_bball” into the map choice for a collection. UC servers #2 and #3 also have it, although you’ll need an admin to start it. Typical etiquette includes no using sticky bombs to attack, and to a lesser extent, the shotgun is discouraged.
On the subject, there are two different maps that follow the style. One is ctf_pro_bball.
It improves over the original in a few, most notably a shoot-through backboard which prevents people from cheaply knocking you off scoring by shooting it. There’s also ctf_ballin, which is about the same as pro_bball, but a little prettier, and doesn’t limit you to 3 captures. Both look much better than plain ctf_bball though. Give ‘em a run.
Ammomod
This is my personal favorite.
Basically, you fight in an arena against one other person, as either Soldier or Demoman. The map can be a plain room, or based on a notable portion of a stock map, like Gravel Pit’s tower, Badlands Spire, Granary’s mid point, etc..
Both are given 1600 health and unlimited ammo. First one to go down loses.
It’s really simple, but the added health and ammo gives you plenty of room to practice without having to respawn after a few shots. There’s a few servers dedicated to it around; for example, in the US:
- Clan Vortex – 67.212.189.186:27093
- Exodus Society – 216.52.148.129:27015
I mostly go to thenoid’s ammomod, which is at 67.202.71.165:27015. You’ll probably run into some really good players if you do run by, so the best advice I can give is don’t go in expecting to do well.
And if you ever run into Solid Snake, do yourself a favor and have a key bound to “explode.”
Spireking
Spireking is like ghetto ammomod for soldiers – like ammomod, it’s 1v1. There’s a badlands spire in the center of the map, and both players battle for control of the top, where there’s a control point. Unlike ammomod, though, you start with 200 health, but you’re continually resupplied with full ammo and health every 4 seconds. That means that to score a kill, you need to deal out 200 damage in 4 seconds. What better way to do that than by nailing some awesome airshots?
Since spireking doesn’t work well for matches bigger than 1v1, you’re unlikely to find any public servers for it. However, since it’s a standalone map, you don’t need a bunch of mods to run it on your server, as you do with ammomod. This makes it great for clan training. If you have a server, or have access to a private server, give this map a go.
Tr_Walkway
Get it. Now.
Ha, but no seriously. Originally an ESG-only beta by wiseguy and washipato (trust me, it wasn’t that great when it was in beta), it’s now available to the general public, and there probably isn’t any better aerial training bar playing against other people. The launcher is a great asset, and a couple hours on this thing I assure you will greatly improve your prediction skills .Unless they’re already maxed, in which you’ve still got a bunch of commands to mess with to make it harder.
And if you’re like me, when your ping rockets because somebody in the dorm is torrenting… stuff… you can always fire up a listen server.
There’s also modifications for stairstab and eagle stab training in there, but honestly, who falls for stairstabs anymore, and who plays Spy anyway?
And while you’re at it, try a couple headshots.
___________________________________________________________________________
That concludes this article for today. Seriously, get a server, or become friends with someone who does, so you can reap the benefits of Spireking and BBall. Until next time, good night and good luck.
Give a big hand to Secret Agent Clank, on his first contribution to the Competitive TF2 Guide. Future installments of the guide are going to be generally shorter and more specific than the first nine. Thanks for the support, readers. -himmelstoss
Secret Agent Clank! on November 13th 2009 in demoman, how to, maps, scout, soldier, team fortress 2
Stumble it!
admiral responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 12:28 am #
Nice article. I always wondered what ammomod was, but was too lazy to look it up
OrangeGamer responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 1:45 am #
Seriously, gotta get walkway, could help me a lot on practicing aiming, I suck at rockets xD
Alien Rope Burn responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 2:24 am #
Is there something I can do to ensure maps like these aren’t recorded in my stats? I want to make sure my existing scores aren’t thrown off.
Limisios responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 2:55 am #
@Alien Rope Burn
Actually, I was wondering the same thing, so I looked on it’s download page on FPSBanana and it read that sv_cheats are always on so your stats won’t be saved. (That is, if sv_cheats stops your stats from changing, but I think it does)
Sandman responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 4:03 am #
walkway is one of the best training maps I’ve ever seen – in any game. Kudos to the creators.
When you’re just messing around, try my favorite. Taunt kill the bots with the scout, but without standing in their path (i.e. blocking them). The timing is tough, making it rewarding when you get it. Or just do heavy taunts FTW
dekichan responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 4:50 am #
how easy/hard would it be to mod ctf_bball to have 4 or so adjacent courts? Make a public server out of it. Could you keep the same spawn point per person? Perhaps a better question to post in fpsbanana. Guess you’d need solid fences so the different matches won’t interfere. Make a winner’s/loser’s bracket? etc.
n00bie51 responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 6:44 am #
Never heard of tr_walkway before. Cool.
ddM responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 1:16 pm #
Any good EU spireking or ammomod servers?
himmelstoss responded on 14 Nov 2009 at 3:32 pm #
@ddM: Go to the server browser and search for any server running a map with the am_ prefix.
Corodan responded on 15 Nov 2009 at 11:52 am #
@n00bie
Bwahaha, noob.
Anywho, it’s good that something like this got out. Ammomod and walkway are great, but I prefer walkway since you can move at your own pace.
I had a little trouble trying to get it from FPSBanana, so I just joined a random server to download it. :/
Zanpa responded on 15 Nov 2009 at 8:55 pm #
Dekichan, sadly it’s impossible.
You couldn’t manage that many intels, count points separately for each court, and more importantly spawn points can’t be kept to one player only…
EchelonThree responded on 16 Nov 2009 at 2:14 am #
The LAST thing you should learn while practicing soldier is airshots, you need to airshot so rarely it’s better to practice your shotgun use anyway….
himmelstoss responded on 16 Nov 2009 at 6:38 am #
@Zanpa:
Ammomod manages to control spawn points, but I don’t know of any way to manage multiple intelligence briefcases.
Guru responded on 16 Nov 2009 at 4:22 pm #
tr_walkway is the most overrated training map in existence.
If you want to get better just play the game, yes even on pubs.
Play with some selfmade restrictions like playing Engineer without building anything just to focus on the shotgun and pistol. Play Scout versus Scout just using the pistol and the bat. You will soon become better than walkway could ever get you.
On a sidenote: airshots are actually more frequent and needed than you might think EchelonThree and the easiest way to kill people as Soldier. Pop them up and knock them down.
regardless responded on 16 Nov 2009 at 9:28 pm #
for single training, i highly recommend the map tr_flinger, with a soldier and demoman bot
Washipato responded on 17 Nov 2009 at 1:02 am #
Hey secret agent clank, thanks for talking about the map wiseguy149 and me are working on. We are glad that you liked the last (RC) version. Hopefully, the next release will solve some problems and add new things to make the map more enjoyable and easy to understand.
I have tried spireking and bball in some servers and they are really fun, but never ammomod.
@Guru: Yes, the map is overrated if we compare it to playing the game with other people. Nothing replaces the real experience. But sometimes, it’s not possible to test or practice some things that would require hours and hours of playtime, like airblast or airshots. In walkway, it’s possible to train those skills and get a general idea of the technique in a few minutes.
Secret Agent Clank! responded on 17 Nov 2009 at 6:28 pm #
Thanks, and thanks.
There were a couple more but they were a bit obscure and not that much more use either.
Guru: Was gonna say something but washipato pretty much summed it up. For example, learning to trick people as Spy won’t help your aim much. Shooting people with hitscan weapons won’t help in projectile motion.
Washi: No prob. Good luck with the next rc. Can’t wait.
TR_WALKWAY: Entrevista al creador del mapa argentino reconocido mundialmente. « Team Fortress 2 Argentina responded on 21 Dec 2009 at 9:58 am #
[...] excelente y variado sitio ubercharged.net hace mención al mapa en un artículo sobre mapas de entrenamiento, donde una vez más es [...]
ElJaye responded on 04 Jan 2010 at 11:41 am #
It says in the video for walkway there’s a command for the black and yellow striped panels. Does anyone happen to know what this command is?