ubercharged.net

Alright, let me start out by saying I think the Force ‘A Nature is the best unlockable VALVe has put into Team Fortress 2 thus far.

Hold on now, I don’t mean best in the way you think. I don’t think that the FaN is superior to the other unlockables. Rather, I think it comes close to what VALVe intends the unlockables to be. This has been said about the Scout Update in general, but I don’t believe that. I think the FaN is really the only good unlockable in the entire update, for the following reason:

It is stupid to play Scout normally with the FaN

I say “stupid,” because it’s not impossible to do it, just really dumb.

Now, let’s clarify what I mean by “normally.” I mean the style of Scout you see so often: charge in, Scattergun blaring, and relying on your speed and erratic jumping to keep you alive until you kill everything. Not that this is the best way to play the Scout, in fact, I’ve played against Scouts whose MO are to get behind enemy lines and use the Bat for quick kills, but it’s the easiest way to play Scout, because the Scattergun has a very quick reload time.

This playstyle is sometimes called the “Ninja Scout” by the criminally dorky.

The FaN doesn’t have that

In fact, the Force A’ Nature is the antithesis of the Scattergun. Low clip size, slow reloading – if you play the “normal” Scout with the FaN, you will get one shot off, double jump and fire in the air, and the FaN will knock you into a wall, where you’ll be hit by a Rocket, bullets, or two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges while you reload at a snail’s pace.

However, people don’t seem to realize this, and play “normal” Scout with the FaN, with mediocre results. I can’t count how many Scouts I’ve killed who were reloading with the FaN, and remember, I’m a career Medic.

You can still play normally with the other class unlockables

For example, if you play Pyro with the backburner, you don’t have to be an ambusher, you can still charge in from cover and burn people without the airblast, while getting a lucky crit or two when they run. With Natasha, you can still be an offensive Heavy, the slowing ability will help prevent enemies from escaping. Finally, with the Blutsauger… No, that’s another article.

So what is the FaN suited for?

I don’t play a lot of Scout. My Steam stats will tell you it’s my third most played class, but that’s from the Scout update, trying to find an achievement server that wasn’t full of morons or griefers.

However, I can see what kind of pay style the FaN could work for. When you look at Scout tutorials, there’s always a little mention of the Scout being good for hit-and-run attacks. The Force A’ Nature can be maximize the effects of this playstyle.

This kind of playstyle works either on Offense or Defense. The object of this playstyle is to hop in front of a group of enemies, unload both Force A’ Nature shots, and retreat to reload and perhaps grab a health pack if you took a lot of damage, then try again. Try to focus both shots on a single target for maximum damage. It’s not wise to try this around sentry nests, but if you can find a place to get the shots off where a sentry can’t kill you, you’re good.

This playstyle has two main aims.

To Kill and Distract

If you keep jumping in, doing a little bit of damage, and jumping back out, one or more of your targets will eventually get fed up and come after you. This is good, you want this. If your enemies are trying to kill you, it means they’re not trying to do whatever they should be doing. If someone comes after you, you can either run away or kill them. I recommend doing whichever one takes up the most time.

Strangely, this is a team-oriented playstyle. You’re not going to get a lot of kills using this method, and you’re not trying to. As I said earlier, you’re trying to draw your enemy’s attention away from the objective of the map and onto you. You’re aiming to do just enough damage so that your target has to seek out a health pack or find a dispenser. If you’re on defense, you’re trying to waste the attacker’s time. If you’re on offense, you’re trying to keep the defenders occupied long enough for your team to build up an Ubercharge. You won’t get the highest score, but your team members will thank you.

Don’t get a big head though, you’re still last in line for the teleporter.

Most of the comments on my first article were positive, and I wholeheartedly thank the community for that, it was a great way to start off my time as a contributor. The comments that were not positive tended to ask the same question. “Why choose Medic?” Thus, I have taken a few hours of my free time to analyze why I chose to become a career Medic. (Which was admittedly not very well explained in my first article.)

There aren’t enough Medics these days

The good old days.

My thoughts that day went something like this. I am not going to get good at Team Fortress 2 by hopping from class to class trying to find something I like. I have to pick a class, and stick with it. (While being flexible of course, I will switch if there are enough other Medics on the server.) No matter how hard I practice with the Soldier, there will always be ten more Soldiers who can shoot that Rocket Launcher better than I can. No matter how many two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges I fire, there will always be twenty Heavies who can turn around faster. No matter how much Bonk I drink, there will always be another guy from where I was from who can use those seconds of invincibilty better.

This is true for the Medic as well, like it is for any other class, but the reason I chose Medic is because there won’t be very many Medics better than me, because Medics are rare these days. TF2 does not need a Soldier like myself, but every time, one can use a Medic, even if he does kind of suck.

The Medic isn’t normally firing

Part of my problem with the other classes, (Not so much Engineer and Spy) was that I couldn’t aim very well. I wasn’t helpless, but I was a pretty bad marksman. One reason I gravitated to the Soldier was his splash damage capability. With the rockets, I could miss by a hair and still do a lot of damage.

As a Medic, this isn’t an issue. A good Medic is always healing and dodging fire at every opportunity. Horrible aiming isn’t an issue, most of the time. I’ve only ever died as a Medic in a Pyro ambush, and that’s okay because we all know Pyro is totally OP rite.

Ubercharges are freaking awesome

The whole process is highly rewarding, dodging death until that sluggish meter builds up to 100%, finding a good target, the running in and wreaking havoc. It’s awesome. Even with the Kritzkrieg, sending in a Kritz’d Heavy is awesome. I have the power. The other team chooses where they die. I choose when. Alright, I’ve never actually pulled off a great Uber like that, but ideally this is what it will be like.

It’s hard to be useless as a Medic.

Unless you’re actively trying to be useless, a Medic is always helpful in some way. Even if you just heal the same Heavy endlessly, ignoring everyone else on your team, your Heavy + Medic duo is still attracting enemy fire, drawing it away from other members of your team who can then do their work much easier. I don’t intend to heal the same Heavy the entire time, but it’s comforting to know that fact.

And, in conclusion:

The Medic is freaking sexy

Because he looks like Stephen Colbert, and you know Stephen Colbert is sexy.

In actual conclusion:

/article and /colbert medic

Once again, I, The Scoot, fail to actually write a post that is serious. If you are expecting me to actually write one in that style, lower your expectations; I’m going for the least serious contributor. So, I present part one in my series of TF2 poems. And in the words of the Medic, “RAUS RAUS!”

A Pyro, a Heavy, and an Engineer,
All willing to make me a smear.

But it shall not be done.
For my friend behind me, has a Medigun.

He yells, “I AM FULLY CHARGED!”
The task at hand, is quite large.

BABIES!
Hudda!
Mah Sentrah!

These calls, are met with a rocket.
The Engineer goes first, sitting in his pocket.

The Pyro attempts to set me alight.
But a crit rocket ends the fight.

I turn, and find the Heavy has fled.
But he is stopped, with a shovel to the head.

The charge fizzles, but something is odd.
I then get killed by the vengeful Train God.

And now for something completely different:

The whirr of a sentry has aquired my attention
And no one is near.
I shall take it down without a mention
My job is fear.

It touches the machine, and melds
Things are going to get fun.
Right on cue, someone yells:
SPAH SAPPIN MAH SENTRAH GUN!

The tapping of feet, as he runs down the hall
Prepares me for the fight.
He enters the room, unaware of his fall
I plunge the knife with all my might.

A heavy appears, and my fate is insured,
As I sit in the destroyed den,
I face the Russian, and speak one final word:
Gentlemen.

I’m going to presume that you have visited the server. If you haven’t, go visit it. We have a number of fun custom maps, varying from the down-right awesome (cp_boulder and pl_frontier) to the really random ones (Pyro Tennis and, if the mirror is ever fixed, ctf_trains). We also have zombies. Now, the educated people out there (A.K.A. All of you) have most likely guessed where this post is going…

I’ve had enough with Zombie Fortress!

Now, those of you who signed up to the forums might remember that I was one of the first people to defend ZF when Himmelstoss and Clubtheseals wanted it removed since it kept breaking the server (Fixed now). So you may be wondering why I’ve had this change of heart. Well, the short answer is simple: The magic of ZF is gone. Every time ZF is on, I usually end up sacrificing to the Train God or jumping into the pit of death. There isn’t any point of fighting. As a Survivor the chance of victory is low. As a Zombie I might as well put a bullet to my brain before killing anyone, since that will happen to me about 85-95% of the time anyway…

Yes, I guess it is hard to both balance a new game mode and make it fun at the same time. Think about Payload. Valve most likely took ages to create a mode that was balanced, fun, and in the vein of the old Hunted mode. So creating a mode based on zombies must be really hard. And, personally, I don’t think the maps help. Wanna know why?

Because they are about survival!

The maps are basically Deathmatch maps! Well, except zf_dustbowl. But in my opinion, if the Survivors cap the first point on that map, I count that as a victory. If they cap the second point, they should get a medal or something for outstanding teamwork! As for the other maps, victory can only really be achieved if the Survivors stick together in a good position, and hope they don’t run out of ammo. Take Industry (Train God map) for example. There are two versions, CP and no CP. In the CP version, the Survivors go around the capture points, usually ‘B’ (The random building made of wood) in my experience, and stay together, and would win more had the func_capturepoint brush not been the size of the ENTIRE BUILDING THE CP IS SITUATED IN! Meanwhile, its CP-less brother has its Survivors hide or fight. Because of this, the Survivors aren’t together, and smaller groups will be picked off before they go after the general fight spot, which is usually the Train Tunnel.

The other notable ZF map is Twilight. Well, the Survivors usually camp out on the roof of their spawn. This is basically the ultimate defence, as there is pretty much only one way up there, a staircase which most likely guarded by a sentry, eight stickies, two Pyros and a army of rockets. This basically goes on until the Survivors run out of ammo, and then they die. Since you end up dying ten times beforehand, it kind of makes things frustrating. Survivors kill Zombies, Survivors runs out of ammo, Zombies kill Survivors. It gets boring. So how do the Survivors spice things up?

They use exploits!

Hell of a lot of them too. There are the small ones (Industry, Soldier/Demo on Tunnel, only reachable by Scouts, but in range of Heavy Taunts), the harsh ones (Twilight, “Hiding in the Forest”, only reachable by Scouts), and the clearly cheating ones (Industry’s Cliff Ledge and Twilight’s Roof). The last two are unreachable. This just ticks me off even more. After the Zombies died a total of one hundred billion times, kill what seems to be the last two survivors (One is usually a Medic), just to find out that one guy thought it would be funny to stay in an unreachable area while yelling ‘Ka-BOOM!’ in your face. And you know he will just do this every single round…

Then you have the Spectator Bug. Basically, Spectators (Most of which are AFK) will join one of the teams like a normal player, but won’t spawn. This means there is an unfindable last Survivor who most likely off answering a call. This means you have 2 minutes doing nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Team Fortress 2 was designed to be frantic and fast paced. Waiting more then one minute isn’t fast paced. And this keeps going on for the entire match if the person doesn’t come back. And considering I end up going Zombie for 3 rounds straight, knowing that dying hundreds of times just to ‘YOU FAIL’ yelled isn’t very fun. But you want to know the worst part of it all?

Newcomers to the server expect ZF…

Since the server name has ‘Zombie Fortress’ in it, quite a few people join hoping for 24/7 zombies, just to encounter Gold Rush Stage 2, then go ‘Isn’t this Zombie Fortress?’. I feel like we are kind of cheating these people to join our server, but not very much, since they should have read the current map tab. Really, I’m tired of saying ‘No, we only have it on sometimes’. Then you also have to explain to people who have never played ZF before, in which case many people will explain to him, which gets tiresome.

So, why did I have to make an article? Well, I could have posted a thread in the fourms, but the UC forums aren’t made of every UC server visitor. Considering how many people I have thanked for praising my first article, I know you people have your own opinions, and I guess General Balls wouldn’t be very happy if he received several angry emails regarding the removal of ZF if the forum members agree with me. So, here is your chance to voice your opinion about ZF. As the old song goes, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’