Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Pyro Pyro Pyro

By John Walker on June 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm.

Pyro.

In a bit, Valve, will be revealing the Pyro update here – 7pm GMT, if that holds. But the men of the press were able to look at it earlier here. We were among those pen-wielding men and then wrote this news up as quickly as possible. Except one of the men of the press leaked the link early, the 7pm thing went out the window and Gillen has to swiftly alter Walker’s beautiful prose to make the post vaguely work. Oh no! Our wives!

The bit you want to know: they have tweaked the flamethrower. Hit alt-fire and the regular Pyro weapon will send forth a blast of compressed air, capable of knocking enemies away, and deflecting enemy projectiles. Oh, and a Flare Gun, the Backburner, and the previously mentioned Axtinguisher. Much more below.

Newness.

Valve give some thoughts on the role of the flamethrower’s new ability:

“It’s a highly versatile tool, allowing Pyros to get away from nearby enemies after igniting them, to kill enemy soldiers with their own rockets, or to separate enemy Medics from their healing targets. In particular, it allows a skilled Pyro to contain an enemy invulnerability push, and even to separate the Medic completely if the surrounding terrain supports it.”

This will be fascinating. The Pyro is now a far more tactical tool in any battle. And invulnerability suddenly got a bit less invulnerable. Expect to see a lot of pissed off Medics in the next couple of weeks. But onto those new weapons.

The Flare Gun

The first thing you’ll unlock, and cunningly sneaked into Meet The Sniper yesterday, the Flare Gun replaces the shotgun. It’s the means by which a Pyro can set someone on fire from a distance, but only if their aim is good enough. Valve point out it’s particularly useful on Snipers and Engineers who are trying to stay away from the fray.

The Backburner

Next is the Backburner. It’s an ambush flamethrower, losing the newly added alt-fire compression blast, but guaranteeing critical hits when used from behind. Missus. And by some mystical property – perhaps the Pyro covers her face because she’s entirely made of fire or something – it heals the Pyro for fifty as well.

The Axtinguisher

The final unlockable, the Axtinguisher, is a critical hit machine, guaranteeing a heftyy blow when your opponent’s on fire. But it’s lame-o when they’re not. Valve suggest Pyros work in pairs to use this effectively, one setting people on fire, the other chopping them up with an axe. Ahhh, videogames.

Best title: OMGWTFBBQ.

Of course, to get all these you’ll need to unlock them. And that’s where the 35 new achievements come in. Just look at these names: Dance Dance Immolation, Next Of Kindling, and best of all, OMGWTFBBQ. Head to the Pyro’s page for details on all of them.

Valve respect

The two player-made maps included in the pack are given pride of place at the top of the update information. Congratulations to Arttu “skdr” Mäki for his CP_Fastlane, and to Bill Johnston for CTF_Turbine, being picked as Valve’s two favourites. It would seem a fairly big deal for Valve to rate your map design.

Fire devil.

In conclusion? Well, you do that bit. What are your conclusions? Absolutely certain that the entire game is now ruined, imbalanced, and likely to cause all players to get genital warts? Delighted that one of the perceived weaker classes is now endowed with some fairly essential tactical abilities? Or sure that this is the second coming of videogaming, and will heal all war?

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89 Comments »

  1. The_B says:

    But the men of the press were able to look at it earlier here. We were among those men of the Press and then wrote this to the news as quickly as possible. Except one of the men of the press can’t read and leaked the link early, so Gillen has to swiftly alter Walker’s beautiful prose to make the post vaguely work. Oh no! Our wives!

    Wait, then you leaked it again yourselves?
    FFS Guys! :P

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  2. We’ve been given permission to Valve to go for it. The link’s out there, y’know. You can’t unleak the apple.

    KG

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  3. Therlun says:

    Holy crap, the new alt fire alone would be a huge buff to the Pyro, but the two new ranged weapons add even more!

    The achievements also seem a BIT less stupid. While some still wont happen in normal play there arent that many that encourage stupid play.

    See you in two weeks then, when the servers are playable again :P

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  4. Nuyan says:

    Awesome! Hilarious achievements as well.

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  5. Kast says:

    More options than just, you know, burning things and being mildly annoying. Got to be good. And those achievements look like they’re going to be enjoyable to achieve and the kind of thing that will just happen without you working at it.

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  6. The_B says:

    Kieron: Ah, fair enough. I only say as I may or may not have been involved toward informing the leaker of their leak.

    In my head I was singing: “there’s a hole in your bucket, dear Mnnffh mnnnfhhh, dear mmnnfffhh mnnfhh”

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  7. Man Raised By Puffins says:

    Compressed air jumping?

    Personally I’m not too keen on the flare gun, I’d rather stick with the shotty for finishing off flaming foes (although I’ll at least give it a try). The Backburner and the Axtinguisher both sound awesome though.

    Also, from OMGWTFBBQ can we take it that the hadouken now does damage? Because that would be pure awesome if true.

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  8. cyrenic says:

    BarbeQueQ was my favorite achievement name.

    The achievements look like a lot of fun, but some of them just scream “Farm me!”. Especially for some of that new weapon hotness. Hopefully the farming doesn’t get out of hand.

    The knockback attack seems brilliant. So far the TF2 team has been doing an awesome job of nerfing/buffing classes, IMO. Blizzard could learn a lot from them :P.

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  9. Flubb says:

    Would be nice if it was actually possible to get the achievements without blatent fixing them. The medic ones ticked me off, because while it’s my 3rd most played class, I hit about 16 achievements before I got to the point where I’d have to enlist a clan somewhere to help. Lacking any buddies on Steam, I’m denied at least 3 achievements, and good luck finding a heavy willing to punch people to death whilst ubered.

    These look a tad easier and more friendly, but seriously, I’ve got 60 hours on spy, and never once have sat around flicking cigarettes (to my knowledge at least), unless it’s a standard animation.

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  10. Mike says:

    This will get me back into team fortress 2 – although yeah I might have to wait a couple of weeks to avoid the sudden rush. Still, it might be quite interesting to experience everyone being a pyro.

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  11. sigma83 says:

    Flubb: It’s the disguise kit taunt.

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  12. MisterBritish says:

    Happily I don’t play pyro that often, or some of those achievements would really piss me off. Valve; random funny achievements are great, as long as you don’t have to rely on anyone else. People farming achievements means you have failed.

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  13. Lu-Tze says:

    I’m also wondering about the possibility of Air Compression jumping, which is something Pyro’s sorely need to be a true crazy “not where you expect” attack class. Regardless though, i’m going to enjoy sitting on the Spire in Badlands blasting off everyone who attempts to climb it or hit me with grenades.

    I think the Backburner might be slightly overpowered, as the ability to do crits ALL THE TIME (ok only from the back but still) makes the Pyro a damage dealing beast.

    But yeah, for me the most interesting thing is the most unannounced. OMGWTFBBQ’s logo implies the Hadouken now does damage… Are we talking instakill here? Either way it’s going to be an absolute HOOT sneaking up behind Snipers and then blasting them with a taunt. Most Embarrassing Death Ever.

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  14. Seniath says:

    Yay, new stuff! They (the achievements) sound slightly more do-able than the medic ones. An awful lot less chance and relying on team members. Let the burning commence (tomorrow).

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  15. sigma83 says:

    According to the TF2 wiki, it had always done 1 damage.

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  16. frymaster says:

    to be fair, if a large proportion of the medic’s achievements hadn’t relied on at least ONE other person they’d be Doing It Wrong :P

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  17. phuzz says:

    I might have to get into this farming game. I must have spent a good few hours playing a medic since the last pack, and I don’t think I’ve got a single achievement, let alone any unlocks.

    Shame, I could cause a lot of mischief with that BackBurner :)

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  18. Man Raised By Puffins says:

    More details from Tom Francis’s PCG write-up:

    One thing he can’t do is blast-jump. Designer Robin Walker says they experimented with this, but found it wasn’t as fun as it sounded. They tried relegating it to an unlockable weapon, but then players got confused about what the air-blast could and couldn’t do.

    But soft! There is yet another cool change in this update. Unlike the poor Medic, who had to earn every single one of his often absurd, counter-productive achievements to receive his ultimate unlockable weapon, the Pyro only needs 15, 20 and 25 respectively for his new toys. Since there are thirty-five to choose from, this means people can leave the silly ones alone if they don’t fancy grinding them.

    Hopefully Valve will retroactively correct the Medic achievements in a similar fashion so I can finally get my hands on the uber-saw.

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  19. RichPowers says:

    Mixed feelings about the Backburner (love the name!). On the one hand, if a pyro catches you from behind, you’re already screwed, especially since the game is fairly generous with rewarding random crits already. The spy should gain some competition in the “sneaking behind enemy lines, entering a narrow tunnel, and killing multiple enemies from behind” category.

    In any event, the Backburner will give new credence to the offense engineer. A well-placed sentry can cover the advancing team’s rear, denying pyros the opportunity to execute a deadly chain of crit kills from behind.

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  20. mbanana says:

    Any word on the Pyro’s gender, or when the vid will be coming out?

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  21. Meat Circus says:

    Valve suggest Pyros work in pairs to use this effectively, one setting people on fire, the other chopping them up with an axe.

    My new favourite sentence.

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  22. Rosti says:

    “…the Pyro only needs 15, 20 and 25 respectively for his new toys…”

    That is undoubtedly A Very Good Thing. Well done Valve for realising that fun and functional can co-exist.

    On the new Pyro abilities, I like how many options the player will have. Should I ambush my opponents, or have a defensive utility? Do I take the option of long range effect at the expense of a ranged method of finishing targets? Or should I just axe people?

    Yeah, the last one.

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  23. matte_k says:

    About time, love the alt fire idea, going to be so useful in a firefight (pun fully intended). Bit of a pain in the arse though, because I usually play as Pyro and now the next two weeks i’m going to see nothing BUT Pyro’s everywhere. Might be time to get to work on the Medic achievements instead…

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  24. Nick says:

    God I hope they don’t make the pyro a female just because of all this stupid obession that seems to have grown up around it. It sounds like a man, unless it’s a woman with a really deep voice. And no breasts. Everyone else in the game is a man, token female would be more insulting than no female, surely?

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  25. I love everything about this update except for how I’m not going to get the last two pyro weapons because I don’t want to grind a bunch of stupid achievments. I already feel like a gimp with the medic because I lack an ubersaw; now I’ll feel like a gimp with the medic and the pyro. Someday, when every class has been updated, I’ll feel useless to my team because I won’t be able to use any of these cool new weapons :(

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  26. Fumarole says:

    “Valve suggest Pyros work in pairs to use this effectively, one setting people on fire, the other chopping them up with an axe. Ahhh, videogames.”

    This is why I love RPS.

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  27. Rob says:

    If anything could incite me to play as Pyro, this is it. Looks like great fun, I’ll definitely be giving it a go.

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  28. derFeef says:

    Oh Pyro I want to marry you. If it puts out you are a woman, great. If you are a man… well… I will do my best to fulfil your dreams.

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  29. MacBeth says:

    Pyro stuff is all made of win, even if it doesn’t have some kind of spray-now-set-fire-to-it later liquid weapon that I was hoping for. Good to see that many of the achievements support my favourite chaos-assault pyro tactics involving disrupting enemy build-up.

    The most surprising, and slightly disappointing, thing is the inclusion of Turbine, if it’s unchanged from its most recent public version. It’s a decent fun map but it doesn’t have the visual sophistication and sheer quality I would hope for…

    …And I’m not just saying that because I think my maps look better, because I haven’t finished and released one yet! (though they do IMO)

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  30. Nero says:

    As the Pyro being my second most played character I’m very excited for these new stuff. The new alt-fire sounds very awesome indeed. Also, now you don’t have to rely on anyone else to get the achievements (like you had to with the Medic ones). Bring it!

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  31. Dave says:

    I hope the compressed air gun can shove burning Scouts off of Cap C in Badlands. Bwahahaha.

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  32. Andrew says:

    They got the achievements and unlockables right this time–I think only the hadouken achievement will really require farming, the rest will fall to either luck or time playing. It’s great that you don’t need them all for the unlockables and I echo the request that they lower the medic unlockable requirements, too.

    I laughed out loud at the pyro achievements and the new weapons look great!! Kickass work, Valve!

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  33. Noc says:

    My theory:

    At launch, after a little bit of tweaking, TF2 was balanced to a fine point – for single characters. The unlocks seem to be following something of a trend, and my guess is that once all of them are out the game will be perfectly balanced again . . . but for pairs.

    Which, considering the name of the thing, is something I approve of.

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  34. Corion says:

    About the Pyro’s sex/gender:
    It’s been suggested that the Pyro is a male, and that the purse is there to indicate that he’s flaming.

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  35. Rayonic says:

    @Flubb:

    I think you “flick cigarettes” when you’re choosing a disguise.

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  36. monchberter says:

    Are all some of the ‘grinding’ achievements going to take into account already accumulated stats like they did with Herr Doktor?

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  37. CrashT says:

    “Kill an enemy with a taunt.” WTF?

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  38. cyrenic says:

    @monchberter

    People on the TF2 forums are speculating the “kill x number of enemies” and the “destroy 50 engineer buildings” will take accumulated stats into account, because those are the stats that are currently tracked. The “deal 1 million fire damage” achievement probably won’t consider previous stats because fire damage supposedly isn’t tracked right now, only total damage. All speculation right now, we’ll see for sure tomorrow :D.

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  39. yns88 says:

    I’m still irritated that they’re forcing everyone to grind for achievements; it goes against what makes FPS games fun, and it fills every server with horribly unbalanced teams. At least the achievements aren’t completely retarded this time around, though. Even though I enjoyed playing medic, I didn’t bother getting anything past the first unlock just because it was all so tedious.

    It’s good to see the generic shotgun and useless axe go away, though. I had totally anticipated a physics-affected mid-range weapon that sets enemies on fire…

    As for the backburner, that’s how any good pyro should be playing anyway, so I’m actually kind of worried about it being overpowered. I’m not too worried about the regular flamethrower’s added power making the pyro strong against soldiers, though; it would only be useful at mid-long range, and soldiers usually kill pyros from point-blank range (anything else is just easy to dodge). Plus the pyro’s usually too busy flaming away when he gets blown to pieces — I doubt one would have the time to redirect the rocket in that circumstance. So I think soldiers still have the edge on pyros. Heavies, on the other hand, are even weaker against pyros now since it’s so easy to circle around and get the heavy in the back.

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  40. Insider says:

    SPOILER:
    The pyro is actually two midgets.

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  41. Razor says:

    I cannot wait to see a video on Youtube of someone hitting the OMGWTFBBQ achievement =)

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  42. Quirk says:

    Turbine isn’t as pretty as many other maps, but its layout is superb – for me, it’s the best CTF map by a long way. In 2Forts, being an offensive scout once the sentries have gone up is relatively useless – the open area in the middle offers no scope for anything but face-to-face confrontation. Turbine’s open space has available health and lots of obstables to hide behind, so a canny scout can bounce from side to side of it running up behind people and blasting them. The little health cubbyholes conceal spies effectively, and snipers at the entrance to the int tunnel, difficult to counter-snipe, find themselves providing the team a useful service instead of just playing the sniper vs sniper game so common on 2Forts. Offensive engineers can take over the open space, too, until smart ubering breaks them down or a spy nips through to the int room and forces the dominant team to turn inwards chasing their intel. Turbine rewards a much more varied array of classes and play styles than any other map I’ve played, and I’m glad to see it get the recognition it deserves.

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  43. therighttoarmbears says:

    Confession time. I went to the achievement box servers to get my last two medic upgrades. Not that I am a big fan of self-directed horn-tooting, but I am a pretty good medic who tends to top the scoreboards, but I was totally stuck at around 22 achievements. Even with my 50 hours of play as medic. I didn’t feel like idiotically needling scouts for weeks on end. People on the pubs are neither terribly interested nor skilled enough to help you get a bunch of those. Some were just brutally hard (the ubi concordia one? punching scads of people with a heavy?). So I found a farm server, and 4 hours later had them all. And now I can absolutely punish the other team and develop lots more play styles and just generally get a rush all over again from playing my favorite class. Is that so bad? And for those of you who would quit TF2 because you can’t get some of the achievements and that makes you feel inferior: play more. Get good with the classes and a fair number will come. And when you hit the wall, get boosted over ;). Or, then again, accuse me of being a sell-out. Whatev.

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  44. Trousers says:

    I love how you snuck in calling the pyro a she

    edit: or maybe it was a “her”, WHATEVA

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  45. Erlam says:

    I’m kinda sad that I won’t be one of the only Pyro players on a server now. However, the Pyro really needed a lot of these changes.

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  46. mgl says:

    Not that I care overmuch whether Pyro is he or she, but I always figured the “purse” as a toiletry bag, like you use for carrying soap and shaving kit, etc. on trips or to the gym. It’s the right size and shape, and they’re often covered in flowers. And I think the “female Pyro” meme is so well-known now that I’d be disappointed if it turns out to be correct. I’d rather be surprised by what Valve comes up with.

    But I do look forward to all the Pyros on the servers tonight. Maybe I’ll finally get that mass Axe v. Axe duel I’ve been dreaming of.

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  47. Al3xand3r says:

    Well whatever they come up with it has to still be either male or female and the latter is probably more original as every other character is male…

    I don’t think he/she will be made of fire though, else what’s the point of that suit :P

    Also, we may very well never find out (unless they said they would reveal such?) anyway, a humouristic meet the pyro video can easily not show what’s under the mask and be all the more hilarious showing him/her trying to eat or drink something through the mask or whatever such antics (done with actual humour unlike my description)…

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  48. Kyle says:

    I think if tf2 were the only game to come out in my lifetime, I would still play it till I die. It never gets old.

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  49. unclejoe says:

    I sure hope they get the soldier glitch fixed for the “dead heat” award. i don’t know how many times I have been killed by a soldier I am frying by a rocket at his feet and he gets the kill and a suicide, while I get nothing.

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  50. malkav11 says:

    I love the achievement names – and a lot more of them seem doable (if gradually so) than the medic ones. I’m honestly not entirely sure whether this is a good thing or not. I want to be able to get the unlockable weapons, but it feels like achievements ought to be, well, achievements. Not something that just kinda automatically accumulates as you play a particular class in the melee, as most of the pyro ones seem to. So…yeah. On the one hand, the medic ones requiring me to survive through multiple ubercharges and the like are never ever going to happen for me, but on the other hand, they do reward skill (that I don’t have).

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  51. Fumarole says:

    “I sure hope they get the soldier glitch fixed for the “dead heat” award. i don’t know how many times I have been killed by a soldier I am frying by a rocket at his feet and he gets the kill and a suicide, while I get nothing.”

    I don’t see that as a glitch. A rocket at your feet causes much more damage than the flamethrower does, especially as the flamethrower is made up of lots of tiny attacks rather than one big one.

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  52. Down Rodeo says:

    Ah, so happy. These look really cool but one issue that I see is that hardly anyone taunts – thus rendering the “Kill a spy flicking a cigarette” very difficult without farming. I mean, honestly, who taunts here? I always try to when playing as a sniper. Other classes, not so much.

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  53. Ted says:

    I haven’t played this game in a while, and it seems like they’re on the way to making it so people who don’t play all the time can never come back. Is the plan to make it so that every regular character becomes an unlockable uber character that only serious die hards will ever get to play while everyone else can’t compete?

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  54. Y3k-Bug says:

    @Ted
    Not really, as the medic’s unlockables aren’t that much better than its regular counterpart. We’ll have to wait until Thursday to find out if that is true for the pyro.

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  55. DogWalker says:

    I hope Valve updates the the spy with a flame resistant suit after these new toys.

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  56. sigma83 says:

    Why all the unlockable hate? I constantly switch my unlocked medic stuff to circumstance because the unlocks are not _better_ than the old stuff. Same for this: the new weapons are hot, but significantly different from the old stuff to the point where I would switch back to the normal weapons depending on what I need

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  57. Y3k-Bug says:

    Speaking of sigma, do you find that the current process for switching between standard/unlockable weapons is a tad cumbersome?

    Wish there was a bind that would bring me straight to that weapon select screen.

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  58. itsallcrap says:

    I haven’t read *all* the comments here, so forgive me if this has already been asked, but does anyone know whether or not the achievements take into account things you’ve done beofre the update?

    So for instance, if I’ve ignited three enemies carrying my intel prior to this update, will the game know I should only need to light up two more to get the “Cooking the books” achievement?

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  59. Crispy says:

    The achievements will take into account things like ‘points of fire damage inflicted’ because they were already tracking those stats beforehand. I wouldn’t be certain that things like “Plan B: Kill 10 enemies while you’re both underwater.” will have been tracked. Even if you’re certain you’ve accomplished “Burn Ward: Ignite 3 medics that are ready to deploy an Uber-charge.”, I think you will still have to do it over again.

    The upgrades themselves look a lot better than the Medic upgrades. The ‘kill 50 X with Y’ awards should discourage all but the most dedicated achievement farmers. There are a few stupid awards in there that seem to require co-operation between two enemies, like “Got A Light?: Ignite an enemy Spy while he’s flicking a cigarette.”, which is a bit worrying. But it looks like all of the achievements are at least doable if you have 1 online Steam friend to your name.

    I’m happy to see the community maps getting a look-in, it’s even better that Valve have included them in the update, effectively endorsing them as official. It’s a bit strange that they chose Turbine, though. While it’s a nice, simple map that’s balanced through symmettry, the area around the spawn is still a little weak since the spawn exits are both on the same corridor (and in a straight line, making camping a very feasible tactic). The vent over the flagrooms can also get camped quite easily once you get a sentry in there.

    I think maybe one reason they chose it could be to show that maps don’t need to be complex and graphically astounding to be popular. If Valve are trying to inject some steam into the custom mapping community, this could be the motive behind Turbine’s inclusion. It’s also a CTF map, and people have been crying out for more CTF maps from the start.

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  60. Don says:

    The pyro achievements and the number needed for unlocks makes it a much more reasonable proposition than the medic ones. As I play pyro quite a lot on some maps I’ve already done more than half of them, though as Valve weren’t watching I’ll have to do them all over again.

    But I wouldn’t like to be a spy for the next few weeks. Every game will have a bunch of pyros frantically flaming everything seen and unseen as they try to get their quota of fried spy.

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  61. Crispy says:

    Apparently, “the Pyro only needs 15, 20 and 25 [achievements] for his new toys.”

    Source: CVG

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  62. Nero says:

    The site has since updated the article with that you only need to get 10, 15 and 20 achievements for the new toys. Whatever numbers are correct it’s good to see them lovering it so you can quite easily get the new weapons through normal play.

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  63. Bursar says:

    I don’t mind the unlockables. They’re not all clear and cut upgrades. E.g. the Kritzkrieg is imo worse than the regular medi gun.

    The new air burst functionality will be available for all pyro’s so that’s not going to drive new players away. The backburner will depend on your playstyle and how effective the airburst is in practice. It’s not a no brainer upgrade.

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  64. darthpugwash says:

    I still can’t quite decide whether I like the idea of unlockables in TF2, but I am glad to see the Pyro get quite a significant buff. He really needed it, and it will be fun to see how the air-blast gets used.

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  65. sigma83 says:

    ‘Speaking of sigma, do you find that the current process for switching between standard/unlockable weapons is a tad cumbersome?’

    Yes but I only ever do it while dead anyway so it’s not a _huge_ deal. I would have liked L for loadout, maybe it’ll get put in

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  66. Heartless_ says:

    I just wish Valve would have taken a bigger step towards preventing farming servers. I understand that it would be impossible to stop farm servers, but allowing ones with maps directly built for farming to unlock achievements is just dumb.

    Not sure if Valve can do anything about it as they don’t have some form of ranked server control ala Battlefield 2.

    I spent an hour on a Heavy the other night destroying a Medic achievement farming server because I hate the idea of them, but eventually got banned after 85 kills :P

    Overall, the achievements are great, but easily exploited and of no merit other than to the person that achieved them. I know of NO medics that have gotten all achievements legitimately, and I know a few medics that are hardcore 4+ hours a day players with clanmates actively trying to help them during regular play.

    It took me like three hours of regular play just to get the EASY medic achievements and I was fortunate enough to have played when medics were everywhere and bonesaw kills were plentiful :)

    Sadly people go to a farm server and three hours later they have every achievement :(

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  67. CrashT says:

    When the Spy and Sniper unlockables turn up TF2 servers are going to become rather unpleasant places.

    It might be an idea to release multiple Achievement packs at once, so you don’t get so many people farming one particular class. I mean bring out Engineer and Soldier achievements at the same time and things would start to even out a little.

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  68. MacBeth says:

    With luck the Spy and Sniper packs will be last purely so that the sort of people who go in for farming will have become slightly bored of the idea (or even of TF2 entirely) and moved on to something else that attracts their low-patience Pokemon approach…

    I like to play Pyro and Sniper if I can, so loving the idea of unlockables but hating the idea of everyone else blundering around without any of the appropriate skills. It certainly will be tempting to go anything-other-than-Pyro for a bit just to collect the kills…

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  69. darthpugwash says:

    Oh yes, I fear the day when the Sniper pack goes up, though the Spy pack will be Happy Times for Pyros, heh.

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  70. GustoGaiden says:

    “I know of NO medics that have gotten all achievements legitimately”

    That should be an indication that the achievements are a little too hard, don’t you think? Everyone views achievements differently. It seems like you look at them as a genuine challenge to overcome. For me, who plays primarily as medic, I saw them as a fun little diversion for a while, but then as I cleared away the ones accessible during regular play, I kept making stupid decisions, such as ubering scouts, or sticking to heavies with total disregard for the rest of my team, just to get the achievement. I would be playing as a medic even when our team needed something else. So I went to an achievement server, wrangled the folks there into cooperation, and we helped each other.
    Other people view achievements just as something in the way of having a new weapon. achievementsunlockall. And that’s FINE! I’d much rather have someone with an ubersaw on the OTHER team, than an achievement chasing medic on mine. the new weapons make the game more interesting, and there is simply no need to enforce your purist views on the rest of the community. It’s fine that you want to get them legitimately, I just want to get them out of the way so I don’t play like a retarded person anymore.

    PS: you’re an asshole, a pretty big one, for being proud of disrupting an achievement server.

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  71. Nicolas says:

    I’m just happy that turbine’s been made an official map, we have it on the server I play on and its brilliant. Look forward to playing fastlane too.

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  72. Mechtroid says:

    Did anyone else think of the Terran Firebat when they read “Got a light”?

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  73. Startocaster says:

    @mechtroid: I was, and maybe the dudes at Valve were too.

    Let’s burn.

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  74. Y3k-Bug says:

    Any ETA for the release? I hope it does get delayed a week or something as I took the day off of work tomorrow to blunder about getting those achievements.

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  75. CrashT says:

    It’s out…

    And as predicted, every other person playing TF2 is now a Pyro. Including a lot of people who really aren’t very good at playing the Pyro. A lot of camping by doorways performing taunts, and a lot of map Axe wielding… Really not that enjoyable if you’ve not in the mood for Achievement farming.

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  76. Seniath says:

    *sigh*

    Was to be expected, I guess. Still, as a career Pyro (and in the game), it is rather annoying. And yes, logging on to a server only to be told “stop shooting, we’re farming” is just…sad.

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  77. KBKarma says:

    Out RIGHT now.

    Pyros aplenty. So I’ve got a 60-point boost towards my Infernal Medicine achievement. :D

    My brother got annoyed at one point. So he went Soldier.

    Interesting fact: the taunt is an INSTA-KILL.

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  78. sigma83 says:

    They’ve removed the damage drop-off from the flamethrower so now it’s equally lethal from all distances.

    Mind these distances are still really short, but still :P

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  79. wyrmsine says:

    I just gave TF2 a go with the Pyro, and I’ve gotta say, 90% Pyro matches (lol matches) are FUN. Especially when you take Sniper. Although the dude running around with the Axetinguisher, reminding everyone “It’s legit! Didn’t cheat!” was a little sad, assuming it’s true. Dude, go outside…

    The Air Blast is a fantastic addition. The Backburner is stupid overpowered (given TF2′s definition of “back” is a lot sloppy), but that Air Blast… mmm-hmm. Stupid soldier, tricks are for Pyro!

    ETA: yeah, the medic achievements were stupid-hard, and I’m unhappy that I had to wreck my modest legit stats just to try a weapon. The Pyro achievements seem a little more realistic; you won’t (or shouldn’t, see:go outside) get a new weapon in a session, but you will get them, and I imagine it’ll be a nice surprise.

    EATA: Also, it seems Valve didn’t track any of the pyro stats. All of mine were at 0 to start…

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  80. Tomzor! says:

    @Crash T
    ‘“Kill an enemy with a taunt.” WTF?’

    Actually, it’s OMGWTFBBQ.

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  81. RichPowers says:

    Got 23 achievements tonight on an achievement server. Need a good admin to keep the llamas out, though.

    I’d much rather have people grinding away on achievement servers than disrupting regular games with achievement shenanigans.

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  82. Lars Balker Rasmussen says:

    There’s now a TF2 blog. Yay. Hopefully RPS is going to follow it for us: “Bookmark this page”. Seriously? In 2008? Are you shitting me?

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  83. itsallcrap says:

    I still use bookmarks… only for the toolbar at the top of Firefox, so they effectively become buttons, but it’s the same basic thing.

    Also, the way to kill an emeny with a pyro taunt is to switch to the shotgun first – he does a Ryu-style fireball.

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  84. Seniath says:

    What the?! There’s no RSS feed. Fail.

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  85. RodeoClown says:

    I made an RSSpect feed for the site.
    It will alert you whenever a change is made (but you still need to go through to the site).

    http://www.rsspect.com/rss/teamfortressblog.xml

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  86. Lars Balker Rasmussen says:

    @itsallcrap: what Seniath said. I was just being subtle.

    Edit: I wrote to Robin Walker – let’s see how that goes..

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  87. Lars Balker Rasmussen says:

    SCOOP! The TF2 blog interview in full:

    “Hi Robin! I assume there will be an RSS feed soon? Bookmarks are so 20th century.”
    “Yep.”

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  88. Chewbacca says:

    >I spent an hour on a Heavy the other night destroying a Medic achievement farming server because I hate the idea of them, but eventually got banned after 85 kills

    Heartless you nob – just cos you don’t agree with achievement farms doesn’t give you the right to dictate to others what they can and can’t do. I guess you must be american.

    BTW – I was healing you for 20 of those kills. Thanks!

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