The TF2 Worst Unlock Awards!
Posted in Team Fortress 2 NewsIt’s been Christmas for every class: new toys, too many people trying to play with them, and lots of stupid arguments! With everybody upgraded - and more items on the way - it’s time for the first annual Lowping Worst Unlock Awards! The Awards look like Golden Wrenches, because if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that people on TF2 servers whine about golden items more than King Midas after using a urinal.
A palette swap hasn’t caused so much pain since Mortal Kombat
You’d look smug too if you’d just become immune to your primary predator
Never has an unlock better suited the skills of the class: targeting one vital component and destroying it! The Sniper gets to “sacrifice” his mid-range weapon to concentrate on sniping, which is like an NRA member “sacrificing” his PETA membership to focus on his gun collection.
The heart of good game design is that the player should always know what to do, and the answer should never be nothing: A spy standing on the 2Fort enemy observation deck shouldn’t be left staring at three Sniper spines, standing in a row like an organic knife-rack, knowing that doing what his class is for won’t work and will get him killed.
Killing spies is one of the greatest pleasures of TF2, and avoiding that is the spy’s greatest skill. The Dead Ringer is the opposite of both pleasure and skill: becoming completely invisible and immune to 90% of incoming damage is more superpower than equipment, allowing spies to survive fully-charged sniper headshots, backstabs, sustained minigun fire, and there is nothing - nothing - anyone but a Pyro can do about it. If that sounds like a balanced item, well done on the bizarre education which taught you every word in the English language except ‘balanced’!
Anything which makes this annoying instead of satisfying is removing joy from the world
Your “Immune to everything but fire” time limit, aka the “Game Balance Memorial Watch”
We all know and love Combat Medics, and for this sentence “love” is to the emotion what a “Combat Medic” is to a real medic - the exact opposite, horribly annoying, and so much hate you’re stabbing things with knives.
The Übersaw is the ultimate in negative reinforcement. The best way to get ubercharge is back off, stay alive, and keep healing people. Aka “BE A MEDIC.” Anything which enables “run around with a knife in an environment full of rocket launchers” instead is dumber than a second spy on defense.
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:39 am
Hooray for ubersaws!
October 6th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
IMO:
Ubersaws = When your whole team sucks horribly and you have to do things yourself to turn it around.
but i also agree with him. It’s practically a free uber.
November 26th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I disagree with your assessment of the ubersaw as negative reinforcement.
The BLUTSAUGER is negative reinforcement because it gives you health for fighting meaning that you personally benefit the more damage you do. The needle gun however is passive assistance, you gain more health slowly so you’re better off being behind someone healing to buy time.
The UBERSAW however has a slower swing rate in exchange for bonus uber. This means that if your primary goal is to deal damage, the bonesaw is actually a much better choice. The ubersaw is for when your healing buddy gets hit with an unlucky crit by a half dead soldier and you have to fight for your life. You can’t backpedal and needle because the enemy fire will mow you down so you charge in, try to get a good hit or two in and then pop your uber and run. Alternatively, if you see a spy coming up behind you, one hit from the ubersaw should take him down and then you can return to healing closer than you were before to an uber.
Remember, an uber is not overly helpful to a battle medic because you can’t battle while ubered. You can only do that quick switch thing which doesn’t really help against anything but soldiers and demos.
The jarate/razorback are pure BS though and the DR is incredibly OP… or at least it WAS before they nerfed spy by adding in the razorback, jarate, mad milk, shiv, southern hospitality and wrangler making half the other classes able to disable invisibility completely.
December 12th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Okay, seriously, if you are stopped by the razorback then you should press “,” and switch to something that requires less thinking. You can kill a sniper at close range with the revolver with three shots and 90% of the snipers in the game wont realize what is going on until the second shot has been fired and by then it’s too late to avoid the third shot.
Next, I don’t find the dead ringer to be OP, just slightly annoying because I have to hunt spies down for slightly longer. If you think like a spy you can pretty much predict where they are going. If there is a ammo box near by, go check there- chances are they will be looking to refill their meter. If this doesn’t work, just listen for the loud ass sound. And if they have the spy set then just watch your back. Most of the time I can hunt down DR spies easy because they are generally predictable.
And finally, if you are annoyed by a medic running around like an idiot not healing then you are taking TF2 way to seriously. And if that argument doesn’t work for you then just pretend he isn’t a medic. When you see him/her just imagine that he/she is a stupid spy running around doing nothing. Besides, if they are that stupid then chances are they are too stupid to do anything helpful for the team no matter what class they are.