No, I’m not even close to being good enough to single-handedly stack a team. I mean the other kind of team stacking, i.e. the selfish and mean-spirited kind.
Upon joining a TF2 pub server where a round is already under way, the first thing I do is look at the scoreboard. If a team is leading, then the decision is easy. If it’s too early or both teams have been deadlocked for a while, then scores are the next best metric. If I can’t join that team because they’ve got more players than the other, I’ll join spectator or otherwise hang around until a slot opens up.
I’m kind of burnt out on TF2 for pub play, unless it just so happens that the server attracts solid players that are comfortable executing strategies with little prior organization. I could play pickups for that, but there are times where no one’s available, plus those are more conducive to clans who want to get some practice in advance of league matches.
I guess long story short is, I despise poor players more than I ever have. I’ve been pretty annoyed in TFC, but never to the point that I will get on my mic and let the team have it for being incompetent. Why?
TF2 is much more team oriented than TFC. Given two pub teams with a mix of average players and stupid ones, a good player can dramatically tip the balance for either side in TFC. Part of it has to do with the fact that medium and heavy classes can take more punishment than their TF2 incarnations. A TFC soldier at full armor can take three rockets and a few shotguns to the face before going down, whereas a TF2 soldier is hard pressed to bear two point blank rockets and still survive.
And even if you were to die in TFC, in ten seconds you’ll be right back into the fight, less if you can jump (rockets, pipes, grenades). In the same amount of time in TF2, you’ll be walking to the fight if you’re on offence, and waiting out the final ten seconds to spawn on defence.
What boggles my mind then is that people don’t hesitate to run out and get slaughtered in TF2, whereas TFC idiots will get all scared and soil their pants while they’re camping out a corner - on offence.
So in summary, good players can be totally nerfed in TF2. With crits, even a gaggle of poor players can dislodge a good player from a location or outright kill him/her. Unable to spawn immediately and get right back in means that the team is at a material skill deficit.
I used to join the losing team, thinking I could turn it around or at least even the playing field some. Most of the time, I realize that losing is terribly un-fun. I can’t compensate for five, six, players who are effectively blind and/or think they’re pro snipers with zero kills (and thus zero skillz), or a team that for whatever reason has not noticed that no one is playing medic when the winning - nay, steamrolling - side is running three or more (class limits kthxbai).
The crux of the matter is, why are these people playing at all? TFC has always been free so I can’t really say anything when I see atrocious players, unless I’ve seen them be atrocious for the better part of 2 years (like [DAD] oh yes I went there).
But TF2? It has to be bought. With money. Come to think of it, I may not even have much of a case. If you want to spend money to show the world just how much you suck at hand-eye co-ordination, or inability to learn after being killed 3 times in a row in the same damn tunnel, then power to you. I guess it’s not much different from alcohol.
Tags: games, software, source, tf2
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