So, looking at the last week’s worth of stats on Steampowered, we can see the Pyro Pack was a smash, with pyros owning nearly 25% of the total playing time since it was released on the 19th. The nearest was the engineer with about 15%, while the spy, heavy, and scout scrounged near the bottom with around 5% each.
Pyros have also been second in average kills per hours, third in assists, and fourth in points and captures. In average life expectancy, they place seventh. So, while they’re out there killing a lot, they’re also out there dying a lot.
The damage stats are currently borked, but I’ve been checking the past few days and the flamethrower damage has been accounting for around 30-35% of all damage dealt over the past week. Oddly, with all that damage, not a whole lot was critical, with only around .05%, which is way down the list. I expect this will change as more people unlock the dreaded Backburner and Axtinguisher, which caused me no small amount of pain this past week.
Pyros aside, the real reason I’ve been checking the stats is because I’m curious as to which Pack we’ll be unpacking next. There’s been some speculation that it will be the engineer, based mainly on some interviews in which Robin Walker, and other members Valve, mentioned some potential unlockable items for the engie.
But the medic and pyro were first because, as I understand it, they were underplayed. The new weapons and achievements were given to them to make them more fun and versatile and increase the amount of time they got from players. Looking at the stats from this week, the engie is doing just fine — he’s the second most played class of the bunch (though last in points, probably because he never captures control points or bomb cart points).
In last place right now, though, in terms of most-played classes, is the Scout. This is (probably) due to the immense popularity of Goldrush and Dustbowl, the two most-played maps, and their relative unfriendliness to Scouts. Not to say I don’t see Scouts on those maps, in fact, I was repeatedly getting pwned by a Scout on Dustbowl recently. He was on defense and kept cutting behind our lines and kicking my ass (I was a medic). He was some sort of Snuffleupascout, too — no one seemed to see him but me. He’d slip around behind heavies and soldiers and beat the tar out of me while they tromped on, oblivious.
Anyway. Goldrush and Dustbowl are both very engie-intensive maps, and thus you don’t see a whole lot of scouts. Could the Scout Pack be next?
Also languishing near the bottom of the most-played list are spies. Still, there’s always a spy or two on Goldrush and Dustbowl, and I think they’re pretty effective on those maps, what with all the sentries to sap and all the clusters of backs to stab (around the bomb cart and in the bottlenecks). Sure, he doesn’t get many assists (due to backstabbing so many healthy players) and is low on the kill list (though the buildings he kills don’t register), and he’s next to last in life expectancy (due to mingling in the enemy masses). So, I don’t really think the spy is in immediate need of class changes, though I’m sure he’s ready to see the pyro swarm dissipate.
Finally, there’s the heavy, who also appears to be underplayed, though those of us who play heavy are doing quite well: number one in points and kills per hour, number two in assists, and third in caps. I don’t really think heavies really are underplayed, it’s just that you’ll generally see only one per team, and one is usually enough, especially if they have a medic keeping them alive while they’re scoring all those points. I don’t imagine they’ll be next for alt weapons.
So, my money is on the scout for the next pack. As for the unlockables, I have no idea what they could or should be, but that won’t stop me from suggesting some, and I’m sure these are not at all original, especially the one I completely lifted.
Alt Bat: A wooden bat with a nail through it. It could have a higher crit chance, perhaps with the drawback that it also has a chance of shattering, forcing the scout to get a new one from resupply. They could call it The Sosa.
Alt Pistol: Rubber bullets. They don’t crit like the regular pistol but can bounce off your opponents and do do damage to others in the area as well. Also good for bouncing around corners and damaging sentries while staying out of the line of fire, and rebounding in tight hallways like a swarm of rubber bees. Maybe a pyro flame could melt them in midair, though.
Alt Scattergun: Tom’s idea seems realistic, so I will reprint it: no crits except from directly above the target, where it always crits, and holds fewer rounds.
Also, someone somewhere someplace sometime suggested a baseball the scout could throw to distract a sentry; I think that’s a fun idea, provided you could also bonk it off people’s heads for comic effect, and maybe self-pitch and hit it with a bat for a crit or something.
37 responses so far ↓
1 Trid3nt // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:37 am
I was thinking the scout would be next as well.
But I think rather than just alt weapons, the scout will be getting a general boost all round tbh
2 Lack_26 // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:45 am
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a boost in speed for the scout, he is meant to be about running past enemies but often they just turn around and shoot you, I guess this is because a lot of players play with high mouse sensitivity.
3 vbigiani // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:47 am
The Spy is the only class without either a Meet The Class vid or an Achievement Pack. However, Spy and Sniper are the only classes I completely suck at, so I’ll give a pass on Spy achievements this time round ;)
4 noclip // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:52 am
There were a bunch of unused weapon models in the TF2 beta. Tranquilizer gun for the Spy, branding iron for the Engineer, and a nailgun for the Scout, among others. I think these may very well end up being unlocks since they obviously came close to being the actual weapons.
5 noclip // Jun 27, 2008 at 8:59 am
Speaking of which, I just had an idea for the Spy gun unlock. How about a silenced pistol whose kills do not show up in the deathnotices? It would be quite useful for discretely clearing out intel rooms without causing the entire rest of the enemy team to coming running down to find the Spy.
6 Pentadact // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:20 am
I’d go along with that. I was thinking Heavy, because it seems a shame that he’s so underplayed when he’s so much fun. I think the movement speed puts people off - they feel helpless when they’re headshotted or backstabbed, when in fact they were anything but.
But you’re probably right: one Heavy is perhaps enough for now, whereas Scouts would be great to have around if they could do a damn thing about - or even just avoid - Sentries. Did you read many of the comments on my Unlocks post? My friend Al had a much better suggestion than mine for a bat improvement: a baseball that Sentries automatically fire at. You can throw it up with right mouse and whack it with left, and it does a small amount of damage if it hits a player. That’d round out the class nicely, I think: it’d still be tough to take out a Sentry in the time it takes to blast your ball out of range so that you’re the closest target again, but you’d be a great team-player and it’d at least let you slip by one while it was occupied.
I hope Spy isn’t next. We don’t need more Spies. If anything, we already have too many. He should be the least played class: he gets exponentially less useful the more of them you have. If my team has a Spy, I feel guilty about playing as one myself because I know I’d be more use as a Soldier. If we have two, I can’t play him. Spy Week is going to be a nightmare for everyone except Pyros. I wish they’d done those two classes at once, however much longer we would have had to wait.
7 Kernel Panic // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:22 am
I think the alternative bat should be a wooden one with a rusty nail in it. It would swing slower, but have higher crits or something
8 Phil // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:24 am
Another potential Spy unlock could be a sapper that, instead of destroying sentries, could reprogram them to turn to your teams colour.
Imagine the havoc :)
Downside is you can’t sap tele’s or dispensers. And the best way to counter it for for the enemy spy to disguise, and either destroy or counter switch the sentry.
9 /AquaBlue // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:35 am
But wouldn’t that be similar to what is happening now with the best way to kill a pyro is to have another pyro?
10 Mr. Munchlax // Jun 27, 2008 at 10:04 am
I don’t think they’re basing their unlock releases based on how much they’re played. I remember reading something that said the main reason they released the pyro pack 2nd was because the pyro had design problems. I really don’t care what’s next, the pyro unlocks are enough for me right now, but I kind of don’t want scout pack anytime soon since scouts are my least favorite class. Though it might be fun to be a pyro during scout week.
11 Mr. Munchlax // Jun 27, 2008 at 10:05 am
whoops, I meant to say strictly based on how much they’re played. I know that’s why they released medic pack first.
12 Fish // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:08 am
Actually, they did Medic first because it would alter the overall balance less, since it was a trial run.
13 Okimin // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:10 am
I still think they should at least try to release more than one class a week, so we aren’t stuck with one class teams. Kinda ruins the balance of the game if everyone is playing Pyro, or any class for that matter.
14 n00bie51 // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:45 am
If they touch the Scout I may never play TF2 again.
15 Mike // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:51 am
I was a bit sad that the Pyro Pack burst out so quickly. What was most fun about the Medic pack was seeing all the symbols beforehand, and guessing what the achievements would be. It’d be great if Valve intentionally leaked the symbols for the packs in future.
Can’t wait for the Scout unlock. He was my favourite class before I started to lag horrifically. With my upgrade, I might just get back in.
16 Mike // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:53 am
Also worth noting that Goldrush is clearly in need of a balance if that statistic doesn’t shift in the next month.
17 The Defenestrator // Jun 27, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I don’t see why people are so hard on the class weeks. It’s a change from the same old, same old, and face it: Spy Week is going to be HILARIOUS!
(Though I personally can’t wait for Engineer Week, and the cities of engineer buildings that are going to pop up on every map.)
18 rammingspeed42 // Jun 27, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Personally, I’d like to see a few sniper unlockables. An automatic rifle for continuous sniping, a more accurate SMG, and a kukri (or machete) that crits when some strange arbitrary rule applies (standing still, mid-air, sneaking up on someone…). I’d call the last one a kukrit! Even if Valve didn’t…
But realistically, I’d like to see a few engineer unlockables. Maybe a defense against the sapper, which would prolong the sapping long enough for the engie to take action, or for the turret to recognize the spy, whichever comes first. An offensive building for the engineer could be interesting. Well-armed robotanks would be useful on cp maps.
19 noclip // Jun 27, 2008 at 2:50 pm
A remotely decent Engineer makes a sentry all but impossible to successfully sap. Make sentries more resilient to sapping would only help bad engineers and encourage more sentry spam.
20 SenatorPalpatine // Jun 27, 2008 at 4:29 pm
When Scout week comes around, I’m not going to be playing Scout, oh no. I’ll be playing Engie. *maniacal laughter*
21 Rodafowa // Jun 27, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I had the exact same experience with a Scout last night as Chris did - team-mates standing blithely oblivious as he ran right past them and shot my stupid face off repeatedly.
If you think Spy Week’s going to suck, just wait for Sniper Week. Jiminy Cricket.
22 Alexander // Jun 27, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I’ve heard they are going to use the nail gun, it will be the pistol replacement…
23 Tiler // Jun 27, 2008 at 10:13 pm
What they really need is a better way to autobalance teams. There needs to be a way that a losing team doesn’t get completely shut down for an entire round. Whenever I see an autobalance, it’s only when one team is smaller than another, and then it only shuffles people based on who dies first, which are usually the newbs, which means nothing changes. I would think a fun solution would be to give the losing team extra crits, or some special class given to the best person in the losing team that can destroy waves of opponents with a wave of his mighty hand. I dunno. But it’s a problem in all team based FPSes, and TF2 is no exception.
24 Niteowl // Jun 27, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I hear the new unlock for the Spy is going to be a knife that actually backstabs. The downside is that it doesn’t facestab.
25 Hungry Heavy // Jun 28, 2008 at 12:53 am
niteowl…. don’t we have a knife that does that already?!?
Pentadact: you get spies better than most people. I love playing spy and I’m really good at it, but I can only play spy if I’m the only one.
Some people’s solution to getting killed by sentries frequently is to turn spy or sniper and then you have dustbowl games with 3 snipers and 3 spies on a team. You’ll never get through a pyro/soldier/demoman army.
It isn’t that spies are bad or that the team can’t deal with the lower fighting classes amount (spy revolver can take out most classes 1 on 1 at mid range, everything except the soldier and heavy, but those should be stabbed anyways. And autolose vs. scouts of course, the real spy nemesis)
But that spies become exponentially less worth as the opponent’s spy alarm level goes up. Even in games where I end up being the designated spy, I switch to suicide pyro, harass scout or temp medic as my team needs it so that the enemy stops expecting spies or at least wastes time spychecking.
26 Chijts // Jun 28, 2008 at 3:45 am
I love the idea of the silence pistol noclip, but in smarter, more communicative teams someone can just type or say down the mic where the spy was when he killed them.
Pentaduct that baseball tricking the sentry is a cool idea too. I think scouts can be deadly, but they should be able to dodge a sentry somehow, like in the Meet the Scout movie.
27 Cody // Jun 28, 2008 at 11:22 am
I played as pyro before it got popular. It’s a fun class, but now I’ll probably be hated for playing as it because there’ll already be 23 pyros on every server…
28 atroposxr // Jun 28, 2008 at 11:58 am
Because of the awfulness that is/was Pyro Week, and because of the immense awfulness that Engineer Week or Sniper Week will be, I hope they pair them with another achievement pack release.
Sniper/Scout or Sniper/Spy would be fine. Engie/Demo or Engie/Soldier would be fine too.
Heavy/Scout would be hilarious.
29 Dave // Jun 29, 2008 at 6:54 am
I was playing Heavy (on the Valve-forsaken XBox) recently and had a lot of fun. Lives are long, kills are plenty, and you’re pretty much un-rushable. If a pyro (in the archaic patch we console-tards play on, anyway) tries to rush you, and you’re outside his range, you can outgun him.
And as for the nice man (?) above me, I agree completely.
30 Dave // Jun 29, 2008 at 6:59 am
ZOMG EPIPHANY!!!
What about a BAT?
That scrambles SENTRIES?
When you have it out, thier aim is off, or shots are random, or something cool like that. And maybe a hit from it does… something. But it’s useless on people, or you’re vulnerable with it out or something.
“Something” count- 3
I can’t help it if I talk like Bill & Ted.
31 Pentadact // Jun 29, 2008 at 12:35 pm
There’s now a thread on the Steam forums entitled:
Pyro vs. Pyro = Unfair
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=698033
I think it might be time to shut them down.
32 Generic Name // Jun 29, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Heh… The console version players are obscenely bad. 9/10 games my teammates were incompetant…
Hell, I’ve become used to Pyro vs. Scout matchups being favorable to the Pyro because 360 Scouts often try running up to your face with the bat. Good stuff. The PC version was a bit of a shock.
33 stavrosthewonderchicken // Jun 30, 2008 at 12:12 am
I find myself hoping, based on what’s happened with Pyros and the Backburner, that Valve will leave any kind of crit-percentage buff-fuckery out of any future unlockable weapons.
I reckon weapons with guaranteed crits leech a lot of the fun of competition out of the game in favour of utter chaos, punishing skilled players in favour of PRESS W AND MOUSE BUTTAN. I understand that Valve wants to keep the game accessible for casual and new players, but the mechanic of crits is such that there should be less of them rather than more, especially as the chaos increases with a greater variety of weapons choices.
34 Erased.. // Jun 30, 2008 at 2:08 am
I like the idea of “crit weapon buttfuckery”, whenever i am losing a battle a random crit forces its way out of my weapon and keeps me alive before a spy facestabs me
35 Chijts // Jun 30, 2008 at 4:53 am
Lol Pentaduct the title of the thread itself beggars belief. It’s like saying here I have 2 exactly the same blue balls. Only I think one of the blue balls is over-powered.
I feel sorry for the guy though, I do hate mean spirit that is ever present on the internet. It makes me weep a thousand tears.
36 Turyx // Jun 30, 2008 at 6:28 am
Fortunately there are servers with a limited number of a certain class( for example a team can only have 3 Pyro).
About new weapons, I thought about one for Spy.
A weapon that stunts, replacing the knife. I don’t know, a Taser or whatever.
It stunts the enemy you hit for a bunch of seconds(3-5?), making him unable to move, turn or fire. And it also doesn’t disable your disguise.
The problem with it? Well, you can’t kill. And you need reloading it.
Since you can’t kill, it makes the Spy a more team-work oriented character(although spies are supposed to work alone, I know)
And maybe you could stun the medics using the Ubercharge or something, just to unbalance the game a little more :D
37 KefsKapsaninna // Aug 9, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Tahnks for posting
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