First thing, the two community maps that will be released tomorrow are cp_Fastlane (which I’ve played but am not really familiar with) and ctf_Turbine (which I’ve played and don’t much care for — it’s not terrible or anything, I just think it’s a bit uninteresting).
Now to the real news: Pyro weapons, achievements, and changes. And there’s a whole lot to take in.
In terms of all new gameplay, alt-fire now allows the pyro to unleash a blast of air from his flame thrower. This allows him to knock back opponents, swat away and redirect incoming projectiles, and quickly escape enemies by, presumably, allowing the pyro to do something akin to a rocketjump. Airwalk, maybe? It’s hard to name it when we haven’t seen it. EDIT: Great Britain’s Great Tom Francis sets me straight on this — no airwalking.
It certainly sounds fun, and gives the pyro some more flexibility and responsibility. Blasting away stickymines and repelling rockets sounds like it’ll make the Pyro the engie’s best friend all over again. It’s a whole new game mechanic, which is exciting, and I can’t wait to see it in action.
As far as the unlockable weapons, the Flare Gun, which we spotted in yesterday’s “Meet the Sniper” movie, is an alternative to the shotgun. It gives the pyro a ranged attack, though it sounds like it’s either hit or miss (so I guess it doesn’t do splash damage?). This should give the pyro some legs against out-of-reach enemies.
The Backburner is the alt flamethrower, which raises the Pyro’s health by 50 points and guarantees critical hits when ambushing enemies from behind. Crikey. The downside is that it doesn’t have the new air-blasting mechanic. I think the success of this weapon will depend on how important the new alt-fire air cannon winds up being, but I’m gonna guess it’s pretty damn important — why else have the new flamethrower add a bonus to health unless giving up the airblast is really big drawback?
The Axtinguisher is the last unlockable weapon, a wicked battleaxe that guarantees crits against any enemy on fire (it’s been clarified that any burning opponent will suffice and it doesn’t matter if you’ve set him on fire yourself). The downside is that if an enemy isn’t on fire it does less damage, but something tells me for the next couple weeks everyone is gonna be on fire. All the time. Maybe cp_aqua will start getting a little more play?
I won’t list all of the achievements but they look like a challenge and most involve, unsurprisingly, setting people on fire. Spies sapping buildings, players who have just teleported, scoped-in snipers, rocket-jumping soldiers, and so on. Burn them all. It looks like they even added flame damage to the pyro’s secondary taunt, which is awesome and something I’ve been hoping for.
New weapons aside, it looks like the biggest impact on the game will be the new air blast. It makes the pyro more powerful and nearby enemies weaker. The ability to knock down and even send back rockets, deflect stickies and grenades, knock people off perches, scatter uber-partners… the pyro is suddenly a major pain in the ass and a much better defender.
It’s always a little scary when a change happens in such a finely balanced game, and this feels a bit more drastic than the medic update in terms of overall effects on gameplay. But the idea is to make the pyro more fun to play and thus played more, and the new mechanic sounds like it could easily accomplish that.
My main concern is with weapons that restrict other players from moving around and having fun. TFC had some of those: caltrops that slowed you down if you walked over them, drug darts and concussion grenades that skewed your vision and hearing, so you’d have to stop and wait until the effects wore off… anything that slows the game down I’m a bit leery of.
If the air blast is just something that knocks you back, like a soldier’s rocket does, well, we’re used to that already and it won’t be annoying. Will the airblast be able to pin me helplessly against a wall while someone else whales on me? That doesn’t sound like fun.
Overall, though, I’m optimistic and can’t wait to see how it all works. It’s gonna be a loooong wait until tomorrow.
EDIT: Also gleaned from Tom’s article, you’re only required to get 25 of the 35 achievements to unlock all three weapons, a nice change from the medic’s task of completing them all.
37 responses so far ↓
1 Pentadact // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:23 am
No airjump, I asked: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=191229
2 Cubedude04 // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:25 am
I’m sure valve would of thought of the problem of being pinned to the wall by some pyro while a medic needles you to death.
3 Dave // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:26 am
The new achievments look a lot easier than the Medic’s and all look like things you’ll accomplish during normal gameplay. Maybe Valve thought the Medic set was too hard and obstructive to other players?
4 Dave // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:31 am
Also on my mind, these new weapons look… mean. That is, except for the flare gun, which looks like a toy. And for some reason, I think it’s of note that the entire weapon is the color of your team. Not sure why, though.
5 Terin // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:39 am
I think the air burst will be balanced by having a cooldown. I doubt you can mercilessly spam it.
6 chris12 // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:42 am
great! i love the new vid, and the pyro achievements
7 Phil // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:43 am
Pyro is my favourite class - and now I’m dying to play TF2 - a feeling I’m oddly not used to..
8 nmanguy // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:49 am
Cubedude, I’m sure that if you play TEAM Fortress correctly, you’ll see why having a Pyro using up time pinning you to the wall is a big problem… Especially if you happen to a have a Spy or Backburner-Pyro around.
9 friccish // Jun 18, 2008 at 9:53 am
I too am a little worried about the new mechanic. It sounds like it has potential to be overpowered, or at least over used. But I’m guessing that valve have tested the crap out of it, and we’ll get something that makes the overall game funner to play.
Can’t wait to try it out.
P. S. Air walking would have been awesome!
10 Pentadact // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:00 am
I’m super-excited. It sounds like it wildly over-powers the guy, but I guess their testing hasn’t found that. I’m picturing all the fun I had with Force Push in the Jedi games.
I also like the image the Backburner paints of the Pyro: a sneaky, super-powerful tank of a thing who pounces from the dark. It also means that I, as a Spy, can stand pensively over the corpse of a slain Pyro nemesis and muse-
“We’re not so different, you and I…”
-before flicking my cigarette on his body.
11 Christopher // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:03 am
I, too, am seriously stoked. It all sounds like a lot of fun. I wonder how much ammo the airblast eats up, if any.
12 Gothic // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:08 am
Remember Chris’ post from all the way back?
“Hadouken Doin’?: Burn an enemy with the secondary pyro taunt — and come on, this taunt should totally cause 1 point of damage.”
It’s like, he’s a psychic or something.
13 Wossname // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:09 am
Color me pleased on all these changes. While I think there are too many taunt-related achievements, overall, they are far more strategically sound than the hoops Medics had to jump through.
14 drunkenbeetle // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:21 am
So wait… the Backburner rewards players who use the pyro with stealth… but also allows the players to have more hitpoints than a soldier…
I don’t understand. All the Backburner does is make a better version of the pryo out now. Is he an ambush class, or a frontliner?
Also, the Axtinguisher looks sooooo out of place. Is every new melee weapon going to be covered in blood and look like a weapon from some Gothic Mad Max world?
15 Lack_26 // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:32 am
The back-burner should be fun, my usual tactic with a pyro (when not ambushing some poor passing thing) when I intend on just causing chaos is to run into a group of enemies and circle strafe.
In both cases the back-burner will be awesome, but then again I do like the idea of the alt-fire for the normal flame-thrower A LOT.
16 Koslov // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:32 am
I’m totally enthraled with the flare gun. Finally you have a long range gun. Even if it is slow to reload and has only one bullet, I bet people can master the thing eaisly and it will become quite a pain in the arse for snipers and engies. Look at the KAR from DOD. That thing is a one shot gun with five rounds in the magizine, you can put only put one shot down field and then have to wait the half second before you can fire again (wait for the bolt action). If the flare gun takes 1-2 seconds to reload; the thing will become a monster. ( I realize that it wont cause the same amount of damage as a KAR, but it will probally play just like the KAR.)
17 TheLinx // Jun 18, 2008 at 10:53 am
IMO, they should have included cp_steel instead.
That is a epic map. But I haven’t played those maps, though, I guess I’ll have to check them out.
18 Newt Pulsifer // Jun 18, 2008 at 11:03 am
About the flare gun, maybe it’ll be affected by gravity. So it’s much like the grenade launcher, but with no splash! Surely hard to master :D
19 The Cheshire Cat // Jun 18, 2008 at 11:06 am
@drunkenbeetle
I think the idea behind the more health is that it stops soldiers from using the usual “I’ll just shoot my feet because I know I’ll live longer than you” tactic. Rockets are supposed to be a risk in close quarters, but since soldiers have more HP than any class other than the heavy (And now, a pyro with the backburner), there was never really a reason NOT to fire rockets point-blank in one on one.
20 Rosti // Jun 18, 2008 at 12:01 pm
The way I see it is that whilst the new basic Flamethrower makes the Pyro a new defensive beastie, the Backburner allows him/her/it to be played precisely as it is now but ‘more balanced’ with other classes (including itself).
21 LaZodiac // Jun 18, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I didn’t even know the Hadoken Taunt could be used to harm.
OMGWTFBBQ indeed. Oh how I wish I had this game ;_;
22 Sentry Gun // Jun 18, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Turbine sucks ass, never played Fastlane. Bad choices on custom maps, Valve.
23 Sentry Gun // Jun 18, 2008 at 12:48 pm
@LaZodiac: It didn’t before. With the new update, it will.
24 drunkenbeetle // Jun 18, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Oh yeah, about the maps:
I wish they did cp_Steel…
25 Mr_Wizard // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:09 pm
The probably didnt want to pick maps that were too good. <.<
The airburst is also good fro breaking out of stickyspam if your weak team has been pushed back to the spawns.
26 Lenny17 // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I wonder how the airburst will work - will it consume flamethrower ammo, or will it be a ‘x times per second’ weapon?
27 Alcatrazz // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Incendiary cannon, anyone?
28 The Cheshire Cat // Jun 18, 2008 at 2:01 pm
According to a post on the SA forums by a Valve dev, the OMGWTFBBQ taunt will be instakill. Not entirely sure if he was being serious or not, but that would totally rock.
29 AlphaHawk // Jun 18, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Funny that 2 of the things you mentioned in this blog found their way into the real update eh? Although that OMGWTFBBQ achievement is definitely going to require achievment server assistance.
30 Scolex // Jun 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm
It looks like Tom Francis’ idea of the Hire Hmph from his list of TF2 unlockable ideas was pretty much right.
31 Baggie // Jun 18, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I am so happy that you only have to unlock 25 at the most, it’s going to be less suck than the medic ones, I seem to remember going around with 1 left for the ubersaw for 2 weeks.
32 CHARMANDER // Jun 18, 2008 at 8:57 pm
why can i not have a time EST that i can get the update so i can own ALL… Yes it is me everyones most favorite pyro
33 Lack_26 // Jun 19, 2008 at 2:40 am
It wouldn’t surprise me if it was an insta-kill. If someone did that to me I would die of a heart attack, then die again of shame. Also the fact that it is a taunt stops the pyro just sneaking around doing it to everyone and running off. Still, utter awesomeness defined.
34 Shawn Poulsen // Jun 19, 2008 at 2:45 am
Hmmm. Reading over these achievements for a second time, a question occurs to me. Does “Ignite” mean “Set on fire (but not necessarily kill)” like I assumed it to, or does it mean “Kill with fire damage”? The on the first reading, most of them are trivially easy, and some are challenging, but I’m suddenly struck with a terrible fear of the second reading
Of course, the wording of Makin’ Bacon reassures a little, but the Medic achievement Autoclave says ‘ignite’ too, and I’m pretty sure you have to be getting kills for it.
35 Slamhound // Jun 19, 2008 at 4:57 am
Autoclave worked fine with just igniting, rather than killing. There was a bit of oddness that if you ignited another pyro in the chain, Autoclave wouldn’t unlock.
The achievement descriptions tend to be fairly distinct with regards to “kill” and “ignite”. Campfire, for example, uses “kill” rather than “ignite”, while Second Degree Burn involves killing an “ignited” player.
36 CHARMANDER // Jun 19, 2008 at 5:29 am
Normal flamethrower for defense to stop ubers, and backburner for offense… oh yeah 225hp IS LOVELY…with the medic boost that is somewhere around … UM 330 hp… SICK… there is gonna be alot of noob soldiers and demos mad becuase theyre “E-Z mode” is less effective on us pyros :)
37 Doctorwho // Jun 19, 2008 at 5:35 am
The OMGWTFBBQ achievement works sort of like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zsk1fUYzaY&feature=related
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