The Burn Ward

The Burn Ward
Level 10 Flamethrower
Victims share healing as long as they're on fire
-66% afterburn damage
Fire does not extinguish over time
Fire extinguishes on death

You might recognize this as another one of my Injury Update weapons. It was one of the better ones and I felt it deserved its own post and some concept art. If you're wondering what the deal is with the concept art, the little radar dish is supposed to be the receiving antenna that heals you whenever enemies heal themselves.

There was some concern when I initially unveiled this that enemies extinguishing themselves with healing would circumvent any use this thing had. After all, most forms of healing cure the fire debuff. So your earned healing would usually be limited to a medium medkit. There were also concerns that this would discourage enemies from healing burning enemies (unlikely given the busy battlefields of TF2).

I wanted the whole thing to encapsulate a very complicated sort of strategy. Enemies know that as long as they're on fire they're vulnerable to crit combos and their heals also heal the enemy, but killing the Pyro will sooth their pain. Entice enemies into attacking you from weak positions. The main problem here is conveying how differently this kind of fire works--making the unique nuances visible without breaking game readability.

Let me know what you think here, or on the related SPUF forum thread.

Practical Problems

I didn't make this movie. I just found it on Youtube, but I have to say all the best TF2 films seem to involve the Engineer. He's the Wiley Coyote of TF2.

The best SFM films have a few qualities that makes them special. Common SFM films generally use bug-eyes, screaming, and nonsensical spontaneity to buy a laugh. I don't want to say that this is the result of laziness (all the SFM films I've created are the result of laziness, to wit, I have not written any) but it's the product of people who are trying to hard to write a joke. I do it all the time when I can't think of anything funny to say--say something crazy enough and people will laugh just because they're relieved you're not eating their kidneys.

See what I mean?

The Single Class Server

Recently I've taken to playing TF2 on my Xbox, where the game is simpler and I can play in comfort instead of inside my freezer. My computer is a piece of crap and I can't afford a new one, these things happen. Anyway, Xbox Team Fortress 2 is different than PC Team Fortress 2. That's an obvious and actually kind of dumb statement; PC TF2 is several times larger than Xbox TF2 in terms of pure content and even though every new weapon slightly tweaks the game's balance even the vanilla stuff has been changed, nerfed, buffed, and gold-plated. The maps have changed: Dustbowl is slightly different but Granary massively so, new maps have been added, new gamemodes... Mann Versus Machines practically added a new game to TF2.

There is one feature that appears to be Xbox only. It might be a server tool but in four years of TF2 I've never encountered it on the net. No, wait, once. Maybe; I forget. Anyway! Class limitations. The Xbox's TF2 has built-in adjustable class limits when you're creating a server, meaning people can decide that if they want their game to feature only one medic per side, or that they'd like to see a game of Sniper on Sniper, they can do that. That's actually what lead me to this post.

Playing two rounds, one Engineer Only Dustbowl and one Sniper Only 2fort. Both games were incredibly fun and incredibly frustrating. The engineer one was badly broken, of course, because engineers are dangerously useless on Offense and they are almost infinitely stackable on Defense. Red would cede the first point after the initial "two sentries over spawn doors" trick, then build seven sentries on the point. I think the longest anyone stood on the point without being turned into a chunky Southwest-style salsa mist was two seconds. But at the same time, it was oddly compelling even to be on offense, killing sentries with your pistol, etcetera.

The Sniper one might have been fair. I'm an awful sniper, but I make up for it by being sneaky; with no engineers I strolled onto the 2fort battlements and stabbed three fictional people to imaginary death. Then I realized that these people were almost cartoonishly oblivious, so I climbed back up to the battlements and shot eight of them in the head. I think I might have shot some of them twice. Then the host changed the rules so one team (his, I assume) had an engineer to control the courtyard, and it turns out that if you switch a class limit to 0 while somebody is rolled as that class, they will stay that class until they change classes. So one side had an engineer that controlled walking-class access to the intel. Snipers aren't great for fighting a well-placed sentry and the game stalled, one side feeling helpless and the other steamrolling them.

But I had an idea that I'd like to see executed: two rounds of exclusively one class. One server, two rounds, all Medics. One server, two rounds all Demomen. Still 12v12 like TF2 was meant to be played, but iterated through individual classes. Who wins when Dustbowl is exclusively guarded by Soldiers? Or attacked by scouts? Is 2fort more fun with 24 pyros?

You might be wondering, what's the point of all this is. It's kind of a balance thought experiment, to see how differently the game plays when you make subtle changes like that. For example, with all Engineers a game of Dustbowl favors RED. Of course, with no players Dustbowl favors RED. But what happens in a game of all Scouts? Competitive TF2 is a game played in the margins of an ubercharge--what happens when it's not?

Most of all, there's something vaguely liberating about it: "When everybody is OP, nobody will be".

The Quick Switch Cabinet

Recently, TF2 added support for multiple loadouts to the backpack. Well, a year ago, so... recently enough. The Preset Loadout GUI, if you're unfamiliar with it, allows you to create four loadouts for each class. These loadouts can be any permutation of items an individual TF2 class can have, with individual items available for use across multiple loadouts. Ideally these loadouts reflect "ideal loadouts" for various situations. As a Demoman you might have loadout A set to your vanilla Demoman and loadout B equipped with the Demoknight set.

Anyway, I had a crazy idea. Since you have four available loadout presets, why not create an in-map interface that automatically allows you to swap instantly between preset loadouts? In keeping with TF2's deliberately very-simple design, the Quick Switch Cabinet requires that you walk up to it and press 1, 2, 3, or 4. With that press, the relevant loadout is activated. You can still play around with your loadout in the loadout menu, but now each preset loadout is accessible at the press of a button, without having to go into the backpack and select.

Upon activation of a particular loadout, the loadout appears on the right hand side of the screen so you can be sure it's the one you want, and boom, transaction complete.

Stick one of these in every spawn room from Teufort to the Gravel Sea!

The Crawling Explosive

Version 1

The Driver
Level .08 Sticky Launcher
Grenades explode on timer or direct hit
Alt-fire causes them to change direction
appropriate downside

Version 2
The Driver
Level .08 Sticky Launcher
Can only have one bomb out at a time
M1: Fires bomb, bomb adheres to surface and crawls
M1 (while bomb is out): Bomb changes direction by 90 degrees
M2: Detonate
Bombs cannot be destroyed (?)

Now, I had this idea because I thought it was cool, but I ran into some trouble. I wanted to create a navigable sticky similar to the Bombchu from Legends of Zelda, but there aren't enough keybinds to fully control a bomb that works like that.

If you're trying to figure out how the launcher I designed works, the rear handle rotates (technically it rotates the other way) to open the loading hatch for the next crawling sticky. Once loaded, the back handle rotates in-line with  front handle, then pulls back to prime the charge.

If you have any suggestions, quips, critiques, commentaries, or insults, drop 'em in the comments sections. I love that stuff and if it's great I'll post it here on Fridays. If it's not, well, I'll weep myself to sleep.

Engineer MVM Buildings

Part of my MvM building project, this is the logical conclusion for building weapons for every class. I tried to give the Engineer practical problems to solve with his buildings. Unfortunately, these ideas also lend themselves to some of the cartooniest, corniest designs. Stunlocking and slowing enemies over a large AoE fits a magnet weapon, and honestly I wanted to give the Engineer a big horseshoe-magnet weapon. I had to take control of those influences when designing the Magnetron, but I still think I'm gonna stick a magnet on there. We'll see where the drawings take me when I start working on 'em. I think these have the most visible influence from Iron Brigade.

Offense:
The Magnetron
Stunlocks enemies in close range, slows down enemies at midrange

The Magnetron is meant to keep enemies in places where they're vulnerable to your big bad sentries. Useful for setting up kill boxes and slowing enemies down in places in places where it's better that they go slow.

Support:
The Bill Collector
A vacuuming building that absorbs nearby piles of money.

Transport:
The Generator
Looks like a small, gas-powered generator.Buffs friendly buildings, effectively making them "level 2"

Demoman Buildings

Part of my MVM Buildings For Everyone project. Putting a PDA in the action slot for every class, complete with its own buildings in the three slot spots taken from the PDA. All three are probably too powerful to be strapped onto one non-Engineer class, but who knows? Maybe one idea will be a good balance for the canteen in MvM.

PDA: A Countdown timer, seen here

Offense：
The Carpet Bomber
This minelayer allows you to dynamically cover a small area of the map with short-term explosives. Essentially, it'll lay five stickies, then detonate them when an enemy gets close. These bombs have a comparatively long arm time, so you can't trust them to catch fast enemies (like scouts or medics). These have a limited supply of ammo, expiring after expending just 10 ammo.

Support:
Robot Bait
Attracts the nearest non-tank Bomb Courier as long as its in range.  Tremendous range.

Transport:
The Pop-Up
This nonlethal minelayer pops enemies into the air, delaying them, putting them on a predictable path for your skeet-shooting snipers, and of course letting you get easier combos for weapons that deal in-air damage penalties.

Viewer Workshop: Thunderchin

Thunderchin gets props for being the first person to comment on this blog. I've seen his work before on the SPUF forums, so there's extra props there. Check out his blog here. Anyway, as promised I plan to promote ideas I like from the comments section on Fridays, in a segment I call Viewer Workshop. I might even talk a bit about ideas, offer suggestions and such.



The Medic
Offensive/Support/Transportation is all in one Building. Think of it as a Dispenser that can overheal. As it heals, it builds up a meter of its own. Also as it heals, it doles out speed boosts to whoever it heals. When this meter gets full, it becomes a planted Buff Banner except with full crits instead of minicrits.

An all-in-one building that offers overhealing, speed buffs, and eventually full crits. I've dubbed it the "Comprehensive Coverage". It's a full support machine from a full-support class. I like it.


The Spy
Offensive: Decoy Generator
Generates holographic decoys of the friendly team to help draw fire.
Support/Transportation: Team Invisibility

I'm a known proponent of team invisibility in general, so of course the team invisibility machine gets earmarked as a good idea. Of course, it's one I think is so valuable it could even be extended into the multiplayer arena, so that would be interesting to see.

Heavy Buildings

The Heavy Buildings were kind of a tricky build because, of course, everyone always wants to suggest a sandvich dispenser, and nobody wants to see a support building that gives the Heavy independent heavy ammo a la the dispenser. Giving him an offensive weapon that didn't come off as overpowered

Anyway, this is a continuation of the MVM buildings project, buildings for the Heavy. Further concept art is forthcoming. As always, suggest your own! I am by no means even a halfway competent developer and I have a one track mind. Get creative and submit stuff to my comments! Good comments and ideas will get posted--with credit--on Fridays.

Offense:

The Western Affront
Rename pending. This is a fast-deploying minisentry type weapon, meant more to help the Heavy beat retreats than serve as additional firepower. Drop one of these to stall the robots while you spin down, back up, and head for more health and ammo.

Support:
Natascha II
This support weapon works like a regular sentry, but instead of firing bullets, it slows down its victim. Hits are still registered as hits (and can thus draw the attention of sentry busters), but do zero damage.

Transportation:
The Cubano
This "transportation" building actually generates a defensive cloak--enemies cannot attack through it, as though it were a fortification. Technically I guess it is a fortification.

Medic Buildings

A continuation of the MVM buildings project, buildings for the Medic. Further concept art is forthcoming. As always, suggest your own! I am by no means even a halfway competent developer and I have a one track mind. Get creative and submit stuff to my comments! Good comments and ideas will get posted--with credit--on Fridays.

Offense:
The Zombie Turret
On kill in AOE, generates a zombie minisentry
Minisentries can be controlled by dead allies



  
This is a double modification of a couple of older ideas I had. The Zombie Turret doesn't actually do any killing on its own. However, when there's a kill nearby, it converts the victim's robot corpse into a Zombie Node, a tiny minisentry that deals a small amount of damage. However, there's another special perk to this: zombie miniturrets can be operated by the spirit of dead comrades waiting for a respawn. Medics can opt to eject unhelpful allies by shooting a possessed zombie turret.

Support:
The Blood Bath
Collects all non-medic healing in range and converts it into a canteen charge. Every time a nearby ally collects healing from a medkit, eats a sandvich, lands a hit with the Black Box or Blutsauger, or heals themselves in any way, they generate charge. As an added bonus, a canteen charge ALSO fills a medic's uber bar by 50%.

Transportation:
A standard teleporter. I got nothing.

Pyro Buildings

A continuation of the MVM buildings project, buildings for the Pyro. Further concept art is forthcoming. As always, suggest your own! I am by no means even a halfway competent developr and I have a one track mind. Get creative and submit stuff to my comments! Good comments and ideas will get posted--with credit--on Fridays.

Pyro PDA: A charred notepad and pencil (?)




Offense:
The Volcano Rig
This teeny-tiny sentry remains dormant until an enemy gets close, then lets loose with a fiery blast that knocks the enemy into the air while setting them on fire. Its dormant state is silent as the grave.






Support:
The Camping Fire
Expendable canteens last a few extra seconds longer

Transportation:
The Air Elevator
Tosses an ally into the air (and extinguishes them!)

Looking for a clever way to bounce allies around. This isn't really that clever.

The Streetfighting Scout Set

Seen here in front of a weird brown blob

The Bonk! Variety Pack
Primary Weapon
M1: Throw held beverage
Hold M1: Shake held beverage (creates splash attack)
M2: Consume held beverage
Jumping off someone's head deals 25 damage

You can throw beverages quickly, about one every one second, with each dealing 60 damage on a direct hit. A well-shaken can deals 120 damage with splash. You can consume cans to gain beverage buffs, but they fill a thirst bar. When the bar is full, you can't drink any more, so watch out. You have six bottles, and you're carrying a two more six packs in your satchel. Or towel, or whatever the Scout is wearing on his back.


The reload animation is the Scout flipping the empty carton over his shoulder and taking a new one from behind his back.

The Bonk Variety Pack activates a PDA slot, the Beverage menu. The beverage menu can be used to select which flavor is next in the rotation. This feature is especially under consideration for utility.

Flavor 1: Bonk Standard
normal phase ability, cannot attack during

Flavor 2: Crit-a-cola Classic
minicrit bonus, can attack during

Flavor 3: Painslayers brand Analgesic Beverage
Heals 30 HP and negates ramp-up for ten seconds, can attack during
Flavor 4: Australium in a Can
Your projectiles deal extra damage for ten seconds, can attack during

The idea was to create a Scout set that takes away all his guns and leaves him using sort of found, everyday weapons instead. Mostly I just like the idea of a guy running into a gunfight whipping bottles from his six pack at everybody he sees, but eventually I realized it was sort of a Scout-appropriate grenade launcher disguised as a six pack.

And I liked that. People on SPUF would complain if you created an item called "The Gremlin's Grenades" and was a badly nerfed Scout grenade launcher, but if you disguise it as something the scout would plausibly use... I probably shouldn't be explaining this out loud.

The Arthur

The Arthur
Baseball Bat
Alt fire: Improved functionality to targeted friendly building
Excessive buffing will hurt you
-50% swing speed



Basically, the Scout uses his non-bat-holding hand to love-tap friendly buildings, causing them to temporarily work faster. Dispensers heal slightly more, teleporters recharge faster, and sentries fire a little quicker. Buffs are administered on a meter, and exceeding the buff hurts the Scout's hand. Just a fun little idea.

Scout Buildings

Brainstorming All-Class PDAs, because obsessive completionism and machines are more fun than working game mechanics. These are designed specifically for MvM, where the smaller playercounts make all-class sentries a workable idea. This is an idea that keeps reverberating in my head, buildings for all classes as designed by the Engineer, because I want the engineer to design more things. I hunger for them. Admittedly most of these have more in common with the "character" of each merc than their class, but then this is a fun exercise more than a serious game changer.

Non-engie buildings are, in this vision, not upgradeable or repairable partially to avoid the visual incongruity of fixing a things by hitting them with swords, baseball bats, or whatever.

Ultimately, these ideas turn TF2 into a Orcs Must Die style castle defense/action title, and that sounds like a freaking awesome idea to me.

First up is the Scout.

PDA: Simple, gameboy-like PDA (credit where it's due)

Offense: The Pitching Arm
Fires stun baseballs
Looks like the sentry, but with a horizontal spinning wheel over the ammo feed to fire baseballs. And a modified barrel. Obviously.

Support: The Second Phase
Allies moving near this building charge it, eventually activating a phase ability that minimizes damage
An handheld cooler containing bonk. The lid is wired with a timer, and when it reaches zero the lid opens and allies are phased.





Transportation: The Plate
A directional plate that gives classes running over it a speed boost.
Looks like home plate.