Critical Hits Explained! (Yet Again)

I never made mention of the official TF2 blog update that happened on February 28th because by the time I noticed it I figured it was too late to report on it. Still, for those who missed that blog entry it's kind of a neat little feature on the conceptual process of the Scout and you should check it out.

This time, I'm still a day late, but the official blog was updated yesterday with some interesting insights on the changes to the critical hit system that are certainly worth noting. From the blog:

First, the base critical hit chance was reduced from 5% to 2%. This means that if you haven't done any damage to an enemy, your crit chance is now just under half what it was previously. Secondly, the size of the bonus range was reduced by a third, but the amount of damage needed to earn that bonus was halved. To understand the effect of that, it's useful to graph it:

As you can see, the new crit chance is slightly lower across the board, which we wanted. More importantly though, is that the rate at which the crit chance increases based on the amount of recent damage you've done. We like to think of that recent damage total as a rough measure of your performance.

In thinking about the change we wanted to make to critical hits, we decided that there was a point on the graph of particular interest to us, and that was the point at which your critical hit chance was as much a result of your performance as it was the base chance. If you look at at (A) on the old line, you'll see that point isn't reached until you've done 550 recent damage, a feat that occurs about as often as our backstab code works correctly. That point is reached at (B) on the new line, around the point where you've done 175 recent damage. This means that if you've just singlehandedly killed an enemy Demoman/Soldier/Pyro/Heavy, your next 20 seconds worth of crit chances are already more a result of that kill than the base chance. As a result, if you're a highly skilled player, you're going to fire significantly more critical hits than those around you. And remember, if you've just killed 2 or 3 enemies, now's the time to push!

What does this all mean? It means that now your base chance of getting a critical hit is lower, but your damage dealing skills will more quickly impact your critical hit percentage; making crits a greater measure of your skill rather than random luck. It also means that overall you'll see fewer critical shots flying around the battlefield.

If you're a skilled player, this is a huge step in the right direction for you. If you depend on critical hits to get most of your kills you're about to find TF2 much more unforgiving than you did before. And of course if you're the kind of player who still wonders why critical hits even exist in the first place you should either find a no-crit server or find a different multiplayer FPS that better suits your fancy.

The Updates Keep on Comin'

Looks like the folks at Valve are pretty busy lately. They've rolled out a whole new batch of updates to accompany the ones we saw last week. I'll spare you my individual comments today because...

A. I don't feel like writing any and...
B. My previous comments were nothing more than an abysmal attempt at humor that continues to smolder like a dried out cow pie on the blazing inferno that is Critical TF2.

Without further ado, here are the important items from the update notes:

Gameplay Changes:

1. Modified critical hit calculation. Overall, critical hit chance is now much more recent-performance based:
   
   • Base chance is now 2% (was 5%).
     
   • Bonus range based on damage done changed from 0%-15% to 0%-10
     
   • Damage range required for bonus changed from 0-1600 to 0-800
     
2. Reduced random damage spread applied to all player damage from +-25% to +-10%
   
3. Slight reduction (improvement) of the minigun's spread
   
4. Increased flare direct hit damage from 20 to 30
   
5. Rewrote Natascha's slowdown code to be more consistent
   
6. Sniper rifle now supports Crit Boost state like all other weapons (i.e. Kritzkrieg makes all shots critical hits)
   
7. Stealthed spies are no longer able to pickup the intelligence. They must uncloak first
   
8. Increased soldier primary ammo count from 16 to 20

What does all this mean? It means that you'll probably see fewer critical shots, reducing the "luck" factor a bit. It means you'll be able to estimate the damage you're doing far more easily. It means the minigun is more accurate, the flare gun does more damage and Natascha should work properly now. It means Kritzkrieging a sniper will actually have an effect. It means cloaked spies cannot pick up the intelligence and it means the Soldier will be able to spam four more rockets before needing ammo.

The gameplay will change slightly. Overall rounds will probably play similarly, but individual battles may play out differently than we're used to. It may take a bit of getting used to, but I think these improvements will keep the game fun while toning down the random aspects a bit. There are some other bug fixes and a few other tweaks, but you should probably check the update notes yourself to see what they are.

TF2 Update Notes - January 28, '09

Well, the update that Robin Walker promised us today actually happened! Here are the update notes, complete with my own commentary (which my army of undead minions knows you love).

1. Added percentage to UberCharge HUD panel for the Medic - For all those players who didn't think a status bar was enough, now there are numbers!
   
2. Added upgrade progress and levels to Engineer HUD panel for all buildings - Because the pop up in the center of the screen that displayed the percentage apparently didn't do the job.
   
3. Added mp_tournament_allow_non_admin_restart server ConVar to allow server admin to toggle whether non-admin players can issue the mp_tournament_restart ConCommand on the server. Default is 1 (current behavior) - I don't run servers or play in tournaments, but I'm sure this is extremely important.
   
4. Added flag to the gamerules entity so map authors can override the HUD type being used. Allows map authors to force CTF or CP HUD to be used if they mix CTF/CP entities in the map - Sticking to one gameplay type just isn't complicated enough. Seriously, some cool things can be done with mixing gameplay types and this really helps those custom mappers who want to do so.
   
5. Added check in CTF HUD to make sure it doesn't point at disabled capture zones when the player is carrying the flag. Allows map authors to have more than one capture zone for each team in the map - More interesting CTF play anyone? There have got to be some interesting possibilities that can be derived from having multiple cap points in a CTF game.
   
6. Changed AutoTeam to give new players to the attackers on attack/defend maps if the teams are even - For those who can't decide what team to be on you might as well attack, because that's where AutoTeam will put you anyway.
   
7. Fixed Pyro model not animating in the class menu - Everyone loves a Pyro in motion. Everybody dance!
   
8. Fixed players getting stuck in the "prepare to respawn..." countdown loop - This is a good thing, simple as that. Were you expecting wit or sarcasm?
   
9. Fixed Natascha not getting the proper 75% of damage and slightly increased the strength of Natascha's slowdown - Now the extra time Natascha forces you to spend on an individual target will actually be worth it perhaps some developers believe.
   
10. Fixed teleporter entrance/exit effects being drawn when they don't have a matching teleporter entrance/exit - Again, this is a good thing. Come on, people, I'm not a comedian. I write this blog in my spare time. I can't always be funny.
    
11. Fixed announcer saying "the cart is nearing the checkpoint" after the round has already been won - But we love the Announcer almost as much as we love hearing Tres MacNeille do a million voices in just about every animated show that's been made since the 1980's!
    
12. Fixed cloaked spies having a particle-beam effect while standing next to a dispenser that's healing them - Nice for Spies, bad for Engineers. Now a Spy really can remain invisible forever.
    
13. Fixed server crash when trying to load a map that contains control points with duplicate index values - Scotland Tom says server crashes are bad.
    
14. Fixed several materials warnings in the console - How often do you look at the console while playing? For most players, the answer is, "console? what?" Move along.
    
15. Fixed "Cart.Explode" sound script entry using an unknown sound channel - Did you notice this? Yeah, neither did I. Thank you, Valve for paying attention to things that no one even knows about.
    
16. Marked the cl_bobcycle and cl_bobup ConVars as cheats - Dangit, I knew they'd catch on to me sooner or later.
17. Fixed clients using reloadresponsesystems, sv_soundemitter_flush, sv_soundemitter_filecheck, sv_findsoundname, and sv_soundscape_printdebuginfo to lag/crash servers - Clients causing server crashes on purpose is wrong, mmmkay.
    
18. Fixed client "timeout on mapchange" problem - No one likes to be in time-out. Thank you for lifting our punishment.
    
19. Fixed setinfo exploit - I... have nothing.
    
20. Marked the r_aspectratio ConVar as a cheat - Seriously, I'm out of comments. Anyone still reading this must be stalking me because there is absolutely no entertainment value here.

I wasn't kidding. That's it. Go update TF2.

Scouts to the Starting Gate!

It seems that sometime yesterday Robin Walker finally got around to throwing all us TF2 obsessed nut-jobs a bone. The official blog has been updated with a new movie page and news on the impending Scout update, plus some other nice tidbits. I'll refrain from quoting the entire post and simply reiterate the important tidbits as I'm sure at least some of you are capable of following the OBVIOUS LINKS to the SOURCE on your own. Of course, if you do you'll be missing out on my brilliant and masterfully crafted expert analysis.

A small update should be out sometime today (the 28th), that will fix some exploits and bugs. On Valve time that probably means we'll see that update by early next week. Later there will be an update that will update unlockables for Steam Cloud so your loadout choices will remain intact if you should move to a different computer. The Scout update will come sometime after these updates. While Walker says the Scout update is nearly complete, in Valve time this means it might be up to 3 or 4 weeks.

As I mentioned previously, Walker has chimed in on the Natascha damage problem. The update that is supposedly coming today will fix the damage and increase the slowdown caused. Now the players who use Natascha because it sounds cooler than Sasha will actually be able to make a logical excuse for wielding it.

In the blog entry there was also some discussion about some non-gameplay related elements. For instance, the effects that were seen before release (like the hard-edged muzzle flare of the minigun) apparently visually fought for attention with other game elements. They were therefore softened so players would actually pay attention to more important things on the battlefield. This did not, however, resolve the problem for many players who continue to remain transfixed by the sparkling tracers and rocket trails heading towards them.

There's also something in there about the Sniper being an unconvincing Australian, but you know, voice actors, what are you gonna do?

It sounds like we're in for some treats rather soon, which is good to know. Hopefully this won't be the last official blog update we see for the next month and a half.

From Valve with Love

Apparently sometime back in December a Steam member called misterdevious sent an email to Robin Walker inquiring about the documented discrepancies between how Natascha was designed to function and how she actually does function. Two days ago, our devious friend received a response.

Sorry for the late reply on this one, I’m getting behind in my email answering. The 66% damage thread is correct, it was bugged. We’ve found & should have a fix for it out shortly. On top of that, we’ve slightly improved the amount of slowdown it causes.

Some of our weapon designs have specific subclass / roles associated with them (like the Pyro’s Backburner, which is aimed at enabling an ambush playstyle). Others are aimed at providing players with choices that don’t have clear outcomes, and allow some personal preference. Natascha lies somewhere between these two. We wanted Natascha to be a weapon where players could debate between the overall value of more damage vs more time to hit the opponent. In some cases, more damage is more useful (you’re a lone Heavy running into an enemy Soldier). In other cases, the movement reduction is more useful (You’re keeping enemies from getting away while team mates are firing at them, or you’ve dropped down behind an enemy). Obviously, the movement reduction is more useful on enemies that want to get away, so if an enemy team is stacking Medics & Scouts, it should be a viable choice.

Hopefully we’ll see a more interesting decision around Natascha after the tuning update goes out.

Robin.

For all those heavy players out there who could never find a good reason to use Natascha things should be changing soon. Instead of the current 66% damage output (compared to Sasha), Natascha should see an increase to the proper 75% damage. Not only that, it seems as though the speed reduction on enemies should be more noticeable, making Natascha a viable alternative for those who wish for a little more variety while playing their favorite Russian strong man.