Pyro Guide (2 of 3): Class Match-ups and Pairings

Wells, its time for the second part of this guide. This one will focus on how the Pyro interacts with other classes, in combat and teamwork. This is team fortress, very rarely should your actions be occurring in a vacuum. Always consider what your team needs when playing seriously. If instead you are derping around, feel free to ignore my advice.

I wish I could credit this image.

Communication

Quakecon is going on. I played a sort of demo version of the original Quake and was the proud owner of Quake 2. I even participated in online multiplayer back when you needed a carrier service like gamespy to play online. I didn't play all that seriously. I mostly derped around with god mode and no-clip cheat codes. But I did encounter one seriously aggravating problem: talking. This was way before voice chat was prevalent. The online way to talk was to type in the chat box. Now its pretty obvious what the problem with that is; on a computer the keyboard is your game pad. You can either move or type, not both. Nowadays, voice chat is more common, but by no means universal. And I would like to thank Valve for developing three different methods of streamlining communication for those who don't have voice chat.

First was Team Fortress 2. It includes text chat, but its not anymore convenient than on Quake 2. What was included was quick chat keys. There are three keys (z,x,c) that open up a menu of 9 convenient quick chats for your character. Some are silly like battle cry, but most are useful, like building requests and command calls. The best inclusion was the medic call button. By making the E button the button that draws the attention of healers was genius; its right next to the movement buttons. There is also a basic auto speak, where your character will say things independently of your control when it appropriate.

While it certainly works, its very basic. Left 4 Dead 2 includes these key commands but builds on the idea that characters auto talk. Its really clever. When a special zombie comes into view or sound they make is heard, characters will automatically say something about it, regardless of what you are doing. Same thing with health warnings and map navigation. But whats most useful is the way characters relate discoveries. If you walk close to weapons and items, your character will say what you found and usually refer to it by name. This takes a lot of the worry out of play but it stills requires voice chat for more nuanced communication.

Portal 2 included a multiplayer mode, and as a puzzle game it needed a nuanced communication system that didn't require voice chat. So Valve got creative and invented the ping tool. Its a sort of point and click flagging tool. You point at the spot and select the flag: portal, stand, or button. This will stand out to your partner and draw there attention. Another good addition was a way of seeing in a little window exactly what your partner see's in live movement. While all these wouldn't work in FPS's were time is more of a factor, the ping tool and auto speak should definitely be looked into by other developers. Not everyone has voice chat, and for the foreseeable future some people still won't.

Pyromancer

Its time for some of that self indulgence I mentioned early.

I love playing as the pyro is Team Fortress. I have logged 75 hours as pyro since resetting my stats (that was a bad idea). I have EVERY SINGLE PYRO ACHIEVEMENT!!!! Yes, even Pyromancer, the one where you have to inflict 1 million points of fire damage. Its probably the hardest achievement to get because even if you cheat and use an achievement server it could still take you a few days(I did it legitimately over several months). I have every Pyros weapon, including the full polycount set, and I can safely say that I am an excellent pyro. Not the best, but I would enter that contest in a heart beat.

The pyro unfortunately doesn't get a lot of respect as a class. This is mostly due to the fact that beginner pyros can still kill and annoy skilled players occasionally. The pyro isn't like the spy, where newbies aren't going to get many kills, or like soldiers and demos, whose skilled players have a decidedly different play style than noobs. This causes people to treat all pyros has a cheap, no skill class which is not fair. The pyro requires lots of skill and a good one can actually reverse the flow of a battle.

Thankfully, pyros have one ability that requires skill to be useful with: the airblast. Using a puff of air, the pyro can reflect any non-bullet projectiles, extinguish flaming team mates, and push enemy players around. Even noobs can reflect long distance rockets, but it takes a lot more skill to surprise a soldier around a corner, light him on fire, and reflect his first rocket back into his face for a quick kill. I have, in my time, intentionally reflected every single reflectable projectile, most for a kill. I am most proud of the two times that I killed a demo with his own stickies. I am also very proud of this kill below.

Thats right, I reflected his arrow back into him, killed him and stuck him to the wall BY HIS FOOT!!!! LOL!!

*UPDATE*
From the TF2 Saxxy Awards comes a video showcasing a truly great pyro. I am not this good. All props go to the player.

COG: Animal Crossing: Wild World
Today was a good day. I caught a lot of rare bugs and fish today, including two Hammerhead sharks and three Goliath Beetles. Made lots of money. Also, today I found the golden slingshot in the sky and collected it. Nice day.

Key Binding

One of the games I have logged tons of hours on is Team Fortress 2. Normally not a huge fan of FPS, but this one is soooo nice. Online gaming is always a blast and the re-spawn system takes a lot of the stress out of the game. Logged at least 72 hours as a pyro (favorite class, more on that another day), but today I bound some key commands.

I don't play as an engineer all that often, but in a good solid match the thrill of building a forward sentry position is hard to beat. So today I bound the build commands for all the engineers buildings to the directional arrows [up teleporter exit; down tele entrance; left sentry; right dispenser]. Took me a little while to get the syntax right; online guides are infinitely helpful. I was just testing it, so I logged onto a server for a quick jaunt. I didn't have my mouse handy and had to use the track pad. Not the first time I've tried a real game with a track pad and I don't think I will every try it seriously. Still, I could tell that the time it took to build the structures was greatly shortened from using the PDA. I will see how it works with the mouse later this evening.

CURRENT OBSESSIVE GAME (COG): Animal Crossing: Wild World

Today was the flea market, so I didn't do much because you can't go into your own house for long during the flea market. Found the T-Rex skull in one of the fossils. Bought the forged painting insurance from Lyle; probably a scam, but I like to try everything. KK Slider comes this evening, wonder what song it will be?