It seems a lot of people are up in arms over the new Team Fortress 2 achievements. These 36 achievements are a lot more difficult than people were originally expecting. Normally I'd think people would just shrug it off, but since unlockable weapons are at stake, apparently this is a big deal. Or not.

Think about it. Why do you play Team Fortress 2? Is it to get the achievements? If so, then you're probably useless to the team. Who cares if you're trying to get 25 headshots? You suck as a sniper, so play something else! If you're everyone else, though, you probably play it because it's a FUN ONLINE GAME. It promotes teamwork over mouse-moving skills, it's balanced so that all 9 classes are useful but not overpowered, and it's going to be supported by Valve for a good while.

The new weapons, while interesting, are not game-unbalancing monsters. The new syringe gun heals you a bit when you hit a target--but it is impossible to get a critical hit. The new medigun, when ubercharged, gives an 100% chance to make a critical hit to whoever's being healed by the gun. This one is still unclear whether the person will be invincible also or not, but I'm willing to bet on the former. The latter would completely throw away the balance Valve worked hard to build. And the bonesaw adds percentage to ubercharge, but it's slower. And the fact is, the bonesaw isn't a weapon that a medic can use effectively in open spaces. It's a tool for taking out spies, enemy medics, and people who aren't paying attention. They give the medic more options, but they aren't a ticket to getting ahead.

Let me put it this way: only DEDICATED MEDICS will have a use for these.



According to Valve's own statistics, the medic is played about 11% of the time by all players on official Valve maps. It's certainly not the least played class, but it clearly not the most popular. 90% of the time people are playing classes that are not medic. That means 90% of the time, people should not give a crap whether or not they have access to the "critzcrieg." Even if a heavy is being zapped with it, they still need somebody healing them otherwise they'll be blasted away when they try to play Rambo.

There's really on two types of people who will get these: Cheaters and hardcore medics. The cheaters will of course, set up servers with their friends and play all the scenarios required to get the items. It won't be fun, it'll be work, and I'd be surprised if they can keep their friends' interest long enough to get all 36. Even if they get the items, then what? They can try to be an ubermedic until they find out that they actually suck as a medic anyway. And then there are the hardcore medics. They may still set up specialized scenarios, but probably less so than cheaters and in the end, they probably won't use these new weapons exclusively. Maybe they'd switch permanently to the new bonesaw, and maybe even the new syringe gun if they need health more often than crits. But the critzcrieg is not a replacement for the medigun, and the other two weapons have enough disadvantages to not be easy replacements.

Valve is not cheating you out of weapons. In fact, I think they did this smartly. They made the new weapons so hard to get that only the people who really really care will get them. I think this will prevent servers being flooded with medics because the fact is, that's a lot of time playing a class you aren't familiar with just to get a few new toys that you may not even use.

I'm even willing to bet that most cheaters won't bother. Only 3.3% of the TF2-playing world has gotten the "With friends like these..." achievement. You know, make a team of 8 with only people on your friends list? If they can't organize that, I'm willing to bet they can't organize a team to play for the weeks required to cheat and get all the achievements.*

Just play the game as whatever class you want. It's not like you're increasing your gamerscore.

*I'll admit, I didn't get it either, but then again I haven't played in TFTuesdays or FNF yet, and most of my real-life friends would rather play Dawn of War.