LRRCraft presents: LRR Dedicated TF2 Server

[Lyinginbedmon]

That's among the reasons I don't like airblast, but yes.

Right along with "the same amount of ammo douses teammates harmlessly but propels enemies off a cliff"

[theDreamer]

But a man using rockets or stickybombs to launch himself through the air is perfectly fine.

As is the ability to double jump?

Don't get me started on the medi-gun, sentries, teleporters, dispensers, points, invisibility watches, charge'n'targe, blutsauger, medic crossbow...

Get the idea?

[Slack Mesa]

That's among the reasons I don't like airblast, but yes.

Right along with "the same amount of ammo douses teammates harmlessly but propels enemies off a cliff"

That latter part is just simple physics.

Get a pair of polarized sunglasses and hold them in front of an LCD display. The light flows right through, producing a cool breeze that makes your glasses smell minty fresh.

Now rotate the sunglasses 90 degrees. Now the light is blocked. It bounces right off the lenses and falls off a cliff.

Airblast works exactly the same way.

Funding for this educational outreach program was provided by a grant from the Slack Mesa Research Facility. Slack Mesa: Bringing Simplicity to Science.

[Vigafre]

I thought flamethrowers used liquid gas, not vaporous gas.

[auberginequeen]

Both liquid and vapor-based flamethrowers exist. Pyro's is most likely vapor-based.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't think Pyro's airblast can be from his fuel tank. When you airblast, the flame on the side which ignites the stream doesn't go out.

What would prevent airblasting with the flammable gas from yielding a stream of fire like normal?

[Lyinginbedmon]

Cartoon logic, methinks, because if he's still using any kind of flammable fuel (which is most likely since it still drains his ammo), it should produce a torrent of flame if the pilot light doesn't go out.

[auberginequeen]

Well, ultimately, ignoring the whole "blow-around-enemies-but-extinguish-teammates" thing, Pyro's airblast really shouldn't drain ammo.

But of course that would be extremely OP if there was no downside to airblasting, so... video game logic.

[Master Gunner]

A thick enough pocket of fuel wouldn't ignite, as it needs a particular fuel/oxygen ratio. Of course, such a blast should also extinguish the pilot light, at least temporarily.

[Slack Mesa]

The fuel cloaks before it passes the pilot light and uncloaks afterward. The uncloaking takes a second, which is the only reason why enemies are sometimes able to slay me despite my unstoppable W+M2 skills.

[JayBlanc]

As is the ability to double jump?

Scout just loves his Boston Beans, that's all...

[Lyinginbedmon]

But a man using rockets or stickybombs to launch himself through the air is perfectly fine.

As is the ability to double jump?

Don't get me started on the medi-gun, sentries, teleporters, dispensers, points, invisibility watches, charge'n'targe, blutsauger, medic crossbow...

Get the idea?

None of those allow you to re-arrange the enemy positions like chess-pieces.

[theDreamer]

Right along with "the same amount of ammo douses teammates harmlessly but propels enemies off a cliff"

So that being illogical is bad, but blu bullets and explosions passing harmlessly through blu players(except the originator, obviously) while slaying red players (and vice versa) to death is perfectly fine?

Or the medic crossbow, somehow able to heal allies, but hurt enemies?

And I remind you, all of this takes the same amount of ammo to make no sense, too.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Bullets (the type of munition) still affects players the same way, and there are servers that include friendly-fire, and admittedly yes the medic crossbow is strange but I suppose that much we can handwave as being an homage to a classic fantasy trope, but the airblast affects players of different teams in diametrically-opposed manners (one team is rocketted in the opposing direction, the other team ceases to be on fire, and both can be done with one shot in short order).

There's no reason for this, nothing about it is at all in line with the thematic of the class itself, it's just a wierd and unbalanced thing that Valve apparently thought would be a neat idea to add to the default flamethrower and then, apparently, thought afterwards would be good on every flamethrower.

[asrz]

It's not even the only thing to move around enemy players, though. The most effective, sure, but the force-a-nature, sentries and any explosions move you around too.

Also, where oh where has the server gone?

[Lyinginbedmon]

We're sort of camping out on the Anarchy server, but if you put out a call to some LRRites on Steam things tend to spontaneously organise more or less.

[auberginequeen]

As much as I enjoy airblasting Lying off things (I just like to antagonize friends/good acquaintances) I honestly appreciate airblast the most for its extinguishing capabilities.

I'd probably be okay if enemies stopped being sent aloft by airblast and it just didn't do anything to them. I'd prefer to keep rocket reflecting just because I find that it's often hard to defend against soldiers and without the few rocket reflects I can manage, I would lose almost every close-quarters encounter. And I don't think anyone here objects to sticky-clearing.

But for someone who mainly plays pyro ... airblast often pisses me off too. As a backburner pyro I can't afford to airblast very often, and it's frustrating to be kept in the air almost indefinitely by someone using a different flamethrower. I also hate being airblasted off cliffs, Lying, and I can get where you're coming from. It feels cheap.

But on the other hand ... that's the way the game is, and there would be significant backlash if airblast was modified to remove capabilities. Perhaps you can disagree with its introduction on principle, but I don't think anything will ever come of this argument.

[asrz]

I was aware actually that we're on the Anarchy server now, but it's disappeared from my favourites; has it gone down or has tf.lrrcraft.com just stopped pointing there? I suppose that's probably a question for Fugiman though.

[Jamfalcon]

I had the same problem yesterday, I assumed it was just down for a patch or something, but I just checked again and it still isn't showing up for me either.

[Darkobra]

Was there a recent TF2 update? I can see if we can get the server restarted.

[Keab42]

As much as I enjoy airblasting Lying off things (I just like to antagonize friends/good acquaintances) I honestly appreciate airblast the most for its extinguishing capabilities.

I'd probably be okay if enemies stopped being sent aloft by airblast and it just didn't do anything to them. I'd prefer to keep rocket reflecting just because I find that it's often hard to defend against soldiers and without the few rocket reflects I can manage, I would lose almost every close-quarters encounter. And I don't think anyone here objects to sticky-clearing.

But for someone who mainly plays pyro ... airblast often pisses me off too. As a backburner pyro I can't afford to airblast very often, and it's frustrating to be kept in the air almost indefinitely by someone using a different flamethrower. I also hate being airblasted off cliffs, Lying, and I can get where you're coming from. It feels cheap.

But on the other hand ... that's the way the game is, and there would be significant backlash if airblast was modified to remove capabilities. Perhaps you can disagree with its introduction on principle, but I don't think anything will ever come of this argument.

I don't mind being knocked back or off things, but Airblast juggling is a complete PITA.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Whilst it's not a position I would entirely agree with, you can't really have it both ways (allowing blasting off of areas but disabling juggling) because they're both applications of the same effect plus in-game gravity.

Changing gravity would directly and adversely affect gameplay pretty much across the board, so you're left with changing the airblast itself.

A cooldown of somesort perhaps would work, but then it wouldn't surprise me to see two or more pyros running around in packs to juggle people around.

Also, [A]narchy is back up according to my view from the steam server browser.

[Lyinginbedmon]

My rage against airblast is momentarily knocked to second place, first place now taken by duos of Dead Ringer Ambassador Spycicle Spies, aka the undying headshotting flame-retardant instakillers that decided to spawncamp me tonight.

Two of them together was horrific. Even for one, if I'd gone Pyro he'd have gone flame retardant or just headshot me, if I'd gone Sniper he'd have headshot me or survived the initial shot and snuck behind me, as a rocketjump soldier I was ruined.

[Darkobra]

I faced one as a pyro. He still takes damage from fire, you can still hear where he is but he doesn't get set on fire for 3 seconds, which is really not a lot of time at all. On the fourth second, he's back in flames and not really able to do much.

Spycicle really disappointed me.

[Keab42]

you can't really have it both ways (allowing blasting off of areas but disabling juggling) because they're both applications of the same effect plus in-game gravity..

I Know. TBH just being able to repel rockets and move stickies would be good enough for me. Don't forget I'm a long-range Pyro so I don't use airblast all that often.

[theDreamer]

Most pyros don't airblast beyond lifesaving.

I mostly use the normal one specifically so I can airblast, and I almost never airblast people.

I just like to be credit to team, and to not die to rockets.