Team Fortress 2 Stats Confirm Every Suspicion

Valve has released another round of stats, this one concerning all that Team Fortress 2 playing we've been doing. They have things broken out along a couple of different metrics, including lifespan, kills, assists, captures, and even just damage dealt. As Rock, Paper, Shotgun's commentary notes, the stats confirm every suspicion you've had about your fellow players. "Yes, there are more rushy-bastard Scouts than any other class. Yes, campy-bastard Snipers earn the most points. Yes, hitpointy-bastard Heavies get the most kills. Yes, hidey-bastard Engineers live longest. And so on. What's slightly odder is the breakdown of which side wins most frequently on each map. BLU has the edge in every killing field except Dustbowl and Gravelpit. Why? How? I thought we were all the same! Damn you for not being neater, demographics." We previously discussed Valve's stats release on Half-Life 2: Episode 2 .

Comments

Blue more likely to win

[ThePlague]

It doesn't surprise me that Blue wins more consistently than red. Red stands out more on most maps, thus giving the blue opponents a slight edge in spotting the enemy. You definitely see this same thing at play in Halo, and I would suspect it may be even more prevalent there due to the brightness of the colors.

Re:Blue more likely to win

[corsec67]

Hmm, then a game where the colors for the 2 sides was "clear" and "blaze orange" would be even more lopsided?

Re:Blue more likely to win

[Cheesey]

Yes, it's strange that they don't do that. They've made some maps symmetrical - why not also take the easier step of always making the enemies the same colour! It would also reduce the mistakes made by drunk players: "what team am I on again?"

I think America's Army did something like this. No matter what team you join, you're always an American fighting against the terrorists. (That way, America never loses, even when the insurgents win.)

Re:Blue more likely to win

[Hatta]

Or try playing nethack sometime. Those floating eyes are near impossible to see.

Re:Blue more likely to win

[vaderhelmet]

This was an option in Perfect Dark: Zero and IIRC Gears of War (long time since I played that). You could set "all enemies red/all teammates blue" / "team always blue/enemies normal" / "normal"

Whenever we'd play a game that used the new color schemes it threw people off and they complained like mad. Perhaps these innovative changes get pulled out of more popular titles because the majority of users aren't interested in change...

Though I know I would love to see it appear in Halo. (Red/Green colorblindness is oh-so-cool in Halo or COD where enemies are red on green grass. The radar in Halo is useless most times for me.)

Hilarious

[Bryansix]

I think it is hilarious that the most deaths in 2Fort are right at the spawn points.

Re:Hilarious

[ErMaC]

Something to remember about the 2fort death map...

The big red hot spot has 3 levels of height in play: there's the area right outside the spawn, the area below it just before the ramp room, and the area with health in the sewer pathway. All three occupy the same x,y coordinates on the map. I think this contributes to the heat of that particular spot. Would be interesting to see a vertical cross-section of that one area.

Re:Hilarious

[Ambiguous Coward]

I think you mis-read that map. The most deaths (the red spots) are just inside the entrance to each team's base, just before you head out the doors or wander into the courtyard. This is the largest choke-point both when a team is laying siege to your fort, and when you are doing the same to the enemy team.

There is a slightly higher density outside the spawns. This is probably because a *lot* of scouts run over the bridge cover and meet sentry guns covering the courtyard right there. The same is true for soldiers and demos, and the occasional lost spy. Alternately, that density is actually on the level *below* the spawn, which is the space just before the courtyard. Not many people like to go the alternate route, as it's a long straight hallway with no cover or escape. So, they go the other way, which makes for minor skirmishes in that one room.

If only they had this density map in 3 dimensions, we could tell what was *actually* going on. I have a hunch that the vast majority of those deaths are actually on the ground floor, rather than actually being outside the spawns.

What's *really* interesting is that the deaths at the main entrance occur on the same relative side. That is, it implies people tend to go in the right door when attacking, or possibly out the left when leaving. I have a hunch it's the former, since that leads to more deaths (people die more when attacking the enemy base, less when leaving their own). But, again, we're trapped in this 2D map. I believe the sewer-room is directly below that red splotch, which would also make for a higher count on the map even though the two locales are unrelated.

-G

OMG!

[Ambiguous Coward]

in regards to the bit about scouts, snipers, heavies, engies, etc...it's almost as if each class has certain strengths and weaknesses put in there intentionally! I know it sounds crazy, but maybe, just *maybe*, there's more of a difference to each class than the character model! WOW!

As far as the RvB thing goes, it's obvious. BLU is best. Also, maybe the red jackets of those Red Bread losers wear makes them stand out more? Just a thought, but I bet a bright red jacket against a concrete wall is an easier target to lock in on than a blue jacket against the same wall.

-G

Re:OMG!

[ctr2sprt]

in regards to the bit about scouts, snipers, heavies, engies, etc...it's almost as if each class has certain strengths and weaknesses put in there intentionally! I know it sounds crazy, but maybe, just *maybe*, there's more of a difference to each class than the character model! WOW!

I think it was more a commentary on the relative popularity of the classes than their strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you look at the full stats from Valve, you'll see that scouts are the most popular class, but also one of the least effective (fourth-worst in points gained, second-worst in kills earned). Looking at it from the other side, heavies are probably the most effective class overall, but they're the fourth-least popular class. Unsurprisingly to anyone who's ever played TF2, medics are the least popular class by a wide margin -- but they are also the entire reason that heavies are so good, and that's reflected in their scores (almost three times as many assists per hour as the next-highest class, and it's enough to make them get more points per hour than demos and engineers, and almost scouts!).

My only gripe about TF2 has nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with the players. I always end up being a medic because nobody else will do it. I don't get it. Medic is by far the easiest class to play. You'd expect the noobs to gravitate to it, just like they do in CS to the AWP (the easiest gun in the game, since it's the only one that shoots straight). Yet they choose probably the hardest class -- scout -- for some reason.

Anyway, it'd be great if these stats made people realize that all the classes are very special-purpose, and that it's retarded to have more than two or three of each class on any given team, no matter the situation. But that won't happen. So oh well, at least they have pretty pictures.

Re:OMG!

[AndrewHowe]

You don't go Scout to kill people, but for point capping and intelligence runs - which ought to score more points. Also I'd say that the Spy is by far the hardest class to play, not the Scout.

My own observations

[stewbee]

The fact that heavies have the most kills could be misleading. How many of those kills were while the heavy was being healed simultaneously by a medic? A heavy does have real killing power, but because he is so slow he is easily killed by pretty much anyone outside of his rain o'bullets. Also, I usually see a good spy or soldier consistently at the top of the leader boards when I play. This could just be an artifact of the server that I frequent though.

Re:Blue, definitely

[eln]

The reason is obvious: the game designers are part of the great liberal conspiracy. Sure, right now it's just "blue always wins," but the next thing you know Hillary's in the White House and we're all paying 95% tax rates for substandard health care and rising up against the proletariat.

Every Suspicion?

[Skevin]

Slashdot headlines are getting worse and worse, if not for the sake of sensationalism. So, Team Fortress 2 confirms:

- Elvis is alive
- Area 51 experiments
- JFK's *real* assassins
- The existence of the Illuminati
- Pharmaceutical conspiracies
- Chupacabras
- ECHELON-style monitoring

Sorry, Team Fortress Developers, Deus Ex beat you to the punch 5 years ago!

Solomon

Demoman not in there?

[fuo]

I'm surprised the demoman isn't in there for most points, or kills. When I finally got around to trying this class (after 2-3 weeks playing scouts and soldiers primarily) I racked up more points/kills in 30 minutes than I did with any other class in the previous weeks. All I did was sticky-bomb high-traffic areas and blow people up when they walked by... came to point where someone bothered to note how little skill I had (and I didn't argue, it felt cheap and I got bored with it after an hour or so).

Re:Demoman not in there?

[Ambiguous Coward]

I bet your circumstances helped out there. More likely than not, you were either A) playing against a poorly-functioning team, B) playing with a very well-functioning team, or C) both A and B. If you were playing against a well-functioning team, they would have forcibly removed you from those high-traffic areas, and not allowed you to regain entry. If you were playing with a poorly-functioning team, you would not have been able to fool about camping hallways and such.

Any tactic that works for "an hour or so" just screams that one of the above situations it the case. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the truth is, there is more or less a response class for every class you can play. If you keep sticky-bombing a hallway, I sneak around as a spy and end your reign. If you keep sneaking around as a spy and ending people's reigns, I burn your face off as a pyro. If you keep burning my face off as a pyro, I mow you down as a heavy. If you keep mowing me down as a heavy, I drop a couple rockets near your feet. The list goes on. More or less, every class has at least one or two classes that can effectively respond to it. Since you apparently did not encounter the demo response classes for so long, there was something seriously wrong with your opposition. :)

Still, sticky-camping can be amusing for a little while. :)

-G

Rebalance Dustbowl?

[RichPowers]

According to the stats, Red successfully defends Dustbowl some 71% of the time. While I expect the defenders to win slightly more than the attackers, this percentage indicates that's something wrong with the map balance. Dustbowl is also ranked fourth based on time played (ahead of Well and Granary). This might not have anything to do with Red's skewed win/loss ratio, but it's worth pointing out.

(I've been playing Dustbowl since 2000 and it's the only reason I give a damn about TF, in case you're wondering.)

A mediocre Red team still has a decent chance of winning; a mediocre Blu team doesn't. Furthermore, a good player can still have fun on Red even if his teammates are idiots. Not so on Blu, where the entire team must work together to gain ground. Try advancing through the "death corridor" on stage 3 as your four offense engies refuse to switch to a more useful class or move their gear up. (As a side note, I've noticed that as more Blu players switch to engineer, the odds of Blu losing increase exponentially.)

To be sure, I've played some fantastic rounds on team Blu, but I often find myself server hopping to avoid wasting my time as an attacker doomed to defeat (hey, I don't have much gaming time these days and I'm not going to squander it getting raped.)

This trend is the reverse of what I saw in TFC: Blue would win the majority of matches thanks to skilled players pipe/nade jumping the flag into the cap, bypassing the entire defending team. In TF2, one player can't jump across half the map and save the day. In other words, there's a greater emphasis on teamwork.

One of my suggestions: redesign the first capture point on stage 3. Maybe narrow the bunker to give Blu a wider area to navigate and reduce the potency of Red demos. Any other Dbowl players think the map needs tweaking to even the odds, or is this simply due to offense requiring more coordinated teamwork, something in scarce supply on pub servers?

Re:Rebalance Dustbowl?

[ErMaC]

I play almost exclusively on 24/7 dustbowl servers, and I actually think the map is properly balanced. The problem comes from yes, you need more teamwork on offense and on public servers this is generally in short supply. However, I will say that "more teamwork" can come down to just 2 people, a medic and a demoman. You complain about those two parts in dustbowl pt3 being impossible to break. No matter how great the defense, it's pretty easy to just pick it apart completely with an uber demo. I've popped 4 sentries in a single uber in the first cap point in part 3, and then my whole team just rushes past and destroys the remaining defense. It just takes slightly better planning and communication.

I think the other problem is stupid instant-respawn servers. These totally unbalance the map in favor of red. I no longer play on any server like that, regardless of map, but it pretty severely impacts the two pure attack/defend maps, gravelpit and dustbowl, and I think this is reflected in the stats since those are the only two maps skewed in Red's favor.

Yes, I know it sucks to sit there for 15 seconds waiting to respawn when you're defending. But guess what? The other team has to travel the whole map to get to the cap point, whereas you spawn there. Instaspawn breaks the map.

Re:Blue, definitely

[Brian Gordon]

Hydro's not at all symmetrical, so that's understandable. Red's final CP is ridiculously easy to cap, while blue can hold out for a long time in their little basement bunker. Granary and 2fort are so close to 50% to be irrelevant, but I'm very interested about the Well statistic. That map is completely symmetrical, except for a lot of the theming and coloring in each sprawling base.. could there be a psychological effect? Also those kill-density maps are nonsense, there's no way that more snipers get killed on the tower platform in dustbowl stage 1 than blues die taking the upper hallway.

Ahem

[Bugsquash]

I for one would like to welcome our new Blue overlords...

Red shirts

[Per Abrahamsen]

Of course the red team die first, it is an established scientific fact that wearing red shirts significantly shortens your life expectancy.

Re:Blue, definitely

[saxoholic]

Or, you could just change wikipedia so the definitions are swapped. Then you would have been right in the first place.