The Domer wrote:Lesser Known Facts, Tips, and Game Mechanics
Healing Ramp: Healing in TF2 is not static. It's variable depending on how long it's been since the healing target last took damage. The base minimum healing rate is 24 HP/s. Targets who have been damaged recently (within 10 seconds), or are being healed by multiple targets (e.g., two medics, a medic and the payload cart, a medic and a dispenser) are healed at this rate. If the last time your healing target took damage was between 10-15 seconds ago, his health is recovered at 48 HP/s. Finally, targets who last took damage over 15 seconds ago are healed at the max rate of 72 HP/s. This last rate is often referred to as "crit heals" due to how fast the target's health is recovered. Interestingly, this healing ramp was added into the game because during early testing, the developers found that people were killing themselves rather than retreating for heals, because it was faster than waiting to be healed!
Ubercharge Rate: Like healing, the rate at which your ubercharge fills up is not static. Targets who have less than 142.5% of their maximum health build your uber at the max rate. Only healing targets who fall into this category would result in you getting your uber in only 40 seconds. Targets with more than 142.5% of their maximum health half the rate at which your uber builds. Healing only these targets results in you gaining your uber in 80 seconds. Finally, if you are healing a target who has more than 142.5% of their maximum health and is being healed by a second source (such as a second medic, a dispenser, or a payload cart), your uber rate is halved again. Healing only these targets results in your uber taking 160 seconds to charge. As you can see, it's most beneficial to be healing targets who have low health. Sitting on one target who is overhealed is dramatically slowing your ubercharge rate down, and double healing a target is really killing your charge rate. Obviously, it's better to heal a target already being healed than to heal no target at all, but try to spread the love around.
The Kritzkreig and Quick-Fix build their charge 25% faster. The Quick-Fix in particular will likely always be building at max rate since it does not grant overheals.
The Vaccinator does not have variable ubercharge build rates. It always takes exactly 26.67 seconds to generate an uber, regardless of who you are healing.
During set-up time, all medi-guns heal at max rate regardless of the healing target.
The Ubersaw adds 25% to your charge for each successful strike on an opponent. For a number of reasons, including wonky melee detection and general smart play, I do not ever recommend the medic attacks an opponent unless he is completely alone and likely to die (even in such a situation dying may be preferable, as it leads to quicker respawn and thus your next uber is sooner), or he is alone with a bonked scout (as a bonked scout still generates charge when struck and cannot attack back).
Uber sharing: An uber by default lasts 8 seconds, with the ubercharge meter draining at a rate of 12.5% per second when given to only one person. However, the medic can freely share his Uber with as many targets as he would like, though each successive target increases the ubercharge drain rate by 50%. The ubercharge has a decay time of 1 second. So, even if you briefly flash your uber to another heal target, he will receive a full second of invulnerability. This can be very useful to save someone without causing your ubercharge to drain too quickly.
Capturing Objectives
Control Points: Control points capture in differing times, so I'll instead talk about capture rates. As a general rule, the middle point caps the slowest, while the first/fifth control points cap the quickest. Having multiple people capturing a point increases the rate at which it caps; however, the rate at which control points are captured exponentially decays. As an illustration, the first person capping causes it to capture at 100% rate. The second increases this to 150%, the third to 183%, the fourth to 208%, and so forth all the way to the 24th person, which would cause the point to capture at 377% its base rate. Because of this decay, it's generally unwise to ever have more than 4x capturing the point. The decay rate of the capture (i.e., the rate at which time on a point comes off for an incomplete capture) is inversely proportional to its base capture time, such that the quicker the point would capture, the slower the time on the point comes off.
Payload Carts: The payload moves forward when BLU team members are touching it. Unlike control points, the payload's movement speed is capped at 3x. Having 3x grants you 100% movment speed, 2x grants you 77% movement speed, and 1x grants you 55% movement speed. When it rolls backwards, it moves at 10% movement speed. Because of this, you generally want to have a scout and one other person (engineer or sniper is typical) move the cart while the rest of the team pushes ahead of it, preventing RED from setting up defenses. Employing this tactic can result in a good team capturing the final point on Badwater Basin in under 6 minutes.
It takes 30 seconds of not touching the cart before it starts to roll back. 5 seconds are granted as "overtime" when the round timer ends, though touching the cart resets the 5 second timer.
Don't forget, the payload cart acts as a level 1 dispenser, granting health and ammo to those moving it (as well as to enemy spies disguised as BLU).
On Frontier, the payload is replaced with a train engine known as "Lil' Chew Chew." To move it, one must stand on the platform behind the engine. Touching the mouth of Lil' Chew Chew will damage the player, increasing depending on the current capture rate of the cart (3x is instant death).
Fun trivia! The payload cart is designed to look like a "Fat Man" plutonium atomic bomb, like the one used on Nagasaki during WW2.
Intelligence: There are a few things to note regarding carrying the intelligence. Carriers cannot take teleporters or be ubercharged while they are holding the intelligence. Soldiers and demomen using either the rocket jumper or sticky jumper cannot pick up the intelligence. Spies cannot pick up the intelligence when cloaked, and will instantly lose their disguise if the intelligence is picked up while using one. Scouts cannot use Bonk! while carrying the intelligence, nor can the pick it up while under Bonk!'s influence. The intelligence takes 60 seconds to reset once dropped, whether by the player's death or by manually dropping it (default bound to L). If the intelligence carrier dies by certain environmental hazards (such as the bottomless pits found on doublecross), the intelligence is automatically reset back to its original position.
Players carrying the intelligence are visible to their teammates via a green, yellow, or red glow (based on their current health) that can be seen through walls.
Damage: The main thing I want to discuss in this section is the way damage is calculated, especially with regards to how fall-off and ramp-up works. It's a bit of a confusing, and more technical, mechanic. In the simplest of terms, damage is calculated as follows: (base damage) X (distance and randomness) X (resistance) X (splash damage modifier). I'll go through each segment of that equation now.
Base Damage: The base damage is simply that of the weapon. For instance, a rocket launcher has a base damage of 90. Where you hit the target does not effect damage, except in the case of weapons that deal critical hits on headshots.
Distance and randomness: This is the most complicated part. In the simplest terms, the closer you are to the target, the more damage you'll deal. The base value is determined at 512 Hammer Units (hammer units are the measurment unit in TF2). Being furthur than that from a target incurs damage fall-off down to a potential 50%, while being closer results in damage ramp-up to a potential 150%. Some weapons have a modified ramp-up, which actually limit their maximum ramp to 120%, while maintaining the fall-off. Those weapons are the Rocket Launcher, Sticky Bomb Launcher, and all Syringe Guns. Scatterguns have an increased ramp-up, allowing for a potential 175% damage boost. Moreover, the distance modifier for projectile weapons is calculated based on the distance between the attacker and target at the moment the projectile hits the target, not from the distance when the shot is fired. Finally, unless it's been disabled in server settings, there is a randomness variable of approximately 30% (85% - 115%).
Resistance: Resistances and vulnerabilities affect how much damage you might take. Multiple resistances and vulnerabilities stack multiplicatively.
Splash: Splash damage is damage dealt to a target caught within the explosive radius but not struck directly by the target. Unfortunately Valve has not release stats for splash damage, but know generally that the further from the explosion the target is, the less damage it will take.
Hit Detection: Hit detection is easily the most complained about, but simultaneously the least understood aspect of the game. I hope this section can illuminate this important mechanic. There are two types of weapons: Projectile and Hitscan. In general, bullet producing and melee weapons are hitscan, while everything else is projectile. Projectile weapons and melee weapons both use a generic large hitbox that completely encompasses the target (the same hitbox used for player collision). Hitscan weapons rely on fairly accurate hitboxes that more closely conform to the player model. Let's go over each in turn.
Projectile: Projectile weapon damage is determined server-side. This makes them particularly unreliable for players with high latency. Remember, what you are seeing is your client-side info, which is different from what everyone else is seeing on their client-side, which is further different from what is actually happening server-side. The lower your ping, the more accurate your client is to what is actually happening server-side. Projectiles are not affected by player physics.
Hitscan: Bullet weapons and melee weapon damage is calculated client-side. They are calculated instantly as either hit or miss (i.e. you don't wait for the bullet to travel the distance, it happens instantly in TF2). Because this damage is occurring client-side, weird things can happen that make it look like you were safe from damage but you still get hit. This is the reason why headshots can appear to miss yet still connect. More importantly, THIS IS HOW FACESTABS WORK. There is no magic trick to facestabbing, it's all an illusion that occurs because of latency differentials. Please consider watching
this brief video by Stabby Stabby explaining in great detail precisely how facestabs and failstabs work. It's a great video, and the mechanics explained are true for all hitscan weapons, of which the spy knife is one.
Critical Hits: Obviously, most of this section assumes you are playing on a server with critical hits enabled. Critical hits always deal 300% of the base damage of the weapon, and do not suffer from damage fall-off. Melee weapons have a base 15% chance of becoming critical, while other weapons have a 2% base chance. This chance scales up depending on the amount of damage dealt within the last 20 seconds. The maximum rate is conferred if you have dealt 800 points of damage within the last 20 seconds. Having done so grants you a maximum 12% chance of a critical with non-melee weapons, and a maximum of 65% chance with melee weapons.
