TF2 Goldrush

[eldaec]

I haven't seen a discussion on the new map / game-type.

For those who haven't played, this is the three part 'push teh cart from start to finish' game.

Plays almost like dustbowl only with each corner or chokepoint or ambush position along the route acting like a mini-control point. Though the slow moving cart means you have to fight each inch you gain even between the chokepoints, instead of having travel routes connect predictable standoff areas.

Good map for crap players like me right now, because the regulars haven't 'solved' the map yet. Probably suffers a bit in the short term because I'm not convinced it is a great map for medics (lots of health scattered around, and the cart acts as a dispenser), yet everyone is playing medic (though it might just be that the mass of jonny-come-lately medics are all shit). Seems good for Soldiers, Heavies, Snipers, Engineers (red only), and Spies (blue only), not so good for Pyros, Demos, Scouts.


Better than everything else except dustbowl and gravelpit imo. Huge advance on Badlands and fucking CTF Well.

[schild]

Better than everything else except dustbowl and gravelpit imo.

Ah, my favorite two maps. Everything else is trash. Including Gold Rush. Just because it's better than Badlands doesn't mean it's good.

[NiX]

Haven't played it. Medics are broken. Will play when game is less gay.

[Ookii]

I'm not a big fan myself, I think I'll just play a support class whenever I play it. 

Engineers are kind of key to it anyway.

[trias_e]

Demos and Engineers are godly, just like you'd expect.  Since everyone is a medic though, snipers and spies are pretty important right now to get through the medic/x combos.

Scouts are utterly useless.  : (

I'm not sure how balanced or fun it will be in the future...but for now I'm content playing it 24/7.  Not literally of course, I mean playing on servers which feature it 24/7.  Right.

(btw, wtf is wrong with badlands?  I think it's an excellent map.)

[Prospero]

That's wacky, my limited experience has been scouts are awesome defensively, and not too shabby on offense. A well placed sentry is definitely a pain, but there are so many routes that only scouts can get to easily. I've only played the map twice now, but the first time was fricking awesome and I was scout almost the entire time. The second time I was a spy, but we lost because of medic masturbation. I think I really like the map, but I need to play a few more times minus the masturbation.

[schild]

(btw, wtf is wrong with badlands?  I think it's an excellent map.)

It's unfun, claustrophobic feeling and a victim of design masturbation. It's a hodge podge of ideas that creates no cohesion and even worse, leaves you feeling like things are completely unbalanced due to fort placement. Not to mention that sort of thing was already done better with other maps. I like hydro more than Badlands and Hydro is a PIECE OF SHIT.

[HaemishM]

I'm digging Gold Rush. It's got some fantastic engineer sentry gun spots that take some serious pushes, good spies or luck to take out. I wouldn't say scouts are completely useless on it, but they have to be good or they are fodder.

[Triforcer]

Seems good for Soldiers, Heavies, Snipers, Engineers (red only), and Spies (blue only), not so good for Pyros, Demos, Scouts.


Better than everything else except dustbowl and gravelpit imo. Huge advance on Badlands and fucking CTF Well.

Agree that the map is awesome, disagree about spies.  As on every offense/defense map, spies are the most useful on defense.  This map is pure spy heaven when you are playing defense...few pyros, many ambush spots to hit and melt away after they take the first point, few scouts and pyros, and everyone is facing one way.  I finish first with ease 80% of the time (crap pubbie servers, of course) as a defensive spy on goldrush.

[KallDrexx]

ugh the second stage is ass

[kaid]

I have had good luck with every class but scouts on it. The problem for scouts is even with their x2 capping ability the cart just does not move that fast. This makes you worse than a sitting duck. Demo guys are insane on this map because they know darn well where the cart is moving and it moves slow so you can mine the living piss out of the track and have fun blowing people up. To move the cart I find I have the best luck as a hwg or a soldier so you actually have some hp to eat a few bombs if you huddle next to it and do it right you can avoid a lot of damage by using it to block line of sight from SG's and other attackers.

I had some fun last night we got onto the last map of it as the attackers and I found a way to get up into a building that over looks the cap point I never went into before. I managed to get about 8 headshots in about 40 seconds and we got the win before people even figured out where I was ganking them from. I am a horrible horrible sniper but that map has some pretty nasty sniper lookouts if you can get into position to use them.

[bhodi]

On defense, I've had best luck as an engineer. On offense, I'm a heavy that ducks in the front of the cart letting it push me along. The cart's regen plus a medic makes me real hard to take down.

[Samwise]

Has anyone done any tests yet to see how fast the cart moves if you have a whole team of scouts riding it?  Is there a cap?

[Ookii]

I think I've finally come to terms that I hate Goldrush, engie FTW!

[Fabricated]

Gold Rush isn't too bad IMO but fuck Badlands. What an AWFUL map design. Basically, they managed to design a map so bad that whatever team solidly loses the middle cap point first loses, horribly. There IS no coming back from getting your second point capped.

[Prospero]

If I recall correctly with cp maps the cap speed maxes out at 5 people( or 3 over the cap weight ), so it might be the same for the cart speed.

Scouts are crappy for moving the cart if it is under attack, but great for slowing down defenders and removing medics and snipers.

[Phildo]

I always liked running ahead as a scout and distracting respawning enemies while the rest of my team capped points.  Haven't had a chance to try it out much on Goldrush since I agree that medics are gay.

I did have some fun spamming pipe bombs over a building on one map, though.  Found that I could pretty much do so endlessly from a particular spot.

[KallDrexx]

Finally got a chance to play badlands for the first time.

Holy shit I can't believe valve made that crap 

[Musashi]

Goldrush is a great map.  It's an homage to THE Enemy Territory map.  It also does a good job reminding me of it's namesake.  Not in this version is the ability to blow up the cart, which in ET (it was a tank), engineers could fix and start moving again.  God that was a great map.

GET THE GOLD!!

[eldaec]

Playing some more, I'm finding that on the Red team I often get a 10 or 15:1 kill ratio playing engineer, but only because people still haven't completely worked the map out.

Playing blue, I usually go soldier, and rack up big points because all the good turret positions have somewhere a soldier can rocket them down from extreme range (or at least by being careful in how you approach) - so long as you know the map.

I expect the number of engineers to drop off as people understand the map better; soldiers and maybe demos will become more popular than they are now.

[HaemishM]

Snipers can rack up on this map as well, so long as they know which vantage point to snipe which area from. Considering there are at least 2-3 good areas to attack from on each of the maps, snipers can usually pick out the most vulnerable and start the headshotting.

[Phildo]

i got a ton of sweet headshots on heavies trying to push the cart.  It was pretty amusing.

[Johny Cee]

i got a ton of sweet headshots on heavies trying to push the cart.  It was pretty amusing.

Heavies with a medic on them feel pretty close to invulnerable when pushing the cart.  The cart is refilling your ammo,  so might as well just hold down the fire key and walk forward (making sure to pop anything that looks like a sniper as you go). 

This is very evident when the other side gets caught without anyone decent on demo to mine up a section of track.

[eldaec]

This is very evident when the other side gets caught without anyone decent on demo to mine up a section of track.

Heavies should really be able to deal with mines on the track by shooting them aside.

That said, it always surprises me how few people seem to realise you can push sticky bombs around by shooting them.

[Margalis]

I have Steam. Now what do I do? Buy TF2 and play with you guys?

I posted in the Steam community thread but no responses...

Is there some easy way to tell if my computer can even run TF2? I downloaded the BioShock demo and it ran like shit, but HL:2 ran great.

[Samwise]

If HL:2 ran good, TF2 should run good.  Also, don't just get TF2 on its own, get the Orange Box.  Trust me on this.

[Kail]

I have Steam. Now what do I do? Buy TF2 and play with you guys?

I posted in the Steam community thread but no responses...

Is there some easy way to tell if my computer can even run TF2? I downloaded the BioShock demo and it ran like shit, but HL:2 ran great.

I think you do have to buy TF2 to play it; should be a tab called "store" that will let you do it.  Probably going to be near the top of the "top sellers" sub-tab if you can't find it.  You can also get the Orange Box, which has TF2 as well as some extra stuff (like Portal and Half-Life 2) if you want it.

I'm not sure if there's a way to easily tell if your computer will run it; the official specs are:

Minimum: 1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection
Recommended: Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM, DirectX® 9 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

I'd think it would be more similar to HL2 than to Bioshock (it uses the HL2 engine) but I'm not positive.

[schild]

If you haven't played Portal, it's worth the entire cost of the Orange Box, imo. TF2 is just the best fucking maple bacon icing ever. It's mixed with angel wings for the heavenly drug effect. Crushed angel wings.

[Margalis]

I played the Demos for Portal and HL2 and they were pretty good so I got the Orange Box. I'm not a big fan of single-player FPS though, not sure if I'll actually play HL2. The Havok physics kind of annoy me in that a giant chest of drawers apparently has the same mass as a empty take-out carton.

[Samwise]

Try throwing them both at a bad guy.  You'll see a difference.   

[kaid]

God on the last map of the attacking goldrush map I found a hilarious place to snipe from. I managed to get into one of the buildings looking down into the enemy spawn area nobody was up there defending it. I got about 8 or 9 headshots in about 45 seconds until we got the win. I managed to chain slay all the opposing snipers I could see they were looking around for me but nobody was spotting me. I am a horrible sniper but that was gold right there.

[Ray]

Valve maps in order of bestness:

1) Well (CP)
2) Granary
3) Hydro
4) Badlands
4) Gravelpit
5) 2fort
6) ctf_well
7) Dustbowl
8) Goldrush


Goldrush is atrocious, it's like Valve took Dustbowl and said "Hey how can we enhance the horrible  flaws of this map?"

Where are you guys playing these days? I see Bhodi on the LC servers sometimes; they are really really high quality servers. I'd recommend for everyone to play on them if you are interested in improving your game experience (and skills, vs regular pubbie servers).

[bhodi]

Indeed. Lost Continent is where it's at; I stalk a few of you guys, Helm most recently, but the skill level of the players on the servers you guys play on is simply awful.

If you see me on and want to join, just bug me and I'll give you the password. It's like night and day, playing with people who know what they're doing.

[rattran]

Most of the servers are horrible and full of asshats. The good servers I've found are always full.

So I mainly play on servers full of 

[Etro]

Just to throw this in the works..

A decent custom map to try is pl_dbheights. Its a payload version of dustbowl.