I think the real point here is that IRC is so 2007, since nobody else seems to use it.

Just about all of my education sucked, to be honest; the best advice I've been able to give people who want to be successful is to learn _____ on your own time. I know everything I need for my job from spending countless hours learning on my own.

casual_cannons

Your filter or whatever to make the background blurry when you make the create popup blurs the popup text as well, making it all fuzzy and eye-bothery.

DDM is a pretty good measure of how well a combat class is doing. Sure, there are other factors involved, but the bottom line is how much damage people are doing. If you're doing less than 100, you're not hitting enough shots; if you're doing more than 300, you're probably playing really well - if you're a roamer or scout, it's really, really well.

If you then apply healing stats on top of those, you end up skewing the results. A pocket that does 300 DPM but takes up the majority of his team's heals will suddenly look like he's not doing well at all.

I could be wrong, but to me it just seems like there are too many factors to make this number mean very much, beyond which scout depends on heals more.

I'm not sure exactly how beneficial this is; it's certainly something I consider (dpm vs. % of heals taken), but it's also very difficult to measure consistently. A team with a strong pocket soldier is going to make the pocket look very inefficient, even if he's making very effective use of those heals (drawing aggro for his team, making room for his flank, etc.) that won't be reflected purely by damage. Similarly, a team that pockets their star demoman will look like their demo is weaker than most, because he receives a lot more heals than other demomen.

You could make the argument that these are just results of these players being too heal-heavy and inefficient, but that's not how the game really works. Roamers and scouts rely on buffs to deal damage, which aren't reflected in healing statistics; this means that they'll look incredibly efficient, because all of their non-buff health comes from health packs, inflating their ratio.

It's definitely something you can compare between similar classes and roles; two aggressive scouts will have similar heal patterns, and can be comparable (if both scouts take 1000 heals but one does twice the damage, it's pretty clear they're being more efficient), but context is hugely important.

There is no good ranking compared to the rest of TF2 players; if you feel like you can consistently outplay the majority of players you find in quick play matches, then chances are it's the right time for you to start trying to step up your game. The first thing you'll notice are the servers on the right: MGE servers are for 1v1 practice, and DM servers are just for running around killing things.

If you want to try your hand at a more organized team game, then you should head on over to TF2 Lobby and give it a go. There are two flavors of competitive TF2: 6v6 and Highlander (9v9). Most new players gravitate towards the latter, as it's closer to a "pub" environment.

Beyond that, just surf around the forums and ask questions about anything you want. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are, all that matters is that you want to have fun and get better.

Did you buy a license for VAC?

Why is everybody telling this guy what to do with his own project?

+1 for angularjs
-1 for the blog just being titles.

In addition, I've noticed that I can't move around if the STV is paused, but it works fine while playing.

Kyle if you dodge this BSG LAN you're confirmed.

I'm not understanding what would be considered "proof" here; between dodging every LAN (regardless of how for fun they are) and having an account that clearly used cheats (that was caught, doesn't mean the others are 100% legitimate), what else do you need to know before you think "yeah, this guy is kind of a scumbag and nobody should play with him."

Should we add on the fact that, while cheating in a lobby isn't the same as cheating in ESEA, it's cheating in an environment intended for newer players to learn the game and improve? What about the fact that this is an Invite player, someone who is supposed to be held to higher standards because of their elevated position?

Does none of that matter, then? What if his main account got VAC banned just for fooling around in lobbies? Does that mean it was all in good fun, and we shouldn't care?

Is he going to be considered a "clean" player until he finally goes to LAN and can't use his cheats? I'm just not seeing where the line is drawn.

vhalin's ban was also like a year old and back before he was even considered a great player when it was discovered, rather than being "around the same time he went invite".

Sorry let me clarify; we made a huge deal about it but then they kept playing anyway because teams apparently don't care if they play with known hackers.