On Friday, Valve updated the post on their Heavy Update page which listed the new achievements for everyone’s favorite minigun-wielding Team Fortress 2 class. This new update replaced all of the “Coming Soon” placeholders with actual descriptions of what the achievements would entail, thus drawing our speculation contest to a close. All told, roughly 50 of you chose to make predictions about our predictions, and a number of you even analyzed the achievements and made your own guesses. We had a good time, didn’t we? But, now the truth is known, and it’s time to declare a winner! Read on for our score, and, consequently, your score, and see who’ll be going home with a brand new Steam license for TF2!
Here are our scoring criteria. Each fully correct prediction is worth 1 point, for a total of 35 possible points. For this to be awarded, we had to be right about every last aspect of the achievement: The required task, the number of times it must be accomplished, the conditions under which it must occur, everything. We deducted fixed amounts from the points for each inaccuracy:
- Required task incorrect: Entire point is null. The rest of the predictions don’t really matter if we’re suggesting the number of times you’ll be doing the wrong thing.
- Number of tasks incorrect: .1 points deducted for near miss (5 vs 10), .25 points deducted for huge miss (5 vs 100).
- Conditions incorrect: .25 points deducted for near miss or obscure condition (the enemy has to be coming up behind you underwater), .5 points deducted for wildly different conditions which drastically alter how task will work (achieve task in single life).
So, let’s get started!
Iron Kurtain
Actual Achievement: Take 1000 points of damage in a single life.
Our Prediction: Take 15,000 points of damage from enemy fire over any number of lives.
Final Analysis: I suppose we ought to have guessed that. Any putz can take 15,000 damage; hell, you don’t even have to be at the keyboard to “achieve” that. Just leave something on the “W” key so you run out of the resupply room when you respawn, and go see a movie. Taking 1,000 damage without dying, however, that’s something to write home about. And also write to the doctor about. All we really got right was that you’d take damage. Final Score: 0.25
Spyalectical Materialism
Actual Achievement: Kill or assist in killing 10 cloaked spies.
Our Prediction: Kill 10 disguised spies.
Final Analysis: Mostly wrong, or totally wrong? As much credit as we’d like to take for the fact that we were right about there being 10 spies involved, I have to say we were dead wrong on this one. Killing a disguised spy is a completely different task than killing a cloaked one; the former involves shooting at your teammates once in a while, while the latter involves shooting everything everywhere and hoping for a hit. Also, we really should have picked up on the whole “materialism” thing as a hint for the “spies can materialize” thing. Final Score: 0
Party Loyalty
Actual Achievement: Kill 50 enemies within 3 seconds of them attacking your Medic.
Our Prediction: Get in the line of fire for 10 medics who are being shot.
Final Analysis: We happen to think it shows more loyalty to die for someone than to kill for someone, but it’s not up to us. And, as we noted earlier, we have to admit you’re not really achieving much by standing there and getting blasted to pieces. Final Score: 0
Permanent Revolution
Actual Achievement: Kill 5 enemies without spinning down your gun.
Our Prediction: Kill 10 enemies without spinning down your gun.
Final Analysis: Now we’re getting somewhere! We thought this one would be a little harder, but otherwise we pretty much nailed it. Final Score: 0.9
Division of Labor
Actual Achievement: Kill 20 enemies with a Medic assisting you, where neither of you die.
Our Prediction: Assist a Medic in getting 5 kills in one life.
Final Analysis: We got hosed. That Medic is totally using a needlegun in the icon, and the filename said “assist Medic,” not “Medic assist.” No fair. We were even right about the “one life” part. Too bad we predicted the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. Final Score: 0
Heavy Industry
Actual Achievement: Fire $200,000 worth of minigun rounds in a single life.
Our Prediction: Fire $1,000,000 worth of minigun rounds.
Final Analysis: We totally had this one; we even went into all the stuff about bullet value. We were wrong about the number, though, and $800K is a pretty wide margin of error. We’re not balancing the state budget here, this is gaming. This is a science. Final Score: 0.75
Red Oktoberfest
Actual Achievement: Earn a domination for a Medic who’s healing you.
Our Prediction: Earn a domination for a Medic who’s healing you by pairing up on all three kills.
Final Analysis: We took it a little too far, but otherwise, this one was easy. Honestly, we went further with it because it seemed too easy. These things happen. Final Score: 0.75
Communist Mani-Fisto
Actual Achievement: Kill an enemy with a critical punch.
Our Prediction: Kill 5 enemies with critical punches.
Final Analysis: There ought to be achievements which encourage more punching, dammit. Final Score: 0.9
Show Trial
Actual Achievement: Kill an enemy with a taunt.
Our Prediction: Kill an enemy with a taunt.
Final Analysis: Nailed it! Final Score: 1
Redistribution of Health
Actual Achievement: Heal 1000 damage with med-kits in a single life.
Our Prediction: Use 10 med-kits while at 50 health or less.
Final Analysis: Too many misses here. Single life — wrong. Needing to be at 50 health — wrong. All we really got right was the part about using med-kits at all. On the other hand, we did get that part right, so that’s something. Final Score: 0.25
Crime and Punishment
Actual Achievement: Kill 10 enemies carrying your intelligence.
Our Prediction: Kill 10 enemies carrying your intelligence.
Final Analysis: Nailed it! Final Score: 1
Rationing
Actual Achievement: Kill an enemy with your shotgun while you’re out of minigun ammo.
Our Prediction: Kill 50 enemies with your shotgun.
Final Analysis: This is simultaneously easier and harder than we thought. Between the flagrantly inaccurate number and the tricky “out of ammo” condition, this one will take more luck but a lot less grinding. Final Score: 0.5
Class Struggle
Actual Achievement: Work with a friendly Medic to kill an enemy Heavy & Medic pair.
Our Prediction: Kill a Medic and the enemy he’s healing, 10 times.
Final Analysis: We weren’t too far off on this one, number-wise, but bringing in a Medic to assist you, and requiring the fallen enemies to be a Medic and Heavy specifically, those we should have guessed. Final Score: 0.4
Vanguard Party
Actual Achievement: Be the first on your team to start capturing a control point in a round.
Our Prediction: Be the first on your team to start capturing any control point, and then be there for the capture, 3 times.
Final Analysis: Some people say we overthink our achievements. Maybe… (sniff) Maybe. Final Score: 0.65
Soviet Block
Actual Achievement: While invulnerable and on defense, block an invulnerable enemy Heavy’s movement.
Our Prediction: Block an invulnerable enemy Heavy’s movement until his invulnerability runs out.
Final Analysis: Now who’s overthinking achievements, huh, Valve? Who’s overthinking now?! Final Score: 0.75
Pushkin the Kart
Actual Achievement: Get 50 caps on payload maps.
Our Prediction: Get 100 caps on payload maps.
Final Analysis: 50 caps? You call that a “cap_grind?” Feh. Final Score: 0.9
Stalin the Kart
Actual Achievement: Block the enemy from moving the payload cart 25 times.
Our Prediction: Block the enemy from moving the payload cart for a total of 5 minutes.
Final Analysis: We got the task, obviously, but I think the fact that the numbers are totalled in completely different ways counts as a “large” error. I’m curious to see what constitutes one block of the cart, in practice — if you block the cart once and kill the enemy who was trying to push it, and then stay standing by the cart as a new enemy comes up and tries to push, is that one block or two? I guess we’ll find out. Final Score: 0.75
Marxman
Actual Achievement: Kill 10 enemies in mid-air with the minigun.
Our Prediction: Kill 25 rocket-jumping Soldiers and 25 bomb-jumping Demomen with the minigun.
Final Analysis: Our achievement was a little more on the ridiculous side, in retrospect. It’s hard enough to score mid-air kills on anybody at all without making you do it 50 times under exacting conditions. Final Score: 0.25
Supreme Soviet
Actual Achievement: Get ubered 50 times.
Our Prediction: Get ubered 100 times and score a kill during each uber.
Final Analysis: Sigh. We changed this one up so it wouldn’t seem like a Medic achievement, but I guess it’s a Medic achievement after all. At least we were close. Final Score: 0.65
Gorky Parked
Actual Achievement: Kill 25 enemies while you’re standing on a control point you own.
Our Prediction: Defend the same control point 10 times in one life.
Final Analysis: I’m sorry to say that this one is utterly wrong. Defending a control point does not require standing on it, and standing on a control point while killing doesn’t always count as defense. Plus, we got the number wrong, and the “one life” part wrong. Whoops. Final Score: 0
Factory Worker
Actual Achievement: Kill 20 enemies while being recharged by a dispenser.
Our Prediction: Kill 25 enemies while being recharged by a dispenser.
Final Analysis: So very close! I mean, you can still go ahead and kill those extra five enemies. I don’t think your team will mind. You can pretend our achievement was the real one; you’ll still get Valve’s one in the process. Final Score: 0.9
Purge
Actual Achievement: Kill 15 enemies capturing a control point you own.
Our Prediction: Kill 100 enemies capturing a control point, not necessarily one you own.
Final Analysis: Wow. We even went so far as to specify that you didn’t have to own the control point, so that’s a flagrant 0.5 deduction. The number’s pretty far off, too. Final Score: 0.25
Soviet Union
Actual Achievement: Get 25 enemy kills where you either assist or are assisted by another Heavy.
Our Prediction: Get 150 enemy kills where you either assist or are assisted by another Heavy.
Final Analysis: I’m quite pleased that we totally nailed the “assist OR be assisted” part of this achievement, because really — when two miniguns are firing, the actual kill award is going to be a total crap-shoot. But, I guess Valve has a different idea what constitutes a “grind” than we do. We like their idea better, frankly. Final Score: 0.75
Lenin A Hand
Actual Achievement: Help 5 teammates get revenge on their nemeses.
Our Prediction: Help 10 teammates get revenge on their nemeses.
Final Analysis: Pretty damn close, weren’t we? Well, that was an easy one. Final Score: 0.9
Own the Means of Production
Actual Achievement: Remove 20 stickybombs by killing the Demomen who produced them.
Our Prediction: Destroy 100 stickybombs with some hypothetical new weapon that will destroy stickybombs.
Final Analysis: Admit it — that would have been cool. Valve told us they were looking at fixing the Demoman imbalance, so we thought maybe we were on to something. We were not. Final Score: 0
Five Second Plan
Actual Achievement: Kill an enemy in the first 5 seconds after you exit a teleporter.
Our Prediction: Kill five enemies in the first 5 seconds after they exit a teleporter.
Final Analysis: We even took the time to specifically explain that we didn’t think it was the actual task. I don’t think you can get more wrong than that, can you? Final Score: 0
Krazy Ivan
Actual Achievement: Kill 100 enemies while both you and your victim are underwater.
Our Prediction: Kill 10 enemies while both you and your victim are underwater and your victim is approaching you from behind.
Final Analysis: You know what? When you run into an enemy underwater, turn around so he’s behind you for the briefest of moments. Then, when you kill him, you’ll know you did a real Krazy Ivan. At least we were half right. Final Score: 0.5
Photostroika
Actual Achievement: Provide an enemy with a freezecam shot of you taunting while invulnerable.
Our Prediction: Provide your enemies with a freezecam shot of each of your 3 taunts.
Final Analysis: Taunting while invulnerable! Now there’s a good use of an ubercharge. As fun as this achievement now sounds, I hope you don’t have to go through the whole taunt animation before you get it, ’cause if I were the one ubercharging you, I’d switch it to someone else the moment I saw you were stopping to taunt, and you’d probably die. I’m just saying. Oh, also, you now only have to do it once instead of our predicted 3, so that’s a small difference. Final Score: 0.65
Rasputin
Actual Achievement: In a single life, get shot, burned, bludgeoned, and receive explosive damage.
Our Prediction: In a single life, receive damage from all nine classes.
Final Analysis: In the words of 1fort’s Chris Livingston, “If only an enemy medic could poison a sandwich, they’d have all the bases covered.” I don’t think we were too far off on this one. At minimum, you’ve still got to be damaged by two classes, since the Pyro is the only one who can burn you, but the Pyro can’t do explosive damage. On the other hand, the ordeal we were suggesting was nearly impossible, especially if you happened to be up against a fairly homogeneous team. Ah, well. We suggested nine damages, and it turns out there’s 4. I don’t feel too bad in calling this one half right. Final Score: 0.5
Konspicuous Konsumption
Actual Achievement: Eat 100 sandviches.
Our Prediction: Eat 50 sandwiches.
Final Analysis: I told you!! You all scoffed at me! You said, “Pff. There’s not going to really be sandwiches. Food in TF2? Whatever. You’re so wrong.” But I was right! I told you there would be sandwiches, and, by God, that you would get this achievement for eating sandwiches. Well, how do you like me now, huh? Okay, okay, so, as of right now, there’s still no explanation of how or why the Heavy will eat sandwiches. Maybe it’s a gameplay mode, maybe not. But as for this achievement? The number’s off, but I freaking told you so. Final Score: 0.9
Icing on the Cake
Actual Achievement: Get 20 kills on players that you’re dominating.
Our Prediction: Dominate a player who is trying to eat your food.
Final Analysis: Yeah, maybe I didn’t tell you quite so much. Final Score: 0
Don’t Touch Sandvich
Actual Achievement: Kill 50 scouts using Natascha.
Our Prediction: Kill 20 Scouts who are trying to eat your sandwiches.
Final Analysis: I don’t feel quite so stupid about this one. We were right about the ability to eat sandwiches, so this wasn’t a completely unreasonable achievement — just a wrong one. Sadly, I don’t think “Kill Scouts” is enough to warrant us any portion of a point. Final Score: 0
Crock Block
Actual Achievement: Survive a direct hit from a critical rocket.
Our Prediction: Survive five direct hits from critical rockets.
Final Analysis: Pansy. You know you could take five hits if you were actually trying. Final Score: 0.9
Borscht Belt
Actual Achievement: Kill 10 heavies with The K.G.B.
Our Prediction: Kill 10 Heavies with the K.G.B. who are also using the K.G.B.
Final Analysis: I guess it’s never really fair to have achievements that are based on the enemy’s behavior. If the K.G.B. were to fall out of favor, it’d be pretty tough to get it, in our version. We nailed the number, though! Final Score: 0.75
Kollectivization
Actual Achievement: Get 1000 assists.
Our Prediction: Get 1000 assists.
Final Analysis: Nailed it! Final Score: 1
Final Totals:
- Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit: 0 pts * 8 = 0
- Fail Achievement is Fail: 0.25 pts * 4 = 1
- Lucky Guess: 0.4 pts * 1 = 0.4
- Yes and No: 0.5 pts * 3 = 1.5
- Nice predictions, John Edward: 0.65 pts * 3 = 1.95
- Achieve THIS: 0.75 pts * 6 = 4.5
- Close only counts in stickybombs: 0.9 pts * 7 = 6.3
- Nailed it: 1 pt * 3 = 3
Our grand total, for all 35 achievements: 18.65! Our thanks to everyone who entered the contest, but in the end, the prize can only go to one of you, and that someone is Cuppajoe, who guessed 19! Congratulations to you, sir — you may rejoice in your complimentary copy of TF2, knowing that your guess was the closest (Sorry, Crazydog), and the fastest (Sorry, Dialga). We will contact you shortly to arrange delivery of your prize.
To everyone else, thanks for reading/playing, and for submitting your own better-reasoned achievement speculations. We hope you’ve enjoyed our contest, and if you didn’t win, don’t worry — you’ve still got all week to enter the GameCyte Geometry Giveaway, going on right now for a free copy of Geometry Wars 2.
Das vedanya, comrades!
August 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Argh! I demand a consolation!
Anyway, this contest was rigged.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
dammit - I knew I should’ve guessed lower (21 here).
August 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Heavy update is here! I took a screenshot to prove it: http://flickr.com/photos/velvetfistironglove/2775675561/