How Health & Ammo Kits Shape TF2's Gameplay 

Engineer mains staring at their dead teammates (there is a medium ammo pack next to them)

11:06 "Ass Eater 3000"

You have Dustbowl's second stage with four large health packs within a hundred yards of each other, and then you have Dustbowl's third stage where the first point has a single small health pack to take care of basically the entirety of Red team. It's no wonder I've literally never seen Red win by holding that point.

I love videos devoted entirely to an exceedingly niche topic nobody cares about. Nice work!

Let's make a map with a movable dispenser, and to win you have to move that dispenser to the last point of the map. I bet everyone would be right on top of that.

The enemies I stab are my favorite health kit.

props to you for not only finding a new subject to talk about in this old game, but also making it a genuinely interesting analysis into an aspect of map design!

Oh man i adore this. 4k hours on this game and I implicitly knew some of this, but i've never bothered to really analyse it. And it really makes me think. A less impactful but still interesting addition to this is how health effects mobility classes, especially rocket jumping. With the gunboats especially, areas that for most would be out of the way become important pockets of both safety and vulnerability. The example i'm specifically thinking of is the medium health way off in the corner of badwater's second point. It's so out of the way that i feel like it's practically ignored by most classes. But for blast jumping classes it becomes a valueble tool, either to set up jumping to that upper area to take on engineers and on defense to push into/escape from Blu's lobby. But then also spy benefits because not only is the yard now larger in general, but it's both a target (knowing low health soldiers and demos semi-regulary jump there) and also a healthpack that is generally safe to be uncloaked and undisguised at. Anyways thank you for indulging my own little off the cuff analysis, and thank you for the video! Great stuff!

Another amazing thing about the placement of medkits and ammo packs on the central point of Lakeside is that the big medkit and the big ammo pack are placed on the opposide sides of the map away from each other which makes it impossible to comfortably camp them both.

Tf2's Medkits placements always felt natural and meant to be taken Back in 2016, my biggest gripe with Overwatch was the medkit placements, because in most cases the medkits are in places you'd never go to in a fast paced gameplay of Overwatch. They always felt too far away and not worth your time to take them

Aw Yeah, new Durrbill. Always glad to see a new upload from you.

2fort players: "da fucc is a Health Pack?"

Another way I thought of is how health kits and ammo kits can be used strategically against your enemies. Think about it: A spy cloaks away, and you can predict that the spy will most likely run to the nearest health and ammo kits. However, the spy can also fool you and lead you to the kits while they are able to make a getaway, allowing skill and map knowledge to also be a factor. It isn't even just spy, any other class can be predicted to run to a health or ammo kit, which you can use to strategically change how you fight.

Scout mains on their way to pick up the full health kit: (they're on 124 hp)

The medium health pack in the small side room before the point in Lakeside that you briefly showed is also an interesting placement which demonstrates the mapmaker's awareness of how important it is. That pack is essential for maintaining a push onto the point, or on the flipside clearing that area out... but it's in a confined dead end that you have to commit to going to get, broadcasting to everyone else that you're low. It's therefore a risk to collect that you actually have to think about, rather than brainlessly run over. In both Lakeside cases, you feel the mapmaker actually designed the map itself around those health packs, which isn't something you normally see, and it's great.

The vacation spot clip in the intro oh god

It was cool learning about how much other players are incentivized by picking up health & ammo kits, it definitely explains why so many players in Casual Mode need to be directly influenced to push otherwise. Great video as always.

insane how tf2bers still find new and interesting topics to talk about. unless someone already did a video on this. in which case i will ignore it and pretend this is the first

I recommend researching the packs in Quake, it has a greater variety, and affects the way the game is played at higher levels, Halo also has something similar, but related to weapons, cod zombies also has it. It would be cool to see different types of packs in TF2, even if it was just a more experimental map.

Super interesting video. Never thought about it this much. Something I noticed for myself is that I dont really like 2fort, one of the most popular maps, and not because its super choky and boring, but because it lacks health kits. Like you have 2 medium hp kits on each side which are far from the main battlegrounds, and then the rest are just small ones far apart. That kinda makes it not fun to play as a deathmatch map (which many people use it as). On the contrary, I enjoy dustbowl, which is as shitty balancing wise but at least has more hp packs. And hightower, I absolutely love as a deathmatch map, not only because its more open, but because its littered with health packs and ammo kits, so youre never out of the fight for long. And as you said in the video, the way theyre placed on this map creates really interesting gameplay situations. The hp packs there are often in small daed end rooms, where people who go for them can easily be punished for it (whether thats a good thing i dont know but its certainly fun).

babe wake up new durrbill video

You always have such clean, informative, interesting videos! This one was fascinating.

very good video and i unironically felt myself improve at the game just by watching it. learning about pickup theory helps one know where people want to be in certain areas and why, which does help in one knowing how to exploit that better (which areas are good to hold/linger in, where enemies want to be, etc.)

nice vid durr william, i enjoyed it

this is a very interesting look at something ive never really thought about before. great video! :)

i’ll admit i was a bit dubious on watching this given the niche, seemingly unimportant, subject that i wrongly assumed i had a grasp on already but this vid rly opened up my eyes! thanks a bunch!

1:40 That's because the packs in the 2Fort sewer were originally the only pick ups in the map. They existed before it was standard to mark pick up spawns. The other pickups were added in an update some time later.

One of the biggest brain plays I’ve ever done was air blasting an injured heavy away from a medium health pack. I still think about it.

knowing healthpack locations is huge to improving your survivability as a tf2 player. knowing where the nearest source of health is and how far away it is is massive for knowing when to hold and when to fall back. newer players will often fight until they die, only grabbing healthpacks they see in front of them. comparatively, if you know where a healthpack is, you can hold a strategic position with confidence of a healthpack when you fall back. beefy classes like heavy or soldiers can nearly have a second life with how much health that packs can return to them. when it comes to holding an area, a healthpack acts somewhat as like a cushion or a buffer for the area. it slows things down, makes it safer, and requires more energy to overtake. in regards to map balance, i think good uses of healthpacks are either in "safe" regions but regions you can't really fight from, and dangerous healthpacks in easily contestable areas. avoid putting healthpacks in areas that already are important to hold, such as objectives, as that gives players no real reason to leave the point at all, this is the main reason i think points are no-build areas, a level 3 dispenser on a control point would make said point theoretically defendable infinitely(provided that attacking team doesn't adapt) turning something commonly associated with "safety" into a risk-reward gambit is an interesting topic and one i think can be explored a lot further.

Medic, Black Box, Engie, etc.

I have an orange server. At first it ran the original cp_orange_x3 map which doesn't have any health kits or ammo boxes. So I decompiled the map, updated it, optimized it and added health and ammo boxes to specific corners. And I laughed when I've seen how players changed their routes, tactics and how they were returning to certain points to resupply :D:D I love to watch people how they adapt to new environments

Very interesting video!

I love the upward pro health and ammo icons. They're so clean and satisfying. I wish more maps would incorporate them.

Heckin love durrbill

Really good video

health kits encourage aggressive play; they make classes self-sufficient and help them stay present in a fight. ammo packs encourage defensive play; not just for engineers but for any class that will output more damage than they take like demo or heavy. when placing both in one spot, you can balance which side the pickups are more useful for by adjusting the healthkit or ammo pack size. this is also why arena maps generally have lots of ammo and very little health so that diving and aggression is risky, and koth maps have lots more health than ammo so that turtling on the point takes longer to set up

Two interesting dynamics I've found in pack placement concerns their centrality - are they along the main path or off to the side? - and their level of exposure - are they in an open area or within a sheltered covert? Main path packs favour the straightforward, high power "Clash Classes" of the game, which on both offence and defence orient themselves around the central driving thrust of the objective. Such classes typically bring good attack power and resilience alike, but poorer or highly conditional movement, or they are a supportive agent meant to stick close to the main powerhouses. Flanking packs and off-route pickups by contrast favour nimble and manoeuvrable classes that perform best when aiming for ambushes on the offence, as well as circulating patrol duties on the defence. Stealth and its counter-trait detection pay off immensely here. Packs that sit out broadly in the open place an onus on "Rush-and-Build" gameplay cycles - whichever team can pull of a quick and effective offensive push to claim the point, then equally as swiftly compound this with a fortification as a defence, will prosper. Leaning too far one way or another can be a downfall, but ultimately there's a contrasting two-stroke pattern where quick initiative in seizing the place, then building up is important. Assuming that the map is large and that gameplay moves forward, such a point won't be vital forever so it must be abandoned, keeping the offence side of the coin relevant. Lastly, the more naturally protected packs, often tucked into nooks and crannies with natural cover and concealment, instead encourage prosperity through a "Back-and-Forth" gameplay cycle. Since the locations are already defensible, there isn't much to be gained from building up defences in the area, and the space is probably quite awkward to reach if you don't have speedy quality movement to get to and from the spot. Therefore, gameplay where everyone remains super-mobile, and where having the ease and fluidity to generally access these quirky spots pays off more than the top-heavy Rush-and-Build strategy. Combining these two factors creates an alignment chart of pack placements that I think neatly dovetails with the reasoning in durrbill's video. Presented in clockwise order: A) Main Path + Open Space packs = "Empire" placements, where a big organised macro push pays off hugely in taking early and keeping these spots long, and springboarding forward aptly as the mission evolves. Internal communications matter immensely, but stealth less so since raw shock and awe should do the talking. B) Main Path + Closed Space packs = "Raid" placements, in which punchy mobile aggro classes and gameplay pays off the greatest, fighters constantly hopping back and forth between safe retreats before ploughing on once again. A kind of mild yet perpetual stealth battle evolves in such game spaces, based on wits and fast reactions. C) Flank Route + Closed space packs = "Cat and Mouse" placements, or "Cops and Robbers" if you prefer, where speed, stealth, patience, playing close attention to all detail and constant movement enable secure and well-supplied action on offence and defence alike. This is the place where mind games come to fruition. D) Flank Route + Open Space packs = "Checkpoint" placements, or "Vital Limb" placements depending on defence or offence orientation, where natural adaptability plus a capacity to take and hold ground will let a clever team make an effective "second objective" out of the gameplay, which their owning will make all further action vastly more dynamic and potent. In the short-term stealth rules the roost, but once set-up a more blase and flashy approach is more effective.

0:25 Actually i did notice that. I think at some point in the last 2 years i logged onto one of the new maps and after playing it for a bit i thought to myself "how am i supposed to play this map, there's no health"

It would be crazy if there was automatic healing in TF2

Lets gooooooo new durbill upload

Baba Is You music yesss

Something that I've noticed is that TF2 maps don't tend to do the thing that a lot of older FPS' like Quake and Unreal Tournament did, where they would create lines or clusters of small pickups. In TF2, you almost never see more than one small pickup of either type next to each other. I think Lakeside is the only one, with the two small health pickups in the flanking tunnels right outside either spawn. Which is a little odd, because you could use groups of small, or even medium and large pickups, to exaggerate the effects that these pickups have on game flow. An area with 4 large health pickups in it would naturally become a hotspot of fighting, as everyone tried to control such a vital resupply point. Or you could use a grouping of small health pickups to create a "variable" healthkit, where players would only take the health they actually needed and leave the rest for others.

I made a map last year for the first time, I called it KOTH_Cliffwreck. While it's not visually great I'm really proud of it designwise. It isn't a very big map but I was very deliberate about my health and ammo placement. It's also a very vertical map with three layers that lead down to the point on the bottom layer, with upper layers serving as flank routes by letting you get the drop on players below you. Control over each layer is crucial instead of just controlling the point. I never got enough players to truly test the map sadly but I still get excited thinking about its design

Wow you are so underrated, great video

I find the rarity of small ammo packs funny

we really need health packs to have a comeback in modren multiplayer games.

Tf2 devs making health packs 1pixle away so I die before I touch it:

Not sure if anybody's said this, but the reason 2fort's sewer packs don't have the coloring beneath them is because that was before they were implemented, and the sewers used to be the only place with health or ammo packs on 2fort. You'd need a medic, engi, or resupply cabinet for all that stuff. Interesting enough.

Heres Your Daily Reminder that 2fort in 2007 only have 2 Health Packs and 2 Ammo Packs in the whole map And it were the ones in the Sewers for both teams

Some great evil keeps your channel under 100k! I think it's called algorithm but I know that your channel will blow up!

Now id like to see an experiment where all pickups are removed from the maps to see how it impacts gameplay

Pretty good video

10:43 Me when I play spy

iv just now realized the health and ammo kits spin and it kind of looks too cartoony even for tf2

good vid

Heya there, there's a typo in the music credit, "Pokemon Diamong". Edit: Excellent video, there's not much people talking about how health kit and ammo boxes actually change how the map feels.

Spys should hog enemy ammo kits just to fuck with engineers

Woah, I never play spy so 11:31 made me brain shart

baba ost

you forgot to mention how game-deciding the process mid health packs are, it's an iconic mid race between roaming soldier and demo especially in 6s comp

True. Also for me personally all maps are good if I have fun on them for that 1 game.

great now i need to go back and watch all your videos to see if your sapper always had ass eater 3000 and jerma on it or if it's just new for this one

Yaay, New Durrbill vid! It is always something interesting to learn if you post💕

new durrbill video i sit my white ass down

Nahh, what is that sapper retexture 😭😭

More gameplay theory/mapping content please!!

I'd say that health packs are even more important for Medics and lunchbox wielding Heavies in particular, more than any other class. Medic for obvious reasons, and Heavy because he can effectively upgrade how much health one pack can give (2 sandviches thrown in quick succession from a single small health pack acts as a large health pack for one teammate, or 2 medium health packs for 2 teammates). For setup, tactical killbinding is a great help to the engineer, especially in ammo starved maps.

as someones whos played some early indev maps and sourcemods, the lack of packs is DEFINITIVELY noticeable. you're a ton more limited, you dont want to take risks or rocket jump as itll make you have a HUGE disadvantage..

it's been ages since i mapped for TF2, but i wonder if you can just let a bunch of bots fight each other and see where they gather to determine where you should put maybe a small room or an alcove with a health and ammo pack.

On the topic of resource placement in maps, have you gotten the feeling that cashworks was designed, or atleast heavily influenced by a spy main? The map, when there are real humans playing it, is so fun as spy. You have so many flanks, escape routes, little parkour jumps, verticality and most importantly, ammo packs. Ammo packs in every corner. Also some nooks and crannies on that map would feel completely out of place if spy didn't exist, like that mesh/wood screen area at the bottom of the hill/incline, or the weird indoor staircase that goes nowhere near the rickety rope bridge at last.

nice nice

Ah, I love my favorite vacation spot 😊 not at all traumatizing 😊😊😊

It's been said a million times by countless others but I feel like it can never be said enough so I'm going to say it: People who main other classes don't tend to appreciate how important a good Engineer is for their team. It is perhaps the single most soul crushing feeling in the game possible to experience playing Engineer only for your team to entirely ignore you and your buildings in favor of pursuing their own glory instead of helping you defend, resulting in your defenses getting destroyed and ultimately your team losing the round. Also, the sheer number of times I've played Engineer on CTF 2Fort setting up a defense in the intel room and not only does my team not help defend, but they don't even try to stop the enemy from leaving the base with the intel once they have it. If I had a cent for every time it's happened, I'd probably have around 10 bucks, which isn't a lot but it's depressing that it happens so much. The occasional game in which my team doesn't have the collective IQ of a single chimpanzee helps to restore my faith in humanity just a little bit and makes playing 2Fort way more fun, but my lord something about that map really seems to attract a lot of players that either do not know what they are doing or do not care.

12:41 Snipers...

"TF2 still has alot to talk about"

In lore, i wonder who leaves health and ammo kits there

Health and ammo kits in tf2 have always seemed like a strange case to me

What editing software do you use?

You should make a videogame

do you have a discord server for your channel? feels like it would be chill as hell

I would love to make maps, unfortunately not only is hammer hard to use but creating objectives and stuff like spawns is decently difficult. Just too hard for me to work my head around doing.

2kki friend!

Now I kinda want to see someone to make Dust Bowl but every Med Pack and Ammo Pack gets replace with a Small Med Pack or Ammo Pack Or Dust Bowl but remove every Med Pack and Ammo Pack off the map I wonder what the Meta would be in thoses maps if that was the case...

Can you do a video about The Big Earner

I'll tell you something. Healthpacks or ammo packs dont work with integers and same for the player health system. Both of them work by percentage. Everybody gets a percentage of health from specific type of healthpacks and ammo packs according to the players max health amount. Go pick up small, medium healthpack as a kunai spy and you will understand exactly what i mean. You can also do another test as a low hp demoman. Go get a kill with eyelander and you will notice a slight health increase. The weapon doesnt give you health on kill. What really happens is that before you got that kill, you had a specific percentage of health left, lets say 35%. Now that you got a kill, you still have 35% health left but because of the kill your max amount of health increased. But the game calculates the health left in a player by comparing it to the max health of the player and what percentage of his health is left so because of this, now that you have higher max hp and you didnt take damage while getting your eyelander kill, the percentage of health left in you shouldnt change. So after the kill, you still have 35% health left because your health increased slightly to make your low hp before your eyelander kill, keep being %35 of your max health.

Congrats on finding an original topic to talk about this game.

Health and ammo packs are also a reason, why it's sometimes so frustrating to play new maps - you just don't know where are these comfort zones. And also interesting, how literally half of the scout reputation is 124 HP meme, because he is the most aggressive class, so no wonder he is constantly hurt, and he at the same time the fastest to pick health packs

8:05 bozo spotted top right

2kki jumpscare

2fort spots are hell 😢

omg here within 15 mins poggers

why do new maps avoid large health packs like the plague? is it their overabundance on dustbowl (poorly designed map) that deters them from using it?

uro intro

By any chance you play on YNO? :o

Why’d you change the thumbnail?

tf2 map design my beloved

I am going to be evil and make a map with no health and ammo kits (This is a joke) (Probably)

Tf2 community has runned out content to make videos about

health regen in game sucks, the game would be way more intense without it

At around 11:40 you make some kind of point which has a faulty assumption: that any Spy players still use the Invisiwatch. Vast majority of Spies nowadays, especially Spy Mains, prefer the training wheels loadout: DR+Kunai+gun they don't use.