Undead, since you're what I'd consider an "idling pro" do you make your own server to idle on, or do you join a random idle server?
I find a server to idle on, since I have a few.. superstitions about what does and does not get one drops. Namely the server needs to have a few people on it otherwise your drops see to come at a less frequent rate. (Though I have no data to cooberate this) Heh, maybe I should put together an idling guide
Note that this recent spat of connection time-outs make idling worthless unless you baby sit it.
Adding the damage amounts to this game was stupid. Because now I can see how my rockets are doing 50ish damage, while the soldier attacking me is doing twice that with a single rocket. So fucking tired of that.
Like a pie crust. Isn't that all the information you need?
No, not really. But I had a hunch. It looks like tf_bot_keep_class_after_death (I'm *pretty* sure that's the command, right Quaz?) got turned off, and we were guessing that was causing some of the crashes between maps, so I turned it on again, and edited a few files so it should always be on.
Soigh.
Yeah, that's the one. Sorry if the plugin's causing trouble.
Ahahaha I'm sorry buttcleft, that was an insanely horrible stab. I wasn't even aware he was near me, never saw him or his corpse, was trying to stab someone else and stabbed him somehow.
Ahahaha I'm sorry buttcleft, that was an insanely horrible stab. I wasn't even aware he was near me, never saw him or his corpse, was trying to stab someone else and stabbed him somehow.
I got bored, so I put that guide together.
Undead Scottsman's Guide to Idling (AKA: So you've decided you're willing to trade self respect for hats. )
*Disclaimer: Currently, Valve has no stated rules again idling, though I’m pretty sure they don’t like it. The only time they’ve come down in idlers is when they were using an external program to idle. So long as you’re in TF2, at least Valve can pad their numbers for how popular the game is, I guess. Still, if they decide to pinch you, I’m not responsible.*
So you want a hat? Tired of the random number generator fucking with you? Tired of the statistics of how, at four hours played a day, it would take a MONTH to get one of those useless, yet rare therefore desirable, hats? Ready to throw your modesty into the wind? Well, then, here’s a guide to idling.
The Drop System
Before we get into idling, I’m going to discuss how the drop system works. It’s actually fairly rudimentary. Firstly, note that when I say “connect(ed) to a server” I mean “Connected to a server that is also connected properly to Steam, while you yourself also are properly connected to Steam”
Now, onto the mechanics: Basically, every 25 minutes you’re connected to a server, you have a 25% chance of getting a regular, non-hat item. (The weapon unlockables + camera beard). This means you get an item, on average, every 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, on a completely separate timer, every 4 hours, 17 minutes, and 10 seconds you have a 3.5714% (3 in 84) chance of getting a hat. On average you should get a hat after 120 hours. (You think that’s bad? Valve actually tripled the drop rate from its initial setting. Imagine needing 360 hours played on average to get a hat!)
Now, because this is random chance, shit like getting multiple hats in a single day, or going hundreds of hours without one of the bastards can happen. You can only hope the gods of the Random Number Generator are merciful.
Now, when you’re lucky enough to get an item, the system won’t directly inform you about it until you die, so if you live long enough, you can get multiple items in a single go.
Idling
Now that we’ve gotten how the system works out of the way, we’re also shown why idling is popular. It takes 120 hours to get a single hat! As I mentioned earlier, that’s 30 days worth of playing at four hours played a day. Why, nobody should have to play that much to get a rare item with no mechanical benefit! Thusly, people idle.
Idling is pretty simple. You make or join a server that doesn’t kick people for being inactive and leave yourself there. Hell, you can idle while spectating and not fuck up your stats!
That’s it pretty much it. Though a lot of people take it a few steps further. Back during the “achievements for unlocks” phase of TF2, people just make specialty maps that made it super easy to do the achievements. When the drop system hit, achievement_idle maps became popular. Typically they’re small maps with the two spawns and a small room in-between them. The spawns are level hazards and slowly damage you until you die. So you spawn, then die due to level damage. Spawn again, die again, etc. etc. etc. Servers like these don’t need to change the “kick people who are idle” setting, as you’re continual death means you’re never idle for long.
That’s pretty much idling in a nutshell. “achievement_idle” is probably the most common map. There is a few superstitions I have (listed later in this guide) as to why I prefer using an actual server with people on it.
Putzes
Occasionally you’ll find guys who like to screw with idling players. Some maps are poorly designed, allowing players on the other team to get into your spawn area and futz with you, but that really doesn’t cause too many problems. The real silly gooses are the guys on your own team that fuck with you. Sometimes they’ll build dispensers in order to keep you alive (and then kicked for being idle on servers that haven’t changed that default setting), or they’ll just push you out of the damage area, where the same thing happens. Other then physically checking the idling, there’s not much you can do about it. Whenever I see this, I try to switch to the other team and bounce pipe bombs into the spawn to destroy the dispenser.
My general rule of thumb is don’t fuck with the idlers. Anybody in the center area is fair game though, and I’ve had fun playing with people in these areas. The best thing though is when the enemy team gets into your spawn, sets up sentries to just slaughter people over and over again, and then they get pissed at YOU when you blow their shit up. Fuck you, I’m defending myself
Monitoring
You’ll need to keep an eye on things, as disconnects from Steam or the server cut into your total idling time, so when you can, make sure your connected to the server and connected to Steam. Typically if you can’t use your loadout, something is wrong with either you or the server. Often you get a big warning screen when you try to change your loadout or look at your backpack Switch servers, restart TF2 and restart Steam, in that order, until the problem is correct (if the problem gets corrected)
When you’re not at your machine, there are few things you can do to keep some tabs on your idling. The first is Steam’s community page: https://steamcommunity.com/
You don’t need to log in, just type your player name into the search function and find your specific account. This will let you know if you’re connected to a server (it’ll say “Join this game in progress.”) If it doesn’t say this, you’ve been disconnected from the server. (Note: this WILL NOT let you know if you or the server have lost connection to the item section of Steam, so keep that in mind.) Here’s my idling account, for example: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960329379
The second bit of monitoring is the wonderful http://www.tf2items.com/
Here you can see what items you’ve got without needing to be at your machine. The first item will appear in the first available slot on your backpack, with additional items appearing below the backpack, stating, “Items could not be placed.” This is because your machine at home hasn’t clicked “OK” on the “You’ve found XXXX” screen, and can’t pop up another screen like that for the other item(s). The only way around this I’ve found is to keep an in-game chat window open, and everything just gets dumped straight to your backpack. Also, if you’re on a non-dying idling session (through spectating or whatever) all your crap will go into the “items could not be placed area” Though, there’s nothing inherently wrong with items being there. Here’s my account again for example: http://www.tf2items.com/profiles/76561197960329379
Other Stuff
Weird Menu Glitch
When alt-tabbing frequently, sometimes various pop-ups in TF get badly misplaced, making it hard to hit “OK.” The “You found” screen is the worst at that as it gets stretched, leaving you only with the to ptions of deleting the item or equipping it. Hitting escape gets you out of that screen though. The only way to get it to quit doing this is to restart TF2.
Superstitions that I believe (Despite having no statistical evidence.) People need to be on the server: If you’re the only one there, you’ll get less drops. This is why I don’t recommend making your own TF2 server to idle.
A few people need to not be spectating: As far as I can tell, if everyone spectates, the drops for everyone on the server are lowered. Again, this could just be RNG trickery. A handful of players (like 4 on each side) alleviates this. I guess anyway.
Take a break every now and then: Though this is almost certainly just an aspect of everything being random, I’ve noticed that after awhile, drops begin to dry up. And if I take a break for awhile (a few hours to half a day), I’ll get a spurt of drops when I start idling again. I have no evidence to support this, but I think Valve has it set up for if you’re detected as playing for periods of time that are obviously unrealistic, they throttle your drops. But like I said, zero statistical evidence to support this.
Patches
When a patch comes out, one of two things typically happens. 1. The server you're on restarts to update itself, kicking you off. 2. The server doesn't restart, but because it's no longer the right version, it'll lose connection to Steam. Or you'll not have the right version and lose connection to Steam. Basically, be prepared to lose some idling time and have to do a bit of work when a patch hits.
Final Thoughts
So there it is. Provided you manage not to get constantly kicked from the server, you should be getting a hat, on average, every five days worth of idling. In addition, thanks to crafting, you can make a random hat every six days or so (135 hours, time it takes to get 81 item drops(ignoring the fact you need specific drops of course). Again though, these are random so you can hit dry spells, but on average you should be hitting those numbers. When you get a hat you don’t want, I’d recommend NOT crafting these hats into different hats, as even though you may not want a particular one, SOMEONE probably does. And likely they have a duplicate, or a hat they don’t like but you want.
Jesus cries when you craft away hats.
Hope that was informative. And remember, sure it's kinda pathetic that people are so wrapped up in getting silly items in an FPS that serve no mechanical benefit.. but really, it's not like idling is hard.
That one where I was waving at you was so satisfying. Because you kept yelling "DINGDINGDADINGDADADINGDING" over alltalk whenever you were shooting at people.
If you craft a hat with 4 refined metals and a spy token, can you still get the camera beard?
I don't believe so.
You know, I'm still scratching my head as to why they turned the Beard into a common item. I could see making it a misc item, but I don't see why they didn't leave it on the hat timer.
Undead Scottsman on
0
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
I didn't get time to get the trains working last night, hopefully I can do it tonight.
They're surprisingly easy (especially after doing a PLR map), just a bit of busywork.
I had this idea of putting flatbed trains in and letting players use them to get to the control point, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. Plus, riding trains in multiplayer is super glitchy (see: that one koth map with the train that runs in a circle).
Posts
I find a server to idle on, since I have a few.. superstitions about what does and does not get one drops. Namely the server needs to have a few people on it otherwise your drops see to come at a less frequent rate. (Though I have no data to cooberate this) Heh, maybe I should put together an idling guide
Note that this recent spat of connection time-outs make idling worthless unless you baby sit it.
Yeah, that's the one. Sorry if the plugin's causing trouble.
Tonight?
I wasnt in tuftuu tonight.
Who is parading around as me
Thats Baroque Sampson.
you are the silliest of gooses
Undead Scottsman's Guide to Idling (AKA: So you've decided you're willing to trade self respect for hats.
So you want a hat? Tired of the random number generator fucking with you? Tired of the statistics of how, at four hours played a day, it would take a MONTH to get one of those useless, yet rare therefore desirable, hats? Ready to throw your modesty into the wind? Well, then, here’s a guide to idling.
The Drop System
Before we get into idling, I’m going to discuss how the drop system works. It’s actually fairly rudimentary. Firstly, note that when I say “connect(ed) to a server” I mean “Connected to a server that is also connected properly to Steam, while you yourself also are properly connected to Steam”
Now, onto the mechanics: Basically, every 25 minutes you’re connected to a server, you have a 25% chance of getting a regular, non-hat item. (The weapon unlockables + camera beard). This means you get an item, on average, every 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, on a completely separate timer, every 4 hours, 17 minutes, and 10 seconds you have a 3.5714% (3 in 84) chance of getting a hat. On average you should get a hat after 120 hours. (You think that’s bad? Valve actually tripled the drop rate from its initial setting. Imagine needing 360 hours played on average to get a hat!)
Now, because this is random chance, shit like getting multiple hats in a single day, or going hundreds of hours without one of the bastards can happen. You can only hope the gods of the Random Number Generator are merciful.
Now, when you’re lucky enough to get an item, the system won’t directly inform you about it until you die, so if you live long enough, you can get multiple items in a single go.
Idling
Now that we’ve gotten how the system works out of the way, we’re also shown why idling is popular. It takes 120 hours to get a single hat! As I mentioned earlier, that’s 30 days worth of playing at four hours played a day. Why, nobody should have to play that much to get a rare item with no mechanical benefit!
Idling is pretty simple. You make or join a server that doesn’t kick people for being inactive and leave yourself there. Hell, you can idle while spectating and not fuck up your stats!
That’s it pretty much it. Though a lot of people take it a few steps further. Back during the “achievements for unlocks” phase of TF2, people just make specialty maps that made it super easy to do the achievements. When the drop system hit, achievement_idle maps became popular. Typically they’re small maps with the two spawns and a small room in-between them. The spawns are level hazards and slowly damage you until you die. So you spawn, then die due to level damage. Spawn again, die again, etc. etc. etc. Servers like these don’t need to change the “kick people who are idle” setting, as you’re continual death means you’re never idle for long.
That’s pretty much idling in a nutshell. “achievement_idle” is probably the most common map. There is a few superstitions I have (listed later in this guide) as to why I prefer using an actual server with people on it.
Putzes
Occasionally you’ll find guys who like to screw with idling players. Some maps are poorly designed, allowing players on the other team to get into your spawn area and futz with you, but that really doesn’t cause too many problems. The real silly gooses are the guys on your own team that fuck with you. Sometimes they’ll build dispensers in order to keep you alive (and then kicked for being idle on servers that haven’t changed that default setting), or they’ll just push you out of the damage area, where the same thing happens. Other then physically checking the idling, there’s not much you can do about it. Whenever I see this, I try to switch to the other team and bounce pipe bombs into the spawn to destroy the dispenser.
My general rule of thumb is don’t fuck with the idlers. Anybody in the center area is fair game though, and I’ve had fun playing with people in these areas. The best thing though is when the enemy team gets into your spawn, sets up sentries to just slaughter people over and over again, and then they get pissed at YOU when you blow their shit up. Fuck you, I’m defending myself
Monitoring
You’ll need to keep an eye on things, as disconnects from Steam or the server cut into your total idling time, so when you can, make sure your connected to the server and connected to Steam. Typically if you can’t use your loadout, something is wrong with either you or the server. Often you get a big warning screen when you try to change your loadout or look at your backpack Switch servers, restart TF2 and restart Steam, in that order, until the problem is correct (if the problem gets corrected)
When you’re not at your machine, there are few things you can do to keep some tabs on your idling. The first is Steam’s community page: https://steamcommunity.com/
You don’t need to log in, just type your player name into the search function and find your specific account. This will let you know if you’re connected to a server (it’ll say “Join this game in progress.”) If it doesn’t say this, you’ve been disconnected from the server. (Note: this WILL NOT let you know if you or the server have lost connection to the item section of Steam, so keep that in mind.) Here’s my idling account, for example: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960329379
The second bit of monitoring is the wonderful http://www.tf2items.com/
Here you can see what items you’ve got without needing to be at your machine. The first item will appear in the first available slot on your backpack, with additional items appearing below the backpack, stating, “Items could not be placed.” This is because your machine at home hasn’t clicked “OK” on the “You’ve found XXXX” screen, and can’t pop up another screen like that for the other item(s). The only way around this I’ve found is to keep an in-game chat window open, and everything just gets dumped straight to your backpack. Also, if you’re on a non-dying idling session (through spectating or whatever) all your crap will go into the “items could not be placed area” Though, there’s nothing inherently wrong with items being there. Here’s my account again for example: http://www.tf2items.com/profiles/76561197960329379
Other Stuff
Weird Menu Glitch
When alt-tabbing frequently, sometimes various pop-ups in TF get badly misplaced, making it hard to hit “OK.” The “You found” screen is the worst at that as it gets stretched, leaving you only with the to ptions of deleting the item or equipping it. Hitting escape gets you out of that screen though. The only way to get it to quit doing this is to restart TF2.
Superstitions that I believe (Despite having no statistical evidence.)
People need to be on the server: If you’re the only one there, you’ll get less drops. This is why I don’t recommend making your own TF2 server to idle.
A few people need to not be spectating: As far as I can tell, if everyone spectates, the drops for everyone on the server are lowered. Again, this could just be RNG trickery. A handful of players (like 4 on each side) alleviates this. I guess anyway.
Take a break every now and then: Though this is almost certainly just an aspect of everything being random, I’ve noticed that after awhile, drops begin to dry up. And if I take a break for awhile (a few hours to half a day), I’ll get a spurt of drops when I start idling again. I have no evidence to support this, but I think Valve has it set up for if you’re detected as playing for periods of time that are obviously unrealistic, they throttle your drops. But like I said, zero statistical evidence to support this.
Patches
When a patch comes out, one of two things typically happens. 1. The server you're on restarts to update itself, kicking you off. 2. The server doesn't restart, but because it's no longer the right version, it'll lose connection to Steam. Or you'll not have the right version and lose connection to Steam. Basically, be prepared to lose some idling time and have to do a bit of work when a patch hits.
Final Thoughts
So there it is. Provided you manage not to get constantly kicked from the server, you should be getting a hat, on average, every five days worth of idling. In addition, thanks to crafting, you can make a random hat every six days or so (135 hours, time it takes to get 81 item drops(ignoring the fact you need specific drops of course). Again though, these are random so you can hit dry spells, but on average you should be hitting those numbers. When you get a hat you don’t want, I’d recommend NOT crafting these hats into different hats, as even though you may not want a particular one, SOMEONE probably does. And likely they have a duplicate, or a hat they don’t like but you want.
Jesus cries when you craft away hats.
Questions? Comments?
By the way.
As a somewhat pre-celebrations, let's have some screenshots!
First, people looking awesome!
And now, for some servigns of Humble Pie
Surely you must be mistaken.
Although there wasn't THAT much because SOME people didn't seem to find me as witty as everyone else
You have to have wit before people can find it.
I am the heavy boxing champion.
Mr.Ohgodbuttcleftisdominatingmewith36meleekillsfuckthisRAGEQUIT
Stomp on that Scoot head Arikado!
Evidence 1 of Engineer's ability to fly
Spies prefer to hover though
ebo has also perfected engy flight
I think he's doing it wrong
Nothing special in particular, just a testament to the greatness of FlippyDay, equalizers/KGBs only
Lustre trying out for Michael Bay's new movie
See! Spies hover.
Scarlet's a badass, love the soldier hitting his head in the background
drunk undeinpirat got cocky....
and also hungry.
LoL Summoner: infobrains | XBL: cwap4brains | PSN: infobrains
Major Lazer
BONK!
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
I'm just happy to have a Scout hat finally. Just need a demo and spy hat now. (Unless you count the beard)
I don't believe so.
You know, I'm still scratching my head as to why they turned the Beard into a common item. I could see making it a misc item, but I don't see why they didn't leave it on the hat timer.
In which case why did they put "Misc" into the weapon timer slot rather than the hat timer slot?
I don't D/C from the server..... BUT! The server lost connection to steam.
I figured it would be, the concept was pretty unique.
It's why I was going to steal the idea if you didn't do anything with it.
Edit: Like I wanted, by the way.
They're surprisingly easy (especially after doing a PLR map), just a bit of busywork.
I had this idea of putting flatbed trains in and letting players use them to get to the control point, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. Plus, riding trains in multiplayer is super glitchy (see: that one koth map with the train that runs in a circle).
You could not stay on that train for more than 30 seconds. Then it decided, "OH, HEY, YOU FALL OFF NOW!"