Name: Pancakes and MvM Balance Change Proposals with Alfitz (2020 Edition) @VolvaJTV
Uploaded: 2026-09-18T08:17:00-05:00
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: Pancakes and MvM Balance Change Proposals with Alfitz (2020 Edition)

Pancakes and MvM Balance Change Proposals with Alfitz (2020 Edition)

Volva 2026-09-18 | Pancakes and MvM Balance Change Proposals with Alfitz (2020 Edition)

Steam Support works in mysterious ways #2

Volva 2025-10-19 | It has certainly been a while since I worked on scammer conversations and uploaded them to Steam, where I collect all these.

Mysteriously they all suddenly got flagged and removed. Only after complaining to Steam Support about this again, they got re-instated.

The entire Steam Support copy paste responses are atrocious. There is zero helpful information contained within them and its all an entire waste of their time and my own time.
But I will gladly waste my time to question their decision making process when it comes to these nonsensical judgements.

They should have way bigger issues on their hands, like the unimaginable magnitude of scammers and spambots on their platform.
But I guess its easier to deal with non-issues than actual issues and then give themselves a pat on the back.

Garbage Loot Chronicles #27

Volva 2025-10-18 | Not the craziest reskins but any reskin is a good reskin.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #33 - Spacepost RC1 Astral Annihilation

Volva 2025-10-17 | This mission does not fuck around.
The speedy Pyros with Qucik-Fix Medics on Wave 1 are incredibly scary.
Add some Uber Medics, a bit of Bison and you should be getting slightly concerned.

Wave 2 adds a few crit Giants and brings some more Uber Medics but overall pretty tame.

Now, Wave 3, thats where the pain begins to penetrate you. Everything is anti block/stall.
From the Bisons, to the Giant Steel Fist Pushers, to the Giant Dragons Fury's. Sprinkle in some random Liberty Launcher blasters for good measure. All while a tank is rolling through.

Wave 4 seems somewhat reasonable again even though the Pyros are ever present during the wave and Giant Armored Scouts could potentially be an early wave failure.
Giga Snipers with Giant Medic are no fun if you get caught.

Erikku got slammed by one's Kukri and seemingly instantly died to it but I think the killfeed reveals that he just got hit by another Giga Sniper while being melee'd.
Regardless, nothing you want to just stand in front of.

Wave 5 brings more Giant Scouts. Giant Pyros again too but we slapped some Banners on everything for good measure.
Do you like getting blasted by Demobots that have constant minicrits? I totally dont. How about some Bullet Vaccinators too? Please stop.

Wave 6 continues the Giant Scout tradition.
On the plus side, no Pyros this wave. But we replaced that with plenty of bullets to make you feel right at home.
Even threw some Winger support in there. Very wholesome.

Our Demoman attempts to deal with the Battalion Medics with a Crit Canteen and I unfortunately get blasted away in the most unfavorable position possible.
After my successful escape from behind the enemy lines I decide to dive straight back into the frontline hellscape to practice medicine.
Unfortunately enough I backpedaled slightly onto some stairs and that was my doom.

Compared to everything that happened before, Wave 7 looks almost easy. And it probably is. The scariest part are the tanks.
Well, the mission name certainly checks out.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #32 - Monsoon B9 Rolling Thunder

Volva 2025-10-14 | Dear god this map. It is so incredibly awkward to play on.
Most of the map is a giant choke and its littered with all sorts of random objects you could potentially get yourself stuck on while backpedaling.

Pair that with the mission having a variety of spam and you got yourself a death funnel.
Not a fan of this one.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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3 Engibots, 1 Sniperbot and Me

Volva 2025-10-13 | A new Valve sitcom, a very disturbing video found on the dark web or a stupid moment in MvM. It could be anything, really.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Valve, Steam and Age Verification

Volva 2025-10-12 | Many years ago Germany got region blocked because German authorities wanted Valve to implement an age verification system that was sufficient enough in making sure that minors wouldnt be able to view content they shouldnt be able to.

Valve, of course, didnt give a fuck and just restricted all German Steam users and took away access to content that was unrated and labeled as adult content, specifically sexually explicit material.

Now the UK is cracking down on the same thing and suddenly Valve knows solutions to it. But only for them, not for the German market somehow.

Anyway, suggesting credit cards as a valid option to confirm the age of a user might be true.
However, the problem with this is that a big portion of their UK Steam users do not have a credit card in the first place.
They have been raising their voices across the Steam forums being incredibly upset about the lazy, quick and dirty way, Valve have implemented this.
And even if they add a credit card, there is no one around to know if the user at the other side is actually an adult and not just some kid that asked their parents for it to buy some game and now find themselves with unrestricted access to content they shouldnt have any access to once again.

But of course you could then say its the parents fault for not checking.
The thing is, that was the problem from the start.
The entire reason why laws like this seem to be inevitable is that parents dont do enough parenting.

On top of all that, another massive issue on Steam is how many accounts actually get hijacked and stolen.
Imagine having credit card information added due to this requirement.
Another insanely problematic situation created out of lazy compliance with laws.

Personally, I'm just enjoying the shitshow right now.
I have vowed to never spend a single cent on Steam again after their lazy and unprofessional handling of the situation with their German customers.
With Steam Support continuously lying to my face for years about them finding a solution.
They had a chance to get ahead of this, to find a solution that suits their customers and obeys the laws of the country they wish to operate in.
Now they have to deal with it. Good fucking luck to them, there will only be more of this to come.

Water CS's Original Video: youtu.be/h9x-4GLITsQ

Snipins a Shit Job Mate

Volva 2025-10-11 | I am a mediocre to maybe decent Sniper at best. Its my least favorite class.

You can explain to me how the hitbox shenanigans create these situations all you want, that doesnt make it any less horse shit.

Just imagine you shooting your Rocket Launcher or anything else directly at something and you do zero damage.
It happening once? Okay. There are always fringe cases of weird things going on in this game somehow.
It happening a multitude of times? Should absolutely not be a thing.

I'm never going to like this class and especially not if you keep screwing me over when I actually am trying to enjoy myself.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #31 - Snowpine RC4 Fix1 Shivering Slumber

Volva 2025-10-10 | Another round of no upgrade canteen Fly-gineer. Complete with invisible rocks and getting buzzkilled.
Oh and a last wave boss. So exciting.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #30 - Mannhattan Scorched Skies

Volva 2025-10-07 | These Mannhattan map alterations are raising a few questions.
Extra health and ammo packs, increased the size of certain health and ammo packs.
Did people plan to play games without Engineers and any form of healing or what the hell is this?

Compared to the demo of this mission I previously reviewed, which had zero crowd control options, we had plenty of them, making this in turn a cake walk.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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The Degeneration of Pyro on MvM #59 - The Golden Pan Game

Volva 2025-10-06 | Before joining games I tend to check up on what players are doing.
Even more so with games in progress.

What I saw was nothing out of the ordinary, something I have seen 58 (rounded down from about a million) times before.
It was the continued degeneration of a class that has been severely victimized by Valve for years.

The sheer hatred this class gets all originates from them.
Maybe thats why I have continued to grow more and more critical of them over the years.
Their ineptitude and inaction is what drives absolutely clueless players to adopt playstyles that are lobotomy inducing.

But you know whats even worse than having a brain dead Pyro player?
Having a Medic who constantly revives the brain dead Pyro player.

Can we just acknowledge that when someone is bringing absolute chaos and detriment to the situation, that we dont need to help them continue to do so after they inevitably die through their own insanity?

The game progresses as you would expect from a Metro Malice team with a total lunatic manning a Flamethrower, excuse me, an Airblaster.

Everything in their field of view needs to be given a fat blow job.
Sentry Busters, random bots, Giants, Bosses; you name it, they will blow it.

After giving everything that transpired in this game way more thought than it most likely deserves, it feels like anything and everything that I did directly summoned Gabens hand down on this server to put the squeeze on my nuts.

From the positive feedback I give Pyro players, that isnt meant positively at all when they get other players killed or do generally stupid shit, from my comments about their deranged behavior, from me blocking Giants when they were Airblasting them, from me taunting on their Reanimator, from me saying this game needs to die one way or another, from me using my Pyro bind that links to youtu.be/vAvcxeXtBz0, from me going idle after I couldnt be arsed anymore, from me considering counter airblasting, from me switching to Pyro on the last wave and deliberately not using Airblast once to probably everything else that I did to bring Gabens ass directly over my face to put a huge load onto; it felt like a recipe for disaster and I was cooking with the most expensive kitchen tool this game has to offer.

It strangely feels like a "go fuck yourself Volva" moment. And I should know how those feel, I have experienced them for the last 12 years playing this game mode.

So, I want to talk about my reaction. I saw the notification pop up and immediately connected the dots.
I know life is absolutely unfair to the majority of humans living on this planet. After all, I am one of them. I have seen it, I have experienced it.

But besides my first world, common human issues, I'm living a pretty good life for myself.
And I genuinely meant it when I said that I hope he takes his reward and fucks off.

MvM has enough brain dead Pyro players, and while adding one more to the thousands of them wouldnt change the statistics, one less is still better than one more.

Personally I feel like the sheer existence of this moment is going to reinforce a lot of low tour hate, Pyro hate, Russian hate (whatever country they actually are from) etc. etc. etc.
But hey, if Gaben wills it, who am I to keep you from it?

The real disappointing fact however is that, if I would have gotten it instead you could have not only seen me get it but also could have seen me delete it. For shame, Gaben, for shame!
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Scam Awareness PSA #27 Scam Groups Part 12

Volva 2025-10-05 | Another round of looking at the actions of this one singular scammer that Steam wont do anything about and more people he stole from.

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Golden Frying Pan Drop - The Worst Timeline

Volva 2025-10-04 | After 12 years of playing MvM once every week, it was finally time.
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3571799205

Gaben personally descended from the heavens to give my nutsack a good strong kick.
But he didnt just kick me in the groin. He collectively kicked every high tour player that has been chasing this terrible cooking tool forever in the balls.

And in case this hasnt infuriated you enough yet I'll even throw in the entire match as a bonus to really drive home the fact how gambling works, how unfair life is and why people absolutely despise Pyro players.
youtu.be/f_0bi2kjp40

Game: Team Fortress 2
P.S.: The guy who got it created his Steam account 8 days before this happened. Have a nice day!

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #29 - Scrapyard RC2A Trashyard Throwdown (Protect your Ears)

Volva 2025-10-03 | Probably an awkward map to decide to play my most disliked class on.
But I guess I never do things the easy way cause thats just boring.

Lots of annoying situations that made me raise my voice.
It was time to ditch this (S)crapyard and go back home.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #28 - Casino City B8 Gangsters Pair of Dice

Volva 2025-09-30 | This was a certified hood team.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Garbage Loot Chronicles #26

Volva 2025-09-29 | I have peaked as Garbage Loot God and have started blending into the shadows to randomly stuff garbage loot into the pockets of unsuspecting players.

But of course I cant make it too obvious that I am pulling the strings behind the scenes and have to randomly award items that do not seem like garbage but are in fact, still absolute garbage.

That is the way of the Garbage Loot Ninja, my ninja way.
*Naruto runs into the night*
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Steam Community Market History and Purchase History

Volva 2025-09-28 | Its been quite some time since they removed the ability to directly see who you bought something from or sold something to from the Steam Community Market.

They did it because people were using that history to fake stuff and trick people into getting their items stolen.

Since they also introduced this cool Pending Funds "feature" that nobody knows why it exists I keep checking on my purchase history through the Steam Support section.

Through that I can at least tell what currency is being used in transactions.
Whenever I sell something this purchase history just errors out. No matter if I try to view it in the client, in a browser or anywhere.

I asked Steam Support what that was about and they couldnt tell me.
Probably because they didnt know what I was talking about or just had no clue about that particular issue in the first place.

Oddly enough I can still view the purchase history whenever I buy something.
And when I actually go and view the receipt of this sale, it does in fact show the name of the account that I bought items from.

Which begs the question, why bother removing it from the Steam Community Market History then?
Its not like scammers wouldnt be able to just fake receipts and try and trick other users with that.

What is the bloody point of all this nonsense? There is none.

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Blast-Off

Volva 2025-09-27 | Normally you get blasted straight into the ceiling or into the far back of the room.
Never got blasted straight out the door back to spawn before.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #27 Bitchrocking on Bigrock

Volva 2025-09-26 | This one is for all the Bitchmans Bitchmaker users out there. Especially those Bitchrocking.
Why are you using a training wheel Sniper Rifle? Maybe its time to drop the Bitchmans Bitchmaker, use a real gun and stop being a bitch.

This one is for MvM Elitists out there. You are all bitches too.
Claiming that the Gas Passers Explode on Ignite was too unbalanced all these years when it was banned while not touching the Bitchmans Bitchmaker at all just shows that the Gas Passer defenders were right all along.

You all had to protect your fragile ego from shattering into tiny pieces.
Why else would you leave one of the most broken weapons and one of the most broken upgrades alone?
You couldnt stand to possibly feel like a Bitch. Turns out you always were.
Game: Team Fortress 2

P.S.: For those diligent readers among you. How did the Uber-Tank on Wave 7 fall to a clumsy, painful death?

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #26 The Degeneration of Heavy on Potato MvM has begun

Volva 2025-09-23 | I swear to god, the amount of Heavy lunatics, especially Brass Beast, playing from across the map or raging everything, has absolutely been blown out of proportion. Pandemic levels of insanity.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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The Mecha Engine Experience #1

Volva 2025-09-22 | Whats this? Volva playing a tour that isnt Two Cities? What is going on here?!
Let me enlighten you how it came to be that I would play the worst tour on the planet.

There was a discussion about why people play Two Cities over a tour like Mecha Engine or Gear Grinder as those tours require one less Tour of Duty ticket to play.
steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/1/524225948489371213

I'm not going to throw an entire book's worth of explanation at you, feel free to read through the thread and peruse the provided data to your hearts content.

The general idea is that the return on investment is higher by playing Two Cities over other tours.
Meaning that, even though it costs 4 Tour of Duty tickets instead of 3, you lose less money overall playing Two Cities due to the other extras you receive or have a chance of receiving.

The entire discussion kinda derailed after I called Mecha Engine the worst tour on the planet.
Thats my opinion because it has my most disliked maps in it, the missions you play on them are equally boring, annoying or brain dead, the strategies used on them are especially brain dead, the loot drops are laughably bad and the players you might encounter in them are people you wouldnt want to share a server with if your life depended on it.

With that out of the way, you can consider this my official Anti Mecha Engine propaganda.
If you enjoy playing the worst tour on the planet, good for you.
I'm not stopping you, I just question your decision to spend time on what basically comes down to playing with a pile of shit after you voluntarily stepped in it.

Decoy. Garbage map. One main choke, hard to access upper area and a big chunk of the map is just a huge chasm that nothing is going to happen in.

The mission primarily spams Engineers to be annoying as fuck while the waves themselves are just snooze material, tanks and the occasional Super Scout.

Big Rock. An even more garbage map. Singular spawn thats easily campable by an experienced player yet somehow even the most brain dead of maps has an even more brain dead strategy with bitchrocking.
Keep on coping but every bitchrocker is, in fact, a bitch.

Fortunately I wasnt subjected to any gambling addicted bitchrockers and the games were actually mildly entertaining.

But...that...that doesnt mean I enjoyed it or anything, alright?!
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Juicy Cucumbers

Volva 2025-09-20 | A cucumber up the ass is absolute gas.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #25 - Rancher B12 Impasse

Volva 2025-09-19 | Now that we have seen what the mission the community thinks is the worst looks like, lets look at what they think is the best.

Personally I agree with the overall consensus on both missions.
This is the best mission of this campaign.

I'm not going to spoil the fun by saying too much but from the flow, the design and the incentive to do well enough to get more mission, its certainly well warranted to be at the top.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #24 - Jungleworks RC2 Agaglobulinemiagenesis

Volva 2025-09-16 | I have mentioned before that I kept a close look on the campaign stats and this mission was one of the ones that stood out.
For all the wrong reasons.

Its the mission with the lowest Wave Win Ratio and the lowest Mission Score and I am confident saying that it will most likely stay that way until the campaign ends.

As Mike pointed out, this mission banks on players knowing how things progress and function. So if you dont know anything, you are very likely to just fail.
And even if the saying goes that you: "Have to fail before you can succeed." it just makes for a less enjoyable experience.

We didnt know what Wave 1 was going to ask of us, so we ultimately were worse off on our first attempt of Wave 1 than our second attempt.

Overall the credit payout is very limited. Classes that need to actively reload will ultimately be worse off.
Forcing the Meta for this into the direction of Heavy, Pyro, Sniper, Spy, Beggar's Soldier.

The Medic argument is up for debate. Replacing with another damage class is normally the way to go.
I think if you primarily go Canteen Specialist spamming your team, you can force your way through this.
Since I dont like that style, you wont see me do it.
Am I being a worse Medic because of that? Possibly.

I tend to go Vaccinator on low payout missions since its more cost effective to give out resistances than to actively invest in them.
It would have probably been a better idea to get Uber Duration earlier over Charge Rate.

All of those points aside, fighting against some of the most annoying and bullshit bots doesnt help this missions reputation.

Now, the funny thing is that we actually played the best rated mission of this campaign right after this one.
You can look forward to that one because I wholeheartedly agree with that.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Hackers in MvM #82 (Protect your Ears)

Volva 2025-09-15 | The signs were all there. Clueless Scout that jumps around like a lunatic with the Soda Popper while doing way too well for his ability.

Add the insane aim and instant respawns to that and you got yourself a closet cheater that wont admit to it.

Honestly should have noticed myself when he instantly respawned right in front of my face.
I guess I was too busy with my own shit or talking rubbish.

After Gekko was calling it out and I had seen it happen and investigated further, it is as insane as it looked from a distance.

Gekko convincing him to turn off his instant respawn only confirms he knows exactly what he is doing despite acting innocent.
At the end of it all, they demonstrated how "intelligent" they are truly are. Fucking moron.

This game also had it all by the way. Political commentary, dogs, me shouting at my internet being trash.
Its the complete package of what you expect and more.
Game: Team Fortress 2 On Discord: Gekko

P.S.: 76561199284527311

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Scam Awareness PSA #26 Scam Groups Part 11

Volva 2025-09-14 | More retarded scammers trying to steal from me by making up fake shit like Steam Support tickets and having to contact Steam Support myself about supposed issues by adding some random ass profile.

And of course we once again take a look at what the scammer that I have been keeping an eye on for months has been up to.
Busy stealing more shit from Steam users and Steam still does only the bare fucking minimum.

Trade protected items cant come fast enough for Team Fortress 2 and I will go and ask Steam Support about when this is going to happen.

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The Greatest Robot Joke of all time

Volva 2025-09-13 | Come out to the streams, we'll get together, have a few laughs.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #23 - Jungleworks RC2 Manntained Machines

Volva 2025-09-12 | This is beginning to look a lot like Mann Up here. We ran into Colonel Johnson over on Hoovydam and he did a couple of missions with us.

It was all so chaotic on this mission that I didnt even realize I never actually fully maxed my Crit Resistance.
Kinda explains some of these horrendous situations and I would normally be more pissed but it was also kinda hilarious.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #22 - Watermine RC12 Dig of Wreckoning

Volva 2025-09-09 | I could be talking about the map, the mission or anything else but instead I will dedicate this entire description to the Manmelter.

The Manmelter is a Pyro Secondary weapon that has been left in the dust, nay, left six feet under, since MvM released.
Why Valve? What is this unjustified treatment?

No Reload Speed, no Burn Time or Afterburn Damage upgrades.
You have to have some special kind of hatred towards the Manmelter to strip the weapon bare like that.
Valve, I am incredibly disappointed in you. More than I normally am.

The next MvM update you said you would do out of the blue better revive this weapon or there will be another sternly worded letter in your mail.
#MakeManmelterGreatAlready
Game: Team Fortress 2

Windows 7 in 2025

Volva 2025-09-08 | The Steam client refusing to download or update some games? No problem.
There is always a solution.
developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

I dont care what Valve or Steam do, they will have to tear Windows 7 from my cold, dead hands.

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #21 - Doppler B12 Drop Database Devastation

Volva 2025-09-05 | I had the unfortunate honor of suffering through the first two waves of this before with a random team that got annihilated.
This time I brought some names.

Wave 2 is plain and simple just evil. I feel like half the battle is just knowing where and how something appears. Cause if you dont you already set yourself up for immediate failure.
Add the extreme Demospam roaming over the entire first part to that equation and you just get a recipe for disaster.

On our second attempt it set myself up around the lower right flank side and it seemed to work out much better. That said its still a pain in the ass wave.

On the next two waves we got a bit more breathing room as the map expanded.
One thing of note is probably Wave 3 with its Uber Tank Support.
Normally to win a wave you would have to clear all tanks on the map but since its a fake tank you can safely not worry about it and focus entirely on the bots in the wave.

Wave 5 brought us out to the last section and normally there are only two paths active. Not this time.
With the floodgates open you can pick and choose were you would like to die.
For added enjoyment a random support Pyro decided to beeline it straight into my face.

The last wave had a glass cannon boss that hits hard, even on Sentries behind Wrangler shields, but as long as someone just draws aggro its fairly easy.
I guess the name of the game is just spam Canteens at this point.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #20 - Sludge B6 Claire De Lune

Volva 2025-09-02 | The third times the charm. Its finally time to find out what this mission is all about.

I've been keeping a close eye on some of the stats of this campaign, particularly the Wave Win Ratio and Mission Score, and these are very indicative of missions that got some problems. This is one of them.

I really dont know how to feel about this one.
At times it feels just too easy but it also feels very random, neatly separated into waves.

I'll say this much, it wasnt as bad as I was told it was going to be and I am incredibly disappointed by that fact.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #19 - Humbridge RC1P Runtime Optimization

Volva 2025-08-29 | This entire mission is centered around Scoutbots. So far probably the most interesting mission.

Wave 1 and 2 bring in a speedy mix of a Scout flood, trying to overwhelm teams with sheer numbers.
Wave 3 and 4 slowed things down a little and brought some custom Scout designs.
Wave 5 and 6 combine a healthy mix of a little bit of everything.
Wave 7 is just S.C.O.U.T.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #18 - Mannhattan AX20

Volva 2025-08-26 | Last time on the other mission, Rottenburg BX20, I also was Medic. This time I knew better and decided to run Stock.
Unfortunately I also decided to trust what our Demoman said right at the start of Wave 1 and was in the wrong place, leaving everyone else to die downstairs.

A great start to another great struggle. But I only knew half of it because I couldnt have possibly anticipated that my internet would decide having a crisis as well.
Speaking of internet, with two players having 300 and 500 ping, this surely was going to be of no concern...

I really would have preferred if our positioning could have been a bit more aggressive once the A Gate was captured.
Giving the robots free room to flank over our heads isnt exactly ideal but I guess the Engineer just didnt feel confident enough and so everyone decided to camp on the tiny dirt hill.

The Demoman was running some custom upgrades for his weapons but it seemed to be working well enough. I just wish he would have been involved in everything closer to where the rest of us were.

So all I had left to work with was basically the Pyro and Heavy. The high ping players.
It wasnt a smooth ride but it was working out for the most part.

Right before Wave 5 my internet decided to die. Partially. I'm not exactly sure.
My sanity check is always going to Google and Youtube and that was working but my connection to the game and OBS was just dead.
So Wave 5 starts without me around and coming back I tried to salvage what I could.

Luckily enough the last Giant Boss didnt have a bomb to immediately deploy on our asses.
Unluckily enough I completely missed when he grabbed one right before the hatch. I could have saved that with a Shield block just like on Wave 3. My mistake.

I'm not entirely sure why our Demoman, who was doing just fine on his own, decided to switch to Direct Hit Soldier. Granted it had custom upgrades too but they werent exactly helpful towards our situation if you ask me.

With our spirits as high as our ping, it was time for one final wave.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #17 - Electricavenue RC5 Obsolescence

Volva 2025-08-22 | "Lets play Spy on this Expert mission I have never played before with 140 ping." Said nobody ever.

Gotta love people freaking out instantly about money. I didnt even see that guy saying "I think we need a Scout."

Anyway, Wave 3 barely gave me any chance to get backstabs with the stream of Soldier and Demobots while also being on money duty.
The "boss" type enemy being an annoying little shit that I cant backstab didnt help either.
I guess I can at least sap their asses or deal with the support in that part.

Wave 4 dumps a bunch of crit boosted KBGs in which arent that big of a deal. It was more annoying to just navigate through the Beggars randomly unloading in the middle of everything else.
I probably should have just re-sapped the Teleporter instead of the Sentry but whatever I guess.

Wave 5 had me dealing with Uber Medics on top of my other duties as well.
I guess I could have just left it up to the Pyro but hell will freeze over before I accept the Gas Passer as a med picking option.
At least we got something more done on this wave.

Giant Scout spam seems to be a theme that appears more frequently during this campaign.
I dont mind if they get streamed in with other robots like on Wave 6 but it still feels kind of a cheap option to claim a difficulty increase.

We had some Giant Medics in this wave which were easy pickings and a few other easy to approach targets.
I actually really like the layout of this front for Spy with plenty of options to break line of sight.

The last part of this wave was just excessive Engibot spam but I might as well try and curb that instead of trying to help with these tanks.

The last wave had a boss like we have seen on a Watermine mission before.
While I appreciate the more engaging design, its dragging on just a bit too much.
I assume they gave him backstab protection so I do little to no damage which just sucks ass.
It feels like I'm basically doing fuck all as Spy during the entire wave.

One funny bit was that once the wave was over I jumped into the water the boss also jumped in and survived.
That place is a death zone normally but I guess its all disabled during the wave because you cant just have your boss die while he is doing his thing.
Probably not a huge deal but I genuinely would have been pissed if I fell in there during the wave and wouldnt have been able to get out.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #16 - Rottenburg BX20 (Protect your Ears)

Volva 2025-08-19 | You see that warning? Better heed it.
After all, what could possibly go wrong in an Expert mission with custom weapons?
I swear to god they just include shit custom weapons to fuck with randoms at this point.

We were off to a rough start getting shelled by grenades and Wave 2 wasnt looking much better.
For whatever ungodly reason the mission creator decided to give Overheal Expert a $50 credit discount, resulting in the upgrade moving around and me buying something I didnt want.

Everyone seemed to be doing their own thing, sitting in places you cant escape, going behind enemy lines, wandering around, not knowing what god damn Spybots are; it was a disorganized mess.
I also cant seem to escape these Demobots being an absolute menace.

Every wave goes just as bad as the next one.
How I escaped that Spybot assault on Wave 5 and didnt immediately die to them is beyond me but I'll take that miracle.

On Wave 6 I absolutely lost it. All I am trying to do is support these guys and yet I just have to get blasted into the most garbage situations that know no escape or I randomly die to god knows what.

An extraordinary quality Potato Expert experience.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Applying Unusual Taunt Conga Unusualifier

Volva 2025-08-16 | Trying out for one of those Summer 2025 Update effects.
Its very fitting due to personal connectivity issues but is it actually good?
I dont know.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #15 - Marsbase RC5 Martian Civilizations

Volva 2025-08-15 | This once again is an INT. Nothing particularly interesting to see here but the custom weapon I was using is worth discussing.

Losing one clip size isnt the worst thing as the Black Box has the same penalty and its still a viable alternative.
Having 15% damage penalty sounds pretty bad.
But 50% damage bonus against burning enemies on the other hand is pretty good.

The only thing you cant set on fire are Pyrobots and Tanks.
Since Tanks cant be set on fire whatsoever you would be a worse tankbuster.
Pyrobots might not be able burn either but getting set ablaze by our own Pyro or another Soldier with the same custom weapon seems to do the trick just fine.

The damage bonus would primarily kick in with enemies that have a larger health pool like Giants or enemies that resist damage in some form like Fists of Steel Heavies.

Soldier can also boost his damage potential some more by using a Buff Banner, Crit Canteens or by a Medic.

At first I thought that the weapon might have been nerfed too much but at the end it really felt like the 50% damage bonus was too much.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Potato Archive Shenanigans #103 - Nox B5 Radiant Dawn

Volva 2025-08-14 | I still dont like Nox even though I would say that I dont hate it as much as I used to anymore.

Hilariously enough the only mission on Nox I have ever covered is this one.
Maybe its because the mission is kinda on the easier side and chill enough that you can just run it without a Scout.
That said, we did make one of the simplest mistakes.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Taunt Killing the Giant Heal-On-Kill Heavy Boss (Protect your Ears)

Volva 2025-08-13 | You need a dream, a plan and the ability to execute it.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #14 Mannhattan Scorched Skies Demo Review

Volva 2025-08-12 | Erikku was wondering for a while how they even managed to win this game. So I decided to check it out and see what went down.

From what he told me the Pyro and Spy were clearly inexperienced and they certainly were. The Spy more than the Pyro I would say.

If you run Kunai as Spy its ill advised to invest into Health on Kill because a backstab with the Kunai will grant you overheal based on the health of the target you killed.
The Health on Kill upgrade would only ever have an effect whenever you would get facestab kills which isnt exactly what Spy should be aiming for.

The Spy also seemed to be investing in his Sapper early on which is another thing that he shouldnt focus on.
It can help with bulks of robots but he seemed to focus on sapping Giants and doing that only makes them turn around into you faster, preventing you from getting more chances at backstabbing Giants.

The Pyro seemed to get better later on but his early investment in Airblast Force shows that his upgrade path isnt fully sorted out.

The Medic seemed to struggle as well. I dont know if that had to do with inexperience or just not buying/using Projectile Shield.
But if you play Medic you can expect the robots to target you over whoever you are healing.
After all you are the Medic, you keep others alive so eliminating you makes it easier. The robots know that too.

Engineer stuff was pretty much what you would expect from Mannhattan positioning. Being lazy with Sentry Busters and Sentry positioning that eventually will become problematic once the robots advance far enough.

I think the main problem simply was the lack of crowd control and getting overwhelmed once there was just too much going on.
The lack of a med picker might have also contributed to the struggle.
Uber Medics werent exactly abundant and a more experienced Spy could maybe suffice.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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How to use Knockback Rage

Volva 2025-08-11 | Probably the best way on how to use Knockback Rage on display right here.
Would I recommend you do this? No.

Engineers could still use Sentry Busters to their advantage by trying to blow up robots.
It could interfere with other players like Spy for example and pose more danger than what its worth.
Heavies that rage Sentry Busters dont contribute to killing actually important targets.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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My MvM Reward - Australium Flame Thrower #2

Volva 2025-08-09 | This happened on the same day I saw my first double Australium drop.
There were so many 3-boxes dropping I jokingly said: "Just not for me."
And I was right, just not in the way I expected to be.

Oddly enough the server just ditched me to the main menu before even being able to see what the last guys loot was.
Presumably this happened because everyone else left that game so fast.
Game: Team Fortress 2

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #13 Potato Serverblight

Volva 2025-08-08 | Talking about having a normal experience while playing on Scallops.
The worse thing about this was when I rejoined the server three ready up spamming fuckers showed up. Go and fuck yourselves.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Scam Awareness PSA #25 Scam Groups Part 10

Volva 2025-08-07 | Some random scammers once again trying their luck in stealing my account, items etc.

A few more people I reached out to and talked through what they can possibly do after being victimized through a scam on Steam.

Something else I noticed was getting a warming about Trade Protected Items during trading. So if they actually move forward to implement that for Team Fortress 2 as well, this has the potential to curb the scammer epidemic on Steam.

I'm sure scammers will try to social engineer their way around that too somehow but at least you get a fighting chance to reverse trades by malicious actors instead of just being shit out of luck.

And I found out that there is an even easier way to report someone for being a scammer. I dont know how long this way has existed since I never truly dig through those Steam Support options for Team Fortress 2 specifically as I have no need for them myself.

Things are looking up when it comes to combating scammers, lets just hope they dont drop the ball.

The Potential of Scout

Volva 2025-08-06 | We all know that the average Scout player on Mann Up just doesnt bother doing anything substantial.
Being a purely Support Scout is one thing but playing with your brain out in the dumpster is an entirely different one.

I always keep saying that I want to Kritz Scouts more but the usual players arent exactly the material for it.

This Scout wanted it. I was a bit reluctant at first. We werent in a favorable position for each other.
When I wanted to give it to him, he either was too jumpy or just going deep into it. Too deep for me without protection.

I'm sure if someone would just Canteen spam his ass, he would dominate everything.
He himself was just running Crit-a-Cola. Not even using Crit Canteens himself as far as I remember.

If I wouldnt know any better, even double checking his MvM lobby, you could have cheating suspicions seeing these stats.
But maybe its just so rare for me to see a Scout actually playing the game at the highest level.

That said, I'm fairly certain that he did have the Soda Popper ghost upgrade.
A minor point deduction from my rating scale as I dont encourage upgrades you cant normally buy.

Trusting the information I saw and my gut feeling, I can only say: Absolute beast of a Scout.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #12 Charon Atmos Quake Softlock

Volva 2025-08-05 | Whether its the map itself being absolute ass to play on, me fucking myself over or waves softlocking, the experiences on Charon have been nothing short of total dogshit.

When I replayed this mission they capped the gate so that might have prevented the softlock from happening again or it got fixed already.
Who knows, knowing my luck I'm gonna find out sooner than I would like.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Hackers in MvM #81

Volva 2025-08-04 | Another round of absolute degenerates.
Why are you sitting on your ass in this shitty gambling mode, leaching off this one guy?
You are all fucking morons.

Not only are they cheating but also credit exploiting too.
At some point you gotta wonder, why dont they just go unbox cases?
Its much faster, easier to do and just as much of a waste of their money.

Cheater stack coping and hoping for that big win. lmao.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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P.S.: 76561199245989556 / 76561198085815866 / 76561198867277246 / 76561198385327903 / 76561198134173893

Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #11 It was at this moment I knew

Volva 2025-08-03 | I fucked up.
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Double Australium Drop (Protect your Ears)

Volva 2025-08-02 | So many three boxes. Previous games included a Professional Frying Pan, Stickybomb Launcher and now a Scattergun. But that wasnt enough.

After over 10 years I finally witness my first Double Australium drop and it couldnt have been more justified.

All I gotta say to that is: youtu.be/f8lszb4BuPg
Game: Team Fortress 2

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Bolted Barbecue Shenanigans #10 - Smog B3 Respiration Restriction

Volva 2025-08-01 | First time on this map and I kinda like it. I'm not convinced about the gates in the back however.
Thankfully Gate 3 wasnt utilized. Although you could probably drop the bomb at the front and have a boss type backspawn there or something like that.

Anyway, everything got quite a bit chaotic after the first wave and I am all there for it.
Game: Team Fortress 2