Team Fortress 2 Megathread - winter is the most chill time of year

[lean cove]

oh I just realized I know the OP from another server

[main plinth]

(GitHub fix from mastercoms)
🥹

[wild grove]

Looks like another update

[radiant merlin]

Mmm update Coming?

[cursive peak]

We've released a mandatory update for TF2. The new version number is 9742395. The notes for the update are below.

Thanks.

-Eric

---

-Re-enabled all players to be able to use voice commands and party chat
-Added more detailed options for server visibility and privacy when creating a server
-The "Use Steam Networking" checkbox has been replaced with a dropdown, allowing the creation of Local, Friends Only, Unlisted and Listed servers -- defaulting to Unlisted
-Using map command by default will no longer create a join-able game
-Fixed a crash on exit under Linux

[rare creek]

omg steamworks has direct contact with eric smith

[radiant merlin]

So now only certain f2ps can talk i guess

And now everyone can use voice commands

[eternal haven]

Friends only SDR that's interesting

First actual new SDR feature I think

for tf2 in the past several years

I wonder how it works

[wild grove]

That's the funny thing, it doesn't lol

When creating a friends only server, you can't connect because you aren't your own friend.

[eternal haven]

What the sigma

I am my own friend

I wonder if the steam api would let you add yourself as a friend has anyone tried

[potent wolf]

huh im kinda surprised this was added now

[eternal haven]

Wtf

How does the syncing work

Is it still read only?

[eternal haven]

Did they not test this a single time

lol

[potent wolf]

can you change it after starting the server

[eternal haven]

There's a cvar sv_friends_only

idk if it would take effect or not

I wonder if the friend filtering happens at the SDR level or just in tf2

and whether you can use the friend filter with non SDR servers or not

replay are you able to download the tf2 dedicated server

from steam console

I cant download it idk why

Depot download failed : missing app info (Missing configuration) ```

[tacit flare]

Classic Valve Moment™️

[eternal haven]

I guess they probably had a test setup that wasnt the same as a normal steam account

otherwise idk how they would have released it how it is now

[potent wolf]

i'm getting the same issue

depotdownloader is working though

[mystic anchor]

frag out

[cursive peak]

We've released a mandatory update for TF2. The new version number is 9742990. The notes for the update are below.

Thanks.

-Eric

---

• Fixed some players not being able to start Friends Only servers

[eternal haven]

some players

[potent wolf]

maybe it was only some players

[eternal haven]

How much u wanna bet

[potent wolf]

i said maybe im not that confident

[eternal haven]

Im just trolling

but I bet it was 'a majority' or 'nearly all'

I guess maybe it could have to do with steam friend privacy settings or something weird like that

[left sand]

yeah the steam friend api is weird

[potent wolf]

https://bsky.app/profile/ntauthority.me/post/3lm35ictibc2b

norma~ :3c (@ntauthority.me)

"ISteamFriends" yeah you steam friends, i usually stir fry my friends but steaming them is fine as well

Bluesky · Apr 5, 2025, 2:31 PM

[eternal haven]

Im going to steam you

[drowsy marlin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4PR8TnN4Y

wait this unusual effect goes hard

[wild grove]

Now you're thinking with portals

[velvet raft]

steam fiend api

[wild grove]

we became friends with ourselves people!

[summer willow]

@limpid panther how did you do tf2 benchmark?

[eternal haven]

Probably playdemo and frameview

[limpid panther]

I developed a shitty tool for it

it used mangohud on linux and presentmon on windows to capture frametime data

[limpid panther]

https://github.com/Kenajcrap/demoknight

its probably broken on windows rn because iirc presentmon chanced their csv export fields at some point

[summer willow]

do you have the demo file and settings that you use?

[eternal haven]

I think there are like 2 versions of presentmon people use

The intel version and then like some forked version

IIRC

[left sand]

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/tree/master/src/vgui2/matsys_controls

youre welcome

[potent wolf]

mastercoms forces valve to release code by breaking their sdk

[potent wolf]

hm this needs more red arrows and allcaps words

[potent wolf]

can you break vphysics next?

[kind falcon]

its broken by frog already

[radiant merlin]

on august 20 it will be 10 years since i started playing tf2

[summer willow]

i did benchmarks to see the difference using steam .deb (official package from valve) flatpak and snap

not really in a scientific way or using the kenajcrap tool but basically there's no difference

its only on margin of error

if anyone cares

[next nymph]

its worth checking but im not surprised theyd be the same tbh

[lean cove]

how do I unlock the camera from a POV demo? I tried the demo.tf editor and the demo only shows a black screen now

[eternal haven]

Maybe the camera is like way outside of the map or something?

idk

[potent wolf]

yeah iirc it gets set to the map origin

[eternal haven]

I tried it and it worked for me

just now

the demos.tf/edit unlock camera

[rare creek]

https://youtu.be/OCe_Lr6CVD0

[lean cove]

did it start you in a black screen?

[eternal haven]

No but it was some place way far away from the player

I didnt check if it was map origin

I can check

yeah it is

position 0 0 0 viewangle 0 0 0

for some maps it's possible that that is outside of the map

like outside of the skybox

which is just black usually

[lean cove]

ic

I'll try it again

rn I'm using some random demo to replay thing

[eternal haven]

yeah that should work too

the replay viewer has freecam or whatever

[lean cove]

well

I'm stuck at 0 0 0

but I can't move the camera

[eternal haven]

try cycling through camera modes

[lean cove]

replays have some issues with viewmodels unfortunately so I do want to get the demo working

[lean cove]

how?

[eternal haven]

I think just left click and right click?

[lean cove]

still stuck

I don't know if that did anything

also tried space

[eternal haven]

oh yeah space sorry

[lean cove]

I have cl_showpos on

no change in angle either

[eternal haven]

yeah idk then

for me in a pov demo unlocked with the demos.tf editor I can switch camera between players with left and right click and switch between camera modes with space

[lean cove]

maybe I should try on an older demo

[rare creek]

https://youtu.be/ICXPs0MjKuk

[lean cove]

ill watch it in a bit

ok I picked a demo from 2024 and now it just doesn't even load

the original does but not the edited

[eternal haven]

Try it with the sbmrk24 benchmark demo

I just tried that one and it works for me

[lean cove]

I can't even find it wtf

do u have a link?

[eternal haven]

docs.comfig.app/latest/benchmarks

[lean cove]

this is cool but unfortunately not what I'm looking for

[rare creek]

im going to eat you

[lean cove]

wtf it works fine with this

[potent wolf]

oh i think i encountered similar issues

[eternal haven]

huh so there must be some issue with recent demos?

or with some demos?

[potent wolf]

iirc theres a bug in the library that means that stuff gets reencoded incorrectly

[lean cove]

another random demo of mine also doesn't load

[lean cove]

that would make sense why like 3-10 mib go missing

for the sbmark24 only .1mib gets removed

[eternal haven]

I wonder what actually has to be changed

to make tf2 allow stv camera

[lean cove]

same

[eternal haven]

I guess all the demos.tf stuff is open source

[potent wolf]

https://github.com/demostf/parser/blob/master/src/bin/reencode.rs#L83

[eternal haven]

oh

so like it has to change tons of packets throughout the demo?

[potent wolf]

no it's like one packet

[eternal haven]

I kinda thought it would just be some at the start

wait

oh

[potent wolf]

the serverinfo packet

[eternal haven]

I might be stupid

[potent wolf]

fun fact valve actually records some stuff multiple times

i don't remember if serverinfo is one of those things tho

[lean cove]

it's from here https://github.com/demostf/edit/blob/e95a9e4a2cabe16a879c96fb136086abd57fc229/wasm/src/pov.rs#L61

[eternal haven]

same deal through

@potent wolf whats different between a replay and a demo

[lean cove]

no it shows that some packets have to be modified every time

[lean cove]

no difference

[potent wolf]

replays are stv demos

[lean cove]

you literally just attach a dmx file

[lean cove]

they don't have to be

[potent wolf]

true...

[lean cove]

https://github.com/Bash-09/demo2replay/blob/main/src/main.rs#L281

just copies directly

[potent wolf]

yeah cause it doesn't actually check

lol

i think there's some weird chunking thing that runs on the server but I never looked to closely at the replay system

[lean cove]

i'll try their standalone parser

instead of the web wasm thing

cause it's an entirely different codebase

[potent wolf]

it's using the same library

[lean cove]

yeah but different mutators

[potent wolf]

i guess but it's like only 2 less changes

[eternal haven]

Use replaycodings parser

[lean cove]

worth a shot but yeah

2 argument required

best error ever?

[potent wolf]

actually that might work if i add back the hacks to skip unknown messages

[eternal haven]

2 argument required sir

[lean cove]

well the cli isn't randomly losing 2+ mib

[potent wolf]

oh?

[lean cove]

well now it has the stv ui along the whole demo instead of only halfway through

actually most of the ui was missing on the web edited one

unfortunately still stuck at 0 0 0

[eternal haven]

I wonder if you load it and dont start playing

and goto some tick part way in

then play

sometimes that gets around weird issues

[potent wolf]

i have a great idea

patch the engine and set the stv bool when it reads the message

[small siren]

*patch the engine and

set the stv bool when

i reads the message*

- replay

[potent wolf]

[eternal haven]

:D

[lean cove]

still broken

[eternal haven]

m_bIsHLTV = true time

[lean cove]

I'll wait for the fiendhook update

[potent wolf]

when will mastercoms break the engine abi and force valve to release the sources

[haughty musk]

https://youtu.be/R3BdNZAqAt8?si=MED13ULzTyemTaii

SPECULATIVE

[tacit flare]

He sounds so depressed in this. The suffering never ends.

[eternal haven]

unfortunate

[summer willow]

no

theres more chance of being titanfall 3 than team fortress 3

[eternal haven]

The better tf

[mystic anchor]

trickstab

[wild grove]

I bet a 0.01, gonna be canned 3 years into dev, this is the last we ever hear of this.

[high current]

We’ll see TF3 eventually

[radiant merlin]

real

[high current]

This probably ain’t it. But it will happen

[left sand]

deadlock is tf3

[summer willow]

why you cant flip the viewmodel ingame?

[high current]

It changes where projectiles originate from

[summer willow]

why

[high current]

Because you hold rocket launchers on your right shoulder, and rockets fire from the rocket launcher

[summer willow]

bullets come out of your eyes

[potent wolf]

projectiles

[high current]

bullets arent real

[potent wolf]

me after getting shot

they can't hurt me if i don't believe in them

[summer willow]

but

why

[potent wolf]

because it would look wrong if rockets came out of your eyes

[high current]

why wouldnt they?

come out of the rocket launcher

[summer willow]

ok but the first person viewmodel doesnt need to correspond to the world

i guess

[potent wolf]

but projectiles are part of the world

unlike the tracers they aren't fake

[summer willow]

but the game can't fake for you?

[high current]

Projectiles coming from the rocket launcher is more intuitive if you have more than a handful of hours on the class

Also since projectiles have actual collision boxes instead of being a ray cast, it has gameplay implications. Hence why rocket launcher and original are situational sidegrades

[summer willow]

ok i was being a little annoying but

there isnt a way of making it work independently of your viewmodel position?

[eternal haven]

Projectiles take a different path if you shoot at a close object

It's intentional

[small siren]

*Projectiles take

a different path if you shoot

at a close object*

- mysterious_eagle_46873

[eternal haven]

That path changes based on viewmodel being left or right

It's like a feature of the game

[summer willow]

why should it matter when flipping viewmodels? it will look weird on the world, wouldnt?

[high current]

You could make rockets always come from the right, but it would look goofy with left hand viewmodels.

[high current]

It's less noticable in third person, but can be noticed if you are looking really hard. You've probably come across someone using lefthand viewmodels, whether you noticed or not is up in the air

[summer willow]

makes sense

but even allowing flipping and changing the angle, is even something significant?

i thought it might be more of preventing bugs but on a balance side, would really affect something?

[eternal haven]

It's less significant than changing interp mid life but it's basically in the same boat as that

If you could flip mid life you could use it to shoot around corners

need to shoot around a wall on the right side? flip your rocket launcher to left

need to shoot around a left wall? flip it back

it's cringe

so it's disallowed

plus if it was allowed then jump maps would probably like start requiring it for some jumps

which Im sure jumpers would find annoying

[summer willow]

hmmm

i was gonna flip viewmodels but the command is only when disconnected or in spectator, so this means i can't control switching classes?

because i dont want to mess up my rockets

[eternal haven]

No it's just labeled wrong I think

You can change it while dead

[summer willow]

oh ok

[eternal haven]

Or shortly after changing class

[left sand]

i thought it was allowed

[eternal haven]

Same as interp

[left sand]

in RGL

[eternal haven]

fcvar_not_connected

[eternal haven]

I think it is and rgl is just being silly

[left sand]

kid named record d;stop

[eternal haven]

and saying you're not allowed to change it mid life

even though you already cant do that without cheating

[potent wolf]

cheater

vac ban in 5 days

[eternal haven]

rgl also says you arent allowed to use certain particle mods

even though the game prevents you from using them anyways

[left sand]

kid named cookie

[eternal haven]

they already have a rule against no sv pure exploits

[left sand]

its good to spell it out

[eternal haven]

etf2l was saying something about how you're not allowed to change interp mid life

ignoring that that's not possible without cheating

or they were saying you're not allowed to have binds to switch between interp values

[left sand]

how is it not possible without cheating

[eternal haven]

I dont mean the short bit after spawning

they didnt mean that either

theyre saying you cant have binds to switch between different interp values while playing

[left sand]

did they fix the demo thing?

[eternal haven]

they even linked that video of someone doing that

back in 2013

or whatever

prior to valve making interp fcvar_not_connected

it's like they don't realize that that hasn't been possible for a decade

[left sand]

am i blocked or something

[eternal haven]

yes

I blocked you

[left sand]

ok

[eternal haven]

Idk what you mean by this

tf2 fixed it right?

[left sand]

yes

[eternal haven]

I remember something about that in a patch note

within the past year

[left sand]

afaik the patch note was about spy cloak

so i assume they only fixed that

[potent wolf]

how did they actually fix it

[left sand]

people have been talking about how they can switch viewmodels live

probably defaulting cloak to full or changing the transition upon initialization

so it skips the transition from uncloaked to cloaked

you could see it in SDK if so

[potent wolf]

good point

[eternal haven]

#1072696252162117752 message

[potent wolf]

holy shit lmao

[left sand]

i dont see anything specifically addressing invis but the cloak code is kind of a mess

[eternal haven]

Huh I guess you can change cl_flipviewmodels

if you do record stop

at least in a listen server

online server too

[summer willow]

valve vac ban this guy rn

[eternal haven]

I tried changing interp the same way and it like flashes to the new value for a split second and then back

idk why it gets reset back but flipviewmodels doesnt

but yeah idk record stop would mess up your demos for rgl

fps_max used to be a not connected didn't it?

until like really recently

but for some reason you couldnt change fps_max even while you were dead

but for the interp and flipviewmodels and other userinfo settings you can

strange

[left sand]

it's because it's hard coded

[tacit flare]

If the code is hard, would it become soft if ported to Source 2? ||||

[high current]

Source 2 flaccid confirmed

[mystic anchor]

2 clips and yes i know about the colour in the second clip its vegas

[left sand]

probably not

[summer willow]

did f2p really got unmuted? playing everything seems to be the same

i was thinking that new f2p might not even know about the voice commands because its not really an intuitive thing at first

[high current]

Voice commands other than medic are kinda clunky and not really worth using.

Text chat people only use to flame other people and trade. And voice chat people haven’t used widespread since like 2015.

TBH. I don’t think f2ps were missing much.

I think a lot of modern games don’t even have voice or text chat.

[rare creek]

wrong

[eternal haven]

Theyre worth using

[rare creek]

even nintendo games have voice chat now

[eternal haven]

If you get away with some stupid garbage on pyro you can say "Thanks" to tilt people

in the freeze cam

[summer willow]

i wish other games had voice commands like tf2

[rare creek]

What I do is I bind mouse 2 to also say the voice command "nice shot!" and I play Pyro. I wave my mouse around wildly like a chicken with its head cut off and hold right click, most of the time my team votekicks me but when I finally get a kill once in a lifetime, I save the clip and log into my alt account to post it to Discord with a copy paste caption like "should have respected the sightlines" which doesn't make any sense but I do it anyways. Nobody likes me doing this for the 1000th time but I do it anyways because I think it's reaaaaaaaaally funny.

[eternal haven]

Nice

[high current]

If I didn’t feel like an ass on the rare occasion someone sees me and goes “hi peaches, I like your hud” and missed it, I would just play with text chat disabled. And I have voice chat enabled full time because I hate the forced ducking it has on game volume.

[summer steeple]

can't you get rid of the ducking?

its like voice_overdrive

[mystic anchor]

I wonder who this is targeted towards

[oblique tangle]

so players can now start private games without port-forwarding? or dedicated servers?

maybe we could start doing mcom server matches kind of like what they do with dota

[eternal haven]

Youve been able to do that for several years

like 5 ish?

[oblique tangle]

am i confusing this then?

[eternal haven]

They just added a filter for steam friends

So non friends can be blocked from joining if you want

[oblique tangle]

ah

steam networking is cool

[void slate]

sexybuster

[wild grove]

That does sound hilarious af

[hidden gyro]

OC Donut Steel

[velvet raft]

https://vm.vxtiktok.com/ZMS8rMksw/

[orchid sorrel]

[radiant merlin]

brood

[velvet raft]

hi dr cactus, how are you

[orchid sorrel]

eepy

[wild grove]

I was right, big surprise tf2 is more fun with a party even if its 1 other person.

[velvet raft]

hola monito orejón

https://tenor.com/view/so-i've-heard-gif-1899418861963210299

[haughty musk]

I’m hearing that bots are starting to return

[kind falcon]

not for long

[oblique tangle]

yet for long

is yet the counterpart of not? idk

[high current]

I believe the opposite of not is just, not specifying not

[wild grove]

They've been attempting to for a while.

[mystic anchor]

3 clips of sightline disrespects

[high current]

What do you mean by sightline disrespects?

[mystic anchor]

these players that died

they didnt respect my sitghtlines

[eternal haven]

Bait used to be believable

[kind falcon]

players hate this one simple trick

[mystic anchor]

🫡

[high current]

Thought you meant sniper sight lines and I was trying to spot the snipers

[small siren]

*Thought you means sniper

sight lines and I was trying

to spot the snipers*

- peachestv

[mystic anchor]

lol no

[oblique tangle]

dafuq?????

[kind falcon]

lol

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/842582905875202088/1303217199783350304/image0.gif

[eternal haven]

Lately Ive been taking damage from stuff that should not hit me in tf2

For instance I will be playing soldier and jump out of the way of a crit rocket or a demoknight or something and it still hits me even though on my screen I am a full rocket jump's distance away

and both me and the attacker have low ping

has anyone else noticed this?

would any of the recent updates have caused changes in this regard?

[high current]

Maybe servers have just been struggling more

[mystic anchor]

this pyro

did NOT see this one coming

[cursive peak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLtURkNRYas

[potent wolf]

oh my

is this what hell is like

[mystic anchor]

good deflect

10/10

[cursive peak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXesbaWeGi8

Crossbow reflects aren't that common.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5vDGVlLyY

That one's from Huey Lewis, my favorite Pyro of all time.

I got my Planets Pyromancer's Mask signed by him.

[mystic anchor]

getting a reflect flare punch is satisfying af

[eternal haven]

Hell is full of pyros

Pyros go to hell and they burn there for eternity

[cursive peak]

I did once get an underwater Scorch Shot kill.

[mystic anchor]

i've gotten a few cool reflect kills as well

main reflect kills i am such a fan of is flick

[cursive peak]

I always like the instinct ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0krMNZn2N-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPfu4Urx3W4

And a crappy compilation. That was like a summer's worth.

[summer steeple]

I love the DF so much, its great as an anti-pyro weapon, and as an anti-anti-pyro weapon

[mystic anchor]

It's a double edged sword

I still am degreaserpilled but sometimes i just whip it out and decimate heavies

[oblique tangle]

PCGamingWIki big-W

[tacit flare]

Install Mastercomfig [CITATION NEEDED!]

[rare creek]

outdated instructions 💔

[oblique tangle]

how

[hoary geyser]

fiendcomfig is better

[rare creek]

you dont get vpks from downloading mastercomfig anymore you get a folder to merge with your tf2 folder

[oblique tangle]

dafuq

[eternal haven]

I just download the vpks

from github releases

[oblique tangle]

straight up jorking its. and by it's. my peenits.

[eternal haven]

I don't understand but I am happy for you none the less

[summer willow]

theres a hud where the payload panel is on top instead of the bottom?

[high current]

I'm sure it exists, but I cant recall any off the top of my head. No reason you couldn't iirc

[rare creek]

Put it in the middle

[next nymph]

payload progress crosshair

[haughty musk]

https://tenor.com/view/yuimetal-gif-2236335851178412850

[floral sandal]

xbox's will just become steam machines then

[wintry marlin]

Can't beat em, join em

Microsoft is bad at everything lmao

Kinda makes me want to pray for them

[oblique tangle]

microsoft store like the windows UWP app or just the xbox shop?

because then valve's prophecy comes true and they hit big in developing steam os

[next nymph]

cant even do something universally good without getting shit on, damn

[oblique tangle]

no i don't care about being real, i care about shitting on microsoft

you don't understand the level of commitment here

[next nymph]

next level microsoft haters spell it with a $

[mystic turtle]

how about straightup putting it on the receiving end of horrid puns

microshit, for example

[rare creek]

That's cool though

[next nymph]

its acceptable if it has a clear implied accusation (ie. microshill) but if its general profanities then its not the same

[rare creek]

Microsoft Store allows non UWP apps now

[eternal haven]

Still not using it now

[left sand]

microserfs

good book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs

[eternal haven]

The AC team inadvertently included "Flip Viewmodel script" which was not the correct terminology, as flipping viewmodels animations while alive is an exploit that is disallowed in RGL.

[high current]

I gave them that feedback already. They didn’t say shit

[left sand]

Yes they updated it recently

Probably in response to people like you pointing it out

[burnt dragon]

AI MADE COVER

-# /s

[high current]

Oh yeh the updated it last night. Tbh that’s the article they should have released from the beginning. Rule changes actually explained 🫡
Though I disagree with their ban of snap tap and their take on it

[eternal haven]

Snap tap banned but movement cancel binds allowed is diabolical

[high current]

“Keeb software looks like null movement. Keeb software also looks like hacks. If we thinks it’s hacks then it’s hacks”
So should I not use null movement???

[high current]

It’s just dumb. You’re really telling me I need to switch keyboard profiles to disable my keyboard null movement, so that I can use tf2’s null movement exclusively?

Can I use snap tap if I also have null movement enabled in game too???

[eternal haven]

I guess maybe they want to be able to tell by looking at your demo if you're using null movement?

If that's even a thing you can tell from a demo idk

But that's kind of a stretch even if it is

[kind falcon]

rapid trigger + null movement on tf2. truly diabolical

[eternal haven]

replaycoding to the rescue

[high current]

I mean then I’m not relying on snap tap, I just don’t have to remember to change from my gaming profile to my tf2 profile….

[eternal haven]

Maybe the solution is to just press the movement keys yourself

instead of using snap tap or null movement binds

[kind falcon]

this guy is stupid. throw bricks at him

[eternal haven]

Do aliases get recorded in demos?

[wintry marlin]

Making xbox serve steam library is not only a sign of weakness but gives mixed signals.

[eternal haven]

Microsoft is going to buy Valve Corporation

[wintry marlin]

Just how they bought actiblizzard?

Maybe they'll buy epic games first

Point is, microsoft is a hive of wasps

[kind falcon]

why would they bro

[eternal haven]

Idk bro

Why else would rgl care that you're using in game aliases vs. keyboard firmware features to achieve the same end result

[kind falcon]

hey bro open appdata and then.. like scroll down.. oh hey you have these three 5-symbol files...

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1003738740616872088/1345430482929717262/attachment-2.gif

[eternal haven]

They are present

[high current]

Idk if they record the aliases. But iirc they’d record the inputs associated with the aliases.
But in what world that allows null movement is snap tap going to look sus? It’s not even software

[eternal haven]

Yeah idk I think the forward back left right inputs would be pretty much the same between the keyboard doing it vs the tf2 binds doing it

[high current]

They function identically iirc. You’d have to really go out of your way to even try to discern between the two. And why would you when there’s a 90% chance someone is just using allowed null movement.

Unless it came out that snap tap was somehow faster. But I don’t see that being the case. I guess technically you’re putting the processing load onto your keyboard’s mcu instead of your computer’s cpu. But what difference does that make on 4ghz CPUs

[eternal haven]

It wouldn't be anything like that

There's a vast range of monitors, computers, keyboards, internet connections that players use

With a 'speed' / latency range thousands of times larger than whatever the difference between snap tap vs null movement could end up being if you could even measure one

[high current]

Exactly. The anticheat definitely has better shit to do than write a way to discern between null movement and snap tap.

[left sand]

i think its just the principle of using external software and where it would end

[high current]

And there’s no world in which I have enough faith in them to not have a 50+% false positive

It’s not even external software. It’s keyboard firmware

[eternal haven]

that is external software

anyways yeah that's what it comes down to

we're just saying it's weird to specifically disallow something while allowing an in game feature that achieves a functionally identical result

[high current]

I mean yeh. But I think the rules refer to it as meaning a program running on your computer.

[eternal haven]

they should either ban both or allow both

[high current]

They already have such a selective rule set that specifically allowing snap tap and disallowing something like an autohotkey script to get perfect ctaps, wouldn’t be anything out of the norm.

[left sand]

i think null move is just far gone

[high current]

For better or for worse. They already have a precedent of this not being an issue

[left sand]

whereas they dont wanna expand it

[high current]

Eh. I don’t think they’d ban null movement even if they could

[eternal haven]

RGL should really get one of their more technical people to revamp the rules IMO

or like propose a set of changes to make them more consistent and logical

and enforceable

[high current]

I think Aad is their anticheat admin. Idk if they are just ill informed about snap tap or they weren’t the one that wrote this rule. But this is really some spray paint huffing shit.

They also write a handful of RGL plugins. So it’s not like it’s someone unfamiliar with computers.

[eternal haven]

I wonder if rgl could get valve to add features to demos that could improve cheat detection or allow their rules to be better enforced

That might be an interesting avenue for them to pursue

[mystic anchor]

medics didn't respect my sightlines ....

[high current]

Eh. Tbh I feel like just developing a demo analyzer with the given information would be good enough. That’d weed out the blatant stuff, potentially even pick up on things a human analyzer might miss.
Trickier stuff is what the AC team should be for. Though I’d bet my lunch money they don’t have a demo analyzer

[high current]

NGL, the medic probably doesn’t know what that weapon does. Better question is wtf these heavies are doing playing on Wii controllers.

[mystic anchor]

this is a very good question

and the vacc medic was actually aware of what it does

he was just not prepared for it at all

because he never saw someone use the third degree like so lol

[velvet raft]

miku

[uncut spear]

https://gamebanana.com/tools/19816

gup

[eternal haven]

Is there any way to mute everything but voice chat in tf2

[small siren]

*Is there any way

to mute everything but voice

chat in tf2*

- mysterious_eagle_46873

[eternal haven]

like a snd_soundmixer command or something idk

[haughty musk]

End game victory or loss music is considered “sound effects” so good luck, I don’t know

[summer steeple]

try using voice_overdrive to make the audio ducking for the rest of the game like 100%

[velvet raft]

https://tenor.com/view/duck-face-gif-18596139

[summer steeple]

100% audio duck

his ass is creating audio waves

quite literally

[potent wolf]

quite smoking

[summer steeple]

if you type it into the console the spy quacks

[eternal haven]

Yeah thats what I ended up doing, good enough for my purposes

For some reason the start of voice chats seems cut off for me not really sure why

I vaguely remember other people having a similar issue and it ended up being due to some net setting but I can't remember where

[left sand]

thats a bug with high overdrive afaik

[eternal haven]

It seems to happen even with overdrive on 0 or 1 or 2

[rare creek]

You should be able to fuck with the sound mixers, also there's a couple of commands to write voice chat data to audio files

[tacit flare]

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/pull/1284

https://tenor.com/view/yes-yas-wwe-scream-gif-17625417

Fix ALL the spy bugs!

[cobalt spruce]

Eric Smith: "i fucking hste spy, gabe always plays him and i grt owned"
Rejected

[high current]

Hey I can finally stop being asked by spy mains to show feet on my hud’s 3d player model

[summer willow]

this out of context seems weird ngl

[high current]

How do you think I felt getting asked for it

But yeh in context it makes sense. Though idk why you’d be disguising as demo.

[eternal haven]

It makes sense out of context too

as long as the 'spy mains' part is included it makes sense

[high current]

True unfortunately

[velvet raft]

can you explain?

[tacit flare]

Demo's boots often are invisible due to the bug, making it obvious they're a spy.

[zealous pond]

Spy never should have had a disguise mechanic. He should have been designed around spamming the DR with 90% resistance from the beginning.

[tacit flare]

https://tenor.com/view/bait-hornet-hollow-knight-gif-5503458344524908864

[zealous pond]

Nah, living forever is fun. It's also more reliable than stealth in a game like TF2.

[velvet raft]

you had me on the beginning ngl

[summer steeple]

pictured: me getting the achievement for killing someone with a grenade by somehow getting assist credit on a different person dying to their own grenade

a story in 3 acts

[eternal haven]

Is valve ever gonna fix this

[zealous pond]

No.

[eternal haven]

I think it was the "prediction changes" update that introduced it

[small siren]

*I think it was the

"prediction changes" update

that introduced it*

- mysterious_eagle_46873

[eternal haven]

and they just havent done anything about it since

[rare creek]

"Chudha, will Valve ever fix-"
"No"

[proper tangle]

Every comp league should just mandate default settings for everything except for fov, mastercomfig medium high and call it a day

Ok I admit I just don't want to watch comp with potato graphics

[rare creek]

I think some do

Esp CS2 leagues

[limpid panther]

its ok to want the game to look a certain way. But I believe there is a lot of people who really think doing that will make their game run smoother

which is very sad

also a bunch of people who deep down believe that but cope by saying they like the way their game looks

[proper tangle]

As a famous tf2 pro player once said

"idiots"

[cursive peak]

I primarily watch the casted matches, which usually do feature pretty high settings.

[high current]

The flip side of this is that I like the look of muddy textures and blocky lighting, but use max settings because I stream my matches.

Honestly the only setting people change that really gives a benefit is shadows.
Max shadows = occasional wall hack.
No shadows = decent fps boost

Also no comp league is going to put a rule like that in place. We all know there’s a grand total of like 4.5 people who watch comp stream POVs, meanwhile you have at least 10 people who actually play comp.

[lean cove]

medium low does run smoother for me

[limpid panther]

I didnt mean lower than mastercomfig medium, I meant lower than mastercomfig low

I meant how @craggy ridge plays his game

[craggy ridge]

oh no my config got nuked at some point

when i rebooted my laptop

fun memories.....

i just use mastercomfig low now with flat textures

[kind falcon]

good

[wintry marlin]

https://youtu.be/5XqKHgxnlb4

Here's some background noise

The point is in the title and all the yapping is things you already know

[rare creek]

Competitive ruined tf2

[wintry marlin]

I have no idea if he has anything new to say and I nearly fell asleep 30 minutes in

I cannot be ragebaited

[wintry marlin]

I actually love this video

Chapter 5 is so real

[velvet raft]

do you have screenshots @craggy ridge?

[haughty musk]

0 depth perception gaming

[eternal haven]

The fog gives depth perception

Idk how flat textures users are able to put up with some of the textures being flat and some of them being full res

Isn't it so jarring?

Seems like you'd want either all textures to be shit or all to be normal

[wild grove]

Superhot on the windows PC

[velvet raft]

holaaa monito orejón

como estas?

https://tenor.com/view/hai-hi-hello-hallo-cute-gif-9691911103176371831

[wild grove]

bien

[high current]

I assume I agree with this guy. But what is it about the whole comp tf2 bad argument that warrants multi-hour long videos???

Comp scene didn’t do shit to hurt Casual. End of story. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[high current]

I personally ran flat textures on scout and quit running them on soldier. On scout depth perception doesn’t matter, just shoot target.

[eternal haven]

Flat textures really make rocket jumping impossible

Since you lose your orientation when you look at a wall and it's just all one color

If it's a detailed texture it's easy to keep track of exactly where you are and what your angles are

[wild grove]

Because blaming someone that talks back is better than blaming someone where their actions speak louder than words.

[grim parcel]

comp tf2 will continue to be boring until heavy is meta

[high current]

Hey I just got to that point in this guy’s video

Even then: MyM was like 90% buffs. People claiming it ruined weapons weren’t even around when the patch notes dropped.

[wild grove]

I think they are more so mad about the amby no longer being diet sniper, the sandman no longer stunning, and the panic attack no longer being mega ass

""unique"" weapon mechanics even though they sucked ass to fight against or use.

[eternal haven]

It was just busted

sandman stunning is busted

spy sniping people across the map is busted

[wild grove]

The sandman is actually pretty cool in mvm, if you can get charge rate reduced, and the mark on death, it basically becomes a ranged fan of war.

[wild grove]

And then there's the whole casual thing with valve removing quickplay for casual.

and for some reason comp community being blamed for it.

[high current]

Casual is superior to quickplay

[wild grove]

There could be less downtime but yeah.

[high current]

No game should have in game competitive. It’s never well made and fun

[wild grove]

When I was playing with a friend, they actually did stay in the server, very different vibe when you stay.

Just make sure it isn't a map that people would play over and over.

[soft lynx]

TF2 getting a "revised" matchmaking system was inevitable. Most issues I have with the current casual system, is more so about how they handle stuff like map votes, team balance and the "stiffness" that comes with not being able to swap team on demand

[eternal haven]

I like that we have the choice

[high current]

I think if ambassador wasn’t nerfed, it’d be absurdly busted modern day.
People are just more accurate than they were 10-20 years ago. 5 years ago bad scout accuracy was below 60%, now bad scout accuracy is 70%. Doesn’t sound like a ton, but across an entire league over 5 years, ambassador would be CRAZY now.

[eternal haven]

to play the valve matchmaking or to play on any server we want

very few games have that

[proper tangle]

casual just need to lower downtime and allow a couple more features

like the votes to change/extend the map, immediate rematch without reloading the map, rebalance vote, things like that

It doesn't need to be scrapped, it shouldn't

[high current]

Eh. The downtime isn’t abnormal for even modern games. It’s just more than people want

[proper tangle]

people underestimate the value of having a "play" button that does the work for you

and how much heavy lifting that does for attracting new players

[eternal haven]

It's nice for playing with friends too

[soft lynx]

It feels like there is more downtime than there previously was and that just feels kinda off. Extending the map timer felt much smoother than voting for the same map these days. There's also something about the scores not resetting that just felt right

[eternal haven]

it's hard to get your friends all into a full server and everyone joins at different times and it just sucks sometimes

but casual lets you all join in together

usually at the start of a game, instantly

[proper tangle]

I am one of those that look back at meet your match with absolute disgust

but mostly because of the implementation and the state it was released

[wild grove]

I look it back with "wow, that was bad, its much better now."

[proper tangle]

not the intention

[wild grove]

I actually got mad at a mobile game because they didn't have the feature to move around while queuing in the lobby

[proper tangle]

I still think it is, it many ways, the worst update this game ever received

mostly because of the difference of playability and features the game had before and right after

eventually, years later, yeah, the game is in a better state

[small siren]

*eventually,

years later, yeah, the game is

in a better state*

- diegodamohill

[proper tangle]

but man they could not fuck it up more if they tried

[high current]

Bet

CS2

[proper tangle]

hum... debatable

at launch, you could play cs2

as in

open the game, click play, and then get into a match

[high current]

You got banned for having high dpi…

[proper tangle]

meet your match literally broke casual servers for half the planet

as in, they couldn't play the game

[high current]

And you couldn’t jump up boxes specifically designed to be jumped up.

I think the actual broken bits of MYM was fixed faster than CS2.

[wild grove]

They also removed a bit of content too, meet your match only removed the old matchmaker.

[proper tangle]

and i don't mean break as in the balance was fucked or they changed game mechanics

I mean that, outside of the community servers

you literally couldn't play the game

[high current]

I don’t recall that but I’m sure it was fixed in a week at most

[soft lynx]

There were a few hiccups I can remember from back then, but nothing unplayable, no.

[proper tangle]

they "fixed" it somewhat for NA and EU in the following weeks

[small siren]

*they "fixed" it somewhat

for NA and EU in

the following weeks*

- diegodamohill

[proper tangle]

but for regions like brazil you had to wait over half an hour to get queued into a map

any map

It wasn't a population issue, it was a matchmaking issue

those took months to be fixed

and it wasn't until jungle inferno where queue times got somewhat acceptable

[wild grove]

Actually I think the worst update was invasion even though thats a community update, what happened behind the scenes fucked up community updates to this day.

Like with meet your match, the negative stuff was mitigated over time, shit wasn't the same anymore after invasion.

[proper tangle]

But again, I'm pretty happy with the current system

[soft lynx]

reading up on the changes to the casual system and once again being glad, that they got rid of the "rematch system" rather quickly

[proper tangle]

minus a few feature requests

I think it's superior to pre-meet your match quickplay

by a lot

[wild grove]

They prolly haven't added team switch, map extends, spectating due to some kind of negative impact to the matchmaker.

[high current]

Someone make a PR that enables those votes

[soft lynx]

Yeah I imagine that freely swapping teams doesn't play nice with a matchmaking system

[high current]

Oh yeh spectating and team switching screws any server

I can guarantee a roll on uncletopia with like 3 friends, regardless how hard the server tries to balance us.

[wild grove]

And team scramble wouldnt work with a map vote after 1-2 wins.

[wild grove]

And vote scramble doesn't work either, from experience in uncletopia, those votes usually never go thru.

[soft lynx]

I wish I'd go through a single uncletopia match without a scramble

[high current]

They do. But the issue is rarely the average skill level, it’s usually 1-2 outliers max. And scrambling doesn’t help that.

[soft lynx]

people will lose the first point in any gamemode and call for a scramble and 50% of the time it goes through

[proper tangle]

To be fair, the audience in uncletopia is fairly different than the overall casual audience

[high current]

Not that much anymore tbh

[soft lynx]

Though it does happen much more frequently, ever since they changed how scrambles are done. The new "few votes for the actual vote" system makes it easier for lazy people to engage with a srcamble, for the worse.

[proper tangle]

I wouldn't be surprised if half the playerbase don't even notice a vote is happening if they see it on the screen

like, seriously

[high current]

Uncletopia used to have a reputation for being sweatier. But it’s now pretty casual

[wild grove]

They auto press F1 LOL

[soft lynx]

Anecdotally speaking, scramble votes have like an 85%+ vote participation on average.

[proper tangle]

And I remember the pre-mym times

[kind falcon]

kick this guy bot f1

[proper tangle]

if a third of the server actually voted? Oh man that did numbers

[soft lynx]

Scrambles were much rarer, when they were solely done through chat. Same still goes for rtv lol

[high current]

Plugin votes like that just don’t work

No one notices them or how to do them

[proper tangle]

even sweaties barelly notice the text chat

hell, some even disable it

[high current]

I’d say most do not notice

When you spend over a decade having your eyes burnt by people erotic role playing or calling eachother slurs in text chat, you either disable it or mentally disable it.

[soft lynx]

a slightly more structured white line in a chat, that is mostly white doesn't really stand out

[proper tangle]

so to me, vote scramble: nice to have, but not really game changer

can even be funny once in a while

one thing I would really want is the insta-rematch if the curent map is voted again

[soft lynx]

Scrambling rarely actually fixes anything and usually just leads to some people only getting to experience one part of a map

[proper tangle]

don't present it as "rematch", just keep the current map on the voting list

[high current]

IMO vote scramble: never seen it balance things.
Vote extend: what’s the point
Vote to enable Halloween: based

[proper tangle]

if its voted, just spawn everyone

just for downtime purposes

I know it's probably a technical thing, but still

[high current]

Eh. I don’t mind the map change. Just set waiting for player time to a max of 60 seconds.

Which in my experience is usually all it goes for. Maybe I just play mainly at peak hours

[proper tangle]

oh I just found a little time capsule

I posted this on reddit like, a couple days before MyM was released

And then this 3 days after the update was out

[high current]

Valve just needs to go back to dropping massive things with no announcement. The biggest mistake for MYM and CS2 was overhype.

[crisp cedar]

thats their usual method of releasing things

we got a big dota update dropped out of nowhere in the middle of a big tournament lol

[proper tangle]

kinda based

[crisp cedar]

not the first time theyve done that, too

$250k on the line and all of your strats fly out the window when you wake up

and you need to read like a hours worth of patch notes

[proper tangle]

I feel bad for the teams

but at the same time I find it hilarious

[crisp cedar]

i dont

it makes tournaments more interesting

[proper tangle]

So I want more of that

[proper tangle]

True

Nothing more boring than a predictable match

Although I hope that, if eventually valve realises my dream of developing a fighting game, they don't do that there

[crisp cedar]

it gives bad teams an opportunity to beat unprepared dominant teams

[proper tangle]

Man I can only imagine how deadlock will be

I mean, aside from the obvious microtransationskinsboxes shitshow they are for sure going to implement

[velvet raft]

https://jojowiki.com/Sandman

[velvet raft]

trueee

and false

it's between the middle

https://tenor.com/view/morgan-freeman-true-false-true-morgan-freeman-simpsons-gif-17452267358337757772

literally this gif

paradox

PARADOX I SAID!!!

@high current does Valorant and CSGO count? since they did the comp first but introduced other game modes later

[high current]

Yeh. Valorant's comp scene was complete shit. Community competitive tournaments and leagues were the only fun I had in it.

[broken haven]

i made these like years ago lmfao

[cursive peak]

I do own a Froyotee IRL.

[broken haven]

no dude yea when i was in hi skool i used to rock that shit

[jagged pawn]

kaluka cooking as usual

[left sand]

that video is so bad lmao

[jagged pawn]

it's about much more than that imo

[left sand]

its completely misinformation

[jagged pawn]

how so

[left sand]

robin explicitly said he didnt like 6s

[jagged pawn]

kaluka wasn't talking about 6s specifically

in that segment I mean

[left sand]

kaluka claimed robin is like some deeply comp pilled person

[jagged pawn]

he was just talking about the broader point that people delude themselves into that tf2 is an inherently casual game

[left sand]

when that couldnt be further from the truth

then he brings up complete strawmans about tf2s designs

tf2 is an inherently casual game

[jagged pawn]

lol

[left sand]

like half of the classes are inherently designed to accomodate casuals

kaluka supposedly has a huge knowledge of robin interviews but he excluded this one

🤔

kaluka spends like so much time saying robin is like always watching comp but then you see robin literally say he doesnt anymore

[jagged pawn]

other than pyro I genuinely do not know who else you're referring to

[left sand]

because comp devolved into something seriously awful

[jagged pawn]

also I'm not seeing how this contradicts anything said in the video

isn't this quote from like, 2014-ish

[left sand]

kaluka spent like 30 mins talking about this

its from 2013

[jagged pawn]

he was talking about the original design of the game

[left sand]

yes he brought up nothing burger quotes

[jagged pawn]

in fact he explicitly said 2007-2012

[left sand]

where valve was talking about super generic ass statements with listening to players

but it has no bearing on the context of how people talk about how competitive ruined the game now

thats the whole point

he just gish gallops with irrelevant bullshit that isnt even proving his point

the title of the video is never really addressed

people dont like comp players for this express reason that robin articulates

and kaluka dodges this despite claiming supreme knowledge of robin interviews

comp players really need to look inward and really figure out why there is this truth to why casual people dislike comp players

instead of saying "your opinion is wrong bro but you can have it"

[small siren]

*instead of saying

"your opinion is wrong bro

but you can have it"*

- mcoms

[left sand]

the whole video was another example of a comp pilled person basically trying to dominate and steamroll over other people's view of the game

[eternal haven]

why do you say this :(

[left sand]

stagnant, uninteresting, stubborn

everyone else who was worth anything moved on IMO

the people left are stuck in this self selection cycle

like at the very least, kaluka could have acknowledged that these opposing sides have a reason to exist and are valid because the game caters to both

but no he tries to shove his opinion down everyones throats, just like every comp person, this is the whole problem

[jagged pawn]

he... did?

[left sand]

in a disingenous hand-wavy way

[jagged pawn]

I'm kinda at a loss for where literally any of this is coming from

like it just feels like we watched two different videos to the point where I can't thoughtfully engage with what you're saying

[left sand]

he said "you are inherently entitled to an opinion, as like, a human being, but its still wrong"

he spent so much time going into each topic explaining why casual players were wrong

thats the whole point of the video bro

thats what the title is

and thats what the video is

going into irrelevant tangents where he misunderstands or misrepresents almost everything

i mean i could record a full response video idk

but i feel like thatd be stupid

theres no value getting into these discussions imo

because inherently, comp players, by their nature, are not going to be open to the other side, same thing for casuals

[broken haven]

i remember when i used to be so comp pilled when i was younger

[small siren]

*i remember when

i used to be so comp pilled

when i was younger*

- verano.

[broken haven]

i used to be on tf2c beta tests and a NDA game and like

they would constantly ask me for like "pro" feedback

tldr it was stupid because its not really that competitive

[jagged pawn]

I think 55:40 would be my immediate response to this. is it possible that you're confusing his weird tangential jokes with serious commentary? because 55:40 is fully genuine and is meant to encapsulate the chapter on casual

[radiant merlin]

the most obvious proof is not wanting to play 6v6 pl lol

they say they don't like it, but so what?

but of course since they are also the one who organises matches they won't host any pl match

[jagged pawn]

I mean. have you played 6s payload

you could at least make this argument for 6s a/d, which I find to be pretty fun

but 6s payload is so ass

[radiant merlin]

it's not the mechanic, it's the maps that are boring

[jagged pawn]

sure that's fair

[radiant merlin]

because they were not designed for 6s

[jagged pawn]

but then are you asking that 6s simply runs shitty maps until it motivates someone to actually make a good one

bc that feels like a bad order of operations

[radiant merlin]

the most popular maps are big for 6s, in ow there are only 4 point pl maps

while badwater and upward have like 6?

[jagged pawn]

? badwater has 4 points

[radiant merlin]

i mean they could have tried right?

i mean including first and last

[jagged pawn]

yeah

badwater has 4 points

oh are you referring to how like, in overwatch you have to capture the payload first

[radiant merlin]

correction, badwater and upward have 3 capture points, while ow maps have only 2

just one extra point makes it too long

[jagged pawn]

I get what you're saying now

[radiant merlin]

or at least one big reason why comp players may dislike it

[jagged pawn]

I guess that does overlap with why I prefer a/d, since it has a lot more maps that are actually short

[radiant merlin]

also ow has the time bank system which imo it's an improved version of the stopwatch system

[jagged pawn]

this is from 2018 so it's missing a lot of newer stuff but here's every map at the time sorted by total time to push the cart to win. which suggests that barnblitz and badwater (which were in fact the two maps that got experimented with the most in comp) are the shortest non-multi-stage maps

so yeah this theory does hold some water. interesting

[radiant merlin]

so the thing is, there have been like 15 years for at least one player to make even a dev texture map, but with good layout and points

which probably had happened, but then, where are they?

the only one i can remember is waste, and even that is not classic payload and not played since 2010?

anyways, valve had also been in fault for not developing comp before. if they wanted people to play the way they wanted

[high current]

I think it is addressed pretty well. I also think most their points were valid, though potentially over extrapolated.
Robin Walker did say they kept an eye on how comp players played the game, and they were saying that long before MYM, which is when everyone blames the comp community for ruining the game. I don't think they were trying to imply that the game was designed specifically to be competitive, just that it was designed casual-comp agnostically.

Also I think hand waving them as "comp pilled" isn't productive and pretty much exactly what you're calling the creator out for.
I don't see anything that specifically points to them being a comp player, in their past content and the entire video. I think they borrowed clips from comp players and used clips from casual and TF2 Classic, which IMO pretty comfortably positions them as at least empathetic to Casual, if not a Casual player themself.

[radiant merlin]

btw, it's funny that valve nerfed the wrangler 5 years after, despite knowing very well how op it was lol

[left sand]

again, none of this addresses the core premise

[high current]

But I would add that I don't think comp ruined TF2. I think comp exists in its own sphere of the community and Casual is mainly what the game IS.

[left sand]

just because you say that valve looked at competitive before mym doesnt address how the game was ruined after

its not an actual point

[high current]

I mean their video is formatted a rebuttle of like 3 or 4 points.

[left sand]

its pretending to be a point

their video is a bunch of strawmans and mischaracterizations

again, no one has a problem with people playing the game competitively, that isnt the core premise of anyones complaints

[high current]

That specifically is a rebuttal to the claim that MYM was the comp community's update and soley their fault for ruining the game.

[left sand]

the main complaint people have with competitive is how they ultimately have self-sabotaged every single attempt at growing the scene and game

like yes the game was balanced with competitive in, and got a hugely competitive focus over time, especially with mym and beyond

but for what?

[high current]

I think this is pretty directed at a response to Lemony Dahmer. Who did claim that the Comp community actually ruined the content of the game

[left sand]

valve risked alienating their casual player base to make the game more competitive

and the comp players boycotted the comp matchmaking

instead of tolerating it and helping it grow into something more

actually recognizing the huge deal it was

they didnt do that

[high current]

I don't think they really balanced the game in a way that suggested they were hugely competitively focuses.

[left sand]

they just complained it didnt let their graphics config make the game look like clay

they did

[high current]

How so?

[left sand]

they ruined several weapons just for comp play

[high current]

Like what

[left sand]

the sandman, the base jumper are the most casual oriented weapons which got completely gutted and are now totally useless unfun wastes of inventory space

and theres others

but i dont play the game enough anymore to remember

[high current]

Comp players gave feedback to valve during the playtesting and very high profile people extensively played valve comp on release and gave feedback both publicly and privately. They even the created nr6s to provide feedback to the gamemode.

[wild grove]

Didnt we talk about how those several weapons were unfun to a casual audience anyway? I dont think casual players liked the amby making the spy turn into diet sniper or the sandman.

[left sand]

im just saying, these items were there for a reason, to contribute to a certain feeling of the game that was present before gun mettle and mym. the games balance took a turn. it wasnt robin anymore. the games direction took a huge shift

the video doesnt make sense precisely because of this reason

they use evidence from robin and from 2011 and shit to justify things that are being criticized later

and even then, they dont fully represent all the data

2011 comp was a lot different from how it is now

[high current]

I don't think sandman was balanced because of community comp. No one like the stun and it was mainly an issue in casual. Competitive banned it and ended it at that. Base jumper just didn't function as Valve wanted, and while there was feedback given by the comp community, it didn't ruin the weapon by any means and IDK if they even gave the specific feedback that was decided on.
Tons of people still use base jumper so calling it ruined is just false IMO.

[left sand]

my main issue with comp has always been that they abused a risk averse valve to make a huge investment, and then made it implode and flop

[wild grove]

Actually why hasn't official comp been removed yet?

[left sand]

sure, valve could have burnt money and resources for a while and maybe may have found a way to make it work

and sure they do have the money and resources to do that

but really, from their perspective

why would their third or fourth attempt be any more successful?

the comp community fundamental was being stubborn

and they basically left the game half-finished in this new direction

[small siren]

*and they basically

left the game half-finished in

this new direction*

- mcoms

[left sand]

precisely because of this terrible response for the exact group of people valve bet the entire game on

[high current]

They gave valve extensive feedback and valve listened to none of it. Valve literally botched comp despite the comp community's best effort. Blaming the comp commmunity for the flop of the comp gamemode isn't fair imo

[left sand]

nah

thats wrong

[high current]

How

[left sand]

they listened to a lot of it, but there was a few things they didnt believe in

this is PRECISELY why comp players are so annoying btw

[high current]

What did they listen to? I didn't see any updates based on the feedback given in the beta

[left sand]

they want to dominate the game to their own image

its their way or the highway

its always been like this

and this comes up with any conversation with a comp player too

[small siren]

*and this comes up with

any conversation with

a comp player too*

- mcoms

[high current]

You're just writing me off for being a comp player because I'm asking you to elaborate on what they changed based of player feedback

[left sand]

no, thats not what i was referring to

anyways, i think the best format for this is for me to collect my thoughts and make my own video essay but that will never happen because i have way better things to do

[high current]

Yeh I think the video format was okay, but being 2 hours long was insane. If it had been 10 minutes I think it would have been better.

[left sand]

every time this comes up, im at a disadvantage because youtube videos are incredibly powerful in terms of audience saturation, how they influence opinions, and how they can present data nd give people a way to ingest facts uncritically

and they are incredibly long and hard to address everything

[wild grove]

I can understand cause that's whats going on with the workshop community rn.

[high current]

I think there are more videos blaming the comp community for "ruining the game" unfairly IMO.

[left sand]

i dont think so tbh

most of tf2tube is comp oriented, ik theres the people like zeebus but

those are still a minority though growing

uncle dane style tubers are still the main thing imo

though they are fading for sure

[wild grove]

The "just tf2 gameplay with friends" tubers are my favorite.

[high current]

IDK what corner of TFtube you're in but I would like to know where it's at. I haven't seen decent comp content, or really any comp content in years.
There's b4nny but even they only upload like once a month now.

[radiant merlin]

i think a growing one is wild rumpus

[high current]

UncleDane isn't a comp tuber anymore IMO. They have comp experience but I think they mainly just release content about enjoying the game.

[wild grove]

Fair.

[radiant merlin]

tho his videos are a bit too long for me lol

[high current]

Which IMO is good

IDK, there's like a bunch of "watch my play casual", "weapon fun facts", "goofy map hide and seek", "weapons with x stats", etc. videos. IMO that's a majority of content.
And pretty much all of them have blamed the comp community for "ruining the game"

Also IMO the game isn't even ruined. It's not in its golden age, but I think it's in the best game state it's ever been in IMO.

[wild grove]

My wishes is for more bodygroups and custom war paint bases to be added, people put a lot of work into em, and I think they should be implemented (100+ community content creators signed the letter for a reason), I think both are realistic wants.

[high current]

My wish is that Valve replaces every sound in the game with the wrap assassin melee hit sound.

[wild grove]

Is this like a jab at me, you think what I am asking for is unrealistic or are you joking?

where's the "/j" smhh

[high current]

Nah I’m just memeing around

I think new body groups would be cool. IMO they should add less war paints each round but I’m all for continuing to add them, I just think they should be more selective.

Or did you mean war paint bases like weapons that can’t currently be war painted should have the ability to be updated? That’d be neat

But I do also think the wrap assassin melee sound is really funny and if they added some cardboard shoes with the sound effect, I’d definitely run them.

[radiant merlin]

my wishes is for tf2 to be bug-free and with the best optimization source can allow

and being able to run tf2 at fullscreen without the game not letting alt tabbing while loading maps, but from what i saw, it's impossible

[stone linden]

uncle dane is not a comp youtuber at all… he makes helpful stuff that’s mostly about 12v12 payload

there are actually like no popular competitive tf2 youtube channels other than b4nny and most of his content nowadays is fun pub clips

competitive play is such a small group of people and a small group of creators with small audiences

also like if existing competitive players have their own format and don’t like the weird half-measure that valve made in the beginning of mym, it’s not their “fault”. nobody is obligated to play a game mode that is not fun

the base jumper is also just not anyone’s fault but valve’s

the tiny competitive community does not have any control over the game and its balance, only valve did

i don’t know how a small group of players is supposed to “abuse” valve

the game’s success was never related to the tiny competitive community with very little monetary investment anyway. it was always a nice cash cow from crate unboxing and cosmetics

also comp is not even that stale tbh. im not a comp player but just following the meta history of the last ten years has been pretty interesting. there’s been a lot of optimizations in terms of playstyles and a couple new weapons even worked their way up. the loch and load has somewhat recently seen a resurgence because people just slept on it

but the rest of it is just consistent in the sense that the ideal techniques have been mostly solved. it’s just an old game with some things that have been shown to be stronger than others

it’s very difficult to have quick meta changes because people have tried most of it out, and either it has been so broken that it was banned, or it simply is not as effective on average

[radiant merlin]

i don't think the loch and load gameplay is very game changing

it ends up being just more x of this stat, less y of this stat

[stone linden]

it was game changing enough to get banned in etf2l as well as banned in rgl HL

and it completely changes the threat zone of a demo

[radiant merlin]

and a lot of weapons are like that in tf2

[high current]

Eh. Tbh the meta changes pretty often, it’s just not super obvious unless you know roles pretty well. But the balance of how much flank vs combo counter parts play in certain spots, when they’re aggressive, how they’re aggressive, etc change constantly. Even team to team it varies pretty substantially.

Also quickie bombs have become a viable off-strategy which is pretty substantial, relatively speaking. Even loose cannon is seeing some occasional use.

[stone linden]

yeah i just don’t wanna overstate things since i’m not very well versed in the competitive scene

i know there’s a lot of incremental innovation that happens from round to round and season to season but im not the right person to explain it

yeah i saw loose cannon on some videos, quite fascinating

[high current]

TBH. Anyone who says comp meta is stale doesn’t care enough to look into it. The weapons mostly stay the same, though there’s counter examples, but the roles change non-stop.

[stone linden]

seems to be genuinely viable in the right hands on the right maps

nobody complains about soccer being stale but maybe there’s even more change in tf2 comp year to year than soccer year to year. im not an expert on either so idk

[high current]

Honestly I’d say the last 2-3 years have been the most meta flexible years in comp since the scout speed change.

[stone linden]

i mean regardless of how flexible comp is. i don’t really care

im just saying the notion that a small number of competitive players somehow abused and exploited Valve, one of the biggest game companies in the world, is just completely absurd

and the notion that it’s somehow their fault for not playing a game mode that everyone hated

when they represent a tiny percent (maybe like 1-3%) of the player base and a similarly small percent of the revenue

[high current]

People will complain about things they don’t like.
I find football boring to watch. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know shit about it. So I just don’t watch it.

I’m sure it’s fun to play and fun to watch if you know it. But that’s not me and I think that’s valid.

Tbh I think the whole community abuses Valve. Not even necessarily the TF2 community even, but I see TF2 and CS communities doing it. I’m sure every community abuses the developer of their game.

I think Valve just has occasionally thrown their communities bones. Which is good because it shows they care enough to, but it also means it’s more painful when you can tell they don’t care enough to.

[stone linden]

if Valve tries to make a game mode for me in particular, and I don’t personally like it, it’s not my fault if nobody likes it. If it was any good, someone else would have liked it. don’t blame a single customer for the failure of a product. maybe the product is the problem

[high current]

But in fairness, Valve is also makes like a $15 billion a year. I don’t feel sorry for them in the slightest.

[stone linden]

valve is perfectly capable of making their own decisions and they are solely responsible for those decisions.

[high current]

For sure

I think the most valid point of the video in question is that “people should be blaming valve, but they won’t hear anything from valve so they blame eachother because at least then they get a response.”

[stone linden]

obviously the game did not develop the way anyone would have hoped post MyM. But i’m absolutely tired of strange ideas about how this tiny, nearly inconsequentially tiny, segment of a playerbase manipulated big daddy Valve into doing something that nobody wanted

i didn’t see the video, im just responding to strange claims made by mastercoms and others in this thread

[high current]

Hot take: Without MYM the game would be dead currently.
For all the hate casual gets, I think it has kept TF2 alive in modernity.

[stone linden]

whether comp tf2 is fun to watch or interesting to play or even connected to the original vision by Robin doesn’t matter at all.

Valve is responsible for valve and that’s it

[high current]

Quickplay would not have survived the 2020s

[stone linden]

we are all just customers

[high current]

I’m just that one guy on yelp like “ay yo, idk what all the complaining is about”

[stone linden]

a random group of competitive players doesn’t have the power to destroy a game like this even if they wanted. If MyM competitive mode was actually any good, enough other players would have tried it

and if enough people played it, people would get better at it over time. and then maybe it would have taken off!

but it’s the game developer’s responsibility to create an interesting enough game mode that people are willing to commit many hours to get good at it

the whole “designed for competitive or not” debate makes no sense anyway. nobody was thinking about that back in 2003 etc. even counter strike was just made for people to have fun at first

[high current]

A big problem at the time was that it forced certain settings that were parts of very popular configs at the time, to the point of crashing when changing things like dx level, having PREC installed, just the many other graphics settings that were forced for reasons.

So a good portion of the community just flat out couldn’t play the game mode. Which was pointed out in the beta, and fell on deaf ears. If valve really wanted to take a stand against those settings they needed to say something and/or enforce them in casual (look at SOCD in CS2)

[stone linden]

adding to this, i think a better answer to “what made valve panic and build this” is Overwatch, not competitive subculture tf2 players

[high current]

It was also a majority of the community that would have been most passionate about playing and creating content for the gamemode.

[stone linden]

and a lot of players did leave to overwatch immediately because it was clear that valve had no real vision on how this could succeed

again, the customer just chooses the better product (although overwatch has its own problems lmaoooo)

[high current]

Eh. I think it was in the works before Overwatch was revealed. I’ve heard Overwatch has no bearing on meet your match. I don’t believe that much, but I do believe it was at least in the works before OW was a concern.

[stone linden]

i don’t think overwatch in particular was necessarily the issue, but just the changing tides of multiplayer shooter design, which includes the rise of OW

[high current]

I think Valve forgot how to launch products after like 2012. Just look at the Steam Controller, Steam Link, OG Steam OS, TF2 Comp, MannPower, PassTime, Artifact, and CS2.

[stone linden]

god 4v4 community pass time is so fun to watch

[high current]

Hell, even HalfLife Alyx was only an okay launch. It was probably the biggest VR launch, but it was a niche product.