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

[high current]

Community pass time looks awesome.

I think Valve has gotten better with product launches with the Deck and new Steam OS iterations. But we’ll have to see how the do with the full Deadlock release to see if they’ve figured out game releases again.

[rare creek]

If they had figured it out with Deadlock they wouldn't have developed Deadlock 🥀

[high current]

One thing Valve swears by: it’s never too late to abandon a project.

[rare creek]

Literally like a 90% decrease, which means even when people went out of their way to beta test it, they didn't want it

[wild grove]

Hater bias

[rare creek]

Dead in the goddamn water the all time peak is lower than the current amount of people playing Dota 2 right now at 11 am

[high current]

Dota 2 isn’t really the fairest comparison

It’s still in closed beta right? Certainly not a great look to already be below the player count of its grandpa (TF2). But I think it’s a hair early to declare it dead.

I’m as much of a certified Deadlock hater as anyone. But I’ll hold my final judgement on longevity for when it releases.

[rare creek]

It still has like the most dramatic dropoff of any currently updated Valve game tho

[high current]

That’s true

Though I can’t recall Valve doing this extensive of a closed beta before

[kind falcon]

hypes dead. dotas game count is lowering every day by 200

[small siren]

*hypes dead. dotas game

count is lowering every

day by 200*

- Python Discord Bot

[high current]

I’ve heard a new game is popping off: going outside

But I actually think gaming has reached a point where the profit just doesn’t reallllly lie in quality anymore. Similar issue as we’re seeing in the film industry where it’s so easy to release half assed content that will be guaranteed to make money that there’s no reason to actually produce something good.

The statistic in my Business of Film class in 2021 was that 95% of films made by major studios were non-original content.
And it’s definitely gotten worse since then

[jagged pawn]

do you actually believe that the sandman was rebalanced for competitive players and no other reason

[wintry marlin]

If I were to make a shooter I would just combine casual and comp into a single mm queue. No matter how you play it earns you a rank. Dead by Daylight does it. That also means people play by exact same rules irregardless of format.

[jagged pawn]

I think the fact that you had a bad interaction with one comp player doesn't justify the way you're choosing to talk about a large group of people

[jagged pawn]

if tf2 did this for mym valve hq would've been bombed and I'm not joking

[wintry marlin]

It would also make rank effectively meaningless for team comps and only track individual stats.

Play how you want, the only purpose of rank would be to make games more balanced

There is a hidden sbmm system in casual... or used to be. It took casual badges into account. Now it seems to be whatever.

I am talking about shooters in general tho

[kind falcon]

which groups bigger

the oldheads or the newgens in comp

❓

[jagged pawn]

this is a broad question

[wintry marlin]

Cs2 comp is basically the default way to play the game and I don't care if you fuck around or hard carry.
Valve's idea of casual is all random ffa.

[jagged pawn]

are you asking like, in current tf2 which group plays more? or

[high current]

If I were to design a game it would be a game designed to be fun playing 1v1 with your friend. And if I wouldn’t set a limit on team size, so if people found it fun on larger teams I wouldn’t stop that, and if I could balance for gameplay on larger teams without sacrificing 1v1 I would do so.

My reasoning behind 1v1 is I think many indie fps games fall into the issue of relying on a player base that they’ll never get or maintain. Meanwhile if a game is designed to be enjoyed by just 2 buddies then it almost doesn’t how big the player base is.

But I’d never have any skill correlating rank in the game. I just think community will determine rank better than whatever elo system I’m smart enough to conceive.

[kind falcon]

as a result of Previous Decisions Made By The Competitive Community, which group plays more

[wintry marlin]

If you don't want sbmm in videogames that'a fine, people were really frustrated with it in DbD because past a certain point people played the game in one way only

[high current]

New gens. Though depends how far back is old heads. Tbh I’d say most comp players started playing TF2 in the last 10 years. Which IMO is new gen.
They probably started playing comp in the last 1-3 years.

[wintry marlin]

Optimized the fun out of it

[high current]

I think loose sbmm is fine. TF2’s casual pulls it off really well imo.

[wintry marlin]

But that game is a case study of worst balanced design in videogames tbf

[jagged pawn]

yeah I agree with peaches

definitely more newgens today

[wintry marlin]

Valve's idea of casual is to lower the stakes by making individual impact lower, tf2s casual is like cs2 casual

[kind falcon]

magical

[wintry marlin]

I don't think sbmm in tf2 works at all

[high current]

NGL. If you told me TF2 didn’t have sbmm I would believe you. I think it ultimately had almost no impact in TF2 and I think that’s fine.

[stone linden]

i’ve never seen anyone who believed that tf2 mmr actually did anything

i still tell my friends that it has no sbmm

[high current]

I think having a way to have an educated guess when balancing teams is okay. But I think just going full RNG would probably be equally statistically valid, though I’d love to see a study done on this.

[wintry marlin]

Casual matches often end in steamrolls

[high current]

In my experience with PUGs which try REALLY hard to nail down an Elo system, they’re equal to or worse than full RNG.

I don’t think casual matches are as unbalanced as people say tbh. I think there’s probably cognitive biases at play. I’d love to see someone do an actual data analysis on this though.
Like “I played 1000 games and tracked the number of rolls”

[stone linden]

i mean one of the reasons steamrolls happen is people on the losing team just leave obviously imbalanced games

[high current]

Like crits don’t happen that often, but god damn I swear I get random crit all the time.

[stone linden]

and then they’re always down players, and incoming players have no context etc

[wintry marlin]

Valve tried to fix steamrolls with autoscramble but it can't read game state fast enough to realize it's about to end and when people overperform it's like a punishment

[kind falcon]

just play koth smh

[high current]

That’s true. But tbh when I get autobalanced last second I just laugh, at what point are you going to feel good about getting switched to the losing team?

[wintry marlin]

They would rather get players into the match and sort them later which makes a lot of people leave before the match ends which then perpetuates this hell queue

[high current]

I’d rather get switched 1 second before losing for a funny joke than get switched 60 seconds before losing when I know there’s no time to get an uber and very little hope for getting a banner or making a play in the next 1-2 lives I have.

[stone linden]

auto balance sucks

[high current]

I think matchmaking seems at its best in fresh servers that are full of when large groups are connected at once.

I think a server get unbalanced when 2-3 people leave and spots get filled repeatedly on one team. Idk if there is a bias towards getting newer players in games quicker after queueing or if it’s a matter of probability. But that’s my anecdotal evidence.

Could it be improved? Yeh.
Is it worse than match making in any other game? HELLLLL NAW.

[crisp cedar]

yea thats how it works when a new game gets released bro

[high current]

90% is pretty harsh

[crisp cedar]

everyone wanted to see what was the new thing about

and those that liked it stayed

because deadlock doesnt really have any incentive to play it besides for the love of it

a lot of other games employ mechanics that literally make the player addicted to their game

deadlock is just the game purely and thats about it, valve isnt interested in retaining player interest as the amount of players they have right now is sufficient

that and

the playtest got too out of control to a point where there is a second private beta branch lol

where only a few people are invited

deadlock is pretty popular in the cis region particularly, especially competitively

[high current]

Eh. TF2 has casual xp, which is a form of that, but not a super major one so I feel like the incentive argument also applies to TF2.

And I agree with Niterux that 90% ain’t a good look for a game.

But yeh IMO it’s too early to pass any sort of valid judgement on the game’s final lifespan. It’s likely to change.

[crisp cedar]

17k players isnt horrible for a niche game genre imo

[wintry marlin]

it's moba, right

[crisp cedar]

and yet again, deadlock isnt a game valve has "officially" released yet

[high current]

I’ll try it on release. I don’t expect to be blown away, idk what community perception will be, and tbh as long as I’m not obsessed with it while the community immediately dies, I won’t care. And even in that latter case, I’d just be disappointed if I fell in love with the game and it immediately died.

[crisp cedar]

its technically supposed to be a limited beta test

[crisp cedar]

its like if they translated all of dota's rts mechanics into a third person shooter

tbh when i first heard of deadlock i thought it was a horrible idea

genuinely the worst idea ever

[high current]

Calling it a niche genre is a hot take. It’s shooter league with minecart rails.

[wintry marlin]

I played it a year ago

[crisp cedar]

but im surprised at how well it was executed and if they go full forward with finishing this game it could have something

it has a small competitive scene too

bigger than tf2's believe it or not

[wintry marlin]

I'd be surprised if it didn't

[high current]

Yeh 17k is still a healthy game. I think paladins has like 5k and is still considered hanging in there.
I think above 2k players an a game is big enough to not be noticeable most of the time.

[crisp cedar]

paladins is eol too lol

anyways idk im not surprised about the numbers dropoff for deadlock

[high current]

TF2s comp scene is having its worst season I’ve seen ever right now honestly. At least RGL is.
Low team count in 6s and HL. Stupid rule changes that are over burdening already kinda absent (probably over worked) admins.

[crisp cedar]

the novelty and hype of a new valve game wore off and only the people who believe the game in its current state is enough for them stuck around

the game's gameplay works but stuff like visuals is still a wip

i imagine the average person doesnt want to play an unfinished game

[wintry marlin]

I would play deadlock more at the peak of its hype if my hardware could handle s2.

[crisp cedar]

and also just no acknowledgment from valve at all on any social media for example

or on youtube or anything

[high current]

TBH I love unfinished games. MOBAs just feel like closing my fingers in a car door imo.

[crisp cedar]

what seems so unappealing about mobas to you

cause i feel like deadlock is just dota for people who dont like mobas

[high current]

I just like being able to simply be better than someone. Like technically you can do that in a MOBA, but the whole rock-paper-scissors aspect is too strong for it to really tickle my brain

[wintry marlin]

Or top down perspective, or fog of war

[crisp cedar]

okay so

deadlock is controlled from the third person

its a movement shooter

and it heavily rewards aim

[high current]

IMO if the game is won based of character picks, it’s boring as hell to me.

[crisp cedar]

its not really won off of character picks

[wintry marlin]

Peaches, what if quake but you upgrade your guns like in mvm

[high current]

Abilities still carry pretty heavily. At least when I played. Definitely less severe of an issue than things like league or dota.

[wintry marlin]

Do you fw this

[high current]

Main thing that drove me away from deadlock is just that none of my friends played it. And pacing was kinda slow.

[crisp cedar]

since it's based on dota's design philosophy, EVEN if your character doesnt match the situation, you can adapt the playstyle of your character to excel

[high current]

Frankly being able to rocket jump in TF2 ruined every other shooter for me.

[crisp cedar]

high skill deadlock games look like quake 3 games

or well quake champions i guess idk anything aobut that one

[high current]

Meh. Quake was too complicated.

Quake with no power ups would be my love

[wintry marlin]

I feel like there's no hard matchups in deadlock and item shop is the real chess

[high current]

Quake holy trinity gamemode with no powers ups. Or diabotical knockout mode.

[wintry marlin]

If you want to play as the slimy gooba gabba goo every single time you can

Just that you have to wear different gear for different fights

[high current]

Maybe I’ll give it another shot. But splitgate 2 also just dropped and it seems more like the cocaine fueled game play I desire

If a game has air drag like a parachute though I think the developers should be fired on the spot. Idk how deadlocks air drag was, but I remember my first impression of Overwatch was “oh cool I can do this tech with Phara, oh she is wearing a parachute…”

Same thing in valorant. People acted like there was cool tech with Raze. But you had to do so much to even equate to like the most basic rocket jump in TF2

[wintry marlin]

Never should have believed the 12 year olds that overhyped val

[high current]

Eh. On release it was what CS2 should have been (replace abilities with util and I stand by that).

But now it’s just: spam abilities, rush site, plant spike, GTFO, spam post plant abilities from off the site.
It’s so stupid and actually foul. I hope the game goes down in flames.

[wintry marlin]

Tactical shooters that aren't cs are all like r6 siege for some reason

It creates a shallow ocean

All have heroes with very restricted kits and one utility that defines them

[high current]

I’ll never touch CS2. They made ill informed rule changes to ban keyboard innovation and aliases and I also don’t want to support releasing half baked products to your millions of loving fans.

I played a game of deathmatch on it when it first dropped. And that’s it.

Yeh the whole hero shooter needs to chill. They objectively have more personality, but they all miss the reason why you should care about the characters.

I think the that’s what TF2 got right. The characters are great, but the absolutely nailed getting you to be invested and care about the characters.

[haughty musk]

Keyboard innovation was kinda bad when it started, since it put a price tag on a win. But literally everything else is correct (just left from a low trust match and it was not fun)

[wintry marlin]

Are you talking about analog keys

[haughty musk]

Snap tap or something

I think analog keys are OK

since max walk speed before footsteps aren’t banned

[wintry marlin]

Sounds like a macro idk what it does

[high current]

Eh. Even keyboard SOCD wasn’t a big deal IMO. It has been allowed in FaceIt literally since CSGO released and no one ever bothered.
Valve just cared because they watched TikTok fear mongering.

[high current]

Null movement.

[wintry marlin]

Ah great.

[high current]

Yeh the thing that RGL just banned. But they explicitly allow null movement.
Because they said so…

I almost applied to RGL AC team this season. But with them huffing spray glue this hard there’s no shot.

[jagged pawn]

wait I haven't been keeping up with rgl did they actually ban snap tap lmfaooooo

[left sand]

im not gonna respond to anything addressed to me here

because it's extremely difficult to address all of these points in text

but comp players need to stop denying nothing is wrong at all

it happens over and over

this is precisely the behavior which creates the outcomes that people dont like

even now in this discussion you all are doing it

maybe question to yourself why people have this sentiment and try to find an understanding

i will clarify though, when i say comp youtuber, i mean more a comp minded youtuber, not one genuinely producing content specifically for 6s play. i mean one with skill oriented videos and a perspective of the game that favors comp. for example, "trick down balance" and just in general videos about getting better at the vs. the more casual goofy or general content of other youtubers

i agree that specifically comp players making content isn't very popular

[cursive peak]

What are we supposed to understand when even how to improve at the game is painted as comp?

[craggy ridge]

tbf all of those changes were kinda bad

it's just that before they got changed the weapons were even worse

ppl say that trickle-down-balance is ass but like every instance of it "ruining" a weapon is entirely on valve and not on the balance philosophy itself

TDB works great when you know what you're doing (the GRU)

[cursive peak]

I don't get the issue with trickle down balance, either. If it's balanced for the best players using a weapon to its maximum extent, it should be balanced for lesser skilled players using the weapon sub-optimally.

[left sand]

it's also about different contexts of play though

look, im totally in favor of there being separate weapon lists in comp and casual. some weapon concepts are wacky and fun, but only fit within the chaos and low stakes of 12v12

ive really grown on that, but only as a tool to enhance the casual experience, rather than one to limit the competitive experience

ie, a mindset of things added to casual than removed from competitive

however, i think comp scene has favored one overarching style of play which hasnt changed in 12 years or more

and i think that's bad

especially since it's exclusionary

highlander is definitely better in terms of addressing things within its own context

but 6s is the main way to play comp and i do think at the basic format, it makes a lot of sense

[craggy ridge]

hl...

[left sand]

it just hasnt been tested in the same way as other esports, theres very little incentive to do so and theres a very strong self selection happening over multiple generations of players

[left sand]

yeah i for sure dont mean highlander is great, i just mean that it's more fully exploring its problem space. thats largely a consequence of the format, but it's also just an observation about outcomes

[craggy ridge]

i do think highlander is great

pure unadulterated fun

i've played as a med, spy, pyro

had a blast in all of those

[next nymph]

new comp format idea: nooblander

teams of 5, both get 1 medic and then take turns picking what other 4 classes to play. When one team picks one class, that bans it for the other team.

[kind falcon]

The Coinflip And Pick Order Method

[soft lynx]

If I had to describe the comp scene in one word, it'd be "alteingesessen" which roughly translates to long-established, but with a more negative tone.
The community tends to be very closed off and there are very few resources available for interested new players to give the scene a go. Not to mention the problematic behaviour of a very loud group in most leagues.

But I have to disagree at least partly that there haven't at least been attempts to make the two main formats more approachable for new players. I can only speak for ETF2L, but they tried multiple times in the past to introduce various "Fresh Meat" and beginner cups/tournaments with varying success.

A lack of community engagement is partly at fault and a very small part of the knowledgeable community is willing to sacrifice their time organising tournaments and providing resources for players to learn the game modes.

A great example of someone putting in some work as of recent, would be sunflower and their work behind a "Sniper Discord" for people to get help, feedback and watch high level PoVs of other sniper players.
There's also Wild Rumpus who, for the last three years, has been making interesting 6s/comp content on YouTube.

But at the end of it all, if there isn't constant support from knowledgeable/eager people to keep these newbie oriented tournaments running, it's hard to get new people into the league. And this will, if it hasn't already, devolve in a pretty toxic circlejerk

And, at least for ETF2L, there have been regular attempts at giving banned weapons another go. But with most of the comp scene, especially those with a voice, playing for as long as they have, it's unlikely for any big changes to occur

[next nymph]

you play a game of 6s first and whoever wins picks first

[left sand]

yeah i definitely agree

i dont want to entirely blame comp players

but i feel like as the leading edge of the community, they need to do more to organize at every level, beyond just leagues setting things up. the whole community should be receptive as a whole

[crisp cedar]

since tf2 fans looove tf2 video essays, should we make a video titled How Competitive Killed TF2 and rebut all the incorrectly made points

tf2 fans dont think for themselves so if a big video essay explains things to them they might have a change of perspective

because i feel like 6s comp players rule the narrative

and its never been properly challenged

[soft lynx]

I agree! There is definitely room for improvement in regards to the public image of the leagues.

I hope that the influx of the new trial league admins for ETF2L has positive outcomes on both the moderation of toxic behaviour, as well as making the scene more accessible for all players.

Personally speaking I wouldn't be as involved in the health and future of the comp scene, if my very first experience with it over 10 years ago was as positive as it has been.
Since then I've pretty much only been on teams with people I knew beforehand, because holy shit I do not want to meet some of these creatures strolling around.

[next nymph]

I think "properly" is the keyword here. There's a hugely popular narrative that comp players are out of touch and destructive to the game, it's just mostly limited to pubbers who've never interacted with comp except being pubstomped, and will just say blatantly incorrect stuff like "they ban almost every weapon" to argue the point

[soft lynx]

The people I know that work on the league do give it their best, with the limited resources, time and energy they have.
I'm also extremely glad to see people like supra organising the poLANd for not only 6s but also HL

[crisp cedar]

i just think the fact that the comp community literally boycotted and refused to play the competitive mode is never talked about ever

like mcoms is the only person to ever bring it up but i remember that happening exactly way back then

except i was a casual player against the idea of competitive back then so i never played comp anyways lmao

a lot of people talk about what valve did but never talked about how the community responded

because lets be real the community fucked over valve numerous times

the community only cooperates with each other when the goal is to destroy something

[soft lynx]

tbh I can see why comp players wouldn't touch valve comp with a 10 feet pole. If we compare it with something like faceit vs csgo/cs2 ranked, it's a big difference.
But that difference also mainly comes from wildly varying core principles as to why these people play comp the way they do versus how valve intended it.

Bot/cheater problems aside, no restriction 6s with non cp/koth maps vs standard 6s is an entirely different experience

[cursive peak]

I tried to use the in-game competitive, but the queue times were unbearable.

[crisp cedar]

the thing is that instead of cooperating with valve they just didnt use it because it wasnt exactly like they wanted it to be

queue times were shit

the mmr distribution was literally just broken

shit players would become death merchant

no high skill players for the mmr system to work

[cursive peak]

Long queue times plus being dumped back in the queue if one person disconnected.

[crisp cedar]

valve tried updating it a few times over blue moon and ji and it didnt work so they just gave up

[soft lynx]

I'm pretty sure that there has been a lot of feedback, some even constructive and usable, from various comp players. I wouldnt go as far as to say comp players back then weren't cooperative, if anything a proper channel of communication was missing

[heavy solar]

@soft lynx has leveled up! (3 ➜ 4)

[crisp cedar]

the community made their message clear and valve didnt see a point investing in something the community rejected

[cursive peak]

I'd spend like 2+ hours in queue only to get dumped back into it when someone disconnected 5 seconds after joining. It's hard to sit through that.

[crisp cedar]

yeah it sucked

it rly sucks what happened

[cursive peak]

I think I spent a week trying to get into my last placement match.

[crisp cedar]

if the community didnt boycott it we couldve gotten highlander support too

[small siren]

*I think I spent a

week trying to get into

my last placement match.*

- steamworks

[crisp cedar]

cuz they were also working on that

[soft lynx]

Funnily enough RGL, and maybe even ETF2L, did later try the non restriction variant for their actual leagues, it just didn't have a player base big enough to warrant the effort maintaining it

[left sand]

yup, but imo that's always going to be a failure on the league and the existing playerbase

there was a seeding problem

[cursive peak]

NR6s is pretty much what pubbers always asked for.

[soft lynx]

Valve comp was at the very least an interesting experience, but the existing playerbase just had no interest in valve version of it

[left sand]

if they had instead done a no restrictions season and stuck with it, then i think there would have been better results, albeit painful

[cursive peak]

RGL did 2 seasons if I remember correctly.

[left sand]

and that's ultimately their fault for not seeing the potential of valve's vision

[left sand]

not exclusively

[crisp cedar]

yeah the playerbase decided theyll stick with the exact same game theyve been playing for over 12 years with nothing new or interesting happening ever

[left sand]

i mean they should have done a "balance update"

like actually committed to it

[crisp cedar]

nothing to subvert expectations

[left sand]

you can even implement something like valve suggested

a pick/ban weapon system

[cursive peak]

I mean, they've never ran anything exclusively.

[left sand]

but 13 years later

that still hasn't been done

[soft lynx]

Yep, and I assume (big big emphasis on this word) that the disappointment of the comp players and what they had imagined played a big role in an overall negative/dismissive reaction to valve's idea

[crisp cedar]

its just the same game where the same things have been tried so much that the only way you can outmatch others at a peak level is with very miniscule tiny advantages like a single second time difference on something happening

[left sand]

i think dota and cs are good examples

and even fortnite

people stomached the shit

because they loved the game

tf players are too selfish and dont actually love the game enough to let it be free

they want to own it

[left sand]

the first fortnite tournaments had unbearable late game lag

like literally tournaments were decided on server frames which took 5 seconds

but no one gave a shit

[broken haven]

2018 summer skirmish...

[left sand]

epic was hosting

and that meant a lot

sure people were frustrated like gosh i just died to a guy i thought i killed 8 seconds ago

but on the whole it was still positive and constructive

and very very optimistic

people were almost pretending it wasnt unfair

just for the sake of the game

[crisp cedar]

rejecting valve trying to be involved in comp was the worst idea ever, you can reject all kinds of things but if you reject the game developer itself youre going to literally kill your competitive scene

[left sand]

the fact that tf2 players couldnt suck up the shit and just play through it

is deeply troubling

[crisp cedar]

like the only way your scene and format develops is with valve

i have no idea what kind of alternative were they picturing

[small siren]

*i have no idea

what kind of alternative

were they picturing*

- rayne

[crisp cedar]

imagine the shit valve couldve done for the scene besides just the game itself

[left sand]

in the first international, over half the heroes were missing. the meta was defined by what didn't have its natural counters. the game was buggy, many mechanics were missing or not working

but no one cared

[crisp cedar]

the potential for financial support

[left sand]

they just played

[next nymph]

I mean I don't know what it'd be worth to. To a more limited extent the comp community did this by opening the whitelist, and I'd still hear people say "I'll never play comp because they ban my favorite loadout of x y z" and I'd have to say "literally all of these weapons have been unbanned for multiple seasons" and they'd just say they don't care

[crisp cedar]

there couldve been cosmetic sets that support pro teams for example

[soft lynx]

iirc some people from the comp scene were at least consulted/contacted by valve as to what would work. There might already be something from them public, but I'd genuinely wonder how they felt and how the communication between the two parties occurred

[left sand]

until theres a complete no restrictions season, it feels like a sour mentality

[crisp cedar]

a hat that supports b4nny when you direct purchase it

[soft lynx]

Pretty sure RGL ran a few of those

[left sand]

they were picturing that valve would never leave

[left sand]

nope

yes there was an alternative NR6s

i mean literally

like make the actual 6s

no restrictions at all

[crisp cedar]

i think every other game community also thinks this, dota and cs included

theyve been lucky

[soft lynx]

Ohhh, gotcha. Yeah it'll take a wonder to make the league go NR on a main season hah

[left sand]

yup

because like some random comp player will scream about a very specific anecdote about a weapon and then it will stay banned

thats literally what happened in those global whitelist calls

again valve begged and pleaded to the community over and over

[soft lynx]

rip global whitelist

[left sand]

that they were unhappy about comp

that comp needed to unban everything

but every single time

[wintry marlin]

I can attest to comp scene feeling gatekept, my whole experience starts and ends with tf2center pugs and I couldn't really play the roles I wanted because matches would only run impromptly between regulars who know each other with their slots filled in

[left sand]

the perspective of comp players

is that

"im right, youre wrong"

without any introspection or reflection

[crisp cedar]

i also feel like weapon bans are such a dumb way to deal with things

[small siren]

*i also feel like

weapon bans are such a dumb

way to deal with things*

- rayne

[left sand]

like not thinking about why these opinions form

theyre just dismissed as "you don't know anything"

[crisp cedar]

like the only reason weapon bans exist is because they challenge the 2 scout 2 soldier demo medic strategy

[cursive peak]

Doesn't unbanning everything run counter to your idea of having some weapons intended just for pubbing?

[wintry marlin]

That's quite the hot take

[left sand]

i very expressly mentioned what i meant by that

[soft lynx]

I'm genuinely interested in this conversation, but I'll have to check back in like half an hour to actually finish work.

I'd also, if you don't mind, point one of the head admins attention to all the points made in here later. Maybe that'll go somewhere

[crisp cedar]

coms mentioned a very good example about the soda popper where its really overpowered in 6s but lke

like

when you think about why exactly its op

you realize its because nobody plays heavy in 6s

like heavy doesnt care about the many jumps scout can do

[left sand]

a good example is the infinity blade in fortnite

its a completely unbalanced weapon in competitive play

[cursive peak]

If a weapon isn't intended for serious play, wouldn't it have to be locked out of serious play?

[crisp cedar]

or the cow mangler is a problem because nobody plays engi so no dispensers

[left sand]

i mean from a game balancing perspective

[wintry marlin]

No heavies seems like a map issue imo

[left sand]

the perspective is radically different when you're designing weapons to be ADDED to casual

rather than removed from comp

it's glass half full / half empty stuff.

[cursive peak]

Adding to casual without adding to comp would require it not existing in comp, right?

[left sand]

it only works when the developer is involved in making that sort of thing.

[wintry marlin]

Do people play pl in comp and if yes why swiftwater

Specifically 6v6 pl

[left sand]

you probably won't ever get my point if you still haven't gotten it

[wild grove]

I would agree if it weren't for me personally experiencing playtests for community maps and knowing VALVe also playtests em internally.

[kind falcon]

makes sense to play pl on highlander

[crisp cedar]

how would we feel if you had to lock in your weapon loadout every round?

[cursive peak]

I don't get how you can have "literally every weapon in the game in comp" while "these weapons aren't for comp" simultaneously being a thing.

[left sand]

the fact is, valve's current stance as a game designer is that every weapon is valid for comp play

i was talking about game design theory

where you look for opportunities to create new weapons specifically designed for casual rather than looking for opportunities to restrict weapons out of competitive play

[wintry marlin]

The map is really large so yeah it makes sense to play hl.
If the map was small would the inverse be true? Imagine a pl map the size of viaduct. Maybe the pace would keep the game going.

[left sand]

do you know nothing about positive vs negative design?

[small siren]

*do you know nothing

about positive vs

negative design?*

- mcoms

[kind falcon]

payload but both teams can push it

🤓

[left sand]

i was merely saying, they can do that in the future if they wanted and i think itd be a valid approach if they wanted to alter their strategy

[radiant merlin]

That's waste

[left sand]

it worked for fortnite somewhat

[wild grove]

Isnt what you're talking about payload race?

[radiant merlin]

It hasn't been played since 2012 i think

[kind falcon]

plr splits the team

its evil

[cursive peak]

Okay, so you do that. You design a weapon for casual play only. How is that supposed to interact with the competitive play?

[wintry marlin]

Nightfall is 3 stage and is huge so not really

[left sand]

steamworks I don't understand your point

[radiant merlin]

I think he meant tug of war

[left sand]

you're using my forward looking theorizing and applying it to the current time

[wild grove]

Oh yeah, prolly, hope I see a year round one this year.

[wintry marlin]

It doesn't have to be plr, just pl but smaller

[left sand]

yes obviously creating weapons for casual only means they're banned in comp

but there's a difference between looking for weapons to ban and analyzing it from the perspective of what to ban to refine play

vs. creating new opportunities in casual and not restricting yourself from creating those just to consider its competitive implications

like for example creating halloween maps with candy pickups and purgatory

[radiant merlin]

https://comp.tf/wiki/Waste_(PL)

[left sand]

its different from looking at a standard map pool and looking at refining it by banning things in comp

[wild grove]

This would be wild to see but also unsurprising knowing cashworks is as old as this I think.

[cursive peak]

I've played Waste.

[wintry marlin]

Back to my initial point, 6s would have different metas if they played pl or other gamemodes besides cp and koth if they actually had rounds last like 10 minutes max.

[kind falcon]

Checkmark ture

[wintry marlin]

Most pl maps are just too large for 6s

[left sand]

they would have different metas if they weren't optimizing for player preference

[kind falcon]

Most maps too large

Make smal

[wild grove]

Now you're making me think of a funny idea of comp players playing the halloween maps competitively (I think this was done in a charity stream.)

[left sand]

the only way to really fight against that at this point is run a few million dollar tournaments

[wintry marlin]

This is also true

[cursive peak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEsI0BHwwOA

I've played HL on a Halloween map.

ctf_haunt

Reskin of Vitalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eDU24gHEuw

Coincidentally, my team had Kip ring for us during a scrim on it.

[wintry marlin]

But if I stop for a sec to consider highlander, most pl maps are sized just right. No issues.
There are issues in other gamemodes though.

Idk if I prefer 6s or hl

Different strokes for different folks

[cursive peak]

HL has played PL, KotH, A/D, 5CP, and CTF. UGC even ran dom_canalzone one summer.

And Haarp.

[wintry marlin]

Ngl I forget hl exists

[broken haven]

havent played hl since i was 14

[wintry marlin]

Like by all means it sounds like it should be the default comp format on paper

[cursive peak]

I'm indirectly responsible for minion being a thing.

[broken haven]

minion 😭

[wintry marlin]

Omg lol

[broken haven]

dude i was on his team

not a good thing to remember

[cursive peak]

I did encourage him to try HL.

[broken haven]

pinkies meme dream team back in 2018

😭

[cursive peak]

He earned the "minion" moniker for effectively being "user"'s minion.

[broken haven]

steam do you remember a player by the name scratch

[cursive peak]

I remember someone with a name like that being a weird stalkery asshole.

[broken haven]

scratchh used to be literally the worst person in the world

then they did a 180 and now theyre trans and a furry now LMFAOOO

[wintry marlin]

Many such cases

[broken haven]

i should yap about my experiences of being a comp tf2 player

i used to care about the scene so much and at the time i think i wouldve been invite if i kept playing

i used to unfortunately go by the handle lewd rude and nude which was completely fucking stupid

but i won rgl main s2 6s then i retired LMFAO

[kind falcon]

i lose iq points every time i visit tftv

[wintry marlin]

It's in good spirit

[crisp cedar]

tftv is like tf2 4chan

[wintry marlin]

It's a punk tf2 nickname ngl

[broken haven]

i think if i pulled up my tftv posts i would die of cringe or something

my life just used to be all around this game 7 years ago damn no wonder why i was a loser back then

[rare creek]

Competitive TF2 should be annihilated sorry

[broken haven]

no ur right nitreux

[wintry marlin]

Good evening adolf pootis

[broken haven]

then i started playing fortnite and started talking with well adjusted people instead of like tf2 people

then yea

[wintry marlin]

Sounds nice

My burnout is a bit different

[kind falcon]

Use of racist language during an RGL match.
Use of homophobic language during a scrim.
Use of racial slur during a scrim.

[kind falcon]

my play experience im lft ☝️

[wintry marlin]

I would take turns with tf2 and csgo when I actively grinded.
Then I discovered dark souls. Straight into the fire. It ruined other games for me.

[broken haven]

im just gonna say, the person i wouldve been if i kept playing tf2 the way i did wouldve been the most digusting nasty person to ever exist

[wintry marlin]

I would say souls tryhards are far less adjusted than the side of either valve games communities I've seen

[kind falcon]

the so called "many such cases"

whats up with tf2 players. can we get a video essay

[broken haven]

4 hour long video essay

[wintry marlin]

Elmaxo pls fix

[broken haven]

i talked about this with a friend like

fortnite players are well adjusted people and tf2 players? bro

[wintry marlin]

Actually idk who is the most suitable person to psychoanalyze a community of a 20 year old game aside from funke

Interesting case study

Soundsmith, dane, zesty, swipez and such are the people who are gonna get studied so they're not suitable to do this

[broken haven]

dude i used to know someone so incredibly racist they had a white demoman mod

[wintry marlin]

At least it's not as psychotic as having a name like nword killer and having a strange counter of demomen killed on everything, I guess

Must be the difference between a bigot and a troll

Come to think, when I would see racist nonsense in all chat I would think to myself "please don't be russians again" when I look at their profiles

That's my anecdotal experience

[kind falcon]

"pls be finnish"

[wintry marlin]

Though I can read what they're typing and if it is in cyrillic I'm already mentally prepared and expecting something stupid and obscene.

[wintry marlin]

The latter makes it everyone else's problem

[rare creek]

I'm a troll but I troll with equality in mind

[wintry marlin]

On god I've seen a lot of racism in csgo and payday 2 and come to think and it would usually come from russians.

It's cultural.

I'm affected by geopolitics in my fuckin online videogames

At least americans have to live with the shame of it being all local.

Anyways where's the meme of tf2 fan meetup being all nazis and trans

[kind falcon]

aussies

[wintry marlin]

My candle flame is twerking

Imma blow it

Damn, smelly

[soft lynx]

Yeah, lobbies are essentially just an organised pub x) And given the fact that people have to set these lobbies up themself (and get a serveme server), people will be behaving like cretins from time to time. And all that time waited to even get into a match, that might just be a complete roll isn't really fun either. I used to play a bunch of tf2center lobbies, but nowadays it's just not fun anymore.
And since for some people, like you, it's their first (and sadly only) experience of what "competitive" tf2 might look like, it's an understandably frustrating and appalling experience.

[cursive peak]

The now defunct community I was in years ago ran newbie pugs on Saturday nights. Those were more enjoyable than centers/lobbies.

[spring kestrel]

No?

So like

You want to play against a competitive vaccinator and a competitive Natasha

The majority of weapon bans are in place not because they threaten the meta but because they're less fun

[wintry marlin]

I don't like those guns casually, why would anyone like them competitively... except sadomaso

[spring kestrel]

The cow mangler one shotting medic at range isn't a problem because nobody runs dispencers but because it's an insanely low risk high reward spam move that makes choke more difficult to push through for both teams, thus elongating stalemates

Nobody plays engineer not because he's bad, he's actually really good, but just because he's less fun

[soft lynx]

Yes and no. It's not like they just decided from one day to the next "this is how the game is meant to be played". Especially the first few seasons were basically just "fuck it, let's try it all". Poeple eventually just found a setting that was both fun to play and challenging. And given TF2's fast paced nature, anything that would slow down a match is hence deemed as a negative impact on said experience. This is also how they ended up with mainly playing 5CP and KOTH, after CTF, A/D and PL just didn't work out for the playerbase (at this time and going forward).

And with 5CP and KOTH favouring fast moving classes, others got left behind.

It is partly true that some weapon bans are used to keep specific classes, mainly heavy and pyro, in check. For the aforementioned reasons, running either of these classes permanently slows the game tremendously and due to their inherent strengths and little counterplay in a small team format makes it unfun to play against. This would very quickly evolve into a "rock, paper, scissors" kind of game, which can be fun for some, but just wasn't for the playerbase at the time and at the moment.

Even though outdated (again rip global whitelist lol), this video from a Woolen Sleevelet goes over the idea behind weapon bans as a concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd1U-OQSOno

[left sand]

i think the game would benefit from slower seasons

ebb and flow is interesting

and im tired of people saying "slowing down the game" as if it's a bad thing

the idealized single uninterrupted roll flow isn't the only kind of gameplay that's neat

slowing the game down can lead to tension and strategy that you see in prolonged fights

[soft lynx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOzxCdZiOc
This slightly longer video goes over the reasoning behind weapon bans from 7 years ago and, as bluster pointed out above, the lack of ammo consumption isn't the only reason for the cow mangler to be banned

[left sand]

i dont think things should be banned just because theyre more defensive, they're "unfun", etc

again, valve heavily asked the comp community move to a pick/ban weapon system

instead of a fixed whitelist

but they didn't listen.

[soft lynx]

Yep! Which is why last holds (or long holds in general) are especially interesting, because that's when most of the "meta deviating" stuff happens.

[left sand]

exactly: self selection at play

[high current]

Is there a source for Valve begging the comp community to remove their whitelist?
I’ve never heard of this happening

[haughty musk]

If fire damage was more normalized across all classes (and resistances) I think pick/ban would work best

[left sand]

this was 2013.

it's been talked about even before that, and reiterated many times since then

[soft lynx]

I'll also agree that "slowing down the game" isn't an inherently bad thing. It's a different experience, that one might argue is closer to the true nature of the game and its flexibility that comes with the various classes and weapons at our disposal.

[high current]

Idk if I agree with that. I think most weapon bans are because they just aren’t balanced in the format.
FOS for example are banned in 6s but not HL. Because in HL you have enough players to be able to focus a FOS heavy while in 6s they would be basically unkillable

[left sand]

the 6s game is designed, by players with a preference

[soft lynx]

There are, or at least were, a handful of weapons that were banned purely because they were mechanically broken. Regardless of their actual impact (with these broken mechanics in mind) in a game. Old Gas Passer flying through specific walls for once.

[left sand]

balance isn't some absolute truth

bugs can be a part of balance

i dont think even bugged weapons should be blanket banned

unless it's like literally a free win, ie a cap exploit, an instakill exploit

otherwise, teams should strategize about them with pick/ban systems

[rare creek]

Competitive definitely ruined tf2 ig then

[wintry marlin]

Gas passer was banned because it went through glass walls on many maps and they unbanned it bc everyone realized how it achieves nothing and it wasn't widely used anyway so yea

[high current]

The ESEA whitelist was notoriously restrictive. And literally had bans based off “blah would be boring to play against” heavy to mid, engi to mid, etc.
RGL white list is substantially less restrictive and uses a ban philosophy that is more around “blah is blatantly unbalanced”.

[soft lynx]

Yep, another one being the mantreads being able to be merged with the gunboats for the ultimate pair of boots

[left sand]

okay but it's still a ban list

do you really not get it?

ZERO BANS

league wide

that's what valve wants

the fact that rgl hasn't even gotten to only 2 bans in 13 years is laughable as progress

[high current]

That’s not what robin asked for

[left sand]

the mentality hasn't changed

[high current]

They asked for data driven whitelist decisions with actual insight

[left sand]

you didn't read it correctly

[rare creek]

Deranged behavior

[left sand]

they don't want top down decision making

[wintry marlin]

The list of bugged weapons is not really big and not very powerful and the only widely accepted and really useful exploit used in comp is roamers wall bugging themselves in the skybox and it is fun.

[rare creek]

This is why Valve comp failed

[left sand]

they want teams to make decisions match to match

that produces useful data

[soft lynx]

Instead of season to season or whitelist discussion to whitelist discussion

[left sand]

a league, even if it polls players in the abstract, making global ban decisions does not produce data

it's always theoretical

every time you play the game, you need data on what weapons are banned, and if left unbanned, how much they're used, and if they're used, what their winrate is

this layered data is EXTREMELY important for game balance

each team needs to have their own prioritisation/preference, and even decide what bans are going to be effective vs. certain teams

[high current]

I think that was a suggestion for how they could improve the information received. And for a while this exact system was the exclusive method prolander (7v7 pick bans) was played in RGL.
Once RGL picked up Highlander and 6s Prolander made pick/bans optional.

[left sand]

you're wrong peaches

[high current]

I don’t think valve was saying “this is the only way the comp community can contribute”

[left sand]

its very unfortunate that you're wrong

[high current]

About what?

[left sand]

about your interpretation of what they wanted

[wintry marlin]

Idk if plog taunt cancel would be considered a bug or a feature but is the most exploitable pyro strategy and it is not that good in an organised setting.
I can't think of many advantageous hidden mechanics atm.

[left sand]

again, until the leagues make the main way to play a universal pick/ban system, it's irrelevant

sorry, but that's just how it is

no small leagues / alt seasons

this needs to be a global change.

[high current]

That was literally RGL prolander

They gave you what you asked for

[left sand]

the comp scene was INCREDIBLY different when RGL launched

especially in NA

and I'm talking GLOBALLY

is this not getting through to you

RGL prolander isn't a GLOBAL thing

[soft lynx]

Valve endorsed Highlander would've been fucking sick. Looking back at what eXtine and Salamancer provided the community with and the little work has actually been done is a bit disheartening. A pick/ban system would've absolutely worked for Highlander (6s is a different story, but that seemed to not even be considered either at that point from Valve).

The upcoming trend I see in ETF2L 6s, doing map pick/bans every week instead of a predetermined rotation might be going in the right direction. Maybe in 10 years we'll get a ban/pick system for weapons as well.

[wintry marlin]

Ngl valve wanting pick/ban system is news to me and it changes how I perceive mym

[left sand]

until the entire universe of competitive play is with this format, it doesn't produce the necessary data

[soft lynx]

Either way this seems over a decade too late, but it could definitely make the current comp scene more approachable

[left sand]

because there will be a selection bias

this is why NR 6s in RGL failed

you need to force the medicine to go down

[high current]

You gave me the same literature you are interpreting to rebuttal me. We’re interpreting it differently.
Robin Walker at no point said “this is the ONLY way we can get useful data”.
The fact we are interpreting this interview two different ways and there was no follow up clarification, suggests to me that Valve accepted how things develop and doesn’t really match the “begging and pleading repetitively” that you previously described.

[left sand]

nope, you're just wrong

[high current]

Insightful

Productive I might say

[left sand]

im not gonna be productive with someone like this lol

[soft lynx]

6v6, and even most forms of highlander, are currently too different from regular pub play. This matters because the TF team is time-constrained and they simply can't spend time providing updates to a small subset of their customers. Robin's thoughts on clearing this hurdle boil down to "highlander with a pick/ban item system."
This to me clearly says "we need this system to even work with you"

[left sand]

none of what you're saying is true and it's meaningless for me to discuss this with someone who says it like this

[high current]

I asked for a source for them begging the comp community and you gave me an interview I acknowledged we interpreted in two different ways and that the differing interpretations speak to the message of the interview

[left sand]

especially considering the context of what valve did after in the last 13 years

[high current]

And you just say “nuh uh”

[left sand]

your interpretation is just wrong and cope

you cant make up your own delusion and expect me to entertain it

it has 0 validity

and im not gonna stand for it to be even considered as valid

[soft lynx]

Out of my own curiosity I dug up the actual thread https://www.teamfortress.tv/8952/how-to-get-to-in-game-comp-lobbies. It also goes to show how dismissive and "this is a bad idea" at least the first few reactions were

Including the usual "lol hl" debate

[wintry marlin]

If I were to play pick/ban hl right now where would I go...

[soft lynx]

I also must insist that focusing only on highlander is a straight up failure IMO.
x)

[left sand]

i mean, I'll have to agree that LONG TERM, highlander was probably not the right approach

[high current]

“Robins thoughts…” imo this is reads as their suggestion. Which iirc this is around when RGL prolander started and actually had a decent player base at the time. So people tried it.
I also think the whitelist changes that came with the transition from ESEA to RGL at least partially acknowledged the point of there being lack of room for innovation and data driven whitelists.

[left sand]

but it would be a great start

[wintry marlin]

Oh god people are that strongly opinionated on sixes? I knew hl was the underdog but damn

[left sand]

sigafoo was great and did a lot for the scene for sure. but it stagnated and didn't fundamentally change anything

that's my main gripe with your point

comp didn't fundamentally change their philosophy that there needed to be a whitelist at all

[high current]

Sixes has always been sort of elitist, it was partly a meme and then partly people actually taking the meme seriously.

But as of currently HL is not doing well in terms of participation in NA.

[soft lynx]

Yeah, as we can see with how Valve decided to do comp at the end. Highlander has a much lower level of entry for the average player, simply due to being able to play any of the 9 classes everyone has had at least some contact with. Valve starting with Highlander back then, with a pick/ban system for weapons (and maybe even maps 👀) and then moving forward to add 6s with the same/similar system would've been amazing

[left sand]

your point about like "this is just their suggestion and doesn't prove me wrong" is just insane though and imo you need to do the work to justify it, i dont need to engage with it at present

[left sand]

yup

[high current]

Prove me wrong about what? I asked when they “pleaded and begged repeatedly” and you gave me them suggesting a more data prolific format.
That’s not begging it pleading repeatedly. You’re the one choosing to shut down

[left sand]

it's actually really sad to see you not reflect on this and double down

[high current]

.

[soft lynx]

Well given that this was an interview "Robin thoughts" sounds like a decent summarisation of what the interview entailed. This interview and thread also heavily predates even the existence of RGL (whose first season ever was 4 years after the thread). This was back in ESEA (and ofc ETF2L) times

[left sand]

you're contorting basically everything that happened, claiming it was sufficient, and not even considering anything that was actually said

and i dont have to engage with points that have no basis in fact or reality

[soft lynx]

If anything, we would have to look at what the staff of ETF2L and ESEA (lol) had talked about back then. Though you'll probably find some of them in that very same thread

[left sand]

to do so would give them too much validity than they deserve

again, until there is a global pick/ban standard for all leagues, with 0 real competition for alternative classic formats, then it will not produce the sufficient data

[soft lynx]

"ScorpiouprisingHow: can you practice playing roamer if the weapon you use the majority of the time has a random chance of being removed in a league match?"

2-part answer to this. Firstly, Robin insisted that one important thing missing from comp TF2 was variety. Players get very good at a specific skillset and then work the system to preserve their place with that skillset. This causes strategy and playstyles to stagnate, and it's antithetical to a game that releases constant updates.

Basically that means you practice two or three loadouts, and know more weapons. Adaptibility and on-the-fly thinking are rewarded more this way, which Robin hopes will cause more variety in games.

So much fucking lore

An image makes this much easier to read

[left sand]

you cant just draw with crayons on a spreadsheet and say urr durr its data

[high current]

I asked for a source. You provided me a source. I interpreted the source. You said “nope you’re wrong”. I provided excepts from your source to support my interpretation. I acknowledged we had differing interpretations and that that’s valid both personally and for the discussion. And you said “Nope you’re just wrong”.

And you claim the comp community is elitist and prone to shut down meanwhile you’re acting like this.

[left sand]

no again you're wrong

your opinion is shutting it down

you cant play reverso lmao

nothing you stated has any basis in reality and isn't supported by anything you claim to source

the fact that you think that, is totally anti intellectual

[small siren]

*the fact that you think

that, is totally anti

intellectual*

- mcoms

[left sand]

again, i don't have to engage with points that are devoid of any logic

[high current]

Okay so you’re just trying to gaslight me now. No thanks

Very disappointing tbh

[left sand]

if you want me to engage, you have to provide more supporting evidence

otherwise, im not gonna respond to something that i dont think has any rational basis

it's like someone in climate denial who points to some made up delusions and expects me to engage

[high current]

I’d like to submit this evidence to say that Mcoms is being toxic 😢

[left sand]

nope, not worth it, im not gonna try to convince someone who's operating in lala land

[wintry marlin]

Ngl years ago I thought valve gave up after mym because nobody played comp to give them data but now it looks more like the data would not be that useful to them to begin with because it would only serve usage stats with subpar kd ratios and nothing about people's preferences and votes.

[left sand]

again, robin is the game developer, telling exactly what he'd like to see

and your response to that is that he's wrong and it's just his opinion man

and doesn't actually indicate what they actually want

makes 0 sense lol

[wintry marlin]

Neither side got what they wanted in the end

[left sand]

and again, RGL at first was more an "alt-league"

the fact they ran prolander was an alternative to what existed in NA at the time

this causes self selection bias

the exact issue valve is trying to avoid as a whole

unfortunately it feels like you can't analyze the situation deeply enough to understand this

[soft lynx]

It would be about a lot more than just K/D ratios and usage stats. Being able to compare the average state of a game where x is banned with a game where x isn't banned would give some much needed data to decide if (and potentially how) a weapon is over/underpowered.

[high current]

How do you expect a bunch of independently run leagues to coordinate a global open whitelist?
The only way for this to have happened was a united league. The only people who could have had that kind of pull would have been valve. If valve needed this to be the only way and truly wanted it they would have run their own tests.

[wintry marlin]

Mym didn't have pick ban system in place so they couldn't get it

[soft lynx]

It's not just "is this weapon being banned/picked" but also by whom (possibly division/rank/mmr), when (specific point in the game or even just offense/defense) and how effective (K/D, win ratio, etc.)

[soft lynx]

Valve was looking for the data before making their own comp. They were looking for communication with the leagues, being provided data of said leagues about their weapons and if (and how) they could balance them.

[left sand]

how do you think a global whitelist happened lol

again, you're saying that the comp community flubbed it

[high current]

You know there is no global whitelist right?

[left sand]

but then you blame valve for not taking every risk in the world

there WAS

i know it doesn't exist anymore

[wintry marlin]

And the result of that was... comp players whining that it is a bad idea and refuse to do it?

[left sand]

the global whitelist was a method to wind down league bans

to slowly dwindle the item bans to 0

it never happened

and leagues went back to their own bans

because the comp community is stubborn and sucks

[high current]

I don’t think that was ever the goal and you’re over extrapolating.

[left sand]

it was the goal

[high current]

Where was that said?

[left sand]

bro, i was listening in on the skype calls for the global whitelist

lmao

i dont think there are any recordings

there might be from b4nnys stream

[soft lynx]

Yes, as you can see in the thread the (vocal) players were unreasonably negative about the proposal of Valve.

I wouldn't say, and as you can also see by what mcoms is saying right now, that the comp community completely failed. There were attempts, they just weren't good enough.

[left sand]

b4nny especially, over and over again, passionately argued with sandblast and other whiners who kept insisting things must be banned

[high current]

“Trust me bro” isn’t evidence.

[left sand]

b4nny over and over repeated that they MUST eventually get down to 0 bans, he constantly argued for that again and again in those calls

[high current]

“Unbanning most items”

[wintry marlin]

I guess this pick ban system idea at valve eventually lead to premier in cs2. I think it existed at an esport level in csgo on faceit and during tournaments before it ever got implemented into the game.

Valve had a reasonable expectation that tf2 players could do it with maps AND items.

[left sand]

yes that's what HAPPENED

are you stupid???? no one ever claimed there was a global whitelist that had 0 bans

[high current]

“To provide detailed feedback to Valve on specific weapons”

[left sand]

i said that was meant to be an eventual goal

yes they invented their own cope

[high current]

Nothing in this article suggested that.

[left sand]

like comp players have always done

dude

lmao

i just cant with you

[high current]

Provide evidence to support your claim please.

[left sand]

i just feel you literally cannot read?

this has happened in multiple discussions at this point

im sorry

this is just too anti intellectual

again, nothing you posted has anything to do with my claim

this is announcing a global whitelist

[glad marsh]

you can literally ask b4nny what his ideal whitelist would be and he would tell u 0 item bans

[soft lynx]

(can ask any league admin as well)

[high current]

Yeh that’s b4nny. Thats one person in one region. Whether you agree with him or not doesn’t change the fact that the whitelists exist in some region of the world.

[left sand]

no one said whitelists dont exist????

what the actual???

alright, im actually out lmao

[high current]

And once again I try to have a productive conversation and Mcoms gaslights me, calls me anti intellectual, and shuts down.

[left sand]

im beginning to think youre just not capable of having one, im sorry

[high current]

I think you need to do some self reflection on how you’ve handled this. It’s not healthy.

[left sand]

but literally, i cannot reason with a person who doesnt actually know how to analyze or directly address claims

im just being blunt with you

if you cant take honesty, im sorry but again, i cannot engage with someone who cannot participate rationally in a conversation

im really sorry if anything I said was hurtful btw

[small siren]

*im really sorry

if anything I said was

hurtful btw*

- mcoms

[left sand]

i dont mean it like that at all

[high current]

I analyzed the literature provided in the conversation and you shut down and attacked me

[left sand]

im just trying to say within the context of the conversation, none of what you're saying has any logical tie-in and the onus is on you to actually explain things effectively

[soft lynx]

The goal was to not even have a banlist/whitelist at all. It was intended to be purely bick/ban

[high current]

I don’t believe this given your behavior to be frank.

[left sand]

its not my job to convince you out of your stance when you havent fully formed your argument

[soft lynx]

also

[left sand]

well, text is hard to communicate properly

im really honestly trying to directly address things within the context of the conversation

and your emotional or mental ties to the subject matter

not anything ultimately reflective of your complete ability in life

im sorry if i stated things in a way that were too general to make that clear

[wintry marlin]

Defendant Peaches is trying to suggest that Valve/Robin didn't know what they wanted out of comp when they approached league admins and asked them to give them data and feedback, is what I guess the point is

[left sand]

it was truly and earnestly not my intention and even so, im still sorry that i caused issues in making the conversation unpleasant for you

[high current]

Let me clarify: I think the end goal was to have the game balanced in such a way that a whitelist was unnecessary. But from the text provided with the whitelist and the behavior of leagues since releasing the global whitelist, the end goal of the whitelist with the current weapon balance of the game was not 0 bans.

[high current]

Nah I’m just saying Robin Walker made a suggestion of one possible method to overcoming the hurdle they faced. There were some attempts at what Robin Walker suggested and there were other alternative solutions to the same problem taken by leagues.

[left sand]

valve isn't ever going to come and mandate the practice of something

[wintry marlin]

And... they never ended up implementing any of them in mym.

[soft lynx]

It should be noted that the global whitelist hasn't existed for another 3 years after the thread/interview has happened. While one can definitely argue that this was still an attempt to fulfill Valve's request, I highly doubt that it was intended as such.

[left sand]

they want it to softly happen such that the community grows in that way

so when robin says a thing like that

it really isnt a suggestion

even if it seems that way to you

it should be treated in a way, as gospel

[high current]

I mean if it seems that way to anyone then it wasn’t communicated correctly and they should have corrected it.

[left sand]

that's the problem though with being in that position

[high current]

That expectation for anyone towards anyone is unhealthy.

[left sand]

you can't explicitly ever say anything like that

you have to pretend like it's not

but still really wink wink nudge nudge

to the community

that that's what you want

[soft lynx]

Picks/Bans. How many and when? Let's theory craft this shit together.

The Item pool for what can be picked/banned could be restricted for now to ease the shock of eXperimentation and eventual implementation. Do not allow full sets to be completed for eXample. You could also have a list of guaranteed weapons like kritz gunboats boston basher and escape plan, at least for the start.
This again indicates that 0 base bans where the goal

[broken haven]

yaooo extine

[left sand]

YAAOOOOO

[broken haven]

is extine still around

love that guy

[left sand]

no

[broken haven]

🥀

[soft lynx]

Makes ramen now and gets ramen tattoos

[broken haven]

i remember he shoutcasted a pug i was in and that was a honor

[soft lynx]

first, and only, time I met him was at the copenhagen games in uhh 2018 I think? Maybe 2019

[high current]

I think they’re a caster in other esports too iirc.

[soft lynx]

genuinely great guy

[left sand]

we had a lot of great guys

all of them left

tf2 couldve been dota

literally most of the dota talent was former people who at least dabbled in tf2

[high current]

I mean I don’t know that there were any base bans in the pick ban formats that were tried. So yes, but different league and format.

[broken haven]

i remmeber playing vs clockwork in hyperscape when that game popped off

i got owned LMFAO

[wintry marlin]

6s having bigger prizes over hl? Interesting claim but I suppose the logistics of having 12 teams of 9 people would eat into prize pool quite a lot.

[soft lynx]

If I have the time, and you haven't found anything in the thread til then, I can try asking around people that might have worked on it back then. Maybe they have more info about what happened

[high current]

They might have actually started with 0 base bans and ended with more than 0. Because I know there’d be certain implied bans that kinda just wasted team’s bans. Other games handle things in that way but IDK if TF2’s pick bans were.
They were generally mismanaged, ie literally banning froyo for being too good and making a joke of the format.

[soft lynx]

Item pool refers to the ban/white list, not the prize pool

Prize pools weren't up for debate in that thread, this was purely for gathering weapon data and implementing a similar system in-game

[left sand]

wasting teams bans is good, because it makes a huge strategic element of the game and can be balanced with the number of bans

[wintry marlin]

If TF2 is ever gonna have big money prizes it will be for 6s, extine said

[left sand]

especially if there's like

with a pick and ban system with round robin like AABBAABABABAB

[small siren]

*with a pick and ban

system with round robin like

AABBAABABABA*

- mcoms

[soft lynx]

Ah there, yea. Sorry I'm purely focused on the ban stuff at the moment lmao

[left sand]

then you can reserve an item to be played if they dont ban it early enough

[high current]

I think it’s also worth noting that eXtine was dominantly a 6s player and 6s was pretty much the only casted format. Ultimately I agree, but I think large prize pools are out of TF2’s future.

[heavy solar]

@high current has leveled up! (24 ➜ 25)

[soft lynx]

And yeah like as far as actual e-sport goes, it would've been NR 6s that had the breakthrough

[left sand]

and that creates interesting opportunity costs

and also mind games

will they ban the item? or do you ban it?

[soft lynx]

Much fewer players to handle for both the organisers and team leaders and easier to follow as a spectator

[left sand]

will they pick it?

[soft lynx]

The ban/pick phases in games like League is extremely important and often just hype enough lol

"lost in draft"

[left sand]

it also gives flexibility to try things out if teams dont value banning something because they think they can counter it

[broken haven]

i think we should do these pick ban formats as pugs tbh

i think that would be really interesting

[high current]

NR6s would have been fine if they had map time limits. I played in Main Semifinals and it was legitimately 4 hours long.

[left sand]

and it might be a bait strat, like they give up a ban and the other team plays the item but gets countered by some sleeper strat

[soft lynx]

That seems like a weird oversight to not just use the normal map timers for the maps

^in response to peaches

[left sand]

again, the fact that robin said he didnt think comp was interesting, he thought it was boring and stagnant, and stuff needed to change for them to do anything with comp

and that it needed to be unified, both in-game and in-league

that sounds absolutely dire

[soft lynx]

only took 10 years for someone to play engi in a 6s season! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4J8uHLvVFo

[left sand]

also people are running as demoknight specialists and having success.

[soft lynx]

(really interesting video by the way, was pretty fun)

[left sand]

just because theyre so good

but that's the thing

6s has been self selecting

people well practiced will continue to participate

and that reinforces the meta

stagnation breeds complacency though, and it brings in opportunities ripe to be abused, against players who aren't used to playing against certain mechanics

[soft lynx]

friend of mine has started playing perma sniper on koth maps and guess what, it works brutally well. But here's the thing that is a, arguably unreasonable hurdle, for some teams: it means adjusting your gameplan and deviating from what you know

[high current]

Well the issue is that 5cp doesn’t have a map timer by default. It just has a round timer which has time added to it with each cap. So iirc we played 2 5cp maps and a Koth map.
The 2 5cp games took up most the 4 hours and the Koth only took like 30-45 min. Because Koth kinda has a time limit. Technically it doesn’t but it’s damn near impossible to have 2 teams so closely matched that no one caps.

[left sand]

brutal sniper?

brutal christian sniper?

[wintry marlin]

I hear it now

[soft lynx]

Huh, that's weird. In ETF2L 5CP maps have a hard timer of 30 minutes. Not sure why they wouldn't use something similar for NR 6s

[soft lynx]

I...the fucking memories you've just awoken

[high current]

The idea was to be as close to Valve comp as possible. They didn’t play CTF like valve comp, but as far as I remember everything else was 1:1.
So valve comp has no time limit on 5cp.

[left sand]

i think map timers were also adjusted pretty recently as part of some fine tuning

since like

it became a problem

[soft lynx]

Ah, it was based on valve's implementation of 6s I see.

[soft lynx]

yeaaa, up to 4 hours sound terrible

[orchid sorrel]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/480079567458140171/1375891665046212778/image.png?ex=68335677&is=683204f7&hm=686efa8b71e0757665c0a5819bab10bc1267e17b492375628348d53a7894a958&

oh ok

[broken haven]

for a season i went battle engie because i was class restricted lmao

[soft lynx]

But as I was saying, before I got nostalgically distracted, this invovles a lot around his team playing more around him than usual. (Kinda like highlander whoopsie), but since they're also down a scout he really has to hit those soldier's bombing in or they're fucked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWltRyYMeU stuff like this

[high current]

I think full time sniper is also becoming more and more viable in 6s in general. On maps like process it’s not uncommon to see sniper on mid, 2nd, or last. Defense or offense. Same for sunshine.
I don’t recall a team actually doing full time sniper. But it’s honestly just a matter of time.

[soft lynx]

Yep. For now finding teams to play against, when they know you'll be perma sniping, might be a bit annoying. Not uncommon for people to ragequit mid-match either lol

[high current]

A team won IM with a full time heavy a couple seasons ago. And iirc a team also podium placed with full time engi.
Teams have tried full time pyro, I know of one in AM this season. But those usually don’t go well.

[wintry marlin]

What about spy

[soft lynx]

We don't talk about spy

[wintry marlin]

He must be winning in secret then

[left sand]

disguised as sniper

free area denial

[kind falcon]

disguised as heavy

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/483141665318502410/929908889087012934/m-1-2.gif

[soft lynx]

Perma spy in 6s would most definitely just be DR gun spy for the most part lol. As well as permanent psychological warfare

[broken haven]

remember the amby as a pocket sniper?

shit was ridiculous

[soft lynx]

Gib back old Amby. Not because I'd be good with it, but because the snipers dont deserve it any better

I will be the swiftwater menace

[wintry marlin]

Maybe spy needs an unlock that lets him fnaf jumpsca- oh wait he has a knife

[kind falcon]

knif uzles

[wintry marlin]

Silly goose thought process

[kind falcon]

shoot gun

[wintry marlin]

Spy is william afton of tf2

He always comes back

[broken haven]

i used to be crazy with the amby when i was 14

[high current]

I think if spy’s base cloak duration was that of him with the le trange equipped, he’d be more viable.
Right now you have to run le trange, which means your ranged weapon is basically a wet napkin.

[cursive peak]

https://youtu.be/rqZK6gVKtNk

Speaking of Amby and Swiftwater.

[lime stream]

@soft lynx is right, idc what he said

[left sand]

remember when some idiot (me) made it so you could shoot while cloaked with the letranger? never again.

[broken haven]

ghost with a gun sound funny as hell

🔫👻

[left sand]

it was funny for sure but

holy shit was it annoying ahahahaha

even with the little bump fade

[broken haven]

when was this

[left sand]

tc2 playtests

[stone linden]

you keep talking about comp players this, comp players that. I’m not a comp player at all. I watch a couple scrim videos every once in a while.

I used to be a huge comp hater for like most of the reasons you hate comp players, but I got interested in how the whole thing works and why people enjoy playing this strange version of the game. And then slowly I began to understand the history and context behind all of these things. Why people do play exactly six person teams, why 5cp is so much more playable than asymmetrical game modes despite its flaws, why the each of the classes are played in those circumstances, why weapon bans and class limits are required to keep the game from becoming literally degenerate. And why certain skills are tested at the expense of other skills.

There’s all a reason for these things, and it’s not just “people are exclusionary”, although I would absolutely believe exclusion exists, as it does in any competitive scene. The lack of info for any new players is unfortunate. For example the tf2 wiki comp strategy pages were largely written in 2012-2013, and the overarching techniques have WILDLY changed since then

[left sand]

i know all of that

and my opinion still stands

i never said comp players didnt have a reason to play like that

my whole point is that comp players are too selfish to stomach growing pains

[stone linden]

and so they have a reason to not enjoy the crazy imbalanced valve comp, which literally nobody enjoys

[rare creek]

valve is a poopy butt and i dont like them

[stone linden]

nobody is obligated to play a shit game mode that nobody likes

[left sand]

yeah no one is obligated to do anything

[stone linden]

yeah so why blame them for not doing it

[left sand]

but if we want something to happen then i suggest that they do things that help that thing

if theyre happy with the current arrangement, thats fine, they can enjoy it

doesnt mean i cant call them selfish for that

[stone linden]

why not someone else? why not the rest of the community?

like these are just some random players who wanna play in this other format. there’s like 98% more other tf2 players who can play valve formats if they actually enjoyed it

[left sand]

because they invested the level of time for that skill, no one can really catch up to a point which would have the same stratification necessary for true competition, especially if it acts as a funnel into a completely orthogonal format

[crisp cedar]

i think whatever argument you say you will never be able to deny the fact that the way 6s has been played has been identical for over 12 years with little to no interesting changes

[stone linden]

if valve comp had any future then someone, anyone else would have tried and played it

[crisp cedar]

at the very least

[stone linden]

this is absolutely untrue

[crisp cedar]

its stale

[left sand]

it is true

[crisp cedar]

and uninteresting

[left sand]

people handwave this away

like you're doing right now

[stone linden]

i mean it just simply isn’t, just look at the tf2 wiki pages for comp and you can see how different it is today

[crisp cedar]

as a spectator sport easy to read but not even entertaining

cs is literally more entertaining to watch

[left sand]

anyways, the more i talk about this and discuss it over and over the more i realize its hopeless to discuss it on such a small scale

[crisp cedar]

i agree

[left sand]

it isnt meaningfully different in any way

[crisp cedar]

you should maybe make a big video one day about this topic

[left sand]

but im not a video maker so yeah

[small siren]

*you should maybe make

a big video one day

about this topic*

- rayne

[crisp cedar]

i think itd open a lot of eyes

i can help

if you need video making help

[left sand]

its about sitting down and producing content

not really editing

i can do that

[stone linden]

just ignore the orthogonal format and get good at nr6s then. i dont see the issue. if the tf2 community comp people are truly not worth valve’s time then they just don’t matter

[crisp cedar]

ah

[left sand]

though help is appreciated

[left sand]

you only addesssed half of my point lol

a comp scene without pros to look up to isnt a comp scene

[stone linden]

there were no pros when competitive play first began for many games

players became pros by competing and then getting consistent

[left sand]

by definition, the pros right now are the ones who invested the time

[crisp cedar]

also reminder robin walker said in like the early 2010s that he stopped watching comp because nothing interesting was happening anymore

[left sand]

if we start now

then it just makes no sense what you're saying

[crisp cedar]

and to this day nothing interesting is happening

[left sand]

this is all an elaborate scheme to avoid criticism or responsibility

[stone linden]

interesting is subjective i guess

[left sand]

again, i have every right to complain about the behaviors of people

[crisp cedar]

everyone wants to play comp but nobody wants to watch it

because its boring as shit

[wintry marlin]

I am having deja vu

[stone linden]

i watch it sometimes!

[left sand]

especially if they are complaining about their scene not moving forward

[stone linden]

i don’t even think people complain about it these days, people have accepted that this is all it can be

[crisp cedar]

it can be so much more

though

[left sand]

you cant just invent something new saying, "well, if you have a problem with others behaviors, why dont you take their place"

that doesnt absolve them of their guilt

[stone linden]

yes you can, that is how making games work. you make it for an audience and a customer

[left sand]

yes and thats bad though

[soft lynx]

It's still a frequent issue since this is no longer about "not moving forward" it's about "how do we keep this alive". Not only are the players leaving, but so is the staff. And finding people to replace either become increasingly important.

[stone linden]

the customer is not wrong if they don’t like the game or game mode

[soft lynx]

And as it stands, something has to change.

[left sand]

valve doesnt have to take endless risk for a community that doesnt cooperate

supposedly the community wanted the scene to grow

[stone linden]

yes so abandon the community

[left sand]

again, youre changing the topic

the subject matter at hand is a critique of the community

[small siren]

*the subject matter

at hand is a critique of

the community*

- mcoms

[soft lynx]

There's no growth without change, especially change that's been requested from Valve to help them grow the scene

[stone linden]

like i still don’t see why you cant just abandon the existent competitive community and build something new. you genuinely dont need the old players if theres enough new blood to make a new competitive scene

[left sand]

by saying what you're saying, youre essentially giving up on defending their behavior

[wintry marlin]

I think tf2 comp should have a rap battle to freshen things up a bit

[stone linden]

i don’t care about their behavior tbh. because it doesn’t matter. i don’t care if 1-3% of the playerbase is stuck up in their ways

[left sand]

so theres nothing else to be discussed

[stone linden]

because blaming them for valve’s mistakes doesn’t make sense

[left sand]

valve didnt want to take on endless risk

[soft lynx]

The current leagues and their systems are carried by the fact that they existed for years and not only have a playerbase, but also the system to work (mostly) flawlessly

[left sand]

i totally understand that

[stone linden]

you keep blaming them for valve’s mistakes comp being bad, and valve is simply not related to them

[left sand]

they could have afforded it

for sure

[soft lynx]

All those leagues started from the groundup when there was an immense request for said leagues to even exist.

[left sand]

but a company doesnt just take on risk for the sake of it

your suggestion is even more risky

[stone linden]

players simply don’t need to play a game mode they don’t like, and it’s never their fault for playing something else

[left sand]

it is if they were actively saying how much they cared about the scene growing

sure they may have become jaded now

[stone linden]

still, i will never blame a player for playing elsewhere

[left sand]

but at the time, they just didnt put the work in

i will

[stone linden]

that is crazy to me

[left sand]

it is their fault, they can take responsibility for that

multiple different parties can all be at fault

any one of them doing something might have resolved the problem

[stone linden]

i fundamentally just cannot blame a player for not wanting to play a game that is not enjoyable

[soft lynx]

Even solely judging based on the reactions in the tftv thread above, you can see how unwilling to cooperate the vocal community was with the proposed changes

[stone linden]

in like any circumstances

[left sand]

but imo, looking at a company like valve and going "oh they just hate the game for no reason and the poor poor innocent comp players were done dirty" is just such a baby argument

[stone linden]

that’s not even my argument

[left sand]

then why did valve stop

the only thing you can say is they gave up because they hate the game for no apparent reason

[stone linden]

i don’t know, because they had no coherent vision of how to make things better and their existing attempt didn’t work?

[left sand]

again, every other comp scene that is thriving now played a game they hated for a few months

[stone linden]

and because it fundamentally was not worth the time compared to selling more loot boxes?

[left sand]

cs, dota, fortnite

all their comp scenes loved the game so much

and saw its potential

that even total stinker events and formats

they just played through the noise

accepted that this was growing pains

tf2 didnt do the same

fuck, even overwatch suffered through some pretty degen metas

[stone linden]

i mean they had something nice to play already and didn’t want to play something obviously worse. those scenes didn’t have an alternative, right?

[broken haven]

old comp fortnite used to be ridiculous

[stone linden]

if those scenes had good community alternatives maybe the good players would have gone elsewhere

[left sand]

in the grand scheme of things, there is no real alternative but developer support.

[stone linden]

and i wouldn’t blame them for it

[left sand]

i will always actively advocate for pragmatism and doing what we can to get what we want

and in that sense, comp players could have done more to get what they ultimately wanted

plain and simple

it isn't about saying "fuck comp players"

[stone linden]

i think everyone could always have done more to get their goals. are you going to blame me too for not exercising enough?

[left sand]

it's just being mature and accepting responsibility even when things aren't fair

sure if that was relevant for me to critique

idk what you're saying lol

if i knew you on a personal level and you had unhealthy habits, which you enjoyed, id still tell not to do them

especially so if you kept telling me your goals of becoming healthier

[stone linden]

im saying that it is always easy to point fingers at people for not doing enough. because arguably nobody ever does enough for anything. you can critique any group of people ever for having goals that they should have committed more to

[left sand]

okay?

thats a non point

anyways, my whole goal in this is to create a renewed movement to do this

because i think it'd create a nicer environment for valve to step in

i have productive goals

it's not just finger pointing

but it takes time

theres probably 4 or 5 different projects im working on which will further these objectives

[stone linden]

this is not a non-point. your criticisms basically are kind of vacuous because like it boils down to “people don’t do as much as I want” and you can say that about anyone in the world for any reason ever. you can blame me for having a 64 bit mac and not knowing how to play tf2 for many years

[left sand]

but i also bemoan the community discussion which doesn't analyze and reflect on this point about what the comp community could have also done

[left sand]

so your criticism of me is that im asking people to do things to further their goals?

isnt that the whole point of criticism lol?

[stone linden]

yes, and you’re doing it in a moralizing way. that’s my issue

[small siren]

*yes, and you’re doing

it in a moralizing

way. that’s my issue*

- fishodee

[left sand]

im saying that it's bad that the comp players didnt do x, because i feel if they did x, they would have gotten a better outcome

this is just inane imo to discuss this

so imma stop

[stone linden]

i think this reads very differently to me from what you said earlier, which is like blaming them for killing the game

[left sand]

it was the premise that was delivered through the subject manner of the video

through that context, i found it useful to be contrarian to the video we were discussing

ultimately, of course, there were a variety of factors behind valve's exit and of course ultimately that's always valve's decision

[stone linden]

i didn’t watch that video so i’m not familiar. the video is probably a bunch of points i have heard of already

[left sand]

but im just saying, this attitude from the community didn't help

imo, it was just a bunch of strawmans, cherry picking

[left sand]

its not a point about gaslighting ourselves that it really was our fault valve left

but at the same time, these are all factors which change valve's risk assessment

[crisp cedar]

and also just absolving self of any responsibility or guilt

[small siren]

*but at the same time,

these are all factors which change

valve's risk assessment*

- mcoms

[stone linden]

this is genuinely what i thought you were arguing

[crisp cedar]

its not our fault x y z

[left sand]

like for how many years should they keep retrying and expending resource into building literally everything

as you suggest, making their own scene inorganically

you see that with OWL

it was their approach to massage the community into this

and the right approach

you could argue about sunk cost, how they were almost there, how they should have hung in there for a bit more

but ultimately what they saw was an almost infinite problem that would probably take another decade to build and solve

with the current sentiment of the comp community

that's just how it is

and yes

valve has the time and resources

and talent

if they truly prioritized tf2 above ALL ELSE then they would have kept going

[high current]

I don’t think this is fair. It has changed a lot just in the last 3 years. The last 12 years it is almost unrecognizable.
At a macro level yeh 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, med, demo is still meta. And if you can’t look past that then yeh nascar hasn’t changed since the upgraded from decked out Ford Model A’s outrunning the police.

[left sand]

but really truly, honestly

its not really reasonable to think that way

valve pushed through for dota and cs

[stone linden]

i thought you were saying something like “meet your match is terrible and competitive players are to blame for manipulating valve into making meet your match so it’s all their fault”. This is a very common sentiment that’s absolutely full of misinformation and blatant gaslighting about how game companies work.

Whereas the notion of “there was more potential in working with Valve than people saw, and maybe if they tried harder or tried in different ways it could have turned out for the better” is a reasonable argument to make

[left sand]

the communities were receptive

i think mym was good

it moved the game forward

people who say otherwise are scared of change and have rose tinted glasses

and are more looking at a product of the times

[high current]

The demo meta is basically “every unlock is viable” which has really been a development since the iron bomber fix.
But iirc no sticky change was really necessary for quickies and occasionally Scottish to be viable. It just happened.

And beyond that you have the minor differences from team to team within season to season that completely change how certain roles do certain things.

[left sand]

idk, this is really reaching here

like, its no where near at the level valve enjoys for dota and cs