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

1 messages ¡ Page 107 of 1

left sand
#

i saw some vphysics changes for smissmas

burnt dragon
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valve wheres the me versus mannequins update!?

burnt dragon
#

on other news I think tf2 might be actually dying

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its been so long since I have seen a full server on eu

orchid sorrel
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I wonder if it might have to do with the matchmaking changes weezy mentioned

high current
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Didn’t EU literally double or triple the number of server locations over the past year?

rare creek
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it's weird how within the past couple years how many ctf maps have been added to the game that are genuinely fun and can actually be beaten instead of having infinite stalemates

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does valve playtest their maps now?

left sand
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i think tf2maps has gotten better at playtesting, and also map making has obviously just gotten better over time

orchid sorrel
jagged pawn
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I think in the case of ctf specifically it’s because the first ever good ctf map (frosty) got added and then everyone saw the light and made more of those

high current
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But then there’s that underwater ctf map from this summer update that is worse than wutville imo.

uncut spear
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what are some good ctf maps? its the one main gamemode I don't play ever lol

wintry marlin
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Landfall

cursive peak
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Stock Doublecross isn't too terrible.

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Turbine Pro is nice.

eternal haven
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that one with the trees and shed in the middle is alright

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applejack or something

uncut spear
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noted

jagged pawn
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yeah applejack is probably the best year round map

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pelican peak is fun too

wintry marlin
#

do you prefer red team calendar or blu team calendar

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let's start a vote

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it's very topical

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since it's new year and we need new calendars

rare creek
#

red team

wintry marlin
rare creek
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you have to vote too vex you would know

wintry marlin
#

yeah I'm still thinking

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it's a tough one

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picked

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I always imagined how a combination of the two would be so much better

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sum of best parts

orchid sorrel
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is there another lag exploit

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ive had a few games where a guy calls a random vote kick and then the lobby dies

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This account joins and the server dies

paper sluice
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after awhile of using it i have to say cl_smooth 0 is just way better for backstabs

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this is on comfig 30 lerp

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which tbh i think i prefer over 15 lerp but i havent given it as much time

eternal haven
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Might be placebo bro

paper sluice
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could be because ive also started using the null canceling movement at the same time which could be a factor but like stuff like the pyro corner stab would've 100% failed beforehand

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if only i could dump all my clips from before and after and show the difference cuz i feel like you can tell even just in video

paper sluice
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like i just hit this rn this would not have worked before,,, whatever that changed

wispy meteor
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Quick question, tfwin64 is responsible for launching tf2 ye?

rare creek
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no, steam is

wispy meteor
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i mean exe not the laucher

rare creek
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yep

wispy meteor
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before it wass hl2

lone tinsel
wispy meteor
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so tfwin64 is the correct one yes?

lone tinsel
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yes

eternal haven
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there is nothing correct about tf_win64

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they should have kept it hl2.exe

lone tinsel
eternal haven
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hl2_osx

lone tinsel
#

that's just evil

eternal haven
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it was really called that

lone tinsel
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i know

eternal haven
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still cant believe they dropped mac support in the same update as they added 64 bit

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thats like a double fuck you to all 6 mac players

stone linden
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what was the old love and war stickybomb nerf, that was reverted in 5 days? the one that was "All Demoman stickybombs now have damage ramp up. Full damage is reached 2 seconds after firing."

was this 50% damage to 100% damage linearly interpolated from 0 to 2 seconds?

radiant merlin
#

omg bruh

imagen.png
jagged pawn
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not even a bad idea in theory but then you get to reversions like this

image.png
rare creek
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I'm not convinced that the "hidden mmr system" actually exists

cp_gorge0002.webp
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every single one of our players except 2 did better than every other player than the enemy team individually

worthy pulsar
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huh

wintry marlin
# wintry marlin
poll_question_text

Team Red vs Team Blu Calendar show-off

victor_answer_votes

8

total_votes

15

victor_answer_id

1

victor_answer_text

RED

victor_answer_emoji_name

🔴

rare creek
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someone called me a cheater I think this is the first time that has ever happened

wintry marlin
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congrats

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You'll get used to it

eternal haven
radiant merlin
stuck locust
fallow ridge
fallow ridge
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imo it would be more interesting to have a revert server that cycles through various eras of the game each month or so

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this is also why the tf2 goldrush mod is just really baffling given some of their anachronistic changes, custom changes and the period accurate items/unlocks they chose not to include

stone linden
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the minigun spins up in 0.75s right? why do a lot of sources say it is 0.87s? is this some inconsistency depending on the server clock or something weird with fire rate perhaps

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consequently 0.696s vs 0.6s for tomislav and whatnot

burnt dragon
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@stone linden ?

stone linden
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no, i’m talking about spin up time

drowsy marlin
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does anyone know what warpaint this is? it looks so cool

image.png
eternal haven
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It's called ghoul blaster I think

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It's pretty ugly though

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Most of the war paints are ugly

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Use dxlevel 81, turn them off, :D

left sand
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that's a weird thing to say in response to what was said

radiant merlin
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if i had to guess it looks ugly because of a bug where redeeming warpaints with low texture quality enabled makes the war paint to look lowres for everyone

eternal haven
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he asks what war paint is it and says it looks cool

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i say what war paint it is and say it doesnt look cool

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seems normal enough nothing weird

drowsy marlin
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If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

left sand
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it really didnt need to be said imo but i dont wanna argue about this

heavy solarBOT
#

@drowsy marlin has leveled up! (25 ➜ 26)

levelup.png
drowsy marlin
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omg I leveled up!!!

left sand
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like obviously, he just wanted to know what it was because he thought it looked cool, i think on the internet someone voicing an opinion automatically opens them up to disagreement but it shouldnt be like that

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its kinda exhausting that it works like that

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its like someone saying "i like pancakes, they taste great"

and then someone says, "erm actually, they taste really bad!"

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its just kinda weird imo

eternal haven
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Whatever fam

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the tf2 skins are like super polarizing

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half the community likes them half hates them

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dont see anything wrong with voicing an opinion one way or the other on that

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I didn't mean any offense by it

left sand
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not everything has to be a debate

orchid sorrel
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ghoul blaster is goated, hop off

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the custom ectoplasm wear is cool and I wish more war paints had special wears

paper sluice
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Tf2 is pump faking a blog it shows a notif on the menu for today but shows nothing on the site

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😢

orchid sorrel
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Mvm update today

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Trust the fungus

lone tinsel
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what's the deal with the networksystem folder in the leaked code?

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dota 2 has a library called networksystem, so is this some early version of source 2 code?

rare creek
lone tinsel
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u sure you have the right repo

image.png
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where'd you get it from

rare creek
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bittorrent

lone tinsel
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you're looking at hl2_src, right?

rare creek
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yeh

lone tinsel
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not cstrike15_src

rare creek
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I first got it from a magnet link on 4chan on the day it leaked but one day I accidentally deleted that one and someone eventually sent me a new link on discord

lone tinsel
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weird

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the engine uses its own networking code

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but in the folder app/legion, you can see it being used

eternal haven
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April 22nd 2020, random leaked shit.rar

lone tinsel
paper sluice
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Tf2 game coordinator goes down earlier today says there’s a blog post for tomorrow in menu but there isn’t one and queue times are slow asf all while I’m sick robin hates me

wispy meteor
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Is there anything I can do to update the “recently played” tab in my friends' options to the most recent date? Currently, it shows me players from December 29, when I played TF2 several times, and it still hasn't updated. The problem sometimes disappears after 2 or 3 weeks, but there is something wrong with it.

eternal haven
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I think it's just a problem with steam that affects everyone

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not sure that there's any solution

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sometimes your most recent games will show up there, sometimes it just skips them

orchid sorrel
rare creek
orchid sorrel
balmy bronze
orchid sorrel
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schrodingers low tour

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the low tour talks too much

balmy bronze
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The guys other requests dont seem that bad

orchid sorrel
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the low tour never talks

balmy bronze
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not sure what caused him to make this one

orchid sorrel
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maybe has some mann up grinder friend that suggested it

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if you dont play a lot of mvm but have a friend with like 500+ tours, I could -kinda- see why someone would take it at face value and not think much of it

wintry marlin
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that is the most obvious tacobot troll post

radiant merlin
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update tomorrow

wintry marlin
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digital circus animator got shot apparently

rare creek
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WHAT????

wintry marlin
#

he made a video on his channel detailing how it went

paper sluice
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Item servers were croaked and queue times been long as fuk last night what are they cooking

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Idk if it’s still bad today but damn !!!!

radiant merlin
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Are they really going to deploy the update with just patch notes?

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I expect not even an special update page

rare creek
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probly

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0 web developers left on tf team

high current
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“MVM Update brought to you by SquareSpace”

high current
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They finally pulled the plug on the servers

eternal haven
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It was a good run

orchid sorrel
# 
BozoBoi :  heavy come here
(TEAM) BozoBoi :  dispenser will give ammo and health
(TEAM) Dr. Cactus :  never knew that
radiant merlin
burnt dragon
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it changes like 3 lines lmao

rare creek
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finding out that the games on the xbox 360 in the orange box used zip files instead of vpk files

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the code doesn't appear to be deactivated for modern source engine but i cant get it to work

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in fact they seem to have specifically deactivated zip file localization outside of the xbox but not zip files in general?

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vtf files have a different header and apparently vtfedit hates that and refuses to open them

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other than those things there's like nothing interesting I could find datamining this verison of tf2 maybe im missing something but it just looks like the files are just tf2 but old

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there are those same weird steam assets in it tho

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from the old steam games

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oh and sound files are named .wav but they are actually xwv files and cant be played by a standard audio player

lone tinsel
rare creek
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yep they sure are weird

lone tinsel
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which ones

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i haven't looked at old steam stuff that much

rare creek
paper sluice
unborn pecan
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I love it

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same with vpkedit

paper sluice
cursive peak
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TF'd right into a couple of lesbian mares.

high current
summer steeple
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the demon of homophobia begone from this place

high current
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Nah the lesbian part is fine. I’m talking about the mares

rare creek
burnt dragon
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I think its cute :3

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couldabeenimpregnatedMLPfetisharttooyk

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so this is definitely on the better side of "mare" art

orchid sorrel
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mpreg wario

next nymph
radiant merlin
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not readin allat 🤣 (I'm in fact reading allat)

high current
crisp cedar
# high current https://tenor.com/view/storks-cute-wolves-i-agree-i-agree-i-agree-i-agree-storks...

https://tenor.com/view/silly-funny-reaction-meme-stan-twt-horse-gif-5445268815333743861
https://tenor.com/view/horse-agreeing-nod-yes-gif-6339380117509245806
https://tenor.com/view/horse-of-absolute-agreement-gif-13190399601485891974
https://tenor.com/view/the-horse-horse-agreement-agree-the-horse-of-agreement-gif-17052967400354914054
https://tenor.com/view/horse-yes-agree-agreed-agreement-gif-12023345001404596315

Tenor
Tenor
Tenor
Tenor
Tenor
radiant merlin
#

It's funny that when everyone votes to play the same map the server restarts instead of just the match lol

high current
#

Probably easier to write a single series of operations rather than:

if newMap == currentMap
…
else
…
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If someone made a pr for that I feel like it’d get accepted.

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IMO Casual with a QOL update that did stuff like adding a case for quickly restarting the same map, shortened the looking for player time, and allowed adhoc connections would absolutely wipe the floor with Quickplay.

left sand
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its just lazy coding

radiant merlin
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i just came up with the idea of when that happens, a reverse sound effect plays

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and then the match starts again

radiant merlin
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Can someone confirm the part of the wave lost screen? I swear I saw it before but I've been trying to get it to show but it doesn't?

Screenshot_20260118_201624_Firefox.jpg
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Maybe it only shows in mann up?

drowsy marlin
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im noticing the queue times are fast, but the quality of the games are pretty bad tonight

livid oracle
small sirenBOT
#

*my theory is that

the faster queue times affect

player behaviour*

- wget
livid oracle
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ppl just leave immediately because they know that the queue times are near-instant instead of trying to salvage the match or at least wait for the match to stabilise

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so when a team faces 1 single hurdle like half of them just immediately requeue which allows the other team to just roll because of their numbers

eternal haven
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why do you suppose the queue times vary so much

livid oracle
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wdym exactly

eternal haven
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seems like it must depend on more than just the active player count in a region

livid oracle
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i dont really know, but i recorded my queue times from yesterday and it was 3 secs at minimum and 10 secs at maximum

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usually like ~5 secs

eternal haven
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I've had like 10 minute queues in the past

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with a lot of maps selected

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and also like 2 seconds queues

livid oracle
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but now i guess it just prioritises putting them into ongoing games

small sirenBOT
#

*but now i guess it

just prioritise putting them

into ongoing games*

- wget
livid oracle
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idk ask mcoms trollfig

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there just needs to be a leaver penalty honestly

eternal haven
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mcoms has insider info

livid oracle
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but not presented as a leaver penalty

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add an info tip somewhere on the main menu that says you get queue priority if you play games to full

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and if you requeue while in a match (outside of setup and etc) or right after disconnecting mid-match it secretly adds like 30 secs or whatever to your queue time

drowsy marlin
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yeah some leaver penalty would be nice, or something that encourages players to stick to the game instead of requeuing

livid oracle
paper sluice
#

I’d do anything she says😍😍

paper sluice
left sand
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leavers fuck up tf2

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autobalance has never felt nice in tf2

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not in 2007, not in 2013, not now

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and team scramble when youre winning doesnt feel great either lol

small sirenBOT
#

*and team scramble when

youre winning doesnt feel great

either lol*

- mcoms
left sand
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idk why people pretend like these are perfect solutions

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the only good solution in any game you play even semi seriously is you have everyone play the full game

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even street games like basketball and soccer are like this

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you dont get to just queue up into the next game over and over again at your leisure just because you lost one

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there HAS to be a leaver penalty

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the fact that there wasnt one in tf2, has been a long legacy issue which was supposed to be solved by a match system

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if you want to play tf2 without leaver penalties and just come and go and goof around, just play on a community server

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makes way more sense then because then youre hanging out with a moderated community

radiant merlin
#

yep ow has a leaver penalty in unranked too

orchid sorrel
#

insane

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4 manning the master difficulty mission

jagged pawn
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I would argue that a lot of this comes from an objective-based mindset

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what I mean by that is that autobalance feels significantly worse if you care about the objective, because you just spent so long pushing it only to now be defending

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the type of person to want to be able to come and go as they please is probably the type of person that doesn’t care about the core objective, they just want to run around shooting people until they’re bored of the map and then they requeue

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I am not that type of person to be clear, I care very much about the objective, but I can understand why people who just wanna run around are upset with the last 10 years of direction for the game

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I think it’s important that any future direction for casual does not exclude these types of people with the excuse of “they should just play on community servers”

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“let third parties fix it” is always a lazy answer to issues

small sirenBOT
#

*“let third parties fix

it” is always a lazy

answer to issues*

- Grapevime
jagged pawn
#

I don’t think it’s that hard to fix a lot of the core issues without needing to bring back leaver penalties or otherwise restrict players

left sand
#

the main problem for so long has been that valve servers and vanilla community servers have the same gameplay niche

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no one plays them because valve servers will just inherently do better at it

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so, valve servers need to craft a niche that only they can provide which community cannot

jagged pawn
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I don’t think that’s true

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valve servers were created in the first place because community servers were failing to provide a normal space for newer players to learn and mess around with no stakes

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they were by their very nature the more casual place to be relative to community servers

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I don’t see why they would now have to be more serious because “only valve can do that”

left sand
#

playing the actual game, and being "serious" (i hate that term, its literally just playing the game at all, like how you play overwatch non seriously in unranked and have fun, in overwatch what tf2 players call non serious would be called literal inting), is in fact, not in conflict with helping new players, and actually helps them way more

#

if people wanna hang out and chill and vibe, do that in a social setting like a community server

jagged pawn
#

I think there’s a sliding scale of serious that starts with “not even engaging with the game at all and taunting or whatever” and ends with “6v6 process with a $300 prize pool” and everyone’s line for “serious” is gonna be different so yeah it’s not a super useful term admittedly, but it’s undeniable that a huge part of the playerbase falls further towards the beginning of that scale than you or I

#

I do not think that it’s fair to tell them that their definition is wrong and they don’t get to play in official servers in a way that I deem to be lame

left sand
#

valve designed the game to be played, thats how the most fun is derived from it in theory, as it engages with the most amount of mechanics they designed for fun

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we cannot design mechanics for people who refuse to engage with the game

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thats by definition

jagged pawn
#

how much control should a developer have over their players

left sand
#

so any design we do, has to come with the assumption that players are at the base level with engaging with the core mechanics of the game (combat and objectives)

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and literally, it is so hard to resist the temptation of engaging with these mechanics because they are fun, literally people who go friendly or whatever else cannot resist playing the objective in a close match

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i.e pub push

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the tension, the carefully designed cues, the very defined pacing and flow

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it is literally so hard to resist

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so, i think, its very important that we come into this with the mindset that everyone is going to have fun largely with the game's core mechanics, and we shouldn't design for things that are only fun because theyre done in spite of the design

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thats what makes them more magical

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being able to truce with an enemy, fuck around with rancho relaxo in the corner, is funny because its working out despite being on a battlefield

#

anyways, because of this, we have to design the game to be fun for the core premise of the game, i.e, not relying on stupid disruptive mechanics like autobalance and scramble

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sure, maybe theres a player out there that will literally never ever care

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but 1) we have to assume and design for the player they will, because otherwise we're making the game less fun for people who are engaging with our design, only for the benefit of people who arent and 2) every player will have moments of investment and focus and it sucks to rob them of that

jagged pawn
#

I think you are trying to make the case to me that the game is fun

I agree with you on all of the above, and yet there are still many people that do not want to engage with that. all of the things that you’re describing exist and have continued to exist without forcing everyone involved to play with these restrictions. if this wasn’t the case, the things you describe would never have been found, because your suggested restrictions have never existed other than mym launch week

I think it is unreasonable to tell those people that they’re wrong for not enjoying the game in the same way that we do and that they’re no longer allowed to play without resorting to third parties with questionable hosting and moderation practices because the game no longer supports them for reasons that aren’t even really backed up by data

left sand
#

im not sure what how "enjoying the game in the same way that we do" connects to the leave penalties

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or at least, in the argument you're making for it

#

because all I'm saying is, if you want to constantly change your server, then you can do that in community servers, i said nothing about the gameplay really in that sense

jagged pawn
left sand
#

it does, autobalance is actively one of the most complained about features

livid oracle
#

it's definitely not fun when half the team leaves

left sand
#

like its literally a constant meme that people post about

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and yeah, people literally complain endlessly about their whole team leaving

left sand
jagged pawn
#

like I understand the perceived benefit of making people play the objective and care about the outcome and stakes, and also getting rid of autobalancing and team scrambles

I do not think that much would actually change in practice. maybe you had a different experience from me, but when leave penalties were a thing on mym launch week, leavers were arguably MORE common than now, and people would just eat the cost because the lobbies they were in were horribly balanced and it was unfun

#

I think leaver penalties are ultimately a band aid fix rather than simply creating good matches

left sand
#

like there is endless complaining about this

#

from everyone

jagged pawn
#

again you are making the case for something I agree with you on

#

people leaving sucks! it’s not fun!

left sand
#

it sucks shit that autobalance exists, its really fucking bad and a stain on the game, no other game in 2026 is like this, because it literally fucking can be solved really easily like every other game

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like, its a solved problem

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and its like, oh well, i guess we need our game to be ass and suck shit and be terrible and leave bad impressions because some people like feeling like they can leave whenever and spam pootis

jagged pawn
#

it’s a solved problem in the sense that I cannot play overwatch the way I play tf2, sure

left sand
#

and i think thats fine, valve servers should be clinical imo, thats the only environment that can showcase the actual mechanics of the game fairly

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sure, you lose showcasing the charm, maybe

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but im not even convinced all of it would go away or it would be a big risk

livid oracle
#

i dont understand how a minor leaver penalty would kill the game's charm

left sand
#

yeah that too

livid oracle
#

i would still run around trying to tauntkill ppl

left sand
#

like im not asking for much here, just a reason for people to stay in their current match rather than queue for another

livid oracle
#

which btw i cant do if half my team leaves and we just get rolled

small sirenBOT
#

*which btw i

cant do if half my team leaves

and we just get rolled*

- wget
left sand
#

just a little cost analysis presented to the player

#

like 1 minute, 2 minute cooldown, implemented as a hidden matchmaking queue priority cooldown

jagged pawn
# left sand sure, you lose showcasing the charm, maybe

this is what I was about to say yeah. I think one of the most endearing parts of tf2 is that it still feels like a game from a different era. not having to worry about ranks and role queue and solo/squad systems is not a weakness

livid oracle
#

again idk what's even the issue here

#

how does preventing players from killing a match because they lost 1 teamfight going to kill the game's charm

left sand
#

its just not fun to most people that way, sucks to say that but without a structured game people cant have fun anymore, they dont have the patience to stick it out and find that in that sandbox environment with 0 restrictions

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thats why quickplay was added, so people can press a button and get dumped into a server

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instead of using a server list

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even though part of the charm is finding a server through the list and curating your experience

jagged pawn
# left sand like im not asking for much here, just a reason for people to stay in their curr...

I also support this but as positive reinforcement. make it more convenient to stick around. if I know that the match is basically over and I can leave right now and get into another match within seconds, or I can wait out the last push and then sit on a menu for 30 seconds just to load into a new map anyway, I’m obviously leaving. this was never an issue in quickplay and is a huge part of why more people leave under casual

#

these are things that can be fixed rather than going for the band aid of punishing people for doing what the game is encouraging them to do

crisp cedar
#

me and coms played and we requeued out of losing games like 3 times and we encountered like the same people once in a requeue

left sand
#

i think people leave in casual because the gamer mind is different rn

jagged pawn
#

people leaving because they’re getting stomped is way less annoying when members of the other team who think they’re hot shit can simply click change team and go for a challenge

#

like these are all solvable

left sand
#

i legitimately do not think if quickplay was readded people would stay during rolls

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and i dont think your reasoning as to why you think otherwise was very clear, because I don't understand it, and id appreciate you explaining more

livid oracle
#

theres of just "it just is" here

jagged pawn
#

I admittedly should not have picked the worst case scenario LOL people would leave regardless yeah fair

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let’s take a more normal scenario then

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well fought match to the very end

#

I’m leaving that server the second the server hits zero, I basically never vote on the next map

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it is way faster to just requeue

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why is it like this

crisp cedar
#

tbh i think thats a valid point, imo voting should come before the games end

left sand
#

imo there should be more playtime

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so you can make a decision if you liked playing with those people after multiple resets

jagged pawn
#

this is one of the (very few!) things quickplay simply did better, and I assume it’s why you kept specifying that you didn’t mean the quickplay ruleset in that thread

livid oracle
#

idk why valve did 2 rounds and bo3 for casual

jagged pawn
#

real

left sand
#

because it was very different on launch

#

valve was attempting to make it overwatch unranked

#

to craft a niche for valve servers

#

what it became was just quickplay

#

but then they forgot to rework it with the new vision

jagged pawn
#

anyway my broader point here is that casual makes a lot of strange decisions that encourages the antisocial behavior you’re upset with, and I think it’s much more productive to address those flaws rather than force people to engage with them even more than they already have to

by punishing behavior you make flaws stand out 10x more

livid oracle
#

i cant see how quickplay would restore anything

#

it's just a bygone era

left sand
#

idk, i just feel like every game solved this with leave penalties

small sirenBOT
#

*idk, i just

feel like every game solved this

with leave penalties*

- mcoms
left sand
#

it just works for gamers now

jagged pawn
left sand
#

sure theres still some flaws with casual ruleset but i dont think thats the main issue

livid oracle
#

again im even surprised anyone even used quickplay back then, everyone i knew just used the server browser

jagged pawn
#

purely discussing the idea of leaver penalties here

jagged pawn
livid oracle
left sand
#

its really funny, theres actually such a broad mix of people in the bring back quickplay movement

jagged pawn
livid oracle
left sand
#

people who legitimately want it all back because they think its perfect, then people who claim, no no one wants the system, they just want the ruleset

livid oracle
#

above this #1072696252162117752 message

livid oracle
jagged pawn
#

LMAO that one is good

livid oracle
jagged pawn
#

ohhhh mb

left sand
#

so they like say they cant read plus they start screaming

jagged pawn
#

I don’t think changing the language around it ultimately changes the impact all that much

#

like I do get what you’re going for but it still feels like punishment even if it’s phrased as a reward for people who aren’t you

livid oracle
left sand
#

i just feel youre focused too much on this negative space and not the negative space of people leaving

jagged pawn
#

like no man a lot of people really do want it back

livid oracle
jagged pawn
#

I am aware I just don’t think your framing is convincing enough

small sirenBOT
#

*I am aware I

just don’t think your framing is

convincing enough*

- Grapevime
left sand
livid oracle
#

dude i watched a clip of zesty actually saying the word "compies" out loud like wtf was that

#

why do they want to make it a slur so bad but like

#

it just sounds so childish

left sand
#

lol

livid oracle
#

like saying "meanies"

left sand
#

i saw zesty saying that autobalance is not active while the matchmaker is finding players, its explicitly disabled or something

#

and its in the sdk and he has proof

#

but i literally cant find it

#

literally almost everything he says with such anger and hate is just wrong

#

its really damaging

jagged pawn
livid oracle
#

i know for a fact thats false because ive been autobalanced while ppl are joining

left sand
#

im fine with that position and id definitely agree

#

i didnt even initially mean they should unapologetically do that lol

#

that would be suicide

jagged pawn
#

oh then what did you mean

left sand
#

i just meant ideally

#

they need to bring it back

#

not that they should do it tomorrow as a fix for everything

livid oracle
#

also yeah i wouldnt want leave penalties even as i described right now as-is

small sirenBOT
#

*not that they should do

it tomorrow as a fix

for everything*

- mcoms
jagged pawn
#

ahhh ok so like we need to get to a point where it would work but not just plop it in and call it a day

crisp cedar
#

tbh knowing how tf2 players didnt accept comp, theyd find a way to boycott casual if it had leaver penalty too

#

normal gamers understand why leaver penalties are a thing

left sand
#

i mean thats good for community servers ultimately

jagged pawn
#

boycotting casual is far more work than they’d ever do

left sand
#

and thats what i meant really

#

like people who truly wont ever be able to accept it

jagged pawn
#

they literally have quickplay.tf right now and they don’t touch it

left sand
#

its just gonna help it

jagged pawn
#

because that would take 3 seconds of effort

left sand
#

well also complaining makes money on the internet

jagged pawn
#

well yeah this is obvious

#

he has to be mad or he loses his job

left sand
#

i mean i will say

jagged pawn
#

at a certain point I can’t even blame him (though I of course still do)

small sirenBOT
#

*at a certain point

I can’t even blame him (though

I of course still do)*

- Grapevime
left sand
#

zesty is obviously a tf2 nerd and is passionate

#

i wouldnt call him a full on grifter

crisp cedar
#

definitely a more passionate gamer than tyler

left sand
#

but hes obviously very confused and angry

crisp cedar
#

and a chuddy chud

jagged pawn
#

is it unreasonable to say that you can grift so hard that you become a true believer

left sand
#

lol

jagged pawn
#

like he has convinced himself of these fantasies

left sand
#

i think its a circle

#

like he believed them

#

shared them

#

believed them harder

#

shared them with even more exaggeration

#

believed them more

#

etc

jagged pawn
#

yeah it’s self flanderization

left sand
#

lol

livid oracle
#

he's just dumb and doesnt do actual research, just operates on backwards-logic where he comes up with an idea and then seeks to validate it, which naturally leads to tunnelvision and cherry-picking

left sand
left sand
#

i will say some of his data is not bullshit like the revenue stuff

#

its cool its somehow out there

crisp cedar
#

the bots tho

left sand
#

even though its illegal

#

but yeah some of the data

#

its like well intentioned

#

but one, he assumes things about computer systems as if theyre natural samplings

#

and two, he obviously cherry picks a lot of data and sources

#

like he talks about robin walker iirc

#

and says tf2 is casual

#

but doesnt talk about robins intense interest for comp and his ideas about it

#

also he just gets sooo much wrong and for how researched his videos are it just has to be intentional at some point

jagged pawn
#

robin walker would never invite comp players to valve hq to explain their rules to him he thinks they’re all gay or something

livid oracle
#

he's just tunnelvisioned lol

left sand
#

though i will forgive him for thinking casual was comp players idea

small sirenBOT
#

*though i will forgive

him for thinking casual was

comp players idea*

- mcoms
left sand
#

because i think everyone forgot or didnt know about quickplay matchmaking beta

#

which came out in like 2013

jagged pawn
#

I was a stats minor in college and some of his videos have to be intentionally manipulated bc ain’t no way he thinks some of that analysis is in any way reasonable

left sand
#

and had nothing to do with comp

left sand
jagged pawn
#

20 billion bot accounts!!!!!!

left sand
#

also the problem with his assumption of giftapults

#

is that they are statistically random

#

which is rarely the case

#

like EVER

#

in a games system

#

and valve definitely fucked that up

#

especially if you test with a lot of samples

#

patterns will happen because of the nature of the limitations of simpler rng

#

and then two

#

hes assuming the sampled set accepts random input for a consistently random output

#

its like saying

#

y=0

#

well, i chose a random x 1000000 times and got 0 every time!

#

okay, that literally says nothing

#

in the case of giftapults

#

steam IDs are not random

#

and giftapults select based upon steam ID

#

we don't know how the steam IDs are ordered in the selection

#

but at least on steam, theyre ordered by creation, and i do believe theres a pattern to it

#

so like, if the rng is sampling according to a pattern that also overlaps with ordering of bulk created accounts

#

you could bias yourself to sampling mostly within clumps of bots mass created at one point

#

because this isnt a natural system

#

but zesty measures it as if hes doing like analysis on a rock

livid oracle
#

whats the giftapult thing

left sand
#

zesty sent a lot of giftapults and basically saw that a lot of them were obviously bots

#

like same name, or same profile picture, or same format like namenumbers

#

though idk if it was proven all of them were bots

#

some of them were pretty obvious

wintry marlin
#

Call it the chimp cup

cursive peak
#

There have been LANs where the prizing was like high end mice and mousepads.

small sirenBOT
#

*There have been LANs where

the prizing was like high end

mice and mousepads.*

- steamworks
wintry marlin
cursive peak
#

I do believe there was a TF2 LAN where 3rd place got candy.

small sirenBOT
#

*I do believe there

was a TF2 LAN where

3rd place got candy.*

- steamworks
wintry marlin
#

At this point why not split the winnings between all participants

#

There is enough cake for everyone

cursive peak
#

I think first place got mousepads or something.

#

And it was LAN, where people paid real money to physically travel and stay at the place.

wintry marlin
#

Okay here's the idea:

Get 4 teams of sixes,
make then play bo3 on banana bay and highlander,
The coms must be full of chimp noises and banana callouts

The winner takes crates of bananas

#

The bracket stage will be decided by a heavy boxing match

#

Or something equivalent

#

Maybe medieval arena mode

#

Okay I've been thinking about this for too long bc I am starting to realize that to form a proper tournament you'll need 8 teams

#

Otherwise there is no third place and no playoffs

#

This stuff is complicated

image0.jpg
next nymph
wintry marlin
#

Yea

cursive peak
#

And you can do single elimation to make it simpler.

cerulean gorge
#

I'm sure they disabled the Glicko system, but GC is still affecting my rating

image.png
orchid sorrel
#

what do you mean by quality?

summer steeple
#

maybe this is valve's plan, disable the MMR system so people see how dogshit it is without it so that they beg to have it back

orchid sorrel
#

hey, has anyone lost all of their objector decals?
all of mine are gone
a friend of mine also confirmed theirs are gone to

#

my friend tried to apply a decal last night as well, and its not showing on their item

radiant merlin
#

lol

#

me too

#

i had one with a decal

imagen.png
#

wth is going on

glad marsh
#

mine are still there

orchid sorrel
#

they still show up on bp.tf

radiant merlin
#

nvm

#

check adv options for hide decals

orchid sorrel
#

wtf

#

is that new

radiant merlin
#

"new"

#

i think they added it last year

orchid sorrel
#

they must have enabled it by default recently

rare coral
#

Hey so i'm making a video about casual matchmaking so i'm hoping I can get some help confirming some suspicions I have about party v party matchmaking in tf2.

In my experience, trying to 4,5,6-Stack is a nightmare when you just want to play with friends because we're immediately limited by the matchmaking which HAS to put us vs partys. I THINK it breaks after a certain point because the pool of players+finding party's to match skill rating is just not available to make fair matches (plus other factors like map choices etc.)

So a few questions (also note if I say PvP matchmaking I mean party v party)

  1. Is the matchmaking pooling the average skill rating amongst a party in order to find similar party's with an average skill rating OR are the party's ranks not considered by the system, instead making a lobby with similar skill ratings from the pool of solo queues, leaving the remaining slots open to just place a party onto either side?

  2. IF the system does try and make fair matches based on the party's skill rating, are there ranks averaged out to a median or to they treat each party members rank individually when trying to make a fair balanced match?

  3. WILL the system break? Has their been proof that PvP matchmaking will just concede after a certain point and place 2 groups against each other for the sake of starting a match?

  4. Why does party v party matchmaking consistently put the same party's against each other over n' over? (SPECULATION) Is it because the pool of party's is so limited there is no choice? Is this because PvP matchmaking places exact player count stacks against each other? (AKA a 6 stack MUST be placed against a 6 stack?)

left sand
# rare coral Hey so i'm making a video about casual matchmaking so i'm hoping I can get some ...

These are my best guesses since there isn't official information about TF2's matchmaking but it should be decently similar to other Valve games

  1. Uses average party rank. 6 stacks get matched with other 6 stacks, or preferably other parties as solo players least prefer playing with parties on their lonesome.
  2. Coordination and gap bonuses
  3. Requirements will broaden as queue time increases, in any case, party or not
  4. Yeah probably
rare coral
# left sand These are my best guesses since there isn't official information about TF2's mat...

Regarding response 1

  1. So it basically treats the party as 1 player with a rank that was calculated based on the median average from the 2-6 party members individual skill ratings and tries to make a balanced team comp with the remaining pool of single players?

1a. Does the 6 stack logic apply in general? In essence, the game wants to put parties with equal amounts of players against each other if possible, before settling for just placing them against any party? (ex. a 3 stack tries to get matched vs a 3 stack)

left sand
#

1a Yeah but I believe the larger the party, the stronger the party matching preference, at max a 6 stack

rare coral
left sand
#

1 I think it's a mean average, with adjustment bonus based on high gap + generic coordination bonus

rare coral
left sand
#

basically to account for that the high skill player is playing with their friends, and they will generally be in a league of their own beyond the mathematical average

#

like, the good player is still gonna stomp players half as good as them, even if the average rank is half their rank

rare coral
#

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

#

Thank you for this @left sand this was a massive help!

left sand
#

This is assumptions based upon matchmaking systems of Dota 2, where Dota and TF2 frequently share between each other

rare coral
left sand
#

It's because Valve actually posts reddit comments about how the matchmaking works for Dota, and has patch notes usually

#

and we have evidence that matchmaking from Dota was brought to TF2

rare coral
#

I do remember the TF2 Dev's claiming they were using certain aspects of their matchmaking, along with CS's back when they were making the comp update, their GLICKO model in particular

left sand
#

Yeah Glicko is now used across the board now

rare coral
#

I wonder if TF2 still uses GLICKO or if they ever switched to GLICKO-2 Model

burnt dragon
#

its definitely possible even in potato tf

#

but you gotta find right people

orchid sorrel
# 
Dr. Cactus killed wurkui with deflect_rocket. (crit)
Dr. Cactus killed Clicker with flaregun. (crit)
Dr. Cactus killed Jandette with flaregun. (crit)
Dr. Cactus killed Jasho with degreaser.
*DEAD* Jasho :  Ugh W+M1
#

life of a pyro

stone linden
#

late to the party but good reddit post

#

to insert my random casual complaints: mostly think the ruleset is stupid

#

bo3 is so bad

#

bo3 doesn’t give any downtime for lobbies to restabilize if it’s imbalanced and then nobody wants to play koth or 5cp anymore

#

i would personally be okay if leaving penalties were reinstated after some ruleset fixes. or rather requeuing penalties. leaving at any time is highly convenient in a game like this but leaving to requeue is just antisocial behavior on average

#

people would definitely be mad though. lots of people baby rage if the lobby is too difficult and want to leave and find something easier

#

oh yeah. didn’t people complain about stopwatch? stopwatch is such a reasonable system for asymmetrical modes but people complained too much or something

#

i am also unsure about the “they should play on community servers” idea. i think that is reasonable in and of itself. but for some reason, tf2 players are magnetically attracted to casual 2fort to participate in a chat room despite that 24/7 2fort community servers exist. it seems to me that the players are just, lazy? or something? and would just get very mad if they ever needed to change their habits. i don’t know how to work around that

#

people would see that as an “attack” on the casual player base. it really isn’t, but those optics seem inevitable to me, and valve doesn’t like stirring up so much annoying discourse

#

i wish there was a sociological study done on 2fort or something. i have never been a 2fort dweller myself so i really do not understand the attraction. but it seems undeniable that this is a big part of the game to a large fraction of the player base

#

i frankly do not know what their wants and needs are

#

it would be nice if the chat room people could do chat room things together, and the pub pushers can feed the objective together

balmy bronze
#

Also late to the party, imo the reason why people want quickplay back is because of how garbage casual was at launch

#

My experience in the internet is that people love to repeat shit without thinking about it

#

I dont think many people who want quickplay to return today, hasn't actually played back when quickplay was a thing

#

MYM was in 2016

#

It has been almost 10 years since casual was introduced

#

There's no way anyone who could be this bitter over a videogame for 10 years

#

MYM matchmaking was worse than quickplay on an objective basis, and it took them an entire year (Jungle Inferno) to unfuck it

#

I don't think the demand for returning quickplay would've been this strong today if casual didn't release at such a terrible state then

#

Don't get me wrong, none of this excuses current casual, Valve had a decade to fix it and it still sucks

#

I understand that very few people want to work on an almost 20 year old code base, but this is the advertised, official, intended™ way to play. This is how sub three digit hour Timmy experiences the game. This is the LAST thing you want to half ass

tacit flare
wintry marlin
#

Lets not forget about the actual nazis playing and raving about the game.
And psychologically stunted 14 year olds.

tacit flare
#

In my experience, the highest highs, and lowest lows.

eternal haven
#

Im high asf

lone tinsel
#

hi high asf

orchid sorrel
#

Valve are discontinuing tourney/charity medals

cursive peak
#

That's lame.

floral sandal
lone tinsel
orchid sorrel
lone tinsel
#

was a reason given?

orchid sorrel
#

not to my knowledge

#

"A brazilian comp tourney got a similar reply. TF2Maps is currently waiting on a reply for their 72Hr Jam medals. Only a matter of time before this becomes common knowledge"

radiant merlin
#

get back to work

imagen.png
high current
# lone tinsel was a reason given?

There was a competitive league that was just handing out medals for people who wanted them. I forget what region but basically the same thing that ruins everything in the TF2 community, people abused Valve’s good grace too blatantly and Valve has to not condone it.

jagged pawn
#

that doesn't make any sense, they've been slow on giving out medals for years why didn't they just say no to that league? they're not automatic

high current
#

More blatantly than the people who would sub in OzFortress or Asia Fortress from North America just for the medal and not play a single match. This was legit just unrostered players for some reason.

orchid sorrel
#

its gonna be weird now that potato cant distribute medals

high current
#

I think they kinda started hitting the brakes on community medals a couple years ago. Like UGC and RGL used to do unique models for seasonal medals. But a couple years ago they stopped accepting unique models and required them to reuse medal models and just change the description.
Seems like this was the next step in that direction.

orchid sorrel
#

at least the mvm update is coming ig

cursive peak
#

I wonder if they'll make exceptions for existing leagues and such.

high current
#

I wouldn’t be surprised if they back peddled this a bit and allowed certain medals and were just stricter about who could submit them. But yeh I heard that from some knowledgeable sources that some regional league overstepping was the cause.

#

There might be additional issues Valve had in the past. I doubt 1 instance would make them pull the plug. But that’s the most recent one I heard about

left sand
#

wait so basically people cant grant any existing medals, or just cant make "new" medals with the same models

sacred totem
radiant merlin
#

they can just grant existing medals

sacred totem
#

Vanilla Fortress wasn't enough to take it down

radiant merlin
#

potato has managed to get "custom" medal by painting them with unique colors

left sand
#

but they cant do that anymore right

#

like no new item schema entries

sacred totem
#

We have no idea why valve cut it off, we just got the news ourselves and someone else claimed they got a similar email

#

The way it used to work is you could ask for a "new" medal with a new desc/name/paint attribute attached, but you couldn't submit new models through the workshop and you couldn't apply for a new one, only existing medal owners could get them recycled.

left sand
#

its probably just boring and bloats the item schema, or they wanna put their foot down and figure out that "new system", basically seeing how valuable it is

sacred totem
#

Eric had automated tools to blast through the 200+ comp medals per update

#

That wasn't a big deal afaik

#

Ironically potato medals were the most "high maintenance" because he needed to make new backpack icons and check the color vs our promo art to make sure it looked accurate

orchid sorrel
#

Funnily enough resulted in the rewired rampage creator medal being blue on red team

wintry marlin
#

Valve stopped adding new medal models a long time ago, is this literally just them pulling the plug on all medals?

orchid sorrel
#

Seems like it

wintry marlin
#

No donation nor participation rewards

#

End of an era I guess

#

I've seen it coming

cursive peak
#

This just makes my UGC medals slightly more interesting.

wintry marlin
#

I got potato, tip of the hat and 72hr medals on different accounts

#

I personally would rather have cs2's pin system when it comes to memorabilia

#

some can only be obtained via code that comes with a physical pin

ugc_418062689718304895_C5579E1E8C4452C71BCE9119A18BFCA829702924_.png
#

sold at tournaments

#

perhaps not anymore, its been a while

slender nexus
wintry marlin
#

as if cs players need them

orchid sorrel
cursive peak
orchid sorrel
next nymph
cursive peak
#

I actually do have my silver badge on my Spy.

eternal haven
wintry marlin
balmy bronze
livid oracle
#

there's this that you could pretend is a 2nd place medal

90px-Backpack_Heroic_Companion_Badge.png
#

its a company of heroes 2 promo item

balmy bronze
#

You can also put this image on a Clan Pride

images.png
fallow ridge
#

so idk why valve have made the decision to stop all medal distribution now

left sand
#

oh, i just understood what it is now

#

so like, no one can even access the partner API to grant medals to people

fallow ridge
#

damn

#

do you know if this affects charity medals as well?

#

so far the only tournament admins that have confirmed anything are the guys at QEL

orchid sorrel
#

as far as we know, the potato BB2 medals will be the last ones we'll be able to send out

fallow ridge
#

quite sad

radiant merlin
#

maybe they have already something planned to replace the system and it will be released when the heavy update is released

high current
#

Heavy update will be the Source 3 port. There will be a cinematic of heavy breaking the forth wall to hop out of a steam machine and extracting an original orange box CD from the computer, to replace it with a 20 year anniversary orange box cd. Only for heavy to jump back into the computer as the tf2 start screen plays followed by a 3 and a fade to black

orchid sorrel
#

2 years from now

# 

- Eric```
tacit flare
# 

- Eric```
drowsy marlin
#

Is this true?

lone tinsel
#

yes

drowsy marlin
#

okay

radiant merlin
drowsy marlin
#

okay

stone linden
#

what are potato medals btw? idk anything about potato other than you guys run mvm servers. what causes a player to win a medal?

summer steeple
#

completing a certain number of missions, and you also get medals for donating

orchid sorrel
eternal haven
#

🤦‍♀️

livid oracle
#

@left sand

image.png
radiant merlin
#

what

#

oh i thought it was an official post lol

rare coral
cerulean gorge
#

no

#

but you can lose MMR if both teams win (if you are on the RED team)

lone tinsel
next nymph
eternal haven
#

Is there an option to 'not do away with casual'?

left sand
#

no, thats the point lol

lone tinsel
#

you could in theory implement your own GC and rewrite all the code to use it trollfig

#

easy

eternal haven
#

light work for replaycoding

lone tinsel
#

how hard would it actually be if you wanted to reuse as much of the existing game code as possible

lone tinsel
#

for some reason this code isn't in the gcsdk headers, but it's still in the compiled gcsdk_sdk

image.png
#

aggressive gc code removal i guess :(

#

the job system seems to be intact but i haven't looked closely

#

what if they just ifdefed out a bunch of the functions in CGCClient and called it a day

wintry marlin
#

I'm noticing it just now

lone tinsel
wintry marlin
#

so it's just for historical purposes

#

just like that lol

wintry marlin
wintry marlin
# lone tinsel

actually I think he's not going to cut it down into a 20 minute video, not about the topic of the video

floral sandal
wintry marlin
#

He said he was going to cut this down into a video with some editing, but in his discord server he said that now he’s just going to leave it as a vod and not turn it into a video and instead focus on his upcoming Casual mode Data video

left sand
#

the only good argument i saw against my post is that it's nirvana fallacy

#

everything else said "casual mode is bad" which doesnt refute the post

#

or ignored evidence of quickplay having flaws

left sand
#

but imo, improving casual is the better "good enough" solution because theres only a few things they could do pretty easily and people would be happy

#

the only reason why people argue for "quickplay" is that apparently, it would be easy to revert back to, since its right there apparently

#

but thats not really true, you can like

#

just add manual joins to casual, add valve servers back to the server browser

#

its like 1 switch

wintry marlin
#

yea let's just go into the source code and uncomment like 10k lines and problem solved

#

let's not address edge cases whatsoever

left sand
#

and then you can do a little bit to make manual joins take up a slot

#

and thats like soooo easy for valve to do

#

listing servers on the server browser is like 1 one line change

#

and manual joins taking up a slot is like a few lines

wintry marlin
#

would slot reservation work the same as standing in queue when the server is full?

#

or like, appear during the loading screen

left sand
#

well, if there are player slots available ("finding player") then it would load you in, and reserve your slot as soon as it can get your steam ID

#

if there are no slots available, then it can just say server is full

#

that would be an easy change, like 90% of "bring back quickplay" is just "bring back a way for us to skip the algorithm"

#

because literally, soooo many people disliked quickplay and just skipped it, and people argue that "oh i dont really like quickplay, i just liked how you could see valve servers on the server browser"

#

which btw, they wanted to remove anyway, completely separate from Casual mode

wintry marlin
#

I think you just unlocked a core memory for me
I vividly remember opening quickplay menu and then closing it because it looked childish and picked the server browser instead lmao

left sand
#

there were just too many valve servers and clueless players werent filtering them out

#

so another reason why community servers had to compete with valve servers

#

and zesty argued oh but you can filter them out!

#

yeah but literally who does that

#

only smart people

#

almost 50% of the population is not smart

#

maybe even more since we're talking about a video game

#

its very rare that an adult would play a video game and also be smart

#

and children are all pretty stupid

#

which is why, community servers instantly died as soon as valve made valve servers the default in quickplay

#

its so laughable that zesty would make the argument that "people can just filter servers" on the server browser, when they cant even do it in the baby easy mode quickplay UI

#

imo, the server browser should get a new option (off by default): search official Valve servers

wintry marlin
#

Trying to recall the way I played the game 13 years ago is a bit fuzzy but after like a few months I am sure I used the server browser because I liked it because it's the same one from counter strike 1.6 and garry's mod and cs source

left sand
#

and it can use the white\1 server filter

#

white\1 is a special flag in the server list, which is only true for valve servers

#

you dont have to use tags or anything

#

its a special marker all valve servers get

#

so you can default to white\0 (non-valve servers) and then have the checkbox do white\1 (valve servers only)

wintry marlin
#

I liked how it's reusable for all these different games, well made

left sand
#

yeah its a source engine module

wintry marlin
#

steam's server browser also kinda looks like it lol

lone tinsel
#

they're the same thing

wintry marlin
#

and it is for every steam game that uses it

#

Lovely.

screenshot_2026-01-23_10-18-51.png
left sand
#

the steam server browser is a reimplementation of it

lone tinsel
#

wasn't it the same codebase before they killed vgui

#

plus afaik the source one gets all its info through the steam api anyways

left sand
left sand
lone tinsel
#

ohhhh i thought you were saying they were completely separate things

lone tinsel
#

i'm fairly certain that's the only thing that was actually touched

small sirenBOT
#

*i'm fairly certain

that's the only thing that was

actually touched*

- mtobject
stone linden
stone linden
#

cp_orange but i think i only went there a couple times

#

did quickplay never have filter by map instead of game mode? i really don’t remember

jagged pawn
#

it didn’t but honestly I think that was a good thing

#

hot take but sometimes restricting player choice is good for them

#

there are so many people who exclusively play hightower or whatever and I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with that but unwillingness to engage with the game has never been easier

stone linden
#

true, i can appreciate that. however, there are too many maps in this game anyway and i kind of hate most of them lol

#

being able to choose to not play cp_well or something is nice. although well is not the worst map ever

#

and it is nice to queue for example steel without also queueing for dustbowl

#

or like junction as mentioned

jagged pawn
#

yeah that’s fair

stone linden
#

powerhouse being in the same category as, for example, sunshine is hilarious

#

but i get it. i think there’s this map meta that has developed and im not a huge fan of it

left sand
#

theres very little tolerance to "we know better"

#

even if it is legitimately better

#

instant gratification and all that

livid oracle
stone linden
# cerulean gorge Casual Glicko system hyperfixation here

how do i, like, prove that causal uses glicko? so many people i talk to are just vehemently opposed to the idea, despite that i feel quite confident that it is used in the mm based on what i have read. “my teammates are so terrible how can i be put in the same match as them?”

#

i mean maybe people who are that passionately offended would not be convinced anyway, but i wonder if there is something more solid i can point to than “here is what people have written about it over the years and here is valve patch notes about fixing it”

#

there’s this conspiracy that the patch notes are wrong and glicko is tracked but completely unused in the casual algorithm? which makes no sense? it’s not like valve patch notes are perfect (lol base jumper) but this idea is insane

crisp cedar
livid oracle
#

i dont get it

crisp cedar
#

its not just asuka its like this weird giga muscular asuka

#

he doesnt get made fun of enough for this imo

#

we let this guy get away with being weird way too much

left sand
#

but maybe theres a good explanation idk

next nymph
livid oracle
fallow ridge
cursive peak
#

Dunno if it works like this for weirdos like Zesty, but almost every furry/brony I've known who used a character with a different gender than their own has eventually come out as trans.

crisp cedar
#

pedophile and weeb is kinda synonymous though

livid oracle
livid oracle
#

btw whats even going on here, it doesnt look like these bars are even right

Screenshot_20260123_145457_Reddit.png
#

it told me nobody is playing upward and then it matched me into 3 full upward matches in a row

paper sluice
#

Maybe it’s prioritizing maps with lower counts?

cursive peak
#

Why can't they just give a server count instead of bars?

paper sluice
#

Not ambiguous enough lol

cursive peak
#

Or even servers with open slots/total servers running the map.

wintry marlin
#

I don't know if these bars indicate population

high current
#

I’m not 100% certain how the bars work, they seem to be somewhat relative.
I know some pd maps typically have green bars or plr maps other than Hightower will sometimes have green bars, yet I’ve had all those selected and get into a pd map pretty much once a year, far less than pl maps with lower reported population.

livid oracle
#

@half flicker introduce yourself

half flicker
#

So why you wanted me in

#

Where am I

livid oracle
#

@high current

half flicker
#

Okay

#

What is this

#

Like

#

Why u showing me this

livid oracle
#

im showing peaches this

kind falcon
#

@livid oracle Entertain me

paper sluice
#

Do a little dance

cursive peak
#

Make a little love

paper sluice
covert saffron
#

other times it is ???

#

I have seen it completely reversed once, but I do not remember when or where that was

covert saffron
left sand
eternal haven
#

Rule 1: no anime

rare coral
lone tinsel
#

i don't understand why they bothered to do that when it's literally a public header

leaden dune
left sand
#

he took "global" to mean like "across the world" not like "global" as in an optimization problem

stone linden
#

it’s unfortunate since the optimization problem thing seems like a really important point

left sand
#

he also skipped like 50% of the paragraphs even though they contained information that would clarify what he was confused about or bring up more problems

#

also, he dismissed "quickplay 2.0 beta" as "just a way to party with your friends" even though the point was that it was completely different algorithm to quickplay using a matchmaking system, and i linked to a screenshot where Valve said this, which zesty again, didn't visit the post for, and also mischaracterized it, so he would have an easier time dismissing the point

image.png
#

so valve obviously knew and acknowledged the empty server problem, which zesty just dismissed as "no one ever experienced this"

#

he also used that argument for most things, like "no one ever said this" or "this wasnt a problem" despite clear sourcing and analysis that it was, and he had no supporting argument to back up his claim

#

he also skipped past the map section completely, because he read it a few days prior and thought a sufficient argument would be "casual bad" and showing an image of current map variety in casual

#

but i had updated it like a day or two before his reaction video with new information which completely refuted his evidence about current casual data

#

he also tried doing a character attack where he said i complimented quickplay's algorithm in a tyler video, even though i was just talking about it for finding community servers

#

and he basically tried to make a fallacy where he would say i was being inconsistent and was just "hating on quickplay just because he spoke out about it"

#

besides the logical fallacy, its not even true because again, quickplay.tf was about finding good games for community servers

#

he even skipped pretty much the entire "Quickplay's algorithm isn't that great" section, even though it contained very important information about how quickplay's data being only ping and players severely limits it and puts it in an impossible balancing act

#

oh right, and he keeps repeating "QUICKPLAY DOESNT PUT YOU INTO A QUEUE"

#

even though the whole point was simply talking about how both systems transform a population of people who arent in a game, to being in a game

#

like, thats how you form games. you get multiple people into the same game.

#

so, we should be evaluating at how well each system coordinates getting multiple people into the same game.

#

so he basically skipped a bunch of paragraphs because he didn't understand that

#

another thing he did was say that "quickplay's algorithm was updated before casual was added, which addressed all of these issues"

#

which was just wand waving for his audience, since in the past, he's used the same argument against people talking about advertisements in quickplay

#

but it's just not true, quickplay didn't receive any further updates to its algorithm in this regard by the time of the post i linked from 2014, all experiments and algorithm tweaks were already concluded by that point

next nymph
left sand
#

but his audience basically will nod their heads and say "yes, yes, quickplay was updated yes..."

#

so he doesnt have to like, source any of his claims, which are blatantly false

left sand
#

his first achievement was in 2012, and his steam account was created in 2011

#

he doesnt have vintage pyrovision goggles

image.png
#

so he didnt launch the game before july 2012

#

well, i guess he could have deleted or sold his vintage pyrovision, and then earned the normal one by dominating a player with pyrovision?

#

from his achievements, it seems like he actually started playing because of the pyromania update

#

i see some unsourced claims that he started playing in 2010, i dont see any evidence of that, i guess its plausible that he may have played on console version or a different steam account but imo considering the nature of his items and achievements, its very likely he wasnt very interested in the game until 2012 with pyromania

#

not like it matters

#

i think citations about like "i started playing in X year" are irrelevant because everyones first few years of tf2 are barely like aware of whats going on tbh

#

especially like back then

#

the level of understanding of how tf2 worked and what valve was doing back then, is extremely low

#

anyways back to my review of zesty's response

#

he skipped the quickplay ruleset section pretty much, basically saying that no, you had to have everything, but he didnt really explain why, and the funniest part about this section is that he highlights this section and doesnt read it

image.png
#

and he says as a response "this is what i hate about these people, they whine and complain that its too hard for the billion dollar company"

#

but like, that part literally says the opposite

#

so he made up a completely different argument in his head and goes on a rant about it

#

and no one in the chat really had the literacy, because they were agreeing with him and making fun of the post, saying lol billion dollar company defenders

#

and then he finally reads the sentences and then moves on, because its literally the opposite of what he said lol

#

then he skips the hanging out in valve server section, quickplay for community servers section

#

and then he gets to the valve servers in the server browser section

#

and then he says "literally no one complained about them in there"

#

which is funny, because i clearly remember that happening

#

so i looked it up later and added additional sourcing to my post

#

because not only was i exactly correct about both the complaint AND the source being in the mailing list

#

but VALVE REMOVED QUICKPLAY SERVERS FROM THE BROWSER

#

(for like a day)

#

but they literally thought the problem was valid and so bad that they tried removing quickplay servers from the browser

#

basically proving that one, hiding servers is, as we all know, just an option valve decided to do

#

and two, that literally the complaint about it clogging up community servers was valid

#

he also made the argument that "uhm, well you can just change the browser options to filter out valve servers"

#

yeah, the post doesnt say its LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to not have valve servers, the post was about how it was confusing to people

#

and for a guy who ALSO makes the argument that changing the quickplay default to valve servers only solved issues (meaning he understands the power of default settings), its just so funny he would try to make that argument

#

so yeah, it was really funny because he obviously quickly made this video because he was seeing people say they were like misled by the quickplay movement and this post changed their minds to be more productive and just outline issues with casual

#

and his followers are like "this video utterly DESTROYS mastercoms' post"

#

when 1, it wasnt a post in defense of casual, so it isnt even part of the casual vs quickplay argument, which zesty admitted he misunderstood in a discord conversation later after the video

#

2, if this was really an attempt at "debunking" the post, (which btw, is just statement of facts that actually provably happened), then it was pretty bad at doing that, and really shows how much of a "war" this is to them

#

for being a single post made before quickplay got updates (which i discussed above, quickplay had already gotten all its updates by the time of this post)

#

but also, he also made the argument that its just "one single post"

#

despite it having over 1000 upvotes

#

and over a hundred comments of well upvoted replies, all sharing the exact same issue lol

#

"errrmm its just one guy complaining in 2014"

#

and this wasnt the only post, i just linked one but i could have done more lol

#

so yeah, it was very much cope lol, its just funny because i didnt want this to be an argument and just wanted to share information because of all the misconceptions

#

but zesty's response was so angry and so poor quality that its just irresistable to criticize it

#

though if i ever debate him, i will remain respectful even if he gets upset

livid oracle
#

and then they just came back to tf2 years later

#

very few ppl actually played tf2 through the whole time and it's usually like just comp players lol

left sand
#

yeah like b4nny i can believe he knew everything about the game more than most people playing the game for years, in like 2009

#

i actually played tf2 quite regularly since 2011 but i did have gaps for sure too

#

but it was because literally like half our class played tf2

small sirenBOT
#

*but it was because

literally like half our

class played tf2*

- mcoms
stone linden
#

i played in 2012 or something and didn’t know what random damage spread was

leaden dune
#

So is he going to react to the newer Reddit post about Casual Mode fixes next?

left sand
#

idk why he would

stone linden
#

oh nice post

#

does team switching break mmr system at all

#

i assume no since you said there’s not much code in the way?

#

declining would be amazing by the way. i know i occasionally auto-retry for community servers while casual is queued in the background

#

and there have been times where i finally joined the community server but then immediately get kicked out because casual found a match that i couldn’t cancel

drowsy marlin
#

Zesty is an idiot end of story

left sand
#

i will say, even though he turned up the temperature in his response, he did calm down and also even disowned his viewers who were being toxic

#

im a bit concerned it happened when i entered chat but props for doing it at all

stone linden
#

is it trivial for them to change rulesets like the win limit?

small sirenBOT
#

*is it trivial

for them to change rulesets

like the win limit?*

- fishodee
left sand
#

idk about payload though

stone linden
#

maybe if i email eric smith eloquently enough he will consider at least changing the koth win limit

#

probably won’t happen lmao

left sand
#

the problem with increasing the winlimit on 5cp at least is that it feels like a slog

#

like, people want the conclusion

#

imo, just make downtime shorter

#

improve load times, make the match timer go down to 30 seconds if theres a full lobby or the lobby is continuing from last game with the same people

#

if theres enough people who voted for the next map, and its been 10 seconds, then go to the next map

#

instead of waiting 15 seconds

#

even 5 seconds helps

#

right now, the minimum time to restart a game is like:

15 seconds
+
30 seconds load time
+
60 seconds pre-round

#

thats like 2 minutes of waiting for a new match, vs. literally instantly restarting the match after 10 seconds

#

if they did that, it would be huuuuge quality of life

#

imo, instantly restarting the round is gonna make people choose the same map over and over

#

if its like

#

the same 2 minutes otherwise

#

if they got load times down to 10 seconds + 30 seconds pre-round then it would be awesome

#

still though, it would be pretty hard because obviously that's still 40 seconds for a new map vs. like 10 seconds for the same map

#

idk though, quickplay had the same thing and it was largely fine, though it was also people playing the same map for a while

#

if they want to bring the map timer back, they need to rework the xp system to be more like grinding by playing/existing like an RPG rather than match based

lone tinsel
stone linden
#

i would rather it be a slog than be empty games that never start

small sirenBOT
#

*i would rather it

be a slog than be empty

games that never start*

- fishodee
stone linden
#

i think 10 minute round timer is too long anyway but ¯_(ツ)_/¯ i would want something like win limit 4, 30 minute map timer, 5 minute round timer, tie if equal score by end of 30 mins
(I don’t know, maybe 5 minutes is insane, is that enough for people to push? hopefully? i feel like if 5 minutes is not enough for a push i’d rather nuke the sentry nests and reset but that’s just my opinion)

#

koth has it to some degree, but 5cp has the huge issue where the first 30 seconds of the game matter a lot and the game coordinator can’t get enough people loaded in to help with all the people leaving after round 1. payload has like extensive downtime and very long setup time between rounds to help with the leavers issue

#

infinite stalemates are pretty annoying but i think the most pathological behavior is a round 1 roll and then the entirety of one team leaves because they don’t want to lose. larger win limit to give time to recover the player count and maybe a tiny bit of spawn only setup time in each round would help

#

it’s kind of dumb because 5cp rolls happen due to someone just not being prepared a lot of the time. many times, if people just stayed, it could easily turn into a fine game if everyone just shows up to mid

#

instead, people get mad and just leave

#

but yeah koth has a lot of these issues just to a lesser extent, and it’s not a slog to increase the koth win limit imo

#

no stalemate risk

#

But yeah. if you just restart the game and scramble teams or something, this would make win limit less relevant

#

because my main issue is the time per map load as you know

#

whether people win or lose on whatever ruleset doesn’t matter to me, i just want to be able to play and not have the lobby immediately empty out or be sitting in queue/loading again for no reason

stone linden
#

but yeah it’s not necessary if you just cut out all the downtime and make the match restart instantly on the same map

#

i’m a bit of a 5cp evangelist although i don’t expect any other individual player to agree. i want people to play what they enjoy. I am also a bit of a payload hater but again i’m not saying this out of anti payload bias for others.

I think the casual rule system as it stands encourages payload (and a/d) to a possibly unhealthy extent, since it’s one of the only game modes that offers 30-45 minute continuous gameplay without a requeue, and with lulls in gameplay plus setup time to allow people to trickle in and out. obviously people should play payload if they genuinely enjoy payload, but a lot of people just play it because koth and 5cp have a kind of nonfunctional amount of requeue and loading screen time, and i would like to see that remediated

burnt dragon
#

tf2 players when they have to have an opinion over every little bit of mechanic of the game(they havent even opened the game in the past month)

#

honestly even tho systems are broken and maybe not perfectly functioning, keeping a circlejerk of complaining over them which ends up hating the game

#

I feel thats what happens with zestys mind non stop

wintry marlin
small sirenBOT
#

*yes, he was reading

basically line by line and

responding to it*

- Vex
wintry marlin
#

but in like, in a bad way

next nymph
# wintry marlin yes, he was reading basically line by line and responding to it

i know this is how a lot of streamers do it but i think its really stupid. You'll inevitably misread some things because you're pressured into saying things quickly, you'll inevitably argue something that's going to be addressed later, you'll inevitably make contradictory arguments against different things because that's just the firsr thing that pops in your head, and inevitably those arguments aren't going to be very good in the first place because you didn't have any time to think about them

#

is it so much to ask for people to prepare their thoughts beforehand

small sirenBOT
#

*is it so much to

ask for people to prepare

their thoughts beforehand*

- JARATEKA
wintry marlin
#

He also said he had a script he was reading off of

next nymph
#

even if it is fully prepared counterarguments i also think "im gonna go line-by-line and debunk everything" inevitably leads to a bunch of surface-level arguments and minor disagreements (often about verifiable facts) that miss the forest for the trees. I want an analysis of the core arguments and a refutation of those

wintry marlin
#

yea

#

With every opportunity to do things correctly I don't think you'd get better arguments from him anyway.

livid oracle
#

the huntsman being able to randomly oneshot light classes like 40% of the time was kinda funny

lone tinsel
#

something is missing...

image.png
wintry marlin
#

I have discovered something.
I can play tf2 on my thinkpad. It runs way better than I expected.

#

Who needs a gpu anyway?

tacit flare
cursive peak
#

30 minute map timer for all modes, map voting handled with F1-F4 about 10 minutes before map time is up. Get the downtime to just however long it takes for the server to change map and everyone to load in. No need to dump everyone back into matchmaking or deal with a mapvote at the end.

left sand
eternal haven
high current
#

I don’t mind the post-round map vote. If they fixed the bug where you can’t vote then IMO it’s a better system. It’s only like 30 seconds, you can vote, go pee, look at the scoreboard etc. I don’t want to have to vote while there’s 4 people chasing me and I’m having the time of my life.

The whole “I want minimal downtime” mindset is unhealthy imo. Like physically and mentally unhealthy. Stand up and shake the blood clots out of your legs, look at something 20 feet away and save your eyes, maintain your attention span for literally 30 seconds.

eternal haven
#

I kinda like the bug where you cant vote

#

everyone who just installed the game doesnt vote and everyone who has played it a couple times types next map vote

#

the vote quality may be improved

high current
#

Tbh I still don’t know the command. I’ve seen it a lot but I still forget it. I had intended to make a button for it in my hud but it’s impossible to place a clickable button on that screen (that I’ve found).

azure cobalt
eternal haven
#

Tbh I wonder why the normal hud buttons break but the command still works

#

don't they just run the command?

summer steeple
#

I think the buttons themselves just become uninteractable for some reason

#

i want to say they tried to fix it once by raising the z-index of the buttons but it didn't work

eternal haven
#

wonder if it has to do with this

# 
// Dont let people click anymore if the've already voted
pButton->SetEnabled( GetPlayerVoteState() == CTFGameRules::USER_NEXT_MAP_VOTE_UNDECIDED );```
#

maybe theres a problem getting the vote state sometimes

left sand
#

when does that run?

eternal haven
#

everything is in client/tf/vgui/tf_matchmaking_dashboard_next_map_voting.cpp

eternal haven
lone tinsel
#

maybe it's not resetting it somehow?