Well Counterstrike and DoTA were both mods so what you're saying doesn't really matter. Also wtf salty sally why would they add pick bans to something that was designed with the main point of not having a system like DoTA.

Late but....

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

r u actually retarded ror do u ust not understrnnad?

csgo and dota work with no mods at a lan level

tf2 doesn't

tf2 needs to before we can ever say we're ready for large scale developer backing

:9

Tf2 needs an icefrog

We gave the community so much, which made TF2 players the greatest community out there,involving money (Tip of the Hat, Insomnia donations, all of the LANs etc...). I cant understand not trying something that valve wants to see us try (especially for free!) if it could give the game such a great burst of popularity, which would save the competitive side.
If VALVe sees enough support of the community, it might even be enough for them to support more the competitive format then, and maybe bring in prizepools and tournaments.

The snowball would be real.

The thing about both CS and Dota is that they were both already successful competitive games before Valve stepped in and started giving them direct support. TF2 has never reached that level of popularity on the competitive side, and after seven years it probably never will. Just enjoy what we have and make the most out of it. Trying to pander to Valve by making compromises to the format will only leave you disappointed.

I don't understand how that invalidates my argument. I was saying that video games are modified and change forms all the time, so when people say shit like "competitive tf2 is too different from public tf2 to be supported by valve" I think they're wrong. Video games change all the fucking time; all valve does is try to monetize mods of popular games. Aka both of those titles that you just mentioned.

Valve doesn't even need to support us, they just need to work with us. If they just gave community members the means to get items accepted in-game more quickly (ToTH item took way too long for such a big event) or even just put competitive posts on the blog instead of the news tab that would be HUGE. We could raise our own revenue off in-game items and get a bigger player-base from in-game notifications. They could even just change the little things, like not changing steam ids (and breaking logs) the day before i52, not change sticky bomb mechanics a week before ESEA lan (this was changed back but almost certainly not because of lan). They could make us very happy with virtually nothing and potentially see big returns, it's so stupid.

No, I agree that they could do things that take no effort from their point of view, but the fact that tf was a mod isn't really relevant to the discussion.

If at some point, Valve chooses to implement Highlander Lobbies, it's just a virtuous cycle, for Highlander as well as 6's.
At first, only Highlander will have their own Lobbies. We (in cooperation with Valve) work out the minimum standard rules for the Pick/Ban list and the lobbies should get on their way.
Once Valve sees that this system is helping them rebalance some of their weapons, they will comply with implementing it into 6's. Same thing happens, we help with the Pick/Ban list. But in the end few things will change for 6's. Some of the OP weapons will get rebalanced, but very few 'new' weapons will be used, because they aren't versatile or mobile enough and Valve should be able to recognize this (hopefully).

Once they see this, we don't automatically have our beloved 6's supported, but at least we're at equal playing field with Valve about 6's. They will see that everything has a reason and that nothing is banned because the weapons aren't liked.

has there been any official news on this since 2013?

Sal I wanna see you get banned for running 100% sniper :3

Doesn't seem worth the investment to me. Dota and CS have several magnitudes the size and following of their competitive scenes vs TF2. The last LAN finals got...3k viewers I think?

I watched Sing Sing pet his cat last night at 11k viewers. So its hard for me as a 3rd party observer to look at TF2 and say its worth the money and engineers to build the system (or even worth their time to work with the community).

I am sure some of you are going to make the counter argument that games like CS and Dota are that big only because of the matchmaking system in the first place and, by extension, valve support, however I would encourage you to think a little further back when 1.6 and Source's competitive scenes still eclipsed TF2 at its peak by a wide margin (and then even further back when their mods were even larger than the current day TF2 scene as well). This took place long before any valve support of any kind.

The reasons above don't even touch on the subject of the massive popularity of MOBAs. Valve's going to make more money adding a second international LAN alongside the TI series than they would adding a comprehensive matchmaking system to TF2. Its not even worth Valves time to support the dwindling competitive TF2 scene when they are going to make more revenue off the mann co store and their other traditionally competitive games.

Actually, scratch the second LAN, they could just release a Zeus set for once and make more money.

TF2 does have a decent amount of potential for some intense competitive play. The fact that it hasn't reached any height of popularity is due to the fact that maybe 1% of ALL players even know that it exists (I owned the game for 2 years playing most days with absolutely no idea that my skill could be taken to any sort of a next level). If it were at least MENTIONED by Valve to the average pub player, its popularity would drastically increase because they would try to get into it and learn more advanced tactics to make the game overall more enjoyable when pubbing, and the player base of 6v6 and Highlander would go up as more people actually UNDERSTAND how to play them.

The least Valve could do is pay back to the community that brings them in MILLIONS of dollars in revenue. They take a 10% cut of all steam community sales for TF2 and unusuals worth hundreds even thousands of dollars trade hands every day, not to mention all the keys and hats and paints bought every day in the Mann Co Store. The fact they make so much money from the store should not be a motive to NOT make comp more known about but the very opposite.
No one's asking for an 18 million dollar prize pool, all we want is SOME support and maybe some small amounts of money ($10,000? that is a pittance compared to the cash they rake in) just to show that they actually care about the competitive community so that the little serious gameplay that exists doesn't die off.

This thread is so depressing.

I mean, despite what you may think, Valve doesn't owe the competitive community anything. To say that the tf2 community as a whole wants Valve to support a competitive scene is a bit one-sided considering that tf.tv + ugc are an incredibly small subset of tf2 players. Valve is a business, they are better off promoting their products that have established competitive scenes.

I am still failing to understand the argument that TF2 competitive is only as small as it is because no one knows about it. Its far more likely that it isn't well followed because A) watching tf2 matches on stream is not enjoyable compared to the alternatives B) Because Counter Strike and Dota are inherently competitive in the sense that they built their competitive scenes to their large following without large third party support.

The difference is that the counter strike mod community built themselves into the massive comp scene they were back in the day. It is crazy to think that CS is only a competitive game because Valve decided "to give back to the community" by adding a competitive matchmaking system in GO. MOBAs, in the same way, are inherently competitive.

Finally, if it was put to a vote, i would guess that the tf2 community would rather have a massive mann co sale or a new drop scheme as some vague "repayment" for their past purchases rather than a matchmaking system.

I dunno dude, I played this game for ~4 years/1500 hours before I even heard that it had a competitive scene. I would've gotten involved much earlier had I previously known it existed.

Even if that was true for a majority of pubbers in tf2, which I doubt is true, the question of the cost benefit analysis still has to be made.

I don't see a scenario where it is a more profitable investment to work with tf2 rather than the other more successful platforms valve already has.

maybe one day when this thread gets bumped there will be something new posted

So TF2 can't get support their own creators because it hasn't been in the competitive scene for long enough?
This makes no sense. It would mean that games that didn't have an older version that was then turned into a dedicated competitive game will be able to succeed in the competitive world which is ludicrous. TF2 has the capacity to become a larger comp scene with the support of Valve. They don't need to pour in the kind of dedication they do for DotA or CSGO (that would be amazing) but simply acknowledge the competitive community by providing some (albeit however small) monetary incentive for players to take this phenomenal game to the next level in the competitive gaming community.

It could definitely be a lot more popular, once you're inside the competitive bubble you forget how closed off from the general populace it is. There's a huge information gulf and no one is selling the scene. Events like Communities vs Pros and Highlander Open are very important in this respect and don't really happen enough, and introductory material for viewers is thin on the ground. Of course Valve's involvement lends anything legitimacy. It' still never going to be the centre of the games culture but it could advance from a backwater. Logs.tf has over 80 thousand different steam ids registered as at least trying the competitive formats of the game.

This is true, CS has grown up as a competitive game from the early days and it's community has the competitive background in it's DNA. Dota has been heavily backed because Riot back LoL and those games compete directly. TF2 was designed to be different and more of a casual experience, to be an unusually large break from it's predecessor, and the Mann Co experiment completely changed the direction of the game even from that.

The fact they offered it means they think it would have been beneficial enough (whether from gameplay improvements through ban data to maybe MvM style tickets) to do it if it got good uptake. The decision depended on good feedback from the comp community because those are the players who would use it and Valve don't want to make it only to discover everyone hates it. Mediocre feedback means no lobbies because there's no guarantee of any product for them at the end of it, so in terms of the business case it is potentially there for this kind of facility and recognised as such by Valve.

Maybe the system by which information got back to Valve was less than perfect, or maybe there's quite a few peeps here who haven't tried it and don't realise that it stinks. If it pops up out of nowhere I'll gladly look silly in exchange for the feature, but I can't see it happening.

Dude, the point is that the CS MODS established THEIR OWN competitive scenes. You are missing a major cause and effect if you think that the size of counter strike's competitive nature is because valve added a crappy matchmaking system to CS GO.

Dota as a mod already had a huge scene before valve picked it up.

It isn't in valve's interest to go around finding small time comp scenes and trying to establish them with money, we are talking about two games that were created and played in competitive environments with a purpose from the beginning. CS Source was a big time competitive game long before Valve came along with CSGO (And of course the mod before that).

There's more people if you count both 6s and HL in comp TF2 than their is for basically every other FPS that isn't CS. Take 1 look at the competitive PC Communities for any of the Quake, CoDs, BFs, even Tribes, they're no where close in size to TF2.

That is more a statement of the FPS scene than anything. I am not really talking about CoD or any of the rest of the games you listed either. Did DICE heavily support competitive BF?

It's not even all about the size. Twitch personalities Of CS and Dota2 alike net order of magnitudes the viewership of tf2 (not just competitive players). I saw runescape TWO and halo one have larger volume than tf2 yesterday. I won't go into the reasons for this and why it hurts the attractiveness for future support because I'm typing on an iPad and my thumbs are going to fall off. Regardless, there is no reason for valve to try and pick up and support a 6's scene that is barely keeping support from their own competitive partner (a company that is only keeping the game because of their very successful CS platform.) Highlander is the only format that seems to have sustained popularity and even UGC can't seem to generate cash flow.

It would be hard for valve to justify creating infrastructure for those formats in hopes of a dwindling cash flow at best.

that is exactly why csgo is as big as it is (as well as the skins), pretty much everyone i know wouldnt bother with the game if it didnt have a matchmaking system.

Valve would be able to generate cashflow by doing something that costs them nothing - give away virtual items for playing, just like MvM. Throw in a new thing like the Botkiller stuff and you get every single item addicted kid playing comp formats.

The lobby justification was to gather weapon ban data. They already have weapon equip data, i.e. what weapons are fun to play with. This would given them weapon ban data, or what weapons are not fun to play against (or have to use, for example the Vitasaw). The benefits in terms of gameplay improvements for all players could potentially feed into huge revenues by increasing player loyalty and participation.

Essentially the lobby system they suggested makes the game more fun for everybody, which is why they suggested it. Valve have always invested in feedback during development and focused on making fun games first and foremost. It would be just one more example.

can confirm, I play CSGO instead of 1.6 because the former has matchmaking

.

barney_burgerbeans

its okay, we don't need in game lobbies now that tf2games is a thing.

barney b.
burger barneybeans
haha spy mains amirite. will play UGC for the mimimal glory it may offer, if i somehow strike you as impressive and want me to sub or something then add me and let me know.