Honestly why does Robbin want the competitive scene to be more like pubs? Does he even play his own game? Really he should be trying to make the pub scene more like competitive not the other way around. Simple things that would make pubing allot better and massively raise the skill level of the entire community...

Heavy buff reverted
random crits disabled by default
wrangler no longer has autoaim
class limits on by default 2 for utilities and 3 for combat classes 2 for demo
class and map tutorials and videos written by members of the competitive scene accessible from the main menu.

Ultimately I just think it is best left for highlander. The players will play highlander at first and then move on to sixes like so many players do anyways.

A majority of the community will never play competitive TF2. But this link to Valve with just highlander will get more people interested and hopefully we will see an even bigger community for competitive while getting the news out there that there is indeed competitive TF2.

The only change 6's should see is maps and possibly testing different unlocks.

If they fix it to make it fit for competitive, sure i won't mind seeing a brass beast around.

But what can you point out to me that is bad about 6s? Is there anything wrong with the game itself? I have never in my 2 years of playing competitive heard people complain that we need to fix 6v6, or that we should reconsider having 1 demo or 1 medic. The only reason we are bringing this up is to appease valve and get support.
The only thing about 6s that I don't like, is some of the people in the community, but I can live with them (most of the time)

I completely agree with what killing said, I don't want us to completely throw away the game we have now just so we can get a 6v6 lobby system in the game

6v6 lobbies in-game would be dumb as hell without some MAJOR documentation and changing of the public mindset. Puting pubers in a 6v6 without them having any idea how 6v6 is played would be disastrous. Lets all be honest here the vast majority of pubers dont even know the basic game mechanics that make 6v6 work.

I help run a pub server and we tried this originally and it did not and will not ever work. One of the most appealing things to people that are new to the game are the random crits.

Random crits allow for someone that is new and terrible at the game to get a chance of beating someone that is better than them. Without random crits people that have never played a game like TF2 will get beat so badly that they will just quit without giving it a chance.

It didn't work out because your server has no access to quickplay. The vast majority of pub traffic goes though quickplay. I have seen many good public servers with class limits and no random crits/spread that where populated DIE after the quickplay feature was added.

Do you remember when there were 2 demos and 2 medics? Do you remember when you could run two heavies? Do you remember when recently we could run double engineer? Those aren't all of the examples of times were we felt something was wrong with the way the game was played, but those are examples of times where there definitely were problems.

Screwball: what the hell makes you think a giant animated .gif with dead people in the background is acceptable?

There have always been more players in servers with random crits/ spread/ no class limits. Always will be. Take that out of the default and you see that majority of people that like that find another server that has it or they will find another game. Can't force the majority to play a way they don't like. Just gotta hope we can inform them that there is competitive TF2 and the Highlander method imo is the best way.

okay enjoy your ban see you never

WooHoo

And that ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you act like an asshat to the guy who runs our lovely community website...

I think this is all BS, you should be able to choose class restrictions and weapon restrictions when you start up the lobby in game. Why force it to be one way or the other? If people want to play with random krits, then let them. They want to play with 2 medics, let them.

But why would we change a style we've evolved for the better over 5 years, and not only change it, but revert back to old already tested and failed stye of play we found obsolete long ago.

What valve is doing is pandering to pub play because they make money from keys (crates/hats) and item sales, plain an simple. We should continue with the way we play and let them make a lobby system for pubbers and just ignore it. We'll do it ourselves like we have been since the beginning.

people are all talk. change occurs in every game, and every time there are people who say they'll quit. think of the transition from bw to sc2. the amount of people quitting always ends up negligable, and in this case the returns would obviously be greater

Class limit 1 promotes more diversity.
Class limit 2 would be a complete mess.

I could see it now, 2 pain train demos, 2 pain train soldiers and 2 quick fix medics.

A 2 class limit would probably move further away from the public interest than 6vs6 currently is, as there would be literally no chance some of the rarer classes would be used (who would want a spy when you could have a second demoman?).

I've been saying that TF2 would work with CL1 in a 6vs6 format for a long ass time. The standard meta would probably evolve into a scout, soldier, demoman, medic, heavy and a utility player (covers sniper, spy, pyro, engineer). You would literally have a highlander game style but instead of a permanent sentry gun and always having to watch your back, you would just have one player dedicated to making these kind of plays.

It bridges the gap between public, highlander and competitive. 6vs6 could be classed as the more 'professional highlander' (no offense highlander guys).

It adds a million new strategies. Your utility player could run a spy to mid, sniper to mid, mini sentry, degreaser pyro. All of these are viable because you HAVE to run one of these classes, where as at the moment you have to sacrifice a more valuable class to try this which leaves you much worse off.

Honestly, unlocks wouldn't be a problem. People will be annoyed having to play against certain stuff at first, but they just need time to accept that it's part of the game (like this is actually TF3 and we don't get a choice to change stuff).

Once we start playing a system that is similar to the public game, promotes Valve's money making store, and has a VERY simple ruleset like, "1 of each class, anything else goes", then we can start persuading Valve to add a matchmaking system into their game.

+1 to Arx, I think 1 of each class would be a much better format than 2 of each class and less of a cluster fuck. 7v7 with current 6v6 class limits would also have a better chance of working imo. 2 of each class just doesn't seem like the right way to go...2 demos, 2 medics, 2 heavies, 2 engineers, all a bunch of possibilities that would be op (only demo), slow, boring, etc, etc

If highlander 6's was more fun while still being as competative, we'd already be doing it.

Wrong.

It requires change and people generally dislike change. Think of when a new map is released. No one wants to play it at first, but after people are forced into playing it, sometimes they like it. The only reason why people try it is because it is forced on them.

Also, maybe highlander 6's aren't going to be as fun, but they sure as hell are going to be more fun for a casual pub player because they are allowed unlocks and playing as a utility player would mean they could use any class. It's also going to be much more fun for commentators and spectators.

A question is: Would it be worth slightly reducing the fun existing competitive players have in order to promote potential growth with competitive TF2? TF2 is going nowhere in its current format, so we can either sit here, stay as we are, or we can be proactive, take a risk that could potentially get the public scene, and the game developer on board in a game style that probably won't play THAT much differently to what we play now.

Worst case scenario, we revert back in the future and we've lost almost nothing.

I have to agree that a class limit of 1 on each class seems way more sane and less exploitative as far as strats go.

As posted on another thread... I like to make visuals:

http://arxandbeta.com/images/lobbychoice.jpg

This just highlights that highlander and a new type of 6vs6 could be very similar games. They would kind of unite the scene as one is just, a smaller version of the other.

Public game is quite similar to 9vs9 highlander... but then 9vs9 highlander would also be quite similar to 6vs6 highlander. I could see public players wanting to play both.

You can't make a blanket statement that people generally dislike change as the reason we're playing 6's with the limits we do. We have changed the game by allowing specific weapons that provide meta changes without compromising the purity. Like the medic unlocks. We could do more, for example the heavy slows the game down but if he were allowed gru, then he'd be used more since he could transition with the group and be at mid before his whole team dies. We don't need player limit changes to change the meta game, we need to consider new unlocks.

I'm not against a new format, I'm just against forcing it as the only option.

No, we don't need player limit changes to change the meta game.

We wouldn't be trying to deliberately change the meta game. You're missing the point entirely.

6vs6 TF2 is fine how it is (to play), but there is no growth (or very little), there is no support (or very little), and it is pretty dull to spectate for anyone other than a current competitive 6vs6 player (or a few randoms).

That is a problem. Without growth, the game starts to die off. Without support, eventually the development team stop fixing things. We are lucky the public scene still makes Valve some money. While the game is dull to spectate, we will have little sponsorship and few offline events.

We have a chance here to rectify this situation. Valve has opened a door suggesting they are willing to work with us. We could get the developers support back. At the same time, if we can make a game mode that public players are actually interested in, and have it built into the actual game, assuming it promotes Valve's money making mann co store (see part about getting developers support), then we potentially get some growth in our competitive community.

Not only this.. but with public players playing a similar game to what we play, they will have more interest in spectating us to see how it's done. They will learn from us. At the moment they don't care how Clockwork uses a scattergun because they use the shortstop in publics. NOT ONLY THAT, but with more spies, snipers, heavies, engineers, pyros, public players have an increased reason to watch us, because they are some highly popular classes in public play! More spectators = better sponsorship = more exposure = more growth = potential for increase quantity and quality of offline events.

And the cost for all this?

We sacrifice a portion of the current game we are playing. A lot of it will still play similar, but it would be the biggest competitive TF2 change to date. Is it all worth it? I don't know... sadly I don't have a crystal ball. The actual return could end up being minimal, we might not grow, the new meta might be even more boring and stale. Maybe Valve don't give us the extra support we hoped for?

One thing is for certain though, and that it that TF2 is going nowhere in its current form. Stay as we are, or go for gold? Your move community!

Again: I say take a dive for it. Make a custom items_game.txt for a server to test this out. If everything somehow fucks up, nothing in 6s changes, but we don't entirely know if it fucks up until people sit down and play it.

this thread begs the question, how did other class based team games make it in their competitive scene? I heard tribes was quite successful, isn't that class based? What was their ruleset/class restriction like?

The way people played Tribes has no bearing on this place, despite the stories I can tell of the things I saw in the Tribes games before Ascend recently. Believe it or not, success doesn't mandate that you have a gigantic playerbase. People still play Brood War to this day, the older Tribes games have some dedicated veterans who won't leave, UT99 is the same, Quake continues to live on, pretty sure the 40k RTS games have their own tiny scene too from what I last saw years ago - you get the point. We have our own system in place just like every other competitive scene.

how is it going no where when we continue to have more teams season after season? I think valve has made it clear they want to continue to focus on public play and just keep us happy/quiet with this in game lobby system, which we need to compromise our format to follow.

Arx - finally someone making sense. I am all for class limit 1 6v6, maybe 7v7. Lets try and if it doesnt work, abandon it and pretend it never happened. I would say we havent got much to lose, since current 6v6 is really stale.

double post (not really)

Just a thought which I've ranted at for some people:

Since apparently the problem with competitive TF2 is the staleness (lack of variety in an fps game? what is this), and Robin wants to change the system to appeal to pubbers via change of classlimits or rebalancing unlocks to make all classes viable. Instead of/As well as doing this, wouldn't it be possible to add more incentive to make new maps? Adding new maps (that are actually balanced) would force teams to think up new strategies, the game will become less stale for the spectator because he can see more maps being played which all play differently in a way or another. At the moment the problem is that all the current maps are just too good to replace, so to fix this you could keep some of the staple maps (Badlands, Gullywash, Process) and rotate new, upcoming maps and maybe some of the current less popular maps (Granary and custom maps).

What I partly base this on is what I see for example in Quake. They have been playing the same maps for 10+ years (ZTN, dm6, aerowalk). This gets boring for the viewer because the map pool only consists of around 8~ maps depending on the competition. id software only adds in a duel map so rarely, and Quake Live has no support for custom maps to be played in multiplayer, thus they cannot get accepted as staple competitive maps through the community. The duel maps that get released are usually regarded as complete shit, even though some of them look promising and get the backup of some 2000+ elo players, but the tournament managers won't put them into the game because part of the community don't like it. Again, it just gets more boring for the viewer.

Another thing is that unlike Moba and RTS which mostly rely on your base knowledge of the game and countering your opponents picks/builds (if this isn't the case, keep reading anyway), fps games have always been about personal skill (aim, push/hold execution) and map knowledge (tactics, positioning). In RTS and Moba you have constant balance updates because that's just how the game works, most of the game is about picking stuff and balancing something always has the chance of unbalancing something else, which then will get balanced and the cycle goes on. In TF2, your teams are ALWAYS on a completely even ground in terms of what they have available to them and how they can counter it, so there's rarely something that completely OP (2 heavies, 2 medics). This is why I'd like to see a change in maps instead of unlock balance, because if all unlocks are viable then midfights will turn into a diceroll, then the respawning team can counter the enemy team with unlocks/class picks, which then will get countered by the respawning team, which will then again get countered and the cycle goes on.

So what I'd like to see with this new balance system is valve adding more incentive to make maps and get them into the official game and have the leagues force AT LEAST one season of it in the pool IF it's been even remotely accepted by the community (hi etf2l). Hell, you could even make a map which gimps a current main class a bit so playing an utility class wouldn't be such a toll on your team.

oh and if this is the incorrect thread for this then w/e, you probably read this anyway

also i'm really tired so i'm sorry if i just wrote a massive wall of text that's complete bullshit

I would like to say that I think this proposed shift is a wholesale of dumb ideas.

I put up a wall of text in Killings thread about the merits of our current format (page 3, post 89). I will add here that "unlock-meta-fortress" (which is what 1 class and all unlocks allowed would become...not going to entertain idea of 2per class) is a far weakened "product" then what we currently have. What's more, with HL likely going the way of the HL in-game lobby, why at all would a pub player choose the 6v6 version over the 9v9 version where all classes are going to played, at all times, guaranteed? HL + unlocks will always be closer to pubs than 6v6 + unlocks. So I think the idea shoots itself in the foot before it even starts. How do you advertize our product over highlander? What makes it discernibly better? Because you can get 6 players to lan easier? I don't think pub players stumbling into competitive are worried about a lan. Having a LAN to go to is only a competitive preoccupation...unless of course we mean to cosplay.

Look, Valve sandboxed the unlocks. They dumped them into the game seemingly withholding inspiration and balance... Qaunity > Quality in such disparate measures. Now they ask for feedback and this is great, and we should help them, but there is no need to blow a fuse and fall into identity crisis. Best case scenario: we introduce more people to playing TF2 with purpose (comp HL lobby on start page) while gathering unlock data for valve so they can improve those weapons. This all trickles up to improve what we have now.

You want to spice things up in 6v6? Play a new map. Test new maps. Revisit old maps. Entertain the idea of the other gametypes.

I frequent a 32 person pub (the Voogru crazy-house). Yeah it is a shit-ton of players, but I find the level of play here wildly more advanced than your average pub. Yet when the map changes to a 5ptCP, no one has any idea how to play the map. That is the biggest barrier to entry between competitive and pubs. CP is not a pub format, and yet whenever a different format is suggested people lose their collective shit. Broaden the gametype/map pools (which again HL already does creating another reason for pubbers to always go HL first). A majority of pub players I run into believe badlands is garbage. It always stalemates at a teams choke, or scouts run around on the flanks destroying everything.

We might want to do something that recognizes and reconciles that before we flip everything upside down wondering if it's easier to take a piss while standing on our heads...