The thread was pretty innocuous when I made my first post, there were some good posts after mine, but also a lot of people who got really angry misunderstanding what I said. I'm not trying to point a finger back at them, it's my fault for being unclear with my words.

Stalin's post seemed eXtravagantly angry about the whole thing, hope he calmed down.

this damage control

yeah... didn't imagine I'd need to do it when I hit post, but oh wells. my bad.

That's pretty much what you said.

I don't have to be angry to say that you made a baseless assumption and it's ridiculous that you assumed it was simply because people legitimately thought that Highlander is THE CHANGE THAT'S COMIN' and all 6s players who don't like it just can't appreciate it.

Don't get me wrong, I hate these trolls with a passion too, but every community has its asshats and shitheads who try and get a rise out of their opponents, 6s included. Generally though, you only get those in the really low-level pub teams, who are just there for the shits and giggles, and summer season medals, and really, if you're worth a damn at TF2, it won't take your team very long before you can compete in the higher levels.

At any rate, if you run into people like this, hud_saytext_time 0 will be your best friend.

Not trying to teach him how to play. Just disagreeing with his opinions and stating my own so that others can see different views.

basically smaka says a lot of mechanical things about hl are dumb/dont have much skill involved and youre arguing that "well both teams can do it so it makes sense" which while it creates a "balanced" game doesnt create a fun/interesting/skill rewarding one

Plat+ demo/sniper(whatever smaka plays nowadays) obviously cannot be wrong in his arguments (/s) but since I wrote this might as well post it anyways.

Not a fault of highlander but game engine.

Even without going into debate that no mini-crit is random, going off advantage is how pushes work.

Spychecking is not an accident, if spy tries to push though spamfest choke and expects to not get revealed it's entirely his fault.

So enemy team watching flanks is a bad thing.

So this is where "heavy has no skill" is coming from. How about not parading yourself in sniper lines? Positioning is a big part of heavy play.

Sentry in random place probably means is not located in "meta" slot and should be easier to take down with team play when you communicate its location. Why has every scout the mindset "I am scout, I shouldn't have counters" is beyond me.

Demo being idiot means he is not doing stickybomb damage. Caber does 149 dmg, and also I was not aware that bombing medics is something exclusive to HL.

You mean spy playing team game and focusing something that makes trouble to your team? Also, let's not act like sniper has no defense, razorback wearing sniper playing close to team is very hard to take down. Max plays that way for example.

Again, team work. Engie should call for help from team and not try to go into 1v1 battle with instakill class.

If your demo and soldier are dumb and enemy pyro can capitalize on that, I fail to see something wrong.

Or he can wait (technique so foreign to spies) / take another route if possible / destroy flanks instead of combo protected by pyro.

Soldier vs. pyro is 1v1 encounter as every in the game. Being dumb gets you killed, baiting pyro to airblast and immediately shoot after that gets you free damage, not that hard really.

Short ranged ball does not stun, long ranged direct hit projectile is "accident". Plus, scouts makes himself more squishy than he already is in addition to losing ability for building ubers and dps from pistol.

Spy is OP, but class that can keep him in check and requires strategic thinking from spy is bad. k

Airblast is not continuous thing. Unless pyro has good timing it won't do a thing.
Again, not even touching the fact that you can't have autoaim + hp at same time and that in the game with direct hit is wrangler necessary, engie has a role of area denial and it's the heart of defensive hold. Making lvl3 sentry requires around 530 metal and takes a long time. If your team gives enemy engie that space and time, they deserve defense with turret.

While I agree with you about some weapons, your ability to disregard their downsides is bad. You may be also the first person in universe including stuff like Diamondback in OP weapons list, so props to you.

Scout
1) Soda popper - while scout is giving up continuous and reliable damage of scatter, I agree that great scouts will make great use of that weapon. I would personally whitelist it as well.
2) Bonk - 8 seconds of immunity - which has to recharge and you can't attack while using it. It's a great distraction for sentries and you dont like sentries, why are you not glad?
3) Crit-a-cola - gives guaranteed mini-critical hits and 25% speed boost. - again : recharge, pistol DPS, taking more damage...
4) Mad-Milk - Gives 60% of damage dealt back as health - Team weapon. You know... TEAM fortress 2?
5) Pocket pistol - 140 base/210 buffed HP on a scout who is immune to falling damage - fall damage is bane of all scouts in the world since forever I guess. It's not that good, I don't see scouts running it unless payload offense where it doesn't matter anyway.
6) Flying Guillotine - precise based throwing weapon which doesn't even come close to dps that can be done with pistol.
7) Sandman - We've been over it, higher.
8) Atomizer - Definitely not that good, but I'd whitelist it as well.

Soldier
9) Cow Mangler - Unlimited ammo that has guaranteed mini-criticals. - And can't touch minisentries or normal sentries without charged shot which makes soldier vulnerable. Long range damage to buildings > disabling sentries and hoping team can get close to them in those few seconds to destroy them. Unlimited ammo also doesn't mean unlimited clip.
10) Beggar's Bazooka - Fires 3 rockets almost simultaneously. - And since nerf it's not used at all. Wonder why.
11) Battallion's Backup - 35% damage resistance, full critical damage resistance.
12) Concheror - 35% of damage dealt returns as heals, 35% speed boost to teammates.
Both take skill to recharge, cant have shotgun or boats and if you die it's wasted.
13) Reserve Shooter - Guaranteed mini-criticals. - Equipped by exactly 0% of soldiers.

Pyro
14) Pyro is a specifically short ranged class in a game where every class excels in shot range combat. If you get close, you should die.
16) Backburner gives guaranteed criticals. - yeah, if you get behind enemy like a spy without cloak or disguise. Happens all the time.
19) Detonator sets anyone on fire even if your aim is worse than terrible. - straight up not true, the aoe of detonator is laughable.
20) Third degree gives guaranteed criticals. - well that's just news to me.
21) Phlogistinator gives guaranteed criticals and health. - and is also banned. Since you hate airblast, you should be glad weapon like this exists though.
22) Manmelter sets people on fire from across the map... even faster... and takes no ammo. - no ammo argument is pointless. It's not hitscan even when you try to act like it is, takes precise shot to hit and nobody will ever equip it over flare.
23) Scorch shot knocks players back and sets multiple players on fire by shooting the ground. - This one is way too funny to point out.
24) Reserve shooter gives guaranteed criticals. - and is still worse than stock shotgun or flare gun. go figure.

Demo
25) Loch n Load - one-hits 125hp classes. - and yet you didn't include direct hit that is way more broken and allowed in ESEA along with Loose Cannon that is even worse than Loch and is also allowed.
26) Ullapool Caber - Higher.

Heavy
27) Natascha - Slows players. - And takes 3 years to spin up. Valve overnerfed it because even they know it's a bad weapon and nobody uses it.
28) Sandvich - team play weapon. we have been over it.
29) GRU - Heavy is no longer speed penalized. - and if you catch him off-guard he is dead. Just like he should be.
30) Fists of Steel - even FoS heavy won't escape everything, has a longer switch time so he won't be able to defend himself easily.

Engineer
31) Sentry guns - Heart of defense. Stupidly easy to take down.
32) Frontier Justice - Guarantees criticals. - frontier justice is worse than stock unless you are already winning in which case you won't need it anyway.
33) Rescue Ranger - Heals auto-aim weapons from anywhere on the map. - weapon that raises skill ceiling of engie, gives new an unique capabilities and opens new ways of playing... bad. k
34) Short circuit - timing + losing better secondaries + taking away ammo pool.
35) Gunslinger - if you thing that minis are bad, especially after rebalance update, go ahead and build lvl1 sentries in heat of battle with jag (speed bonus) - it's basically the same, right? Gunslinger is necessary for offensive play.
36) Wrangler - Although you don't think so, sentries are stupidly easy to take down in team play, wrangler gives at least slight chance against bad weapons like direct hit.

Sniper
37) Sydney Sleeper - no headshots. Heavy doesn't have to fear anything and while it has big downside i would whitelist it as well.
38) Machina - penetrate only for full charge hits. also, it's one of the secret dreams of every sniper to have line pointing at him ("here I am, come shoot me please?") every time he shoots.
39) Jarate - All around bad weapon.
40) Darwin's Danger Shield - 25 extra health as well as 15% damage resistance. Quick headshots don't kill you. - let's forget +20% damage vulnerability on wearer? banned anyway.
41) Cleaner's Carbine - Gives criticals. - yeah, on kill with worse and less powerfull smg for 3 seconds. Straight up fantastic.

Spy
42) Enforcer - Tons of damage. - and banned
43) Diamondback - Guaranteed criticals after sapping a building. - shooting candy if you don't have anything sapped. Rewards spy for doing team work...
44) Spy-cicle - Silent kills, immune to fire for 2 seconds after initial fire damage. - but gives ability to cross chokes where pyro is spychecking. You should like that based on what is written higher, or?
45) Dead Ringer - You already have invisibility based on a timer and invisibility based on movement. You even have a million percent extra invisiblity by using the le'tranger. Do you really need unlimited feigning and 300 health? - L'tranger doesn't extend supercloak of DR. It's also wonderfully balanced since last update, and gives spy ability to cross spamfest. You should read up on guns if you want to comment on them.

Secret of HL - you have those classes as well.

Backburner listed above between those 45 guns, listed as "keep" as well... Ban every pyro secondary because screw variety and adapting to the situation.

Yeah, screw defense.

You have this mindset that every class should be a free pick for you and contradicting yourself from sentence to sentence...

if it seems like a glorified pub, you're probably playing in mix, steel or any non high level divisions where people aren't immature folk. at high levels like platinum, most people take it seriously and comms are clear, for the most part.

ok im starting to think that a lot of you hl guys posting in this thread arent really understanding the point

somebody asked 6s players why they didnt like hl
6s players then said why they didnt like hl
hl players then said that the reasons 6s players dont like hl are invalid

play the mode you want to fucking play, its a matter of opinion

youre not going to sit there and convince somebody who doesnt like anything about hl that hes wrong and vice versa

heres an example "i prefer apples to pears because i dont like the texture of pears"

this doesnt mean you have to spend 10 pages of a forum telling me that im wrong for not liking pears, its just how im wired

Did you really just suggest that the gunslinger is balanced now? Qualifying a broken item as necessary to promote a certain type of play is moronic.

Actually pretty much all of your counter arguments are fallacious, nevermind. At this point in the thread I think we can just refer back to what stalin said initially.

Correct me if I

itt people almost entirely fail to communicate with eachother because they have similar but distinct jargon languages and are unnaturally opinionated in the first place

The reason I don't like it is 100% opinion.
I'm not really sure why I don't I just prefer 6s as I feel like its a lot less to do deal with (ie a sniper and spy full time).
But I'm bad so it doesn't matter ;)

soldier fucking blows in HL jeeesus

Possimpible downfragged for speaking truth

tftv

This post says it all
http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/12771-why-do-so-many-people-bash-9v9/4#post-100

forget the conspiracy theories like "6s players feel threatened and 6s players feel superior"

PUB tf2 is just garbage (I pub all the time). Its unfortunate that Valve opted to continually degrade the quality of the game.

Kirby, pretty much everything in this game is common sense at surface level. You push when you have an advantage, stick together as a team, communicate, watch flanks, and you try not to die for no reason. Knowing what to do is the easy part of this game. Executing it properly is the hard part.
,
IMO the engineers skill ceiling is higher than a lot of people think. It's just that people who want to spend hours and hours DMing and mgeing aren't the players that tend to get into playing engie, If there was an engineer in platinum that had the clockwork's aim I would be scared to 1v1 him as a scout. In fact an engineer that good probably shit on people in 6v6 even without using his buildings. What I'm trying to say is that the engineer's skill ceiling is just as high as the scouts when it comes to aim,

i thought engis didnt have to aim because they can just place Portable Aimbots

I'm gonna highlight items that are legit.

as far as i know, atomizer and guillotine aren't really used, nor is the sandman.
I could be wrong, but even WITH how bullshit they are, they come up subpar

nobody uses MOST of those unlocks. since they're generally outclassed.

at least you don't get rollers with the LnL, and the caber likely kills the demo too

Natascha IS bad, but you don't see it at high levels because it's a shitty choice.

In general Engie unlocks are garbage.

I don't see jarate as that much of an issue, or the carbine. The other ones are rewarding either a lack of skill or punishing the other players skill.

Diamondback is a niche, and spycicle is just saying "i don't want my knife near the combo"

The highlighted items i totally agree with you, they're bullshit and should either be thrown out, or modified by valve. But the odds of that are pretty low.

Holy shit can you guys stop full quoting? 3/4ths your post shouldn't be a fucking quote if you're going to talk about a single line somebody else said.

#139 (capnfapn):
Engineer doesn't have the same aim skill ceiling as scout. Scouts move faster, can double jump, etc. Because of Scouts vastly higher movement skill ceiling, the aim skill ceiling is also increased to account for the much greater variation in movement.

Also most of a HL's engy's "skill" is just knowing sentry and teleporter placement. That's very easy to learn and if you really cared you could always watch a few STVs/demos of games and pretty much be up to date (or ask someone else on your team to do it for you). It's something that will definitely be a knowledge advantage for better engies, but it's not a very advanced or ability/skill based thing.

I love my mad milk. Please don't take it away from me

The essay to post ratio in this thread is astounding.

I started off playing HL and then quickly moved to 6s because I felt like I had a tiny impact on the team as a whole in 9v9 and wanted to have more effect.

Cookie cutter placements only get you so far...a good Engineer gets creative or recognizes when the situational spots are better than the cookie cutter spots.

wow too much stuff to read

Anyhow the main point I wanted to develop and get across is that 9v9 isn't really just an organized pub (anymore) unless you're playing in lesser divisions. There is a division anywhere from Iron to Platinum that just about everyone here fits into properly if they were to join a team right now, unlike in early seasons where one could just stack a team of random invite players and expect to win. I can understand having a bad aftertaste left from playing in older seasons or in lesser divisions, but 9v9 in its current state is much different (and much more enjoyable) from how it was several seasons ago and I'd like it if people that didn't enjoy it before, gave it another try now. I also wish people would respect the talents of players that play nonstandard 6v6 classes; yeah you might dislike Engineer, Pyro, Heavy, and Spy mains but someone has to play them and I hope that people realize it still takes skill and dedication to play those classes at the highest level of 9v9 and still remain relevant. Teams and players are still getting better; compare the difference between 6v6 now and 6v6 five years ago, very different.

Regarding items, that's not really a problem with the gamemode, that's more a problem with the league and I'd wish they'd at least do divisional bans and keep all the dumb stuff in Steel.

I don't like playing HL because individual accomplishment isn't rewarded nearly as highly as in 6s. Winning a 1v1 on the flank doesn't really matter, because it takes a major pick (or multiple picks) to create enough of a firepower disparity that pushing is worth it.

Also dying to things you or your team have little chance of defending against isn't fun.

In my opinion, it's just too many people. Pubs work because at any point in time only 1/4 of your team will actually be laying the objective.

In HL, you have 18 people all focusing on the objective, which is just too many people. 12 people in 6's on one point is hectic enough as it is. If you add in 6 more people, plus a bunch of gimmicky weapons then it becomes a clusterfuck. Instead of being a game of skill and coordination, it devolves into a game of random chance as both teams attempt to out-spam each other.