ETF2L: Everywhere TF2 league

Would love to see this happen!

i'd be cool with etf2l. a change in rules and the way things are layed out seems fun.

This is my current main choice for a league. The diversity in the rule-set is really appealing for me, and the thought of unifying the North American and Europe comp scene is really cool. Not to mention the way the divisions work are pretty nice as well. Would be glad to volunteer for admin work.

This is the biggest draw for me

I think this will make people re-think the whole thing:

Why not make ETF2L a Pay-To-Play league?
I mean, if the Americans want a LAN and bigger prizepools, and other stuff like that, and I believe that so do the Europeans, why not just do what was working for ESEA?
16 European teams have signed up to play the 1st season of European ESEA, that's goddamn nice, and tbh, more teams would have joined if it weren't a one division kind of thing.
I love ETF2L and the way it's being run, and even though there are no prizepools for lower divisions, I couldn't care less, it's free, so why should I get anything in return if I win the division?

However, if I were to pay to play in the league at a certain division, I would excpect atleast my money in return if I were to win the division and that would be fucking cool, but the thing about ETF2L that blocks it from putting out money to lower divisions, is the factor of TOO MANY DIVISIONS, 6A 6B 6C 6D 6E (and it goes on and on in different divisions up until 1/Prem).
The solution to that as I believe ETF2L should do it, is take the most similar like divisions and mash them all together, creating bigger divisions and allowing them a bigger prize pool, as ESEA did.

I think this would work beautifuly, it would mean changing ETF2L alot, but if we won't take risks, TF2 would just be stuck in place like it is for a while now, and that means sticking with ESEA for LANs and money would seem like the better option.
This may sound like you would want to copy ESEA for their league ladders but it worked for ESEA, ETF2L could make this work, they are a really great company, and not a shitty one like ESEA seems, the only thing that keeps the top Invite teams away from this probably is the factor of "NO-MONEY-NO-LAN" sort of thing.

I know that if I were to pay to play ETF2L I would pay, and I would support if it means you guys getting a little bit for faith in from sponsoers, since if they see money, and people paying and playing, then the odds of getting a sponsership will raise up, again an example from ESEA.

"You want a LAN and bigger prizepools? Pay up, and we'll get you what you want."

I would like to hear more invite players commenting about this instead of being silent or doing what TLR did, I mean, he's a got a point but that's not really helpful since ETF2L really wants this to work.

Honestly etf2l and ugc just are not the way to go because they're a single game specific leagues that will never be able to realistically host a lan or any big tournament without a massive amount of donations. TF2 is a niche competitive game and needs grow alongside other games. For this reason Cevo is by far the best option for TF2 to have any kind of sustainable growth. They were competitive in the past, and this is a great opportunity for them to go big.

i cant be the only one that doesnt want a paytoplay league since the payment goes to the winning teams
and lets face it most people will lose, so most people will no benefit from a paytoplay league
i dont know the na since that well but im pretty sure the prizes go to the top 3 teams in each div
so most people wont get anything from paying
also new teams or people who want to get into competative will think twice before joining a league if they have to pay
do you really want to play epsilon 5$ per season? on the other hand more money might lead to more serious teams trying to beat epsilon
but it isnt that simple is it

It kind of is. Part of it is hosting for servers, maintaining staff for the league as well as the website and client, and part of it is to host a LAN and have a prize pool large enough to at least cover a substantial amount of the costs to get there, which is one of the primary reasons players play in invite in the U.S. Having league servers, and having STVs/scores/stats for current matches and previous matches all in one place are things that don't come for free and are essential to having a league that is taken seriously. At the very least it makes it feel like you're a part of a league worth putting effort into.

I'm not trying to shit on you specifically, but if we're serious about moving away from ESEA this time, please, please, please ease up a bit on the GROWTH GROWTH GROWTH WE GOTTA BE ESPORTS mindset when choosing a new league. That mindset has been a key part of what has chained this community to the shitheads at ESEA for years. I'm not saying that CEVO isn't this option, necessarily—I'm merely commenting on the collective mindset.

I think that such discourse is harmful for re-stabilization for a few reasons. The biggest one is that the act of abandoning ESEA is in itself a shift away from this community's voracious appetite for legitimacy as an e-sport. Before "monetary potential" and "big tournament viewer potential" I feel that the needs of the NATF2 community should be considered comprehensively. You know what those big e-sports with massive tournaments have that we don't? Dev support. We know this all too well, at this point; so perhaps instead of moving forward based on how well we can supplant the proverbial ESPORTS FEEDING TUBE that ESEA was, maybe we should move forward on the premises of having a well-run, fair, comprehensive, and reputable service. Who knows? Maybe Valve will throw 6v6 a fucking bone for once if they don't have to promote a group of people slimy enough to literally use their anti-cheat client to farm bitcoins.

I swear to God if I ever see this awful argument again

1. Any major professional sport that is comparable to TF2's style of play uses a time limit (soccer, hockey, basketball, football (A/D)). Watching a football team push 80 yards in a minute of gametime down 7 is exciting. Watching a basketball team try to score 4 points in 10 seconds is exciting. Whenever a game winds down and isn't exciting at the last moments, it's because one team is clearly superior to the other, and in TF2 terms would have rolled 5-0, 5-2.

2. More importantly than professional, non-esport examples is TF2 itself. Did you guys see i49? When did parking the bus come into play in the major matches between the top four teams? It didn't. Did you watch Mixup vs. iT on Metalworks, a week ago? Remember how iT pushed at the very end of the half because they maybe had a chance to get another round on the board even though it was completely crazy to try that push, and it worked? That's exciting. And when one of the top two teams can't park the bus on last with a few seconds remaining, I'd call that a non-problem.

Please refer to things Admirable (or others I forgot) have said regarding the merging of leagues and the problems with ETF2L, not the goddamn ruleset, because the ruleset should be the least of NA TF2's worries.

Who the hell plays tf2 to earn money, except for Gear?

In my opinion

Nobody can do a community league better than ETF2L: not CEVO, not UGC, not IGL not even TF.TV forming their own league (though it'd be nice to see it happen). For Americans though your alternative is probably best suited to community leagues on your side of the Atlantic, ETF2L could easily create a league, the potential issues can be managed quite easily, the only thing ETF2L cannot offer is a substantial cash money prizes and a LAN. Any cash money we do obtain is through donation drives from a few generous individuals (2 of which care more about HL).

What I think is a shame is people have completely forgotten about CanFo's brainchild, ESA Gamer which was Pay-to-play and was community run with the intention of giving the best for the community. In Europe we totally sold it out for ESEA and ESEA has been a failure, a waste of my money. If you wanted a Pay to play league with cash money prizes and admins who care, we should have gone for a league like ESA over ESEA, yes it's buggy and I didn't like the format but it was run by people who wanted the best for the game rather than big £££ / $$$.

Community needs those who dare to dream (like CanFo), who put themselves out there and get proper exposure from the game (like Ashkan).

We as a community we want something but we don't want to work for it or put up with the tough times to enjoy the good times. You could continue with ESEA, keep your Tri-annual LAN tournaments but good luck with the donation drive this year, I for one won't donate for a league like ESEA with invite players having self-entitlement like this:

I seriously only think the top 3 will make it to LAN this year and without community support, ESEA LAN is as good as dead.

Also this whole ESEA vs Community league seems like it is run off a basis of principle. ESEA doesn't give anything other than small cash prizes for lower levels, 95% of players in this game would be better off in a well run community league than ESEA.

On the other hand ESEA is TF2's only real link to any form of e-sports. This is such an important part of TF2's history right here because if you snub ESEA (there are a hundred good reasons why you should) it will probably be the last link the scene will have to any form of e-sports. After this, it will be about community until the community dies...and it may well not die for another decade, but we'll be a closed off game.

yeah also etf2l was the only community that actually reached out to the na's
i havent seen any ugc or cevo admin post here, might have gone pasted me
also
"Electronic sports (eSports) is a term for organized video game competitions, especially between professionals. Related terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming, and cybersport. The most common video game genres associated with electronic sports are real-time strategy, fighting, first-person shooter, and multiplayer online battle arena. Tournaments such as the World Cyber Games, the Evolution Championship Series, and the Intel Extreme Masters provide both live broadcasts of the competition, and cash prizes to competitors."
we'll still be "esport" if we stop in esea

I'm somewhat surprised by the support for the idea. In Europe, the idea has sort of been "unified ruleset would be nice, but ESEA aren't going to change so we should" despite there being flaws in both rulesets. It's already been shown that large parts of Europe wouldn't mind the NA ruleset and judging by this thread, it seems that parts of NA wouldn't mind the EU ruleset. To me, this would be the perfect time to perfect the balance, e.g. EU timelimit, NA half-time etc. This would be more than just a unified ruleset though, it would be a unified league which would be an even bigger step forward IMO. For the record, I wouldn't be against pay to play in ETF2L.

I agree with that. Quickly change the league name, add some element of NA rules, and you get the whole tf2 world. You could have optional pay-to-play where prizes are allocated proportionally to payers. Canfo's league tried that.

ETF2L official matches are played on the teams' servers (using the ETF2L match cfg), not a league supplied one.

Growth is the consequence of a functional business... It's not worth the time and money if you have nothing to show for it. Even if it's just having more teams or more players active within the community. You need to grow so that people will be motivated to play and get to the top. TF2 is never going to be big compared to other competitive video games... But that doesn't mean you adopt a horrible business model.

I haven't read through the whole thread but if this is actually happening or something similar, get in contact with me and I'll see what I can do :)

i think that i speak for a lot of players, mostly that play etf2l for fun in the lower divisions, dont make it a pay to play league.

Of course. Everything you just said here, at least for me, goes without saying. I'm simply being skeptical of decisionmaking with growth as the goal rather than the consequence, and pointing that this communal desperate hunger for growth as a legitimate e-sport is the only reason we've put up with ESEA for this long in the first place. That is, if we actually DO leave it, which is seems likely at present, likely (hopefully); at any rate, I've paid them far too many months worth of Premium for the sake of wanting to compete with people at my skill level.

I'm not against this game growing or anything, all I'm saying is that we need to just prioritize having the best league possible in as many ways as possible if we're replacing ESEA.

The good thing with ESEA is that there was a zero tolerance rule in some areas, with ETF2L all the admins just seem scared to make a decision (Nations cup final, Sweden get ddos, Germans take default, admins do nothing to reschedule game)

What about pay to play after division 2 or maybe 3?

Don't make ETF2L pay to play just to cater for muricans.

ETF2L is a community league, and I see it as the best option if you want to play in one. We can't offer LAN services because it is free to play. It's a community league and it will stay like that, if you want to have a big LAN during every season we simply can't offer that.

ETF2L will not become pay to play.

For the record. Pay to play would kill ETF2L, which in turn would kill Europe's competitive TF2 scene. Sure, you will get a very small, highly competitive league, but a large number of teams, especially the lower division teams would simply call it a day and gradually drift away from playing Team Fortress 2 at all. The only way it could work, is if it was optional, and barely anyone is going to pay an optional charge making it pointless.

Prizes are nice, but shouldn't be why people play TF2. People are willing to fund competitions, but not prizes. You get players jumping on the LAN fundraisers because it's entertaining to watch and be part of those competitions. Paying for prize-pools doesn't add any enjoyment to the game except for the few that actually win it.

If you want a pay-to-play league, I strongly suggest leaving ETF2L out of the equation completely and working on some sort of ESA or other related solution. Honestly, messing about with ETF2L's system has a very strong likelihood of killing off competitive TF2 (too long to fully explain how but I'm sure some people could work out the chain reaction that would almost certainly follow). I really hope people will look at consequences before any decisions are made.

What's wrong with optional pay to play? I think Canfo was on to something with that.

What are you on about? Not making a decision to reschedule the game is as tough a decision to make as rescheduling the game. I can't really say whether or not it was the CORRECT decision without the details but every choice made it for a good reason, a game like Sweden v Germany would have had a long in depth discussion involving the decision.

ESEA's zero tolerance policy is part of the reason why:

1) One of the best teams in NA Invite dropped from the league.
2) Why some European teams have dropped.

Zero tolerance for particular rules is necessary, but common sense needs to apply. For example why do you think we have warnings in ETF2L? To keep teams in check and on schedule but if a team cannot remain on schedule they have a safety blanket of a Wildcard and at worst, they will get a minor warning (accumulate 3 per season and you lose a point). If ESEA had run something similiar, Watch This would still be in Invite.

That ship has sailed