Regarding your first part I also don't think stalemates are inherently bad, I think they are a natural part of the game where the more experienced and organized team usually comes on top.

It's also a great opportunity to study the game at that point and to try out new things

It's not really a problem as it's a legit tactical strategy, you see it in every sport.

What went wrong was that neither team took any risks, while UP were defend their second point they had more than enough time to get a sniper or suicide a roamer to force ubers or get a pick, and then when UP's push "failed" iNg decided to stay in mid even though UP's players were scattered and running away.

I agree with the round timer being too long, 3-4 minutes would be ideal and it would help a lot to make this type of situation go away and would make shoutcasting that last minute super hype and fun.

Awesome points, however I would like to mention that we did in fact suicide a roamer during that hold (timestamp 3:47 in the video). He started out hiding as a heavy in forward spawn and he had enough time to backspawn and then swap to roamer and suicide. iNg then began their push on the 1 man advantage but lost a player to a trap on the right side and pulled back.

I'm just gonna throw this out there. Do you think this might be a result of having 1 hour games?
Me being EU and having followed some seasons of ETF2L where the time is 30 minutes per map, I can't remember a time when I saw a stalemate. Obviously that doesn't mean they don't happen, but a tighter time window kind of gives an incentive to pushing, right?

Yeah but you guys took way to long to do it, if you are one point down on a match that will determine your tournament life why don't just try to make those kind of plays and if it fails start a new fresh round with more time on the clock instead of spending 10 minutes staring at a wall and thinking that this game is not fun loosing focus on the game that you have on your hands.

One interesting thing to point out (and this is not an in-your-face iNg thing) is that while the first half ended 1-0 iNg > UP, the final score for the match was 5-2 UP > iNg. If we assume that the final score reflects the better team coming out on top, do you think that we simply played the stalemates incorrectly? If the game never had halftime, I suspect that we would have lost the match.

@Miblik/Ducky#6: A tighter time window seems to encourage the offensive team (team holding middle) to stalemate the match while encouraging the defensive team to push into a disadvantageous situation. I would rather see the offensive team be incentivized to push when they have an advantage, and the defensive team be incentivized to hold when they are at a disadvantage. Doesn't that make the most sense to you? If the defensive team is encouraged to push when at a disadvantage, that sounds to me like poor game design -- which is the reason why I am bringing this up in a video.

According to the Quake Bible (haha yeah I know),

"Once you have accurate awareness of the enemy's status, this is where the Art of War comes in. (<3 Sun Tzu) Now you can constantly balance your status against the enemy status, and move accordingly. If you have the advantage, you attack. At the disadvantage, you wait for your opponent to make a mistake or you retreat in order to gain more resources than your opponent."

In TF2, much like in Basketball, there is a limit to how many resources that you can gain while in this situation where you no longer have control over the game -- in Basketball, they decided that there needs to be a mechanic that helps out the defensive team: the shot clock. It would be extremely boring if, in the first quarter, the team winning 10-7 decided to hold the ball and never let go until the quarter ended. Thanks to the shot clock, we get to see exciting, full Basketball games where teams are constantly trying to push and score and I think that is what makes the game fun and interesting to watch/play. A shot clock penalizes the team who has control of the game if they decide to not use that control to try to score.

Ducky I'm not asking "what should I have done given this ruleset". What I'm asking is, "Does this ruleset need to be changed?"

the second a medic gets uber his whole team has a 10 second count down until they blow up unless he pops it we'll call it tf2 promod

I didn't watch the video when I made the post I was just pointing out my general opinion on stalemates.

But now that I have watched I have some stuff to say.

Team iNg were in the lead, they didn't have to push, they did the smartest thing they could have done, which is play defensively and wait for your mistake, even when you made mistakes they didn't push on that and preferred to hold position which is completely fine since they are in the lead and they didn't want to take risks.

I counted 2 obvious advantages on your side during the stalemate, both number advantages, you didn't take any of them, you were the ones that needed to be making the move, not them. Team iNg tested your patience and they came out on top, to me they were the more organized and experienced team at least during that stalemate. They forced you to make mistakes and only pushed on risk free situations. They played that very smart.

I also didn't even see any attempt from your team to even disrupt their defence, you didn't push when you had number advantage, ok, it was still risky, I understand, but that's the moment where you try something different, get one of your players to suicide and change to sniper, or spy. Try a heavy push. Get one of your soldiers to go to spawn and swap to the concheror and try a push with that. YOu didn't even attempt anything different, you just did the same thing every time and expected a different outcome (you know how the old saying goes).

They clearly outplayed your team during that stalemate, to me that was a very good tactical choice even if it was boring as hell...

ALso, I have heard a lot of people say the american ruleset encourages fast paced action, I beg to disagree, when you have a 1 hour timer it's obvious at least for me that you would have much more potential for a stalematey situation than a 30 minute timer where you will be running out of time much quicker, and you need to do something about it. That's one of the reasons I prefer and support the EU ruleset rather than the NA one.

I don't know if you americans are very familiar with soccer, but there's a Portuguese manager called José Mourinho that is considered one of the best managers in the world (multiple champions leagues, national leagues, etc.) and he is very renowed for his defensive style of play. He won an unthinkable champions league with a run of 1 goal advantage matches which is impressive to say the least. They literally parked the bus for 50-60 minutes at a time in some matches, but he had such a beautiful positional strategy and coordination that was the smartest and less risky thing to do for his team, which technically was much worse than some teams he faced, and it worked out in the end, numerous times, even against teams like barcelona, teams that got impatient and made mistakes attacking and then eventually got outplayed in a counter-attack.

If anything I'm more impressed more top level teams don't try a more defensive approach to the game and try to hold 1-2 round leads instead of trying to expand the advantage

Kaneco, the main things you're not taking into account here:

1) TF2 is a game that's meant to be fun. There are no real stakes in this game, and there's a reason that teams play aggressively rather than defensively. That reason is that it's not fun to sit around for 10 minutes at a time.

2) When a team is holding mid, especially on a wrap-happy map like snakewater (process is the king of this, but snake is good), it is very difficult for the other team to push into mid on a one-man advantage. Great teams can do it, sure. But even in invite many teams will choose not to push into a 6v5 with even ubers. Spawn advantage, cap-time advantage, even height advantage go to the team holding mid on snakewater. That's enough to make up for a dead roamer or scout. This is the reason that the "tagg bomb" was so effective for HRG in s14. You can just keep resetting the action over and over with a roamer bomb or scout sacrifice. The team holding 2 may push into mid, trade ubers, and without getting sufficient picks to commit, back out of it. That happened a couple times in this match (I haven't watched the video, but I watched the STV live, so I don't know if those made it in there).

At least at the level of TF2 that I play (Open), the only time this sort of thing happens is when a team with a significant DM (or some other) disadvantage goes up a round or two and gets the other team in a defensive situation. Better teams don't stalemate the game out. They believe they can win on the merits of their game without resorting to stalemates. The goal would then be to discourage a team from doing this. Honestly the best way I see to do this is to set the round timer to something much shorter than the 10 minutes it's currently set at. 3 or 4 minutes would be an appropriate time. That allows for 2 uber pushes from even a slow-paced team. The team on the attack would have incentive to push (resetting to mid is not in their favor, as they lose the advantage they had) and the team on the defense doesn't need to set up with heavy/engy/pyro because it's not that long to hold until the next reset.

I'm also in favor of banning engineer and possibly heavy due to shit strats that you could pull based around this rule change (lose the midfight? set up on last and wait out the timer!!) but I doubt that that would go through with many players so I won't get too much into it. Engineer is a shitty class for 6s though and due to the design of last point on a number of maps, it's the easiest way to deny an uber without requiring any modicum of skill.

Fun is subjective.

For you fun could be a great back and forth game with a lot of action. FOr other players it might be actually win the match no matter what tactics used. From what I saw in the video that was a high stakes match (even if no money at stake) and the losing team had a lot to lose.

More importantly, competitive people always play to win, and they feel good and have fun by winning even if that means employing these stalemate tactics.

From a tactical POV to me they played that perfectly, even if it was boring as hell.

Are you telling me that you would enjoy playing a match involving two stalemates of 7+ minutes in order to run the game to halftime? If you're the team in control, you would want that?

If so, that's an incredibly defeatist way to play. You have the advantage, and if you don't trust enough in yourself and in your team's abilities to use that advantage and would rather sit around waiting for the other team to hand you more advantages, that's really unfortunate. It's not tactical, it's scared. Don't tell me that it's smart from a tactical POV, because smart from a tactical POV is using your advantage to win the game. It's fucking dumb to sit around and hold mid at a one-round advantage because the timer will eventually run out and the other team will have another go at mid. If any team played it perfectly, it was UP. If you're not at an advantage, you wait until the advantage is gone. They could have just waited out the round timer and gotten a fresh reset at mid. There is no incentive to push into a disadvantageous situation.

The reason the EU ruleset is poor is because it encourages the leading team to do this stalemate stuff no matter what if they hold mid. You say that it encourages pushes, but only from the team at disadvantage. I don't know about you, but I'd rather see two teams push back into each other with advantage shifting rather than one team being forced to run into a wall of defense and get wiped. In the EU ruleset there is no incentive for iNg to push at all, even if they go 5 up against UP. They can just cap 2 and give themselves another 10 minutes. If time gets low they could just back off to mid and let UP cap 2, giving themselves another 10 minutes with which to run out the game. In NA rules there is at least a halftime that resets everyone to neutral ground.

But isn't that the point Kaneco? Why should we design the game to be boring as hell? As I mentioned in the video, we have the power to change our own game to be less boring. We ban overpowered/fun-sucking weapons. We banned double heavy and double engineer strategies. Why can't we change the game to be more fun?

Fun to me is not sitting in a corner hiding from the enemy sniper while I wait for my sniper to make a play. The 6v6 game is fantastic except for this one specific scenario that is totally boring as hell, as you put it.

Darn was right, the round clock should be shortened!

Make it easier for roamers to bomb in on a lot of maps. Pushing Gully 2nd for example is really tough to get a suicide in, Granary last is completely impossible. Badlands last is impossible. Its these scenarios that force a team to run an offclass because their roamer wasnt successful.

I dont think there will ever be a way to remove the stalemate entirely as long as Uber exists. Ban Uber, and you wont have nearly as many stalemates if both teams run kritz all the time.

I think for some people it might be fun to be in control of the positional aspect of the game. Much like some people get enjoyment from watching barcelona "tiki-taka" soccer style which I don't appreciate myself.

You shouldn't just dismiss it right away. It's a subjective thing. I also like to play a lot of strategy games and I see how It could be fun to be in control of a match from that perspective.

It's not defeatist or dumb, they didn't do any mistake, in fact, by doing nothing they didn't allow mistakes from happen on their side, If I was playing a match for the title and we were 1 round up and I knew we were inferior dm-wise you could be damn sure I would do everything to give us the tactical advantage, and that's one way it could be done.

Why are you putting the blame on iNg team and not on Slin's team? They were the ones at a disadvantage, they were the ones supposed to make something happen to break that stalemate, and instead they just allowed it to happen for 7 long minutes, instead of trying something different as I mentioned.

You play up to 1 hour in the NA ruleset, you play up to 30 minutes in the EU ruleset, you have more pressure to make things happen under the EU ruleset because you are more limited in terms of time, it's simple math. I never even understood where everyone got that idea that the NA ruleset promotes more agressive play.

Well that's a good point, if we can objectively change our game to the better why wouldn't we do it? Personally I think it could be a good idea but more importantly I think it would be just another thing distantiating us even more from pub community.

As for the Fun point, already mentioned above.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Even if you made it SUPER EASY to push as the offensive team (holding middle), there is nothing FORCING you to push, which is the entire problem. There is already enough of an advantage as it stands (respawn advantage), but nothing forces the team holding middle to take advantage of it.

As you saw in the video, even if both teams don't have uber, nothing forces the team on offense to push. You're not addressing the heart of the problem.

but seriously though nice video, i'd be a proponent of this idea. again we were doing everything to win.

Yeah totally flippers like I said, I'd be doing the same thing in your position if my hobbies included watching paint dry and grass growing. It's legal in the rules, and a total valid strategy given the current structure of the game. You guys played well.

Stalemates don't happen in pugs or scrims because everyone knows its dumb -- it only happens in high stakes matches.

Slin said it best before. We should be encouraging the team with advantage to push and the team with disadvantage to hold, not the other way around. The EU ruleset encourages the team with disadvantage to push into the holding team. The pushes aren't as fun to watch (for most people. I'd say the vast, vast majority of people, but if you're gonna require me to hold a poll to prove this I'll concede the point that viewing enjoyment is subjective) because they fail much more often. That's why I dislike the EU ruleset that has no halftime.

I'm putting the onus of pushing onto iNg because they are the ones with the advantage. They have a reason to push, even if it's just to exchange ubers. When they sit on mid without even really peeking, they are the ones providing no opportunity for interesting gameplay. UP could push into mid, but the only reason they would do so is because they have to make something happen, not because they have any 'tactical' advantage.

The team with the advantage should be pushing. The team with disadvantage should be holding. That is what creates the exciting back and forth TF2 that I fell in love with. Switching that around is what creates the stalemates that most TF2 players (besides Kaneco apparently, and I'm sure there are others, but a minority) loathe.

I think you have an excellent point in that we should make last points easier for roamers to bomb in. That will definitely end the stifling type of play I see when a team is holding Blands last. However I also think that your point about uber is a bit too extreme. Banning one of the most quintessential weapon in order to make play more exciting would be counter-intuitive. When quick fix was allowed, I absolutely loved the whole new aspect of the metagame-the rock paper scissors of uber, kritz, and quick fix.

Quick fix in my opinion is a medigun that promotes fast pushes. With the increased medic mobility, every standard 6s class has great movement capabilities. While the re-addition of quick fix to the whitelist would be a good decision, I also think that Quick Fix with its higher healing rate lets teams turtle more on last. Its also a bit too op in general. opinions?

quick fix promotes passive play by taking away too many of the advantages that the pushing team has without creating new ones. In practice it negatively impacts the pace of 6s gameplay. It's far too easy to turtle up, trading QF ubers when the need arises, without losing any ground. It creates stalemates, but they're the kind of stalemates where both teams stand in a choke and pitifully trade rockets rather than the kind of stalemates where neither team shoots at all.

Shorten the cap timer, shorten the halves. 30 minute halves are too long.

I think that would backfire, if you wipe pushing their second now they maybe can get to your second. shortening the cap timers would simply ensure they get your second and be set to push last by the time you come up. It'd have the opposite effect you're desiring.

Not necessarily, Quick Fix simply requires a little more pre-planning on the part of teams. In order to create an advantage in a 3-medigun meta you have to constantly switch between all of them, as you'll stalemate if you decide to merely copy your opponent. The advantage lies with the bold.

The problem I have with the euro ruleset is it can lead to parking the bus if one team is ahead and just wants to run out the time. I think that is more of a product of playing for a full 30 minutes and whoever is ahead wins.

Personally, I love the super long games, unless it's that long because of stalemates. If there is a lot of back and forth action, I'd much rather see the game go for an hour than 30 minutes.

I like the idea of lowering the round timer to around 4 minutes or so though.

the console automatically types kill in console if you hold onto an uber for 4 mins or more.

your computer automatically explodes and sends fragmentation into your face if you break the 4 minute rule more than 3 times in your tf2 career. 3 strikes youre out.

Quick Fix never had a rock paper scissors meta, it had a run heavy to deny quick fix, use it yourself, and kite any attempt at ubers and kritz the other team has meta.

So ban heavy