About a year ago, Sal and eXtine meet with the TF2 team and discussed competitive tf2 and the possibility of a match making system.

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/8952/how-to-get-to-in-game-comp-lobbies

Valve's main problem with 6's is that it is drastically different from pubs or the "standard" game, compared to other games with competitive scenes at least. If you look at games with high support for the competitive scene (Dota, LoL, Starcraft, CS:GO, Smite, even fucking Hearthstone), the pubbers and the top tier players are playing the same game with the same rules. When the average Dota player watches the International, they pretty much know what is going on.

When the average TF2 player watchs an ESEA lan, they wouldn't know exactly why things are the way they are. Why are there only 6 players on each team? Why is there a limit of 2 on soldier and scout but only one demoman and medic? Why are they only playing to 5 rounds? Why are all of these weapons banned but these aren't?

This gap in rules is why Valve is not going to really support the way 6s is currently setup. Highlander has a much smaller gap for players to jump, so it is more likely Valve would be willing to implement that kind of system into TF2.

I think it's (additionally?) going to be used for quickplay, so newbies and pros can be matched to a server with other players of similar skill.

It might be the other way around, to prevent exactly this. By combining good and bad players, you ensure that you don't get a completely helpless team

I did a string dump of the server/client DLLs, and I picked out some interesting stuff
http://pastebin.com/GaGiepbs

I'll update this post later once I finish disassembling things

UPDATE: More stuff
http://pastebin.com/n1ZRHAg5

A lot of those remind me of settings in CS lobbies too (wait for players to load, etc)...

I think this might actually be happening oh my god

Looks like they are using some version of IDA

https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/

easier for smart demos then :]

Wouldn't it make more sense to put this in their existing MVM "lobby" system before creating an entirely new one?

hf until they nerf stickies again

That's such flawed logic though.
They're blaming the gamemode for being too different, what's there to stop them from making it normal. Why not just incorporate the 6v6 gamemode into the game!?
Shitty ass tunnel visioned designers.

But their existing mvm lobby system is shit

6s has a really stupid ruleset regarding class limits and weapon bans though that it'd require an hour long tutorial for the average player to understand anything about it. HL is fairly straightforward and leaves almost no ambiguity or questions regarding bans or class limits

even if 6s is the better format (it is), the skill floor and overall design of it make it unapproachable for people who are new to tf2

Hl is way too confusing for me

I'm not even joking, at least in sixes you know where people will be and there aren't any roaming heavies popping up behind you

Wtf is that anyway how can you have a roaming heavy I don't understand

Edit: not that this is on topic or anything

Well I don't know what system they are talking about, but for several months now this has appeared in the console whenever I find a quick play server:

Applied updated item schema from GC. 2334529 bytes, version 6091A0F7.
Quickplay client scoring
Selected game mode: 0
Hours played: 1664.4
Valve server bonus: 0.00, noob map bonus: 0.00
Search duration: 2.5
Found 115 total servers, 87 met minimum score threshold, 25 will be sent to GC for scoring
Received 25 server scores from GC
Best GC score was 1.70

I'm sorry I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything.

GJ strawmanning my argument into 6v6 vs Highlander.

Just like every other viable competitive game ever?

I saw some things about "noob friendly" maps being weighted differently than other maps; I'll have to try and find that again.
Also, does anyone know what GC stands for?

he is using IDA to reverse engineer the binary/dll. What you are looking at is the raw assembly code on the right.

GC = Game Coordinator
I think it's used for Matchmaking, like MvM or Quickplay

Looking through the pastebins negasora linked, it excites me. The terminology used sounds like it uses tournament mode, as it talks about remaining time (ready_up_remaining_time) and uses the word "lobby" a lot (eg LobbyTime) and also talks about CTF (CTFLobbyMember). Although it has a few mentions of quickplay and also a few mentions of Tour of Duty, so I'm not sure. Maybe this skill rating will be incorporated in lobbies, pubs, and mvm?

edit: also the line "TF_GC_TEAM_BROADCASTER" makes me really excited at the possibility of having a slot incorporated into the game meant for casters or broadcasters but who knows.

All of the things on pastebin came from files containing details on pretty much every mechanic in the game. I picked sections out that concern the new update, but left some other, old strings in for context, especially since related strings would be found close together, mostly.

Still working on the disassembly.

Oh look that's my screenshot!

Also, related to this, most of the things containing "lobby" or "matchmaking" are related to MvM matchmaking and quickplay, not many people know but you can configure it quite a bit to find more experienced players/specific matches http://pastebin.com/iWjsfNhJ

This was literally the purpose of coming up with a pick/ban/whatever system for weapons, but everybody forgot that on like the second day.

btw when can I get my 8v8 classlimits-of-2 CTF matchmaking ;_;

From browsing the pastebins it definitely looks like more than MvM or Quickplay changes. What's "strategy time"?

maybe minimum pregame time? it's with the other gamestate stuff and it seems they are listed in order:

TF_GC_GAMESTATE_STATE_INIT
(TF_GC_GAMESTATE_WAIT_FOR_PLAYERS_TO_LOAD
TF_GC_GAMESTATE_STRATEGY_TIME
TF_GC_GAMESTATE_GAME_IN_PROGRESS
TF_GC_GAMESTATE_POST_GAME
TF_GC_GAMESTATE_DISCONNECT
TF_GC_GAMESTATE_LAST

It seems like there is an implication of a specific activity though. Perhaps this is where they do the weapons bans.

i tried to find comparable stuff in dota:

DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_INIT
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_WAIT_FOR_PLAYERS_TO_LOAD
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_HERO_SELECTION
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_STRATEGY_TIME
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_PRE_GAME
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_GAME_IN_PROGRESS
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_POST_GAME
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_DISCONNECT
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_LAST

so there are separate states for hero pick/ban, pregame, and strategy time. no idea :s

edit: i talked to a dota person and he thinks the states are this:

DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_HERO_SELECTION - hero pick/ban
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_STRATEGY_TIME - the time when each player picks their hero from the ones his team has picked. after all 10 players pick a hero they are all spawned in the server
DOTA_GAMERULES_STATE_PRE_GAME - the time between that and the first creep wave spawn

still not sure how exactly this would apply to tf2, but i would think a pick/ban period would have its own state based on how it's handled in dota. who knows though.

Based on my limited knowledge of Dota, that seems logical.

However, if the states are equivalent, that would imply that there wouldn't be queueing based on class, but rather that players pick which class they're going to play once teams have been formed in the lobby. It makes some logical sense because in Dota and CS:GO, nobody queues based on role.

ok have fun getting epic dmg on a combo then get flanked by three from behind because a engi built a awesome teleporter that's behind the team.

guys pls

we might be getting ranked on duel wins, there are more important things to think about then ur dum theory crafting argument about which class counters which (spoiler classes don't counter each other, better players counter each other)