I haven't watched the games yet, but the soldiers were still using the direct hit? That unlock isn't even good in HL.

Are the players trying to win or what?

As has been discussed thoroughly, the open whitelist will bring us much closer to Valve's balance. I think its undeniable that BFB Scouts are pretty strong. What Robin wants to see (based off my conversation years ago) is to see us accept that fact and either figure out how to counter it or just deal with it while we wait for Valve to nerf it into the ground.

Valve's previous hesitancy to balance items off our feedback is tied into limited item pool and not giving things a proper chance. If we suffer through a few months of super strong BFB scouts we will be stronger in the end.

What are people's thoughts on integrating some sort of per map pick/ban system? Besides utilizing a more open whitelist, some sort of pick/ban was the other major piece of feedback from Valve.

I'm glad to see this might be a more regular thing. Have you guys thought about instituting some sort of weapon ban system? We're gonna have to peel back some layers to see how each unlock performs. So far we've done a good job showing how ridiculous the BFB is but the BFB is probably eclipsing some other unlocks, like CaC or something. Also soldiers are still running DH (not that I blame them) which isn't the most effective 6s launcher. It's all still interesting to watch, thanks for running the events.

Are there any solid plans for an NA version of this?

VODs slightly delayed, have some STV demos https://www.dropbox.com/s/7o043wfimqxvwep/2014-12-21-Unrestricted-Showmatch-2-STV-Demos.zip.zip?dl=0

I've been trying to formulate my thoughts on some of the posts in this thread for a couple of hours now without really finding a red string to them - sorry if this gets rantey.

I don't know how apparent it was just how much the BFB+quickfix (and to a certain extent - every other movement speed-manipulating unlock) destroyed any kind of established meta, class roles etc. and just how much this confused both teams. Timings, duels and many, many more things that make the game, or at least the scene, what it is was thrown out of the window in favour of throwing everyone straight into the fray and see how it pans out. The scouts were so dominant tonight that at least kaptain attempted to go DH just to counter them while AMS kept to the normal RL + close range splashes; in both cases it was ineffective to say the least. Maybe we'll find new strategies and maybe we'll find a new amazing meta a couple of months down the road and maybe valve will give us the cs:go attention and maybe suddenly we'll all be huge and famous.

But I think all the talks the past few months — heck, this has been hotly debated for seven years now — about how we need to change the game, go over to new gamemodes / allow everything in 6v6 all boils down in my head to one question: For what? Why should we "suffer through a few months of super strong BFB scouts" even if it somehow made the game 'stronger'? This might be a very european view on things but the reality of comp tf2 is that we don't, and most likely won't, make enough money off of this to live on it. That leaves us with fun as motivation for both playing and watching the game and I don't know if tonight was especially fun for anyone involved.

I must admit that this might be me being salty about the fact that tonight the most important part of scout meta was to remember not to accidentally double jump. I've spent 5 years double jumping and I'm pretty much ready to say that it's my single most favorite thing about the class. I probably played Team Fortress 2 competetive for the first time tonight and it simply wasn't that fun. And part of that lies in the, honestly, broken unlocks. But part of that also lies in the fact that it simply wasn't comp Tf2.

We kinda discussed how these things should go forward from now on, twiggy's idea seemed to be to limit the most broken unlocks discovered until next time. Personally it just feels like it would end up with the current whitelist + a bunch of troll items that see very limited use, and then really: what's the point. I don't really see how this would help the game out both when it comes to its image as a 'serious' esport and the problem with "staleness of meta" that seems to be the main reason we do this.

Maybe there's room to change comp Tf2 closer to Team Fortress 2. Maybe there isn't. I don't see an open whitelist as an answer, especially if it comes off vague old promises from valve.

I guess in the end I appreciate the initiative like I appreciate all the great initiatives that I've seen take this game from 300 people huddling on 2 stvs to 10 000 people watching a lan final but it feels like we got this far without making these radical changes that people suddenly want to implement. I guess I just don't see the point of it all, for me there's no guarantee (and I really don't see how there could ever be one) that this will make the game either grow to the point where we play it as a living (while semi-ironically remembering the good old days depending on if we hate what it turned into) or make the game a funnier experience for everyone involved.

tldr; i wrote stupid things when I really needed to be sleeping and now I'll have to sleep on my train home tomorrow today instead

Afterthought (cause I showered while debating posting this) and clarification: My point is basically this. Tf2 is fun because of tactics; tactics come out of foresight and adaptation; unlocks only leaves adaptation since we can't know what another player is running before we encounter them. This is the main difference from dota & CS where you have pick / bans at the start or an economy that is part of the meta.

Maybe this is a bit Randian of me but I really like the way that 6v6 plays out and I'd like to keep it that way simply due to the fact that it's something that I've enjoyed for a long time. Don't get me wrong, at the same time I also like the way pubs play out but I don't think those two will ever be close to each other without serious concessions on either side. And by that point I don't think that I'd see the point of playing anymore in the same way that the pubbers that love their current game, because truth be told: it is a different game, wouldn't see any point of playing anymore if their favorite unlocks suddenly got revamped to fit us.

Aui2000 recently said techies makes Dota a worse game. You hear pros complaining about new heroes (or old ones, honestly) literally all the time. Its not something specific to tf2. But not a single Dota player would say the game isn't better for the greater strategic and tactical options afforded by all the very different heroes.

You're misreading me. My point was that the heroes, and with them the spectrum of possible tactics that you have to prepare for , are locked down from the start of the game. This gives you a chance to read what the opponent might try to do later based on their current behaviour and items.

Playing tf last night was equivalent to a game of dota where the hero could be swapped at any time. Simply too many possibilities at once for any meaningful foresight to be had.

this is the exact problem tf2 sans white list has, and even to a degree tf2 with whitelist (even just changing mediguns changes things)

This is my main problem with the no whitelist 6s (along with 4s and especially A:R). It kinda turns into a "what curveball can we throw" contest and while that can be fun for pugs/ friendlies, i'd imagine it being really terrible playing it seriously.

Oh sorry. Yeah you're right. I can think of a number of very simple solutions to that problem, but any one one of them will modify the game, which is what we want to stay away from.

Its up to valve to create the system for unlocks that prevents teams from constantly trying to surprise the other team. But valve doesnt seem to want to make anything gameplay related for tf2 anymore.

nah thats just zebbosai he always does that :D

Nice to see one of the participants really giving their experience some thought, thanks Herr_P

There's a perception that adding unlocks will suddenly make recruitment easier (it probably won't, HL doesn't have this enormous player base and they allow almost everything). There is also the chance Valve is going to bring in match making which would bring in a huge number of players to the format, but Valve won't be banning anything even if it's bugged, and getting Valve support for any small team format will hinge on that. It seems this second point is genuinely possible, particularly with Overwatch apparently supporting a competitive game mode from the start.

It's very interesting that after playing open unlock games you come to a similar conclusion to the TF2 team's suggestion and not just for "ban this broken unlock" reasons, but for improved strategic gameplay reasons. What do you think of the idea of a pick/ban mod where players ban unlocks before the match starts? In the matchmaking code that's been uncovered so far I think (from memory) there is a designated section called "strategy time" but no one knows what it does.

start with all weapons banned
then pick 6-10 weapons which cannot be picked
then pick 2-3 weapons per class besides stock weapons that both teams can utilize

this way you have adaptation and foresight

lock loadout after freeze time (so u could pick unlocks once per round), rip switching medigun mid-game.

How many unlocks are worth running full time though?

If that system was put into place there'd need to be more than like 10 good ones. You wouldn't ban something with no impact on the game, and you wouldn't run something that was niche or useless.

It's not a bad idea, but it would require Valve to actually superbuff a lot of shit. And I don't see why stock shouldn't be bannable too.

just off the top of my head:

bfb, critacola, pretty boy's pocket pistol, winger, basher, atomizer
blackbox, gunboats, reserve shooter, conch(?), escape plan, disciplinary action
(if anyone plays pyro) degreaser, reserve shooter, flares, powerjack
cannon, caber
steak sandwich, sandvich, gru, fos
(if anyone plays engie) sc, wrangler, gunslinger
crossbow, overdose, kritz, quickfix, vitasaw, ubersaw, solemn vow
machina, jarate, dds
ambassador, c&d

i dunno how many of these are fulltime unlocks, but your post made me curious how many unlocks i could think of that might be used

That post is missing:

Mad Milk, Bonk

Pain Train, Batallion's Backup, maybe bazooka

Maybe phlog for capping gully last with QF uber (if that's not a viable thing the item could be legal in 6s normally)

Loch-and-load

Natascha (because fuck the BFB)

Pomson, rescue ranger (literally dumber than the wrangler)

Sydney Sleeper, Razorback

enforcer, spy-cicle

But yeah that's most of them.

i don't want to play a game competitively where short circuit is allowed

Nerf stickies, allow caber.

What about just pick/banning mediguns? For example, the 3 Medi Guns never lived up to the so called Medi Gun-triangle. When QF is in play, you "have" to run it at mid to get there fast, and then Kritz is always slightly better than Uber because it's easier to drop QF. Uber becomes a lot weaker.

So, ban one medigun and you get the following matchups, which seem tactically interesting:

QF vs. Medi Gun, QF would get run at mid all the time, Medi Gun would be good for last holds
QF vs. Kritz, you'd run QF most of the time but always have the option to surprise and use kritz
Medi Gun vs. Kritz, old fashioned comp tf2 meta

VODs have arrived.

Has anyone tried to send these games to Valve directly? Just curious. The dev team may like to see just what the BFB does in these kinds of games. Could be of value if the rumors of matchmaking are true.

They will just say that the bfb is balanced around 16-24 player games, not 6s. And the amount of spam in bigger games probably does reduce its effectiveness slightly, and the amount of bodies to shoot means that a -2 clip size probably hurts a little more. Not enough though lol

I just watched badlands, and I actually really enjoyed it. It was much more organised than last week, probably because they learnt from it and also are actual teams. There was some counterplay (minisentry to help deny the qf+bfb rush onto last), and some effective offclassing, pyro and gru heavy in particular. I think that this almost warrants its own section/league for more testing, perhaps with scout limited to one though?

You forgot about Vaccinator, it's actually quite strong.

You're missing a kappa, eXtine. Vaccinator is terrible but while I didn't mention it I imagined it could be occasionally used for last holds after mid wipes or very situationally.