this post would get better attention on /r/tf2, this forum is geared towards competitive play and people here don't really care about pubs, but i guess class limits would help

If you had a 6s item whitelist on pub servers they would be more balanced. It would probably be no fun but it would fix engi being op as fuck

I understand. I still want to pose the question because I'd love to see comp players fall in love with pubs again!

Great idea!

if you could have a way to keep an average points per round stat on each player then you could consider that to be their skill level and just scramble teams based on that. skial tried doing similar shit but it was based on the individual's win-rate and idk which would be better

If you can get a pub together that has pretty consistent communication (for sure no all talk) and is populated from like noon-9 EST I think a lot of comp players would at the very least add to favorites. I know that between pugs I don't really have a way to waste time and a pub with comms could be a lot of fun. It's a hard thing to attempt though until tf2 introduces the voice codex they use for CS. Let's be honest it's ridiculous that hasn't happened yet

i've heard that some servers that host stuff like all crit orange and stuff bans people that are highly skilled to keep the overall skill balanced among players

i played on merry band of misfit's orange server and got perma banned for "aimbot" :(

This has been tried tens if not hundreds of times, it never works out. I think it's that if people want to pub with communication they can just play lobbies in addition to the fact that it is really difficult to get that initial playerbase

They banned you because they thought you were cheating, not to try to keep the skill level the same (nice humble brag tho)

if skial badwater had a good balance system based on actual player skill my life would be directly upgraded

Class limits are a great start, also a rough skill system and automatic scrambling if there is a large skill/player gap.

The closest thing I've seen would be Skial's ranking system which doesn't really give a fair estimate of someone's skill

Stricter class balance, an actual rating system that isn't based off of rounds won, perhaps "forcing" certain classes to be played like medic

People will make the argument that they want to play what they want, but there are 9 classes and lots of other servers to play on

Some of the biggest problems I see in pubs is a combo wrecking the other team or all the decent players stacking the same team and going spec if they can't join it. Class balance is usually pretty bad and seems like medic is played less than 5% of the time.

I'd really love to play on a server that uses a more aggressive version of Gentleman Jon's ranking system and also has good class balance. I just want to play 2009-era pub TF2 when we had less unlocks, more people talking, and 3 competent medics per team.

This, although 3 medics is generally overkill if you have someone playing Engineer and the person playing the class isn't a gigantic pussy. Pubs that aren't just filled with HL kiddies but have people who give a fuck like back in the old days would be the saving grace of pub TF2 in 2015.

Not on valve servers though, although I could definitely see this on community servers. NISLT needs their clips of madness and mayhem, after all.

This right here is the reason I got seriously liking TF2 (although I joined in 2013), people using the talk system. I've found, though, that if one person says something, anyone else with a mic will feel freed up to talk. I've gotten whole teams talking together just by giving one comment about a sentry placement. People will talk, they've just gotten used to not communicating.

I've seen that happen plenty of times, too. Very annoying. One way to ensure people can't stack teams is to prevent them from stacking teams :)

Have an aggressive scramble plugin (trigger happy, scrambles at beginning of map) that takes into account "skill". I've seen skialbalance in action myself. Any idea how it works? Aren't all sourcemod plugins supposed to be open-source?

How would you guys determine "skill"? I'd use factors such as total TF2 hours played (somehow having to compensate for idle time?), average score/min which will be weighted based on which class the player is playing when it's time to update it (classes that generate less points/min on average will be boosted to compensate). Bonus for that last one: friendlies and idlers will have their skill rating lowered :)

Now, how about encouraging medic play? Forcing a lucky winner to play medic seems... a bit heavy-handed. I was thinking of perhaps some incentive system being better. But honestly, without seeming like just another junk server with "perks", what can I do besides end-of-round immunity for the map for those who play medic a whole round? And how about discouraging battle medic play? And how about discouraging it without discouraging ubersaw chains (or should I?)

In addition, how about a reminder upon team loss that your team did NOT have a medic? I bet that would gently prod someone on the fence to go medic next round!

may be crazy, but how about keep track of whoever plays medic the most on the server, and give them reserved slots?

classlimits of 2 across the board, no exceptions. you can go with 3 if you want, but every classlimit has to be the same because every map and gamemode is different. restricting spies and snipers lower than pyros and heavies are can totally stack A/D maps for example.

reserved slots for medic mains

this isn't as much of a problem as it used to be, but don't run maps that are totally broken by certain unlocks (harvest, fastlane, egypt, etc). if you want to go the route of blocking items, only pick ones that are legitimately overpowered, not merely annoying, and do it on a per-gamemode or per-map basis. make the server tell the players what items are banned on what map when they join.

don't bother with excessive scrambles. don't bother with teamchange prevention. don't bother with intrusive autobalance. go for short rounds. run maps with low long term inertia where solo players can shine, like steel and standin. inbalances should result in the map ending quickly and new teams.

don't run 24/7 one-map, because that attracts tryhard cancer stacking regulars.

less sentries!
equal # of meds?

tbh tf2 pubs kind of die when they become filled with good players. Good players play super passively and spam 24/7 because there's no flanks and it sucks

u have no idea how hard engi is without minis
and just use a class limit (no more than 1-2 engis, 2 snipers, 1 spy, 3 scouts, 3 soldiers, etc)

>u have no idea how hard engi is without minis

you mean you actually have to try at playing a pvp game? Shock

upio holyshit youve posted like 40 times today

Wareya, I don't like class limits. I've encountered situations where class limits have really gotten in the way of helping my team. What if the class slots for class ___ are taken by horrible players, and the fact good players didn't get the chance to play those classes sometimes seals that team's fate, like if the team NEEDED a good ___ to counter whatever the enemy team's got. I've also had the situation where I wanted to quickly switch to engi (or pyro) to kill a sapper at spawn, but I've been blocked. That's bad. I think class limits are a ham-fisted solution to the problem.

EDIT: whatever that problem is (??)

> but every classlimit has to be the same because every map and gamemode is different. restricting spies and snipers lower than pyros and heavies are can totally stack A/D maps for example.
uh...

> if you want to go the route of blocking items, only pick ones that are legitimately overpowered
I agree. For me, minis are first on the chopping block. A gunslinger with a mini who's really, really, good with the shotty is OP IMO, particularly vs scout. What about you guys? Can you think of others, or would you just advocate a full comp whitelist like someone suggested earlier?

> don't bother with excessive scrambles
The old reddit east did this, and I loved it. It kept things fair. In addition to aggressive scrambling, it also scrambled automatically at the beginning of the map, as some people pick a particular team by habit.

> don't bother with intrusive autobalance
That IS annoying. FirePowered servers have the option to let anyone on the opposing team volunteer to move to the other team for some FP funbucks. That's an improvement, though it still falls back to just normal autobalance.

> run maps with low long term inertia where solo players can shine
Low long term interia? Anyway, I'd like to hear everyone's ideas on how to encourage team play further.

The idea of a reserved slot perk for medics is great! That is definitely a legitimate reason to have them. Play medic for one full round (and win?), gain a reserved slot for the entire day (and the next?). How does that sound, guys?

Honestly, this is a valid concern! People are so downvote-happy around here...
There are pro versions of a lot of Valve maps, which add additional flanking options. Pubs should really be using them more. Recently a pro version of pl_badwater came onto the scene, and it has a lot of very welcome changes.

>I think class limits are a ham-fisted solution to the problem.

They are. I assumed you would just use them because that's what pub community servers tend to do. If you don't, great! Nothing to worry about.

>For me, minis are first on the chopping block.

Oh god, they're definitely cancer, but anyone who bothers to say this is always terribly opinionated and misinformed.

>would you just advocate a full comp whitelist like someone suggested earlier?

NO.

>The old reddit east did this, and I loved it.

I was there too and it was terrible. It was annoying and didn't solve any balance problems at all. The algorithm was completely fucked. Nobody will ever actually get this right. But personal experience, amirite?

>Good players play super passively and spam 24/7 because there's no flanks and it sucks

This just doesn't happen. Maybe if you're running a 24/7 badwater server, because those servers attract the most incredibly hardcore pieces of playing-highlander-in-pubs shit I have ever seen. That is *NOT* a map or skill problem.

He had to get 30 posts so his stream could get sidebarred.

Ban wranglers though.

And add a config that gives pyros 10hp and 15hp with overheal.

https://youtu.be/gtzr6PQm8Sg

It really all comes down to teamplay.
The only thing you can blame this game for is killing community servers. This idea shouldn't be foreign for comp players, but communication is much easier with people you play with regularly than with complete strangers. Back in 2008, I played on a community server where everyone knew each other and what classes they were good at. I even bought a proper mic because most regulars used one.
Most people would be willing to play medic once in a while for a team that's going to listen and won't waste their uber. Even team balance could be adressed when everyone knew who the good players were and we could just scramble when it was obvious one side was stacked.
All this talk about banning weapons is complete nonsense. So is assuming people don't use voice chat on pubs because there's a small delay 99.9% of players don't even know about. Get a bunch of regulars willing to talk and play as a team and any slight imbalance this game can have won't even matter.
And if you're going to go full control freak, don't bother writing fined-tuned whitelists and complex autobalance plugins. Get a couple of mods and ban players who obviously don't listen to team comms. Much simpler and so much more effective.

I really dont think class limits are a hamfisted solution there's literally no need to have more than 2 of any class on a 24 player server and having 5 engies/12 demos on a team is literally the easiest way to kill gameplay.

I have never seen this video before but holy fuck that's like my wet dream dude that's so well made too +1

call me jaded but i dont think 2008 (it was 2010 for me) era tf2 can happen on pubs anymore really.

if you have players joining who consistently sit in a mumble server (pretty much all competitive tf2-ers), then in game talk, balanced pub games, people talking to their medic, etc. can't really happen. or rather, doesn't happen.

thats why skial badwater is the way it is. theres like 5 different groups of ppl, all of them are in mumble, and they all want to win (cause they play competitive tf2) but they dont want to talk to each other, cause theyre busy jerking each other off in mumble. jerking each other off in mumble feels good, dont get me wrong, but it doesnt feel like 2008 pub tf2.

my actual thread contribution: dont make it a 24/7 badwater server.

tbh i dont think that like ppl are more or less interested in trying hard now. I remember giving a way bigger shit about pubs when I was younger and worse at the game. Now that I can rape pubbies with a controller the joys of trying really hard to win aren't really there anymore. I think ppl are a lot more jaded now and just play pubs noncompetitvely; trying to win but not really caring or being optimal in strategy. Ultimately in a game a with a sizable competitive population, it becomes difficult to encourage serious play outside of comp games, which is a problem w/ CS too, no one tries in pubs anymore

>Balanced
>Pub

Pick one

Edit:

to elaborate on this, pub is the only place in TF2 that is raw and unbalanced, just how it's supposed to be. Why do you even want to balance it? Pub is a place where you can just show up and crush faces, do random shit, and no questions asked.

edit x2:
Post #25
^ this guy gets it