Well, I hope you can keep finding people to coach, as I'd really like to come to a newbie mix. I was going to last night, but I've been sick lately, and I was feeling really bad last night.

I play with a group of people that I work with- we play Lan in the office one night a week every week, and play a fair bit on other nights. The range of skill in the office is pretty wide. I'm the best player (mainly because I played some qw, and q3 and CPMA at one point,) but there are a couple of other people who are getting better. We're a little tired of pub nonsense at this point, and we're getting interested in playing something more organized.

I do think that our skill level is probably pretty low compared to the average pug, and we're limited in the classes we play. I've played mainly soldier, and my movement could be a lot better. And the other two mainly play Scout. I've been playing a bit of Scout lately too. None of us are good at demoman. So we're definitely not at a point where we could jump into #tf2mix, though I do plan on speccing some pugs there.

So I'd definitely like to play in a newbie mix, to start getting a feel for how the 6v6 game is played.

One thing I am a bit confused over is demos. I'd really like to find some demos of the best invite teams that let you switch to any POV on the team, so I can watch things like roll-outs and mid-fights from each perspective to try to get a feel for everything happening. Back when I played Quake they used to post demos of pretty much every match. But I haven't been able to find an archive of demos for the recent ESEA seasons, for instance.

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/2565-esea-s12-lan-stv-package this should get you started on demos

I've coached a lot of newbie mixes over the last month and here is some things that I think need to change, and those that I think are good.

First suggestions

Change days of play, if you want to play on Fridays, make the next week a Sunday or something. This will get more people to coach and play, since not everyone is going to play on Friday night. Those that do seem to be the same people.

Positives

1) Stay in mumble to talk over the match after it is over. I know that sometimes it's hard since there is not a lot of coaches and you want to help more people, but slow down and talk to people before leaving. You're going to more good by teaching, not just pugging over and over again.

2) Newer players generally listen, but make sure you press questions out of them. Some people are afraid to ask questions directly.

3) Switch classes to help the people playing. For example, if someone wants to learn to be the main caller, let them. Just coach them in the process.

4) Don't allow people to try to just out DM. I see this all the time with new open teams and players, teach them that the best way to help improve yourself and your team would be to help your teammates to make everything you can be at least 2v1.

Cons

1) Stop allowing people with experience to play in the mixes. I've seen an increase over the last few weeks that come in just to stomp new people to presumably few good about themselves. Allow admins to ban people that are offclassing/trolling/aliasing for this purpose.

2) Admins also should just shutdown/kick, overall restart the pug without the shit stains that are doing it.

3) If you notice that the teams are really uneven, ask to stop the pug and switch people to make it even. Basically, utilize time efficiently to stop rolls so people don't get annoyed.

I have more, and yes I know my order is everywhere, but I kept thinking of more lol

Just a tiny point that this doesn't work. Any group of people larger than 2 is incredibly sluggish to adapt to change. If 100 people turned up on Friday one week and you told them it was Sunday the next week, 80 would turn up on Friday.

THIS A MILLION TIMES

I'm having scheduling conflicts, I would love to help but its mostly run on Fridays when I'm out and about. Is there any way to get this happening earlier on weekends?

And? Having a 80% turnout is not bad in the slightest. Hell, I've worked in politics for the last 10 years and the field people that recruit volunteers explain that having a 50% turnout is great.

Not to mention again, I said that point to get DIFFERENT people and more MENTORS, most of the mentors that I have been around do not play often on Friday night

20% turnout. Mix groups only work if the (huge) energy you put into them is rewarded. Change the days and you would have to keep putting in energy for little reward. It doesn't work.

Saturday afternoon would probably be better than friday evening

1:49 PM - Vick: one of the problems I've been coming across is that to a newbie, there are knowns, known unknowns (like DM, specific rocket jumps, strats, etc.) and then there are unknown unknowns
1:49 PM - Vick: to quote my buddy Rummy
1:49 PM - Vick: most newbies I met think they know far more than they do
1:49 PM - Vick: or they don't know something but think they do
1:49 PM - Vick: like a medic for example would say they know how to rollout
1:49 PM - Vick: but then you do your rollout and no one gets to mid with a buff
1:50 PM - Vick: how do you fix that mid pug?
1:50 PM - Vick: how do you diagnose those kinds of problems without playing?
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: yea haha but thats like a denial thing right? its sort of like how people dont like to ask for directions or they want to be independent
1:50 PM - Vick: my solution is to use the time after the pug to work on that
1:50 PM - Vick: yeah
1:50 PM - Vick: I do that all the time
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: well
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: i think the best thing to do would be to have a half time
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: like
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: upload a config with first to 3, first to 5
1:50 PM - iM. MR SLIN: and at half time fix some stuff real quick
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: once the pug gets rolling
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: like you said its really tough
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: its sort of like in scrims theres some things you can fix mid scrim
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: other times you cant fix shit
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: haha
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: cause the game is goin
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: but you gotta limit the halftime too
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: dont make it like
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: 20 minutes long
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: while 1 coach tries to fix 6 people
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: just make it
1:51 PM - iM. MR SLIN: 5 minutes
1:52 PM - iM. MR SLIN: allow the coach to fix the biggest issues
1:52 PM - iM. MR SLIN: answer quick questions if its going well for that team
1:52 PM - iM. MR SLIN: etc

thoughts on a halftime config?

Fucking brilliant. I'm gonna try to implement these asap.

I'm really not quite understanding what you're saying here. Are you trying to say that if you told people it was Sunday, they would still show up on Friday? If that is the case, then the real problem is getting your message out to the public correctly. This is what I explained in the first page.

Again, if you're saying that when/if you changed the day it happened people would still show up on the original day, then your message is not getting out to enough people or not early enough. Does that make sense to you?

I think that a halftime break would just slow things down unnecessarily. No matter how bad your newbies are, you can fix them to a playable level by saying "don't jump in spawn" or "heal the demo first". I always just take the time while people are getting in the server to talk rollouts and what people's options are on mid, and I rarely encounter someone who's completely unable to rollout after that. After that, you can easily keep up will calling simple things like "push here" "back up" "scouts come in" etc... whether or not your newbies execute these things well, I think being in that environment is the best way to learn and stopping the game in the middle to talk about them missing some of the finer points seems unlikely to fix anything. I prefer to just play the game then talk about it/answer questions after.

What about the other use of the halftime to potentially end rolls earlier? If its clear that one team is dominating another, they could either end the PUG or it would just give the losing team a chance to slow down and collect themselves before getting fragged constantly for 20 minutes.

When I'm coaching mixes I pretty much go through the same things before the game starts. It covers everything from making sure every player knows their rollouts/heal orders, making sure everyone has a general idea of the game flow, some basic midfight strats/things I want the players to call before/during mids (like what rollout the demo decides to take and enemy player positions), and fielding any other questions they may have.

Also I constantly point out things that I see throughout the game that can provide solid learning experiences. Examples of this range from explaining why we won/failed a push/hold to the reasoning behind the calls that I make.

In my experience when I see someone having problems with doing something It can almost always be corrected during the game as long as its properly explained (or I sometimes just walk over to where they are and show them if they aren't fully understanding what I'm saying).

I just want to commend the coaches yesterday (at least the ones I played with). Absolutely great attitude, stayed after in mumble to give a review for each individual player, fantastic advice, pretty much did everything right. Keep up the great work!

Halftime could be used to swap a player if one team were getting rolled, if nothing else.

Exactly, you need to put in more energy to have people react properly to changes. Keeping things on the same day is the easiest way to be self-sustaining, not draining. Get back to me when you run a mix group.

I second this idea. As a lower level player I struggled to find a place other than tf2lobby to play 6s. I think some sort of newbie mix pug group could be a low pressure environment to give newbs some 6s experience without them having to figure out irc or feel like they aren't good enough for the pug.

Theres not many people that want to just sit there and organize games for people to play. thats why theres bots that do it for us. Lower level players should start making pug groups to play with each other.

Lower level players don't have the gumption. But if you set the ball rolling, a daily mix group for new players is self-sustainable. Europe has two. You just find regulars who can tell people what to do without scaring them off. They can afford to be slightly better players, like with higher division experience, because you reserve the weekend for total newberries.

when i ran it i used mp_winlimit 3 or 4

im also a leopard

A tip for the mods: be more tactical with your announcements. There have been several weeks where you'll put out an announcement and 50 players add up, then you realize you don't have coaches. The players just sit in the channel for an hour and give up. Also, have coaches who are available show up if they're bored on a Saturday night. It doesn't have to be an official newbie mix day, you can just see if anyone's around. If you have coaches, throw out an announcement and the newbs will come.

RE the halftime idea, I understand why people think it would just slow the games down, but the halftime really ensures that real coaching is happening. Giving people advice and then immediately going into the second half and watching them implement it is much more effective than just giving them a couple tips and sending them on to their next pug.

People could be doing this on their own in the channel. You can move yourself between Mumble channels, you don't need an admin to drag you. The main problem I've had with PUGs in the Newbie Mix mumble is that people don't understand their own skill level. When we play a PUG it should be people who understand the game well enough to not need a coach. My most recent one had two soldiers who didn't understand the difference between a pocket and a roamer and a medic who just ran around looking for anybody to heal.

I played like 6-8 newbie mixes when I first started playing and then I made a PUG group. I had a lot of people help me out too it was really fun. I think the experience from running like over 100 or so of those helped qualify me to run newbie mixes.

This could really go either way because of the skill gap mentioned throughout the thread already, but i think the coaches being in spec and having a team of six newbies would be for the best (i know specing games is probably boring). Every time we had spec coaches it seemed like i learned the most because they could watch everything. They weren't just viewing the combo or the flank, so they could give advice to both. Also more efficient because you had 12 people getting to play instead of 10.

It's true you don't need Mumble admins, but giving people responsibility is hugely useful in creating a self-sustaining mix group. They could ask unfamiliar players their experience and pick balanced teams.

If I hadn't wet my dick in newbie mixes I probably would have never decided to make a team and get into it. I think newbie mixes are invaluable for that reason. I played CS in league for years, and had pubbed tf2 lots, but had never really had a taste of any organized 6's play, just some roll lobbies. Didn't really realize the scene had evolved into something worthwhile until then. Newbie mix gives those types of players a nice intro, and the ability to meet like minded new players (though it seems many don't take advantage of that). I do realize there are a lot of players who pass through and just waste coaches time, but I feel screening them through by forcing them to watch instructional videos could be helpful. Like maybe force the soldiers to watch a rollout video before being split up into teams or have the medi be able to recite the heal order. In addition, I think a youtube video doing a walk-through of the names of chokes/spots on badlands and granary could really speed things up so players come in the server semi ready to attempt comms.

TL;DR Newbie Mixes are invaluable, keep it up, patient coaches pls help grow the community.

I understand your point, but again, the issue is that there is not enough coaches on Friday night. The problem isn't enough new players. If we need more coaches and not getting enough on that night, almost every single time, then something needs to change a bit. Yelling to people to show up more often on a night that less people are around, isn't likely to give any different results. If I check my friends list on Friday night, I generally will only have like 25% that are online and not away.

I'm still convinced I'm not qualified to coach an entire team of new players.

However, if you plan on hosting roamer mentor sessions, you can sign me up for that. I think I've shot enough ground to point a newbie in the right direction

I'll be back and ready to coach as soon as this season ends. ;____;

I've not even played in a mix yet, let alone have the experience running them that you guys have, but I have a couple of ideas about helping people be better prepared for them, from the perspective of someone trying to figure out what he most needs to know. I don't mean to be presumptuous. And since I don't have that experience some of what I am thinking might be wrong or stupid, but I'll put it out there.

One thing I think might help is if you announced well ahead of time a map to be played on a given night. That way people could concentrate on being ready for that map in particular. This would particularly help if you're going to play the custom maps. You just about never see snakewater or process played in pubs, so I have very little experience with them.

Another thing that I think might help is to record demos of the rollouts you plan on using, as a full team, and make them available. I've been looking at some of the Badlands rollouts in the demos that frkn gave me a link to (thank you very much for that) and it's really different watching the full team roll-out (at 50% speed,) and how they co-ordinate it than watching a Youtube video that just shows some soldier jumps. On top of that the rollouts they are using are very different from what I've seen demonstrated on Youtube for Soldier rollouts, which never really mention equalizing. And then there's trying to figure out why they are rolling out a certain way, and positioning themselves in a certain way at mid... some kind of guidance like "ideally this Scout winds up here to protect the demoman, so he can concentrate on spamming these spots," etc., would also help.

And watching those demos has raised a lot of questions for me- there's a lot in them I don't understand. This is the wrong thread to ask those questions in, but maybe it would make sense to have a forum somewhere for people planning to play in newbie mixes to ask questions in, since it's a lot easier to answer things before the mix than during it. I don't really want to jump into the main forums here and start asking a whole bunch of things that are probably obvious to anyone who has played 6s much, though.

I've been starting to do pretty well in a lot of pubs lately, but I know that once I start playing even newbie mixes it's going to be a humbling, if not a bit humiliating thing for a while. I'd like to prepare as well as I can, and reduce the "unknown unknowns" as much as I can, but it's a bit bewildering. It seems to me that having some resources outside the mixes to help people prepare for them, and give them a better idea of what they ought to know coming in would help. Sorry this got so long.