It's like that in literally every single game and everything in life, and it's worse when there's more competition involved. In tf2, it's not that bad; pretty much everyone who is invite level can play on an invite team if they give it time and effort. With games like cs, however, you see a lot more "pro level" players in prem than in the pro div, despite trying hard to make it on one.

80% of invite players pickups are based on friendships and not skill or achievements

aka if you're good and unknown you won't get a chance unless X-team will run out of close friends to play for them (never ran my team that way)

jasmine tea will win i58

I dunno man looking at invite right now there aren't many teams who really have a worse player on their team because of friendships. From teams that formed or made roster changes this season

Froyo is basically run like a business anyways, all the changes they made this season got them the best player possible.

For ronin nursey had to be the best medic willing to leave their team a day before registration ended.

bird noises got corsa who was one of the best invite scouts lft, boomer who was like the only pocket they tried out, and 404 who has won invite on medic. voll is a bit weak but he's also been on the team for like 3 seasons now and there's definitely something to be said for keeping roster consistency

aeonic dropping ictus for mu was a pretty massive mistake in teamleading but i don't think it was because they were friends with mu considering she got cut later. ex ending up on the team could be because they already played together but it's not like they're best buds

Ranga on el classico is a no brainer pickup for them. wrech remains on the team but i think it's because he's the leader and they don't really wanna cut him so bad they'll mutiny him.

evl/cafe is a friend team anyways and there were some sketchy pickups on this team so I'll give u this one

8k gets sezco who i think may be a bit overrated but seems to work well with the team and was still the best scout they trialed

so really in like one of 5 or 6 teams that made new rosters or roster changes was someone worse picked up on the basis of being friends

it is in other games lol
a lot of cs changes are based off who people know after someone isn't meshing well for a while

product is my favourite map to roam on

U have the causality backwards. Everyone in invite doesn't know everyone in invite because tf2 is a circlejerk community that doesn't let anyone in, everyone in invite knows everyone in invite because this game's competitive community has consisted of the same handful of players for 9 years.

Give one example of a player who has demonstrably played at invite level consistently over a significant amount of time and has never been picked up by an invite team/had the chance to form one.

fyi ictus was dropped because he was trying out for other teams on the down low and was planning to leave anyways.

what about the people in open/IM who could've been invite level in a year but never meshed into the circlejerks very well and dropped the game? Maybe you have the causality backwards and the only people who stick around long enough to make it to invite are people who have friends in invite

I'm not a terrible medic

tagg after hrg
marmaduke
szeco after LiT

In tf2 specifically, they didn't make it because they weren't good enough almost 100% of the time. You don't even need to have many friends to make it to invite. There are plenty of players who were never in a circle jerk who made it to invite.

Tagg quit, then only came back to play when we asked him to play with mangoes afaik, and nobody on our team were friends with him
Marm played multiple times. However, it's a shame he got fucked from a top 4 team so many times.
Sez played invite after that, just not on a good team, and he's now on 8K.

I've been on teams that have tried out all of these players and I can tell you the decision to pick/not pick them up was not made based on friendship (except for the fact that alfa didn't like marm, for some reason..fuck u alfa...)

p.s. those decisions weren't up to me

hell even muma doesn't like muma and he still made it onto froyo

This isn't exactly an opinion, but it's still a pretty unpopular feeling to have. I've been holding a grudge against Enigma for not reviewing the demo I sent him 4 and a half years ago. He was my scout idol at the time and when he told me he would review my demo I was a really happy kid. I asked him maybe a couple of times very politely with a good couple of weeks or so in between about when we could get around to going over the demo, but he ended up deleting me from his friends list without even saying a word. I told him that I know he's a busy guy and that I completely understand if he just doesn't haven't the time or energy to do it, so there really was no excuse for him not to be respectful and simply tell me he wasn't really up for going over it with me.

Enigma, when almost every other low/mid+ scout main was admiring the raw aim of aggressive scouts like yz50 and clockwork, I was there for you as a fan. How many new players do you think there were at time who were aspiring to be the next Enigma instead of the next yz50? Certainly not as many as there should've been. Your magical movement inspired me to make my own wasd spamming and airstrafing as skillfull as yours. When I played in a pug against the top invite soldier Tri, I heard from a friend who was playing on his team that he was really flustered by the movement you motivated me to develop. It was a small moment, but knowing that Tri probably had the same thought when playing against you made me really proud of myself. At the time I asked you to review my demo, I knew you were considered one of the smartest players in the game but I didn't know exactly why. All my sub-open brain could comprehend was that you don't die a lot. Now I realize that what made you so great was your rare ability to find the perfect balance between staying alive and being a threat within the confines of your role on the team. Right now I consider myself a smart player but only in the sense that I make it easy for myself to appear smart by playing so passively. I know that if I want to take my game to the next level I have to be less of a ggglygy and more like players such as you, shrugger, and another one of my old favorites, sonmychest.

Enigma, all I've ever wanted was to make my way to invite and beat you with the odds stacked in your favor in a Dragonball z-esque 1 on 1 fight on badlands last to take the title. Sadly, you have stopped playing and moved on to Overwatch. Since I may never have the chance to play against you, my only way to best you is to get the most +frags on your own website, for only then will I relinquish my grudge against you.

I don't think teams are stringent enough with their tryouts.

I'd recommend numerous weeks of scrims and actually verbally discussing each person's viewpoint on how much commitment they want to give, if they just want to win or if they want to put in the work to improve, personalities and how they mesh on a team, and everyone actually being honest with one another.

Maybe we'd have more teams that stick around for more than one season, or partial seasons.

Good read

i feel like aaant would be a very relevant player for this discussion since he came out of absolutely nowhere and played invite his first and only season

but i'm not sure of the context surrounding it so idk which side his case would strengthen

@marmaduke, @rick, or anyone else that played with him during s15 that could shed some light on it

(i do know thrill six mafia didn't exactly want to play invite that season)

I reckon scout should get increased spread to lower his midrange damage, also pocket scout is the easiest role in the game

the thing is about aaant, he never was looking out to play invite like that
i know he played in ugc early on but even around s13-s14 he had insane dm, he didn't have any motivation to play invite

Increasing scout speed would just make him way more powerful than he already is, and he is already the best.....

speaking of aaant, whatever happened to him anyway

kid just straight up disappeared

my point wasn't that good players are being unnoticed, it was players who could've been good didn't ever become anything more than open because they didn't have any friends to play with or push them. If that was the case, invite would become a positive feedback loop where 80 or 90 people decide who becomes good at tf2 based solely on personality. People who make it to midopen without getting absorbed into a circlejerk will have a harder time finding a team and will have a harder time practicing or getting feedback

Yes open players have to get good without already being in invite that's kinda how the whole getting good thing works

spread

quickiebombs are overpowered everywhere but holding last and every demo should learn when and how to use them.

he was playing cs:go a bit but now he's playin apb reloaded LOL

no idea what he's doin in life i haven't talked to him in a year and some change now

i dont think u understood what I was saying so:

player A fits in well with the TF2 community while player B does not

Player A finds it easy to join teams based on his personality. He sits in mumble with his friends all day, many of whom are better at TF2. Playing casually with them and having access to their network means he'll improve much faster than Player B. Player B could be good at the game with enough dedication and practice, but he'd need to work a lot harder than someone who manages to fit in.

In a small community like this one, you can quickly end up with a small variety of "acceptable" personalities, where a certain percentage of the player base that'd otherwise be decent players lacks the network to get better and entrench themselves in the community. Because they never take hold, they never start their own circlejerk and as a result that personality type continues to have trouble getting "in".

positive feedback loop, self fulfilling prophecy, w/e u want to call it, with a limited number of people you're eventually going to see any community cull itself down into a few dominant personality types

tagg is just black mangachu with lan ping

also as lame as it is to pull this card theres many people who have appeared to do well in high IM/low invite but havent gotten a serious shot on contender teams because as an upper level invite team u rly dont wanna waste ur time trying to teach somebody shit that everybody on ur team already knows

theres also a lot of people who i watched who just do shit that 100% doesnt work against invite players so u tend to opt for people with a proven track record

if ur good enough to play invite and u want to play invite, u can and and always have been able to

I don't see how any 2 invite players have similar personalities tbh.
Everyone is player B at the beginning.

This is true for almost everyone who knows how to hold a mouse. I really don't see how out of 2 equally talented players starting in open, only the "more likeable" one will be able to improve and make his way to invite. Obviously you shouldn't be an asocial dick if you want to play a team game, but b4nny is living proof that you can make it to the top either way

mason is just a ruder mister slin