"Because Europeans legitimately have no clue how to play Highlander"

I rather have a weapon that is (not even really) overpowered than a bad map pool

Outside the banlist I believed ETF2L HL to be fine. If you don't think the Beggar's or Soda Popper is not bannable then your players are way more tolerant than NA players or you guys are missing a few IQs to actually see why they are absolutely broken. The only maps I've hated in ETF2L was that one koth map that wasn't even finished and had two cap points (they allowed that??) and warmtic. Other than that, it's purely the unlocks that make it unenjoyable.

I have never cared about the machina, or short circuit.

i don't agree in the slightest

having two widely accepted competitive formats is absurd and a direct impediment to the development of any serious competition. the fact that the overall scene is probably larger because of highlander is irrelevant; the majority of highlander players wouldn't even classified as competitive players in any other scene except tf2's, where glorified pubbing is hailed as something more than what it is.

I hate to derail the conversation at all, but I'm really curious what map Nursey's referring to here.

koth_reservoir

I guess what I'm failing to see is how hl can be a worthless game mode which isn't competitive, and simultaneously be leaching talent and/or viewership from 6v6. I don't see hl as impeding the growth of 6v6 because anyone like myself who is interested in both modes found their way to 6v6 regardless of starting in hl. And even if it were, you'd have no one to blame but yourself when the extent of your outreach to that community is "you are inferior and you do not matter".

you're one case -- what about the countless others who have stuck with highlander because of familiarity and never moved on? the "transition" from highlander to 6v6 is just a trap that at best adds needless friction to starting competitive play.

what about the belief that the mode perpetuated; that 9v9 1CL was how the game was designed to be played, and the subsequent public hate the 6v6 community endured for years?

what about the community resources that have to be split because of the existence of two game modes?

what about the now universally-touted advice to start out in highlander no matter what, making highlander the gatekeeper for 6v6?

1) outreach to the highlander community is entirely irrelevant in the context of this argument when the basis is that it shouldn't have existed to begin with
2) given that highlander is/was actually a thing, I remained silent on being anti-highlander during my significant involvement in tf2 and never actively pushed against it
3) it's insane that you believe it's my defacto responsibility (let alone anyone's) to court the highlander community

This would be true if only the game was actually going to be a recognised eSport.

Because it's a community based game where the majority of top players will leave after a few years and move on, the survival of the scene depends solely on the influx of new players into competitive TF2.

When I cherry picked some data a few months ago to try and persuade Kkaltuu to do something or other (I usually try and persuade him to do a lot of things he doesn't want to do, like play Engi for me at LAN), in Season 23 of ETF2L 6v6, 1 in 4 players who started in Prem had their first competitive team in Highlander, when you went to Season 23 High, this number was 1 in 3, I can only imagine the trend continues.

Highlander Open will only boost numbers for the competitive scene. The existence of the scene is part of the lasting legacy of the game, choosing not to cover it is your organisations prerogative, all I can say is I am disappointed because before you made that decision I had people like Brooky willing to work with me to produce an "On the Point", version for Highlander. Now I can't even find him on my friends list anymore. I used to be able to approach people like Admirable or yourself and say "I want to put on a Highlander event can TFTV help", now I know it's impossible. There was a point we weren't as divided as we are today and it's because of you making a decision and getting your staff fully behind it.

You've made a big decision not to cover Highlander events for your gaming organisation, you have come out and said Highlander can't be considered competitive TF2, even though I have massive respect for you and what you have done for the game, at the end of the day what your opinion boils down to is your version of competitive TF2. It isn't shared by everyone. The only difference is you're head of a gaming organisation that provides the best quality coverage with the best talent and the biggest viewership base.

We're not an eSport, don't pretend we are - We are the billiard game of the eSport world - Everyone knows about Cue sports, but not everyone knows that it has several variations - 8-ball Pool, 9-ball Pool, Chinese 8-Ball and Billiards as well as the most successful cue sport of them all - Snooker, which takes more skill and ability to play than any of these games, but will always be confined to a minor part to play in the sporting calendar.

Every argument ever made to why TF2 hasn't worked has been made but blaming Highlander for existing despite the fact it's the only competitive gamemode that plays all the classes, the only competitive gamemode that plays the most popular gamemode in payload, the competitive gamemode that started it's life from 1 tournament that was actually designed to boost 6v6 player numbers - this is the worst argument I have heard.

My opinion on this won't be popular here, I am in 6v6 territory (By the way I still love 6v6 and play it) but go to other places I know I will be supported.

Forgive me I have turned this into a 6v6 vs HL discussion - It should be a discussion about a great opportunity for people to learn the skills needed to play in competitive TF2 and I hope people signup and participate.

I also hope there is another Archimedes Cup with 100% less TF2center and Masternoob.

you've said nothing of actual substance in your 8 paragraph counterargument

The beggar's has always been more situational then anything. Together with it being nerfed in The Tough Break Update there is no reason to have it banned.

Edit. Please stop turning this into a HL vs 6s thread. Thats not the point of this event nor even close to being relevant. Either go make your own thread for this or just stop it. The community having 2 gamemodes isn't an issue. The hostility that comes from the 2 gamemodes towards each other is.

Or maybe some people just want to have fun playing in a casual tourney like this. And if it helps to invigorate the comp scene in general then that's an added bonus. Even if its not the "ideal" gamemode you're still showing casuals that this entire scene actually exists. The fact that TFTV seems so reluctant to take some opportunities to gain more exposure to comp TF2 in general when the entire scene is community driven just boggles my mind.

Idk I think it's pretty reasonable to expect the person who runs a site like this not to actively alienate potential new players to the scene. Pointing fingers at others when you have a platform like this is pretty damn delusional

x

As one of those highlander players, I would argue that we have our reasons not to play 6s and those reasons are independent of the existence of HL:

• people who just really enjoy playing the offclasses and don't have interest in maining a normal 6s class
  
• people who want to play specifically a semi-casual format because they're interested in objective-focused play with comms but don't want to work hard towards improving in a game (lack of time or motivation etc)
  
• people who just aren't that good at TF2 and would run into a brick wall trying to play it competitively

If HL didn't exist, those people would be in pubs or gone from TF2, not in 6s. The existence of HL only means a nice little niche for us to play that fits what we want out of tf2, but it doesn't remove players from 6s, it adds players to the overall scene.

Honestly this whole argument is like your house is falling apart and you're blaming one little spider in the ceiling for it. The spider didn't do shit. Let it be.

But neither would 6s players. The entirety of comp TF2 is considered a joke in other scenes, and it's not because HL exists, it's because you are playing a cartoon free to play hat trading game.

The most popular competitive sport in the world (football / soccer) has multiple formats. 5-a-side / 11-a-side / 3v3 / etc.

Yo enigma, I'd like to see you organize a similar tournament for 6v6 to compare which would create a bigger player influx.
I'm fairly certain the hl faggots would be doing more to help the scene in that regard.

I love HL and I love 6s. I've spent a lot of time trying to understand both and reaching the highest level I can in both. The reality is you can't count on HL. Enigma posted way back saying that Valve (to his face) did not like highlander. No matter their reason for it, that clearly indicates that's not the game they want people to play. Even if you believe that they didn't want 6s to be played either, that's the game mode they are trying to support right now.

HL is too hectic to spectate (no matter how much you believe 6s to be hard to spectate it's easier than HL to follow). HL requires way too many players playing with way too many restrictions. I'm aware of the 2 HL only LANs but I really believe those would've better benefited for 6s. I think a big thing people need to see here and is that 6v6 and HL are not part of the same scene as the only similarities is that it's TF2. The actual gameplay between both is so widely different and the two communities are so openly at each others throats.

I believe the HL guys should be focused on helping 6s grow instead of being so close minded on the one game mode they probably got wins on. Please stop being so ignorant and focus on growing one game mode for now and you can worry about HL later with a better foundation to work on.

What an absolutely abysmal argument... TF2 is considered a "joke," because it was never pushed by Valve and as a result, the spotlight is shone onto the hat traders and the "casual community." It's completely irrelevant to 6s as a format. No one ever said "TF2 is a joke because of highlander." That's a gross, mindless, blanket statement that you used because you're trying to twist the argument and turn it away from highlander being the elephant in the room that everyone ignores. Using highlander as a stepping stone to an entirely different format, one on which Valve will base its matchmaking system, is entirely useless and likely detrimental. The more you split time and resources between highlander and 6s, the less opportunity you give to newer players who will happen to find highlander first, instead of 6s.

Highlander isn't "banned" or "taboo." But, obviously, for a community site trying to grow the premier version of playing the game, confusing players and splitting resources between 2 "competitive" game modes, instead of concentrating on the one that could actually go somewhere is a waste of time.

I think it was more "not how we intended", rather than "we hate highlander"

so why didn't someone organise it? the HL scene organised their own lan and self promoted it a bit, but everyone just said "lolhl, should have been a 6s tournament"

so why does every HL thread get shit on by 6s players? treat it like a sheepy post, ignore it and move on.

I also started in HL like Adysky, but haven't played seriously in like 3 seasons and enjoy 6s way more now. And sure I did the most HL casts last season, but there's nothing wrong if pub players want something a bit more competitive without jumping into 6v6, aka the organised pub? I used to main sniper, but if the only competitive setting wouldn't allow me to play my favourite class i probably wouldn't have continued.

Also as people mentioned, why not another archimedes style cup, trying to get new players into 6s? surely MM is the stepping stone and can be reinforced by a introductory competition?

Anyone that thinks HL is anything other than a burden on the growth of TF2 as an esport only needs to see how Valve has already abandoned it in matchmaking to realize their delusion.

the problem is that hl its already established as a competitive mode in the tf2 scene
sure it splits the community and it drivens ppl away from the way the game was "supposedly" to be played (6´s), but thats what you get when valve completely ignores this game as competitive, and the game becomes community driven for all these years.
like it or not the tf2 community created it and its not going anywhere, its a bit late for wishful thinking an this point
all these 6´s vs HL will exist forever and nothing benificial its gonna come from it, thats for sure

Asking people to entirely stop playing Highlander is wishful thinking; there are always going to be people who want to play alternate game types. However, advertising it as a stepping stone to 6s is ridiculous and counter-intuitive. And to respond to Hildreth's post, it's counter-intuitive regardless of the amount of people who can admit to the fact that they started in Highlander. 25% of the EU prem players starting in HL before playing 6s is not a substantial statistic. What does that mean? The other 75% started in 6s? Why should we be led to believe that the other 25% wouldn't have wound up playing 6s if they hadn't played Highlander first? Was HL the only way they'd have started their 6s endeavor? It's just anecdotal evidence. They happened to play HL first, and that's it. Play what you want to play, but introducing something like HL to someone in order to kickstart his/her 6s career just blurs lines unnecessarily.

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a 4th place finish in 6s ESEA is 100x more impressive than even 3 HL wins; statistics comparing apples to oranges

Doesn't this mean more for 6s then? All the best people I met online played on Kid's Next Door (my HL team). I've won 2x with them and we won a showmatch together. I never hung out with my teammates in 6v6 like I did with my HL ones. By all rights I should be biased towards HL but I'm not. I want TF2 to grow. I care about this game a good bit, even after over half of my tf2 pals left. 6v6 is the way for the game to grow, not HL. I'm sorry.

Highlander will always exist and people should play it if they enjoy it. It just should not be the primary direction the competitive focus for this game should go.

This is pretty funny considering how people respond in this thread.

Whenever HL gets interesting things like HLO or Deutschlan you see so many people whining around "these are wasted resources for tf2, why do people make this for HL and not 6s" etc etc

Fact is that apparently only the HL community seems encouraged or rather motivated enough to organise these kind of things. Taking the effort to create an awesome, completely new type of LAN for the gamemode you like, and actually getting lots of people all over Europe to participate (shoutout to Stinson, looking forward to #2).

Funny because my post actually provides evidence, albeit very minute amounts something yours is lacking. But people on different sides of arguments with different agendas will always dismiss others that disagree. It's not a big deal, my post won't persuade you that you are wrong, yours did not persuade me, but it will at least show the community there is another train of thought to be found outside of this forum.

Yeah I have great respect for people still doing things like this, another thing you can have a look at and cross reference on Comp.tf is how newbie cups effect signup numbers for both gamemodes, generally the trend is positive - I am amazed there have not been more of them done on the scale of Archimedes Cup which was another event mainly organised by people who I see in the HL community.