The meta rarely changes, now it did. Officials will argue about it and come to a conclusion for the next insomnia. Saying Crowns didn't deserve it, "playing the rules" or not is fucking stupid. Same with the people who claim they played the long game because it's their forte. Of course people want to win.

Enjoy the lan for what it was, hope Valve took notice, move on. Christ. Compared to all the positive vibes this place has had during the event, this is a shitty road to go down. A coach was allowed, they took advantage and may have won because of it. Argue about coaches in general, stop basing your opinion on a team in specific that just happened to take advantage of it.

You can't do it in LoL, it's only allowed during the ban/pick phase and between games.

You can't do it in DotA, it's only allowed during the ban/pick phase and between games.

You can't do it in CSGO now, it's only allowed during breaks and between games.

You can't do it in SC2, it's technically only allowed between games.

Plus right now TF2 needs more people actually playing and tighter skill divides, not less people playing because they're coaching and wider skill divides between teams that can get a live coach and those who can't.

idk what there is to argue here really. It's not even like live coaching offers some super interesting dynamic, you just kick off your IGL and replace them with a braindead way better fragger who will listen to the coach.

Everyone talking about the 7th man and not the cancer tf2 crowns played to win. #stillsalty

I'm surprised you didn't support crowns since they didn't ask for funds.

#awinisawin #thebetterteamwon

4 of their players live in england

FT would have been sponsored if Perilous didn't fuck them over twice.

Fantastic production once again, emotional outro, and I still miss you guys. Will schedule one night a week to do some casting if you guys don't mind.

Congrats to Crowns despite the controversy in discussion, great spectacle for the audience.

and still <3 Dashner and when I saw bones on webcam my heart squeezed <3

Cheers

Byte

omg please make this happen

Do it! I'd love to hear you and your thoughst again.

On the subject of coaches, ignoring the fact that it was the coaches plugin not cooperating with the multiplay servers on the Friday of the event being the cause of the delays. I was working with tsc and three of the mpuk server admins all the way through Friday and all the way till 3am the Saturday morning to get that thing finally 'working'. That actually killed me. Only to discover there was more bugs that started to revel themselves from incorrect round timers to false match starts, and golden cap stalemates.

I think what we have here is another chance to explore a another type of player. Many people have describe that main calling was a key player skill that one player on a team had to develop. What we have done is taken that away and given it to someone else. This represents an opportunity for a new type of player to come onto the scene and join teams. A player that for whatever reason can't play or does not excel in technical skill, but is very good tactically. These people previously had no place to go where this gives them a place. It opens the game up to more people, it adds another dynamic for teams to consider.

We just have to decide is this the direction you want to go and is it a positive or negative influence on the game. I echo nymthae's sentiment that if this is the test and it dies, I won't miss it but it would be a missed opportunity. People should give it a fair chance and explore scene and player developments in as many directions as possible.

Well done Crowns, enjoy your giant cheque!

fiyah

OK I got more time so to expand on post #122:

I think if you look at what happened to CSGO directly and from an unbiased POV, it's pretty obvious it was not a positive influence for the game, and I feel like in time people will come to appreciate the change once they give it a chance there. The thing is, the CSGO community is pissed, but they're mostly mad because it got so far into it that Valve basically just played with people's actual paid positions and ways of life and made it seem less necessary.

Reality is, every other major e-sport does not allow live coaching, and they promptly banned it with rules before it ever reached that point, and those people are still paid and picked up by teams even if the role is less important. (We call them mentors basically, since other games coaches are just really dedicated good mentors)

Here's the negatives of live coaching as far as the health of the comp game goes:
* Teams just kick off their IGL to coach and pick up big fraggers. People who can't frag well have no place other than coach or be on bad teams in a live coach world if you want to win the game. Right now there are plenty of teams in each format that will take a bit of a DM hit to get a smarter main caller. In a live coach world there is no reason to ever do that. Why would you? Also right now players that have monster DM and are very very smart are amazing top tier players, in a post live coach world them being smart doesn't really matter as much coz you're still going to want a live coach cause it's just better to let someone focus on DM instead.

* Players don't have to think super hard for themselves, just listen to coach. This is a big deal, anyone who has EVER done a demo review with someone or mentored someone has probably heard the words "I didn't notice that" or "I didn't think about that" at least a billion times, if you have a (good) coach this won't ever happen because it's their job to notice all the shit you ever miss/don't think about and tell you to do it. It also significantly reduces the tilt effect and player fatigue because players just have to focus more on DM and just listen to the coach. But not tilting and doing well through player fatigue is good skills for players to have.

* Skill divisions get further apart, anyone with a live coach is automatically better than a team without a live coach. It's like having a live demo review on crack. Good teams can more easily get good coaches, bad teams can't get good coaches or a coach at all, making it harder for them to climb up. This is a big deal in TF2 because there are already really big skill divides going on.

* You have to fund an extra person for all travelling. Because non-live coaching is just before/after games you can correspond super easily via the internet with no hassle. Any team of another country not where the LAN is in TF2's case is getting boned if they want a live coach they can work with easily/trust.

Here's the positives of live coaching as far as the health of the comp game goes:

I... am honestly not ok with that. I say this as someone who has extremely weak DM skills (for various reasons, which include RSI in both hands from work that prevents me from being able to play this game for more than two hours at a time without taking painkillers) and most of the reasons for why better teams played with me in the past was because of my calls and game sense, so I actually would fall into the category of someone who "doesn't excel in technical skill but is very good (well.... relatively) tactically".

I'm really really not ok with the implication that there's now an opportunity to get to the top by either being really good at DM or really good at calling, not both, as it currently is. I think the current limitation on what it takes to be at the top (being both smart and mechanically proficient) is good. I'm not saying that coaches are going to be like the brain of the whole team of braindead DM lords or whatever, I know it's not possible to think THAT hard for someone else, but it will still reduce the individual intelligence and decision-making required to play on a top team, and it will also devalue the intelligence aspect while elevating the importance of DM (which I think is the exact opposite of what you're hoping to achieve).

Coaches who can sit with their team and spectate the match through your plugin/listen to comms silently and provide input during pauses/half-times/whatever are totally fine though, and if someone wants to do that then all the power to them. Being involved in comms and real-time decision-making (as kaidus said he did) is I think where most of the community draws the line.

Disclaimer, I absolutely am not trying to make any statement about Crowns' victory, they just took advantage of an opportunity that was given to them and IMO being salty about how they won and saying shit like they "didn't deserve it" after it already happened is kinda dumb. Congrats to them on their hard-fought victory.

But I don't want to see this sort of coaching again in competitive TF2.

was hoping thalashy would win a LAN BibleThump

I honestly fail to see what the disconnect is when thinking about coaches. If a hockey team or a baseball team had no coaches during a game, the players would coach themselves and make the decisions. This would be a huge handicap against the other team and thus eliminates any "level playing field".

That is the main point in any competitive environment. To provide both teams with "a level playing field".
You cannot find a single sport where one team starts off with an advantage against the other. Why should it be any different in esports?

Only the top teams will be able to secure coaches. This makes it even harder for up and coming teams to pull off upset victories because of hard work. That aspect alone is why a lot of people watch sports to begin with and adding a coach for the better team only stacks the deck more and takes away that level playing field.

Overall, I think coaching COULD BE a fantastic idea but there must be set rules in place to govern coaching before teams can use them. Like all rules, they need to be designed to provide a level playing field for both teams.