B4nny's thoughts on Whitelists in general

#31

clckwrk

25 Frags – +

Any "meta" in this game would change naturally, whitelist or not, if there were reasons for any other team to put in as much effort as b4nny has

#32

aiera

32 Frags – +

DuMmTmsomeone needs to stop shounic from making thumbnails

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1QkKp_WQAAdGJw.jpg

[quote=DuMmTm]someone needs to stop shounic from making thumbnails[/quote]
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1QkKp_WQAAdGJw.jpg[/img]

#33

rocketslay

-5 Frags – +

are you unironically offended by that thumbnail?????

#34

twenty2020

4 Frags – +

MenachemSure, games like Dota require a kind of skill, but it's not exactly an interesting one to watch in action. "Oh, they picked the right heroes to directly counter our team? Welp, guess we're fucked!"

youve played dota for less than 10 minutes and it shows

also its completely disingenuous to suggest that the reason sports don't have complicated itemization/hero choices is because they've chosen to skip them for the sake of competitive purity. like Naismith had the option of introducing "gauntlets of dribbling" and skipped it because he was worried about distracting players...

im not saying that tons of choices or no choices is better, only that appealing to soccer and basketball as your argument is completely missing the point. no sport has the concept of an uber advantage either; it sounds like a feature that belongs in a Nickelodeon slime challenge more so than a sport. does that make uber adv bad for tf2? ofc not. it differs from real sports and is the better for it; soccer isn't some holy grail of competition that all other competitions suffer by their degree of separation

[quote=Menachem]
Sure, games like Dota require a kind of skill, but it's not exactly an interesting one to watch in action. "Oh, they picked the right heroes to directly counter our team? Welp, guess we're fucked!"[/quote]
youve played dota for less than 10 minutes and it shows

also its completely disingenuous to suggest that the reason sports don't have complicated itemization/hero choices is because they've chosen to skip them for the sake of competitive purity. like Naismith had the option of introducing "gauntlets of dribbling" and skipped it because he was worried about distracting players...

im not saying that tons of choices or no choices is better, only that appealing to soccer and basketball as your argument is completely missing the point. no sport has the concept of an uber advantage either; it sounds like a feature that belongs in a Nickelodeon slime challenge more so than a sport. does that make uber adv bad for tf2? ofc not. it differs from real sports and is the better for it; soccer isn't some holy grail of competition that all other competitions suffer by their degree of separation

#35

Menachem

-1 Frags – +

twenty2020MenachemSure, games like Dota require a kind of skill, but it's not exactly an interesting one to watch in action. "Oh, they picked the right heroes to directly counter our team? Welp, guess we're fucked!"youve played dota for less than 10 minutes and it shows

also its completely disingenuous to suggest that the reason sports don't have complicated itemization/hero choices is because they've chosen to skip them for the sake of competitive purity. like Naismith had the option of introducing "gauntlets of dribbling" and skipped it because he was worried about distracting players...

im not saying that tons of choices or no choices is better, only that appealing to soccer and basketball as your argument is completely missing the point. no sport has the concept of an uber advantage either; it sounds like a feature that belongs in a Nickelodeon slime challenge more so than a sport. does that make uber adv bad for tf2? ofc not. it differs from real sports and is th better for it; soccer isn't some holy grail of competition that all other competitions suffer by their degree of separation

Yeah no that's fair, I haven't spent much time playing any moba. I've only really spent time watching them be played and listening to my friends talk about them. Tried to play Dota but immediately decided I didn't want to spend the time reading what all the heroes do. Also not a fan of the WoW combat system, or MMO system, or whatever it's called. I tried to appeal more to OW since I've actually put time into that one.

Still though, I'm not sure that irl sports is totally incompatible the type of choice I'm talking about. That clothing analogy was heat of the moment, but I think I can come up with some better ones. Like what if basketball teams, rather than choosing to make a 2 pointer or go for 3 on the spot, were forced to choose whether they'd only be allowed to make 3's or regular goals before each possession? Or if football teams had to choose whether they'd only make field goals or touchdowns at the start of each quarter?

I guess those are still kinda shitty, but I think they get the point across. Having a system where the items picked and heroes played cancel out the choices of the other team distorts whether the skill of the teams really determines the outcome.

[quote=twenty2020][quote=Menachem]
Sure, games like Dota require a kind of skill, but it's not exactly an interesting one to watch in action. "Oh, they picked the right heroes to directly counter our team? Welp, guess we're fucked!"[/quote]
youve played dota for less than 10 minutes and it shows

also its completely disingenuous to suggest that the reason sports don't have complicated itemization/hero choices is because they've chosen to skip them for the sake of competitive purity. like Naismith had the option of introducing "gauntlets of dribbling" and skipped it because he was worried about distracting players...

im not saying that tons of choices or no choices is better, only that appealing to soccer and basketball as your argument is completely missing the point. no sport has the concept of an uber advantage either; it sounds like a feature that belongs in a Nickelodeon slime challenge more so than a sport. does that make uber adv bad for tf2? ofc not. it differs from real sports and is th better for it; soccer isn't some holy grail of competition that all other competitions suffer by their degree of separation[/quote]

Yeah no that's fair, I haven't spent much time playing any moba. I've only really spent time watching them be played and listening to my friends talk about them. Tried to play Dota but immediately decided I didn't want to spend the time reading what all the heroes do. Also not a fan of the WoW combat system, or MMO system, or whatever it's called. I tried to appeal more to OW since I've actually put time into that one.

Still though, I'm not sure that irl sports is totally incompatible the type of choice I'm talking about. That clothing analogy was heat of the moment, but I think I can come up with some better ones. Like what if basketball teams, rather than choosing to make a 2 pointer or go for 3 on the spot, were forced to choose whether they'd only be allowed to make 3's or regular goals before each possession? Or if football teams had to choose whether they'd only make field goals or touchdowns at the start of each quarter?

I guess those are still kinda shitty, but I think they get the point across. Having a system where the items picked and heroes played cancel out the choices of the other team distorts whether the skill of the teams really determines the outcome.

#36

Nub_Danish

-14 Frags – +

remedyB4nny is the trump of tf2

i dont think hes nearly that good

[quote=remedy]B4nny is the trump of tf2[/quote]
i dont think hes nearly that good

#37

Nursey

9 Frags – +

Comparing TF2 to most games I think is a very bad idea. You should just think TF2 as TF2, not try to make TF2 into other (even if more successful) games.

#38

twenty2020

1 Frags – +

MenachemYeah no that's fair, I haven't spent much time playing any moba. I've only really spent time watching them be played and listening to my friends talk about them. Tried to play Dota but immediately decided I didn't want to spend the time reading what all the heroes do. Also not a fan of the WoW combat system, or MMO system, or whatever it's called. I tried to appeal more to OW since I've actually put time into that one.

Still though, I'm not sure that irl sports is totally incompatible the type of choice I'm talking about. That clothing analogy was heat of the moment, but I think I can come up with some better ones. Like what if basketball teams, rather than choosing to make a 2 pointer or go for 3 on the spot, were forced to choose whether they'd only be allowed to make 3's or regular goals before each possession? Or if football teams had to choose whether they'd only make field goals or touchdowns at the start of each quarter?

youve misunderstood me. your central argument is that hero drafting has no analogous concept in real sports, and any imagined analogous concept is clearly awful. im saying this is an awful metric by which to judge game concepts.

just to reiterate because your post reads like you didn't see my last paragraph: uber advantage has no traditional sport analogy either. this does not make uber advantage a bad concept in tf2. do you disagree?

i also dont understand the point of these analogies, if you think dota drafting is analogous to a binary choice at the beginning of a sports game, again you just dont understand dota. someone could mock chess for having a lot of similar looking "book" openings, but at every level opening play matters a lot and has a significant amount of strategic depth.

I guess those are still kinda shitty, but I think they get the point across. Having a system where the items picked and heroes played cancel out the choices of the other team distorts whether the skill of the teams really determines the outcome.

youre implying that the purpose of a sport is to highlight "skill". but what if i think that playcalling in NFL distorts the skill on display? the best runners, catchers, and throwers aren't winning games, the teams with the best playcalling are. during a period of time in the 90's there were rules against zone defenses in the NBA, essentially you could isolate your best player on one side of the court where he gets to show off his skill in a 1-1. This rule was later changed, but are the more dynamic offenses and defenses strengthening or weakening basketball skill?

"skill" is only meaningful as a word in the sense that you can apply it to someone's ability to win at a game. clearly even with shifting rules there is a persistent "skill" to drafting, itemizing, and playing dota since the top players and teams remain constant.

[quote=Menachem]
Yeah no that's fair, I haven't spent much time playing any moba. I've only really spent time watching them be played and listening to my friends talk about them. Tried to play Dota but immediately decided I didn't want to spend the time reading what all the heroes do. Also not a fan of the WoW combat system, or MMO system, or whatever it's called. I tried to appeal more to OW since I've actually put time into that one.

Still though, I'm not sure that irl sports is totally incompatible the type of choice I'm talking about. That clothing analogy was heat of the moment, but I think I can come up with some better ones. Like what if basketball teams, rather than choosing to make a 2 pointer or go for 3 on the spot, were forced to choose whether they'd only be allowed to make 3's or regular goals before each possession? Or if football teams had to choose whether they'd only make field goals or touchdowns at the start of each quarter?
[/quote]
youve misunderstood me. your central argument is that hero drafting has no analogous concept in real sports, and any imagined analogous concept is clearly awful. im saying this is an awful metric by which to judge game concepts.

just to reiterate because your post reads like you didn't see my last paragraph: uber advantage has no traditional sport analogy either. this does not make uber advantage a bad concept in tf2. do you disagree?

i also dont understand the point of these analogies, if you think dota drafting is analogous to a binary choice at the beginning of a sports game, again you just dont understand dota. someone could mock chess for having a lot of similar looking "book" openings, but at every level opening play matters a lot and has a significant amount of strategic depth.

[quote]I guess those are still kinda shitty, but I think they get the point across. Having a system where the items picked and heroes played cancel out the choices of the other team distorts whether the skill of the teams really determines the outcome.[/quote]
youre implying that the purpose of a sport is to highlight "skill". but what if i think that playcalling in NFL distorts the skill on display? the best runners, catchers, and throwers aren't winning games, the teams with the best playcalling are. during a period of time in the 90's there were rules against zone defenses in the NBA, essentially you could isolate your best player on one side of the court where he gets to show off his skill in a 1-1. This rule was later changed, but are the more dynamic offenses and defenses strengthening or weakening basketball skill?

"skill" is only meaningful as a word in the sense that you can apply it to someone's ability to win at a game. clearly even with shifting rules there is a persistent "skill" to drafting, itemizing, and playing dota since the top players and teams remain constant.

#39

penda

15 Frags – +

https://i.imgur.com/W6Bc1gll.jpg

Never change shounic

[img]https://i.imgur.com/W6Bc1gll.jpg[/img]
Never change shounic

#40

Menachem

2 Frags – +

NurseyComparing TF2 to most games I think is a very bad idea. You should just think TF2 as TF2, not try to make TF2 into other (even if more successful) games.

na fam, analysis is fun

[quote=Nursey]Comparing TF2 to most games I think is a very bad idea. You should just think TF2 as TF2, not try to make TF2 into other (even if more successful) games.[/quote]

na fam, analysis is fun

#41

GentlemanJon

0 Frags – +

OsirisThe problem is that in order to have any semblance of strategy, you first need to have an objective. Valve doesn't have such a direction for the competitive game, or it at least doesn't befit the game engine on which the game was built(e.g. stun weapons in a game in which the importance of movement is baked in at an engine level). Valve's TF2(no class limits, no weapon bans) is a mess of conflicting design philosophies which make any attempt at strategy a futile exercise. This also makes it really hard for new players to be attracted to the game, because they might for example notice that the game has fluid and creative movement, but then another element like the Natascha or stun-locking Pyro reflects do a full 180. There is no use in periodically introducing "a new meta" to a game which has no basic design objective; you will need a game before you can create a metagame(which is what the competitive community has done where Valve has failed). And if their idea of a design objective is a lottery of item and class selection, they have no clue what the word "competitive" means and are utterly incompetent.

Yes, I've posted about their lack of leadership in competitive before, but I really think their focus will be MM because it's an environment they control and can experiment in. That's why I think b4nny's points about providing feedback for Valve are a bit pointless really, partly because the feedback being provided really is just rehashing the same old reasons those unlocks were already banned (which have been ignored for long enough to tell us something), and partly because if MM leads them in a conflicting direction they will take that as a priority.

With MM I guess they'll develop it along normal Valve lines, iterate changes based on data. That's their objective - they just want to get into a feedback loop where they can iterate changes over time based on player behaviour and improve the game around that. The chances that it leads to the 6v6 we run now are pretty miniscule but there it is. I guess it's possible that b4nny was told this at Valve and has interpreted it in a way that makes sense to his frame of reference hence his pushing for this. I would expect that they probably use far more empirical methods to make judgements though.

[quote=Osiris]The problem is that in order to have any semblance of strategy, you first need to have an objective. Valve doesn't have such a direction for the competitive game, or it at least doesn't befit the game engine on which the game was built(e.g. stun weapons in a game in which the importance of movement is baked in at an engine level). Valve's TF2(no class limits, no weapon bans) is a mess of conflicting design philosophies which make any attempt at strategy a futile exercise. This also makes it really hard for new players to be attracted to the game, because they might for example notice that the game has fluid and creative movement, but then another element like the Natascha or stun-locking Pyro reflects do a full 180. There is no use in periodically introducing "a new meta" to a game which has no basic design objective; you will need a game before you can create a metagame(which is what the competitive community has done where Valve has failed). And if their idea of a design objective is a lottery of item and class selection, they have no clue what the word "competitive" means and are utterly incompetent.[/quote]
Yes, I've posted about their lack of leadership in competitive before, but I really think their focus will be MM because it's an environment they control and can experiment in. That's why I think b4nny's points about providing feedback for Valve are a bit pointless really, partly because the feedback being provided really is just rehashing the same old reasons those unlocks were already banned (which have been ignored for long enough to tell us something), and partly because if MM leads them in a conflicting direction they will take that as a priority.

With MM I guess they'll develop it along normal Valve lines, iterate changes based on data. That's their objective - they just want to get into a feedback loop where they can iterate changes over time based on player behaviour and improve the game around that. The chances that it leads to the 6v6 we run now are pretty miniscule but there it is. I guess it's possible that b4nny was told this at Valve and has interpreted it in a way that makes sense to his frame of reference hence his pushing for this. I would expect that they probably use far more empirical methods to make judgements though.

#42

h0b5t3r

-2 Frags – +

Honestly they should just remove the bad classes from competitive and that would fix people complaining about not all the classes being used

#43

maxc232

0 Frags – +

any one can make an argument that they dont like a specific thing in this game. If it was up to the pubbers stickies would be nerfed again. If it's part of the game it should be allowed unless it's incredibly bad for the meta i.e. wrangler, quick fix, crit a cola. The current whitelist accomplishes this well. If you cant appreciate the generalist/specialist dynamic and the attack defense dynamic that makes tf2 unique you should just play mge all day, or play something like quake.

#44

ulmyxx

4 Frags – +

if tf2 released less weapons at a slower rate and was quick to balance them, I think this could work.