Just host a no crossbow cup. Winning team gets killstreak syringe guns.

I feel like banning the weapon would also do more harm than good - ideally a weapon as unbalanced as the crossbow would not be in comp at all but it's been in the game so long that I don't think the change would sit well with most of the player base. It should be banned but it's so fundamental in current 6v6 play that if you ban it people will overreact, not just medic mains.

i think if u take direct hit out this is a good one cause a gun that 1 shots a class isnt fun to play against full time same reason people hate playing again sniper and spy full time

.

I really disagree with this post because its such a scared of change way to think. Your arguement is basically just saying that its too late to ban someow even if you and alot of other people in this thread agree wtih it being overpowered and that it should be removed. That way of thinking is flawed because its not really ever to late to ban a weapon that is hurtful to to the game. And saying that the change won't sit well with players and that they will over react is also not something that is a valid arguement since that literally what happened with te global whitelist and i would say that most people who were not very happy about the change will still play because the game isn't really to different with whhitelist changes.

Most people don't really care about how OP a weapon is relative to the alternatives. They only care if it's dumb to play against. Maybe the crossbow is at that point but I thought it was generally considered to be ok.

i think at this point most people would agree that nothing we can do as a community will grow the competitive-specific playerbase in any significant way, so we should focus on setting up the weapon bans so that the game is as much fun as possible. i cant imagine the crossbow getting banned would have a major impact on the single most die-hard subset of tf2 players. i mean, we're talking about players who have stuck around through an unbelievable number of ineffectual or damaging decisions made by valve just to play an unpopular, totally fabricated version of the game. if we can improve that experience, we should, and we should keep it that way up until the day valve gives official support to some other version of the game.

I want to smack whoever thought the loch n load was a balanced unlock that needed to be allowed.

The amount of times I've asked for an arrow while standing still and the medic was under no pressure and missed me is way to many times. A couple of medics have missed 4 or 5 arrows on me while standing still in the same pug as well

@Raptor

Exactly they should have died because they lost the fight or were caught out of position, now they can just rely on an arrow for their worse dm ability or shitty positioning

there was not a single instance i can remember from this past season where i saw someone run it in scrims or matches, even for one round (in im)

The best state 6v6 has been in was when the unlocks were:

scout:
boston basher

soldier:equalizer + gunboats

demo:paintrain (i was gona put doubledonk here too but i reMEMEbered that you are bad and have no skill if you use it)

medic: kritz ,usaw and the syringe guns + crossbow

the hl classes unlocks should be all locked NUFF said

Also yeah if you guys remember when this was the whitelist (+- if im missing an unlock or two) this was when 6s were the most balanced and competetive.6v6 is not supposed to be fun to get a market gardner ROFL YOU GOT PWNED frag, its supposed to be teams of players on equal standing using only the skills they have on that specific class to one up the enemy team. When this was the case 6v6 wasn't the massive memefest that is now. All the stupid unlocks are doing to 6s only one thing, and thats turning 6s into a glorified PUB.

Thank you
and Sondi Bless

hedgehog used to use that abortion of a weapon often

Well, I'm only an open scrub so I might not be that experienced or full of knowledge like other guys here but still, 6v6 also happens at lower levels. I don't even play comp that long but I'm already kinda tired of this memefest. Basically everytime you play against more skilled players they start offclassing, abusing unlocks, etc and it's super annoying. Sure, this might prevent a roll but I rather get demolished in 5 minutes than playing 30 minutes against full time huntsman sniper, sticky jumper, spy, engineer, whatever. I could play pub if I'd want randomness. All these unlocks and stuff are so inviting for fucking around. Well, if you're really really good this might not be that much of a problem since you can punish that pretty easy but if you're playing on lower levels, if you're a new and unexperienced player you can't. And that's so incredibly frustrating. Even in faceit matches or lobbies, why would you even bother playing comp 6v6 when it's basically a small pub?

I guess I'm still hoping valve will change some things in the next major patch, i might've missed something but why is it considered so strongly that the crossbow wouldn't be one of the weapons to get changed?

Banning weapons will for sure not stop trolling though, people will just find other ways to do it, running perma spy or whatever they come up with.
Banning unlocks because they can be used to troll is not a good reason imo

6s was good because it didn't have all the shitty gimmicky unlocks that pubs did which made people wana watch it for the skill displayed without having to rely on rng bullshit. Unlocking all the crap that we did in 6v6 completely destroyed what people were trying so hard to make into a balanced e-sport 4 years ago, stop sucking valves dick and lets play 6v6 the game that the community made without the help of valve.

because it has been one of the best weapons in the game for years and valve still buffs it every update

Having all those unlocks still encourages people to fuck around though. Sure, trolling will always be a thing but I'd like to have an environment which encourages people to play seriously. That's why I play 6v6 after all. And if all the memey memes are banned there's far less room to ruin a game imo.

But the trolling won't be as obnoxious, because a perma spy is better than a perma YER DR spy that abuses them to be even more annoying. Even a perma regular spy isn't entirely bad because at some point you will see someone legitimately offclassing to spy, and you will have some slightly better idea what they're doing, whereas a perma spy running loadouts no one would ever seriously use isn't going to help you at all.

And don't forget that half the weapons in the current whitelist are only ever used for this purpose, so I think it's definitely a good reason to ban them.

http://i.imgur.com/l9Qo3ck.png?1
when?

I'm just asking out of curiosity, but is the general consensus that the iron bomber is okay? To me it seems like a really well made weapon with only small differences that don't change the meta, but allow different demos with different styles of play to play to gain benefits from that style of play i.e. someone that likes locking down chokes can use the iron bomber for a small increase in area denial, while someone that likes being more aggressive or spamming through chokes can use stock as the arc and det time are more suitable for that. I have much less experience than most of the people in this thread, and just want to know what everyone else thinks.

It would be pretty nuts to see all how all the current teams adapt back to old whitelist mechanics..

I just looked at the global whitelist. Their's some really questionable weapons being allowed.

AirStrike, Beggars Boozaka, Baby Face Blaster, Frontier Justice and the Pomson 6000, along with the Machina. jfc

some seriously bad weapons there. Surprised I haven't seen much airstrike that thing is god tier once you get 4 kills with it.

It's too inconsistent and the reward you get isn't really worth the effort.

I would love to see a stripped down optimized whitelist that really emphasizes solid play. I still hold hope for Valve's future involvement, but I think until they actually properly communicate what they want (not just "having faith" in them; I was against that from the start), 6v6 should ban out the unlocks that don't contribute to the meta in an interesting way. Troll weapons, suboptimal weapons, etc. I get wanting to have as open of a whitelist as possible (I'm in favor of that), but that only matters if the weapons are getting balanced/reworked.

Why not just create a REALLY solid, really tight game mode? Why not try it for one season? If there's ever a time for competitive TF2 to try out different things (including rotating new and old maps back in, PLEASE), it's now. The players lose very little (in the case of map rotation for ESEA, 1 week and/or 2 matches) IF the change is unfun, but the potential gain is a LOT (new staple map? Feedback for map makers to make improvements?).

Valve nerfed Demo and buffed Scout, fundamentally, after years and years. Anyone crying about fundamental changes (especially ones being made FOR THE BETTER) really don't have a valid platform to stand on.

Limiting trolling is better than nothing. I think having a more vanilla whitelist will honestly be way better for the average game, and at least reduce trolling in more lopsided games (as mentioned). What reason do you have to NOT ban troll weapons? What do they add? Because this argument doesn't make sense unless those same weapons are adding a benefit to the game.

Granted, my opinion is a bit out of date because I'm just basing this off of while I played/was around, which covers the span of the vanilla 6v6 list to just before the global whitelist, but not since then. But I think a more vanilla 6v6 list would emphasize what keeps the competitive players in the game.

Also, LISTEN TO MARXIST.

I see what you're saying botmode - but solly wasn't so bad back in the day and here is why:

Presently, you shoot things, and die. They get arrowed, and now you've died for nothing. Whereas without arrows they're AT BEST taking 24/hp second if their medic is attached to them and healing nobody else. This does two important things. Either hurt people will b-line to their medic (as they no longer do typically) which will draw a team together making them easier targets for your other splash wielding teammates, or they have to leave the area and get a pack - which makes their movement very predictable in transition fights, or outright takes them out of the fight altogether for an extended period of time.

Basically solly (particularly roamer) trades survivability and not having to worry about kritz heals and buffs as much - for having to worry about kritz heals and buffs again, but their damage is much more meaningful.

I mean it used to be a viable strat for roamer to just sit back and spam rockets at the enemy med on last pushes because all the hurt people would run to their med and you'd farm free kills - I can't name the last time I've seen that in a game in the last year+

I've been around for awhile, I'm familiar with the mechanics of the game with/without the xbow. (I started out playing roamer when shotgun was still a thing)
I'm not particularly advocating for or against the crossbow, I think the game is fantastic both with and without it but I do think a lot of the arguments being made on both are quite shortsighted.

To start, obviously crit heals are one of the best mechanics in the game, for obvious reasons and there should almost definitely be some sort of mechanic to make crossbows affected by crit heals. In the current state however, crit heals still play a huge in buffs, and I think some people are gonna argue that because you can get arrowed, you don't need to get buffed but that's distinctly false. For instance, on scout, although a quick love tap when you have crit heals gets you to 185, I think any scout main could attest to how powerful a 185 health scout is compared to a 125 health one. On roamer, 300 hp at the beginning of a fight can help you push spam or win a 1v1.

The amount of healing that crossbow puts out is actually absurd for the most part. You can fully heal a team at close range significantly faster and obviously arrow building adds a layer of unpredictability to the game that just shouldn't exist (often times the only way to know if a team has been arrow building is them to counterpop an uber on you). Despite all this, in most of the "important" situations to hit an arrow, it's actually pretty damn hard, obviously takes quite a bit of skill and oftentimes involves making a decision on whether to give out guaranteed heals to a target that may actually need it, or to take the risk to shoot the arrow, which is something that people seem to be ignoring. Obviously there are arrows that are just free that can save a player/team with bad coordination and decision making but, in general, that's what good aim in tf2 does. Arrows actually give medic a much greater ability to carry based on their mechanics just like any other class can.

I hope everyone knows that the crossbow is pretty damn complicated and I don't feel like I can really give a coherent argument one way or another in a forum post but I really hope people don't just attribute something to being dumb because it's mechanically based or rewarding coordination.

When it comes to soldier, I think it's pretty much inarguable that they're the class that receives the most arrows by a large margin. In combination with gunboats they can actually reenter a fight, obviously without a buff, which is something that only scout could really do at all before the crossbow. I see a couple of people arguing that damage you do has less meaning because of arrows and I really disagree with that, I just think that it means you need to be more on your toes as a team if you want to full commit in one moment, or play fights in a way that you, as one player, can follow up rather than initiate (which is something a lot of roamers have done regardless of xbow -> ma3la, purpleshirt, seagull, drack). Basically what I'm saying if you think that crossbow makes your damage more meaningless, and I know people might present some salt to this, but maybe, just play better? I know I'm not everyone but as every class in the game I've never personally felt like I was being ineffective and completely powerless as a player simply because the unlock made my damage worse. I've always felt like I could play in a way that circumvents the xbow, just as you can play in a way that exploits the medigun in the way you listed.

Like I said, I don't think I'm doing this argument justice. I guess to some up my overall opinion though, the crossbow in its current form is quite powerful and needs some adjustment but I don't know if it's so powerful that it breaks the game like some people think it does because it definitely adds quite a bit to the game and it's by no means a skill-less, brainless weapon like some people think it is. If anyone has any questions or like counterarguments to anything I've said, I'll try to address them because I want people to understand the game well enough to make accurate opinions about the crossbow.

ban everything except stock

Nah I wasn't try to call you out botmode is just did a little explaining there so newer folks who perhaps didn't play long ago would have some frame of reference.

I miss shotgun roamer though - but I know that's never coming back :( lol. Solly rotation play was so much fun for me lol.

you'll never watch a dignitas badlands mid with both soldiers focusing shotguns to deny and clean up again. ;_;