This is not a problem with why TF2 doesn't have wider viewership.

First of all. You don't have to watch the whole map.
Second of all, look at other competitive games. Plenty are an hour long or more.

The biggest problem is that playing it requires 6 players and 3 classes. You can go pug other games incredibly easily by yourself. This gets more people into comp to watch/play.

This isn't going to get solved, so just be happy with what we have.

I would like to see how this works. But shouldnt we look at ways of speeding up 6v6 first? like having certain timers and spawntimes promote faster gameplay? making it a best of 5 and not first to 5? maybe after 3 minutes of no points capped spawn times are reduced or somthing? idk.

Seems like something that would change the game significantly, and I feel negatively for that matter.

A lot of the really tough decisions that need to be made (along with execution) come with the pushes onto 4th CPs. Removing points like spire (one of the most interesting & studied points in the game) just seems like you're removing a big chunk of the game. The game may be sped up, sure, but doing so removes x amount of possible interesting situations that can arise in the game - leaving us with a lot less possible things to see occuring in games.

Look at it in the perspective if you were to do it to another game: imagine if duel maps in quake were limited to only a yellow armor, an LG, and a rocket launcher with 2x 50 health's. Sure, it'd be fast and "exciting", but you're removing SO MUCH from the game. I guess this isn't the best analogy since quake3/QL was a 10 min duel to whoever got the most kills, whereas TF2 is first to 5 and 2 30 min halves, but it should still give some idea of what you could do to the game.

I mean, Starcraft games can potentially go for 3+ hours in a bo7 (mind you the different game speed, and the stars would need to align for game series to go for that long consistently), that doesn't stop it being a good spectator Esport.

I think stalemates are good. I mean sure, 10+ minutes attacking/defending snakewater last can be seen as "NOT FUN", but the good stalemates that occur between mid -> 4th CP are where you get to see the decision making by each team, and whether they prevail or not because of said decisions. To be fair, the only reason why extended stalemates happen are because the top teams are so close in skill/knowledge, that it can be said that it's a mutual respect to the other team where they're basically saying "Hey, we can beat you on even ground, you can beat us on even ground. We're going to play this until x gets an advantage, then whoever has the bigger advantage WILL (should) win". To that credit, good stalemates happen at last attacks/defences also.

You aren't viewing this from a competition standpoint. I watch HuskyStarcraft regularly, not just for entertainment but for tips on how to effectively market to esports spectators. One thing that Husky has consistently done is looked to make his videos shorter whenever possible - he knows that his audience has a very limited attention span, so he speeds up the first 3-5 minutes of every game. Rarely do his vids go above 25 minutes, and even 20 is pushing the limits of attention span.

I could paste some YouTube graphs in here showing my viewer retention over the duration of a cast, as well. Typically, the first minute or two of my casts have above-average retention, but they quickly deplete to far below average as the map goes on.

In particular, "just be happy with what we have" is an incredibly irksome statement. There is ALWAYS room to improve on what we have.

This is my proposed way of speeding up 6v6. If there's another way that preserves the maps but that ESEA is likely to adopt within a season, I'm happy to discuss that in a different thread.

There is far more variation in maps, builds, and armies on the field over the course of those 3 hours than there is in the same amount of time for TF2. The variety keeps things entertaining for the viewer - and watch the view counts for bo7 series' individual maps. You'll see that viewership drop off, except maybe for the last map that decides everything.

Nothing about the 3-CP map idea precludes stalemates. It also doesn't mean you have to reduce the important skill showcase points on the maps - obviously, removing Spire from badlands is a bad example, but a new custom map could come up with very good ways to allow for different playstyles from mid to last.

Anyway - what I'm NOT looking for here is the usual litany of excuses as to why things are the way they are. I'm asking you all to give a well-thought-out, studied critique of the idea. So far, I haven't really seen anything that would make me fail to start this test tournament.

This is about vods, not the actual live game? I'm confused. You can't really compare the start of an SC2 game to the start of a TF2 game. In the first 3-4 minutes of Sc2 games, players are typically just making workers and building infrastructure at their base. In the first 3-4 minutes of a TF2 game, a team CAN be up 1 or even 2-0 against another team. So "bigm8husky" speeding up games really has nothing to do with the actual game itself.

Not only that, but husky's VODs are pretty different compared to live casts.

Trying to see the correlation here.

I have data on VODs to compare. However, live streams suffer from the exact same problems. With Starcraft streams, I don't have data on how long the average viewer stays tuned in, but I doubt whether the majority stay for more than half of a 3-hour series. Live streams, just like VODs, must also compete for their viewers' attention. When each match has about a 20-minute average resolution time, it's easy to tune in for one match and leave without wasting too much time. In TF2, that generally isn't the case for any match worth watching live. Average time to resolve a match is more like 50 minutes.

I'm also not comparing the start of an SC2 game to the start of a TF2 game - that isn't what I wrote at all. I'm pointing out things that Husky does to make SC2 matches more accessible to a wide audience, and one very important thing is to reduce the amount of time the viewer spends watching each match resolve. That's one extremely important component of building viewership. Viewers' time is valuable!

Wouldn't players be more willing to play a PUG if they knew the demand on their time was only going to be 30 minutes, or 20, or less?

It isn't what you wrote, alas, but what I inferred from what you had said. I don't think it's a problem with the games at all - just the inherent nature of people. They start watching a live-stream of a game, and since they're (typically) on the computer and using a web browser, they often dawdle off elsewhere and forget about the thing.

Cut a soccer field in half - I dunno. Try whatever you want - I obviously can't stop you (lol). You seem awfully keen on the idea and the apparent fact that it will get TF2 more viewership.

And I did give you a critique of the idea - I said it would remove a large number of situations from the game, in turn removing a great deal of decisions/decision making (amongst other things). It just appears you didn't read my post in full.

Please stop shitposting. This isn't some internet argument you need to "win." This is a request for feedback on an idea, and I believe I already have yours.

As a spectator, I think that to play a 3-CP map... lol, I'm just kidding.

Um, most pugs are 30 minutes.

Either way I think it's more about the time taken to join/start a pug than the time spent in it. I can be live in a CS ESEA pug in 5 minutes every time. In every other game you just need the number of players. In TF2 you need the players and the classes.

Edit: You can post graphs showing viewership goes down as time goes on? Yeah, of course. It could be 10 minutes, and you'll still see dropoff.

Here's the proper way to do a VOD: Watch it ahead of time. Record it multiple times. Cut the boring parts, replay/focus the camera on interesting parts/plays.

Anyway. The game length is really not a problem (see every other competitive game), and I don't think shortening it is a good solution.

get wiped on mid = lose round

#13 True. How much of that is due to the sheer number of players hanging around waiting for a game to start?

Sorry for the apparent "shitposting" - I'm just promoting discussion. I'm merely just trying to find out more about your idea, not what you just said in your OP and what's flailing around in my imagination. If what you were after was "so and so" from multiple players, I'll bow out and let you continue. Not trying to "win an argument" or anything, to be blunt.

I was merely satisfying my curiosity.

The point of rebalancing the maps is to make sure that doesn't happen. Give a short enough respawn time for the players, coupled with enough of a distance hurdle to clear, that the attacking team can't win last after wiping their opponents on mid. It guarantees at least 2 fights per round.

Viewership always drops. What I'm saying is that, for videos of similar length, TF2 videos are below average on viewer retention, and that's a very important stat to look at for how users value their time. It explains that, compared to any other 45-minute long video, at the 30-minute mark, my videos of TF2 shoutcasts do not fare as well as other content. But they do fare much better early on - when the game and the players and the cast are all still fresh.

There's a very clear reason I don't spend 3 hours making one TF2 cast - it's 3 hours for one cast. I can put out 3 casts in the same amount of time and increase the availability of content and coverage of teams significantly. If someone wants to volunteer to cut videos to the exciting action and send me pre-cut VODs like Luke used to do with eXtine, then please do. I'd love to cast those.

If you want to put out quality work, sometimes you have to put in some time. I'd rather have 1 cast that everyone enjoys, and impresses people (turning them on more to TF2 getting to see all the cool plays they could be doing), than 3 mediocre ones where someone follows a spy doing nothing for 2 minutes.

I'd like to see a few of those charts. Assuming they're line charts that plot out the whole video.

The problem with that approach is that my output won't be cut to 1/3 its former levels. Turning each cast into such a huge effort means I probably would only have time to do one a week, or one every two weeks considering school. Like I said before, I'd basically need someone else to do the video prep for me so I can just add voiceover.

And here are some graphs. It looks like my memory has failed me - most of the important matches actually have average or slightly above-average retention! Glad I went back and checked.

http://i.imgur.com/MSRru.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gwxPc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8xLs8.jpg

So that takes some of the wind out of my sails for this. I'd still like to try it and see if it contributes to any uptick in viewership, but it's certainly not a direly necessary change.

#18 This is really not relevant to the conversation. 20 or 50 minute VODs are both going to be better if you spend hours watching them multiple times and catch all the action in the final version.

From my experience with another game, 3cp essentially turns into koth with one team winning if they get too dominant instead of having a cap timer.

I was thinking this as well. There wouldn't be too much difference between a 3-CP Granary and Viaduct, except there'd be more incentive for the team holding middle to push.

Backcaps would be VERY strong. If you lose mid and start pushing out, you can very quickly lose an entire round to a Scout (as opposed to just having your push stopped to deal with the backcap).

Also I don't think faster maps are going to make the games any easier to watch. It's already pretty difficult to begin with, since TF2 is (and should) be a game based off slow methodical pushes. 3CP would just make the rounds a little shorter, it wouldn't make the game any interesting, or a better spectator sport like Street Fighter.

If you look at the graphs you posted, you'd see the only time the attention drops below average to a concerning amount is in the IM match. And look, it was an IM match of two IM teams no one has heard of, on gravelpit. Not the most exciting thing to watch.

Maybe the issue isn't the length of your videos, or speed of the gameplay, but rather the content you specifically are providing. I'll be completely honest, I watch almost all of your videos, however the ones I'm most likely to close early, or stop paying attention to (about 75% chance) are the UGC, Open, and Low IM games. I know you try to cover everything, but if you're concerned about this games viewership growing I think you need to focus more on high level games. Low games are boring to watch and you, being one of the top TF2 casters, are responsible for providing they viewers idols. We need good games and good players to watch.

Also my last point, we've already broken Comp TF2 into 2 section, 6v6 and highlander. Look how huge the gap is between them already. In my opinion, it would only hurt the game to make a 3rd game type.

#24 I agreed in the post with the graphs with that exact point. They disprove my previous argument.

Sticking with higher-level games does improve my viewership, certainly. I have to think about a few other stakeholders such as "has eXtv already casted this" and "how can I reach out to this particular community" when I pick what casts to do, as well.

As a viewer, I feel if the map is too small then it won't showcase the game well. TF2 has very distinct classes with very different skill sets. A larger, 5 CP, map with different points really does an amazing job of showing this.

I do agree that matches can run forever, especially best of 3's. I like the idea of a 30 minute time limit. The stalemates can be a little boring but so can a match that takes over an hour. I know they don't use unlocks but the EU seems to do really well with drawing in viewers. Just yesterday they had almost 1k viewers on twitch for a match. I'm not saying it's because of the time limit but maybe this is something to consider.

Make it at least a BO30 like CS because it's mainly going to be win mid win game.

But seriously, a higher score limit would make more sense. It'd basically be cp_midfight with a chance if the teams are even enough to have a defense and push back from last. It's also not very appealing to teams that might not have the best mids but can still defend and push back.

good midfight practice

A completely new map rotation would be cool. No maps like granary, gullywash, badlands or snakewater. We would see new strategies and be even more excited to watch invite matches so that we can learn how to play the maps. This would also promote creativity among players of all levels.

I think we need to take a new approach in map design. If we can move away from last-choke-second-choke-mid-choke-second-choke-last, we could create new stages in the game outside of pushing/holding a choke or a control point.

i think more people watch sal's videos then play competitive tf2, we just need to figure out a way to advertise a starting event for these new players and if a new player is playing then he is bound to have 10 or 15 friends on steam that might want to try it, out of that 10 or 15 pubstars maybe 5 out of 15 will play competitively or have the time to do so, even then it's still worth it.