circlejerking > grow

IF YOU KILL FACEIT PUGS TF2 ISNT GOING TO HAVE A MILLION DOLLAR MAJOR
IF YOU DONT PLAY WITH NO WHITELIST TF2 ISNT GOING TO HAVE A MILLION DOLLAR MAJOR
IF YOU DONT SUBSCRIBE TO B4NNY ON TWITCH TF2 ISNT GOING TO HAVE A MILLION DOLLAR MAJOR
GOD WHAT AN UNGRATEFUL COMMUNITY
B4NNY LITERALLY SAVING TF2 AND YOU SHOW NO RESPECT
cmon goyim just play faceit :) we have cash prizes :)

guaranteed at low level. it's very beneficial for low level. quite the opposite at a high level

ok ty for clarifying,...
but srsly faceit give the high levels players this stuff they want so they stop complaining..

7:10 PM - FROYO b4nny: are you serious lmao
7:10 PM - FROYO b4nny: petty little child

8:20 PM
apt
b4nny won invite but corsa won our hearts

https://i.gyazo.com/9405bdff106a9a5265b97fd0790d85ec.png

4/20 the return of pugchamp: better than 99% of advanced pugs

About time, time to add

What stuff exactly are you referring to? Faceit points?

https://i.gyazo.com/e77f70f00efce487d1940fe51f069cfa.png

The only reason i stopped playing faceit is because i dont want this to hit 100

makes me deppressed that im the only one playing this game so much

good riddance :)

Faceit evidently aren't willing to make major changes to their site to accommodate TF2 only (understandably)

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/faceitsuck

The only problem I have with pugchamp over faceit is I put myself in that mid/high bracket where the amateur league in faceit was too easy due to low/open players moving up from beginner, but when i play pugchamp i'm normally fatkidded (55% or something undrafted). At least with faceit you cant get fatkidded and you get the whole "play against players better than you".

Am I meant to just wait for a B/C/Z pug? Or grind DM?

This is exactly the problem i have and i end up just not queueing at all.

a class selection would be nice in faceit but it would require an entire redesign of the captain system specifically for TF2

While I do understand the problems top players currently have with Pro League, it's sad to hear so many big names giving up on the opportunity it represents.

Changes like the captain priority system and server choice have demonstrated a willingness on the part of the devs to accomodate the complaints people have had, so it seems if the top players are willing to participate, and to meet them half-way, Face It as a platform has alot to offer this community in terms of its dev support, scalable structure, uniting the community, and clear progression through divisions, things that pugchamp can't do by design.

None of those changes would've happened if you hadn't actually engaged with b4nny and the developers. Given that a project like tf2pl requires the whole community's involvement in order to really work, I would've hoped for some more leadership on the part of the Invite players.

i think u answered ur own question

I played PugChamp for the first time in months and it was a lot more fun because I could add up as classes I actually wanted to play and I have never been picked for something else. That's the key factor for me, Faceit has some positives for sure and if there is enough interest I might queue for some Advanced games and I don't want to see it die like the cynics but I play in what I think is better experience for me, that's PugChamp.

If it gets better and active I'd go back, I do feel there is a section of the community extremely cynical against the website just because it's associated with b4nny. Like that 12 year old kiddie steam group I got invited to, no thanks.

With that said no invite player is actively obligated to make Faceit work for TF2, I don't even rate them as much of a company having seen their financial performance recently and their management policies (check their financial report for last year if you want a taster), I only see them as a short term partner in the TF2 world.

While I can't give specifics of what is being discussed, please know that the TF2PL staff have been having lots of talks about improving the advanced division, and we also have to work within the platform that we've been given through FACEIT.

Also, before you accuse me of anything, this isn't meant to be a plea for people to come back at all. We're not forcing you to play on TF2PL (nobody is). But just know that discussions are being had about these topics and the views of the people that play are being considered as well.

This is one of the ever-present problems when it comes to matchmaking systems in general for any competitive game (be it dota, league, csgo) do you sacrifice wait times for higher quality games, or do you want almost instant games with a larger skill disparity. Obviously with a much larger playerbase in games like dota, this really only effects the very top level players (dota pros complain about low ranked players on their team etc.) but in tf2 it effects all level of play. The wait time for a pug of your skill level can be quite horrendous at times, but you also have to be able to understand the other side of the coin, its not fun being at a disadvantage because one of the players on your team is a lower level than the average skill of the game, which is why there is a hesitation to pick 'unproven' players.

It's hard to break into the top levels (for pugs) and start to get picked, but it is possible and there are many people that have done it and are considered good players by a majority now.

edit: im sure there are enough players that are willing to keep faceit alive in the advanced division, but I havent personally checked so I dont know for sure.

It looks really unlikely that faceit will ever be better than pug champ. I’ve talked to twikuu in the past and he said the faceit devs don’t seem interested in adding class choosing. Actually I find it insane that a new product (faceit) was released to the community that is a straight downgrade from the existing pug solution (pug champ), and after four weeks these missing features haven’t been added. Class choosing, sub system, good logs, etc should’ve been there from the beginning and the fact that they aren’t in place a month after launch shows that the faceit devs are slow or not willing to add these features.

Another reason faceit is going to always be worse is because it’s designed worse. The division system has been shown to provide fewer pugs for “advanced” players. Consider the scenario where 10 players are added in each division (40 players total). No pug will start.

The TF2PL staff are great and can have all the talks they want, but they aren’t the people with the power to add these features. Also from what I’ve seen in this thread, benny thinks most people don’t want class choosing.

Edit
A pug system for the class-based game tf2 that doesn’t allow captains and players to choose classes will never make sense or work well because people are different skill levels at different classes. And most people aren’t willing to play every class when they queue. Class choosing is a must. And if there is class choosing then there cannot be divisions because the player base is too small.

Of course because FaceIt aims to serve all skill levels, it's doubtful that it will ever be able to cater to high-level players in the same way that a service that exists solely to serve that demographic, but instead you'd hope they could make enough accomodations within the top two divisions that the other advantages PL offers in terms of dev support etc would outweigh Pugchamp's attractive exclusivity.

I'm not an invite player or a software developer, but one compromise might be having 14-player pools in the picking phase, with the unpicked people being fatkidded and put back in the queue. This might make it easier to have a balanced pug, but also make it harder to be repeatedly passed over in the picking process.

the system wasnt designed for a class based game and wont change for a tiny community unless they built the site in an extremely modular way (lol). A sub system shouldnt be too difficult, but that wouldnt solve the bigger problem

the only good thing about it for an advanced player is that it forces ppl to join the server quickly, but even then ive killed a game because my tf2 crashed which basically just wasted everyones time

if it's fine for lower level players then keep it for that. all i know is the best games on faceit advanced are (unsurprisingly) luck of the draw. sometimes u can get some good games if the same ppl add up after a good one but gl

It's quite heartening to see renewed interest in PugChamp - a month ago, I wasn't even sure whether there was going to be any interest if we did work to rewrite the platform, and feared whatever interest we did get wouldn't be enough to get us out of the deep red.

That being said, I think bashing FACEIT and TF2PL is unwarranted. They were trying to fill a gradually-expanding hole (as PugChamp was built over the course of a couple of months and wasn't particularly well-designed for taking over the global PUG community as it did) and they did a fairly adequate job at it. On top of that, there are many advantages FACEIT has right now, including some that we may never be able to match like access to sweet, sweet VC money and a more well-known platform that can draw in outside interest.

At the end of the day, competition is good because it serves to make the options better in the long run. I've observed and noted down quite a bit about the two systems and their pros and cons, and have gotten a lot of ideas on designing a better system that I hope to implement if we do go forward with rewriting the platform.

I'm happy to hear you'll be working on PugChamp, best wishes.
Competition is indeed good, and we'll be continuing development to provide a better service.
FACEIT is one of the last companies who will consider putting down a *hefty* amount of money every month, I absolutely understand that it's not a reason to disregard the frustration you have with the platform, but keep and open mind and check on us every now and then. Nothing stops you from queueing on both platforms.
I'd like to ask everyone who posted here to take a step back and actually introspect, it's been frustrating reading some of these messages.

the pugchamp devs should make it so that if a game is already in progress you need less pugs to captain, one of the main problems with pugchamp (at least for lower level players like myself) is that you barely ever get to play unless you're willing to play medic just to get picked

i dont see any pugchamp car

at least both ready up sounds startle you into dropping your mouse and spilling your water all over your keyboard

What you want is an elastic system that adjusts skill matching criteria based on current queue population and provides closer matches when possible and looser matches when activity is low. This could possibly be based on a user preference, although that does mean that users that always prioritise quality may never be matched during low population periods if other good players are willing to play a broader range of skill.

Ideally that would be something that received real time feedback so the waiting player could see what their skill preference would actually translate into in terms of wait time. Obviously nobody will do this.