https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWTabhl_3p0

Kalkin I can't take this trolling stop.

what'd I do? I completely agree with your post and proposing Froyo break up is a stupid, stupid answer

While I do agree with you in that a lot of people are seriously under estimating the amount of time and effort Invite players put into playing. Have you considered Invite in general is putting in the wrong kind of effort or to little of a different kind? How many full teams in Invite review scrim STVs? How many individual players in Invite review their own demos and or VODs? I'd honestly be surprised if more than a handful of players or teams in Invite did this and I'd be in utter disbelief if any team in invite did all those things on a weekly basis. It's not like it takes a massive amount of time either a map review can be combined with a STV review and realistically you only need to review a couple rounds.

While I've never played invite the few times I was trying to improve in 6s in general I asked several invite players if I could get a demo of them playing so I could review it. You know the answer I got? "I don't record demos outside of matches" most of these players didn't stream at the time either and the few who did most of them didn't have archiving enabled on twitch. I'm assuming it's either the same or worse now.

'Super-teams are ruining the game' thread #1000

i mean, the matches are usually when a player plays their best because that's when it matters the most. scrims you try goofy shit to see if it works, have ringers, maybe throw because you're bored, shit like that because there's nothing on the line. but when match time comes around that's when things actually matter, so that's the demo that they're most likely gonna review. plus esea saves the STV of every match that gets played (minus all the times it gets fucked up) which provides a better idea of what is going on overall, you can see enemy positioning, uber %, see who's dead on what team. overall matches are, in my opinion, the best demos to watch and i imagine that these players feel the same way

"goofy shit to see if it works"
You need to understand why something worked or didn't work.

"have ringers"
you can still individually review yourself

"maybe throw because you're bored"
stop playing then cause it's a literal waste of everyone's time.

"when match time comes around that's when things actually matter"
this is why you should review before. I mean it helps if you're going into Thursday but not Tuesday. Plus you get to pick your scrims not your matches. Ex. MAL would probably learn a lot more from reviewing a scrim against Mentality or New God Flow than they would in a match vs Froyo. Plus doing something like this means you not only have to do a map review you also have to do a STV review separately which is perfectly fine it just requires a fair chunk more time.

"he best demos to watch and i imagine that these players feel the same way"
They might feel that way but I still highly doubt many players in invite actually review their own demos or STV team demos match or not on a weekly basis.

scrimming is to practice for matches, not to have a designated throw session every night just to keep yourself entertained

if you scrim just to throw, goof around, ring people to carry you and never care about the game until you're in a esea match then you're playing wrong and should stick to pugs

There is a reason why like playoffs and regular teams are so spaced mostly due to just being better

We did map reviews/playbooks but sadly our site we used tactics.tf got taken down so that sucks

marmaloo put a lot of effort setting up how enemies push and how we should count play them a whole lot easier than trying to get 6 players to open up a demo, when they can just open up a webpage

Although, im not sure why the meme of 'not paying to lose' is still a thing when fees are more than half off compared to previous seasons along with the fact that many people are willing to pay for you via donations

I'm not going to leak DMs but what you messaged me last night appeared more discouraging than supportive to our team.

You always post saying how Froyo rolls everybody. You're someone I would consider a friend in some aspect yet you never really shown support, except for when you sponsored my IM and first invite team which was really cool of you. Even then you kinda rooted against us when things looked like they were going sour. You support me personally which I really appreciate, but it's also kind of sad to see you always root for Froyo even if it's indirectly ( like 'wow froyo rolls every season').

I'm going to basically repeat what I told you last night so you can stop reading now if you want, this is mostly for everyone else. Yeah we get rolled, I've been getting rolled (I got 2nd place in all NA leagues within a week timespan). I'm upset at myself for being such an emotional player. I've been having a rough couple of weeks and it clearly showed in my play and especially in my calling. I made the wrong decision to keep trying to open my mouth when I clearly wasn't in the place to do so. This all sucks. Yet I'm going to keep trying. No matter how many times I fall, I will always get right back up. I made promises to many others and to myself that I won't continue to be a quitter, and while TF2 isn't the ideal place to show my personal passion, it's a good start for me. I have fucked up so many times now, and I am going to continue getting fucked up some more. I'm going to get rolled more. No matter how many times this happens, I will continue to try to beat Froyo. I am not going to give up and stop where others before me have stopped.
One day Froyo will be toppled, no matter how long it takes or how minuscule the win will be by then, they will be toppled. While what I'm saying may be mere words without any form of action lately, all I ask is people to believe in me and by further extension my team.

Also to echo what aim said, we are also the ones that got second place. I will continue to be mad at myself for making my team play so sloppy, but even with all of our flaws we still managed to start rolling every team that wasn't Froyo by the end of the season. We also still got 2nd. I'm pretty proud of my team for achieving that, especially while I have been mostly a dead weight this last month.

Ok boys, I'm ready to start scrimming for next season.

Oh...

Oh.........

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honestly i hope froyo doesn't lose because they lost any of their current members. it makes it way more satisfying to see them lose when they're at their strongest vs when they are weakened cus they lost a player.

You always say things like this which is extremely defeatist, acting like the effort that other teams and players put in is meaningless and that there's no way a team could compete or even try to compete with froyotech.

I'm probably as misguided as you regarding invite, but the attitude you have is really frustrating for invite players and fans of non-froyotech teams and really down putting I think.

Okay

Well I messaged you mostly because folks were talking about how you were blaming yourself for the loss, which is silly and I didn't want you beating yourself up about it. You seemed to be the driving force on your team this season, and you take the game more seriously than almost anyone.

Truthfully I don't root for anyone, and I basically haven't since we lost ESEA LAN. I have never rooted for a Froyotech team; they're not my thing. I loved the team you call Luca Goers and that I call Getawhale Fan Club. I would love to see the lineup again, especially since everyone has grown up and improved so much since the IM days. But truthfully, for almost 10 seasons I have just not been that interested and have not really supported any team at all, I'm not just ignoring you guys or something. Me watching finals last night had everything to do with being bored and having nothing else to do.

Nothing is meant by me talking stats on Froyo's dominance, other than me just being a nerd who likes stats. If it comes off like I'm indirectly cheering them on, then yikes that's a problem and I'll look at it. But much like the transphobia thing, I'd much rather folks talk about it rather than ignore it.

Kinda surprised you feel this way, send me a Steam message if you want and we can discuss it more.

froyo's dominance is pretty much just the inevitable result of an amateur game with a relatively small talent pool.

as others have said, no one can afford (literally) to put in the effort of b4nny consistently, which isn't changing anytime soon. on top of that, an underrated aspect of froyo's dominance is that, as the #1 team, they've always had the ability to get talent from other teams- yomps, arekk and habib were all already on the #2 or #3 teams in invite when b4nny grabbed them up, meaning that a) they were already incredibly strong players and b) he was simultaneously weakening his biggest rivals. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, it's just natural.

the difference in a game like, say, CS:GO, is that the number of truly elite players is just too high for such a strat to result in a permanent #1 team. in fact, this sort of thing happens in domestic scenes all the time. SK reached the top by always picking up the best Brazilian players; same with Astralis for Denmark and with Na'Vi for the CIS region. we just don't think of Ascent as being like the Immortals or the North of tf2 because there's only ONE superteam (at least in NA) in this analogy, not 4 or 5.

the sad truth is, this season's ascent roster only had 2-3 individual players at the level of the guys on froyotech, so no amount of practice and dedication could quickly close the gap. I personally feel like there's enough talent in NA to build a team that, like Ascent from a few seasons ago, can get very close to froyo and maybe beat them 10-20% of the time. however, even that team wouldn't be CONSISTENTLY as good, and I don't think there's enough talent to sustain more than one team like that at a time.

tf2 came out in 2007, had no developer support compared to modern games, and still has a small but vibrant and passionate scene compared to most games of its ilk. to me, that's enough, and I've made my peace with dwindling pug playerbases and tiny prize pools. froyo being this dominant is just another consequence of our situation. but you know what? tf2 has had a good run regardless.

Also if you're a player outside of invite and you give ascent or any playoff team shit for "not trying hard enough" and "they don't care" you have absolutely 0 clue what you're talking about. I, for one as an avid pugchamp pugger, seen every ascent player grind pugs/scrims/DM like every single day so just putting down their efforts because they lost to a better team is just a shitty thing to do.

Basically, if lesser players/teams know better than the top 4, invite should be poppin' right now with talent and the player pool should be insane next season. That or people are just talking shit for the sake of talking shit, as always in this community. Then people wonder why top players quit, shit is actually demoralizing to hear. Just think at how people on froyo got to where they got, they were also on the "not trying hard enough teams" before and now they dominate. And if you refer to my earlier post, look at what froyo did: kept their core for YEARS so ofc they will be amazing teammates.

It's nice that nobody wants to hurt the feelings of the players on Ascent, but the fact of the matter is that having a close and competitive grand finals is an extremely important part of having a successful esport. I literally didnt watch the invite grand finals for more than 30 seconds because I saw immediately that froyo was winning and could assume the rest. And if theres no incentive for people to watch the highest level of TF2, than this game will never be anything more than a hobby. Esports need good competition to survive; a lack of good competition signifies either a lack of interest or a flaw in the format.

I think comanglia made the strongest point in that, even if every invite team puts in a shit ton of effort, that means nothing if that effort isnt being put in the right places. In my opinion, more effort needs to be put into building teams that work well together and understand each other, rather than just amassing a team of the best DMers outside of Froyo. Whenever I watch a froyo scrim or match, i don't see extremely dominant DM, I see amazing calls, coordination, and trust in their teammates to do what is asked of them. That sort of efficiency on a larger level is why I dont see froyo losing.

Also, lets not try and block out the voices and opinions of people who haven't played invite. Just because you played invite doesn't imply that you have a perfect understanding of the game, and not playing invite doesnt imply you're an idiot. Being dismissive isn't going to help anyone learn anything.

No, the point was people can't understand how those teams play and how much they put in the game if they never played against them constantly for a season. Obviously there's top IM teams who scrim invite teams all the time and stuff, but I wouldn't expect a bottom open player to know anything about the depth of an invite's team practice and habits. It's just not something it should even be talked about at all, it's the same shit as when you're that fan with a beer belly at a football game but "you know better" than the Superbowl finalists. It's just really dumb to even think about it.

the problem is, froyo has better DM AND coordination/comms/trust or whatever else than Ascent

they just have better players, that's the reality

That would be option b tho because 2 of froyo are luca's.
Tbh it's just unfortunate that every player that comes up with the potential to be a member of a team that could beat froyo invariably joins froyo if given the option, the only exception to this rule who is currently playing is you.
Also getawhale mentioned how nursey was blaming herself for the loss and saying how he felt this is wrong.
This is exactly the reason nursey is one of the best medics to play this game, this is a very hard mentality to have and harder to maintain. Unfortunately until more players adopt a mentality similar to this no one will beat froyo, this mentality must be coupled with players smart enough to make the individual decisions in game to beat froyo. I'm not saying everyone should adopt nursey's everything is my fault attitude, from playing with her I know that it goes to extremes where she would attempt to take blames for things that could not possible be her fault.
I'm trying to say that I know the mindset of each tf2 player, all I'm saying is that from my experience playing tf2 this mindset doesn't appear to be very common.

That's the spirit.

Good luck.

That's fair. I guess what I didn't make clear is that my criticism isnt really just directed at Ascent, it's to be directed at all of invite, or just higher level play in general. I don't think DM or individual play matters nearly as much once you get to higher level play (except on scout since that class is busted), and im hoping to stress that a consistent roster thats dedicated to not improving as individual players, but as a team might have a chance to legitimately upset a team like froyo. Ascent players might have the most potential in this regard, but i still find that many players generally need to start thinking in this regard. Investing in DM bears smaller and smaller benefits as you sink thousands of hours into TF2, whereas strong coordination and dedication to your teammates is untapped potential for many players.

I really dislike these kinds of observations because they have no depth whatsoever. Yes, they have the better players, and yes, they are the better team. But what people care about is why they are better, and how things got to be that way. Them being better isnt a problem, the problem is figuring out how other players can rise to meet them at the top.

And i really dont think its so lonely at the top. Even if b4nny puts more time into this game than anyone else, that time has diminishing returns regardless. This is why upsets happen. A player who puts in less (but only a little less) time into practicing should be able to win if, say, they have a good day and b4nny has a bad day. Good days and bad days happen, people arent just robotic algorithms. So even if everyone on froyo was technically better on their respective classes than their opponents, that shouldnt be enough in it of itself to secure wins for seasons on end. This is why I keep trying to stress teamplay. The thing froyo has that other teams dont is commitment as a team. This is the one aspect where i think froyo excels so far beyond the competition that they cant lose. This is the aspect that im hoping people will begin to pay more attention to.

im just a huge fucking nerd and the idea of what makes who the best really interests me tho so ill just keep pumping these nerd essays out

ok so the problem here is that you're just wrong. it's like you're parroting a concept that's true for most esports, which is that individual skill evens out at the top and things like coordination and communication become more important, and thinking it's just because once a game has been around for a while that sort of plateauing is inevitable. the reality of tf2, however, is the player base is much smaller, so the difference in individual skill between even top 4 invite teams can still be felt. take habib, for instance- he's significantly better individually from a DM standpoint than just about any other demo. true, he probably wouldn't be as effective having to play the bdonski/campy role, but if your team wants a carry demo who will take lots of heals and put out as much damage as possible, there is literally no reasonable facsimile of him, and he's on froyo. following this, there's a reason why b4nny and habib still mge and dm for literally hours a day, and it's not only warmup or superstition or whatever- no one has come close to reaching the skill ceiling on most classes, and that edge is still important.

I do agree with you that there's a lot of untapped potential strategically in tf2 (which for the record would probably require coaches/salaries/in-person meetups to really reach another level), but I think a lot of people underestimate the value of individual decision making when they set up the dichotomy of DM and teamwork. froyo has players with a ton of experience, sure, but they also have an intuitive understanding of the game. there's a reason why blaze and yomps both started out as scout mains but pretty much instantaneously reached an invite level when they switched to soldier; their sense of timing of when to aggress is incredible. not saying that can't be taught/improved AT ALL, but to act like more teamwork-oriented practice would suddenly make teams like Ascent, Velocity and NGF to have as good teamwork and comms as froyo is unrealistic, because there's an individual component to that as well.

trust me, I'm as big a hater of the "better players are better and that's that" tautological arguments as you are. once upon a time, highlander used to have a limit on the number of invite players that could be on one team, and my ridiculous nerd essays were one of the biggest reasons why that stupid rule got removed. I pointed out that it wasn't as if invite players were a different species, and useoftoaster helpfully added that, if you replaced "invite" with "really good", you would realize how stupid such a rule was ("limit of 2 really good players per team", "we need this rule so that teams without really good players stand a chance", etc.).

still, I have to be realistic and point out that a) froyo is still improving themselves, b) the gap is larger than some people think BECAUSE individual dm/gamesense is a factor as well, and c) froyo has shown themselves willing to poach players on other playoff invite teams, and therefore catching up to them is extremely difficult. I definitely don't think it's impossible, but reducing it to "just practice better" is disingenuous.

again, I think you're underestimating the gap between players, and therefore how diminished the returns are. I will concede that scout is so OP right now that your good day/bad day argument would lead to upsets if a team had scouts almost as good as froyo's (which is why I said that the best possible team of non-froyo players could prolly win up to 20% of the time), but that still hinges on making some serious roster upgrades.

thread tl;dr

Froyo is objectively the best team with the best players and they're the deserved winners. It's only a natural thing in a rather small scene like this that these teams are picking up the best avaiable, active (and motivated) players. That doesn't mean at all thet the other invite teams aren't motivated enough or willing to beat those (like aim said) (also expect maybe some mix teams who were just meming around in some essential cups or so). It's just that competing is still very tough at this level. So how do we get a better and more balanced competition? We need to encourage teams to stick together despite the negative results they experience, people should stick together with their friends and improve together instead of creating new "super teams" with whoever seems to be good at the time every season. Also everyone should stop belittleling newer or worse players/teams to keep them in the game. It's not like I'm the most experienced player but even I witnessed so many situations where people were making fun of or even insulting teams actually trying in open divisions. How do you even intent to get motivated players in the game after all like this? Also we need to create a welcoming scene for newcomers. Newbies are made fun of and are getting kicked even from lobbies or whatever if they aren't "good enough" which makes their experience really bad. Only the fewest will stay in this community tbh. How do you actually intent to change the best end of the scene if you ignore the start of it? I know that there are a lot of efforts being made to solve these problems but the most important issue is the core of the current climate of the actual community imo.

the other thing is banny (and dante to an extent) is incredibly talented at re-wrangling his team if theyre getting out of control

even if u clone arekk and yomps you still need to figure out how to get them on a team of people who can try as hard as banny will for two best of threes in an online setting

Some great points, thanks for the civility. I guess I'm being optimistic in hoping that theres more than 6 absolutely top players in the game, considering the same could be said of melee (which is the only other esport i follow).

that said, im still confident that much of the talent in invite, and upcoming talent, can come together to form a strong opposition if they find the right teammates. I'm not asking for a clean 50/50 GF, but even a 20% chance to upset like you said would bring more than enough excitement back into top level TF2. It's just that that 20% doesnt seem to be there yet, and that's what's so demoralizing.

just put me in chief

If anyone is genuinely suggesting that froyo should disband "for the greater good" you might as well write TF2 off there and then. The most satisfying part of watching any esport is seeing the titans finally get toppled, if you forcibly/willingly gimp the best team to artificially create closer competition then any victory will be hollow and undeserved. Watching a Mickey Mouse competition where teams no longer do everything in their power to be the best will not do anything to boost interest/viewership. It will happen eventually, whether that's due to waning interests/other commitments arising for froyo players or the rest of the scene upping their game over time, it will happen and it will be have been worth the wait. From an outsider perspective I think the NA scene is in transition at the moment. Half the players on the #2 team this season are new to being the main rivals of froyo, it's clear a lot of them put in a lot of effort but improvement doesn't happen overnight. I only watch NA TF2 every so often, but the improvement that players like aim have achieved over the past year or so is very promising. This was a particularly grim final but it doesn't accurately represent the skill gap between #1 and #2 - there is a gap don't get me wrong, but the final result is not representative of how large that gap currently is. Having said all that, even if froyo go on to win every ESEA season until the game finally dies, it will still be better than compromising the integrity of the competition as at least the victories are still meaningful and indicative of who the best players and teams are, which is the entire point of any competitive competition.