Those unlocks just make the game more aids to play in CERTAIN situations, as a lot of this shit is very situational and doesn't offer consistency (kite a sentry gun to no end as a Bonk scout, don't even need to use uber into last anymore). If you want to play the game in aids mode then unlock everything you want to please valve b/c I'm sure they will make TF2 an esport just because you played a season or two with unlocks on. All this shit is pointless, I've been playing this game since 2008 and I've seen the game with and without unlocks.

There's a reason that gunboats + pickaxe + basher + ubersaw + krietz have lasted the test of time, because these unlocks have provided something better to the game and made the skill cap and fun factor of the classes rise up. Do you think people didn't bitch about the pickaxe when it first got released? "Soldier is too OP, I just get 1 shot when he's 10hp", well guess what he needs to be 10 fucking HP to even use that in 2018 and is basically only ever used for movement purposes and not damage nowadays. On the other hand, you just have piece of shit weapons like the mangler allowed which would be perfectly fine if they removed the right click from it. Is the right click game breaking? Fuck no. Is it ANNOYING as fuck? Yes, while a good team will virtually never get hit by it, it's still kinda annoying to have to call it out, position yourself and have autistic spam wars between soldiers with it. If it just had infinite ammo + a non-aids ammo bar I think it would be the perfect gun.

Anyhow, TLDR as someone who played the game more than enough I suggest updating the unlocks you want to a 6v6 standard and not a pub server standard before we have a season of them being implemented. If you want to see how useless arguments like this are, have at it: http://etf2l.org/forum/league/topic-3953/page-1/

They tested them right before. Bonk has a slow effect when you're hit with it. With the solemn vow, you're not really looking at the enemy med if you're not already exchanging or on mid or pushing anyways, and your team should be calling damage anyways. So unless your med is a tard and is going to peak choke for info, it isn't that impactful.

I did think the soda popper needed more testing from what I saw in the stream. However, I didn't actually play. It does take 350 damage to charge, and only having two shots could hurt your 1v1s.

Also, notice how the only people wanting to ban solemn vow and bonk are the people who didn't playtest them and instead are theorycrafting?

https://whitelist.tf/9584

How come a couple of invite players decide whether or not some unlocks are allowed, instead of having a community vote for all esea players to decide whether an unlock should be whitelisted next season?

because they think that lower level players are closed minded and/or have no idea how tf2 should be played

Having low level players vote is how ugc had the machina/reserve shooter unbanned for like 10 seasons.

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As time goes on, people have came to the general conclusion that things should be more centered around higher level play. It wasn't always that mindset but it has became a pretty popular opinion for games in general to be based around the top level of play. This isn't just a TF2 opinion.

For any european that missed the ESEA meeting last night, there were whitelist pugs last night which ran into the discussion for the whitelist. The weapons that have been discussed to be unbanned (bonk, solemn vow, soda popper) have PROVEN to not be nearly as busted as people thought they were going to be. I heavily believe that unlocks that prove to have no impact on the game shouldn't be banned, if they prove that we have nothing to lose and only things to potentially gain (no matter how small that gain is) then there is literally no reason to be so stubborn about keeping them gone.

Things have also came to the conclusion that talking about what could possibly happen with unlocks 'in theory' is not a proper way to discuss things. Do not ever forget that 'in theory tf2' that direct hit is the most overpowered weapon in the game. Sniper is the most broken class. Force 'a' Nature is a much better weapon than the stock scatter. Only bringing up hypotheticals when these things were PROVEN to not be as good as anticipated serves no place in this discussion anymore.

I'm also not an advocate that everything should be unbanned. I still heavily believe crit-a-cola, Vaccinator, Disciplinary Action, and Wrangler/Rescue Ranger should remained banned no matter where this discussion goes. Those things will have a VERY negative impact on the game. I'm just saying if things are proven to have no major effect, I see no reason to be so stubborn to keep them out.

Because I would rather have people who have seen a lot of iterations of TF2 vote on things as opposed to a majority of people who play the game much less and are either new or barely play the game in some cases. Nothing bad with being new or playing less, just that these people should play the game a lot more to understand it first. Maybe some unlocks don't really make a difference at a low level (Solemn Vow) but at a high level I can see it being used very well in some situations. Just imagine if suddenly 500 pub players joined ESEA and they are suddenly allowed to vote for the Wrangler to be allowed. Yea I can get a fatter paycheck since 500 people just joined ESEA, but then I cannot push last ever again and have to settle for 1-0 scorelines over 30 min.

Alternative example is imagine you allowed pubbers in dota decide item changes. Bulldog would probably be winning every single TI since they all jerk off NP to get buffed all the time, or make Techies game breaking with a map-wide nuke.

just think in b4nny's mind the more weapons we unban the more people will play comp. lul

Why can't valve just make good unlocks lol

wait i thought only the solemn vow was getting through
I swear to god you guys literally confirmed a bug that let you retain scout speed if you AD spammed after the bonk effect ended and it got through?
Soda Popper didn't seem to be nearly as good as when shamoo was using it on the viaduct pug. He said that you need alot of damage to charge it up consistently.
Hopefully invite scrims can shed some more light on these items though

Why do we keep making changes where the only possible outcomes are things staying the same or getting worse?

I'm not saying you can't learn anything from 45 minutes of pugs where people weren't even running most of the unlocks that were tested full-time, but I wouldn't count the whitelist pugs as definitive proof of anything.

That last part is complete bullshit considering about half the people who played those playtest PUGs were asked just to fill spots last second, and that "being a b4nny sub" was never mentioned. Also, Alfa is against banning weapons and played those pugs, I think all unlocks besides the main ones should be banned and I played the pugs, and there were a few people who were opposed to allowing anything to be unbanned and played those pugs, so I don't know what you are on about.

My big issue with unbanning weapons is that the argument always ends up being people saying, "this weapon isn't that aids, so we should unban it," which is a stupid stance to hold. If the goal is to incentivize Valve to update the game, the last major update was over a year ago, with no news of a new one. If the goal is to incentivize new players to want to try ESEA, open teams fell by 13 teams from S28 - S29. So, what is the goal? These weapons add nothing new to the game, so as I see it, there is no upside to allowing them. Saying that "they are shitty weapons anyways, so it won't impact the game" isn't a valid argument. If only one person is gayed because a scout got out for free or they got to jump around 10 times while no one could hit them, but there is literally 0 upside to allowing them, then it's just a net loss in the end.

Also the fact that we got to play a total of 45 minutes during last second PUGs (and that snakewater game was objectively pointless because people were just memeing super hard) isn't valid enough evidence to claim that some of these weapons are useless yet.

It's highlander, but the soda popper single handedly made Ibby a god among scouts. Thinking a weapon that gives the best class in the game 150% more jumps is a good unban is pretty stupid

why are we letting medic have a weapon that tracks ubers FOR him and see the health of every enemy player on his screen

fuck off

I'll honestly be impressed if teams are able to effectively use the Solemn Vow since the only time a medic would be able to view the enemy team is typically during fights or just before engagements like on Snakewater 2nd if one team is pushing through yard (not counting King of the Hill where it would be considerably more useful)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to be pointing at an enemy to see their health. So the 'every player on screen' part is wrong.

if hes on your screen you can point at em

PEW PEW PEW PEW

so can we like make some petition or something, I dont know if I'm even playing this season I just want my pugs to not have this shit in them lol

pubbers are not, will not ever be, and have never been interested in competitive TF2. i think everyone but banny has realized that TF2 is in a place where it will not become a big competitive game. adding this stuff and making its current players suffer at the expense of possibly luring new players in simply isnt worth it

Guys the sky is falling just like it was the last every time weapons got unbanned.

Just to be clear to everyone, these weapons aren't officially in the whitelist for next season. What our testing did was just give us the impression that they're fine and so we proposed them in the meeting. What that means is up until registration's deadline the invite teams will be scrimming with them enabled to see if there's anything game breaking about them and if like we believe to be the case there's nothing wrong with them only then will they go in for next season.

yeah let's pretend the rescue ranger wasnt the literal worst

It was changed since then you now have to deal about 400 damage to get the charge and you no longer gain charge from just running.

Also regarding bonk, it was changed so if you take damage while under the effects of it you move extremely slow when it wears off.

Note: I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the unbans but just keep in mind the items have been changed since they were last talked about or abused (such as Ibby)

Maybe I'm being anal but I think your original comment misconstrued the truth, because you can't 'see the health of every enemy player on his screen' if you can only point at one person at a time, meaning you can see one health bar at a time. It would be like saying the crusaders crossbow lets you heal every player on your screen, because like, well, if they're on your screen you can shoot at them!!! One at a time =/= 'see the health of every enemy player' maybe 'any enemy player on his screen' would be a more accurate phrase.
Again, maybe this is anal but I think when we're discussing whether or not a weapon is balanced, we should make sure we're accurately describing a weapon's capabilities. Especially if we're going to be giving feedback on a whitelist, we should be educated.