How is sniper a "shitty" class anyway? lol

In Newbie mixes it really can be. It really depends how many times your team has played pugs. I don't think it's a great idea to start off-classing with people when it's the first time pugging, you really just want to start with the basics with really new people. You don't want them to get overwhelmed, or teach bad habits.

Exept I didn't say it was good to run sniper in newbie mixes... I just asked how sniper was a shitty class..

scouts and soldiers do what offclasses can do and more

Snipers don't occupy space roody.

A normal person will look through a choke and say "oh... a scout is there" and then proceed not to go through that door.

Running a sniper - you notice they have a sniper, and then just approach from some other angle and you've effectively created a 5v6.

Snipers don't occupy space. You're just hoping that the other team is stupid, and that you are lucky.

I do go over sniping on last pushes with the noobies - since that's a pretty solid tactic, but I pretty much forbid it the rest of the time.

A sniper has to get his weight and more in damage making his off-class viable. That usually means 1 pick to balance out the 5v6 and then the damage you would normally do on your respective main. You're giving up presence in a fight for the ability to do more damage if you can aim. Most players end up doing nothing and their team dies around them. In mixes if they're trying to learn to play their class they shouldn't be allowed to play sniper (with the exception of last push offclassing).

I'll probably be around to coach next weekend.

To quote Sal.. "Unless you can get consistent headshots then there is no point in playing sniper." (In context of full time sniping)

I'll stand by what Sal says, but it's great for breaking a stalemate and/or picking off the medic when needed.

Roody told my newbie demo that she should put stickies on the doors instead of last on badlands.

wat

I never said that and im sorry if thats what she understanded.
Its all gimmic, I would only put agresive traps up at choke points if they have some kind of advantage, otherwise I use stickies on the point.

nothing wrong with putting up an aggressive trap, but you should always have some sticks on last @_@

I agree with the gist of what defy said earlier.

I was pretty excited to coach in newbie mixes after being asked to by its organizers but after a few mixes I quickly lost my appetite for coaching. I was only interested in playing as a medic in the mixes because I feel it gives me the best ability to teach and guide with minimal "dm-influence" on the outcomes of the fighting. These concepts I'm gonna talk about seem so basic and obvious but it looks like most people don't get it or don't care. Both mixes I played in I had to face the coach on the enemy team playing demoman on badlands while I was the medic for my team. It was absolutely crushing. Their demoman destroyed everything since he was way better than our, actually newbie, demoman. There was very little for me to teach my team outside of some setup and questions in pre-game. Once the game got started the main takeaway was that "hey, their coach is like 40x better than our average skill level on this team and is carrying the shit out of them while our coach can't really help since he's medic". I suppose I could try to stay positive but it wasn't my negativity that made things sour. My newbies were getting pretty bitter on their own, and they were right. Other coach would spearhead pushes and peeks, get two or three picks, and then direct his team to overrun us. I'm really wondering what the comms in their mumble were like and what they were learning. Maybe they were learning some good things like when to push and how to go together, but is it worth potentially ruining the impression of the game for 5 people to give 5 other people the simple joy of getting carried? There's a lot of people who, at least as far as skills vs newbies go, don't have a not-main-class. There's plenty of people who are, say, a high-IM scout that also translate to a low-IM demoman. What is even the purpose of this distinction in this setting when the coaches are trying to crush as hard as possible?

Now let's say I was playing demoman to counter the other coach. This inevitably becomes a dick measuring contest of minimal benefit to the newbies. I do not feel like I would be a very good coach from this position since I would be focusing a lot of my attention on either A) killing as many enemy newbies as I can to keep my team in an advantageous position, or B) shutting down their coach to keep him from doing the same things unto us. Perhaps I'll play an offclass such as scout who I'm extra-bad with and have litte experience. Again, I find that I'm going to be using my mental resources to manage my unfamiliar circumstances and make sure I'm pulling my weight, or carry rather than coach. I find it difficult, and maybe even a little bit dishonest, to play without trying really hard to win. This is particularly true when the coach on the other team is clearly carrying them as hard and fast as he can. These are non-issues if the coaches are PLAYING MEDIC where playing your hardest is actually a good thing. If someone says of themselves that they're bad at medic and therefore can't play it while coaching then they probably shouldn't be coaching newbie mixes. "But what about all the medic newbies that want to play?" Honestly, they can just spec the coach. Of course playing is better than watching, but at least it's live and engaging and they can ask questions. But there's an even better way: The way it used to be done. Put the coaches into spectator and have them guide their teams from above. I've seen newbie mixes from long ago done this way and they seemed really good. I can't for the life of me understand why this method was abandoned.

TL;DR - Coaches too often dm-carry their teams instead of actually working with their newbies. Coaches should have to play medic, or (even better) be a spectator and guide their teams without being on the field with them.

Shoutout to pie_hero. I've watching him coach and he's so damn good and professional, it's heartwarming. Kudos to you!

Same exact thing pretty much happened to me the last two mixes I coached. Except there were TWO players on the other team that both had esea experience, weren't playing medic, and they weren't even the coach. It was a brutal slaughter and my newbies were absolutely destroyed. I told Noona about it afterward, and it wasn't 100% their fault, I just wish there was some way to prevent stuff like this.

Or that your sniper is good, or that they haven't seen the Sniper yet. All the Sniper needs is one kill to have made the offclass worth it. A pick on the Demo, Medic, or carrying Scout/Solly is net gain. Most Snipers make the mistake of waiting for a pick instead of going looking for one.

I'm not saying you need to explain all this to your newbies, or that you should be encouraging them to offclass frequently. I just wish you wouldn't immediately assimilate them into this tf.tv culture that believes Snipers can't kill anything on purpose.

#41,

I understand what you're saying, but most coaches aren't interested in playing Medic. It might be more efficient, but it's no fun for the coaches. DM differences exist at every level of play, so the newbies might as well get used to it here.

Thatis exactly what happened in my first mix, the coaches shouldn't dm. It's really that simple. A lot of coaches focused on winning instead of actually just teaching the people on your team how to play 6s.

And the fact the some coaches would taunt and be general assholes after killing people makes it worse. ALOT of these players are unfit to be coaches.

I don't want them to rob the newbie med experience for medics trying to get better but that's honestly the best thing you could really do, there's is also a lack of meds queuing up as well. Double coaching is also fucking retarded, when you have two mid open coaches playing frag classes it ends up just them coordinating with each other to play above the newbies. Burton was a great coach and the one I really only remember out of the three I had, the first match there were two coaches who were honestly fucking retarded.

A lot of this is just sort of rambling but honestly the admins think they are refining the way they are picking the coaches, but they aren't. They are missing the important points and over complicating things and slowly wringing the coaches dry.

A lot of what is being said has been an issue since the second week of doing newbie mixes, just check some of the older threads on this issue. Here is the biggest issues that I have seen and things that make me never want to coach

1) Often people will add up that have been playing esea for quite awhile to either troll, pretend they are the shit, actually I have no idea why. Basically, there needs to be more people that can kick/ban these idiots.

2) 'Coaches' will often spend too much time just trying to roll the other team by themselves. Spend less time DMing and more time teaching and, at the very least, play the same class as the other coach.

3) I have never liked the idea of having more than one coach on a team. If there is more coaches than needed just relax and wait. Better yet, go over some positioning/ general help with the newbies that are waiting.

I have more, but my food is burning, i'll edit later

What you're saying is incredibly high risk, and not good practice. If a sniper is far enough forward to be actively going for picks, then he's going to have one shot. After he takes that one shot (that's likely to be a hail marry shot in the first place) he's either going to get picked, or the other team is just going to push in because they have a sniper far forward and are essentially man down.

I'm just curious as to how multiple seasons of experience is what warrants being able to coach brand new players. I fail to see how mid open players are incapable of telling the combo that they should stand on right holding blands last, or that critheals are important, or that ubering scouts with an advantage is good. Many of the players in newbie mixes have barely played beyond pubs and lack even a basic understanding of comms, let alone tf2 metagame. I think even high open is a bit of overkill. The only glaring issue I see is people being given misinformation, but even at high levels there are differing opinions on how to play TF2.

Why does everyone behave as though it can't be done when justin spent all season doing it? I mean there are plenty of players that do it at every level but I don't see what more obvious and irrefutable evidence you need.

Sniper is a high risk, high reward option for defending/pushing last, breaking stalemates, and capitalizing on momentum. Pretending this hasn't always been true is just stupid.

I am not sure exactly what all was said here but I just want to point out that scouts would quite often off class to sniper. And the coaches were totally find with that. That's SO bad. Why would you let scouts do that in newbie mixes?

Coaches should be very strict when it comes to off classing beyond last points. Off classing to mid is a waste of time for both sides.

Because most players in mid open and lower don't know how other classes work or what every player should be doing. Sure they'll know where to stand and hold but pushes and midfights or general tips like "Im doing ___ should I be doing something different?" they'll only know the answers to if it's about their main. The same is seen when most people swap classes for the first time. If I was new, I would rather have someone teach me than just tell me where to stand.

Justin is considered one of the best snipers, that's how he makes it work. Not everyone, especially noobies are that good at sniper.

A lot of these players don't know how to teach and just are generally not very respectable. In a sense they are still learning the game themselves, that's fine. But a lot of people just suck at interacting with people who don't know what they're doing. So pretty much a lot of the coaches are just bad at teaching, and interacting with people out of their element, no matter how many season of open they have.

I like to think I'm pretty good at teaching and have a good enough understanding of TF2 but I don't coach because there are certainly people out there who are a LOT better than me and I'd feel best if I was paired up with another coach who can catch anything I might make a mistake on.

Suggestion: On days there are enough coaches, have 2 coaches per team. One combo/demo coach, and one flank coach.

Hello everyone~

Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention; Prior to this thread, I was unaware of the mass amounts of misfit coaches, only in small groups, where I immediately tended to the issue(s). This response is going to clarify some things about getting coaches, coaching, solutions for the future, and the other topics addressed in this thread.

Since I am one of the newer faces in the tf2 competitive community, I cannot recognize good to bad coaches as easily as others can. As a former newbie, I trust the coaches that have provided me with good advice, improving my game. These are the coaches I will refer to when appyling a new coach. Ex: Marxist, Phrakture, Pie_hero, Dobb, Reilly, etc... To become a coach you must have a MINIMUM of a GOOD (meaning a positive W/L) AND to be approved by one of the coaches above. There is a 'Newbie Mix Coaching Guide' for newer coaches that wish to improve on their coaching here: -> http://pastebin.com/Np2FKihm <- Big thanks to dobb for putting this together! This will take care of the issue of inexpereinced coaches, and if this problem persists in the future, more precautions will be taken.

To improve the coaching process: We will now restrict coaches to the pocket or medic and only a last resort to demo. This will eliminate the coaches ability to 'carry' their newbie team by solely dm'ing it out. One thing that all coaches have to keep in mind during mixes, is that the pugs are not meant for your team of newbies to win; they are meant to teach the newbies to the best of the coaches abilities.

We will no longer have two coaches per team. Having two coaches per team, putting one on the combo, and one on flank, is not an enjoyable experience for newbies, since the coaches dm are often greater than that of the newbies.

TL;DR - We are improving the overall quality for newbies and coaches, and regulating coaches and the coaching process. If you have any further feedback or questions, respond on this thread or add me here: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Groovy_Noona/

We will no longer be having scout/roamer coaches, and only if it is absoloutely needed, demo. In your situation, that was bad on the drafter's job for not putting both coaches on similar classes, and I apologize for unpleasant experience. Coaching in spec is what the older newbie mixes have done, but many coaches want to be playing along side with their newbies, since it may be boring for the coaches in spectator. If there are any coaches that wish to coach in spec, please tell me and we will pair you against a coach that wishes to do the same.

I think your approach in changing problem areas is great, however, I think removing all coaches on flank will work great except for those on the flank. Having a roamer or scout coach can sometimes be a good thing, especially when the flank is the least experienced. I think the better solution is to find people that you trust that will not try to carry the team with better DM and teach when to move in, when you're being baited, when to bait, etc.

While the combo or demo will know that the flank is down, they will not really completely know HOW the flank went down

Noona, thank you again for running these and being so committed to improving the quality and providing the best possible experience for everyone involved. It's really good to see that there are people working to make these better.

I dont even let my teammates offclass

No.

That already happened. Having 1 experienced roamer and a coach to deal with on a flank alone as a scout is a terrible experience. And the coach babying someone on a flank is pretty stupid.

I got paired up with people who don't know what watching a flank really consists of, so often they weren't around when a coach and a roamer would come through flank with buffs an essentially out dm me as I was alone.

Do not put coaches in Scout/roamer/demo.

Thank you noona for listening to everyone's bitching.