London Underground from Heathrow to London Euston.

Train from London Euston to Birmingham New Street.

Train from Birmingham New Street to Telford.

Alternatively get a lift from someone. I'd offer but I can't promise anything at this point. If that changes I'll let you know :)

Positives = Streamers get money, Viewers / Fans can show appreciation for the hard work put in, Twitch gains more revenue from TF2 prompting possible further collaboration (nothing major just... you know what I mean).

Downsides = none?

So in conclusion, I say yes; it would be good.

More in Europe I'm sure :P

Can someone tell me what motivation Valve has to get public players interested in competitive TF2 as opposed to just playing the public game?

Public players play all classes, use all unlocks. They buy unlocks from Valve (maybe not that many, but they buy some). Valve makes money from them.

Competitive players play a handful of classes. We don't buy unlocks half as much, because we don't ever use them in our competitive game. Sure, we buy some keys, but so do public players so its a null argument. Both 'scenes' make youtube content and advertise the games so I can't really find a reason why they would prefer to concentrate their efforts on comp when they can focus on public.

The next point, is that we want Valve to stick a lobby system of some kind into TF2, but again, why would they do that if focusing their efforts on promoting the public game is more beneficial as they make more money from it. Valve is a business, not a bunch of nice people... They have limited man power and they need to focus their efforts on what keeps them sustained as a company.

The point of all of this is that if we are willing to work with Valve, maybe help their business model at the cost of changing our 6 vs 6 and highlander games a little... maybe they will throw us a bone, implement a lobby / matchmaking system in their game, and actually support the competitive element of TF2. They have already stated they are willing to work with us, but we still need to make them money and their revenue from TF2 since F2P is unlocks, hats, keys and other customizations. The public game uses all of those (so promoting all aspects of their store), if we can get the competitive game to do the same, there might be some interest in helping us out.

If Valve implement a competitive style system in the game, there is no doubt the competitive side of the game will grow. More viewers, more sponsorship, and all the other millions of perks to go with it.

But for that to happen, our 6 vs 6 (and highlander) product needs to change to suit their business model. The question is: Is it worth it or should we shun them and continue as we are?

No, we don't need player limit changes to change the meta game.

We wouldn't be trying to deliberately change the meta game. You're missing the point entirely.

6vs6 TF2 is fine how it is (to play), but there is no growth (or very little), there is no support (or very little), and it is pretty dull to spectate for anyone other than a current competitive 6vs6 player (or a few randoms).

That is a problem. Without growth, the game starts to die off. Without support, eventually the development team stop fixing things. We are lucky the public scene still makes Valve some money. While the game is dull to spectate, we will have little sponsorship and few offline events.

We have a chance here to rectify this situation. Valve has opened a door suggesting they are willing to work with us. We could get the developers support back. At the same time, if we can make a game mode that public players are actually interested in, and have it built into the actual game, assuming it promotes Valve's money making mann co store (see part about getting developers support), then we potentially get some growth in our competitive community.

Not only this.. but with public players playing a similar game to what we play, they will have more interest in spectating us to see how it's done. They will learn from us. At the moment they don't care how Clockwork uses a scattergun because they use the shortstop in publics. NOT ONLY THAT, but with more spies, snipers, heavies, engineers, pyros, public players have an increased reason to watch us, because they are some highly popular classes in public play! More spectators = better sponsorship = more exposure = more growth = potential for increase quantity and quality of offline events.

And the cost for all this?

We sacrifice a portion of the current game we are playing. A lot of it will still play similar, but it would be the biggest competitive TF2 change to date. Is it all worth it? I don't know... sadly I don't have a crystal ball. The actual return could end up being minimal, we might not grow, the new meta might be even more boring and stale. Maybe Valve don't give us the extra support we hoped for?

One thing is for certain though, and that it that TF2 is going nowhere in its current form. Stay as we are, or go for gold? Your move community!

As posted on another thread... I like to make visuals:

http://arxandbeta.com/images/lobbychoice.jpg

This just highlights that highlander and a new type of 6vs6 could be very similar games. They would kind of unite the scene as one is just, a smaller version of the other.

Public game is quite similar to 9vs9 highlander... but then 9vs9 highlander would also be quite similar to 6vs6 highlander. I could see public players wanting to play both.

I don't get why people think this whole discussion was about highlander?

Once a highlander lobby gets implemented it would be extremely easy to add a 6vs6 option with class limit 1. Just a little drop down menu or split screen on which mode you would want to play. As long as they are both quite similar, players would interchange to whatever suits them. Highlander can't kill 6vs6 TF2 because it's not a feasible LAN format.

You could even encourage our competitive style of play by making players pick the following classes for a 6vs6 lobby:

1 scout,
1 soldier,
1 medic,
1 demoman,
1 heavy,
1 utility (can change between the remaining classes).

Example:

http://arxandbeta.com/images/lobbychoice.jpg

Wrong.

It requires change and people generally dislike change. Think of when a new map is released. No one wants to play it at first, but after people are forced into playing it, sometimes they like it. The only reason why people try it is because it is forced on them.

Also, maybe highlander 6's aren't going to be as fun, but they sure as hell are going to be more fun for a casual pub player because they are allowed unlocks and playing as a utility player would mean they could use any class. It's also going to be much more fun for commentators and spectators.

A question is: Would it be worth slightly reducing the fun existing competitive players have in order to promote potential growth with competitive TF2? TF2 is going nowhere in its current format, so we can either sit here, stay as we are, or we can be proactive, take a risk that could potentially get the public scene, and the game developer on board in a game style that probably won't play THAT much differently to what we play now.

Worst case scenario, we revert back in the future and we've lost almost nothing.

Class limit 1 promotes more diversity.
Class limit 2 would be a complete mess.

I could see it now, 2 pain train demos, 2 pain train soldiers and 2 quick fix medics.

A 2 class limit would probably move further away from the public interest than 6vs6 currently is, as there would be literally no chance some of the rarer classes would be used (who would want a spy when you could have a second demoman?).

I've been saying that TF2 would work with CL1 in a 6vs6 format for a long ass time. The standard meta would probably evolve into a scout, soldier, demoman, medic, heavy and a utility player (covers sniper, spy, pyro, engineer). You would literally have a highlander game style but instead of a permanent sentry gun and always having to watch your back, you would just have one player dedicated to making these kind of plays.

It bridges the gap between public, highlander and competitive. 6vs6 could be classed as the more 'professional highlander' (no offense highlander guys).

It adds a million new strategies. Your utility player could run a spy to mid, sniper to mid, mini sentry, degreaser pyro. All of these are viable because you HAVE to run one of these classes, where as at the moment you have to sacrifice a more valuable class to try this which leaves you much worse off.

Honestly, unlocks wouldn't be a problem. People will be annoyed having to play against certain stuff at first, but they just need time to accept that it's part of the game (like this is actually TF3 and we don't get a choice to change stuff).

Once we start playing a system that is similar to the public game, promotes Valve's money making store, and has a VERY simple ruleset like, "1 of each class, anything else goes", then we can start persuading Valve to add a matchmaking system into their game.

I always figured you should use your ping to calculate your interp value.

So for example, if you have a 30 ping, you would use 0.03.
100 ping would be 0.1.

Still, it's all in people's heads. My shots hit or miss the same regardless of my interp settings. I've kept mine set to 0.01 for about 3 years.

http://youtu.be/nzgTM6ArASI?t=3m45s

You have to remember that this is public TF2, but played in a competitive style. There isn't going to actually be a main caller, half of the people aren't even going to have a microphone. But by selecting a captain pre-game, you automatically have some sort of leadership, at least for the bans. In most games it would be irrelevant inside the actual gameplay, but in some games, the captain getting the vote from his team mates could be a sign that they respect that player, and his voice might stand out above the rest making him kinda of like a main caller.

That's all I was trying to say.

What I do like however is a captain banning the weapons. Having some sort of chat box does mean that players could request a certain weapon to be banned, so the captain does get input from his team, but it means you vote for someone sensible to manage that side of things for you.

Thank you, it's the kind of post I wanted. Map choice before bans makes perfect sense for the exact reasons you listed.

As for one player banning 1 unlock, I'm not sure it's a great idea. Might get trolls banning a weapon you've said you wanted to use or something, where as with a captain vote, you will have voted for someone you 'trust' to pick the bans. Also by having a captain, it might also carry into the game with the captain playing a more... 'main caller' kind of role, which organised lobbies should have.

Ultimately we want a 6vs6 pub lobby format to aid in the growth of the 6vs6 game. Sure highlander is all fun and dandy, but you can't take highlander to LAN events. I don't know of a single major eSports tournament that has 18 computers setup on the stage ready for a grand final, not to mention the travel costs for teams of 9.

I think it's highly beneficial getting players into playing a competitive style of TF2, whether that is highlander or 6vs6 as that means they might have interest in watching other people play competitively, increasing stream numbers, sponsorship potential, and also just our competitive player base!

I'd personally like to see the efforts focused on promoting an in-game highlander lobby system over a 6vs6 one, however I do believe there needs to be an option for 6vs6 somewhere in there (maybe even with explained class limits but one designated 'utility player' who can change class in game to any of the other available classes). Some people will have interest in playing 6vs6, but maybe after they get into the competitive spirit of TeamFortress2, and I feel highlander is the better introduction to this side of the game for them.

My general idea was something like:

http://arxandbeta.com/pickban/
There are probably a million mistakes in there but I just threw it together as a start.

I personally think we should be building on something like that, working out how it's going to feature in the game. While I wrote it out for highlander, I would intend on there being some sort of 6vs6 option, maybe with class limits set, but highlander is the easier option to discuss at this point.

We need to workout how a pickban lobby system would actually work in TF2. Everything would need to be automated, simple to use for a beginner, and reasonably quick (people won't wait 20 minutes for games). In this design, I've just put together a random system that I'd expect people to build on. Like... talk about the downsides of this method?

I like it because you don't have to look through every unlock in the world (more will come too). It keeps things reasonably locked down, but every unlock does get featured at some point. Anyway, I won't ramble, have a look and come up with some ideas.