If you have instructional or educational stuff, reviews and so on then if you submit them to training.tf I'll probably include them in the index

Yeah I noticed that it wasn't that readable a while after I posted it, as said above you can read it with the titles clockwise from top right. The global whitelist sometimes pops up ahead of some of the more similar compromise options but is usually less favoured, the shorter whitelist is almost always the most voted for.

It's probably reasonably representative with consideration needed for likely selection bias, and the fact the options presented may not have been given careful enough consideration.

This one? http://www.teamfortress.tv/41065/unlock-survey-results

Yet another fucking survey results thread, last one though I promise

The questions were a choice between a few different whitelists that gradually reduced the numbers of unlocks, but only one of them really cut some of the most controversial unlocks. The survey wasn’t perfect, but it still contains some useful data.

EU outvoted NA in this survey by about a 4:3 ratio and there are some differences between the two regions in voting. Anyone interpreting these results themselves should probably try to take this into account.

The full results

http://i.imgur.com/fNfay6y.png

There is significant support for a much shorter whitelist, but as I marked on the graph it’s also the only option for anybody that wants to cut the most controversial unlocks, so some people who feel passionately about getting rid of those were probably pushed into this option.

There was probably room for an additional whitelist option that cut all the most controversial and had a more generous whitelist for other items, which might be why all these options suck has a decent showing.

Also the current global whitelist is receiving very little support, there is clearly a significant appetite for some change to remove a significant number of items, and even taking into account the possible flaws in the survey design it’s clearly pointing in the direction of a significant number of bans.

Regional Differences

http://i.imgur.com/NP6LFZK.png

http://i.imgur.com/fDYYsGh.png

The EU in general has a more hardline approach to the whitelists, significantly preferring a much shorter list and getting rid of things like crossbow, vaccinator, etc. NA still supports that option the most, but the balance of power is clearly closer to a less draconian whitelist option overall.

One thing to note is that the proportionate differences between the regions aren’t shifted around evenly, support for the intermediate whitelist 7182 is roughly the same - NA has a lot more support for both the status quo and a more permissive whitelist with just a handful of least popular unlocks removed.

The reasons for this are unclear, but it’s possible that the league fees in ESEA are something that discourages troll play a bit so maybe they aren’t exposed to it to the same degree.

http://i.imgur.com/7tRT4T7.png

The “Other” group regional group is relatively small, but very very strongly in favour of reducing the whitelist heavily.

There is also a difference in how NA and EU approached the idea of voting for the greater good

http://i.imgur.com/V1fODWC.png

NA had a higher percentage of people voting on the basis of the good of the game rather than simple gameplay considerations, but the majority in both scenes still voted on gameplay considerations.

A matter of principal

One of the survey questions was about voting motivation, were people voting for gameplay, for the greater good, or for a laugh.

http://i.imgur.com/ksMd3h0.png

People voting on what they think is the greater good are much more likely to pick a broader whitelist, support the current global whitelist, and much less likely to want to have a very restricted whitelist.

This doesn’t mean that everyone in this group is more in favour of the current whitelist, there is still a majority in favour of larger cuts to the whitelist, but there is a clear over representation of more permissive lists amongst those that are voting for reasons beyond just gameplay.

http://i.imgur.com/a4TYRaw.png

People voting purely on gameplay considerations were much more in favour of a heavily reduced whitelist, with the current whitelist’s support dwindling to nearly “all these options suck” levels.

One thing both types of voter were united on was a solid 7% thinking all these options suck.

The casual view?

http://i.imgur.com/3IBXoU7.png

Players that self identified as using a pickup or matchmaking service rather than league play weren’t heavily represented in the survey, but they were more supportive of the current whitelist than any other group I’ve looked at, and more likely to think all these options suck… which is still a vote against the status quo.

To be honest it really just looks like they don’t have a strong identity as a group, and there’s no really strong overriding opinion about what these players want although the sample is small.

Unfortunately the "New to league play" group was too small to offer a significant opinion

Conclusion

There is a clear desire across all groups to move away from the current global whitelist. I did try to structure the survey in a way that didn’t undermine the current whitelist unfairly, but there was probably room for another whitelist between the medium one and the heavily cut one I presented that also removed some contentious unlocks that maintain some support.

There is about as broad of a consensus as can be expected that some of the most disliked unlocks have to be removed, things like Jarate, Natascha, Pomson, etc, regardless of actual use. There is considerable support for getting tougher and removing a lot of other stuff as well, but the point it becomes contentious is when you start removing cow mangler, crossbow, etc.

The item voting would suggest that amongst the low hanging fruit of unlocks I only removed in the most extreme list would be things like the Cow Mangler and Vaccinator. The crossbow would of course be the biggest point of contention, and maybe something those that want a heavily reduced whitelist might be expected to compromise on as it’s the most controversial unlock that has overall positive support.

Ultimately this schism isn’t going to go away until Valve makes their own matchmaking offering compelling enough for it to not matter, if ever. In the meantime admins are going to have to navigate this difficult territory, hopefully this data is of some help.

No shit. The point is that some of the hyperbole used when castigating the unlock is apparently completely mitigated by the availability of an ammo pack every 20 seconds, which says something about the reliability of unlock discussion alone.

I blame nuze

It's interesting that such a small practical consideration overcomes all the other protests about the weapon being random, gimmicky, etc.

Crusader's Crossbow

http://i.imgur.com/qJ4ahe0.png

This one gets a lot more support in EU, both regions are generally supportive of the unlocks, but EU almost has it on classic status while NA is merely OK with it on average.

When you take into account possible variance of the results for this unlock (which are high because it's contentious) there is a moderate chance total NA opinion is actually negative. EU opinion almost always remains positive though.

I thought I'd provide a bit more insight into some item voting patterns

Vaccinator

http://i.imgur.com/WewdJ14.png

The interesting thing here to me is that players that identify themselves as playing many classes are most strongly against it. Scouts tend to be most strongly against everything and medics the most permissive so those differences although marked are predictable.

There are also some regional differences

http://i.imgur.com/S0LbUoO.png

NA aren't nearly as anti-vaccinator as EU, so I suppose it's understandable that it's EU players that are surprised by the Vacc not being on the most contentious/unpopular unlocks list. Could this be down to there not be a Lowpander equivalent in ESEA?

Cow Mangler

http://i.imgur.com/pkAb5uh.png

This is both a little more unpopular and a little more controversial in NA than in EU. Although both regions are slanted against it you can blame EU for supporting it just enough to find safe harbour in some of my whitelists.

The class voting breakdown is in the original summary, if anybody has any solid insights into why Demomen are so in favour of this thing I would love to know.

From the perspective of a mass vote ETF2L almost have the ideal, in that they can get their members to vote and restrict it to active players, etc, but I'm not sure if the polls themselves can handle it. But the two things you'd need for a proper mass vote system are steam login and an access list of active players and there's a system development gap there that no one can be bothered to fill because it's not trivial.

So from a practical perspective you probably need to restrict it to captains or admins. If having an anonymous vote was important you could probably use a google form restricted by accounts or something, but otherwise collecting them by hand would work with that small a number.

Just for the record this survey isn't meant to be authoritative or binding, I haven't got the power or inclination to try to make it so. It's meant to get some real player's opinions in an unbiased way without pushing an agenda and get some real data about how unlocks are affecting player's experiences.

I don't think I've done a great job interpreting it as the Vacc and Cow Mangler stuff shows, but I'm not pretending that any kind of final decision is my job. If a league admin wants more of the data, or if a whitelist group want it, then I can provide it.

Bear, you are a treasure

The Vacc is just above the (admittedly somewhat arbitrary) threshold for being banned. Basically it's unpopular but it's score would round up to average so it's just scraped into the "meh" group. There is scope for a couple more middle ground whitelists that would do away with a load of other unpopular items but I didn't want to just keep making loads of them.

The ones I've put up for voting are pretty clearly differentiated so maybe there's scope for a 2nd round where some finer judgements can be made.

Edit: if the Misery Index wasn't restricted to items below the score threshold for hitting the average score sanctuary area both the Cow Mangler and the Vaccinator would be on it. I'll add that to the description... not sure if they should be off the worst offenders whitelist though as they do have some support and their scores are within a standard error of being fine.

Marxist surely?

Yeah if I've obviously fucked things up but it looks like the direction you like then please use your discretion :) Nothing here is binding.

Edit: Looking at it again it's possible I missed the Escape Plan off the original survey. This is obviously universally used and not controversial so I'll generate a new whitelist and stick it on and edit stuff accordingly.

WTF why?

There are some unlocks that are never used and add nothing to the game - the voting proves it. So do we ban or allow? No harm no foul right? By combining utilisation rate and low scores we can come up with a WTF score for each unlock. There are a shit load of candidates here so I’ll just give you the top 10:

Sun-on-a-stick
Panic Attack
Sharpened Volcano Fragment
Candy Cane
Neon Annihilator
Manmelter
Third Degree
Mantreads
Baby Faces Blaster
Holiday Punch

Of these only the Baby Face’s Blaster has an actual mechanic anyone cares about, as it appeared on the Ban This Filth list. Even though it’s considered bannable, nobody uses it. The Sun-on-a-stick was listed as one of the most controversial unlocks - why would an item with no appreciable effect on the game that nobody uses arouse such polarised voting patterns?

http://i.imgur.com/ywsPLVi.png

The answer of course is that it lies at the heart of the great philosophical debate in unlocks and 6v6 - why allow pointless shit when it can only be used to fuck up pugs, troll your team and generally make everybody’s day worse? The answer is that those players are just going to offclass to spy or pyro and generally Sideshow things up anyway, right?

It’s a difficult point to talk around, and I think this is partly caused by selection bias. I would hypothesise that people who feel strongly about this particular argument have over represented themselves in this survey. The controversy about things like Cow Mangler and the Crossbow are real and different because those unlocks get a lot of use.

The controversy over the Sun-on-a-stick is a philosophical debate between a point of view that promises unspecified benefits if we allow it and better quality play right now if we don’t, frequently by people who claim to have insight into the pubber’s mindset or Valve’s mindset and claim it for both sides of the debate.

These sides aren’t organised and they will often sway based on playing experience, but there is a weird tension amongst respondents on these unlocks that see almost no play and have minimal effect on the game.

My only comment is that whitelist decisions made along these lines by the 6v6 community have very little importance to Valve. That’s not the same as saying they don’t care, but where a competitive scene’s opinions meets with the game design that created a fun item that is very low powered, that isn’t a place where productive data emerges.

Other bits

Generally speaking there was little difference between EU and NA on whether most unlocks should be allowed, but there were some exceptions. The main sources of intercontinental beef were:

Battalion’s Backup: EU thinks it’s sort of good, NA thinks it’s very average
Iron Bomber: EU thinks it’s good, NA thinks it’s on the verge of greatness
Quickiebomb Launcher: EU think it’s sort of good, NA thinks it’s very average

So if anyone wants a knock down drag out fight to settle this great divide of the western hemisphere, the battle lines have been drawn.

Also respondents that identified as Medics were almost always the most permissive group on allowing unlocks.

Conclusions

>>>>>>>> tldr right here folks <<<<<<<<<

There are a few different options as a result of this dataset:

• Continue with the global whitelist as it is
  
• Modify it to get rid of the worst offenders, but keep a generally permissive attitude - no harm no foul http://whitelist.tf/7181
  
• Keep a permissive attitude, get rid of the worst offenders but also ban controversial unlocks that are used frequently - equal rights http://whitelist.tf/7182
  
• Hack it right back to keep only the cream of the crop unlocks, no controversial items - unlock purification http://whitelist.tf/7185
  
• Ban everything, unlocks never happened, give me my grenades, stickies and rockets back

And I’ve made a follow up survey. It’s really short!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10FrzunEPluz9T6rA60hvNlQcsVefTcGIAypR56DAZJc/viewform

Edit: "Should this be allowed" scores can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RVB75GeIWg9VjLiSR8V-mts0C3pQPaUD9NCIxBwdAJA