Objectively that isn't the case though, they've made a system that offers something that their new competitor offers to a minimal level of quality (it works), there's no clear change of direction to making the game fundamentally competitively focused though.

In this regard the changes to the casual format were far more significant and really looked like they might be trying to push something big, but the massive backlash and reversal of many of those changes probably points to the dev team reassessing their priorities and their confidence in the wider player base's willingness to change mindset.

Valve posts an update on matchmaking progress. Competitive TF2 forum comments on the impact on trading. What the fuck is going on.

Whether an unlock is "overpowered" is hardly the point, you're missing the subtlety of the argument. Many of these weapons have been around for years and are aimed purely at casual play and have literally no place in a competitive environment yet their effects are so strong that they have to be included. The situation has been tolerable because whitelist is a thing, but if Valve are committing to MM then that's no longer the case.

Purely fun mechanics or mechanics made to make up for the inherent randomness of pub play can no longer be strong enough to have an impact competitively and they simply have to do something about it, once again the parachute is fucking ridiculous in this regard, the vitasaw is another example.

They don't need to consider "balance" to do this, they have to commit to a competitive mindset - it is a completely different matter. They can include weird shit that is basically ineffective and players who just like to pub with odd loadouts can still do so. From a game design perspective that's both fine and necessary.

"Balance" isn't the key, it's about putting the skill of competitive play first. You can't have a no-whitelist MM without making those changes and have it taken seriously, it doesn't matter how many players you have or what ruleset, in fact changing them is probably a prerequisite for any format to work. Some items are simply too powerful for the low skill anti-competitive mechanic they introduce and you don't need to argue about balance to change them.

They don't come entirely from within though do they?

It's not completely out of the question. Valve have to consider what opportunities there are in the current environment, things are very different now to how they were when TF2 was released and it's presence in the current world, streaming, esports, etc is very low. They could take the time to develop a new IP like Blizzard did or they could revive TF2 which still has a very large player base.

Some things they've done seem encouraging but lack of activity on other fronts, particularly gameplay, is baffling.

Presumably rules and regulations would be arrived at by whatever supposed process will be in place to improve MM by whatever mysterious method. It would be nice if there was any evidence at all that they were actually doing it.

Funding wise and ROI it's mostly a matter of publicity targets in terms of stream views, social activity, etc. Judging from tftv Blizzard have acquired not only their competitive players but their already meagre viewing numbers despite Valve making global in-game announcements for i58.

Hardware and all that stuff just gets absorbed into their massive existing global server operations.

When Blizzard make a huge fuck up in Overwatch they act - hero limit 1 for example, grossly overpowered heroes receiving regular balance patches another. In other games if they make a fun mechanic that accidentally turns out to be really powerful in competitive they nerf it.

Having decided to make MM Valve have got a laundry list of huge competitive fuckups they made years ago that they're ignoring.

Releasing unlocks that negate a class's primary weaknesses for negligible penalties. Unlocks that remove significant skill considerations from the game, that reward playing stupidly, that ape a mechanical skill for free are all obvious candidates for reworking if they're taking MM seriously. The parachute is totally egregious. The lack of class limits is huge and completely untouched. There are queue number considerations for this, but failing to incentivise people onto ladder in enough numbers is also their fault. Give them a fucking hat.

Yes they have to ensure it remains accessible so a middle road between the hardcore skill intensive format we have and a more widely appealing format they will want so that new players can experience some success needs to be found, but they're not even trying to tweak gameplay and it's been months. The TF2 team isn't that small, it's not 3 people, there are enough to look at gameplay considerations.

The same appeal that supposedly outsider politicians are enjoying everywhere in the west. The financial crash of 2008 has left us with falling or stagnant living standards and nobody in the traditional political classes have any solutions to never ending austerity. The way is open for populists peddling easy answers and capitalising on widespread grievances on the right and left to make hay.

Where mainstream established politicians have grown complacent they've fallen to populist demagogues, Brexit, the British labour party, the Republican presidential nomination. Clinton wasn't complacent and used the political machine she had a significant hand in creating to secure her nomination - that's politics, but it's also a stick with which to beat her.

Everyone knows mainstream politicians are hopelessly compromised by industry and vested interests to the extent that in many minds the paradox that a business man would be cleaner because he is openly corrupt makes sense. It's cynicism manifesting to an extreme degree and it's dangerous, but there's nothing on the horizon that looks like breaking the cycle.

Guys, can't we just agree they're both politicians, sub-human scum who should be burned at the stake, and their dedicated follower cast from nearby high places? It would make things so much better for everybody else

This implies that Bell Pottinger were in some way a normal PR company or previously untainted by dubious political motivations. Nothing is further from the truth, they always have taken anybody's money to do anything, cover up human rights abuses, corrupt politicians, the list is endless and they are notorious for it in the UK. I'd say smearing Islamic extremists is on the more acceptable side of what they normally do. Maybe that's why it cost so much, not morally reprehensible enough.

NA only? Any suggestions on handling ping disadvantage/server allocation if not?

Every time anyone reports that they've been down there, except geel, they always come back with the same message

They have told us, they want to see numbers. Where those numbers need to show up we don't really know. My guess would be they want to see their ladder heavily populated and maybe overall player numbers going up in relation to that.

The ladder first release wasn't good, it's being improved slowly and it's not where it needs to be to be that successful yet. They have a shit load of background work to do to make those improvements, updating TF2 to the current steam server architecture, etc. So progress is slow, but I don't think they've ever done anything other than be clear it depends on engagement with the format. If the competitive game is compelling enough to get a lot of players they will support it.

You're right they've thrown us a bone but the only way it's manifested itself so far is legitimacy. Arguments about TF2 not being competitive, 6v6 not being a meaningful format, etc, have all melted away - they're in the game and that's it. Places like faceit are now moving to include TF2, ESEA have kept TF2 purely because of the MM announcement. People who think there have been no benefits, those things wouldn't exist right now without it.

Pretty sure shitty memes get quite a lot of traction on tftv too

How ironic