2nd person to post in this thread volunteers to aggregate the information therein so Valve has one post to read. Thanks in advance, I don't have time or energy to monitor a thread like this every day.

Edit: It's OK to make posts like "It's frustrating to play against x because..." as long as they're logical and concise. That's important feedback here, too.

#483 Enigma asked that question to me and I relayed it to Robin yesterday. Robin agrees that 6v6 can work for the same purpose as long as some game-by-game item balancing system is in place.

After-Action Report.

Make sure you use the "Notes" section for collecting player feedback, like how much fun they thought it was or wasn't.

Let's use Dox's template for feedback in this thread based on the PUGs you have played.

-----

Who played:
--Blue:
----Scout: [div/name]
----Soldier: [div/name]
----Pyro: [div/name]
----Demoman: [div/name]
----Heavy: [div/name]
----Engineer: [div/name]
----Medic: [div/name]
----Sniper: [div/name]
----Spy: [div/name]
--Red:
----Scout: [div/name]
----Soldier: [div/name]
----Pyro: [div/name]
----Demoman: [div/name]
----Heavy: [div/name]
----Engineer: [div/name]
----Medic: [div/name]
----Sniper: [div/name]
----Spy: [div/name]
When played: [dd/mm/yy hh:mm]
Weapon bans enforced:
Formalized outcome: [Red: X Blue: Y]
Things to keep:
Things to alter:
Notes:
[link to STV demo]

#273 They don't even link to streams in DOTA, apparently. They don't want to take the risk that someone is displaying something graphic or otherwise NSFW.

#161 Pudding Cup, your best bet is make a new thread here on the forums to collect feedback and after-action reports. We can get the word to the TF team to check that thread.

#110 I also like food and am going to go get dinner. Will be back to read and respond to stuff in an hour or two.

#111 That is definitely something to suggest. But by "playtesting" what I mean right now is, get some HL pugs running and just work through a pick/ban round with captains. Start tonight. Valve aren't going to send us the code for a dozen different systems, we simply have to field our own rules and refine them.

#103 Just about, yeah. The biggest thing they need from us is knowing where to start. If we can playtest a dozen different ways to implement a pick/ban system and provide detailed after-action reports to them, that will be a huge step.

No, they care about competitive. Specifically, they mentioned that in games where pub play is the same as competitive play, such as DOTA and SC2, all the top competitive players are very well-respected by the playerbase at large. What they want to see is a TF2 competitive format that is similar enough to pubs that it drives that same kind of respect - and more than just respect: emulation. They want people to be able to connect with the pyro who made backburner famous or the best force-a-nature scout in the world. That's why 6v6 doesn't fit the bill, and why banlists in general don't have the right idea. It has to be a player-driven balancing system.

A banlist just isn't the direction they want to take. They'd rather be able to rebalance weapons than just have some that are perma-banned. The UGC banlist is definitely a great place for them to start looking at rebalancing, I agree. Nonetheless, their idea is to make the competitive space more dynamic than it currently is because of their update schedule.

Hoping we can start hearing about some pick/ban PUG results in the next few days. If everyone comes back and says "hey we tried it this way and it sucked," that feedback is just as valuable to Valve as "we tried it this way and it rocked." The key point I'm trying to make is, less talky, more doey.

The competitive community's ideas are very important. One thing they stressed was that they didn't want to implement a pick/ban mode into their lobby system if all the official leagues like UGC and ETF2L used a different system than what was implemented. They want there to be one source of truth, and they want it to reflect what works best for us.

eXtine brought our WIP to show the TF team. We didn't get to watch it with them today but it's on their desk.

It's the full movie with credits WIP - basically we're working on tweaks at this point.

FOR THE RECORD - I did NOT use the term "boring" to describe 6v6 or Robin's reaction to it, nor did he. He likes the skillshots and the finely honed art of TF2. He just stopped watching because he finds metagame and strategy shifts to be more interesting to watch - and he is pretty heavily involved in DOTA.