The match vs froyo last night had more stalemates than my entire previous week of games (including the bo3 vs epsilon in our showmatch). The majority of posters in the update threads want slower gameplay, and that's what they're going to get.

Personally, I'm disappointed with the recent patch. I was enjoying coming up with new ways to defend in transition fights as well as new ways to push without uber, but now we're back to the same old uber gameplay. However, the sticky nerf significantly increased the skill cap of roamer, so I'm a bit biased.

Can't wait for scrims tonight! My first impressions of last night's games were that teams had to be a lot more intentional with positioning and teamfights generally drag out much longer. Shifting a team's spam capabilities to 75% demo/25% soldiers to more of a 50/50 spread is really interesting considering roamers are still the best class to have on flank. It's also very interesting to see how teams manage their heals now, as scouts are generally still the best to get pocketed during these drawn out fights.

Midfights are one of the biggest changes now. Feels like 2009-2010~ era midfights, although mids were headed that way before this nerf regardless. Demos are now commonly putting up carpets or traps and sitting on them unless they're running the targe, in which case they can get pretty creative with how they want to approach midfights (use the shield tanking ability to charge in, or play the spam game with the damage reduction?)

I think lots of demos will probably shift to targe/SR depending on their playstyles. This is the biggest change to a comp class since gunboats were unbanned and completely changed roamer's playstyles, and I expect this change to do the same to demo. Lots of soldiers quit over gunboats, and the same will happen for the new demo class. Attempting a reactionary "promod" (or tftrue cvar) is the fastest way to kill the game, and I hope that no league actively implements it.

FIRST RESPONDERS REPORTING TO ME THAT CHAIN DETTING STICKIES DOES 60 DAMAGE ON DIRECTS

All of the unlocks I listed are extremely situational. Seriously, in what game are forward engineers teleporting back to spawn, or spy unlocks ever going to be a problem? They might come into use once a game, but they have almost no reason to be banned. People could come up with some interesting strategies for them.

In the Persian Persuader's case, I think it'd be an interesting sidegrade on process mids to get another +20hp from the ammo pack if a demoman was struggling versus an enemy gunboat's rollouts. If a demo combined it with the booties, maybe they could actually skip their health pack entirely while pushing the enemy demoman with the health increase.

This sort of strategy is not a gamechanger. If people want to spend time coming up with creative ideas relating to these items, they should be allowed to.

are you real?

LC is really good on viaduct and a slight upgrade on most midfights, and a decent downgrade everywhere else. On certain areas on maps it gets ridiculously good (spamming out of granary garage into yard, for example) but it's rare to be in those situations for very long.

I'm a huge fan of unlocks, so here are my thoughts on the CEVO whitelist:

I feel like there's a pretty big amount of unlocks that are currently banned that don't have any meaningful impact on the game, but maybe some people could find some niche uses for them.

Examples: Persian Persuader, Holiday Punch, Southern Hospitality, Eureka Effect, Diamondback, Enforcer, Spycicle (might have forgotten some)

There's a few weapons I think most people would argue over but I'd like to see:

1. Liberty Launcher. If a soldier gets really good with directs with it, it'd probably be a cool sidegrade. I'm clueless as to how good this weapon really is though, so I might be completely off.

2. Powerjack. If a team somehow manages to run full time pyro, they'd probably be better off with a scout or soldier. It allows for some creative mid strategies, and if a team wants to spend the time experimenting with those over more standard mids, I think they should be given the option, especially when they would be at a disadvantage afterwards.

Going to be interesting to see how ping plays out for the first time since season 5. I still remember coL dominating the scene for 3-4 seasons straight while having three players living in Dallas with 5 ms. I feel bad for blaze&dummy.

It's not really surprising to me though, if open players have no interest in improving and reaching the higher levels and consider the large ESEA prize pools out of their reach - then why play in it? Go play in CEVO and enjoy the lower fees. Just don't be acting like it's somehow consequence free, or its somehow for the "growth of the game". You're choosing to ditch the league that gave NA TF2's its first equal playing field. If the community at large is no longer interested in supporting high level play, then so be it.

However, I'm pretty worried about a community that is choosing to withdraw its support for high level play while simultaneously directly competing against the 10x more popular casual format + league (Highlander, and UGC). I'm not sure if CEVO will be able to hold up against UGC in the long term. Personally, I think I would rather play Highlander.

There's a few spam angles that are only possible with the original. I used this one everytime my medic was climbing spire on badlands:

For this reason alone I think it's objectively better.

I also think it's better for the current map pool's corners. Lots of people think it just equalizes out since you're better at some corners and worse at others, but it really doesn't. Some corners matter a lot more, like peeking top when defending badlands last. It's way easier to peek that with the original than the normal RL. I actually went through most maps and figured I should swap to left-handed models, but decided against it since I valued the spam angles + easier pogo routes with the original.

https://mega.co.nz/#!hI01xCYZ!V_ORU2fTepj05vK1nkKt43mKV0ZOW1jOz9QU2KOhW7Q

put me in coach

I doubt banning the quick fix will make the stalemates go away. When two teams close in skill really want to win, someone is gonna park the bus. It's the best way to play TF2. This is only going to become more and more common as time goes on. It's the endgame of TF2, and it sucks.

From a player's perspective, it was way, way more intense to play with quick fix than without. Everything felt like it took a lot more skill. Medics had to properly RJ with their pockets, pockets had a ton more decisions to make (do I use this QF uber to full heal my team, do I RJ through the enemy team to pinch them with my flank, etc), demomen had to be a great deal more aware of their positioning (since a combo can just double RJ to you at any time), and scouts had less buffs to work with.

The old game is completely stale compared to what the quick fix offers. I was considered to be the best pocket in the game when I was playing in s13, and I can tell you right now that in the old metagame, I did not have to make a single decision. I can teach anyone to play as well as me with a fucking flowchart (assuming they had the required dm). That's sad.

We have a single match that ends in horrible stalemates, and suddenly the community thinks that this is unusual and blames the quick-fix when it's a map issue. Did any of you watch i46 where mix^ vs LG at i46 ended 1-0 after 30 minutes? How about this season, where we could have parked the bus after being up 4-2 vs trihards, but chose not to since it wasn't lan? Or maybe the season before with fully torqued vs HRG? Please remove gullywash.

We're going from entirely new ways of pushing where almost everything about the game is changed and stepping back into an old metagame where a "big change" is suiciding 4 players instead of 2, all because of a kneejerk reaction to a single game played at lan. I hope the community thinks about the long-term effects of banning significant unlocks and the precedent it could set for future ones. I want to see a truly evolving game.

While Trihards is struggling to make flights with two canadian players and a questionable placement at ESEA lan, you're using your sponsor's money to hang out in europe AFTER i49 lan, and you still have the balls to ask the community for donations?

Disgusting.

Isn't HRG the team that, in post-game interviews, was claiming the new quick-fix was still garbage and shade would "never run it"? We start running it for the past two weeks, and suddenly HRG members start showing up posting about how new unlocks mid-season should be banned? You're all a bit late. The decision was already made when it was legal for lan-deciding matches (rip mad men).

The quick-fix places a lot more responsibility on your combo than the rest of your team. It works for us because we were already a team that was based around our pocket. Every other team in invite (with the exception of AG) places a much greater emphasis on their demoman, so we're just taking our playstyle even further by giving our combo more power. It's a different way to play, but it's not necessarily better. We're still not even that good with it, considering it has so much potential. I can't wait to see how teams will end up using it next season.

This won't happen because AG is going to FFW Top Guns tonight instead of rescheduling. :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hXCQyVYN6s&hd=1