So where are all the logs all these lobbies/matches should have generated? Which weapons were banned most often?

Yes. Easily GOTY 2013, probably best game I was interested in I've seen the last couple of years.

Some that afaik haven't been mentioned much:
Kula World (still a strong PS1 puzzle game nobody's made a remake for yet)
Puzzle Dimension (spiritual successor to Kula World by largely the same guys)
Theme Park, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper 1&2, Fable 1 (all the Bullfrog/Molyneux games before he got terrible)
Age of Mythology (aka the real AoE3 - super underrated, gameplay imo better than AoE2 in all the ways I care about)
Scribblenauts games, esp. Unlimited (some of the few entirely stress-free games)
Netstorm (one of the first online PC games, still unique concept)

Popular but I still highly recommend them:
Warcraft 3 (it hasn't aged badly and its custom maps are still better than Starcraft 2's)
Torchlight 2 (has been better than Diablo 3 from the start and is only getting better with more and more mods coming out)

I think making last points cap faster would just make games slower. Badlands already caps ridiculously fast.

To quote an old ranty post of mine:

To elaborate if the mapper came up with a fun layout for last that turns out to be quite defensible and spammy after playtesting, he could tweak the capture time to be faster so any player who comes through can cap. Alternatively he could just make the point less spammy and narrow.

From a spectator standpoint a team almost managing to cap but falling just short is exciting. In Badlands cap progress recedes so slowly you're now thoroughly boned and have to park 1+ players right on it who aren't allowed to move or dodge properly.

You're also making it very hard for the defending team to push out again. If they always have to have to be afraid of a backcap they can only try to cap 2nd back if the enemy team wipes. By the time 2nd is captured the enemy players are probably nearby again and now only have to deal with half your team on 2nd because the other half just started moving out of last.

I'm not entirely against backcaps but they shouldn't be this dominant a strategy. 2s capture time is insane. Sometimes it's capped despite stickies because there's still some capture progress on it and the Demo couldn't even react. Even 4s would already be much more reasonable. Generally you probably want to design the room so that anyone in it can still get back onto the point if a Spy manages to uncloak on it. The defender would still have to stay back but could at least stay closer to 2nd to help out if needed. Also gives the two players some space to dodge around and have a nice 1v1.

Ya 400 USD is like 300€, not 400€. Huge difference

Just want to repost this so it doesn't get buried in these long off topic posts I shouldn't have incited, sorry

Not on forums. Just have had bad experience with what players said ingame/right after playtests.

Yeah, that is where the terms came from. Somebody saw that interview, heard Walker casually drop these throwaway made-up terms to explain a more complex issue, posted it on SPUF, constantly repeated it in threads and over time people thought the terms actually had a deep meaning.

Well they don't. Have never once seen anyone able to define them. By the logic of most explanations, Scout is less of a "generalist" than Sniper but you won't hear anyone admit that. Scouts can be countered more easily than Sniper. Just check out any pub or any HL game. That Scouts are super good in 6s is only because there are way fewer players than is standard.

Likewise "specialist" only means the class is, on average, simply less viable an option. It's more an excuse comp likes to use to explain away underpowered classes than intended design.

But that's off topic anyway and I agree with the rest of #540

Unfortunately the comp scene also isn't exactly known for accepting new maps. Especially not ones with gimmicks. The fact most "new" maps being discovered by UGC lately are like 2-3 years old is symptomatic of that. There are tons of maps that have never been given a chance.

Even the recent cp_harbour, a pretty normal 5cp but with a water canal under its 2nd point (think of cp_well's), was made fun of because "water is dumb". Despite it being a completely optional 4th route.

On top of that there's Quickplay not allowing any custom maps and mappers not getting any money for their work when adding a single hat gives you thousands of dollars

Looking at some new thing for one second without even seeing it in action, then immediately declaring it's imbalanced.

Your knee-jerk reaction is what's relevant to this thread. :V

I dunno what all these theorycrafting/complaining posts are for anyway. The whole point of this is to get everyone to actually use the weapons. Play with them. Try to figure out some pick/ban system that's interesting. Don't go into a game already thinking "oh I have to play against Minis and Pomson that's so dumb". Please give them all a chance.

Upon seeing this I immediately started putting down my thoughts so sorry for rambling a bit. These are my initial thoughts:

How does researching which items are most banned tell you what's genuinely overpowered or not fun? Going by bans instead of objective ingame effectiveness is going by the "flavor of the month" and will lead to testers demanding like 10+ bans every match because they're not using to playing with/against dumb weapons. Justified or not this isn't what Valve wants.

It also completely ignores the opposite extreme - items that will stay forever unused because of how weak and hard to use they are. You won't automatically get more variety by limiting the number of bans because if there's only a handful bans they will be the same bans every match. And sometimes it won't increase variety at all because of how similar the existing items are.

I hope Valve is secretly collecting the data logs of all these tests and goes by general effectiveness instead. Because items will need to be rebalanced if you want more variety. Bans and picks can't achieve that.

That said it has to stay more casual than comp is at the moment if you want any significant amount of players to get into it. You'll also probably have to offer rewards for using the new ingame lobby system (read: hats). Losing a match because a teammate had to leave shouldn't be an issue, more of a minor inconvenience.

You may be able to force more variety by applying a pick/ban system to a varied metagame, sure. But I don't believe TF2 comp's current metagame is varied. Bans right now would only restrict players further instead of encouraging them to do cool new things. There have to be multiple viable options for each slot before it makes sense to do this. Yes I do believe players have to be forced to accept and utilize new strategies too. However the majority of currently existing items has been around for long enough, tried for long enough for us to be confident in saying there is no hidden potential there.

If you want things to be less stagnant, why not reward players for using less orthodox items? Have a list of mini-achievements, CoD-style, so that players have an incentive to try other weapons. It doesn't have to be more complicated than "get x points with this item equipped/by using this item". Then a checkbox is marked and when you reach a milestone you get a hat. (Making players use the new items and learn what to do with them was what the class unlock achievements were for back when Valve added them together with the items, too.)

More casual players would have a relatively easy early goal to strive towards while getting used to the more competitive environment. And instead of getting moments of "but I really only like this weapon, why is it banned *disconnects*" you'll get "well I could use the stock RL here but I still have to get 50 Black Box points".

More variety by incentive rather than force is a good thing at the start. And then when players are at a higher level you can apply your pick/ban system. I'm not sure it makes sense at the lowest levels though. If you imagine 18 casual players getting into a HL lobby (that's the goal of this after all), would they really know what to ban? It would lead to unnecessary strife more than anything.

Well on PC there's a fan-made Zelda engine:
http://www.zeldaclassic.com/

That only applies to competitive though. If he's only balanced because he's limited to 1 then he has to be too strong once more than one is allowed, right? 2 Demomen are stronger than 2 Soldiers or 2 Scouts? The comp format fixes the imbalance but the class itself isn't balanced. (Assuming he really isn't. Not stating anything.)

oh so the guy who went too far with the whole "threatening a kid and his family" is also on the team currently accused of winning matches thanks to DDOSing multiple times?

what are you doing comp community

Oh, one thing I do wanna say though - stop whining about maps during casts. You're not the worst offender, a lot of casters do it, but none should. "This map is so bad and stalematey and I don't like it" is not a thing you should be saying.

I realize ctf_haunt provoked this but it really shouldn't matter. Talk about literally anything else instead of saying "oh Barnblitz last is too hard to take" over and over. Don't undermine the competitiveness of the game you're trying to present.

If there's something I know about TF2 commentators in general it's that the "professional" and "educating" ones like Shibby are terribly boring

You say you're goofy but this isn't golf, it's an esport. Compared to other casters in other games I've seen like especially Day9 (who's gotten a bit too casual and thoughtless lately but yes do check out older vids of his) you're doing just fine. Even "professional" TotalBiscuit goes on tangents and has silly mannerisms

If anything a TF2 caster needs to be more goofy than SC2 or Dota 2 casters simply because of the game's atmosphere and the fact there's less pretentious unintuitive strategy talk to be had