The "competitive environment" is barely changed at all with sandbagging teams involved outside of what number is in the standings or who wins in playoffs (usually).

What's being discussed is subjective and if someone for example thinks that low invite is advanced and top advanced is low invite then this post offers absolutely nothing because its taking for granted the premise that these are teams that do not belong and that the top of one div ought to be worse than the bottom of the next div.

In contrast while more sandbag-friendly posts obviously also have their biases about where to "draw the line" so to speak, when we talk about the benefits conferred on a div by having stronger opponents, easier transitions upwards with a more overlapping skill gradient between divs, less friction for returning to the game or making teams in general we're making arguments that hold true regardless of where you subjectively draw the line.

I'd care a lot less about the topic if the outcomes of what kind of sandbag action were taken was also subjective but they're not. On one side you have rules actively killing teams whereas the other side has what exactly? The boogeyman of some god team dropping two divs as an analogy for a mid-invite player dropping a div to mainclass on a friend team? Am I supposed to care?

at least they're real

Every season you can count teams that get restricted into death whereas these theoretical teams that quit because the 1st place team is now 3rd is completely fictional (now if were talking about complaining instead of quitting that's a different story)

unrelated to the thread but a few years ago TLR randomly added up to im/main pugs and that was a fun couple nights

I've played on a top advanced team and we nearly exclusively scrimmed advanced teams and we had a great playoffs run, genuinely where are you getting this opinion from

The reason these aren't equivalent is because a team in a div is facing 90% of the same competition regardless of if sandbaggers are allowed or not and the only change is 1 or 2 hard teams to play, whereas a team being forced up a div are facing a completely different competitive landscape that is nothing like what they wanted to sign up for
You can absolutely still tell sandbaggers to get good and move up but there's obviously a big difference

How are adv teams going to develop to an invite level if there are no invite caliber gatekeepers for them to compete against? Rather that just talking in platitudes why not look at the actual reality of how teams actually being prepared for invite means teams move up into invite? Invite caliber and advanced are not nor should they be mutually exclusive terms
Here's an example: season 7 grands was between a sandbagging donovin and a sandbagging gungon. What was the outcome? The 3rd place team dynasty became an extremely successful and exciting invite moveup team two seasons later.
Was this match any less prestigious than if yeti and death cult were culled in the pre-season? Is there any actual discernible loss of competitive integrity by letting people with invite success compete for top 3 adv? So why kill teams like these for the short-sighted goal of making invite stronger for 3 months while making the rest of adv far less capable of actually moving up by the end of the season?

double-posting because the more I ruminate on this the less I get it
what main player in their right mind is afraid to play this?

https://i.imgur.com/8hxiy9q.png

https://i.imgur.com/FozAP2U.png

This could just as easy be framed in the other way as move-ups thinking they're entitled to playoffs spots right away and trying to get placed better through rule semantics rather than demo reviews and practice, but that's obviously not the point
Speaking as someone who hasn't played on casual teams I think its bad for the game if taking a break after having any kind of placement success means that you'll get gigafucked if you ever try to play again and lowering such subjective barriers for making teams will straightforwardly increase the number of teams.
I really hate to just say "get good" because theres no way to not sound dismissive but for all your emphasis on competing and competition its not very healthy for competition if there are theoretical top teams that get simply voided out of existence because vocal complainers didn't want to compete with them. In fact sandbag teams so historically get caught up with by the end of the season that getting a 16-0 record in adv was considered a bad omen.

I actually can't wrap my head around fearing competing with someone who got third last season, that is like the most textbook example of a difficult and beatable team which is imo the gold standard of competition. Even if a 3rd place player would fit into the next div (which will vary season to season and case by case ofc), why not let the player pick? Wanting another shot at a div seems like a totally normal thing that a competitively minded person would do (and always have done)

i think the main problem with the approach for restrictions is the hard delineation between for example advanced and invite skill levels. Different teams exist because of different experiences their players want as well as their ambition. Some players want to grind and climb for more perceived prestige, competitive drive, etc. Other players want to play for fun with their friends and, since losing isn't fun, would rather be in the top half of a div; this includes previously ambitious players who want to return after a hiatus but don't care about improving anymore. And of course you can have people with various levels of ambition or tolerance for losing.

If the line between adv and invite is more blended, then the grind teams get more out of playing in their div because competition is stronger and the chiller teams are ironically more likely to move up because the transition is much easier if you can enter invite from top 2 adv and be comfortable rather than dead last permalosing. A less delineated cutoff makes room for the teams that want specific things to actually exist rather than get killed during signups
Advanced and invite are kinda bad examples since invite only being able to get teams from one direction means unwilling adv get vacuumed up, but what I said still applies here and especially does for the middling divs

yes all those friend/offclass teams that wanted to chill in adv and got forced into invite and totally lived is how we get stronger invite seasons. In reality if a team is dominant in a low div it's usually because they grinded for it in which case they are ambitious about tf2 and usually move up voluntarily.
Also in my opinion having circed jerks stay in a div for a long time is a good thing because they 1) bring congruity to the div across time, giving the div a character so that people who played it three of four seasons apart may have some connection or a similar experience and 2) become standards to compete against. It's extremely satisfying to see a gap get closed between your team and the div regulars across multiple seasons

all the americans are too scared to say it so ill have to say it: YES!

overrepresentation of ulmpst or is he just more tf2 guy than most?

that really sucks if it's true and it seems completely pointless also

goblin by cast heal is a good example. While this work clearly demonstrates skill as well, the extremely fast flicks and emphasis on pipe directs absolutely makes this work a flashy one that even laymen would be impressed by.

As time goes on more and more frag videos have been produced, and more and more of them have included flashy and skillful displays. As such, flashiness and skill can only do so much to make the quality of gameplay stand out. Frag videos may also consider sheer unlikeliness to be a factor as well. This has a double purpose of standing out amongst the rest of the genre but also as a means to catalogue the rare and unusual events that might happen during thousands of hours of competition. Ape Index by Zesty contains a few examples of this, including [2:46] and the clip afterwards. Unlikely occurrences may drop the viewer's jaw or make them laugh, but in either case they leave a unique impression on the work that authors and audiences often appreciate.

Finally, the authenticity of gameplay is also a consideration for quality. More value is placed on feats achieved in more impactful settings. For example, a frag video with impressive clips from pugs might not be treated with the same esteem as one selecting from matches, or playoffs, and so on. conorfish by conor features exclusively LAN clips over one weekend. The fact that this frag video is composed only of such elements contributes to its esteem and the restrictive timeline makes the clips featured more impressive than they might be otherwise. What might be passed off as a skillful frag video with mediocre pop music is instead a much anticapated, honest expression of an underdog who overachieved.

There is much more I'm sure I could say about frag videos, what they mean, and why they're important but as I'm sure you can tell I'm already over the character limit considerably. Overall, I think there are many ways in which the genre and medium as a whole can be challenged and pushed in new directions, and this medium is certainly important to our community. Frag videos are a perfect synthesis of competition, skill, aesthetics, and personal expression that mirrors the grassroots nature of TF2 competition, and I for one am absolutely excited to see where the medium goes next.

6v6 Team Fortress 2 has many different media outputs, from livestreams to forum posts to youtube discussion (subscribe btw). However, by far the most prolific and culturally impactful output of the competitive TF2 community is the frag video. Every player has watched a frag video, most players watched frag videos before even playing 6s, and many have created their own. I'd like to explore what makes this medium so substantial in the 6s community, what its conventions and standards are, and what is says about Team Fortress 2.

To start, what even is a frag video? Generally speaking, I would consider a frag video to be an edited compilation with the focus of showcasing authentic competitive gameplay. What do I mean by this? For example, ConeBone 69 in "Cone Bownage!" by Sleeplesslol is not a true frag video because the gameplay showcased is clearly inauthentic (more on authenticity later). Similarly, Competitive TF2 Can Be VERY Silly by Antoni is also not a frag video because gameplay is not the main focus but rather an accessory element, as is the case with many "clipdumps" or shadowplay compilations. Finally, sick pwnage frags by tf2worms is not a frag video because it is not a compilation, despite the fact that it indeed highlights gameplay through editing authentic gameplay; in this case ironically showcasing poor gameplay. Where this working definition fails, however, is in capturing the elements that make a traditional frag video. For example, [TF2] how to WALL HACK in INVITE 6s ON EVERY CLASS !! [working 2023] by gungon is indeed an edited compilation of authentic gameplay with the intent of highlighting said gameplay, but many wouldn't consider to to be a true frag video. While I disagree with that assertion we should talk about what makes a frag video feel traditional.

Perhaps the most important aspect in the editing of a frag video is music. Music selection is a multifaceted means of expression in a frag video which sets a mood and tempo for the gameplay, shares the tastes of the videos author, and provides a rhythmic framework to establish emotional weight to the footage featured, most often seen in a "beat drop" frag. For example, [1:40] in Team Fortress 2: Reptile Frag Vid by CyneroM14. A short, non frag video example of a less conventional beat drop being used is JUMPBUG by tomato tom which subverts standard practice of having the emotion punch come not with a kill, but simply an unlikely and skillful event (more on gameplay quality later). Even without a clear beat drop, music remains an essentially ubiquitous element of frag videos regardless of how much effort is put towards weaving the rhythm into the compilation in editing. A final such example being Advanced player Hone the Rat by Hone the Rat, in which the lack of rhythm and synchronization between the music and gameplay imbues this work with a stilted, unserious, almost mocking essence.

Music is only one element of artistic intentions expressed through video editing, and there is arguably an entire subgenre of frag video that uses heavy editing and custom assets to emphasize the footage, sometimes even in place of gameplay quality. A more traditional example of an edit-heavy frag video is refrigerator zeej pty ltd: in liquidation by cosmicvarietycash which blends 3rd-person smooths, filters, and overlays to create a punchy work almost embodying a ragtag group of underdogs with a clear aesthetic fingerprint.
One thing that I personally appreciate about this subgenre of frag video is that it can often achieve a dreamlike quality in which literal gameplay and mere setting are blended together, and nearly of mutual importance, uprooting what even defines a frag video. Environments [4K] by cyanic is a compilation featuring impressive and noteworthy plays at the highest level, and yet this work aims not to highlight such feats but rather lure the viewer into a kind of alternate reality wherein familiar events are taking place in completely foreign places. By introducing such traditionally-impressive frag clips among settings that are familiar and yet new, cyanic manages to tug at the very essence of TF2 competition rather than merely highlighting the specific events displayed.

These efforts can go even further. PLEASE STOP TYPING by nick_pvibes is perhaps not a frag video at all. This work is so assaulting to the senses that it is difficult to even discern if gameplay is occurring. And yet, a medic clasping his head through the view of a scope or an airborne soldier colliding with a pipe are such recognizable events that is still remains somewhat grounded. nick is clearly testing the limits of what is recognizable through distortion, and this video pushes the boundaries of what a frag video is, if not breaks them. Finally, it's interesting to note the gameplay quality used among these videos. The blend of gameplay with not often disarms the viewer and lowers the impact of gameplay quality on the overall product, so much so that sometimes videos in this genre use nearly mundane clips without detracting from the overall experience.

While these edit-heavy frag videos are very memorable, the bulk of frag video output is of a different kind entirely. A simple compilation with music is by far the most common form of frag video because of their ease of production as well as their gameplay-focused approach being deeply rooted in the frag video genre. Beat drop clips and some rhythmic weaving is common as are custom/pruned hud elements, and a rare smooth or intro might be included as well. With so little emphasis on creating emotional weight through editing, these works instead aim to do so though gameplay quality. Such an emphasis begs the question: what is quality gameplay?

There are many factors that contribute to the perceived quality of gameplay in a frag video. The most obvious one has roots to the very history of frag videos themselves: skill. At their core, frag videos existed to demonstrate that one is skilled at the game depicted. medick agane by weeb_whacker is a fantastic example. Medic is an extremely uncommon class for standalone frag videos due to being less flashy (which will be elaborated in a moment), and the editing is that of a basic, traditional frag video. However, despite standard editing and a less exciting class this work still stands out for no other reason than the skill displayed, in such a way that the untrained or inexperienced eye might not even consider the feats included to be particularly exciting.

Flashiness and skill are interrelated but certainly separate factors. Just as gameplay can be very skillful and not flashy, it can also be flashy without being too skillful. A demoman killing multiple players in a chokepoint is not particularly skillful since that is what the class already excels at, but it still gets included in frag videos for its flashiness, among other reasons we'll discuss. Whether a clip is flashy or not is of course a subjective and aesthetic disctinction, loosely associated with perceived impact. For some, this can be as simple as many explosions connecting at once for a demo, or a scout hitting heavy shots back to back to back, or a rocket connecting midair after a dramatically-appropriate amount of hang time. Cont...