jetzi really really would like it if tf2 transitioned away from seasons and more towards having semi-frequent tournaments the way games like smash do. much better to play + watch imo
this is also my main line of thinking
CaptainZidgelI'm torn on the cup idea because I think the only way I can grow in the game is playing on a team long term but I can't commit to that, but also weekend cups are fun with the right team. However I can't see them as much more beneficial (to me personally) than a series of pugs.
I'm not sure about seasons vs cups for lower level teams (if we wanted cups to work for lower level teams we'd have to format them to be rewarding and offer a chance of prize money to some lower level teams (divisions in cups?)) but if you're playing multiple cups with the same stack and you scrim/practice together with them, would you still feel like you are playing a series of pugs? Just food for thought.
bearodactyli can see lower invite teams/adv moveups would like to play a season of invite in order to learn more, but realistically getting stomped almost every match is pretty demoralizing and just sucks, the only games that matter are vs the other low invite teams so doing cups (providing the lower invite teams get to play each other) would be about the same
As another note, having open tournaments at LANs or in online cups is definitely a good idea. Rewind 1 open tournament was super close and it was so hype doing a bo5 to determine the winner
agree that lower level invite actually kind of sucks, having a shorter turnaround between tournaments would also help with teams that tend to die, give those players more opportunities to make new teams (and who knows maybe they find a stack that can actually stick together)
Also yeah have an 'open' and 'invite' (or high level or whatever?) tournament for each cup would probably help a lot, it can also make buy-ins more reasonable for lower level teams, can have like $20/TEAM, whereas I would think most invite teams are probably going to willing to pay a lot more since they should have a very realistic shot of making it back (and the prize pools can work to help lower level teams from going bankrupt). should probably just structure the cost/tournament around how much it costs each div for a season, idk sort of just guessing with this.
loafei dont really think theres an issue with both league-play and cups occurring apart from burnout. but most people who play in the reg season also pug all night on weekends so i doubt its a problem for many players
I know the 'why not both' options always exists but burnout is a huge issue in tf2, multiple people have stopped playing for at least some period of time because of it, myself included. NATF2 has prize money in their seasons, you could argue it's not a lot but it is something, FROYO for instance is never gonna skip a season if it's offered, my team probably wouldn't either. Also there is a limit to how much money is in the scene (prize pools come from fees), maybe there is enough to do both but is it worth it? Also with having season and cups I think you'll end up with a situation where some teams only play the season and some teams only play cups and I think that should be avoided. So I guess the answer to "why not both?" is "why have both?"
I think that cups could really power up tf2 back into something people tune in to watch, because I think our viewership is actually way lower than you would think given the size of the tf2 community (not just the people who play 6v6 HL, though obviously they're a big portion of it) and how many people who have participated in it and then left. Basically esports is content and cups make more content than seasons.