Need to summon the local source engine wizards to give their take on how feasible this is before writing down any ambitious wishlists. I don't think having to launch TF2 from a different client on steam will alienate players by itself, but making crazy huge revamps from the get-go will. There are plenty of low-hanging fruits that make the game immediately better for comp play without any downsides (fixing bannable exploits, shadow wallhacks, etc.). Overall glad that Valve is pretty much giving TF2 up to the community, been a long time coming.

I think that's exactly what the don't want to do anymore, their post straight up says that if you have some small tweaks for the game, then you should go and make it into a mod instead.

Best pubs had an ecosystem with a perfect balance of school kid tryhards and beer dad gamers. Some 40 year old factory workers would always come after 8 hours of smelting steel to play engineer on dustbowl and build dispensers in the same spot over and over again, while getting destroyed by enemy soldier with optimal loadout and kritz medic gf. Alltalk was on so naturally they would also be sharing their wealth of life experiences and past relationships in vc with their shitty mics and random tv noises in the background while playing on autopilot. Even comp players were joining regularly before scrims, it was the only place where they could show off their etf2l medals or assemble a team for hl open.

It felt rewarding to both play to win and do stupid funny stuff in an environment like this, unfortunately it stopped sustaining itself after quickplay got cut and new players lost an easy way to discover and become regulars on these servers. I saw no other game that could provice a similar experience since then, maybe some obscure garrys mod rp servers come the closest.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/103979830342629749/4E8822A0E2133A89CEA162F44AF86012B59267BB/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

While it's hard to agree with the points on weapon bans made in the video, I don't think it's correct to dismiss it as just some middie crying either. Stuff like that is the symptom of something wrong going on with tf2 community at large. Just looking at different players groups, everyone holds a grudge againts others in some way: casual vs comp, lower divs vs higher divs, players vs admins, 6s vs hl, eu vs na. It's like a big pub brawl over who can get a bigger part of the game designed around their personal preferences. I get that this is caused by the lack of devs and common vision, but yeah, tough luck, gotta make do with what we have. Having more communication and less whining would help.

The video itself could serve as good feedback for admins actually (at least the ones that care). That post with loch n load ban was poorly reasoned, everyone pointed it out at the time, idk if any lessons were learned. Voting sometimes acts as a way to delegate responsibility from admins to prem players, and then the official reason behind certain changes becomes "it was the prem players not me lol". While banning kids for cheats and bad words is good and all, I still think the primary responsibility of an admin should be figuring out how should the rules, maps, whitelist, and such be adjusted between the seasons - the stuff that actually makes people want to play the game. Improving the image of comp tf2 in the minds of casuals could go a long way.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/88219606971979626/0D4B42CC434028CF19BD610E102942F0639FCB25/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Official ban reason (especially the initial one that mentioned "no downsides") does feel out of touch. The main upside is 25% faster pipes, and an argument can be made that the downsides don't compensate enough for it. Hitting a direct pipe on someone is a big deal and often decides the outcome of a fight or a hold. LnL allows demo to do the same but "cheaper", without exposing himself to danger as much. More people have become better with it and started running it full-time at high level, which makes it more apparent that the weapon is an upgrade rather than a sidegrade.

Iron bomber is also an upgrade in almost every scenario, but the difference is that it doesn't really push the demo's upper limit as a class like LnL does. I've never seen anyone say that they'd rather fight a demo with randomly tumbling pipes than IB, because people on both sides prefer a healthier / more consistent gameplay experience with less RNG.

When it comes to stuff like crossbow, gunboats and other straight upgrades, they should evaluated with regards to overall class balance. Before the auto-reloading crossbow, medic was considered to be the most boring and mechanically shallow class, and with it the class feels "in line" with the rest. People had been saying that soldier was the weakest class and scout is the strongest for some time in the past, but the gunboats plugin (a straight buff to soldier) seemed to fix this discrepancy.

I'd say people are more upset about the reasoning rather than the ban itself, and I think it's fair because stuff like that doesn't inspire much confidence in future decision-making process.

Wallbugs were banned in the past and people decided to unban them, would be awkward to reverse on that now. They're cool to execute, but they still look janky as hell to any newbies or outsiders. I'd rather have an actual visible ledge somewhere high up instead, like the spots on gully 2nd, lamps on gully mid or vents on metal, something that is clearly communicated to everyone. Knowing wallbug spots shouldn't be some sacred right reserved for those who bother to read forums or check the maps with clip brushes on.

I think this section in the pinguefy's video describes the issue with the comp scene pretty well: https://youtu.be/iHtmqtsRi3I?t=1577

6v6 tf2 is like a separate game with zero marketing, barely anyone is talking about it in casual tf2 crowd, so it's actually a small miracle whenever someone learns about and becomes fully engaged with the game mode. Wouldn't say the scene is in danger of dying off though, unless the leagues say that they would pull the plug at some specifically low number of teams. Otherwise, current players wouldn't see much difference in how the game plays for them, whether the number of teams goes down to 50 or up to 200.

Most of what could be done has been done already, so now we can just wait for valve to make tf3 by 2035 or some eastern oil prince to fund etf2l out of enthusiasm.

If the answer to this question is "no, it's not just QoL, it's an exploit", then you'd also have to ban medic's uber-related chat binds, because it effectively accomplishes the same thing by showing uber info on HUD and reducing reliance on comms. Except, in this case, medic is the one pressing buttons to give info, instead of the other way around. Also chat is not called "Spectator GUI" in the game files, so I guess it adds legitimacy. Many people use these binds and, from my experience, it's seen as a sign of competence, not as exploit abuse.

Yeah, it's tough, but that's the hand we're dealt. Adding more clarity and examples to the rules would definitely help, so that people wouldn't ask what is allowed as often. "Just ban exploits, gimmicks and all that shady stuff" is an attractive and easy solution, I just don't think it's always right for the game with bare minimum dev support.

Explaining your reasoning is a part of the communication process, it provides ground for discussion. People expect admins to justify their decisions in the first place, no matter how obvious or ambiguous the reasons are. Thanks for giving a response anyway.

"It should be" is an opinion unless someone from Valve actually comes out and confirms what it really should be (don't think this ever happened).

Yeah, it's buggy, but what can you do. A lot of mechanics in this game are janky to use. (wallbugs are still allowed, right?)

Fair, but you can hear it in your comms with very little effort on your medic's part, so this doesn't reveal any secret information that you didn't have access to before. Editing HUDs in general is not a part of in-game options and knowing how to do it already provides a tangible advantage.

It's arguable how "big" this disadvantage really is, but I tend to trust admins to make these judgement calls. Would you say that teams with medics who don't use chat binds for ubers (50%, 100%, faked, used, etc.) are also at a big disadvantage compared to those who do?

If Valve intended for this to be available to spectators only, they would have fixed it years ago or restricted it with cvars, but they didn't. Valve also intended for 6v6 gamemode to be played within their matchmaking with default dx9 graphics. Valve forgot to fix Iron Bomber hitbox and only remembered recently, what if they also forgot to put uber % in match hud? It seems to fit there just fine. It's usually hard to tell what exactly Valve's intentions are, so I think this decision should be kept purely between admins and players.

This "exploit" is not a fresh discovery either, so I guess it just hasn't been brought to admins' attention before. I can also claim that this is an "accessibility feature" for people who can't speak very much, and that we shouldn't discriminate against them (lol). Either way, this uber % on hud thing seems very negligible to me, so I'm fine with whatever the final decision is.

Fair, but when things like match hud, player outlines and heal target's ammo count were added to the game, they were seen as welcome quality of life updates, and not as some crutches for bad players. Medics have been using chat binds with uber info for years, and this uber on hud thing kind of accomplishes the same thing.

I agree that using your "gut feeling" to anticipate enemy health and ubers is a part of the game's skill ceiling, but I don't think that in a serious comp setting people should ever rely on this feeling to figure out what their medic's uber is. Making a call that you have uber once you get it doesn't exactly take a lot of game mastery either, and to me it seems more like busywork, rather than good game sense.

This is great, time to ditch the tf2 stars extension.

I'm glad that comp community is capable of keeping TF2 playable without relying on Valve to do anything. Not sure why some people still prefer casual over community servers, is leveling up your menu badge really that appealing?

• dqz
  
• russia
  
• https://www.twitch.tv/dqz_
  
• https://etf2l.org/forum/user/25221/

6s + hl + chess

1. Arrows heal for the same amount of hp, but over time (< 1 sec) instead of instantly
   
2. Sniper's zoom charge gets reduced by a bit whenever he takes damage
   
3. Reflected projectiles do normal damage instead of mini-crit
   
4. Some kind of nerf / fix to resup bind (e.g., overwatch healing zone in spawn?), so that it doesn't feel like a gimmick to use or play against