I think I fully agree with you on this.

maybe this is too optimistic but the whole idea is that the 4th place invite/qualifier/whatever shouldnt be something that has a negative connotation, like the current forced moveups are. The 4th place spot shouldn't come with getting the beating the whole season, it should come with a higher concentration of better tf2 being played. It should be exciting to be able to contest for the 4th seed of invite, which as of right now (7/8th seeds), most certainly isnt. I'm saying this because the vast majority of dead invite teams are teams that get the turbo beating. To me, less turbo beatings and more engaging tf2 means greater player retention. By moving the ceiling higher in the division below the top 4, it means that teams of present day "advanced sandbaggers" arent entitled to nearly as many free placements and could lose hard to some of the moved down teams. A team that proves they can beat a current mid-level invite team (WHICH SHOULD BE POSSIBLE), to me, seems way more deserving of an invite to the top 4.

I think this would lead to the lower ends of most divisions moving down a div, while the skill floor of the division is raised. If a 4 team invite season was to happen tomorrow it'd take some time for the divs to reach their appropriate equilibriums of floor/ceiling. But I think long term, it'd create better competition for everyone involved. Genuine criticism appreciated because to me it sounds like a nobrainer when looking at the current state of invite/advanced.

Thinking about this more, I kinda get what slice is saying where if there are more shitty teams invited, that the player experience is not as bad, because there's now more close matches, but idk. I feel like it just means there are now more shitty rolls for the 1st/2nd/3rd seeds. The disparity of bottom invite to top invite will continue to be gross. Going off of memory but the end race is always the same , where nothing outside of the top 4 remotely matters nor is it ever really contested. If it is ever contested, 4th place basically never upsets anyone, even 3rd.

I feel like a concentrated 4 team invite would work out to be more exciting for all parties, where teams coming from advanced are actually invited and have to prove that they deserve the 4th seed over a different team. This would come with a higher skill ceiling of advanced. Ex. If I think of the last invite season I played, we'd be playing the exile team and sandblast team more, which was by far the best matches for the players and spectators.

The issue with advanced to invite is that it does not adequately prepare you at all lmfao. whereas I think it's safe to say that any of the other jumps in divisions can still net a previously winning team decent placements. if the top teams in advanced have a higher ceiling, itd make that transition less abrasive into a 4 team bracket.

This is just not true, there was a single person who had won advanced, which was nazara, 2 years prior. There were several people who either placed last or second last in invite, but why should they not be allowed to play advanced?
There are plenty last place invite teams that could not have won advanced (as it should be, this exists in every division) and that speaks more to mentality/practice. Plenty of those players returned to play invite seasons and the ones who didn't, don't play seasons at all. There is no core that routinely wins advanced.

I commend teams like Ninjago and ROME for taking the leap into invite but if you can only win a single game in the whole season then it seems like a disservice to both the players and the spectators. Unless certain players can get picked up by more experienced invite cores, the possible foundational improvements to be made in advanced is much more feasible, where you aren't in an environment getting the turbo dih deluxe 24/7. My point being, there are teams who rush into invite without being able to contest in advanced, meaning; not only is there are so many fundamental things missing to begin with, you now have to deal with that issue in invite, resulting in overly worse practice/experience. You can still scrim low invite teams as an advanced team!

And to be clear, I'm all for class restrictions when needed, but there is such a disconnect if you are class banning players who haven't even seen the grand finals of that division.

omg ghadilli you are such a baby its not even funny. Do you want your playoff spot handed to you?? Do you want uppies too?? Maybe if you ran a div back you'd win your first playoff match since 2019 WTF?? If you are complaining about a 3rd place player repeating the division, you suck at the game.

Beating the established players of a div serves as a tangible milestone for all teams in a division. To think that these teams somehow always win every time is also not true. People like to think of YAMBO as Advanced gatekeepers when in reality this is what the record looks like:

https://i.imgur.com/xAURn60.png

THESE ARE PERFECT TEAMS TO REPRESENT THE HIGHER END OF THE DIVISION. you are either insane or very bad at the game to see this in your division and not think that you can try to contend with them by the end of the season.

When my entire div2 moveup team played against shining star yumyum and zam, we grinded our asses off to win and made that season such a memorable experience. You need to trust me but beating the favoured team in divs like main/advanced is way more feasible than you give it credit for. By playing against low invite teams in advanced, it actually bridges the gap to invite more than if

• you weren't able to play them in the first place (moved up)
  
• they are a worse team because of class restrictions

By lowering and lowering the ceiling of these divisions you end up with worse and worse teams earning higher placements. You get teams that end up getting to invite that have actually zero chance of beating a higher seeded team. John milter would roll the fuck out of ROME.

I've already heard of 3 prospective main/adv teams that have died purely off of stupid-ass, inconsistent, arbitrary restrictions. What is the point??? Why would you ever restrict someone who's gotten THIRD in a division???? That person now has to XD offclass or play an extra div above, even tho they are perfectly suited for the aforementioned div?? If u wanna kill the game even harder go ahead. How in the world can you expect healthy competition when either:
1. you are on a class you dont want to play
2. forced into a different div, with the reasoning being inconsistent almost every time?

maybe im out of touch but do the actual players of these divs actually GAF that hellfire is playing scout or tree is playing soldier in main??

restricting people from a div they've never won will never make any sense to me

keep that bench warm boy

i got this sdr plugin from Divine a while ago it worked fine when i used it. also i thought ramp bug plugin is just always broken on windows servers now?

https://youtu.be/ECmHqMWbLx4?si=4zskgrOP9ekCdBXi

Bump

Quals ready and hungry. Take the leap

https://youtu.be/iQ7U-XqPTk0?si=8eg5BMRaaHHkn8JP

this shit means pretty much nothing, going 1 tick at a time through an stv demo is a very inaccurate representation of whats going on ingame. It took me 2 minutes to replicate the same thing https://streamable.com/gwv6o2

he did 8 damage with a troll flick this is not that crazy

https://streamable.com/29i4g8