I never said TF2 was confusing, so much as I was saying that fighting games are instant in understanding them at the core, which is sort of their major thing

you might not immediately understand how a MOBA works (not so much that it's confusing, mind, simply enough that you won't figure it out within seconds), but super smash bros is "people hit each other, one of them hits really hard and the other person makes an explosion effect outside of the camera, they lost a life", and that's really easy for someone who never plays any game seriously before to understand.

it sounds like nothing--and from a player's standpoint, it basically is nothing--but it makes the stigma really easy to bypass once you get someone to watch a full match, since they quickly get into it

I think the comparisons to smash are unfair, if only b/c melee in particular had a lot of advantages to deal with its issues; most notably, understanding melee as a spectator is almost instant, since the core mechanics all immediately connect to each other, in ways I can't see an FPS ever reasonably doing... but I do think you could get something out of what melee's done.

melee's issue for years was never actually the game, but the stigma against it being so strong, people actively refused to watch others play in tournament. once melee got into evo in 2013, people started to actually, genuinely watch it, and it snowballed from there. I can see a similar issue in TF2:, since you'll see competitive channels with 5+ digits in views for highlights/weekly shows all the time, but the second the same ppl start uploading full games, nobody's willing to watch

the unsubtle shift to barely-related EU politics is still awaiting response

one thing I'm surprised wasn't brought up in this thread was the crit-a-cola, given that when you ask any top player they will tell you that it's the best unlock in the game

takes the one mobility-and-damage focused class in the game, and then... makes him even more focused on mobility and damage. not exactly the smartest design decision

I mean in general it's not healthy to actively enjoy someone's death, but also it's hard to feel sympathetic for a dude who tried to, among other things, defend the death penalty being applied onto literal children

as someone who unlocked the notice for 1,000,000 matches in melee by offing myself on mute city over and over again, I'm not quite sure what all this "tournament" hubbub is about nor why it matters

"unbalanced" and "poorly designed" are two different terms, at least when it comes to general-ass game design

scouts, soldiers and demomen are intentionally unbalanced, in that they're heavily generalized for most scenarios whereas a spy or an engineer isn't. this would be good design, because when done correctly you get a healthy centralized metagame. on the flipside, the pomson is a weapon very lazily made as a counter to medic pushes and spies, when they're supposed to be the two major things that hurt the engineer, and while that doesn't make it better than the ranger, it's obnoxious design regardless

oh, I should point out: if any of you want to personally try out what you think is a good weapon rebalance, you'll need this:

https://github.com/404UserNotFound/CustomWeapons2/

(and your own server to shove it into, obviously)

it lets you choose between a bunch of attributes that are default in TF2, but if you know how to code in sourcepawn you can basically make whatever other effects you want. I don't think there's support for wearables like the darwin's danger shield, but I just get around that by making a secondary weapon have 0 ammo but a passive change so it still works out

throw out all of the stats, replace with the following:

-laser weapon what does the pew pew at a long range and goes through enemies
-actually has a damage ramp-up up to mid-range distance; near-zero damage when firing right next to someone, but then goes up to noticeably dangerous damage, and then ramps back down to fairly meaningless levels so you can't just spam it across 2fort or whatever

I don't know why valve makes it so hard for themselves to develop the laser weapons in TF2. an engineer laser rifle doesn't need to negate all of his weaknesses like it does, it's a long-range weapon that replaces a short-range weapon, that on its own merits can work

e: a small addition I'd like to make, also: regardless of what the medigun is popped, vac kritz or otherwise, it stops any penetration from the laser for the duration of that pop. a medic pick without this scenario is fairly rare, but being able to kill a kritz'd medic would be pretty obnoxious

cozy camper should lose the health regen (cuz that's a really boring stat to actually play with, since it's designed so you have to wait for a good while). I think the no-flinch/no-knockback stats should stay, since those make for something interesting to use, but he needs a downside to it, maybe his old scoped-movement nerf but not as absurd as -80%

parachute is also a really easy fix, you can only deploy it once, and can't be redeployed until you touch the ground. it actually makes the intended weakness matter, once hitscan weapons catch you you're either holding on for dear life or you're falling to the ground and taking fall dmg

danger shield should be entirely redesigned, "slow down sniper wars to your favor" is an awful concept for an item no matter how you look at it

that double-midfight was cool as fuck, the sneakiest thalash

http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/06/riptwitter-twitter-will-soon-be-run-by-an-algorithm-and-people-are-furious-5665402/?ito=twitter

as quick as possible: twitter really wants to be facebook (because why engage with less popular conversations when you got algorithms), #RIPTwitter is now top trending worldwide. man, look at all those impressions

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cae0G0-XEAATQD_.jpg

this thread is only worthwhile because of how fucking good these images are

I think it doesn't help that the one good KOTH map in 6s, viaduct pro (or product or w/e) is a map heavily biased in favor of scouts, and because there's no other KOTH maps to compare, it's viewed as that one gamemode that the best class in the game is even better at

you can't do what ppl did when making maps like sunshine and process, methinks. 5CP had a whole bunch of already well-established concepts to carve a niche into, whereas trying that with the current state of KOTH is like trying to make a 5CP map using only granary pro for layout inspiration

most of the answers given here are built on the idea of "hard" being on a technical/execution level, which is a bit more reasonable to ask

wasn't TFC pretty extreme in how much technical control it gave you? I never played it in its heyday so I wouldn't know, but I recall that being an argument that was made when talking about the future of TF2

otherwise, my answer is f zero gx. watch a real-time speedrun of that game, shit's wild