TF2 General Chat & Speculation Station V17 - Ms. Pauling Won't Stop Calling Me - Games

I'm not dismissing you or attacking your character in the same you framed your snide response, I'm stating that you've made your political stance limpid and it's obvious that such a complaint regarding these terms stems from how much you chafe under conservative economic policy. As far as how the term applies to game balance, I think it's perfectly acceptable in describing how top players (and what they're capable of with the game's mechanics) should dictate how a game is tuned. Your statement is entirely political, and you haven't once made an argument as to why the term isn't contextually apropos--your only point is: "Republicans bad, grr." I don't know why you would imply expressing an opinion about a character (or character trope) in a thread where such a topic is completely relevant is proportionate with bringing up political angst in a TF2 thread.

Also Spy, just like other Classes not seen often, have intrinsic bonuses given to their team that makes them useful even if they can't accomplish their main goal (pushing, picking priority targets, or flanking the backline): Spy can give important info like enemy movements and how close to Uber the enemy Medic is, Engineer can provide teleporters and is a strong counter to close-range classes, Pyro can completely neutralize ubers, Sniper is Sniper, Heavy is a huge game-changer in the middle of a fight if he has full health and can sandvich teammates.

Sure, but it’s still an “off class” and people will still pick the main classes 6’s use over him, which isn’t really good as it means he’s still unviable.

Spy works surprisingly well with coordination. Spy works best at picking off targets actively being distracted. What better distraction than causing the other team's own voice comms as they do callouts as your team's uber comes in? The problem with Spy is that he's a surprise class, and even with coordination he won't be going on large killstreaks, but he has a place in the game, just seldom used. Sniper works similarly but his pick strength is with sightlines, Spy can instead operate from anywhere he can get a foothold where he can keep visual on the enemy team. I'd argue that Demoknight even qualifies as a pick class but the strength that normal Demoman offers would make it an incredibly hard sell to allow players to bring a second demoman onto a team after the massive slog that was 2-demo 2-medic total lockdown meta back in 07 and 08.

In 6’s you’re losing a slot for intel which, in most cases, isn’t worth it.

I don't think this is even a thing

Because every character has more mobility than Spy, which along with the map list favoring giant 5cp maps and constant pushing means it's hard to even justify the pick. Also, the smaller player size means it's more likely to be able to pick a Spy out as being a disguised Spy.

Totally agree, I find that competitive experiences spawned by the community as opposed to officially spawned are far superior in just about every way, but in order for that to happen the base game experience needs to be just as satisfying. The 12v12 base game experience should be the basis for balancing the various weapons. Ensuring that the base game is playing nice further benefits the communities that derive their competitive formats from it. It's also beneficial that the comp scene is created by the community: the people that spend all day playing it, the larger crowd of opinions, and most importantly the people unrestricted by publisher/contracts signed with model creators/maps, etc... In general its just more natural. This is what sets Counter-Strike apart from Overwatch; a game designed specifically to tap into the competitive scene. I tried to play Overwatch competitively when it first came out for roughly 2 months, but with the meta changing on a near weekly basis, I couldn't keep up and ultimately lost interest having to re-learn everything. That cobbled with the very one-trick classes had me packing my bags all-together pretty quickly.

6s generalists see such a disproportionate amount of play because 6s is only playing 5CP and KOTH they aren't playing PL and A/D because those formats don't work well with a low playercount, and they don't play CTF at all because that mode is a nightmare for competitive Team Fortress 2, and also in general if we're being real PL and A/D being played would instantly boost the viability of offclasses in the format, because those are the maps where they start becoming useful. hell, you even see more offclasses in KOTH, when the speed requirement of 5CP and rolling out to mid isn't as much of a factor. however, as long as PL and A/D remain atrocious with a low playercount, the community has no incentive to play those game modes. it's not like they're getting paid or supported, so they're just doing what's fun for as long as it lasts. Valve has to take action to create an actual fucking format or fix the problems preventing 6s from having more diversity, or they aren't going to get anywhere. though truthfully, I still find any form of competitive TF2 to be leagues better than any other multiplayer experience. were Valve actually to...say, fund and back the scene, I genuinely believe you'd see a lot of growth, but they're too stubborn to do that. also, spy isn't useless in 6s because it's competitive, he's useless in any game where the players are communicating and working together. his counter is very literally situational awareness, and that isn't the fault of 6v6 or Highlander or anything else, that's...just how the class is designed.

That's part of my point is that the community is basically trying to shoehorn competitive on a game that fundamentally doesn't really work well with it. If you make the game work well with it, you've basically created an entirely different game. (6's) Spy is also far more useless in competitive than in any other mode simply because coordination is much much harder with larger team sizes than with smaller team sizes.

have you...played competitive? because while tf2 certainly wasn't built around competitive play, it works a whole damn lot better than any other esport I've played, even the ones explicitly built for that purpose. I'd pick 6s or even HL over Dota 2, CSGO, or Overwatch any day of the week. tf2's innate mechanics and class balance are superb enough to carry the experience. a game doesn't need to be built around competitive play to become a good competitive game: look at smash bros. melee as an example of exactly that.

it helps that, unlike other games with a built in meta, tf2's has been developed and tested for years and years. wich is why off classing is a thing on its own, and a true sight wehn it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcoo7M4tur0

And to achieve that competitive play they banned most of the weapons and maps, and reduced playercount by a lot. The reduced playercount also messes with the overall balance and nature of the game so it's basically a shell of what tf2 actually is. Sure it might be fun and play well, but it's not what TF2 is about, nor does it show off what TF2 is, and I don't think it should represent TF2 because of that. Super smash bros melee works well as a competitive game because the core game design doesn't get butchered with lower amounts of players.

they banned "most" of the weapons? https://whitelist.tf/ugc_9v9_s27 https://whitelist.tf/esea_6v6_s30 the vast majority of weapons aren't banned, dude. most maps aren't "banned", either, the community just chooses to play what they enjoy most and feel is most well-balanced. other games have preferred maps and stages for competitive play, too, this isn't a tf2-exclusive thing. you're speaking from a place of inexperience and ignorance, and it shows. I'm not going to say TF2 or any form of competitive TF2 is some flawless baby, 'cause it's not', but I'm going to call out uninformed arguments where I see them. if you actually had any meaningful amount of experience in competitive TF2, you'd know that the base gameplay fairly well-preserved and that a lot of balancing issues, especially in 6v6, are mirrored by the game at large. the only reason you don't notice a lot of balance problems in pubs is because you generally aren't playing with people good enough to exploit them, but the general rule of thumb is this: if it's broken with 12-18 players who know what they're doing, it's definitely fucking broken with 24. think of the weapons that were rebalanced due to the competitive community's feedback, and in the vast majority of cases, are you going to argue that they were okay in casual, too? are you pro-sandman? also, i don't know if you've played competitive Melee...but that is a far different experience from casual Smash Bros. it's a much more drastic departure than any TF2 format vs the main game, and it was so drastic that the next game in the series was explicitly designed against it. despite all of Nintendo's sabotage, Melee still succeeded as an eSport for nearly two fucking decades, and is still being played as one now.

the core game desing of meelee is a casual party game of 4 players. it was butchered and reduced to a 1v1 so it could work as a comp game. I genuinely question how valid is your opinion on the subject.

I don't think it's realistically possible to make every class get as much use as the generalist uses. There will always be classes that will have more use then others. This is just how life works. When it comes to balancing weapons around pubs. I don't see how that's possible with how you can realistic balance around people who have significantly varying opinions on how things work or should work in this sense. Not to mention a huge portion of the casual community is very new to the game, and understandably ignorant about aspects of the game as they've. You have to understand that one big thing competitive players will generally do that most people wouldn't is break down guns in what they are actually capable of. They can generally provide the best factual information towards weapons as understand this is an important step when it comes to getting better at the game. If you're going to be realistic when it comes to balancing, it should come to no surprise that people who can provide most accurate facts will generally give you the best idea on where and how a weapon should go and be changed. This alone should be common sense. You can't balance properly around misinformation, something that pub players will generally provide due to them being either newer with the game or not going in depth to learning how the game works or functions in order to play. When it comes to casual players, I generally suggest it's better to try and do what I've always called is skill index weapons for them instead. The goal here is not to change what a weapon or tool is capible of, but to change how easy or difficult it is to get the most out of the weapon. A way that if it seems to easy for a newer player to slaughter people new to the game, you might want to make changes that you can still do that all the same, but the skill requirement to actually pull it off is a little bit more tricker to pull off. I'd also like to add, while it differs pace wise from person to person. People do generally get better over time as they play the game if they keep playing it over time. It's not unheard of that if you enjoy doing something you'll eventually want to improve yourself that you can do what you enjoy better right?

In that list all but 3 clasess have at least one banned weapon, and engineer has all of his secondaries banned. My use of "most" was incorrect, but it's still a sizeable amount of items that are banned. And while most maps aren't technically "banned", you don't really see modes outside of koth and 5cp in 6's, with the reason being they mostly just don't work well for comp. Either way, my point wasn't that items are imbalanced, (a lot of them are) my point is that you have to change a lot of tf2's makeup to make it work with the smaller player count. In melee's example, you don't have to change any of the elements to make it work with only two players.

Except the whole banning of every single item as well as a very limited stagelist.

The problem with balancing around "fun" is that what's fun and what isn't fun is subjective. It differs from person to person.

Fair point. I guess my main line of thinking is that smash is designed around having a limited roster on the field at once while tf2 is designed around having the entire roster on the field, and the interactions that ensue from that.

you make it sound like 2 players playing the game is somehow wrong and vastly different from whats intended. Also there is competitive 2v2. Butchered? Turning off items and certain stages you are really stretching

so gaben still plays tf2 https://i.redd.it/bq1asx7jmyl21.png

Against bots?

Also according to big T it's primarily the TF Team that is on complete radio silence for the last months/year. Unless I misunderstood what he said, other Teams do confirm that the TF Team is working on something. So hey, atleast we have confirmation that the game isn't abandoned.

Team Fortress card game incoming

It either means something big or something disappointing and I want both at this point

better: go apex legends route make a battle royale game with the major element and namesake of the game removed

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132767/716df5e2-3265-4a7f-84d8-20a56fc09211/image.png

Not gonna lie, if the style and spirit of the original would be kept, I'd buy the hell out of that.

but what's the difference here in tf2? the same half players, the same turned off items (not even that many), the same stages turned off. I guess we have HL too right? I just think it's interesting how it's a stretch when other games have differences in competitive, even csgo pubs are different, yet when it's tf2 we have endless people saying it's not tf2.