TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station: Whiteboard Blues - Games

A lot of 6s biggest weaknesses as a format are realistically things well within valves ability to fix (rebalancing classes, finding ideal map formats, bringing all weapons closer to equal par, etc). People who haven't already accepted 6s as the standard are helping nobody. Hl is not a viable high level competitive mode, certainly not without a more stable one to hold it up. Not to imply that anybody is trying to rewrite history, but I think people will find more constructive use of their time focusing on 6s at this point rather than throwing what ifs about other formats at the wall.

Nothing's happening in TF2, nothing's happening in Dota. Valve makes too much money to be this slow.

HL and 6s both have horrible faults but I think it's ridiculous to talk about 6s and say you'd never play it because of the lack of classes used, it doesn't make sense because it just doesn't work that way- there's a huge difference between the top level games you're watching and the area you'll be playing in if you decide to give MM a try after the update. You will never reach a skill level of the game where your character choice is going to be even slightly relevant to whether you win or not, that just won't happen in matchmaking. You would have to be at least top 500 in your region for it to happen tbh, and I still think that's questionable All of the classes are good in 6s, just maybe not against se7en or froyotech, so don't be discouraged unless you're planning on playing vs them, especially if you're playing pyro or something, because pyro is honestly much better in 6s than it is in highlander. Would you rather spend 30 mins spychecking, or 30 minutes reflecting soldiers and giving scouts the business? but I guess that's just my opinion :)

Since were on the topic of Casual and what not, does anyone have an explanation why the servers can't just be filled up? Example: I'm on cp_egypt, a map that is fairly often played. The server gets a bit empty after map change, so it's something like 5v5. Then another random person joins the queue with cp_egypt chosen. Why can't the coordinator just slap the random person into my server? Why does it have to put around 10 players in at once? It just makes no sense to me.

They do slap the random person into the server. The 10 at once thing is a result of the way people end up starting new searches. It's all to do with map vote. As you probably know, a lot of people ditch a server when it changes maps. This can result in a significant number of people starting a new search at roughly the same time. This is where the backfill "waves" come from. The system doesn't hold off on backfills until a large number are ready- why would it? The reason backfills are so rare at times is that there's nothing to limit the number of servers running. As long as someone stays on a server- even one person- that server stays open and eligible for new players to join. If the number of servers is too high, there simply aren't enough searching players to go around at any moment.

i wouldn't be surprised if the matchmaker also staggers out player distribution into waves, to try to make matches more balanced - if players are just dumped into the first available game the instant they enter the queue, then it can't really take their ranks into account, whereas if players are placed into games in waves, it can sort the players in the wave to try to even out the distribution of high level players and low level players between different teams in different servers, or decide if it wants to match 24 of those players into a totally new server instead jury's still out on how effective that actually is, of course, and i agree it would be a lot better if we had something to prune out dead servers with like 5 people in them and move those players back into the queue instead

[QUOTE=Big Snake Bos;52748569]I wonder how the meta would change if the sniper wasnt allowed in highlander and 6v6.How would the meta be shaped?[/QUOTE] highlander wouldnt be highlander lol

I think some people here are waaaay too serious about being competitive in a videogame. I get it, that's like YOUR way to enjoy a videogame, too bad the casual (A.k.a. MOST of the) players don't find that interesting or fun at all. I really don't get why people love to play seriously stripping all the fun things out of videogames, but oh well. In my opinion, people should get serious about games only if you get paid to do so, other wise is stressful and bad for your mental health. Just watch how LoL and Overwatch ranked games are filled with the most toxic people on the planet, no interest in having fun, just winning, winning is the only way to have fun. Like, seriously? Why even play the game then? And yeah, HL for me is much more compelling and actual viable way of selling the game. You actually use all the characters and their abilities togheter to win matches. 6v6 is the same format of 2 scouts, 2 demos, a Solly and a Medic, making half of the roster useless or very situational. I don't think Dota 2 would have reach his popularity status if you were only forced to choose 25 of the 100+ heroes just because "the meta said so" (but fair enough that was the case a couple years ago and still is in League of Legends, lol).

Team Fortress 2 Update Released October 10th, 2017 - TF2 Team An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: - Fixed the anniversary beach ball so it cannot be removed from play with the short circuit - Updated the localization files

[QUOTE=Danzflor;52749512]I think some people here are waaaay too serious about being competitive in a videogame. I get it, that's like YOUR way to enjoy a videogame, too bad the casual (A.k.a. MOST of the) players don't find that interesting or fun at all. I really don't get why people love to play seriously stripping all the fun things out of videogames, but oh well. In my opinion, people should get serious about games only if you get paid to do so, other wise is stressful and bad for your mental health. Just watch how LoL and Overwatch ranked games are filled with the most toxic people on the planet, no interest in having fun, just winning, winning is the only way to have fun. Like, seriously? Why even play the game then? And yeah, HL for me is much more compelling and actual viable way of selling the game. You actually use all the characters and their abilities togheter to win matches. 6v6 is the same format of 2 scouts, 2 demos, a Solly and a Medic, making half of the roster useless or very situational. I don't think Dota 2 would have reach his popularity status if you were only forced to choose 25 of the 100+ heroes just because "the meta said so" (but fair enough that was the case a couple years ago and still is in League of Legends, lol).[/QUOTE] That reads like someone who lost their single game on tf2center and blamed it on the comp scene lmao you aren't even trying to understand what you're complaining about

[QUOTE=RedDagger;52749528]That reads like someone who lost their single game on tf2center and blamed it on the comp scene lmao you aren't even trying to understand what you're complaining about[/QUOTE] Man, I been playing videogames for years now, and writing about them as my job for a decade. I have seen all of this, been covering Esports, seing how retarded people can get over a fucking software. Don't come to school me please. Also, who is complaining? I just dislike the people's mindset who tryhard on competitive games. No one is stopping you from doing so. I just don't think it is good for your health.

Genuine Question for the people that think nothing is gonna happen next week, even though points stated: Is there any other reason other than "The TF Team has disappointed me before, and they'll disappoint me again." - like any Events? A Hurricane?

How about the fact that it was never stated to be an anniversary update? Valve rarely celebrates anniversaries as it is.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749534]Genuine Question for the people that think nothing is gonna happen next week, even though points stated: Is there any other reason other than "The TF Team has disappointed me before, and they'll disappoint me again." - like any Events? A Hurricane?[/QUOTE] To me the chances of next week having something substantial are as likely as last week. I'm sure we will get a blog post about the anniversary and maybe a small patch for medals, but I really have no reason to think a big event is coming. They may even still be moving offices as it has been said that it is a company wide effort. I'm also still of the mind that they don't want a campaign to overlap with another event. As always I will be pleasantly surprised if something does happen.

[QUOTE=gigazelle;52749523]Team Fortress 2 Update Released October 10th, 2017 - TF2 Team An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: - Fixed the anniversary beach ball so it cannot be removed from play with the short circuit - Updated the localization files[/QUOTE] but that would break being able to airblast it :C

[QUOTE=RetroMike;52749559]To me the chances of next week having something substantial are as likely as last week. I'm sure we will get a blog post about the anniversary and maybe a small patch for medals, but I really have no reason to think a big event is coming. They may even still be moving offices as it has been said that it is a company wide effort. I'm also still of the mind that they don't want a campaign to overlap with another event. As always I will be pleasantly surprised if something does happen.[/QUOTE] Dota and other teams have already pushed out Updates - and not super tiny ones, yknow. As the post stated, it's safe to assume most of the move is done. [QUOTE=Lord Exor;52749549]How about the fact that it was never stated to be an anniversary update? Valve rarely celebrates anniversaries as it is.[/QUOTE] There are other things pointing to next week, for all we know its a mere coincidence it's also in the same week as the 10th Birthday.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749628]Dota and other teams have already pushed out Updates - and not super tiny ones, yknow. As the post stated, it's safe to assume most of the move is done.[/QUOTE] Well that at least shows that completed updates can be pushed. [QUOTE=Fluury;52749628]There are other things pointing to next week, for all we know its a mere coincidence it's also in the same week as the 10th Birthday.[/QUOTE] This is the beginning of the 5th month of things pointing to next week being the week. The last thing pointing to the release being right around the corner (Mike Morasky interview) is now a month old.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749628]Dota and other teams have already pushed out Updates - and not super tiny ones, yknow. As the post stated, it's safe to assume most of the move is done. There are other things pointing to next week, for all we know its a mere coincidence it's also in the same week as the 10th Birthday.[/QUOTE] I get and (partially) agree with where you're coming from, but your being so persistent is setting up yourself and others for disappointment if it doesn't hit next week.

[QUOTE=Petroklos;52749693]I get and (partially) agree with where you're coming from, but your being so persistent is setting up yourself and others for disappointment if it doesn't hit next week.[/QUOTE] Me mentioning the possibility of weeks being the week doesnt mean I am setting myself up and taking that for granted. I moved to week of the anniversary two weeks ago given the circumstances. I just straight out cant imagine them pushing a tiny medal update next week + the pre Halloween Blog Post without this Update. The sheer amount of awkwardness, telling people to "get their halloween stuff ready" when the last blog post was about getting Jungle stuff ready. It just doesn't add up. It sounds ridiculous. It'd be an award winning football team talking about doing a friendly match against some highschool when the world championship finale is ahead of them. Leaving us with a wait of more than a bloody year is one level of insane, making a wacky blogpost about Scream Fortress in such times however is beyond that. It would be like giving a starving man in a desert a book to read. If you want more of those comparisons I can call ArraySeven but seriously my mind isnt capable of emulating that scenario

Imagine if tf2 got updated. That would be pretty cool.

[QUOTE=Fraklin;52749741]Imagine if tf2 got updated. That would be pretty cool.[/QUOTE] Imagine if people didn't shitpost, that'd be pretty cool.

All Source 1 games will be updated this week to Source 2. With the update there will be minor updates to maps / easter eggs / new game modes added. These updates will be part of a large-scale ARG spanning all Valve games. [B]Team Fortress 2[/B] will get a new Halloween game mode based off of MvM but instead of machines it's zombies. There will be 6 new MvZ maps each with their own objectives. Once a player finishes an objective a new objective is unlocked for that map. 15 new zombie themed items will be added. [B]CS:GO[/B] will get a new zombie themed wave survival mode (think Killing Floor). 6 players will have to work together to survive ever increasing waves of zombies. 4 new maps (Lab, Hospital, Graveyard, Forest) will be added and a zombie themed crate. Again there are objectives for each map which unlock more. [B]Dota 2[/B] will get a battle royale style mode on a new large (and I mean large) zombie themed map. Each player is on their own not only fighting other players but hordes of infected zombie creeps. There will be a new zombie themed courier and treasure chest. [B]Half-Life 2[/B] will get a new DLC "Return to Ravenholm". This is the story of a squad of resistance fighters returning to Ravenholm to take back the city and find the source of a mysterious signal. Father Grigori will make a cameo and there are 3 new types of zombies introduced. [B]Portal[/B] will be updated with new puzzles that lead to hidden rooms / levels that revolve around a infection / zombie theme. Each level will reveal another part of the narrative leading to a new zombie boss battle / puzzle. In each game there are bits of a puzzle that the community will need to piece together and solve. Once solved the ARG will reveal a website that has been tracking the progress of all the objectives across all games and a final zombie boss mode will be unlocked in each game. It'll be clear at this time that the ARG is for the release of Left 4 Dead 3. Once the final boss has been beaten by enough players in each game Left 4 Dead 3 will be released. The target release date is the 27th which is the Friday before Halloween but it could be released earlier depending on global player progress. Once Left 4 Dead 3 is released there will be a final update to Half-Life 2 and Portal. This will include a mini ARG that leads to a website with a countdown to E3 2018. [IMG]https://facepunch.com/fp/ratings/rainbow.png[/IMG] More realistically though Valve won't do anything because they fucking suck.

[QUOTE=Danzflor;52749512]I think some people here are waaaay too serious about being competitive in a videogame. I get it, that's like YOUR way to enjoy a videogame, too bad the casual (A.k.a. MOST of the) players don't find that interesting or fun at all.[/QUOTE] Kind of a shitty way to go about it, since you're essentially saying "oh you're a niche group you don't matter". Also, have you stopped to think the reason the comp community is as small as it is was because it never got official support prior? [quote]I really don't get why people love to play seriously stripping all the fun things out of videogames, but oh well. [/quote] It's the same reason people love to play on the highest difficulty of games: they love the challenge. People enjoy improving their performance and seeing the fruits of their labor take place [quote]In my opinion, people should get serious about games only if you get paid to do so, other wise is stressful and bad for your mental health. Just watch how LoL and Overwatch ranked games are filled with the most toxic people on the planet, no interest in having fun, just winning, winning is the only way to have fun. Like, seriously? Why even play the game then?[/quote] If people only got serious about a game for being paid, then nobody would get paid because at that point nobody would actually care to watch them be good at the game. Believe it or not, a lot of people who play competitive games play because they enjoy having a balanced, and even match. It gets boring steamrolling the same pubs over and over again, but if I go to any pugs, I can generally find a team that will make me have to actually try. [quote]And yeah, HL for me is much more compelling and actual viable way of selling the game. You actually use all the characters and their abilities togheter to win matches. 6v6 is the same format of 2 scouts, 2 demos, a Solly and a Medic, making half of the roster useless or very situational.[/quote] This seems to be the most common complaint against 6v6 is the fact you aren't using every character in the game. HL sounds cool at first, but then you realize how many things in the game end up just slowing the game down, or are suboptimal. Speed is an important part of a game like TF2. HL is very easy to be stalemated with factors like Sniper's huge area control, Heavy/Medic combos, and Sentries. If every game ended up being a slow stalemate, people just wouldn't want to watch or play it. Generalists vs. Specialists is also a part of TF2's core. Some classes just work better in all situations. You're not going to run a heavy full time compared to a soldier, because the soldier is more versatile; but a heavy is really good for defending an important area if the need arises. A lot of people seem to forget that off classing is indeed a thing in 6s. [quote]I don't think Dota 2 would have reach his popularity status if you were only forced to choose 25 of the 100+ heroes just because "the meta said so" (but fair enough that was the case a couple years ago and still is in League of Legends, lol).[/quote] Balancing a MOBA, and balancing a fast paced class FPS are 2 very different beasts. [editline]5th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=DevinWatson;52749788][B]Team Fortress 2[/B] will get a new Halloween game mode based off of MvM but instead of machines it's zombies. [/QUOTE] So, wave 666 :v:

[QUOTE=Totenkreuz;52748935]Nothing's happening in TF2, nothing's happening in Dota. Valve makes too much money to be this slow.[/QUOTE] Correction: Valve makes so much money that they CAN be this slow. [editline]5th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=DrCactus;52749811]Generalists vs. Specialists is also a part of TF2's core. Some classes just work better in all situations. You're not going to run a heavy full time compared to a soldier, because the soldier is more versatile; but a heavy is really good for defending an important area if the need arises. A lot of people seem to forget that off classing is indeed a thing in 6s.[/QUOTE] I personally am not opposed to certain classes becoming generalists. I hope the Pyro update makes Pyro a generalist. And that GRU overhaul, if it gets the GRU unbanned, would make viable a fulltime Heavy again, since he'd be allowed to get to mid with everyone else, even if his health suffers greatly. Gunslinger balance could make a fulltime Engineer viable, maybe some massive overhaul to the Huntsman could make Sniper viable (fuck if i know lol), and core changes and some more focused tools could make Spy viable.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749725] I just straight out cant imagine them pushing a tiny medal update next week + the pre Halloween Blog Post without this Update.[/QUOTE] The way Scream Fortress has been treated the past few years we may not get a Halloween blog post. They have more than enough content on the Workshop already and content creators don't really need a prompt since we make stuff for SF months in advance sometimes. If we do get a Halloween blog it might just be another "Busy working on Jungle so SF is gonna be light this year." kind of thing. So far it looks like they are skipping the saxxy awards this year too.

[QUOTE=RetroMike;52749920]The way Scream Fortress has been treated the past few years we may not get a Halloween blog post. They have more than enough content on the Workshop already and content creators don't really need a prompt since we make stuff for SF months in advance sometimes. If we do get a Halloween blog it might just be another "Busy working on Jungle so SF is gonna be light this year." kind of thing. So far it looks like they are skipping the saxxy awards this year too.[/QUOTE] Last year 2/3 maps were 2015 submitted, only the one i did was new from the selected ones. Theres so many new maps coming this year vs last year, that even if there isnt a blog post on "what we're up to", there still is going to be lots of content to choose from. I'm just afraid there isnt going to be a scream fortress update this year due to things sliding this far.

[QUOTE=RetroMike;52749920]The way Scream Fortress has been treated the past few years we may not get a Halloween blog post. They have more than enough content on the Workshop already and content creators don't really need a prompt since we make stuff for SF months in advance sometimes. If we do get a Halloween blog it might just be another "Busy working on Jungle so SF is gonna be light this year." kind of thing. So far it looks like they are skipping the saxxy awards this year too.[/QUOTE] That would be the first time they'd do that, which may be possible, but I doubt it. I also just cant imagine them letting scream fortress be the first major update. Well, we'll see soon enough. Atleast for an answer for this question we wont have to wait 400 days.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749988]Atleast for an answer for this question we wont have to wait 400 days.[/QUOTE] or maybe you could give up and stop defending valve at every turn

[QUOTE=Fluury;52749988]That would be the first time they'd do that, which may be possible, but I doubt it. I also just cant imagine them letting scream fortress be the first major update. Well, we'll see soon enough. Atleast for an answer for this question we wont have to wait 400 days.[/QUOTE] In order for someone to do saxxy, maintain forums, etc, means that someone at valve needs to care about those things. Look what happened with SPUF when the guy who basically was the soul of them, left valve this spring. They got shut down because there was no one interested to maintain them. The person who worked originally with SFM, has left valve. Has it received updates for few years? No. Theres shitloads of people who still play L4D2 and that hope for new content but it never comes. If no one fills these peoples shoes or pitches in otherwise, nothing will happen. Valve has sadly grown too big to pay attention to the needs of the little people. They draw major lines and TF2 would propably be out of updates if it wouldnt have this big playerbase and still active community, that actually buys stuff from store.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52749997]or maybe you could give up and stop defending valve at every turn[/QUOTE] He's not defending. He's just hoping for the update to come ASAP.