Major Update Speculation V35 - A Distinctive Lack of Communication - Games

[QUOTE=Fluury;51277739] Then again, 5CP itself is a flawed gamemode causing stalemates.[/QUOTE] This is why i dislike 5cp maps that are symmetric. Either it's total steamroll for other team or constant stalemate.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51276079]Competitive CS:GO is a slow-paced affair, and that's wildly popular, so I don't understand the argument that Heavy slows down the game. So what?[/QUOTE] Apples and oranges. CS:GO is slow because if you run around carelessly, you get shot and die and never respawn. This is slow TF2: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalWDhYfdeg[/media]

[QUOTE=ics;51277501]Hellstone also known as Millstone is currently being played in UGC highlander season 20 with only minor changes to the last area and some more lighting in mid area of the map so i'm not sure that why they picked it up if it doesn't work competitively. I spent time with them looking out for the map and they were very helpfull and friendly towards the map. It's better than it was previously. [URL="http://ugcleague.com/schedule_tf2h.cfm"]http://ugcleague.com/schedule_tf2h.cfm [/URL][/QUOTE] Could've sworn that Millstone was substituted for another Payload map earlier in the season. Congratulations on getting your map in- hopefully it gets plentiful feedback and works well for the format. It's honestly difficult to say whether or not a map will work in competitive until it's played, so I'll reserve my judgements until I've practiced on and played it myself. My reservations with your maps come from a pub setting, but with Hellstone especially, I had some very poor experiences last year. Even one of the best Payload maps in the game, Badwater, doesn't function well in Highlander without significant changes to balance against Engineers and Snipers. The Millstone I played suffered from long, uninterrupted sightlines on the cart and brutal chokes with little flanking potential. All that being said, I'm sure you've made plenty of changes, and it's still too early to say how good it'll be for Highlander. That being said, I highly doubt Valve is picking your maps- or any other Halloween maps- as ones suited to competitive play, sans perhaps Sinshine last year. If Valve actually cared about TF2 competitive formats, they'd have made changes to their maps for matchmaking (like they said they would two years ago and still haven't), they'd enforce class limits for an actual 6v6 experience (instead of the worse 12-man pub we have now), and Sunshine/Swiftwater would've gotten into the game years ago, since they've been competitive staples for a very long time. I'd argue that Valve neither understands competitive TF2 or cares enough about it to see it succeed. Additionally, just because the UGC admins greenlight it, doesn't mean that the players enjoy it- HL players were forced to play Vanguard for two seasons, and both times fucking nobody liked it. It worked better in pubs after some patching, but in Highlander especially I've literally never had less fun in TF2. The entire Plat Council, sans Alto (who is buddy-buddy with Vanguard's creator) were against its inclusion, but the administration forced the map into the rotation anyways. The UGC admins are generally disliked for their poor decision-making in the community, but they're the only real choice for an NA Highlander league. [editline]29th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Lord Exor;51277601]Which retards the action, impeding audacious plays and rendering everything even more deliberate.[/QUOTE] I love you buddy but 6s matches even without GRU Heavies can stretch on for over an hour, especially when equally skilled teams are fighting. Additionally, GRU Heavy forces both teams to run Heavy + Sniper fulltime, which greatly decreases team comp flexibility and will most CERTAINLY result in even longer games. There's a reason 6s players are universally opposed to GRU- with so little players, it quickly becomes overpowered and takes away Heavy's key weaknesss in the game. [QUOTE]I'll give this to Delfy, he has good taste in music.[/QUOTE] I only watch SiN/Delfy content with adblock (I don't want to contribute revenue to either of those [I]parasites[/I]), but I do gotta agree with this. The current video's music is meh, but Time Killer from the last one was actually really catchy...

[QUOTE=Contra132;51277906]Could've sworn that Millstone was substituted for another Payload map earlier in the season. Congratulations on getting your map in- hopefully it gets plentiful feedback and works well for the format. It's honestly difficult to say whether or not a map will work in competitive until it's played, so I'll reserve my judgements until I've practiced on and played it myself. My reservations with your maps come from a pub setting, but with Hellstone especially, I had some very poor experiences last year. Even one of the best Payload maps in the game, Badwater, doesn't function well in Highlander without significant changes to balance against Engineers and Snipers. The Millstone I played suffered from long, uninterrupted sightlines on the cart and brutal chokes with little flanking potential. All that being said, I'm sure you've made plenty of changes, and it's still too early to say how good it'll be for Highlander. That being said, I highly doubt Valve is picking your maps- or any other Halloween maps- as ones suited to competitive play, sans perhaps Sinshine last year. If Valve actually cared about TF2 competitive formats, they'd have made changes to their maps for matchmaking (like they said they would two years ago and still haven't), they'd enforce class limits for an actual 6v6 experience (instead of the worse 12-man pub we have now), and Sunshine/Swiftwater would've gotten into the game years ago, since they've been competitive staples for a very long time. I'd argue that Valve neither understands competitive TF2 or cares enough about it to see it succeed. Additionally, just because the UGC admins greenlight it, doesn't mean that the players enjoy it- HL players were forced to play Vanguard for two seasons, and both times fucking nobody liked it. It worked better in pubs after some patching, but in Highlander especially I've literally never had less fun in TF2. The entire Plat Council, sans Alto (who is buddy-buddy with Vanguard's creator) were against its inclusion, but the administration forced the map into the rotation anyways. The UGC admins are generally disliked for their poor decision-making in the community, but they're the only real choice for an NA Highlander league. [/QUOTE] About Valve not updating maps to be more competitive, you have to remember that they also need to work in pubs too, 12vs12, 9vs9 and 6vs6. So you cannot have 100% comp concentrated map and have it work everywhere with every limit and setting. There has to be the middle ground. Millstone never was a substitute for anything. They had many maps in consideration, including snowycoast but after testing it and others, they went with Millstone. This is what i was told while i were there ingame looking up the things they wanted to discuss with. I am aware of the badwater changes, infact i was told not to change Millstone a lot, because they thought it was fine as it is now. Badwater was used as an example, because they told me that the creator did some good things, but he also changes unnecessary things that made that map less comp viable for them in parts. I'm also well aware that i never have considered my maps to be competitive maps in terms of 6's or HL, I look forward next week myself too now how the map goes in HL. If they hate it, it's fine. If they like it, it's equally fine. I don't take it personally, but next time i make a new map, i will remember those things. Might even do changes to the map itself later on based on their feedback. Time will tell. Regardless of the map (any map), some players will always hate it no matter what and some will like it. I had very mixed feedback last year from Hellstone because of this. If you try anything different from normal, that is always bad for some and they get shitstorm over a little thing such as the spooking cart. If someone doesn't like the map, they can always avoid it and not play it. Game has over 100 maps now, there should be something for everyone. As for Valve picking maps, i dont know what their process is and i wont speculate into that too much on why they picked my maps. Just going to say that Halloween was a theme and these maps, including sinshine and the others just fit in the scheme itself. There were 30+ maps added last year into the workshop and 4 were picked up. I like to think that they went in and tested many of these maps before choosing the final 4. This year, maybe ~10 maps were posted in the workshop when maps got picked for this halloween (i assume they were chosen same time as mine was). A lot of maps were submitted to the workshop way too late to be even considered by Valve. The maps did not get picked up in a day and included straight in. Brimstone was the only map from the bunch of this years maps that got in, the other 2 were posted last year. Maybe there was a lack of maps or maybe the maps actually worked fine to their needs and were not too different or confusing or performing bad in terms of framerate and such. But here we are, maybe next year things are better and slasher, that seems to be most hyped map around here, is considered. 2 of the maps picked up for this halloween were also posted last year so there is hope for it still to be added. Thanks.

[QUOTE=HotrodMC;51277065][video=youtube;-3UTq9SdS9c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3UTq9SdS9c[/video] Looks like Brimstone is about to get worse.[/QUOTE] Luckily these are all rather specific, medic-dependent setups so you're unlikely to find them in the wild.

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;51278042]Luckily these are all rather specific, medic-dependent setups so you're unlikely to find them in the wild.[/QUOTE] Every year though it's always the damn mini power up ( well, that and the teleport spell ) that are always causing problems. I do agree though, it sucks that it exists but the fact that it requires luck and other people helping will keep it out of games unlike if it only required one person to pull off.

I personally liked brimstone, the only problem I had with it is merasmus being included, such bosses like merasmus and monoculus don't fit payload maps, and it's always an advantage to Blu because he will destroy the red team, no one cares to fight him as all would prefer to continue defending/attacking, especially that there's no truce and the payload can still be pushed.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51276876]What exactly is fast paced about CS:GO?[/QUOTE] You only get two minutes per round. You don't get respawns. This means that you either push or you don't. Sure, players are more cautious, at the start. That's when you get intel. But once there is only one minute left on the clock, players really have to start moving their butts.

[QUOTE=rolfum;51277239]is the creator of brimstone and hellstone blackmailing valve to let his maps in every year or something? I can't think of any other reason we got the same map featuring the same problems made by the same person twice in a row, even though the community said hellstone itself was bad and there were plenty of other choices valve could've made. (gravelpit event being one of my favorites other than slasher) like how do you make the same map and not learn from any of your mistakes?[/QUOTE] Hellstone feels like the creator made the map, printed it out, then threw darts for where random assets would go. Brimstone feels like the creator just took a bucked full of Halloween assets and splashed it on the map half-assed-ly. Either way, I don't like or enjoy either. It's even more sad when you realize valve had better maps to choose from. Like [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=782407483&searchtext="]Slasher[/URL], [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=773281688&searchtext="]Hellward[/URL], or even [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=781315041&searchtext="]Muertos [/URL]

[QUOTE=HotrodMC;51277065][video=youtube;-3UTq9SdS9c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3UTq9SdS9c[/video] Looks like Brimstone is about to get worse.[/QUOTE] [quote="The next update, probably"]- Fixed players using the Tiny spell being able to clip into the world without dying if Ubercharged[/quote] seems like a pretty simple fix to me, and it would cover any of these exploits in the future

TF2 has become LITERALLY unplayable for me. I can't join any server because "Steam needs to be running to make use of find servers". I tried restarting my computer, logging out and back-in, and even having to go through account recovery (thus screwing over my ability to trade and buy shit off the SCM). And nothing is working.

[t]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/219941464654312448/B1DED36A84D812090A992D329A369F81A122695B/[/t] On topic of exploits, friendly reminder this is still possible. It's so easy to fix though, just apply crush damage instead of acid or whatever they're using, since DMG_CRUSH is also used by telefrags, and it bypasses ubers.

I would love grieffers getting banned just like csgo did recently, also i find fun how delfy just did the SAME video than Ninja cookie a day ago[I] (Okay, seems like he creditted...Even sadder, what about if you find a job or create more wtf moments delfy)[/I] Although it would be useless, because they will keep creating alts...Well...We'll be fucked until they stop finding exploits or they want to get a work

While CS:GO has a pretty straightforward definition of griefing, TF2 on the other hand has a somewhat broad term here, where much like in MOBA games like LoL and DotA2 many actions OTHER than exploiting can be considered griefing, and at the same time those could also be someone's mistakes rather than purposeful actions. Banning for griefing in a casual game? While that would be the right thing to do, I personally don't like it. Not because I'm a part of the problem, but because this can be VERY heavily abused, and without a proper report-reviewing system like CS:GO's Overwatch it's outright impossible to prevent said abuse. I can tell you right now that Valve won't bother implementing Overwatch-like systems in TF2. The game is too old for that, sadly.

Speaking of griefing, I queued with a friend of mine a few days ago and he was cheating/aimbotting using some kind of software, would my account be affected just be playing a few games with him? He didn't explain what it was or how he got it but I don't condone that sort of thing in games so I didn't go Vaccinator Med or try to help him directly

Although you won't...You should, it's the same thing that sharing your games via family share with cheaters, you shouldn't play with cheaters, not even in casual

[QUOTE=Contra132;51277906] Additionally, GRU Heavy forces both teams to run Heavy + Sniper fulltime, which greatly decreases team comp flexibility and will most CERTAINLY result in even longer games.[/quote] It doesn't require both teams to go Heavy + Sniper. The other team could just have a good Sniper, and as long as he's got a sightline on the Heavy, the Heavy's team pretty much is 5/6 the entire game. Also, we've already discussed how the speed of the game is completely irrelevant. People enjoy watching Golf, I think 6s spectators can still enjoy a slightly slower game of 6s. [QUOTE=Contra132;51277906] There's a reason 6s players are universally opposed to GRU- with so little players, it quickly becomes overpowered and takes away Heavy's key weaknesss in the game.[/QUOTE] Heavy's "key weakness" takes into account again the instant he starts fighting. He can't move, so any player can beat him just spamming around a corner (Almost every 6s map has a corner that can be used to spam a Heavy out at mid). Even with GRU + Disciplinary Action he still won't get to mid on any map before the roaming soldier and demoman. "6s players are universally opposed" Yeah, I have doubts that every 6s player is opposed to allowing Heavy to actually be used.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279365]It doesn't require both teams to go Heavy + Sniper. The other team could just have a good Sniper, and as long as he's got a sightline on the Heavy, the Heavy's team pretty much is 5/6 the entire game. Also, we've already discussed how the speed of the game is completely irrelevant. People enjoy watching Golf, I think 6s spectators can still enjoy a slightly slower game of 6s. Heavy's "key weakness" takes into account again the instant he starts fighting. He can't move, so any player can beat him just spamming around a corner (Almost every 6s map has a corner that can be used to spam a Heavy out at mid). Even with GRU + Disciplinary Action he still won't get to mid on any map before the roaming soldier and demoman. "6s players are universally opposed" Yeah, I have doubts that every 6s player is opposed to allowing Heavy to actually be used.[/QUOTE] I always disliked GRU because it gave Heavy mobility while not really having a true downside, or at least one that isn't laughably easy to get around. Only way it could be worse is if it were like the Powerjack. It still takes away from Heavy's weakness though currently even if it's not in effect the entire time, allowing him to get around the map easier and position himself better in the long run. But yeah, if an unlock can hurt a classes weakness, I just felt it should have a real downside as well. I had the same issue with the Scottsman Skullcutter on Demomen before tough break did that whole weapon swapping change to it and the rest of Demomen's melee. Demomen is suppose to be weak in close combat, risking damaging himself if he used explosives and having a weak melee. The Skullcutter is practically a straight upgrade before tough break since it's only downside, movement speed only kicked in with the axe out, which just meant don't pull out the axe unless your in melee range and the downside pretty much becomes irrelevant. Scouts Atomizer is also another one I'd add to this list as well. Although it's perks don't hurt a scouts weakness persay with this one, it's downside is still very very laughable.

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;51279444]I always disliked GRU because it gave Heavy mobility while not really having a true downside, or at least one that isn't laughably easy to get around. Only way it could be worse is if it were like the Powerjack. It still takes away from Heavy's weakness though currently even if it's not in effect the entire time, allowing him to get around the map easier and position himself better in the long run. But yeah, if an unlock can hurt a classes weakness, I just felt it should have a real downside as well.[/QUOTE] It does have a downside, you're marked for death for 3 seconds after putting it away as well as the entire time you have it out. And since you're not getting to mid first no matter what, it means you have to be slow again for an entire 3 seconds before engaging the enemy. The 2 seconds of marked for death a Scout gets on Crit a Cola after its use is meaningless because it's incredibly easy for Scout to dodge attacks for that amount of time. But for Heavy it means he cannot engage the enemy at all for those 3 seconds or he'll be eating 135 damage rockets and pipes for breakfast. It means he's even slower to mid, and if his medic is killed and his team isn't around him, he won't be escaping.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279499]It does have a downside, you're marked for death for 3 seconds after putting it away as well as the entire time you have it out. And since you're not getting to mid first no matter what, it means you have to be slow again for an entire 3 seconds before engaging the enemy. The 2 seconds of marked for death a Scout gets on Crit a Cola after its use is meaningless because it's incredibly easy for Scout to dodge attacks for that amount of time. But for Heavy it means he cannot engage the enemy at all for those 3 seconds or he'll be eating 135 damage rockets and pipes for breakfast. It means he's even slower to mid, and if his medic is killed and his team isn't around him, he won't be escaping.[/QUOTE] I don't consider mark of death a good downside when it's super easy to work around while still benefiting from GRU movement speed increase. Use GRU to get near the action, listen or communicate with teammates then pull out minigun before engaging so the mark of death is gone before you fight.

the only reason they changed the GRU ancient HP degen was so MvM robots wouldn't eventually kill themselves :v: (non-joke aside it's probably actually that since the gru were changed right before mvm's release)

[QUOTE=Hell-met;51279580]the only reason they changed the GRU ancient HP degen was so MvM robots wouldn't eventually kill themselves :v: (non-joke aside it's probably actually that since the gru were changed right before mvm's release)[/QUOTE] I thought it was basically free uber for the medics pocketing them.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279365]Yeah, I have doubts that every 6s player is opposed to allowing Heavy to actually be used.[/QUOTE] [B]Find me a 6s player at or above Silver level who agrees with your argument.[/B] No whitelist in recent memory has [I]ever[/I] allowed GRU, not even the universal whitelist, which was explicitly designed to be as non-restrictive as possible without breaking the game. In addition to better unifying league rules of play, it was also designed to say: "Here's the weapons that break 6s, TF Team! Hope you guys take a look at them!". GRU is still banned on that whitelist because, yes, according to [I]the general consensus, especially high-level players, [B]it's fucking broken.[/B][/I] Also, insisting that GRU wouldn't make a full-time Heavy a necessity on both ends is laughable. Having a Heavy on all points of the map, thanks to his boosted mobility, has the following effects in 6s: * Enemy flank (but especially roaming Soldier and Scouts) effectiveness is greatly weakened. With a Heavy playing properly (defending his combo in the manner a Pocket Soldier would), bombers and flankers are easily denied. * With flank plays being made significantly more dangerous, the enemy flank is given a few options: 1. Push together and focus Heavy, unnecessarily risking a severe player disadvantage if they fail and leaving their own flank undefended. 2. Play passively and defend only the flank. However, this means that they won't able to go for key picks, such as the Medic. While their flank is, in theory, well-protected (provided they can beat the other flank) their combo is alone to figure out how to defeat the enemy combo. * In this case, combo would likely comprise of Heavy-Demoman-Medic on the Heavy's side, and Pocket-Demoman-Medic on the other. In direct combat here, the Heavy combo is at an advantage. While the Demoman is a legitimate threat to the Heavy in this circumstance, the Demoman's primary threat will be the other Demoman. The sheer DPS on the Heavy's end is much higher, and with far less players to worry about in 6s, his effectiveness as a damage sponge increases vastly. Of course, this is the point where you'll say "well, one of the Scouts should go Sniper to counter the Heavy!". Which would be an excellent idea, but would leave their own flank underpowered to fight the enemy's. Assuming equal player skill on both ends, the flank with 3 players will easily defeat the flank with only 2. At this point, the combo will be left to fight both the enemy combo and flank. A half-decent Sniper will be able to take away the Heavy combo advantage, but is unlikely to be able to defend himself or his combo from the enemy flank that's about to eat them alive uncontested. Even with only one GRU Heavy in play, the game slows and becomes skewed in the direction of his team. Weakening the flank for a Sniper only means the enemy flank becomes more powerful, which is why Snipers aren't typically run to Mid. It's a dangerous gamble that most teams aren't willing to make unless there's a massive difference in skill level. The safest, smartest option to counter this is to run your own GRU Heavy (to better protect your own combo/even out the DPS discrepancy in combo fights) and your own Sniper (to pick their Heavy). At this point, the Heavy-team becomes disadvantaged without a Sniper, making him another required pick. The full generalist setup is disadvantaged versus a setup with even one GRU Heavy, much less a Sniper to add to it. With the GRU allowed, 1 Scout, 1 Sniper, 1 Roamer, 1 Heavy, 1 Demoman and 1 Medic becomes the smartest pick in just about every situation. This same team composition was also fairly popular in Prolander, a failed experiment by the competitive community that pretty much took the worst of both 6s and HL and rolled it all together. There's a reason that's a failed format (it's slow, unfun and a straight downgrade compared to traditional 6s or HL), and forcing the 6s meta into Prolander's because you want Heavy to be full-time viable will ruin most of the appeal behind the format. Additionally, [QUOTE]Also, we've already discussed how the speed of the game is completely irrelevant. People enjoy watching Golf, I think 6s spectators can still enjoy a slightly slower game of 6s.[/QUOTE] Golf is irrelevant to eSports. Hell, The International itself boasted higher total viewership ratings last year than the equivalent Masters golf tournament. Using a generally less-popular sport as an argument for what works in the eSports arena is neither relevant or logically sound. A better example would be looking at the [I]actual[/I] eSports arena, which is dominated by MOBAs. I can't stand the genre, personally, but the big MOBAs have generally good game-pacing. Additionally, CSGO (which a few of you keep mentioning) has games that are much shorter than even TF2 6s, thanks to a strict time limit. CSGO games are only slow in the beginning- once the action starts, it's a sudden rush and it's over quickly The speed and pacing of an eSport absolutely contributes to its success. 6s as it is is the most fast-paced competitive format TF2 has, with the most strategic flexibility allowed. GRU Heavy forces Prolander-levels of stale, and Highlander is both too slow and too cluttered to be our primary eSports format.

[QUOTE=Contra132;51279710]stuff[/QUOTE] tl;dr heavy should never be viable in 6s as anything other than an offclass okay

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279780]tl;dr heavy should never be viable in 6s as anything other than an offclass okay[/QUOTE] don't take it personally or anything. GRU Heavy in an environment with half the players of a traditional pub environment is a massive game-changer, and in the case of the 6s meta, not a good one. I think the Heavy Weapons Guy needs more love, too, and I really hope the Heavy/Pyro updates address both of their weaknesses in the 6s meta and changes them in ways that maintain game balance and pacing while making them more enjoyable to play. cool that you understand though.

[QUOTE=Contra132;51279817]don't take it personally or anything. GRU Heavy in an environment with half the players of a traditional pub environment is a massive game-changer, and in the case of the 6s meta, not a good one. I think the Heavy Weapons Guy needs more love, too, and I really hope the Heavy/Pyro updates address both of their weaknesses in the 6s meta and changes them in ways that maintain game balance and pacing while making them more enjoyable to play. cool that you understand though.[/QUOTE] I DON'T understand. You saying "I think the Heavy Weapons Guy needs more love, too" contradicts EVERYTHING you've said previously, because you DON'T WANT HEAVY TO BE VIABLE IN 6s. The ONLY way for Heavy to be viable in 6s is for him to be able to get to the frontlines to be with his team, but the one item that allows him to do that apparently ends the world for the 6s meta! You're saying he's OVERPOWERED if he can be with his team! Heavy is NOT overpowered.

I think a more pertinent analogy would be a game of baseball which features far less action than even the most stalematey 6v6 match and can last several hours before completion.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279834]I DON'T understand. You saying "I think the Heavy Weapons Guy needs more love, too" contradicts literally EVERYTHING you've said previously, because you DON'T WANT HEAVY TO BE VIABLE IN 6s. The ONLY way for Heavy to be viable in 6s is for him to be able to get to the frontlines to be with his team, but the one item that allows him to do that apparently ends the world for the 6s meta![/QUOTE] I'd be fine with Heavy being full-time viable in 6s if the way his class is designed now wouldn't break the format. Heavy would need a lot of changes for full-time viability without forcing him + Sniper to be run constantly. I don't know what that solution would be, but I'm not in favor of turning 6s into Prolander [I]just[/I] for fulltime Heavy viability. That is way too big a trade-off, and considering what it'd do game pacing, isn't something I believe would contribute to the scene's growth. I can sympathize with Heavy mains and want to see the class in a better place than it is now without wanting a radical negative change for the comp scene. These things are not mutually exclusive. [B]EDIT:[/B] Hell, added note: I'm a damn [B]Spy main.[/B] I'm even less viable in 6s than Heavy is! Spy is still my favorite gameplay experience in TF2, but I would hate to see him buffed to the point where he's Scout/Soldier levels of viable because that would hurt both the game's meta and Spy's own design. I feel like Spy is fine where he is in the 6s meta and the game as a whole, honestly, though I'd love to see more interesting gameplay opportunities for him. [QUOTE=Lord Exor;51279844]I think a more pertinent analogy would be a game of baseball which features far less action than even the most stalematey 6v6 match and can last several hours before completion.[/QUOTE] In real-world sports, perhaps. But is there any popular eSport you can think of with comparable pacing?

[QUOTE=Blackavar;51279780]tl;dr heavy should never be viable in 6s as anything other than an offclass okay[/QUOTE] I don't think he'll ever really get buffed the way heavy mains want him to be or played in comp till they make the class as a whole more exciting to watch, play and play against. As it stands, run a heavy vs heavy MGE match for an hour or two, then tell me how exciting that was. Really hoping the pyro and heavy updates Valve is promising us does push them in the right direction. If they can manage it though it could make the game more exciting with more variety.

[QUOTE=Contra132;51279851]Heavy would need a lot of changes for full-time viability without forcing him + Sniper to be run constantly. I don't know what that solution would be, but I'm not in favor of turning 6s into Prolander [I]just[/I] for fulltime Heavy viability.[/QUOTE] Sounds like you want him to lose the Minigun. Just remove all his primaries. They're [I]overpowered.[/I] They beat bombers too easily! They keep the medic from dying! OVERPOWERED! Not to mention his Sandvich, which can HEAL MEDICS! Or maybe we ought to reduce his health to 150! That way, he'll always die to 3 pipes or rockets taking overheal into account, and without overheal, he can always be oneshotted by a Sniper without a charge!