TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V6 - Year of the Guard Dog SURVEY IN OP - Games

That still does not explain how he got his TT medal though

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53142829]I'm watching Ready Up and I'm enjoying it. They're really (deservingly) shitting all over Valve's comp support, aside from B4nny who you can tell is trying to walk the line and not say anything too negative due to his relationship with the TF2 team. Clearly the TF team didn't see it before it came out because I don't think they would have promoted a solid 15-20 minutes of shitting on the TF team/Valve to the entire community. A response from Valve would be nice but I'm sure we'll get silence.[/QUOTE] I dont think valve thought it would be a good idea to silence criticism from their game.

[QUOTE=DrCactus;53142869]That still does not explain how he got his TT medal though[/QUOTE] My guess is Hydrogen might've accidentally activated the medal server for a few seconds instead of using his testing suite and a bunch of people got them early. It's how the mission submittors and winners got their medals early as well.

[QUOTE=DrCactus;53140579]I have to hand it to the titanium tank guys. They somehow managed to make community mvm servers full capacity almost 24/7 and weren't dumb infinite money 10 player servers[/QUOTE] I (technically) helped!!!

I was watching some old STAR videos and it reminded me of how comparatively good quickplay was to casual. He was able to join Jerma's server midgame, switch teams, go into spectator, have the teams be autoscrambled, and play on a map for more than two rounds. It's not just the features either; I hopped on inspired with an idea of doing some fun shenanigans and the quality of matches and fights in this game has absolutely degraded. We were either steamrolling or being steamrolled, or attacking endlessly against a infinitely turtling team. And most importantly, nobody was having fun. Now I'm not the biggest proponent of friendlies, but nobody even broke out a preround conga or anything of the like. Nobody was experimenting with wacky loadouts and playstyles. There barely was any chatting. Somehow, casual mode took out the best parts of being able to casually play TF2, with none of the upsides of increased teamwork, better ranking, and improved player quality that people expect from a matchmaking system.

Now what you're saying is kinda depressing, but it doesn't at all match my experience, so here's my take: You can join a friend mid-match if you're in the same party. Sucks that it isn't instant but hey, it's generally fast enough for me. Bummer about the rest. I'm personally not getting any of what you're describing when I play. If anything it feels like people talk more, for better or worse - most of my years playing, Valve pubs had been dead silent, I reckon the community server axe brought the chatty folk over. I'm also getting generally balanced matches when I avoid inherently unbalanced maps like Dustbowl (as a rule of thumb, if you steamroll one round and get steamrolled when the teams get switched, it's not the teams that are unbalanced, it's the map). Now I'm not getting 100% balanced matches all the time, but it's definitely much better than back when people could stack teams and did so with annoying frequency. Conga is still very much alive - somehow - and you got definitely unlucky to not have seen it happen. Recently I see a lot of Pyros trying to stomp people with jetpack (myself included), so there's that. I mean it's really a shame the game's not as exciting to you as it is to me, but I feel you might be jumping to conclusions a bit. I've always felt quickplay was completely pointless as the server browser was both faster and more convenient (and it didn't send me to empty servers half the time), and having to use a basically updated version of it is and continues to be a pain in the ass, but I wouldn't go as far as pinning to it the fault for some bad matches.

[QUOTE=_Pai;53143052]I was watching some old STAR videos and it reminded me of how comparatively good quickplay was to casual. He was able to join Jerma's server midgame, switch teams, go into spectator, have the teams be autoscrambled, and play on a map for more than two rounds. It's not just the features either; I hopped on inspired with an idea of doing some fun shenanigans and the quality of matches and fights in this game has absolutely degraded. We were either steamrolling or being steamrolled, or attacking endlessly against a infinitely turtling team. And most importantly, nobody was having fun. Now I'm not the biggest proponent of friendlies, but nobody even broke out a preround conga or anything of the like. Nobody was experimenting with wacky loadouts and playstyles. There barely was any chatting. Somehow, casual mode took out the best parts of being able to casually play TF2, with none of the upsides of increased teamwork, better ranking, and improved player quality that people expect from a matchmaking system.[/QUOTE] For me, Quickplay wasn't very good. I would get into empty servers half the time. People abused votescramble after each loss, and I would be autobalanced in the worst moments. Not to count that people weren't trying at all, winning and losing felt pointless, thus the objective felt pointless too. Also, Random took a ton of time to get in. Casual though, really improved these things for me. I get fast queue times, I can choose which maps I want, I can mix them, people are actually doing the objective and it feels like you want to win, and I can play with my friends all over the globe with optimal ping (From these plays I noticed something interesting: US servers have many more hackers and steamrolls, but people are much more communicative than in EU). I would like some improvements though like autoscrambling after a match and shortened voting time. Point is: people had problems with Quickplay. What I noticed is that pro-Quickplay people talk like nobody had problems with Quickplay, and Casual just added problems for many. That's just not true (And I mean the Quickplay system, not the server browser (though that too didn't work in the old times half the time for me for some reason)). A Quickplay system for Community Servers would be great to make everyone in the TF2 community content.

You were suppose to use the quickplay server browser and not just rely on it selecting servers/maps for you. It was basically a flashier version of the old school server browser that could only do valve servers. You would never get into maps you didn't want or empty servers that way and near the end they even managed to perfect it so you didn't get error messages or anything like that. And they trashed it all, just to start from scratch, with all the old bugs they already fixed in old system, missing features and wait time to get into a game. Awful.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53142829]I'm watching Ready Up and I'm enjoying it. They're really (deservingly) shitting all over Valve's comp support, aside from B4nny who you can tell is trying to walk the line and not say anything too negative due to his relationship with the TF2 team. Clearly the TF team didn't see it before it came out because I don't think they would have promoted a solid 15-20 minutes of shitting on the TF team/Valve to the entire community. A response from Valve would be nice but I'm sure we'll get silence.[/QUOTE] In all honesty we can be certain the TF Team knows that the current comp mode is gobshite and im still convinced they only released it due to the insane pressure that came with MyM. That's why they wanna get it right this time, with the cost of it taking a lot of fucking time but it hopefully being this year.

The intro to Ready Up is heartwrenching. For those not in the know, it opens with a clip from a major CSGO LAN. All the production value, a massive crowd, all the [I]hype[/I]...and then immediately flips over to a clip from a major TF2 LAN, which is still an extremely humble arrangement by comparison. And that shit [I]stings[/I]. Every time I see Overwatch or CSGO's massive success in eSports, I can't help but feel like "that should've been us".

Money makes the ESports happen, something Valve seemingly won't do for TF2. I say that because if Overwatch; a balancing nightmare with a stale 4-tank meta can become an ESport by dumping cash prizes on it, anything can become one.

What exactly is the difference between the different sound qualities?

Also another problem the TF2 Comp community faces is that it's biggest face is a psychopath that is shit unironically smack talking the dude that had food poisoning [MEDIA]https://twitter.com/4G_b4nny/status/965281467721904128[/MEDIA]

[QUOTE=Big Snake Bos;53142882]I dont think valve thought it would be a good idea to silence criticism from their game.[/QUOTE] Not promoting the video through the blog or in game message system isn't silencing criticism, it's just not promoting the documentary. Valve has no obligation to promote Ready Up even though it's about TF2.

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;53143355]What exactly is the difference between the different sound qualities?[/QUOTE] Echo.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53143449]Not promoting the video through the blog or in game message system isn't silencing criticism, it's just not promoting the documentary. Valve has no obligation to promote Ready Up even though it's about TF2.[/QUOTE] They've already promoted it, if you consider a blog post about it a promotion. They're backed into a corner at this stage; the film has been formally acknowledged as a thing that exists, so there's no way to claim unknowing. However, the content of the film itself isn't something that can necessarily be ignored or left silent, especially given the callouts contained within. The ugly truth right now is that there simply isn't enough manpower. Both in terms of making changes to the game-side of the competitive format and also in bridging the gap between the team and the competitive community. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the software engineers who've dedicated themselves to TF2 out of their passion of the game over the more-enticing invitation of working on Valve's newer projects. But there's only so much that a handful of developers can get done for a game that is literally received over 2 decades of development (with half of that time being in the public sphere). Then at the same time, they're splitting their time so that they can both get their work done [i]and[/i] reach out to the community in the capacity that they have. There's a lot of pressure on this group to deliver and I don't expect things to get better unless the game somehow attracts more of their coworkers to move shop over; this creates a kind of nasty catch-22 where attractiveness to work on something scales with how popular it is, but popularity stagnates and declines when it doesn't get enough developer attention especially when there are other games on the market (both at a casual and competitive perspective) that are delivering a more fleshed-out experience.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53142722]That would make it almost a straight upgrade from stock.[/QUOTE] I don't see how. The best thing it has going for it is that you can stab someone in a sentry's range without aggro'ing it. Any other upside is nullified by one of the following: [QUOTE]Hold [V] "spy (class) me" release [V][/QUOTE] [QUOTE][U] "spy (class) me" [ENTER][/QUOTE] On top of that, you can't disguise without using an entire cloak charge. That means you will trail smoke and have to be next to an ammo pack to get any usable amount of cloak back. 90% of the time spent walking around you'll want to be cloaked, because disguises are unconvincing by themselves and are even more easy to spot by respawning players. Therefore, you have to cloak to get behind enemy lines, which uses up a good portion or all of the meter. then if you want to disguise, you have to wait for the thing to charge or use an ammo pack. Once you are disguised, you have to hope that no one notices you while you wait for your cloak or the ammo pack to recharge or choose to move out and try to make a play without the safety net of your cloak. Finally, with the drain rate debuff, you don't even have as much time to get behind the enemy in the first place. This knife is only good for experts in gunplay and trickstabs, and those players dont need the small benefit this knife gives over stock when playing against sentries and are better off with the cloaking benefits that stock provides.

[QUOTE=Contra132;53143280]The intro to Ready Up is heartwrenching. For those not in the know, it opens with a clip from a major CSGO LAN. All the production value, a massive crowd, all the [I]hype[/I]...and then immediately flips over to a clip from a major TF2 LAN, which is still an extremely humble arrangement by comparison. And that shit [I]stings[/I]. Every time I see Overwatch or CSGO's massive success in eSports, I can't help but feel like "that should've been us".[/QUOTE] If only valve cared.

[QUOTE=Kaiga;53143989]If only valve cared.[/QUOTE] Surely Valve wouldn't pass up a third big esports title to make money from? All they need to do is take an hours worth of profit from the lunar new year sale and fund a tournament. I wonder if the tf team has tried just asking people to work on the game.

But that's not how valve works there hoss. Why put in more work than usual to get the same result of what's already making money? "Work where you want" is a dog whistle for "roll your desk towards the money/résumé-boosting projects and ignore the rest unless you're out of things to do", and a corporate policy that's good for valve, but horribly anti-consumer. That's painfully obvious, in observation of valve's priorities, as well as gaben on reddit saying himself that money drives work.

[QUOTE=Kaiga;53144028]But that's not how valve works there hoss. Why put in more work than usual to get the same result of what's already making money? "Work where you want" is a dog whistle for "roll your desk towards the money/résumé-boosting projects and ignore the rest". That's painfully obvious, in observation of valve's priorities, as well as gaben on reddit saying himself that money drives work.[/QUOTE] It's just the people always say Valve only cares about what makes money, then they work on things like VR and the steam controller, steam makes so much damn money they don't even need to care about games and they still make bank. What drives work at valve is what the cabal leaders want, not what makes the most money or what the fans want, what the informal managers personally like.

It's pretty clear that valve doesn't think comp isn't in a good spot to put its best foot forward and begin moving forward with big tournaments. 5CP has some major flaws, and the 6s meta greatly restricts class and weapon choices. They also know that they need to do a lot of balancing work before the meta is in a place where they DO want it to be. Ultimately their manpower makes this balancing work take fucking forever, so we're left with valve's support of comp mode put on hold for a very, very long time. I think the issues we're seeing with TF2 atm mostly come more from valve's broader highering and structuring problems than it does from problems on the part of the current TF team. But of course nobody on the outside really knows what's going on there, we can only speculate.

I came around watching READY UP and man oh man; It stings, it really fucking does. They executed it extremely well and everyone related to it can be proud of their work, but this entire documentary just stinged and made me feel sour, sour of the current situation. Everytime someone goes to Valve, everytime someone speaks with the TF Team they come back saying they care, that they are interested and passionate, but every now and then when seeing shit like this I just kinda raise an eyebrow. When I started playing this stupid game in early 2012 people already told me to "stay away from this dead game" - 6 years later, and people haven't changed. I really hope the TF Team or even just Valve watched it, afterall images and video transfer emotions a lot better than some long ass letter.

[QUOTE=Fluury;53144146]I came around watching READY UP and man oh man; It stings, it really fucking does. They executed it extremely well and everyone related to it can be proud of their work, but this entire documentary just stinged and made me feel sour, sour of the current situation. Everytime someone goes to Valve, everytime someone speaks with the TF Team they come back saying they care, that they are interested and passionate, but every now and then when seeing shit like this I just kinda raise an eyebrow. When I started playing this stupid game in early 2012 people already told me to "stay away from this dead game" - 6 years later, and people haven't changed. I really hope the TF Team or even just Valve watched it, afterall images and video transfer emotions a lot better than some long ass letter.[/QUOTE] i can't tell wheter your post conveys denial or acceptance

[QUOTE=X marks it;53143314]Money makes the ESports happen, something Valve seemingly won't do for TF2. I say that because if Overwatch; a balancing nightmare with a stale 4-tank meta can become an ESport by dumping cash prizes on it, anything can become one.[/QUOTE] Its not really just money that makes it, solid gameplay that people love has caused esports to come out of nothing, Melee is thrown around as an example but it works. I think the reason TF2 could never take off is the massive divide between how the game is played casually and competitively. 6s and casual play might as well be different games. Meanwhile if you squint your eyes, casual and Pro Overwatch games look nearly indentical, poke at choke, press Q, big explosions ect. People get excited for Pro-Overwatch because they know the game. They know what it takes to play the game. Its actually more casually accessible than TF2's esport, which is going to feature a grand total of 1 mode (with a cameo appearance from Pro-modified version of Viaduct) in a format that you can't even really play in the base game, and its also not the format people know from tf2. Say what you will about Overwatch, but at least people know how that game is meant to be played. TF2 spent way too long trying to figure out what format it wanted to do and ultimately missed its chance.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;53144158]i can't tell wheter your post conveys denial or acceptance[/QUOTE] I know you are part of the crowd that has the "heh kid you still believe in valve? pff lol" shtick going on and is also rather pessimistic about TF2 so I'm taking your view of the "Reality" of tf2 with a grain of salt If under "acceptance" you mean that Ill join the cool kids club of "TF is dead lol" then no, I'll still get overhyped for upcoming updates, and I'm still excited for the rework they've got going on because I know that a proper comp mode would be massive for TF2. And that passion will never leave me, because I prefer a positive outlook on TF2, because TF2 is fucking fun, alright. It's never too late, I already said that before, games like Warframe have proven that it doesnt matter how many times you fuck up in the past, you can make it up.

[QUOTE=Oizen;53144217]Its not really just money that makes it, solid gameplay that people love has caused esports to come out of nothing, Melee is thrown around as an example but it works. I think the reason TF2 could never take off is the massive divide between how the game is played casually and competitively. 6s and casual play might as well be different games. Meanwhile if you squint your eyes, casual and Pro Overwatch games look nearly indentical, poke at choke, press Q, big explosions[/QUOTE] I find it funny how you mention Melee, and how casual and competitive TF2 are very divided (which is true), while casual and competitive Melee are also ridiculously divided from each other as well. Melee needed a very specific ruleset to remain competitive and only a handful of characters are viable (sounds familiar?), they had to turn off items, play with stocks on a 8-minute timer, and choose mostly-static battlefields in order to reduce as much luck as possible. Considering how casual Melee is just timed battles with items spawning randomly along with random stage hazards blasting players off the stage, you can see that both ways to play the game are as black and white as TF2's casual and competitive. The difference is: Melee actually became a highly-successful e-sport, becoming a recurrent game in the Evolution tournament's lineout, and with multiple tournaments happening every year, in a game that's no longer supported by its original developers (which make sequels of SSB instead), and not because of luck, but because a simple match becomes a fight of hand dexterity between opponents. TF2 [I]has[/I] that developer backing, albeit small, and still has community-run tournaments happening, catering even more to the casual fanbase than ever before with Prolander becoming more of a thing and with more weapons being rebalanced to become viable. The only legitimate problem TF2 has, community-wise, is that the 6s community is very insular and closed, and they only want to play the same maps, and the same gamemodes with the same whitelist. It will take a long time until we have an actual bridge that connects the casual with the competitive experience, which will only happen after all weapons get rebalanced to be both fun and fair, and a push for a fun, mostly-flawless map format happens (preferably KOTH, maybe). The highly-anticipated Competitive Mode isn't all there is to what's competitive in TF2, and I wouldn't say TF2 has missed its chance considering the multiple shoutouts the TF2 Team do for competitive matches and tournaments. I'd say a thing or two about Overwatch but then this post would be too long. Point is, the wait for any and all competitive changes that make TF2 more fun and balanced will ultimately be worth it and will make the game more appealing as a result to all spectrums of play, hopefully allowing a lot of flexibility with all the classes and lots of loadouts that can be used to the point of viability(!) in PvP. A game that has been updated for 10 years can't "miss" any chances until it dies, after all, so let's wait and hope for the best, that's what I'll do.

Valve didn't see the documentary beforehand. Nobody did. I'm sure it probably stung for them to watch it (if they did). I hope they interpret it as the community calling valve out for never being there for them... But still telling them they're welcome to. It strikes me that I don't think a valve employee has ever been to a tf2 LAN. I think just... Being there would not only give them some perspective but also be a big step for them. They don't have to sponsor it. Just go. Just be a part of the community for [I]once. [/I]

[QUOTE=JugadorXEI;53144300]I find it funny how you mention Melee, and how casual and competitive TF2 are very divided (which is true), while casual and competitive Melee are also ridiculously divided from each other as well. Melee needed a very specific ruleset to remain competitive and only a handful of characters are viable (sounds familiar?), they had to turn off items, play with stocks on a 8-minute timer, and choose mostly-static battlefields in order to reduce as much luck as possible. Considering how casual Melee is just timed battles with items spawning randomly along with random stage hazards blasting players off the stage, you can see that both ways to play the game are as black and white as TF2's casual and competitive. [/QUOTE] These adjustments between casual and pro aren't nearly as large as TF2s. Also Melee has that nice little options feature that eveyone knows about. No one plays timed matches, everyone plays stock, the game is very accessible in letting you edit the rules. Players of tf2 aren't used to options in place being able to ban weapons, maps, or limit the ammount of people to half of whats normal to the game.

[QUOTE=geel9;53144372]Valve didn't see the documentary beforehand. Nobody did. I'm sure it probably stung for them to watch it (if they did). I hope they interpret it as the community calling valve out for never being there for them... But still telling them they're welcome to. It strikes me that I don't think a valve employee has ever been to a tf2 LAN. I think just... Being there would not only give them some perspective but also be a big step for them. They don't have to sponsor it. Just go. Just be a part of the community for [I]once. [/I][/QUOTE] Valve sponsored TF2 LAN would make TF2 a bit more popular. My opinion.