I think again I have to make some responses to comments I've seen repeated a lot. 1: Weapons should have different stats in casual vs competitive, so that way nothing gets negatively affected. This is certainly a solution, and one I thought of myself. In fact, I honestly thought that I included it in my script. Maybe I'm misremembering talking about it on a stream, or maybe I wrote it down but deleted it, I don't know. My problems with this solution are that it might be a bit confusing for newer players, and the weapon ends up being just a neutered version of itself in competitive mode. Ideally, I'd like all weapons to be at the very least fun to use in casual, but still balanced for competitive. If both can be achieved, as is the case with most weapons, great. If not, then maybe this solution would end up being the best. Maybe the Quick Fix's uber rate could build depending on the number of players on your team? I don't know. That's still a really hard one. 2: What about Highlander? That would be the best middle ground. I enjoy playing Highlander, but it has its own series of problems. For starters, I think forcing people to play a class in an environment that doesn't suit them can be frustrating. Scout on Payload offense is reduced to a cart humper, and maybe a flank guarder once the game slows down. And having perma-Spy in an environment where, ideally, everyone is in communication with each other is just not going to end well for the poor guy. Not to mention other issues such as finding a much larger group of people to play with which would make matchmaking alone an even bigger pain in the ass, and ensuring that everyone is going to play their class of choice. Easy on TF2Center where you pick your class as you queue up, not so much for Valve comp's current format. Some competitive circles have introduced a version of 6v6 or 7v7 play called Prolander, which I think is much better. It ends up trimming a lot of the fat of Highlander while shaking up the 6's meta, and I personally think it's a really interesting format that's accessible to newer players who want to play their favorite class, while still having more consequence for player mistakes and successes than Highlander. This point brings me to: 3: I don't want to play or support competitive because I don't like the meta. While I enjoy playing and supporting competitive, I actually partially agree, the meta is pretty stale and honestly, I think flawed. 5 CP is far from the best and certainly not the most popular game mode in the game. Aside from CTF, this is the only game mode that could theoretically go on forever, and I don't think that's a good model for competitive. On top of this, many issues with stalemates arise as a result of this. When a Payload defense team parks the bus, they're doing their jobs. When a 5 CP team does it, they're just wasting time, and doing this for long enough to trigger a stalemate or run the server timer out is possible, and I don't think that should be encouraged. This is why I supported Valve's choice to add more game mode types into their competitive mode. Payload is easily the most popular game mode outside of meme maps like 2Fort and Hightower, and its inclusion is, I believe a good thing. However, choosing which maps to use is important. Swiftwater is simply too large a map for a 6v6 format. Even 6v6 Payload with the current community competitive class limits could be much more interesting for a lot of players as it encourages each team to have a different lineup that could more easily slot in the class they want to play. They also deserve to be criticized for adding any CTF map, much less Turbine. Even Doublecross would be better. I could have gone more in depth into the state of the meta in this video, but that wasn't really what it was about. I'll probably talk about it more in depth if I ever dive into the issues with the competitive scene. 4: General concerns about weapon balances making everything too homogenized. I should have been more clear on this, but when I say weapons should be "balanced for competitive," I don't mean in such a way that they slot into the existing meta, because that would be a really bad thing and strip the weapons of their individuality. I simply mean that their existence doesn't break organized play. Like Demoknight probably won't ever be competitively viable, but he doesn't break comp, and he's still fun in pubs, so who cares? He can stay as is. This is the case for a lot of weapons and playstyles, I'd even argue the majority. Hitting that sweet spot for a few of the banned weapons where they're fun in casual, but still balanced is going to be tricky, but I think it can be done. I actually have some contention with Uncle Dane's concept of "Trickle Down Balance," because while it does usually ensure that weapons balanced for competitive will be balanced in casual, it has no guarantee they'll still be fun to use, which is just as important. A weapon that isn't fun or interesting to use is, in my opinion, as good as not having a weapon at all. 5: I still don't care about competitive. That's fine. This video wasn't meant to convert you into comp players, I'm just trying to convince you to not be assholes to them or make baseless assumptions. I know the vast majority of you only play casually and that's the only way you'll ever play it. That's totally fine. Just know that competitive players aren't out to ruin casual, and if people say things that would have a negative effect on casual, call them out on it. Like I fucking hate fighting against a wall of Heavies or Snipers, but I would never dream of adding class limits to casual. Those rare moments of the entire team going Spy or SMG Sniper are worth more than the much more common moments of offense realizing that stacking multiple overhealed Heavies on the cart automatically wins the game for free.
I have 2 things to say, 1 comment 1 question. First the comment: Valve seemed to have done a reasonable job kneecaping the bots from my experience as I have seen a significantly lower number of bots considering the game is f2p and assholes can make more accounts to run the game on. The big changes on that front were the delay before a account joining the game can start a votekick meaning the bots can't start voting off players right when the bot invades and gives players a chance to start a votekick against the bot before it can do anything, they also made votekicks automatically pass if the target leaves during the vote meaning bots that are voted out can't return to the game. There is not to much more that could be done without hurting the game or some real investments being made, they would either have to start banning classes which would hurt the game, as it is legit f2p players can't communicate for shit or Valve would have to do some sort of ip banning/hardware banning and I have no idea who or how is making all those accounts or what system they are using to get them into the same lobbies. Now my question: On the topic of competitive play why is most formats have less than 9 players and no format I see on the tf2 wiki have the standard 12v12 of casual? This strikes me as odd because every format besides Highlander are outright telling you that some classes do not matter as in a 6v6 even with perfect diversity you are missing 3 classes (some classes have overlapping usefulness such as soldier vs demo and sniper vs spy) This problem is even worse because the set in stone meta of 6v6 is 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo and 1 medic, that is less than 50% of the classes in the game being played in the match, by both teams, every single match as there are 2 few players to allow flexibility, why not the same thing if you had a 1v1 gamemode medic and spy would be played 0% of the time combined. I feel like one main thing they could improve on the flexibility and freshness of competitive, start closing the gap between casual and competitive and fix some of the weapon balancing issues would be increase the player counts up to 12v12.
@@stevencolor3389 there are several reasons why there are limited players. 1 is too make individual players have more impact on the game overall, if you dies in casual there is still 11 teammates alive to pick up your slack and is about 1/10th of your damage dealers (depending on exact team compositions) thus the enemy has a very minor advantage, if you die in 6v6 your team is left with 5 players and 1/5th of your damage dealers is gone (unless you are the medic in which case your team doesnt have healing which is worse ifthe enemy team does). another reason is scheduling, people have a lives and even getting 18 people together for 9v9 highlander (1 of each class) can be a huge pain I cant imagine 24 as for class diversity in 6s, yes it is true that the main team will be 2 scouts 2 soldiers a demo and a medic, that does not mean there is no room for the other classes examples of when it is their time to shine is when you medic doesnt have uber and the enemy does a "pick class" like sniper or spy(depending on if you can get a sightline) can fix that, or when defending the last point in 5cp the scout who isnt very good at defending will often switch to heavy or engineer depending on if there is time to set up a sentry to get a slight advantage over the attacking team and if the enemy is ubering into your last point having a pyro airblast them back out the door to waste a large part of their uber can clutch the entire game. not every class was created to be in a fast moving environment whit a lot of head to head combat but that doesnt have to mean they are obsolete
@@MachuThePichu I understand the scheduling issue but I image if you were playing a online competitive it wouldn't be that hard to find the required players, casual modes are often around 9+ per team when I join in and other games can easily fill that many or more players in a lobby (such as battlefield with 32 per team), and while tournament style would be more difficult to get that many players together it should still be practical with enough planning ahead to find a opening. I understand the punishing death of 6v6 but take into consideration that more fights are happening/ more people in the main fight meaning people are going to die quicker if a team can focus fire and you are more likely to have multiple deaths in a fight to make the same percentage of team dying. 1/6 dead is the same as 2/12 for example. Some classes do have rare uses in 6v6 put it still really goes against what I see as the core game when your team in most situations is going to use less than 50% of the roster (4/9 classes). While not quite the same it would be like in overwatch if a team never grabbed one of the 3 categories (dps,tank,healer) that would be really odd as the classes ignored are meant to be in the team and so long as you have the player count I would think it should be worth taking the first of class x instead of a 2nd,3rd,etc of class y. Even in the situation you described the scouts that obviously suck at defense if the flanks are not fully covered could just try and backcap, so long as the other 4 members of their team can hold the point for a moment the 2 scouts can create space by either successfully completing backcap or attempting it and forcing the other team to retreat to stop them.
@@stevencolor3389 Most of the meta's Issues i because of the limited map pool, 5cp is the most popular mode in the Community Comp, not much attack/defend maps, little Koth maps, and no payload maps. And no, I'm a F2P too and I disagree entirely, instead of making a proper anti-cheat system instead of VAC, Valve just fucked up the experience for F2P's, they are not an Indie Delevopment team, is Valve, the have no excuse.
@@deadpunisher4584 I think the maps in play would not change it because 5cp should be the most diverse gamemode because you need a mix of offensive and defense classes. In 5cp with a competent group of players you will have atleast 1 engineer (possibly a pyro, possibly a demo) defending the currently held point of their team, a heavy, soilder,demo, medic, trying to push the enemy point while the scout and spy try backcapping/harrassing key classes along with the sniper. Changing the gamemode just changes which classes are useful and which ones are not, it would make the classes not mirrored but would just make different metas depending on whether you were the attacker or defender. I didn't say the solution was perfect by any means, there are some issues with f2p, as I think I said in an earlier comment, unless valve made changes that allowed them to ip ban or hardware ban, the asshats making bots will just make a new account and be off to fuck over another match. According to the tf2 wiki the only impacts on f2ps was the chat systems and that is because of the shit stains making spam slurring bots, Idk why the changes were released in such slow stages but it does remove the racist spam because now somebody has to shell out 5$ to allow that bot to swear like an average cod lobby. That being said the more recent bot kneecapping update has from my experience drastically reduced the number of bots in lobbies and the number of lobbies overrun by bots because when they flee the votekick they get autokicked and eventually that bot runs out of servers it can join.
Here's an interesting story. WAY back in the day, Muselk (back when he still made TF2 content) uploaded a video explaining how to get into comp TF2, detailing all the steps you need to enter lobbies, etc. I really liked the video, and given that I had already played the game religiously for over 2 years at the time, I was curious about whether I could enter the competitive scene. Then I read the comments. All the comp TF2 players absolutely RAILED on him, saying he's ruining comp TF2, he's flooding TF2Center with gibusvision snipers and filthy casuals, and overall he was a bad person for making comp more accessible to casual players. For better or worse, I took that as a sign that I wouldn't be welcome in comp and I never touched competitive TF2 from then on. I've been playing the game casually ever since.
Jajaja those competitive players would have never survived in tf classic competitive mode, that was just imposible but yet, It was better than Tf2 comp. It s bad that no one talked about Muselk's case
I see a lot of people dunking on Meet Your Match though, and since thaat's the update that tried to bring casual and competitive together and nerfed a whole lot of weapons because they were banned in comp so they blame comp for the balance changes. @SanityDrop
Have different stats for weapons that already exist but just for comp. Since 6v6 and casual are two different worlds we don't really need to balance them. We need weapon stats for comp and weapon stats for casual.
@@euugh8877 balancing two different games at once seems like the last thing the people at valve would want to do. Especially considering their slow workflow currently. If you want there to be different stats between casual and comp, you'd be better off making the difference yourself via a custom server/pluggins like X10 servers do.
@@CorwinTheOneAndOnly TF2 Comp in general is made in the perspective of other games. Other competitive games like small teams since it translates over to games like DOTA, League or Overwatch, but the fact will always be that TF2 can't ever be balanced like in those games. Competitive doesn't work because it's thinking like CS:GO, when that game didn't have random crits or separate classes with rigid health pools and weapon loadouts. Actually think about how TF2 played when it was first released: they had so many stalemates that they put it into the game's lore with Bluetarch and Redmond's lifelong pissing match. It's actually irritating in most matches I play nowadays almost always end up with one team steamrolling the other when part of the fun of the game was those moments where there WAS a stalemate where everybody was trying to get the drop on one another.
@@euugh8877 You can balance all weapons around casual, highlander and sixes at the same time, don't let valve bad balancing gas light you into believing that it's impossible
I don't know if I'm a freak but I have 870hs of TF2 and 95% of that is me queuing up for casual Payload. I just wanted to play Payload as that's what I find fun :)
probably because payload seems to strike the balance between serious and silly like yea you can focus hard on the objective but you can also just walk off and boxtrot near the enemy spawn at least thats what i find
@@Ripheart789 In advanced settings, turn green all the way up to make them yellow. I forgot how to increase the size, however, it's either a console command, or it is in advanced settings.
As a person who doesn't play competitive this is my reason: 1. Im too nervous to play with players who have god like skills 2. I dont have friends that play TF2 so its hard to communicate to other players 3. Too much pressure 4. Its boring if I only play "The Meta" by just using the same weapons over and over again 5. I dont have enough confidence
It's okay to play games to have fun. That's what I do with every game now; Just do what's fun. I don't play a game of Dota2 to ruing the game for my teammates or anything, I still try to win, but I do so while trying out different/fun builds as opposed to copy pasting the most optimal choices from the internet. I think it's a matter of preference. To me, TF2 is unique in the sense that it is designed to take pressure off of you. That's the main reason why I wouldn't dare touch competitive.
the reason why I play pugs but don’t want to join a team is because there really isn’t a good way to play tf2 competitively without dedicating a large amount of your time to tf2 because the game is so damn complex. I think if competitive just had more low level leagues it could workout though because that’s exactly what happens with other esports and real sports. its not like kids playing soccer/football spend 3 years and 2k hours practicing their dribbling and shooting before they can join a team
I highly agree that there should just be an easier way to play comp without being so serious. I have no idea why valve is just sticking their asses in a sinkhole instead of getting people to work on tf2 and fixing it's stupid spaghetti code. Sadly the truth most likely is that they're probably not even worried about a tf2 comp scene any time soon.
it does have low level leagues though, that’s what matchmaking is, it’s based on actual skill level and puts 11 other players of that bracket into a game
I don't mind people wanting the game to be more accessible for competitive. I will still be able to play 12v12 clown fiestas and that's what I want out of the game.
In regards to the competitive skill gap. I was in several low tier teams that thrashed division 4, 5 and 6 in ETF2L's 6s and 9s. Several medals. One day I went onto a 1v1 MGE server and ended up running into a division 1 player, and he consistently beat me 20-0 and 20-1. The skill gap was inconceivable, even though I'd already established myself as an 'okay' competitive player.
Yeah, that happens a lot, also the reason I quit TF2 mostly. I became VERY good with sniper, played against people on a community server for fun, but they were mostly div 5-2 in skill, with my ass getting stomped by anyone above div 5 skill mostly until months and months of time had passed. Loved every second of it, but the game in general got boring after that, just too many people in any other servers that were "average skill" which wasn't my own average at that point. I had taken the fun out of the game for myself, that thrill of beating someone 10 times better then me after months of training was gone, like said community server was gone.
Well it applies within divisions as well. Just look at rgl invite for 6s. Right now there is FROYO, Witness, a third team that will get third place and then the rest that is miles behind of these three
I can already say you're not that much experienced. There of course are people that spend most of their time on mges. And of course they're good. But that doesn't mean that if you constantly lose, you're trash. Game sense and knowledge of map, timing, the results on normal maps that's what really matters. I've seen very good players on mges, that acted like average roamers on normal map, but with good accuracy. On the other hand, I've seen gppd mge players that had great results on both places. Whatever.
I just think it's the same issue other things in TF2 have. Having to go outside of the game to be able to do it properly. Want to do casual? Download/play on non valve servers or download some third party installer and play that. Want to play comp? Actually find people, make a team and then only play when everyone is on. If it's not that, it's the fucking cheaters. No one wants to do all that. Your average player who might even be SLIGHTLY interested in comp wants to just launch the game, hop onto the comp tab and get into a game/find a game with a few friends. A lot of people, myself included don't have any friends who play TF2 anymore, or don't want to play casual/comp. So for players like me the idea of just hopping into a comp match/casual match through the main TF2 game is all we really want.
The inherent problem with an in-built comp system is that it will never match the level of 3rd party comp. Current competitive sets itself apart because of scrims (essential part of team building) and communication that you just can't get with a bunch strangers. Look at cs:go and dota competitive gamemodes, they are basically indistinguishable from their "casual" counterparts the only difference being you get a rank for the former. Personally I don't see the point in adding this to tf2 since it will hardly "bridge the gap" between competitive and casual, the gap being finding/creating an actual team (which is by far the biggest barrier to entry).
Nah people who want to try comp, would like it to be easier, but not that much easier, you should still try to learn callouts, talling with your team, understand how competitive works, if it was just like you described it wouldn't be much different than current tf2's competitive system, and people would quickly get bored of it and go back to casual There needs to be a Competitive system right in-betweden the massive gap between casual and competitive, it would probably still be higher than in other games, but it's better than what we have now
@@m136dalie That's just too inconvenient. Most people can't be bothered with anything beyond finding a match. It's really strange that many players don't seem to understand this. Just remove ctf and most importantly make it available f2ps. Then publicize this with an update and some promotional video or something. I know this will make competitive a bit of an casual 6s but I don't see anyone going to a random website to find teammates or something. Playing competitive should be simple matter of joining a match like in other games not a hurdle. After all, it's a game not some esoteric cult. Also what is "bridging the gap"? I ask this because that gap is inherent in the player numbers. 12v12 and 6v6 can never be bridged, fundamentally at least. People talk about some vague idea of bridging but never an actual, practical act.
@@miolen9212 Personally I don't see the point in bridging the gap so to speak. If someone is motivated enough to want to play competitively seriously they'd be willing to do it through 3rd parties. Adding a "competitive" feature in tf2 is always just going to be a pub with strict player numbers and leaving penalties, which I doubt anyone would want to play.
I don't see the issue or the harm of just adding another game mode to TF2 - unranked 6's, which nearly solves the entire problem. Players can practice on their own there, improve upon their pub stomping skills, work out what works and what doesn't and then move on to fight in ranked competitive with and against people of similar skill. And whoever wants to go the extra mile, there will still be a ton of information out there that has been amassed by the competitive community over the years to teach players how to play on a much higher level.
I still hold that the largest issue with competitive is the insistence on 6v6. This game, in every aspect, was designed and balanced for 12 v 12. Map size, weapons, classes, everything. And I really do not know how you would balance something like the Quick fix or the Fists of Steel for an environment where damage output is cut literally in half. The wrangler is overpowered in casual, but even doubly so when you cut the damage output in half. The second biggest problem is the stubborn cling to a meta. 'This unlock can get heavy to midfight, making heavy a viable option.' Disciplinary action, Buffalo Steak banned. 'There is literally one pyro who is very good, and using these to clear stickies, making pyro somewhat viable' Detonator AND Scorch shot banned. 'This is annoying for a rocket jumping solider to deal with' Natacha Banned. The Soda Popper and Base Jumper are banned because it makes it hard for soldiers and demos to hit the airborne target, while a heavy or sniper could deal with that a lot easier, or even if there were just a few more teammates around so that one could blast the scout while he's jumping loops around a poor medic. Certain unlocks have been banned still even after huge nerfs just because 'Who fucking cares, no one's going to use them, just keep them banned', such as Bonk! and also, The base jumper! It got it's 'Competitive suggested Nerf' and hey, it's still banned! Ugh. I'm just working myself up the more I write this and the more I look into some of these whitelist discussions. Tf2 is a game with nine classes, none should be arbitrarily softbanned, cutting the teamsize in half fucks so much up, Highlander supremacy 2021
Ah yes, *_The Meta(tm)_*. One that never changed and will always stay that way because of how competetive works in general. No matter what is done there will always be a meta comp players find, because to be honest, they mostly care about winning and scoring as high as possible, not necessarily about having most fun out of it. Now compare it to Casual where no one gives a crap that you're the 3rd Spy and that you refuse to stab people but use your gun instead, or that you're going fat scout, or that you're running head-first at the enemy as the scout with a fish and no fear. Not to add the amount of crazy situations you simply put won't get in competetive.
The reason a lot of the bans are in place is solely because competitive players want to have more fun in the game. A change in meta isn't entirely out of the question, but if it starts ruining what makes the game fun to begin with, it starts to ruin the whole point of playing a video game in the first place. It's meant to be fun. Weapons like the Natascha don't really add anything to the game besides frustration, so they could do with a rework in order to make them more fun both in Casual and Comp. Because fun is the entire point here. These weapons are banned because they're not fun to deal with or use. Another weapon like this is the Steak Sandvich. Nobody even uses it except for the specific purpose of abusing the rollout speed, so it warrants a rework anyway since it's not fun in both Casual or competitive. I'm sure 99% of players would be fine with a rework since it could make the weapon more fun and interesting for everyone. The Soda Popper could be reworked into something that is more less one-sided towards certain class matchups, and works a bit more evenly against every class. Right now, it's OP against Soldiers and Demos while being worse against Heavies, sentries etc. We don't exactly need overwatch-type counters in the game, if that makes sense, since they're viewed as unfun in a video game where you're supposed to have fun. Perhaps Scouts could have an explosion damage vulnerability while using hype? So they can dodge shots more easily, at the expense of getting oneshot if they move too predictably, making it more of a risk/reward. The Detonator and Scorch Shot are merely banned for the afterburn damage. I'm a bit of a degenerate who likes to run Phlog and Detonator sometimes, yet I'd be fine with a nerf. Afterburn could be reduced depending on how far away the explosion is from the target, that'd be a fine nerf since it'd encourage aiming more closely to the target and it'd discourage spam. The bonk and Base Jumper are still argued to be overpowered in some situations. Scouts can run behind your team easily with bonk and threaten backcaps, forcing at least 2 people on your team to retreat to deal with him if you don't want to lose a control point or even the entire game. Base jumper Soldiers are apparently still a bit tough for projectile players to hit, which can cause frustration and unpredictability. Again, a rework could probably be ideal here to make the weapons more fun in Casual but less powerful in competitive. Not sure how you'd achieve this with these two weapons though. Maybe the Base Jumper could have something similar to what I suggested with the Soda Popper, where getting hit with an airshot explosive would do more damage, compensating for the increased maneuverability. TL,DR all of the criticism from comp players comes from the fact that they want to have a fun time in the game, just like you do. It's not necessarily to keep things the same, but to keep things fun.
@@SolarLight I've heard the 'It's based on what's fun' argument before, and, It's a hard argument to dissagree with, because at the end of the day 'Fun' is a little subjected. As a heavy main I find Heavy at Mid incredibly fun! I guess I'm just bitter I'm outvoted. I had to say something was specifically "the problem", it's that the majority given the way the Comp scene developed, the majority of 6s players are the people that find this specific playstyle fun, so they keep it to that playstyle. Solid rework suggestions, though!
@@foxyshibata3783 I think the problem with Heavy on mid is that it forces all of the other players to hide behind cover and play more passively, which can be seen as boring especially when both teams feel it is required to play Heavy. It basically turns the entire game into "shoot the Heavy first" before anyone gets to actually play the video game. Sometimes this would encourage people to use Snipers to kill the Heavy, then the other team would have to respond with another Sniper... and all of a sudden you have a new Sniper+Heavy meta that is arguably more annoying than the old one, since people probably dislike Sniper more than Soldier + Scout, even in pubs. Having a grace period before he shows up gives more opportunity for aggressive plays before he arrives. Or alternatively with the GRU health drain it gives more opportunity to kill the Heavy if it's done quickly. The Heavy class in general is also more suited for defense, which is a bit of a problem on 5CP where the only way to win is to attack. Trying to push into last points would be a huge problem, and switching classes after winning the midfight isn't exactly convenient, so both teams would probably end up in way more stalemates, which are already bad enough in 6s. The Quick Fix also has this issue - too focused on defending and not good enough at pushing into fortified areas (mainly against enemies using the same weapon/classes) which leads to excessive defending from both sides, resulting in less frequent combat and more frequent timeouts.
@@SolarLight I can understand that the aggressive, fast play-style of 5CP is what a lot of people want, and, in the inception of TF2 where KOTH was two years away and Payload a full year, 5CP was certainly the gamemode that was most suited to higher level play. Particularly with the map options there were, but It's a really....Not the best mode. Allows certain classes to shine a lot brighter overall, and is one of the only modes where one has to worry about stalemates in the first place. I can't even complain about the small team size in there, since if if the amount of Stalemates on Last I've experienced in 5CP pubs says anything, adding 12 more players would only increase the stalemate issue. There's a lot of issues that have no good, or even no solution, so realistically 'Prioritizing Fun' is the best compromise one could hope for. But Complaining about things is fun too, so, I will, when given the opportunity! Sniper's annoying enough in Highlander that I can almost sympathize with dreading a Sniper/Heavy Meta, though.
Really this question boils down to the difference between 6v6 and 12v12. 6's is a great format for 5cp, but the small team sizes and dynamic playstyle of that particular gamemode ostracizes most of the classes. When a casual player hops onto a payload map or a koth map they're greeted to a big 12v12 struggle between two teams fighting over territory using both generalist and specialist classes, its a very different experience to a 6v6 5cp match. I've heard some competitive players describe Scout as the most powerful combat class in the game, that is only because they play in a competitive bubble where exclusively koth and 5cp are played, on 9v9 or 12v12 payload maps Scout is one of the weakest classes.
Yeah. If theresnt this then everything goes down so somebody has to do this and then somebody do this so that doesn't get countered and then everything is a mess and lots of stuff also can emerge out of that I guess.... yeah. With a limited player size you can't just generally go contribute, so everything is very specific and all the patterns that appear out of that interact weirdly with some stuff and actually the scout on top thing exactly happens.... we came to same conclusions using 80% same basis and very different thinking ways....... huh..... Also this works with other thing about things being done differently like medic having a very specific role ...(maybe also because everything is so coordinated and the coordinated basis for reasoning seems like a whole other rabbit hole but at the same time generally-taken generally helps uhh yeah it's off road now and very confusing)... medic having a very specific role resulting in uhh basically stuff happens like a mess and then ulapull caber thing yeah and the small size (since it's popular it should have a big effect) being the cause....... yeah this reply went kinda off road near the 2|3 but if taken generally makes sense.
People who do say that Scout is the most powerful class really don’t play enough casual to understand why that’s a lie. Because in competitive, especially in KOTH or 5CP, you don’t ever encounter his major counter, sentries. They were pretty much designed to counter greedy scouts and stop them from solo capping the map. Why else would they have perfect aim? But if you play casual, you’ll learn quick that seeing a sentry while playing scout means “Oh I literally cannot go anywhere near that thing.” But since comp lacks Engineer players substantially, scout gets away with being called the most powerful because there is no presence of his core counter.
I think the main point of contention is that Valve is completely unable and/or unwilling to balance the game between casual and competitive, so the argument is more over which Valve ought to prioritize, not as much about whether competitive is right or not. I don't know many players who actually believe competitive doesn't belong in TF2, but I do know that I just don't want Valve to prioritize it over keeping casual fun, functional, and bot free.
I came from a comp scene, the FGC, and hung up my desire for competitive play the day i took a small tournament (nothing fancy just local one off thing) And I fought the same team of 3 (was MvC2) all the way to the top. The META(tm) bores me in comp games, you have so many options but because these are deemed the best you never see creative ways of using them, so it becomes dully to watch in a sense. Yes, these player are good, and seeing them do the stuff f thy do mechanically is impressive. But when you hit that upper level seeing the same thing over and over is visually unappealing, and most of competitive 6s tends to boil it down to a few weapons, and 4 of 9 classes. Variety is likely why TF2 has survived as long as it has. 9 classes, with dozens of unlocks that change how those 9 classes play fundamentally and because of which the game has a incredibly high skill ceiling, is something that no other competitive shooter has offered. That's my reason for not really caring for competitive, but that by no mean means that others shouldn't, and in fact falls into your argument that if things were more balanced and bridged between both it would make everyone happier. I don't blame the comp side for this tho, nor do I agree fully on the causal side. TF2 lives by the community, both of them and needs that harmony to remain. Vale is the problem as you said with basically a "Long as it brings in money we'll toss a half hearted fix here and there, change weapons to make some basically unusable or erase the skill vs reward a weapon had (I may have though the Amby was too powerful for what it gave, but removing basically a lot of it's punch completely was a step to far), and not really do anything for a huge cheater problem/bot problem that puts off new player and frustrates long timers and then check in maybe in a year or two."
Don't you hate it when a game promises a customizable experience with unlocks/skillbuilds etc. only for you to realize there is only one option you are allowed to pick if you don't want to get kicked from the lobby? More power to people who play games in a hardcore manner, but I hate it when people suggest that it is the only real way to play them. The statement can be technically true on a numbers basis, but when subjective things like "fun" are taken into account, it most certainly is not. Isn't MvC2 the game with a million cool crossover characters with only a handful being viable for tournaments?
About comp getting dull on higher levels, same thing applies to other games with competetive scenes, like StarCraft II for example, high-tier comp players have *_The Meta(tm)_* that they strictly abide by because of it being reliable and consistent, but which gets boring after dozens of games because of lack of variety, all while in lower leaguse you would see some crazy crap happening like players switching their main bases, one player making a main base right outside of the other's main, some crazier unit compositions, or hell, _modes other then 1v1_
Thats game dependant and not fault of the comp scene since games like GG strive or Project M have a cast that is fully viable and no "meta" to speak off beyond some characters having a few more options than others
Totally agree about both sides existing in harmony. I watch every high level match of 6s and Highlander; TF2 is the only video game I’ve ever cared about and I think it’s criminally underrated as a professional esport, however I’m perfectly fine just playing community and casual servers because I don’t have nearly enough time (let alone skill) to join real competitive. I think one of the biggest obstacles to the scene growing and attracting new players/ spectators is awareness because unless you stumble upon the Kritzkast or RGL channels you’d have no idea there was even a competitive scene outside of the in-game one. In fact I bet in the average server the only player anyone would be able to name who’s in comp is b4nny, let alone people who play in leagues outside of the US. With all that being said, I hope that the game continues to get updates and that both comp and casual continue to coexist. Probably quite a naive thing to be holding out for at this point though.
Well for seeing the same thing over and over again, that's very game dependent in how bad that can be. In your case of MvC2, that game is notoriously unbalanced given its roster size and being old so of course you'll see similar teams .
Comp TF2 MIGHT be interested if it wasn't intentionally designed to be as stale as possible. All the weapons bans are not there to facilitate interesting gameplay but to ensure they're able to play the same 2 soldier, 2 scout, 1 medic 1 demo game that they've been playing for over a decade. It sucks
I don’t think this is intentional nessesarily, it’s just the way they’ve found to balance the game around 5cp. But the stale meta is a huge problem. It needs to change.
@@ryvn_ryvn_18 I don’t think weapons have to be neutered to be balanced. Historically, valve has done a bad job with thins but with some competence, they could balance weapons for comp without neutering them in casual.
Tf2center is a good place to start but do expect to be wrecked at first. If you're gonna play with veterans you sign for a world of hurt. Usualy if you go into games that have players with the same amounts of hours as you or less, you can have a lot of fun and actually feel like you're learning something. At least that was my experience.
I love this community. All these tf2 content creators spending hours making videos discussing potential balances and updates, all the fans in the comment sections sharing their ideas, even though we all know it’s likely never going to happen. The conversations continue despite the fact that the discussion isn’t getting through to Valve. It may be futile, but it’s still important.
I'm still torn on this topic. In terms of future balancing (lol?), I think there's some weapons where balancing with competitive in mind works, but others where it just doesn't work, and isn't necessary to work (like the quickfix, as you mentioned). Not EVERYTHING has to be available and good in comp 6v6 after all. This is the main issue I have with the idea that future updates should be balanced towards competitive going forward -- I think that THAT, as an umbrella desire, is what I have a problem with. People who blame that failure on the COMPETITIVE scene ARE idiots, though. Not like I expect better from the TF2 community but y'know. BUT, outside of that, there IS merit into that hesitation. Valve still owns and "runs" TF2. They're the ones who'd do any official changes. So it's only logic to anticipate future changes, especially "competitive-oriented" ones, to just fail overall. If they could somehow balance all items to not only still be super fun and unique in casual, but also good and viable in competitive, I'm all for it, but I think there comes to a point where those two gameplay styles are too polar opposite, so some weapons are gonna just have to be better for some gamemodes than others. That's the nature of it. I think the biggest thing this game needs is just accessibility. An easy bridge for casual players into competitive, as you say. I don't think balancing really needs to take place that ALWAYS makes EVERYTHING work for competitive, y'know? Look at Smash, in the competitive scene, like 90% of the stages are rightfully banned, yet I wouldn't want all stages to be made with competitive in mind. Perhaps not a perfect comparison, but I think the idea's there. Though, as interesting as this discussion is, it's not like it's gonna amount to anything unless Valve actually does drop the Heavy update in 2075. I think it's good to try and convince the casuals to not be such assholes to the competitive oriented folk, too, as they... definitely are a big issue there. Buuuut trying to convince TF2 players to not be dumb assholes is about as likely as a new major TF2 update so idk lmao
He mis-represented both the comp and casual arguments. This video basically boils down to "comp right but valve too stupid to implement." It barely scratches the surface of this problem. I wish he talks more about this in the future. Nonetheless, the real problem is Robin walker's way of designing multiplayer games. He designed them in a way to make sure that you could win even if your entire team is an ass. Therefore, focusing on the players selfish goals. "Fundamentally, we had a design for 32 players who don't know each other and who probably won't know each other after this game. They're all going to have their individual goals and a small view of everything going on. Our goal was to make it so that they all individually and locally optimize for their experience. Optimization at the team level falls out of that." "They could look left, look right and see team mates doing some stuff and go, ' Man were working well as a team', eventhough we started with the base assumption that they were all ignoring everyone else because it turns out that's how people work" If you pay attention to, the latter, quote you will realize that tf2 is supposed to give the illusion that there is teamwork when in fact their is none. A prime example of which is the Sandvich which solely exits if you don't have a Medic helping you i.e negating teamwork. The fact that Medic is powerful is an example of how he is designed for unorganized teams because in other games support classes are the weakest or just take Sniper for example, the only reason he is great at all ranges is because he was designed with the intention that his teammates won't help or protect him. The problem is that this was the way of designing games before the E-Sports craze but since tf2 is still at it's core is still tf-quake; this directly contradicts comp game design. Just like he said that the quick fix is too powerful with 6v6 is a brilliant example of why trickle down balance is a recipe for disaster for tf2 since comp and casual are DIFFERENT games. I'd like to extend this further to the spy class. who can't function in comp due to a sheer lack of players and perfect team coordination. When people say that tf2 is a casual game they are not talking about its artstyle, that is asinine since valorant and overwatch have cartoony artstyles as well, they are talking about how tf2's class dynamics and unlocks work which are antithetical to a comp play style unless you play 4 out of the 9 classes or play high lander which still shares the same problems of some unlocks being to powerful while others being mediocre at best. And guess what? Spy is still much weaker in highlander.
@@sixbdbdhdbdbendbhsjshsh6864 Honestly I agree with that. Casual and Competetive TF2 feel like _completely different games_. In Casual no one really cares if you're running around as a Fat Scout Heavy or terrorizing snipers with the Loose Cannon, whatever floats your boat. _Unless they are on recieving end and get curbstomped somehow). While in Competetive you go with *_The Meta_* otherwise you're a heretic that should be banned form the game, meme strats are only really something you can do with friends, hell, some could be impossible with the weapon bans and limits on classes (As you won't see 6 scouts just beating the other team with literal fishes because of everything else about the class)
@@sixbdbdhdbdbendbhsjshsh6864 Tf2 is well designed around making both working as a team and individual skill being rewarded and making it so that even the support classes encourage having good amount of skill playing like them. The medic being the best example since despite being the supreme support class, is also the most powerful one since he can turn the tables of an entire match with an Übercharge and healing his teammates an manage his mechanics is heavily rewarded, this game doesn't encourage you to be an Asshole and ignore the rest of your team, it just encourages you to get gud at both sides, both your individual skill and your skill as a team-player. Your point makes no sense since that is basically the point that Robin Walker and the rest of the team intended.
The comp people want to fuck around with casual mode that people already like. The casual people are not trying to change the comp side. That is the issue. The COMP side is trying to get fuck around with other people.
No they don't? Most of them aren't asking for class limits in casual they just want comp to be changed so people can actually get into it if they want to. I just want better valve comp and MAYBE no random bullet spread in casual, cause God knows why it's still in the game at all...
uncletopia has class limits and no one seems to mind that much, plus witch hunting someone for suggesting an idea that's never going to happen is kind of a dick move.
@@XanderFenikkusu Those rare games where everyone stacks the same class are a special experience that shouldn't be taken away from just because you can't deal with having a fourth sniper on your team.
I think a good case in the “silly can be competitive” argument would be Nintendo titles, namely Pokémon, Splatoon, and Smash Bros. All those games are fundamentally ridiculous or designed for younger players, yet all three have thriving competitive scenes. And at least Pokémon and Smash have a pretty big skill gap between casual and competitive players. (I mean, I was briefly in the splatoon comp scene, so if they let ME in...) The point is, if a game about having Sonic beat the shit out of Minecraft Steve can be competitive, so can the funny hat game.
It can be competitive, and there are already are competitive leagues, servers and platforms. Casual shouldn't be made more competitive, it should be kept casual.
The thing with smash is... Practically 90% of stages from what I heard and saw are banned off and if I recall right there exist items in the game to mess around with while playing, that are also banned off. And in case of TF2, I would prefer a separate competetive mode that would be a middle ground between competetive we all know and casual we all know. As i don't want to stress about crap, be kicked out for doing meme strats, or limited in how I can play because someone else is playing the class I also wanted to play or a weapon I wanted to try out is banned because "it's too good in skilled hands" or whatever.
Those games have successful competitive scenes but it doesn't mean they are being handled well. In terms of Smash, the series in general isn't very well designed as a serious 1v1 fighting game. Like kudos of ppl being able to stick through with it but the more you look into its mechanics, the more you realise how much jank and how many weird design decisions permeate the whole package. Things like throw teching remaining as useless as it was in 64 or how badly archetypes like zoners are handled are only the tip of the iceberg. Similarly, Pokémon faces its own divide, in that there a huge difference between how the game is being played in singles and in doubles, and TPC is very clearly balancing the meta around the doubles. Fine on paper but you also need to remember that mainline Pokémon games are single battles by default, which is why so many people are complaining about Dynamax breaking the game (both main story and Smogon comp players) even though it is completely balanced (and even celebrated) in VGC. Can't say anything on Splatoon because I've no experience with either game of the series but to me, both Pokémon and Smash are examples of what happens if you jump on the comp train too late. These games didn't start off with a thought of being played on a high level and this means they left behind a huge mess that comp players now need to deal with.
7:39 - 10:58 This is pretty much my only thought on the matter. I'm scared of "Competitive Changes" because Valve consistently sucks at balancing weapons. When a weapon is easily abused and is unfun to play against, Valve's solution is often to just nerf it into the ground so that nobody uses it anymore. While that would be a nice solution for garbage like the Scorch Shot, this policy extracts the fun from weapons. Is that the competitive scene's fault? Hell no, but if competitive inspire changes to weapons that are only a problem in competitive settings than I'm scared to see what will happen after the Valve guillotine.
Competitive players will always be a minority of any community. Think about how many people have kicked a ball ever in their life vs how many become professional footballers. Catering the game to competitive players wants/preferences can ruin any game not just TF2.
Yeah but people still like to watch those players or at least would like to improve dreaming about becoming a top player, but casual is not enough, videos of casual are just funny, not incredible and not amazing, it doesn't show how crazy the game could be But competitive is just too much, the gap is too high, there needs to be a competitive gamemode in the middle of that gap
It has ruined plenty of other games really. The fact every game these days is striving to make the next huge competitive scene makes everything incredibly toxic and the games way too serious. No longer are the days of just fucking around in a community server or a matchmaking lobby - if you aren't playing exactly the way everyone says you should, you're yelled at and called a noob (or much worse, especially if you're a minority or a woman). Fucking sucks dude.
Uggggh. Yeah. I mean it's one thing for 5 hoovies to be throwing sandviches around in BLU's intel room on 2fort when nobody on RED is throwing themselves at the intel. But ask those same hoovies to kill the damned scout who does nothing but throw himself at the intel 3 times on a stock Valve server with no time limits, and *you* are the one your team calls a "tryhard" because CTF 2fort is the closest damn thing TF2 has gotten in 14 years to a clean Team Deathmatch mode & map that isn't damned Turbine, and you just wanna counter-snipe in a sniper war.
You came so close and yet, so far. You said it yourself, several weapons are never going to be balanced in 6s and casual at the same time without entirely reworking the concept of the weapon. Quickfix is a good example of this. A weapon already hit by this was the GRU. When the GRU gets nerfed to be in a spot it is allowed to be unbanned in competitive (by Valve taking Comp players concerns of the weapon to heart) strictly because 6s doesn't want Heavy to be viable fulltime and nothing to do with the actual strength of the unlock? Yes, yes people are going to be mad at the competitive community. That is not Valve being incompetent (outside of listening to Comp players on that weapon), the SOURCE of that balance change is 6s players themselves. You CANNOT ask for "trickle-down balance" when your highest level of play is so different from pubs it's almost a completely different game. It's a recipe for disaster, even if Valve was competent. People also miss the mark on what "Pubs are silly" means. No, it's not the hats. No, it's not the silly may mays. It's the fact that, unlike every single "competitive-focused" PvP Team Game in existence, TF2 is designed with the INTENTION that players are going to focus on themselves and ignore their team. TF2 is carefully crafted so you can go into a pub, play selfishly and only care about yourself, and still feel like your team played well together. You cannot change this without destroying the very soul of the game.
The GRU is completely viable in pubs and the nerf was more of a rework keeping the original concept, also, having a Medic by your side reduces the downside a lot. The GRU actually is very well made and works as intended, hell, I run it in every offensive Payload pushes and it does it's job, it barely made a difference. You didn't knew about that, do you? Comp players don't hate the Idea of making heavy viable and I personally disagree with the Idea, is just that makes Heavy's Pushes too powerful to be stopped, He is an advantage pusher, If he wins the first fight (Which he mostly will) the next push would be even harder to stop, the health drain prevents it to abuse the GRU, only with it's intended purpose, get in the frontlines faster with high risk-High reward. And no, the entire point of trickle-down balance is that, to deal with it despite being so different modes, again, look at the GRU, it does as intended, and it doesn't affect Casual matches. Is redundant to talk about why the comp scene is not to blame and Valve's incompetence is the real reason why many weapons ended being useless. You are just hitting your head with a brick wall at this point.
I completely agree. Casual TF2 and Competitive TF2 are practically different games at this point. It's only natural that the two sides of the community would diverge as well. Casual players don't want to play competitive TF2 casually and competitive players don't want to play casual TF2 competitively.
@FantaKuat "fundamentally we had a design for 32 people who don't know each other-and who probably won't know each other again after this game-and they're all going to have their own individual goals, and a small view of everything going on-our goal was to make it so that as they all individually and locally optimize for their experience, optimization at the team level falls out of that." "They could look left, look right, and see teammates doing some stuff and go, 'Man, we're working well as a team,' even though we started with the base assumption that they were all ignoring everyone else, because it turns out that's the way most players work." Those are quotes from the man Robin Walker himself. So unless you wanna tell me you understand how the game was designed better than Walker does?
@@deadpunisher4584 Alright if they don't hate Heavy being viable full-time, and JUST hate Heavy's "pushing power"? Why is the Steak banned still? You can't push jack shit with the steak. You can only do the initial rollout with it. That's right, because in Comp players own words, they "don't want a 450hp heavy at the midfight". They want any team running full time heavy to be forced to be a player down at mid.
Still think that casual and competitive should stay completely different from each other. Competitive should be handled by the community as it has been for many years, but that doesn't mean Valve shouldn't support it. The competitive community has the tools to change and alter stats of weapons on community servers which is where every comp player plays anyway so they can change and "balance" the weapons to their hearts content on there while not affecting the main game. There is no excuse to merge two polar opposites together, doing so would only kill which either side doesn't get catered to.
first off, doing what you describe which is essentially making another version of tf2 would be an absolute abomination. any changes made to the game should be delivered to everyone and not just certain players or else theres no way for the games competitive scene to be considered legitimate and have you ever heard of "trickle down balancing"? if one weapon is good and balanced to use at the highest level, that means its probably ok for everyone else to use "oh but that would mean the weapons become less wacky and fun aIOFhafhehgwag" alright but that would mean more weapons that ARE rebalanced could be unbanned and make competitive "more interesting" (something i dont really get when people complain about it because i find it plenty interesting without those 20 ish weapons but ok) and do you really enjoy wrangler/short circuit engies? vaccinator heavies? i dont think you do in conclusion, i dont really see a way for weapons that are properly balanced for competitive to kill the casual side of tf2
@@moneyhoarder123 rebalancing every / majority of weapons to be comp viable would be a huge under taking and definitely make this game an abomination so no need for the minority to force that on the majority of players. I've heard of and despise "Trickle down balancing" constantly catering to the whim of comp players who don't know what they want killed Six Siege for me. and final point, i do love the organized chaos of casual, being able to use any weapon and combination of classes keeps the game fresh and fun if that means 4 engineers using the wrangler / short circut or 3 medics vac healing a heavy, I am all for it.
@@moneyhoarder123 Trickle down doesn't work, that's been proven over and over because of other games, such as Overwatch. Symetra (or however ya spell it) was a shit tier character in comp but god tier in pub play. Different story for TF2 as a whole, since spy is god tier in pubs but shit in comp. Trickle down is like saying "if this master swordsman can kill 5 men with this sword, then this sword is fine for a novice swordsman" which is wrong, the sword is dull, and it was skill that did it, but that skill is rare.
@@Waskomsause there is even bigger issue at hand than such specifics as player skill. The comp community isn't even playing TF2 proper. They are playing basically their own version which is 6v6 with class limits and weapon bans designed only to disable playstyles they find unfun, cause they counter their soldier/scout/medic comps. If they would be playing 12v12 no class restriction, all map types, with no bans on merit of playstyle, just if something is clearly OP, then the trickle down may make any sense. But they aren't. They are playong basically another game, so design changes to it have no reasons to be in any way balanced or good for TF2 proper. And I wouldn't care about their awful design for TF2-alike mod, if they wouldn't constantly demand changes to TF2 proper to cater to their mod version of a game. Imagine Dota 2 custom map players demanding changes to Dota 2 proper so that their custom game mode of competetive pudge's hooking is better balanced. That makes no sense. Why shluld TF2 make changes designed for them? Valve should just ignore them, make proper 12v12 game mod with all normal map types and balance around it.
"Trickle down balancing" works for weapons that have similar issues in both pubs and 6's. This applies to weapons that are overpowered in general like the Vaccinator, Scorch Shot or Wrangler as catering the one would automatically cater the other. Making those weapons well balanced for competitive would automatically make them more fun in pubs as they are no longer overpowered. This is the intention that lead to the Sandman being nerfed (into the ground). But for weapons like the Quick-Fix, CowMangler or Fists of Steel it gets difficult as here the base differences between pubs and 6's become more solidified. Those weapons work in pubs because of how pubs work but not so in 6's. The CowMangler is essentially a straight upgrade in 6's with no ammopool and a mini-crit+ afterburn on demand for free as random crits are disabled, the Medic mostly uses the stock Medigun and noone plays engineer in the first place. But in pubs with random crits, engineers and more players the cowmangler is perfectly fine. This is where Trickle down Balancing eventually fails ending up with catering one or the other.
well put as usual fish :) a lot of people will probably get mad at this video because it's another "this thing in TF2 is bad because Valve" type vid, but it's true. literally the only thing i can fault comp players for is their undying loyalty to 5CP when other gamemodes are more interesting and show off more classes.
@@moneyhoarder123 Yes, but Highlander isn’t very interesting to watch imo. Since Sniper is so powerful, it just becomes everyone waiting for the enemy sniper to die so they can play the game. Different maps can help, but ultimately I think no restriction 6s is the future. Problem is too many 6s players don’t endorse it and want to stick to the meta
@@deadpunisher4584 how do you balance what is basically 2 different games and satisfy both? 6v6 with weapon bans and a strict meta vs. 12v12 no weapon bans and a loose meta
@@badasscrusader the thing is, it's only a strict or loose meta if you keep it like that, it's tf2 not Overwatch, and raising the 6v6 to a 7v7 would work. There's so many ways to get around it, and when you have the mentality of "it's 2 different games" it's like trying to cover the sun with your hand.
Just because Valve likes to ruin everything they touch doesn't mean we should apply that mentality to every possible solution in this game, you all are acting paranoid.
@@deadpunisher4584 how am I keeping it a strict meta? The meta hasn't changed in years whats going to make it change now? No matter the change in balance comp tf2 hasn't changed,honestly they should have a team of people that work on balancing the game their servers You wanna know why they haven't? They don't want it to change,they like there meta and don't want it to change
I swear at this point I just want to go into college for video game design and get a job at valve solely to help TF2. I honestly love valve, they put love and great design into their games, but the undisciplined and floppy work philosophy they have (they all get to choose what projects to work on) just allows even one of the most played games on the whole sodding platform to be neglected and untouched because it's not new.
I think being able to schoose what you work on in a company makes it so people like what they're doing, but apparently no-one Valve wants to work on tf2. Sometimes I have dreams of the janitor at tf2 changing some weapon stats around, but thats just a dream.
Honestly I would love to get a job at valve to spend a few years cleaning up the tf2 codebase. There are countless bugs and performance issues due to how messy the code is, so fixing that would be a dream.
@@vorpalweapon4814 nah, him and aar think that being too good at the game ruins the experience for people who aren't as good. Which I agree with but then how else are you supposed to improve at the game?
@@gelatozaragoza1990 i think it's stupid, in casual 12 vs 12 there's so much caos that you'll do as good as any pubstomber or kicked because of cheating because you are a god at Sniper In the video there was even a clip of B4nny, dying to a spy inside one of the least balanced maps with choke points and shit, even if you are good at the game, you will still die in casual I think they said it's a bad thing when they join with a friend that is also good at the game, like 2 players that played comp together will certainly demolish anything in casual with a bit of teamwork and callouts, that's definetly unfair, they can still play the game, but they should avoid doing it seriously, together, in casual
I don't think a lot of us are saying tf2 competitive shouldn't exist, we're saying stop trying to make casual mode a "training ground" for competitive. I also agree with the whole making it easier to get into competitive, I would attempt getting into comp if it wasn't so steep. However leave casual out of this, make competitive mode better, make it easier to get into teams, remove random crits and bloom in casual, but don't make steps to make casual mode something it isn't. Casual is the main reason tf2 is what it is, not competitive.
Bridging the gap between competitive and casual isn't about turning Casual mode into a training ground, it's about making it so that when you want to start playing competitive you understand everything that's going on. There should be only 2 major differences once you go competitive. 1. People are playing to win instead of just playing for fun. 2. There are 6 players in a team instead of drop-in drop-out 1-12 people.
@@numbug1234 I agree, this is what I (and I'm sure many others) want, but there are other people who are suggesting changes to casual mode which would change it from casual mode, to something more akin to quickplay in Overwatch. I'm sure competitive mode is great and I'd love to give it a try if it gets better, however tf2 is what it is today because of it's casual nature, and it's one of many things differentiating it from all the other modern class based shooters.
@@Shiwoo_sung I mean, all I hear about for suggested changes is Stopwatch mode and no random crits/random shotgun bloom, and better balanced weapons, and that's it. And lets be real, there's plenty of weapons that are blatantly imbalanced even for Casual, like pre-nerf Sandman or current day Pomson.
Trying to get into competitive killed my joy not only for this game but for many others as well, I just do not have the time to dedicate to a game to become a pro skilled player. So instead I just go casual and I enjoy it for what it is, not just in my 1000+ hours of TF2 but every game overall.
I never had an issue with being on the receiving end of a sand man hit. I don’t understand the vitriol. It’s a challenging to land skill shot. I’m not really a main of anything btw.
It's not easy to land consistently, but it's payoff was WAY too strong. The reward you get for hitting your ball was pretty much a guarantee to kill the enemy, be it another scout or an overhealed heavy. Slowing you down to a crawl AND having no way to fight back was way too strong.
@@snod5436 its gotten calmer id say. Ppl i have found on gear grinders are chill despite being high tours and the smaller tours are aware of metas and other stuff and tend to agree on things
the redlettermedia reference was quite a sight to see in the year of our lord 2021. glad to know that that review of the phantom menace will always be iconic
@BradynLee09 player skill isn’t what’s dividing the communities obviously casual players won’t play comp because they enjoy the opposite of what comp players enjoy but the massive amount of people interested in comp but unable to play it is what’s isolating the comp community
and the byproduct of Valve trying to mix them together is an absolute shitshow with many botched """rebalances""" and nerfs. Also the video doesn't bring anything new to the table, just a rehash of everything we know already
@@yukayuyu3844 well clearly some people still don’t know this information because I’m constantly hearing how ‘nobody want’s to play competitive tf2’ spite the fact that a massive amount of people are interested but unable to play
What you're describing with casuals having a negative attitude towards competitive players is a very similar divide that is seen between casual and competitive smash players.
I have 3k hours in the game and absolutely no interest in the comp scene. In fact, I have stopped playing most of the other more competitive shooters (like CS and COD) because they feel too sweaty and tryhardy to me. Coming from this perspective, I 100% feel like the competitive playing minority who is asking the casual mode to be more competitive are pushing the game to the wrong direction (like ArraySeven who has requested that the mode would have class limits). I'm totally fine with people who want to play comp to have a better platform to get started but please do not touch the casual system any more than you have already done (Meet Your Match, an update where only the feedback of comp players were taken into consideration, was already bad enough). Additionally, I feel like the weapon rebalances made for comp mode are redundant because the comp players will still stick to their meta no matter what.
The "worst" thing about competitive players is mostly the huge skill gap, specially when they play casual and how they deliberately stomp the game/match I mean, we get it, you good and all but it's frustrating, disappointing and even boils my blood even when you already see that a team it's not doing good and still they just go "f**k you" and basically spawncamp you - Even worse when some teammate finds out and goes to pocket and already hard target to focus by itself Nobody likes rolled games (Except for tryhards, maybe, but I personally find it as waste of time and unfun even when I'm on the team rolling) and the huge skill gape, again, it's a huge part on why casual don't really like competitive
The worst part of getting pubstomped in my case is that I can feel the adrenaline running, my heart is beating fast, I'm playing at the best of my ability and yet I can't get out of spawn for longer than 30 seconds. It's the feeling of trying your best and acomplishing absolutely nothing, while getting destroyed by a pyro with a flare gun and 3 other people on a Party with voicechat. It's at the point where it's not even fun to play anymore.
@@GlitchGames_A I feel that, and it's even worse when you encounter as*****s that brag about it or just act like "Get good" or toxic just in general We know we are not that good and it's not entirely about being "salty" but how that sort of shitty behavior just makes what should be a nice match in a unbearable and unfun stomp/rolled game, and all the things that come with it, ultimately killing entire moods and matches
Yah, literally every game I've join has just been pub-stomp after pub-stomp after pub-stomp, it's like I can't even play the game without some tryhard soldier who destroy's my entire team. (And it's always a soldier for some reason?)
I love how you are the only youtuber I know who is seeing both sides. When there is "tryhard" they see just things good for competitive, when there are "friendlies" they see just things good for casual. But you see both sides, both things they want and you see the one that made them fight because they are too incompetent to do it properly.
He literally just said that comp right but valve too stupid to implement. This video barely scratched the surface of this problem. I wish he talks more about this in the future. But nonetheless; the real problem is Robin walker's way of designing multiplayer games. He designed them in a way to make sure that you could win even if your entire team is an ass. Therefore, focusing on the players selfish goals. The problem is that this was the way of designing games before the E-Sports craze but since tf2 is still at its core tf-quake; this directly contradicts comp game design. Just like he said the quick fix too powerful with 6v6. Trickle down balance is a recipe for disaster for tf2 since comp and casual are DIFFERENT games. I'd like to extend this further to the spy class. who can't function in comp due to a sheer lack of players and perfect team coordination. When people say that tf2 is a casual game they are not talking about its artstyle, that is asinine valorant and overwatch have cartoons artstyles as well, they are talking about how tf2s class dynamics and unlocks work which are antithetical to a comp play style unless you play 4 out of the 9 classes or play high lander which still shares the same problems of some unlocks being to powerful while others being mediocre at best. And guess what spy is still much weaker in highlander.
@@sixbdbdhdbdbendbhsjshsh6864 No offense, but copy pasting the same thing at this point when that argument has been debunked many times before and now that is clear that is only your interpretation of his words and nothing else, it looks repetitive and pointless.
I'm glad to know Game Freak isn't the only company that fucks up stuff when they do updates in later generations/mid generation. "Hey Game Freak, Talonflame is ridiculous with its ability, and Smeargle shouldn't be able to use Dark Void, it's unfair in doubles/VGC, and Darkrai isn't allowed in VGC." "Gotcha fam" Nerfed Gale Wings to only work at full health Made it so only Darkrai can use Dark Void. "Thanks Game Fre- what is that?" Dark Void accuracy reduced to be worse than Hypnosis. "THANKS. GAME. FREAK."
Valve comp just needs a class limit of 2, map choice, a pre server ready up system, longer games (higher win limit and 2 koth/stop watch havles) and lastly a funny equipable badge or war paint for playing comp Realistically if valve comp were to be fixed in this way then it would be much more of a bridge since it'll be closer to community comp while still having no weapon bans and more map and class variety with the added benefit of having an environment that valve could easily balance weapons and classes as compared to community comp of casual even
A lot of issues come with a class limit of 2 tho 2 medics, heavies, engies or demos will make any match a stale mess 2 snipers, spies or pyros will just lose you the game If you ask me the best solution is a class limit of 1, similar to prolander
No class limit- 5medics/4heavies 9 engineers is the best kind of game and the most fun you can have when everyone collaborates together. You can change class in game right? If they have 4engineers then you just need 4 ubers. But I do want that funny badge. I'd love a comp Hydro match- if valve ever fixes one of their oldest maps that is.
@@tamalrickolino413 if valve were to add class limits it be too complicated with different class limits on every map and game mode it best for them to not add it
@@DoABarrelRol1l An engineer just has to build up a sentry, often times not even having to do it by himself (cooperative engineering). A medic has to not only stay alive, while being the biggest pick in the game, but also has to stay alive and healing for a MINIMUM of 40 seconds to get uber (and that's with stock). Do you REALLY think the issue of " no class limits so the other team can have 5 engies" is fixed by "oh just get 5 medics and have them ALL stay alive AND have stock uber, as well as survive long enough to even get the uber meter"?
The truth of the matter is that Casual and Competitive TF2 are actually different games. It's not just the matter of "playing casually" vs "playing competitively", it's the fact that team numbers alone change the dynamics of the game enough so that some concepts are inherently weaker in Competitive or Casual. See: Spy in comp, aforementioned Quick-Fix in Casual. TF2 isn't CSGO where the only difference between comp and casual is pretty much just player numbers, it's much more deeper than that. To force the plethora of classes, in which generalists will have more use in a smaller team size than specialists, to adapt to more rules that imitate competitive play would be like forcing 22 footballers to imitate play in a cramped futsal field. It just won't work, because they're different games in need of different rules.
I think this has been the best "casual vs comp" vid of the bunch so far. On Array's video I get what he's trying to say but the arguments that he provided are quite flawed, while Zesty's video feels way too hostile and kind of disregard a lot of the arguments in favor of comp. Then the back and forth response to response to response vids are.. well I'm not gonna touch on that except for the fact that I think it's dumb. I'm honestly really interested in getting into competitive as a medic main, but as you said, trying to get into one is such a slog to do that I just lose all motivation in trying. But hey I'm just a filthy newbie player with only 360 hours on TF2 and with only 90 hours of that devoted to playing medic, so I shouldn't put my voice in this incredibly complex community-wide discussion topic.
The voices of newbies and oldbies to the game are equally required to have a healthy discussion on the game. I've been playing for nearly 11 years, seen a lot of changes, and don't bother with trying to play in comp because Valve comp is crap, there's such a high skill level to play in community comp, and it's just too much stress to play in a comp server such you won't get kicked out for holding your team back (especially for someone who has to take anti-stress meds and do meditation along with avoiding stressful situations to avoid further physical and mental health issues from stress). *Rant starts here* I've been playing since Halloween 2010 but only got 1577 hours in total, as over the years I've just stopped trying to play the game as the overhauls since then has made it nigh-on impossible to just easily slip in to a community server by hiding away the old-school server list menu behind layers of the new fancy GUI (like how Windows has hidden older-but-stronger computer management features behind the glossy layers of Aero (Vista/7) & Metro (8/8.1) with further obscuration with Win10's overhauls), and the queuing time just to get in to a 2fort map (which is the unofficial Team DeathMatch map) using the "Casual" map selector just gets longer and longer to the point I can watch a video like this in the time it takes for the game to find a damned server. 10 years ago it used to be you fired up the community server menu (like in CS:S), wait for it to populate with servers, and then select a server hosting a map that you liked or seamed to interest you. Then it was as easy as favouriting that server to return back to it after a good game. Now you have to dig through layers of menus that overlap visually to select or deselect maps and maptypes then pray to whatever deity you believe in that the system would find a server running the map/s you wanted at the time you wanted and close enough that you're not dealing with 300+ms of lag because you live in Australia and the nearest server with players on that map was in LA, and that the wait isn't more than a minute.
I'm guessing you didnt watch the response videos. Believe it or not, those videos aren't drama seeking bait, as if anything I feel zesty corrects his overly aggressive tone in his original video and array elaborates on what he meant by "focusing on the competitive aspect of TF2".
The part about "mastering everything" just has me rolling in laughter. The comp community's problem is that they REFUSE to explore anything about TF2 that doesn't make it a glorified CS clone. When a new unlock threatens to upset their incredibly limited strategies, they immediately blacklist it. The Meet Your Match update was considered a disaster for a reason: the "balancing" part outright killed some fun unlocks even in casual mode where players care much less about balance, and these unlocks didn't make it into the comp whitelist anyway so it was all for nothing. It's like they don't want the game to be fun at all. It says something when in the TF2 community, the competitive side is the one with the typical scrub mentality we expect to see on the casual side, refusing to play any other way than the one they're used to and complaining about options that upset our counter their specific playstyle and cry about them until they get nerfed. Except Valve listens to them and heeds their demands instead of laughing at their faces like they should do. Imagine for a second what Dota 2 would be like if competitive players had this kind of mindset.
You know the comp meta is the way it is because the community tried everything else and decided it was unfun, right? the 6s meta wasn't just chosen without forethought, there's actually good reasons for 90% of the differences between the 6s meta and pubs. Also, comp players try new shit all the time. RGL ran a no restriction 6s league for a season and people enjoyed themselves. there are new formats popping up every once and a while(prolander is the most popular example that comes to mind). Comp players are largely not whiny shitlords, unlike your average pub player who bitches constantly whenever they die to a sniper or a pyro or a spy.
I think your survey is skewed here, I suspect a huge portion of the 40% who said yes to your survey did not mind playing competitive TF2, but are not hardcore TF2 competitive fans. Speaking for myself at least, I do not mind playing in a competitive environment, but that does not mean that I WANT the game to be focused on the competitive side of things. From what I saw of Zesty's video at least, his point is that the majority of players do not like changes made by Valve to turn TF2 "competitive". Most of the players currently are casual centric, that's why 2Fort is the most popular map in TF2, despite being absolute garbage balanced-wise. Most people just want to goof around, and for me, seeing things that were fun (Ambie Sniper, Sandman Scout, etc.) being nerfed (rightfully so, i guess), because they weren't balanced on the competitive side of things, just makes me a bit sad. Feelings aside though, I do hope that Valve adds support for those people who are passionate about competitive.
Not even comp players liked the changes valve made since it turned op weapons(not used because op) into shit weapons(not used because bad) and it ended up not giving them new weapons to use which is the main problem with comp as of now that most weapons are either too bad for using or too op needing a ban
The comp scene never complained about the amby. It was never banned in hl or in 6v6. It was only a decision from valve that spy shouldn't be a long range class.
You can play Highlander and fulfill the spy's role of Team Sports Announcer. Maybe a few times a game you might be allowed to participate too! Until then just turn that Cloak and Dagger on and give the play-by-play to the _real_ classes having all the fun.
I don't think you understand that bridging the gap between comp and casual TF2 means stripping away a lot of what makes casual unique. You can see it in past weapon balances like the Babyface Blaster, Ambassador, Axtinguisher. These weapons had whacky stats that made them surprisingly useful despite their sometimes crippling flaws. These don't seem to mesh well with comp's strict balancing, where meme strats are frowned upon, so in those circles they were banned. It was a mostly healthy balance, with comp admittedly getting the shorter end of the stick. The problem is when Valve tries to bridged the gap. These incredibly charismatic weapons get nerfed to try to fit better to comp's meta. The majority of players don't play comp, and are hurt by the changes (look back to the graph, only 3% of players claim to play comp). As far as I can remember, the comp circle's ban lists rarely got smaller, so in the end no one was helped and most people were hurt. The literal only way I can think to make comp better would be to make it more like casual. No one likes strict class composition and strict weapon selection because of "muh meta". That would be the death of TF2. Make competitive friendly to fun, allow any class to succeed in a comp environment, allow any selection of weapons to have a chance, or at the very least more than one selection. I know sixes are a sort of tradition, but having so few players feels limiting on what you can do. Spies are incredibly nerfed because there are fewer players to keep track of (plus coordination, spy is absolutely fucked in comp). There is such a magnetic pull towards the generalist classes that having fun is impossible without a soldier or demo bombing in to rain on your parade. Not even a counter to soldier and demo like pyro stands much of a chance due to the current way things are balanced. As a pyro main myself, counting reflecting rockets as anything more than a soft counter is giving pyro lip service. In short, be careful of what you're asking for. TF2 isn't like most games, so don't treat it like most games. Give it the respect and consideration it deserves.
You're making the same mistake he criticises people of doing in the video. You're assuming that valve's poor decisions in balancing weapons is because of competitive. It's not, valve has nerfed weapons that were underpowered to begin with so why would you assume that nerfs to OP weapons were solely the fault of competitive leagues?
I dedicate a large portion of my video to discussing this very thing, and I believe a middle ground between fun to use in casual and balanced for competitive exists, as can be demonstrated by many, if not the majority, of weapons in the game. Also, as far as the weapon examples you gave go, I couldn't find data as far back as when the Axtinguisher was actually good, but it's in the best state it's been since the nerfs began and it's currently unbanned, and the Ambassador was never banned in HL or 6's. Puff and sting was far from a meme strategy, it was the pub meta and everyone complained about it because there wasn't much you could do once you were stunned and on fire, it wasn't a change made solely for competitive. The same is largely true of the Baby Face, it was hard to find a Scout that wouldn't run it because getting more speed as the fastest class in the game at the cost of two shells is extremely attractive to Scout players. These weapons weren't wacky memes, they were meta defining or else downright devastating even in a pub setting. I agree that the 6's meta is extremely stale and off-putting to new players, or those who want to get into the format. 5 CP is not my favorite game mode and it has a lot of flaws, and I think adding more diverse game modes like Payload would be highly beneficial, and I think this is a big part of what makes Highlander a lot more appealing to players who want to try organized play for the first time, especially as it lets them play their favorite class at all times. However, HL has its own issues as this can ironically be quite restrictive. Being forced to run a class in an environment that doesn't quite suit them can be frustrating for that player. On Payload offense, the role of a Scout could easily be replaced by a Soldier or Demo using the Pain Train, giving him the capping speed of the Scout with the power needed to take down a Sentry Gun. I think this is where 6's with more diverse game modes shines, and it's the one thing I'll give Valve Comp credit for trying. More game modes outside of 5 CP gives the specialist classes like Heavy, Sniper and Engineer more time to shine, and in game modes like Payload or Attack/Defend, it means that parking the bus is actually accomplishing something and not just wasting time like it is in 5 CP. I personally don't know why this isn't being tried more, maybe it's stubbornness, but I doubt that the comp community hasn't tried the most popular game mode in the game in a 6's format before, so there's probably some reason.
@@fishstickonastick-gaming re not diversifying 6s gamemodes, probably because of the map asymmetry, that adds an unknown variable that comp types tend to shy away from
@@fishstickonastick-gaming Wanna start off by saying cheers. We both want what's best for the game, and I don't think our visions differ by much. Apologies for not doing my research on if those weapons were banned in comp. Ironically, I opted to pull an all nighter to play some TF2, and I wasn't entirely clear in the head. Even though I was not correct, I feel as though the spirit of my argument still has merit. The diversity of play is important, and I'm glad you agree. I think you did lightly touch on a point that I have been stewing over, that 6v6 is too few people to be compared to TF2's usual 12v12s. You talk specifically about the quick fix, but I think it would solve a few more problems than just that if the player count were to be increased. There would be more room for specialist classes to take up niche roles that aren't needed in quantities as high as 1/6 of your team. You could see spies being viable, engineers becoming part of the meta, Expecting teams of 12 to organize might be a little silly, so it might take some experimenting to get an ideal team size down. 9v9 would leave room for a team to be composed of at least one of every class, and is perfectly between 6 and 12. Just an idea. A comp more similar to casual play would be better than casual play designed to be like comp.
Trust me as someone who's bad at 6's, this is extremely rare. Most of my competitive matches were one sided losses and my teammates have almost never even gotten frustrated about it.
finally a youtuber who doesn't demonize competitive players and tryhards and treat casual players like some paragon of innocence and wholesomeness. It also might just be the fact that there's more casual players than competitive players, so there's more toxic, immature, and downright unpleasant people playing casual than in comp.
It's pretty crazy going back to old Uncle Dane videos or Funke videos and seeing how the casual community really likes to gatekeep any game balance and competitive accessibility with non existent arguments. TF2 is such an odd case of a game.
I’m a comp player and I won’t say that it’s always true but I have found a lot of toxicity form both side but more so from the casual side. I find that comp players are usually also casual players, the community is tight knit and the modes are so different. Also the casual side is much bigger so it’s more likely fro toxic people on that side.
As I see it, casual is more concerned with the skill floor of items, while competitive is concerned with the skill ceiling, while everyone can agree where the skill floor is, the skill ceiling is often dependent on the players skill level resulting in far less agreement. The problem is that changing one usually negatively changes the other
You have a healthy and reasonable centrist viewpoint, and I don't disagree with any of your logic (except you don't disclaim the possible bias in your voting poll's results and you kind of strawman'd the casual side by just saying they like the hats). I think if Valve wanted to take up competitive play for _real,_ using weapon bans makes more sense -- instead of trying "trickle-down balance" that simply _does not work_ and doesn't provide a real answer to weapon gimmicks that are almost _inherently_ bannable like Mad Milk or Jarate. With all that being said, I just want *_any_* update from Valve that doesn't completely *_ruin_* long-standing balance or mechanics like Jungle Inferno did, and I strongly believe they'll find more success with that update if they focus _less_ on the weapons that are _banned_ by the minority of players (competitive) and _more_ on the weapons that are notoriously useless _everywhere._
As a former competitive smash player, there's a lot of overlap between this casual vs competitive debate between the two communities, so it's interesting to see another community go through it
This was a really good video! Very informative and told/showed me new things. I am a 200 hour player and I don’t plan to get into comp yet, but I wish the option to get into comp was easier.
I watched Zestys response to arrays response and Zesty admitted that it was a strait up knee jerk reaction video that a few (i dont remember exactly what points) weren't thought out responses like they should have been and he backpedaled a bit, Array also said that his main issue was just that he didn't think Zesty was understanding/ interpreting his point correctly. if i'm not misremembering anything.
You mis-represented both the comp and casual arguments. This video basically boils down to "comp right but valve too stupid to implement." It barely scratches the surface of this problem. I wish you talk more about this in the future. Nonetheless, the real problem is Robin walker's way of designing multiplayer games. He designed them in a way to make sure that you could win even if your entire team is an ass. Therefore, focusing on the players selfish goals. "Fundamentally, we had a design for 32 players who don't know each other and who probably won't know each other after this game. They're all going to have their individual goals and a small view of everything going on. Our goal was to make it so that they all individually and locally optimize for their experience. Optimization at the team level falls out of that." "They could look left, look right and see team mates doing some stuff and go, ' Man were working well as a team', eventhough we started with the base assumption that they were all ignoring everyone else because it turns out that's how people work" If you pay attention to, the latter, quote you will realize that tf2 is supposed to give the illusion that there is teamwork when in fact their is none. A prime example of which is the Sandvich which solely exits if you don't have a Medic helping you i.e negating teamwork. The fact that Medic is powerful is an example of how he is designed for unorganized teams because in other games support classes are the weakest or just take Sniper for example, the only reason he is great at all ranges is because he was designed with the intention that his teammates won't help or protect him. The problem is that this was the way of designing games before the E-Sports craze but since tf2 is still at it's core is still tf-quake; this directly contradicts comp game design. Just like you said that the quick fix is too powerful with 6v6 is a brilliant example of why trickle down balance is a recipe for disaster for tf2 since comp and casual are DIFFERENT games. I'd like to extend this further to the spy class. who can't function in comp due to a sheer lack of players and perfect team coordination. When people say that tf2 is a casual game they are not talking about its artstyle, that is asinine since valorant and overwatch have cartoony artstyles as well, they are talking about how tf2's class dynamics and unlocks work which are antithetical to a comp play style unless you play 4 out of the 9 classes or play high lander which still shares the same problems of some unlocks being to powerful while others being mediocre at best. And guess what? Spy is still much weaker in highlander.
@@stuffstuff6932 Yeah I also realized german Peter's video on why stalemate are good for casual but not for competitive. They are just too many differences. Tf2 needs to make up its mind it's either a comp game or a casual one and by being both it hurts both communities.
As a casual player, i think a competitive scene is completely fine for any game and i argue it helps a game’s longevity. however i have my issues with the current competitive scene. First is the format of 6v6 KOTH or 5CP which limits the viability of some classes. nothing larger than 9v9, but preferably 8v8. also allow payload and attack/defend. The other issue is the weapon ban list. Of course there are some weapons that are blatantly overpowered and deserve to be banned, such as the wrangler and yes, the scorch shot. there are weapons where they technically don’t have a downside such as “no random crits” are meaningless in competitive where random crits are disabled. then theres weapons where i feel like there are weapons that are banned simply because they don’t want to adapt or they think it will take over the meta when it won’t due to weapon competition.
six players has been proven to work for years at this point (as well as being a good number of players flying out to LAN). we don't need any more or any less payload and a/d could be included, however you would need to seriously change how they work because the core design of those game modes is problematic in 6v6. although this could be remedied with better maps it can't change how the dynamics between the two teams interact with each other weapons that are banned because "they could change the meta" are banned because they would make the meta a stalematey failure (such as gru + whip + steak sanvich), something that 5cp already can struggle with even if you run the current meta
@@ryvn_ryvn_18 Your argument flows into itself with the statement that 6v6 is the viable number. We've seen with Prolander that even an increase in 1 player can drastically shift the game, making it much more entertaining. If you change the number of players the core design of those game modes isn't problematic for the number of players, and without 5cp you lose the stalemate issue. Therefore the core problem TF2 Comp has is the 6v6 playerbase.
I enjoyed this video and it did make me think about the problem in a different light, but there's one large problem. The poll is probably not more reliable than Zesty's unreliable data due to selection bias. It would make sense that the people that watch videos primarily about weapon balance are going to be people that are more interested in getting in to competitive, and that's probably primarily who's voting in the poll. I wish I commented on this when I saw the poll, because I pretty much knew what you were going to do with it. Not that this invalidates most of your points in the video, but I still think it's important to think about.
You know what really makes people not want to give comp a try? A list of things you are not allowed or not advised to do. Imagine someone who wants to give comp a shot but there are all those limitations and bans on his way. Like the guy wants to play pyro in 6s but it's not advised to do so as it will hurt team's performance because if you do not play anything but scout, soldier, demo or medic, you put your team in a bad position and make some tryhards upset. So the guy has only option of 4 "reliable" classes to play but he has to face all sort of now weapon limitations. Want to play scout with soda popper? Sorry, aren't allowed to do so. Want to play soldier with reserve shooter? Sorry, can't do that too. And the list goes on and on. And even if you managed to drag yourself through 2 previous parts, you have to realize now how short and limited maps' pool in comp is. Want to play pl? No way, mate! Attack/defend? Nope. Just 5cp (and not even all maps) and a couple of koth things. That's what makes average pub people have doubts in even trying to join comp stuff. It's extremely strict and stale in regards what you can do or even allowed to do. The so-called META is what should be loosened up to make comp more attractive.
If someone wants to play pyro why not just play highlander or 4v4 instead of complaining that it's not viable in 6s. Same thing goes for map limits. I think a lot of peoples' complaints stems from the fact that they don't realise 6s isn't the only competitive gamemode.
one of the main reasons why I play competitive tf2 is because I don’t want to fight against all the bullshit in casual so I am 100% for weapon and class restrictions and bans
I agree with most of what you’re saying but if you are planning on going full time pyro in a competitive setting your team is 100% within their right to get mad at you. it’s a competitive setting so you should be trying to do whats best for your team
@@finn488 Like I said, not everyone is whiling to accept the big list of things that are not allowed in comp. If comp community wasn't so stubborn about those things and made it more accessible for others, it'd solve a least some of things.
@@andrewkurdeev6679 I'd say you can definitely do it. But as the game will play out, you'll notice just how much you're at a disadvantage against the other team as whatever you're playing as has to be able to compete on the same level. That's for 5cp at least, I'd say pyro is viable on koth and payload. As for attack/defend, I'd say it's just cancer in general. Keep that shit OUT of comp and let it roll in casual.
"As a comp player who takes TF2 seriously, I play a lot of Casual, which means I like Casual players. So it's kind of weird that the Casual players don't like me." With footage of b4nny dominating the entire other team, with a kill streak in the triple digits. Yeah, who can really say why that hostility might exist. An absolute mystery, totally unfathomable.
@@gelatozaragoza1990 It's like playing some sport in your school and the opposite team has a professional player that spends hours training. Some people in Casual TF2 just want to enjoy a *casual* match, not being stomped by someone that spent hours and hours playing. Is it fun to get ran over by someone that spent a lot of time improving their skills while you're just trying to play after a long day at work?
@@Anderson-kg5ex I can very easily imagine having a very enjoyable evening playing a casual match with a pro player. I think the kids in the sports teams at their schools would kill for a chance at that, actually.
Personally, I think official competitive should be 9v9 Highlander. It's just more interesting of a gameplay and viewing experience, and would probably be easier to balance in conjunction with 12v12 casual considering the narrower player count gap and class limits.
What I don't like about comp that I've seen fuck-all of you talk about is the "meta". 2 scouts, 2 soldier, 1 demo and medic. That's it. I am a sniper main, and not necessarily a good one. If I were to play comp, I'd have to score two kills on 5 power classes that'll jump in my face and blast me into Elder Scrolls IV. That is not fun. Ever, at all. And imagine this for other classes, imagine pyro mains being restricted from playing their class because it makes the meta lovers seethe over the fact there's now a counter. Imagine heavy mains, as few as they are, making the meta seethe because their scouts are now useless. It's, as if, get this, the game was meant to be played with all classes in mind.
Just try playing Sniper in competitive and see what happens. It's not the fault of competitive players or even Valve. The "meta" was established very early on in comp, long before most people watching this video even started playing. The reason is class balance. Sniper is a specialist class, which means he's good in some situations, but bad in most. What sniper is good at, though, he's very good at. The same can be said for the other specialist classes, namely, every class outside of Med, Soldier, Scout, and Demo. You can't fix competitive by turning Sniper into a generalist class. He's not meant to be good in most situations because his purpose is to have an easier time picking off healthier targets at the expense of mobility and his own health. Making Sniper into something that isn't that means he wouldn't be Sniper anymore. The point of specialist classes in 6v6 competitive is that they are run in those specific situations where their skill outshines that of the generalist classes. This is why Sniper is often run on the last point of 5cp so often; low mobility doesn't matter when you're right next to spawn. Sniper is also often run in koth maps for this reason as well. What most casual players don't understand is that meta is not an idea that people came up with. It formed naturally, even in the early days of TF2 comp because of the inherent divide between specialist and generalist classes. Sorry for the long message, and feel free to message me more about this on my steam: steamcommunity.com/id/mikerjw/.
@@mjr8279 I think the fact that there are specialist and generalist classes is proof enough that it would be a nightmare to balance the game between both 6s and 12v12, and it will be a fool's errand to try and balance things toward the gamemode that basically makes these specialist classes useless. The specialist classes are fine in pubs, but try to buff them for competitive viability and you'll see the ripples making them overpowered in casual. It's like the opposite of nerfing certain weapons to be in line with competitive's meta, how the game is played in these two modes are simply far too different.
about your comment on "because it funni cartoon game not take serioursly", tf2 devs MOVED from a TRADITIONAL "Modern Military Shooter™" because it was too hard to pick out the classes from one another, so they chose a different artstyle to reflect that
I still don't think that means competitive has no place in tf2, valorant is "cartoony" but is basically JUST competitive, I don't see how the Aristotle restricts this.
7:00 FUNKe countered this point perfectly in one of his videos where he simply put footage of super smash bros melee tournaments on screen edit: I think the video was called "the elusive esport” and you can just skip to right before the end
Regardless if you're a casual or competitive player, if there's a bot or a cheater in the game, and you've got the resources to actually defeat that menace, you'll be teaming up with whomever is willing to help.
It's a complicated issue that doesn't have an easy solution to fix everyone's problems, so if that's how you walked away from the video, then I guess my mission is accomplished.
I can't believe Mr. Plinkett likes TF2. :o My biggest issue comes down partially on the 5CP focus, but moreso because Comp evolved to be more focused on the generalist playstyles and naturally gravitated towards the most dynamic mode that supports that style of play. It's part of why some balance changes have to be made with what's "good for comp" and "good for casual" in mind - things like the GRU and Caber nerf were moreso concerns of the 5CP players where fighting over who has more uber from the start is an issue or who feel having Heavy easily reach the mid-fight is detrimental. Part of what makes comp seem so daunting is because it feels like a completely different way of playing TF2 - I mean what does the meta have to offer for people who like Heavy, Engy, Pyro, or Spy in casual? While formats like Highlander/Prolander can be good at giving those classes some representation in game modes that better suit them, it's far away from being the most popular. And I don't even really blame the comp community for this evolution entirely. Part of it is because these specialists are rather lacking in their balance to make them worth running full time in a more dynamic game with less players on each team. Either their strengths are just not good enough to make them stand out as useful, or they have so many weaknesses that they becomes more of a liability that outweighs whatever benefit they bring. So should they be made more viable as full-time generalists? I don't think so as it would role them of their identity, but they definitely should be improved to where they can be viable off-picks in 5CP while making them more reliable in filling their roles in other modes. And not just the typical Valve way of patching up the class with a new weapon unlock, I mean some real rebalancing that still keeps their identity as specialists in-tact. IE make Heavy able to more easily reposition and react without making him so mobile he degenerates fights with his massive damage and HP or nerfing that power in exchange for mobility and making him mediocre; allow Pyro to do more damage with focus fire on top of his existing crowd control so his primary is more versatile without relying on a secondary; give Engineer more supportive options rather than turtling so he can potentially even replace the Medic through his structures (maybe speedpads as a vanilla alternative to the tele, and/or hauling a dispenser makes it compact on your back and still able to still heal/give ammo); and idk how you'd rebalance spy lol.
Currently, the reason the Gas Passer is banned is because it's highly bugged and can be thrown through walls. Comp leagues make a point of banning weapons with extremely exploitable bugs, for example the Mantreads were banned for a time after Jungle Inferno since they were bugged to be able to equip them and the Gunboats at the same time. Though honestly, even with that bug, it's still such a garbage weapon that I can't see it being useful even if you're abusing the hell out of it and coordinating an attack with your team.
Aside from not liking competition too much or Team Fortress 2, I'll tell ya why I find competitive kind of stupid. There are nine classes. Six is a smaller number than nine.
@@whydoiexist2180 I won't insist validity. I just think it's dumb to make it impossible to have every class on one team. Highlander is a thing, sure, but it's awful rigid from the sounds of it.
This is probably the smartest video on this debate I've seen. I agree with a lot of the things you said, though nowadays I mostly play MvM boot camp so yeah
my own stab at this as a casual player, is that frankly people are over-reacting too much like, they are acting as if the solution was to erradicate one party or the other, when competitive and casual barely ever see each other face to face there is a competitive set and a casual set, separated lines, but they treat it as if one of those lines had to be cut off for the other to thrive when they don't even know each other in fact, competitive 'knows' casual waaay better than casual ever knows competitive outside the pubstompers now, there are toxic competitive players? probably and totally, but are there toxic 'casual' players? tons, tons tons tons casual players don't find pubstompers to be charming people you know? there is a fine line between respect and resent and it starts on a line of dominations and not only that, but some casual players don't play a FPS which Tf2 is 'supposed' to be, they pretty much play some sort of simulator game combined with gacha mechanics I am 100% sure, that if competitive started getting changes? casual would take a while to notice unless they were changes to the weapons rather than changing how the competitive matchmaking and such work, and they would still complain because... i don't know, because they aren't getting the updates they wanted i guess and those toxic competitive players would also start whining about something, i don't even know what but the fact is, neither side is right on my opinion, but neither is 'necessarily' wrong. If competitive lives on one house and casual in other, why do they keep going to their windows in order to see each other and angrily swing their fist at each other? The ones who make the most noise are those who are between the middle and the edges, not true competitive but not casual, not 'true' casual nor competitive those in the middle ground around the edge of the competitive just lack the skill to be that crazy good but are good enough to curve stomp people, and that's around the edge where most toxic players full of themselves are (on the competitive side) who whine and complain about casual and then on the other end on that same edge is the people who aren't quite 'true' casual so they just fool around and don't take anything seriously (around areas were 'competitives' show up, since 'true' casuals live in their own world of lollipops and idling) , and quite a few get very pissed off when someone tries to 'tryhard' as the stigma goes frankly, both parties need to shut up and just swallow what comes around and goes around instead of complaining about each other so much, tf2 is in difficult times and everyone is stuck and dragged along on this matter we are all brothers and sisters in arms, competitive players need to admit that they would find not having those pubs full of new players enjoying themselves to be a tragedy and casual needs to admit that if they never took the game seriously at least for a second, if all the time was dancing and emoting as well as other nonsence, they would get bored and go play other things. Now, imma stop rambling cause i look stupid when trying to look smart, lol but yeah, that's what i consider, there needs to be a bit of... not change, understanding. both parties don't interact much, both parties don't care about each other much, why so much rukus when they barely know each other and barely ever mess around with each other?
I remember about a year back I joined a beginner tf2 league that was based in USA. I really enjoyed my time there, but the problem was I live in Australia - resulting in about 200+ ping. I could only stomach two games before I quit. I really want to get into competitive TF2, but there isn't really any good way in in Australia :(
I'm a former comp player, and one thing that makes me like casual more is that in casual, you don't get kicked from a team for not using the META. In Comp, what I've noticed is that there's very little to do about the actual individual skill of a player, most teams don't even care about that, they just care that you're using the META loadout for whatever class in the META lineup you're playing.
Well as someone who is a former comp player playing the you don’t play outside of the meta because you think it’s fun because you think it’s the opposite. Most comp player prefer to play in the meta for optimal tf2
![[TF2] The Casual Community VS The Competitive Community](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
