I would but I'm not qualified. Also I can't play TF2 right now.

If you have played at least a season of Open, please coach. If I didn't start through Newbie Mixes, I may not have gotten into 6s. This is likely to be the case for many new players.

I'll be there next time.

As a newbie who has played a round of Newbie Mixes (shoutout to Blaze who was our coach) I can honestly say that this is an excellent representation of 6v6 TF2 for newbies and I found it very helpful. I wasn't excited at all about comp TF2 after playing a lobby at TF2 lobby (Jake sniping against me as medic didn't help) with all the trolls who kick new players, but newbie mixes has got me wanting to play more pugs/mixes and improve my game and hopefully join a team in the future. [/end plug]

I wonder if there could be some sort of reward system for coaches? Like, new players would rate them, not on if they won or lost, but how helpful and insightful the experience was. Based on that rating, and how many times they coached, the best coaches would take shares of a donations pot or something?

I guess a better way to get coaches is to announce it much earlier than you sometimes do. For the past weeks I have been playing on Friday, something that I rarely do, because my wife hasn't been able to do much. I came in and helped a few times when I was around and not doing anything when you rang, but other times they were just too last minute. Posting a thread a day before would help a lot, but even giving and hour or two warning would help too.

FYI- I don't know how much time you gave today because I wasn't online, if I'm wrong, sorry.

I'm sorry Vick :(

I honestly don't think I'm qualified to coach though. >-<

I'll give it a shot next time :s

This wont be one of my most popular posts on tf2tv but i'll go for it anyway.

Back in the day when I started the mixes with giffy and the bunch we didn't have problems finding coaches, in fact we only accepted top open and higher ones. We quickly realized that was only because the group was new and that the current way the group was running was not sustainable. Unluckily for vick he was handed the mixes knowing full well the difficulties in getting the coaches; he should be commended for his tremendous effort.

I think the newbie mixes are doomed to fail for the following reasons

1. for the majority of the qualified population coaching isn't fun; and thus something that they wont want to do on the weekend in their spare time.

2. not everyone has the personality to take control of a mumble channel and give feedback whilst playing at the same time. No matter how good of a player they are. Many good players I talked to simply don't feel comfortable in that situation.

3. In my experience the people who show up that aren't high level talent tend to be people who are coaching for a variety of reasons none of which include helping newbies.

_____

The short sighted solution is to only run the mixes once a month, that way when a newbie mix happens the coaches feel more obligated to attend. This will work for a period of time but is really only a band-aid on the problem. I just feel like the core idea of the newbie mix isn't sustainable unless someone thinks of something truly innovative.

A few people have tried making a tf2lobby style automated system for the mixes, but none of those projects ever got finished. I think that is the only real answer to the coaching issue. If the mixes could run themselves then someone who wanted to coach could add up whenever they liked, and same with the newbies. If there are enough people to start a mix then one starts, if not no harm no foul. The problem with this is I can see it very easily turning into a poor environment just like lobby.

@lil_nathan: Thanks for the input! That is the kind of opinion I love to hear, and that's the reason I put any time into this at all :)

@481622: I will consider this idea, but without some sort of donations pot, I don't think it's feasible. I'd rather money in TF2 go towards things like playing ESEA league fees, premium, or for players to go to LANs.

@Fzero: When and how should I post it? Gunners and Mocha announce it in the events list on tf.tv and gunners makes a reddit post every time we do mixes. I don't want to make a thread each week in general discussion because I feel like then it would get ignored pretty easily. Our schedule is fairly regular (every Friday at 9EST) if that helps?

@KL: Np. Depending on how many people we have, just showing up to PUG would even help.

One reason I don't like coaching more than one every night is that there are always players that try to talk over you, don't listen to you, play stupid, think they know everything, and generally don't seem to be there to do anything but mulch. What I would do if I were in charge is:
Ban everyone that is on a team from playing in any mixes. In my experience, it's those players that generally make it worse for the coaching experience. They're on a team, so if they want input from a higher level player, they should look to getting a personal or team mentor. There shouldn't be players playing an offclass in these just to get better at that, since their knowledge disparity allows them to completely style on newbs every time.
The current coach requirement is decent, but they should be given a checklist of things to talk about and watch for during games. Positioning, pushing, advantages, retreating, etc.
A lot of games end up 5-0, 5-1 which isn't really useful from a coaching perspective. If you roll, there isn't much to teach them, and when you get rolled, a lot of times it's because of a large DM and experience disparity between the two teams 1-6. My first point should help alleviate this.

IF a newbie mix is planned its on the left side of tf.tv under upcoming events: http://teamfortress.tv/schedule/event/80-newbie-mixes

I agree with Brelooom. Anyone on a team shouldn't be playing in newbie mixes. At that point its way more beneficial to play with your team. Theres only so much coaches can teach you.

I think If we limit newbie mixes to brand new players to comp tf2, they should be manageable. Newbie mixes should just give you an introduction to 6v6 play, some general tips on how to get on a team/pug on irc, then set you free.

i see a LOT of people just coming to newbie mixes to get an easy pug. players that cant get picked on pug.na or that don't wanna deal with irc just come into the newbie mix mumble.

How often do people coach through spectator? Because one of the biggest reasons I don't coach is because I don't want to go in there out dm everybody except like the one other coach on the other team. It just doesn't seem like a good learning experience for a lot of the newbies.

If putting a coach on the other offclasses is "2stronk" we can just put them on Medic.

I played in the newbie mixes the first week that they started up and they were really helpful to me. I came into them already half-competent due to the TF2 I'd watched and the lobbies I played, and I only spent a week in them before moving up to normal pugs. I still came back some weeks to play Soldier, because it was usually a good learning environment. But as each week passed more and more people showed, and they were beginning to get obnoxious. People from teams, people not taking it seriously, and the like. It was that behavior that had me stop showing up.

I think a good place to start is to take a hard line against that kind of behavior. I agree with breloom and G1 that players already on teams shouldn't play as newbies. And people who aren't there to learn shouldn't play either. If it comes down to it just kick them. It should be a serious environment for learning the game.

I also think you should tweak your coach's qualifications. I had a really good coach fresh out of his first season of open. He was vocal and positive, and extremely helpful to me. I also had a useless coach who was really good and clearly experienced, but who barely talked to us the entire match. I think the most important part of a coach is his attitude, not his ability or experience. All a coach really needs to do is main call, so that new players have support and instructions to follow.

Lastly, you should funnel newbies out of the newbie mixes and into IRC pugs and the tf.tv forums as fast as possible. It should be up to coaches to identify who's prepared for normal pug environments and encourage them to join them by giving them all the information they could need. Just talk to them privately through mumble. I'd like to see tf.tv become a place to ask questions and advice of more experienced players without any pressure.

At least that's what I think.

Boink, as someone who has tried coaching from spectator I can tell you that it's extremely difficult. I find that it's much easier if you have a position that controls the pace of the team like pocket.

I have coached many of these, and the absolute worst part of it is not the peopl who dont know how to play, its the people who do.

People who have basically figured out how to play and/or can DM on another level from the majority of the players ruin the experience.

If you know how to play, go play pug.na or something and quit being a showoff twat.

EDIT: if i had read the thread, i would have found that my opinion isnt quite as revolutionary as i thought.

Vick grabbed me to coach a mix today and I was surprised how well it went. I figured I would do just one to help out, but ended up staying for six of them. Four out of the six ended up being close matches and each time I had players ask good questions who were genuinely interested in what I had to say.

I think a really important thing to do as a coach is to take questions after the match is over. Because some questions aren't easy to answer during the match while you are trying to main call, and waiting till after the match will give you time to give longer explanations. And then you can also give players feedback on what they did well during the match and some things to work on.

So true. If there was a way to screen players before they play, that would be great, but honestly not really worth the time or effort that would take. Some of the best help could be starting them off with a link to a video that shows the absolute basics in a nutshell, so a coach doesn't have to spend the first 20 seconds of every round saying, 1 person equalize, duck if you aren't the demo, heal the demo first. Show them how to rocket jump, have a real quick general (this is how you mid-fight) something along those lines.

Put me in coach!

Coached one tonight and honestly i had good time. My set of newbies must have been a good batch because they all listened to me pretty well. One piece of advice I can give to coaches it to explain why you're saying to do something. Yeah it's hard to give a good explanation during a game but c'mon this isn't lan finals. Miss a few comms to tell them WHY you want to force uber and get out without losing any players or whatever. If you have a scout who does nothing but +forward during holds call him out. If he's there to improve he should be accepting of criticism, and if not he shouldn't be there at all. Don't be a dick about it but make sure they know what they're doing isn't good play.

My advice to newbies is not to be afraid to ask questions. The reason I'm coaching is to be helpful and if I spend 25 minutes trying to teach and then everybody just leaves right after the game I won't feel like anything rubbed off. When you ask something it makes me feel accomplished :). That's the feeling that will keep coaches coming back. If they feel like their time is being wasted they won't want to do it anymore.

I've been trying to be a bit Laissez-faire about letting people play in these because I don't like turning away someone who wants to play 6s but can't at the moment (how many of us were ever in a similar situation?).

If the general consensus is that we want to vastly decrease the number of people playing in newbie mixes that's fine with me. Maybe we can work with UGC to do like UGC Steel mixes and stuff like that in the future to keep that going.

I can help you guys coach. Currently entering second season of Open. I'll send ya a message later Vick.

You could have uncoached mixes through the week and add lots of trusted regulars as Mumble mods, then insist the weekend thing is for very new players.

I'll try and be here one of these times, just message me when the time comes

I am always up for helping. But tonight I finished up my finals + graduated from college, so I kind of wanted to take it easy tonight. You're always welcome to message me to coach. I have enjoyed playing with the newer players. And generally had a great time coaching, except for one situation where a player really got down on himself for having really bad aim. That kind of made me sad for the dude, because there was nothing I could say or do to help him. (His attitude) Really drug down the whole team... tbh.

Anyways, when I come into mumble to play with the newbies I always find myself thinking, what would I want to know in their shoes? And I always wonder how much these kids playing with me actually know? So I generally play pocket and tell them what to do. But is that really teaching them? And on that note, Trekkie's comment on the players that really do know how to play and play in the pugs do ruin the pugs. Especially for the really new players who do not understand the general game-flow. [below] [Side note: Also the coaches who do not actually teach but troll the other team by allowing players to run double pyro or sniper or heavy... ie stupid off-classing that the newbies do not know how to counter very well..In one instance a coach literally ran pyro like 40% of the game...]

Anyways, I'll try to come in for some more. And maybe we can brainstorm about keeping newbies in (learning as much as they can) and keep the not-so-newbies out (ie recommend #tf2.pug.na or #tf2mix).

Having a standard operating procedure for coaching would probably help things a lot. A checklist of sorts of things to go over when coaching could be very useful, so things like:

[] Explaining rollout procedure and general class roles in 6v6
[] Explaining the midfight (where to hold, what each class does at mid, etc.
[] Explaining pushes, pull-outs, and other tactical maneuvers for the forward/last fight
[] What to do if your team is losing players, when to get out, when you should try for picks etc
[] When to off class, and what off classes are useful for what situations

More detailed coaching can be given for each individual class such as when a roamer should bomb, when to focus building uber, when to force the enemy uber, and even more specific coaching such as what a player did wrong in a particular situation or what they should have done can then be given out. That said, it can be easy to become overwhelmed with information, particularly if you're really new to 6v6 or TF2 in general, so taking it slow and making sure to explain yourself clearly is vital.

I played 1 season for a mid-high open team (just barely didn't make playoffs) as medic.

Am I qualified to coach?

I have coached a few and these are my thoughts:

- players should be more familiar with mumble (push to talk or functioning voice activation and correct mic volume) and how to use console (connecting to a server). This could be accomplished by a quick PDF or something they should read before actually playing in the mix.

- range of skill is too wide. One time I had a player who didn't even know the map (granary) and had a total of 30 hours in TF2. On the same team was a mid open player with 1100 hours in TF2. Like breloom said, its not a great learning experience when there is such disparity between players. This could be fixed by maing it more clear the requirements to be in pugs and when you should move up to lobby/pug na. With that said, coaches should suggest when they should move up or when they should simply put more hours in the game.

- Stay on specific maps for a given night (i.e., next week is badlands night). See if a coach is willing to do a quick map overview when there are a significant number of players then they can go apply what they have heard in a mix.

You're doing a good job Vick. I will try to come around to coach more. Sometimes it can be rough but its a trade off for giving the community more competitive members.

Are there links when you join the newbiemix steam group where you can find the how-to's on mumble, connecting via console, and standard knowledge (rollouts, pushes, offclassing, etc)?

If not perhaps consider that, and some way of them letting you know they HAVE actually watched/read them, like put a link at the end of a YT video "Follow this link to register (on a pastebin doc or something) that you've watched this", or something to add to their profile so a mod can actually open it up and see that they have at least done that much.

There is this guide i made: http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/107wx0/always_wondered_what_6v6_tf2_is_well_the_na_6v6/

It would be cool if someone could make it easier to read and maybe put it on Tf.tv somewhere.

It would be nice to have a tab at the top called guides with like sigma's intro to comp tf2, shwan's irc tutorial, and some other ones like Rocket jumping etc