To be honest I think pick/ban was the compromise to let competitive keep the format while potentially getting official support, and an ingenious one at that. Comp players get enough bans to keep the real meta changing stuff out - wrangler, GRU, etc, but it still relates to the wider game and allows Valve to implement something that appeals to everyone and helps their bottom line whilst keeping the 6v6 meta relatively stable as we like it.

In practice it was always going to be less fun for the established community than just controlling the whitelist to control the game mode, so without the obvious payoff of in-game support and a simple system for doing it (i.e. no plugin or anything) it just seems like a pointless barrier that doesn't change much. But not changing much was part of the point.

If Valve really want the ban data to identify and make changes to unpopular weapons it still might be part of whatever is coming, if and when it does come.

New players have the right to investigate the decisions of the past and reverse them if they want. EU is experimenting seriously with no whitelist games and everyone knows they will be very different. If Valve matchmaking comes as it appears it is Valve won't be banning anything, even bugged items.

The scenery is changing, don't trap the next generation in the past just for the sake of it. Let them find their own way.

I never thought I'd see you passing up the opportunity for free damage padding on a static target.

They are in a more difficult position than most people appreciate. Anyone who contacts them, or even any group, are self selecting as speaking for the comp scene which even in a diminished state is thousands of players and puts Valve in the position of being king maker of an outside community, which is something that they don't officially want to do.

We've had years of Valve basically leaving us to ourselves while the bulk of the game went in another direction and, largely because of a few influential figures either arguing against them or admins simply making decisions, new unlocks are heavily banned when items and unlocks are what the game has been all about to Valve.

So what we have now are several years worth of competitive infrastructure built up outside of Valve's compass, and during that time Valve building up internal game structure, culture, product development and a customer base with no focus on competitive. There's not a lot of scope for collaboration there without reversing their entire business model.

Even then things have moved on from the items now with slower release cycles and infrequent updates, at the moment they do ticketed events with pay-to-get-items benefits and increasingly complex combinations of item properties. Fuck knows what is going on with the rubber ducks.

Initially it might seem that comp potentially fits into this, but you have to remember the opportunity cost - every time they could do something in a competitive format they could also do something that appeals to more players. Valve only have so much development time to spend on the game, so they have to make choices. Even so they probably have a lot of reusable assets and experience they can bring across from their other games, so it's not black and white.

Ultimately the problem is that the vast majority of the player base just doesn't care, and that doesn't get solved without a massive evangelical effort. A lot of that activity has died off too unfortunately.

War to be robbed

From week 5
http://etf2l.org/2014/11/01/season-19-powered-by-tt-esports-week-5-report-card/

Logjam was never in doubt. Yes I am still milking this.

The question is how many similar movements does he make in a game that don't land on players through a wall, and how does it compare to the number that do? What are the chances? I'm not sure they're even 1%, he'd have to do it very often. Having not watched his pov, maybe he does?

Also depending on the sophistication of the supposed hack, analysing the mouse movement should reveal completely smooth movements that lack any of the human wobble and noise you get even when moving the mouse quickly.

No parrots, a lack of plank walking, fleshy hands instead of hooks, and a healthy diet preventing scurvy. Admittedly TF2 does have similar hats and treasure chests, but they're not in this version.

Or were you thinking of Somalians?

Atmo's right, outlines will be restricted to StatusSpec. I'm only likely to add fundamentally new features to the plugin.

New balance changes would need to be based on some activity that provides data. Equip rates don't really tell them anything they don't already know. We all know what's been suggested before...

I think the best solution to this is for a player to be able to pick more than one class they are willing to play which would reduce match times. The client could even encourage you in a particular direction depending on what is heavily chosen. Valve also have the option of producing item inducements to varied play that cost them nothing.

Be interesting to see whether they do something with tickets for items/other features as they did with MvM

For those that aren't aware I've been doing some weekly reports for ETF2L, nothing stat heavy really and easily digestible

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3

Run a little web server locally on the network perhaps, assuming the Lan network policy allows it. I realise this is another headache to manage but keep it simple (maybe even just an html page) and you wouldn't need a dedicated machine for it.

Alternatively would you say mobile internet use is high enough amongst individuals to be reliably used for the purpose? Players could potentially access an outside information channel that way.

Matisse dude