to change your name use the request form
to fix tf2center idk, requires alot of input from players to actively use the website

Yeah of course, that's mainly why I'm making a post. I know theres a ton of grief from the community over the years dealing with the site that a lot of people don't even bother to come to it or more often the ones with spite for the site are more often than not warranted to have those sentiments. I'd like to extend olive branches where I can, since I had no way to remedy issues prior to being an admin. I feel like the site has so much infrastructure already there that gets wasted for mainly trivial reasons. And I did the request form a few montths ago and never got any kinda response.

i hope you're getting paid for this fac, tf2center isn't worth dedicating this much brain space to.

Lol nah, but that’s fine with me, I spend my free time when I have it playing video games and I don’t have a lot of time to play serious mode anymore so I don’t mind managing and maintaining a decent setting for tf2center (NA side at least), also if this post gains any traction I’m sure there will be trolls or just general “toxic” responses but I’m indifferent to anything other than trying to address people’s issues so it’s all welcome as far as I’m concerned.

Someone buy this guy a beer. It's genuinely really cool to see people putting effort into this community, glhf to you all :D

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1244739447879237853/1244739583460118659/op4Kq4h.png?ex=66563592&is=6654e412&hm=ee5d4a9b91c3a4526a24787c9bc5020457885139fde482199a500c5dfffb3b3c&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/SK_e2qm__6EyfR2tnm_gq6ZQlhtxXvVndv_viXPuht0/https/i.imgur.com/ig41D8y.png?format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1354&height=676

unbanned me afta a dumb lifetime ban from getting banned on rgl for less den a day -_-
god bless

you guys seriously need to remove the 10 lobbies requirement for medic

also lol

https://i.imgur.com/faXsovZ.png

edit: thank you fac :)

Unfortunately there’s not much I can do in regard to the med limit. But also check your account again.

That's a lot of dedication to something that not many would do. Hopefully those people still happen to be roaming TFTV and see this so they can check if they've been unbanned. Bans that are deserved have a place to stay within a limit depending on the circumstance, but bans that are overkill will only hurt the community. NA competitive TF2 players and newcomers already has a finite number, and then a % will ever actually use TF2C. So every ban is further limiting the # of possible players.

You might want to edit your post and include the discord invite link.

TF2C may have a bad history, but it's functionality has always been decent, easy-to-use, and operable from a regular standpoint. Under Fac's direction and positive outlook, I think it's worth trying again. TF2C will only be as good as it's staff and players, and right now it needs players to really fulfill that.

Shoutout to Fac once again. For those that don't know, he's been around for over 10 years. His dedication to the game has always been strong, even during about more than half a decade he never had the hardware to run the game well and had multiple technical difficulties. In spite of this, he always kept trying and would come back, and when he finally did get some great hardware, his main commitment was to TF2. His passion for the game has always been unwavering.

bro doing tricks on it

Lmao what did yall do to get banned for life?

Hopefully some new life can be brought to the site since it's the most convenient way to actually play some 6s. I'll hop back on when I get my gaming pc back!

Make no mistake I greatly appreciate the compliments, and I think that within the topic at hand it’s a great benefit for people to have a good public opinion of me because I am an authority on the website, I didn’t make this post to only get my ego stroked. I just don’t want this post to get lost in the shuffle, I’ve had people message me on discord directly to help which is perfectly fine, but if possible, post on this thread as well just to keep the flow going on trying to get some good ole fashioned tf2 lobbies going with maybe a little bit of a higher skill ceiling. Anyone want me to start putting some advanced lobbies up say the word. If they fill I can keep them going as much as the interest is there.

I think TF2Center would be more attractive to higher level players if a pick/ban system were implemented for maps and players. It's not really very satisfying to play a TF2Center lobby with randoms who "stack" teams based on lobbies played and hours. There's a reason that other pug services have had greater success in the last decade.

players on that site deliberately set up 15 minute 5-0's one after another and wonder why its not fulfilling

I agree with the sentiment, I think there’s something to the fact that center has stuck around since 2013 but it’s stagnant because it hasn’t really changed much. I will say i and a few others have been actively pitching ideas and trying to get some new concepts going in in house discussions. There’s just a couple set backs to get past as far as the coding of the site and stuff goes that has honestly just gone to the wayside due in part to being inconsistent with the efforts to get the said issues fixed. The if it ain’t broke don’t fix it mentality has just led to a stagnant laughing stock of a website to the majority of players whom the site SHOULD be targeted for, which I have a lot of interest in getting better. The mainstay of who runs the sites are all old and busy with real life, I personallyI work 7 days a week most of the time doing construction during the day and a lot of the head admins are EU, and the owner is kind of hard to get a hold of to deal with the brunt of the issues at hand and what recommendations that are given to be implemented. So while it’s been EASIERr to just watch the site fill with the same stacks of people 3 lobbies at a time, I’d like to work to change that. Pug groups have greater success short term but lack longevity. I want to meet in the middle of that and turn a familiar product into a great one.

Fac why don't you just talk to me and the other frequent players about changes. We understand that the website is showing its age, But I also think that we should not only focus on "higher level players" but mid - low as they are the life blood of this game. - Julien

While you’re not inherently wrong about that aspect, it also goes part and parcel with this whole thing that I’m going with. Where higher level players go, interest follows. I wouldn’t want to relegate either side to either non competitive boring games where new players get stomped all the time, and I wouldn’t want to the site to be strictly new players where the entire skill ceiling gets lowered on average. And I also do speak with newer players and hear what they say and ideas. I’m the one who came up with the idea of a survey for center changes in the recent past. Trying to make things better is my M.O. , with that being said, I’ve also played this game since 2009 on computer and I’ve known people in this game for 10-15 years. I’ve seen how these things play out and hopefully very soon, there will be changes that mitigate both of those issues. There’s all sorts of angles to be had to make things better and I’m hoping by showing some initiative I can get the momentum needed for that. It just takes the community to support the community.

Happy to see where you take the website. Why don't you guys start doing content like RGL? That will surely bring traction to the website and hopefully cause higher division players to come play in TF2C. It's just a thought. Also, why don't you guys make a monthly survey and allow players of 100+ lobby's to vote for changes? Again, just a thought. I have a lot of time on my hands and could possibly help you with things! The last thing I'll say is don't do anything that will break your back, as in being overly time-consuming.

stacking makes the site pretty awful a lot of the time but i do like that lobbies start up before scrim times usually and you can play *some* tf2 even if its not very high level

have to say tho, RGL open pugs seems strictly better (tf2mix/mixchamp basically, because of the auto picking, and actively developed even if still having flaws) and i feel like trying to get people to play there or in captain pugs is a better idea -- you can't all of the sudden change the culture for tf2center that's existed for like 10 years, the toxicity/stacking/people not comming/perma offclassing stuff will be pretty difficult to get rid of

people also have a bad taste of it in their mouths so avoid it, im sure tons of casual players tried it, had a bad experience and said nope not trying comp anymore

I agree with the stacking and culture point of view, and I'm not disillusioned to those things. It's something that I'm gearing towards mitigating actively. I only posted about Center because I happen to be an admin on the site as of the last year and some change, but played on it since 2013 so for the majority of time on site I've been on the side of the players dealing with all the problems we all know about, this post was more of an olive branch to show that the site's nature has changed from the top and I'm hoping it trickles down to the bottom as well. Better and active leadership with more transparency and availability to get issues resolved within minutes of it happening in just the last 6 months is such a stark difference in a tf2center experience compared to say the last 10 years of it. In no way am I trying to have some competition with the RGL pugs. If you're speaking on the culture of things; there's a lot of people who are afraid of even showing their name in a rgl pug because they feel like they're not good enough and at a moments notice they'll just get yelled at and made to feel absolutely out of place because the culture of RGL is more intense. It's the same reason why people don't associate tf2center as pugs even though they technically are. You hear pug you think of an in house group or now rgl pugs, you hear center and you get that its a different element. There's a market for both, but I can only speak to center as its own entity. There are things like the pick/ban system that I think we should also implement because its just a good idea in general, I think that any ideas pitched should be taken into consideration. I am trying to get more pressure on actually implementing things for the site like that, hopefully soon there will by some dynamic changes about it. As for now most of the toxic things get snuffed out pretty quickly because honestly people tattletale on others at a moments notice, you'd be surprised at how many tickets there are(that get handled quickly at that), the stacking is something that can be mitigated with advanced lobbies or other wise by an influx of more players causing the average skill ceiling to raise, and the offclassing thing is essentially gone from centers now, outside of last holds and quick forward spawn type plays. I'm not sure how long it's been since you've actually played on the site, but you should give it a shot and see what I mean next time you're just kicking around waiting on a scrim to start or something, I think you'd probably be pleasantly surprised at how most games end up being compared to what I'm sure was a shit show like most of center's lifetime has been.

i just played 2 centers and both were semi stacked at least and the second had ppl someone constantly sniping on the other team (warning in chat that theyll get banned doesnt stop ppl)

you should just change the config to disallow offclasses lol its a lobby so who cares if u cant heavy engi on last, better that than aids offclassing to mid IMO (im sure theres a way to override the RGL or ugc or whatever configs people run the lobbies on)

also you might want to do more linebreaks / paragraphs in your posts if you want people to read thru them cause a big wall of text a lot of ppl just skim over

Ah I gotcha. I don't really post a lot so new waters, getting used to that. Too wordy. I'll keep it more brief. I looked at the logs of the lobbies you're speaking of and when you say constant sniping, there was one sniper in one lobby that registered about a minute of sniper gameplay and the other lobby had 2 snipers that accumulatively had about 57 seconds of sniping between them. I've only played a couple RGL pugs but unless I'm mistaken, is there any sort of disallowing the off-classing in those per game? The config stuff can be worked on as well.

*edit*Had a second thought about it and I realize there are some who do intentionally or unintentionally do the bug to bypass the auto detect cooldown, if that was the case then yes that's a big issue that needs to be addressed, and generally is policed by admins when playing pretty easy and when they do get reported via the discord ticket system its handled by anyone who gets to it first. Another thing that needs to be updated with the coding side of that, admittedly

People definitely off-class more than they should because they can abuse bugs to avoid getting auto reported or they just don't care because the cooldown for offclassing is only like 30 minutes or something. the issue is that the automatic cooldown for offclassing is too short for it to be an effective deterrent, but at the same time it's hard to justify making it longer when it bugs out sometimes and bans people for offclassing in pregame.

Bear’s strictly no offclassing lobbies is an interesting idea. My one concern is that Tf2center is a lot of pubbers' first exposure to competitive tf2 and the optics of having the most accessible platform just outright banning offclassing is not good and would fuel a bunch of false narratives about competitive tf2. I'm not entirely opposed to literal no offclassing being offered as a 3rd option though. Its actually kinda cool because then tf2center becomes somewhere between soap DM and a pug. However, we should keep in mind that you don’t need to offclass to troll, so realistically I think what will happen is that people who like to go pyro to mid will instead opt for playing trolldier and demoknight. I think the best way to mitigate trolling is to make it easier to report players by lowering the number of votes required to get a sub when that player is offclassing. Just lowering it from 4 to 3 sounds silly but I think it would make a big difference and I like it because people do have fun in goofy 1am tf2center games. Sometimes offclassing is fun and fits the vibe, and other times it does not, and that's why I’d like to make it just a little easier for the players in the game to get a sub if they think it is necessary.