stuns: if the sandman stun is too long (at potentially 8 seconds, max distance) or the health debuff for the scout is too weak then valve can revisit the item.

example: imagine a world where losing the mid fight didn't mean losing the round 80% of the time. imagine a world where you don't have uber on granary last and the opposing team is pushing in but your scout hits a SICK sandman stun and you negate that advantage. how much more exciting is that to cast and watch? a lot.

crits: no shit.

healing: what?

I know we are targeting HL here, and I don't want to add to the noise but I'd like to further advance this thread along with a reminder and more cynicism...I'll try and do this chronologically

1) There was a time when the Heavy class was basically a staple of the Euro scene in 6's. Slowly this trend faded out, you would see some heavies every now and again even in NA but for the most part the heavy was abandoned. Why? Well the comp scene decided it was because of mobility. A second scout or soldier could simply get around easier. Thus passed the heavy into legend and last holds.

2) Without heavies, picking the heavy (i.e. spys and snipers) became a non-issue, and these classes saw their use greatly diminished. Now you have 3 classes suddenly receiving far less attention.

3) TF2beta is passed around privately by Robin in order to better the comp community by bettering the weapons that could potentially be used within that community. One of the primary focuses: heavy's mobility. Comp players all mashed their collective brains together and told Robin and the TF2 team that the heavy was too slow, couldnt get to middle fights in time and that's why it wasn't use.

4) Valve rolls out the GRU (gloves of running urgently) that allow the heavy the ability to run faster with his gloves out while suffering a penalty.

5) Comp community (despite any possible downside added to the weapon—there were at least 3 iterations if I remember) decides the heavy is too fast. They suddenly realize they don't want heavies at the mid fight. They haven't seen heavies in so long...450HP is a lot to kill. Whats more, now we need snipers and spies to kill this heavy, this is slowing down the pace of our game.

6) Weapon balanced by the comp community made for the comp community is banned by the comp community

7) Heavy remains a thing of legend and last holds.

8) Players now accustomed to never fighting a heavy run into it on a last hold and think "what is this thing with 450HP and insane DPS doing in my TF2"

9) Some comp players want to ban heavy.

10) Valve gives up and rebalances (buffs) the GRU for HL play.

11) Though likely viable, players refrain from using heavy as not to upset the status quot.

The moral I'm trying to get at is that we can balance away, 6's is doomed to remain what 6's is (barring inspired additions to it like the kritz/crossbow/boston basher)

Bonus story...remember when I complained for 2 seasons that the boston basher was banned while the equalizer wasn't? Remember how I would use it in scrims and people would complain? Remember how when it was finally added to comp it made the meta better? I get where Robin is coming from, but I really don't think we ought to be pressed to help balance existing weapons. We can take a 2nd look at some of them...and we ought to before every season (which we do).

The main problem with unlocks is they are not created with the comp scene in mind. Gathering data on existing unlocks to see what comp wants is one way to do it but it does not seem the best or easiest way to do it. In fact it really seems like the long way around the problem. Asking the comp scene specifically (i.e. communicating that x y and z weapons are being made in your interest how do they balance?) would be the best way, only it appears we ruined that with the GRU.

Well I don't think we are even near "the last years of its life" but of course everyone wants to see comp tf2 to grow. I'm all for a wonky new HL league with unlocks and new strats being found all day. All I'm saying is that the current format is by no means bad and I believe that all this will lead to an increase in popularity of comp tf2 in general rather than overhaul something that needs to be fixed. I'm not saying that unlock strats/new meta won't carry over to the current system though if they prove to be fun and useful in valvecomp but it will need some time to show that I think.

You've yet to make a convincing case for why we have a bad product. You say we have a bad product if we want larger tournaments, but we'll get larger tournaments if we get more viewers which is the same as equating a bad product with an unpopular one, which you just agreed isn't the case. Which is it?

have all of the coordination that goes into winning a mid fight cancelled out by one players relatively easy shot(lets be honest, sandman hitbox are huge)? We already have this in a way. You wiped mid? Tough shit, try to headshot/backstab their medic before he ubers into last. Same thing, just actually takes skill to pull off.

Allowing other classes to give heals, allowing sandman to cancel ubercharges, just sounds like medic is being edged out to me lol

edit oh nvm valve already removed the ability to stun ubered players

Full time GRU heavy. How existing and fresh!

fuck highlander

The right course of action in this scenario would be to have valve nerf the sandman hitbox, not to condemn the system as a whole.

Make sandman harder to hit with

Remove the headshot bonus because it's fucking bugged out

Change the stun duration rampup

there's a million ways to work on it and that's the whole point of this thread

is there a way to track what weapons/items get picked or banned over a certain period of time, and then be able to submit that to Valve in like a spreadsheet (or some other kind of understandable manner)? Server mod, IRC log, something?

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/8968-pick-ban-pug-aar-thread

I'm speaking from a 6's viewpoint, once again.

I think targeting the sandman is a bad example. The sandman was always seen as a bad unlock because it did what valve specifically said they wanted to avoid "take control out of the players hands."

I don't think any unlock with a stun mechanic like this is going to make it past any picking process.

You can make cases for many of the weapons, but I really do not feel the sandman is one of them. The cleaver or wrap assasin (is that what the wrapping paper is called?) are similar weapons that with the proper nerfing could find a home in 6's imo since it doesn't negate the players ability to fight it's use on them. Bleeding is annoying, sure, but annoying =/= op + ban

you're ignoring the fact the some items need to be rebalanced and i agree with that.

using a different weapon should always be situational. i believe that's what the TF team wants with the game. they don't want you to always use the scattergun because the damage output is the highest. you're only focusing on the strengths and not the weaknesses of the item. with minus fifteen health you can get one shot by a close range rocket. you can die to one sticky. it's a pretty big difference. in addition, you wouldn't run it on every map, or even to every mid and that's the point. it would be good on granary last because it's wide open which means a decent stun time. you wouldn't use it on badlands last because your max stun would only reliably be 1 second. the point is that items are ideally situational and if they're too strong at that, they get rebalanced. i think what we need to do is think differently. worried about a sandman coming to stun your ass? run a pyro, airblast that shit away. ask huey lewis he gives no fucks about running pyro in 6s.

#335, rather than throwing your hands up and calling it a failure, consider the idea that valve can balance weapons if given the incentive to do so.

True. I was just using the sandman as an example. I don't like it myself and believe it would need to be changed in order to have a place in comp. What I mean is that generally I think we could try and accept the idea of unlocks in general and instead of calling it a bad idea try to iron out issues with the individual weapons that people don't want to see in comp.

Aka not have the GRU thing happen again.

Well I meant something maybe along the lines of an IRC log that keeps exactly that information in the template, allows team captains to provide feedback in the notes, but for many (25, 50?) matches in one file so its not a million feedback emails/posts?

you can already die to one sticky anyways

but you're right, I'm basing this off of how shitty the balancing already is and I shouldn't be

The problem is I don't believe valve will balance enough of the necessary weapons or that they will do it right *from a competitive standpoint*

We wouldn't need to submit anything to valve, they would collect all the data automatically. That's the whole point of the pick/ban system.

Perhaps someone can organize a cup with minimal weapon bans for 6s? After a few of those perhaps a season can be organized (not necessarily by ESEA, obv) and we can start seeing some growth?

The only real thing I can see wrong with minimal weapon bans is making medic a class that's just not fun to play considering there's so many things you can die from.

Wait what?

I can't actually reply to this properly right now, because it would be a MASSIVE wall of text beyond anything I've written before. I'm going to try and simplify it, but it will be very easy to poke holes in what I write.

The two main reasons why I think the current competitive TF2 is a bad product:

- We've alienated ourselves from our huge public community (restricting our potential growth from our most potent target audience). They play a COMPLETELY different game and have no interest in watching our version which utilises maybe, 1/12th of the stuff they use in theirs. Without public players turning into competitive players. We can't grow. If we can't grow, we will only shrink and that is the sign of a bad product.

- Our game developers make money from a system we do not promote. They have no financial interest in 'sponsoring' our competitive community when we stick our middle finger up to their money making system by banning unlocks (what they make money from since F2P). Valve are a business. If we can make them money, they might invest in us. They do it for competitive Dota (who make them money). If we can show them a system that makes Valve money, investing in us might be a good idea for them (meaning we get tournaments). How can we make them money? We need to promote what they sell... which is unlocks hats keys etc. Without supporting our developer's income, we will get no future development. A game with no future development, cannot grow. See above. We are lucky the public community do make money which keeps the developers working on TF2, but they certainly aren't focusing their development efforts on the competitive community.

I agree with everyones mentality to test this and try that, yet I really doubt when it comes time to pug/play anyone is going to want to.

allow me to climb the soapbox for a second (since im short, lol):

We couldnt even get the Machina tested before being banned despite the fact that it does less damage over time, lacks the headshot + bodyshot combo, and is a straight downgrade whose only redeeming quality is the chance at clutch double kills. Players mentality needs to change. People read sniper, penetrating, and damage and jumped to conclusions without understanding the weapon.

Was the darwins danger shield really OP? Was sniper threatening to ruin the balance of 6's?

I'm not pretending I don't like sniper and want to see it used more, but I think the bans on some sniper weapons and the mentality towards the class is symptomatic of a mentality that is wildly hypocritical within our meta. I'll champion superior aim and reflexes with the rest of the comp scene, so why when an unlock that increases a sniper's survivability in lieu of close range DPS is added to the game (hullo gunboats?) do we suddenly decide we rather not see clutch aiming and picks? Headshots are exciting to watch, exciting to watch happen to your opponent, and exciting to get.

Is a darwin danger shield sniper better than a 2nd scout or 2nd soldier? No. So why is it banned? Because people want to limit the amount of times 6's breaks from cookie cutter, and a perfectly balanced unlock like the DDS does that, only it does it for the wrong class it seems...

note, I'm against something like Jarate that rewards an entire team with greater DPS just for throwing something sorta at someone

Sure we don't buy weapons, but how much money does valve actually make from regular weapons? Competitive players still use cosmetics, strange weapons, open crates, etc. I feel like valve makes more money from these than just the regular unlocks that you'll get just by playing. Of course, because we're so small, the amount they make from us isn't going to be close to what they make from pubbers, whether we use all the unlocks or not. Even with carnage spending all his money on keys

Also great post, bloodsire

I'm setting up a group today to help test this stuff!

Info Here

run pyro! you of all people can't be opposed to this!

plus, they still have a sniper after the jarate. it'd be worth revisiting as a community. just to try it. maybe see if we like it. just the tip.

To Bloodsire & Ruwin:

What sort of sentiments are running through the highest level of 6s comp? I mean, are ESEA-I, ETF2L Prem teams looking at the game and seeing it stagnate due to arguably stale metagame and a lack of new, interesting unlocks? Something like this requires community wide support, and I was wondering what the feeling is among the more prominent 6s players, people who could arguably push and actually enact change.

i'm all for trying it. i want the game to grow. i want the game to be exciting for more than just the existing 6s fan-base. but i promise you that i am one of few who will support this idea as an inviter.

I'm not 100% against it, but stemming from my cynicism, I'm trying to maintain a certain grasp on how hard the comp community will push back and I just can't ever get to the point that someone will go pyro to counter when a sniper might throw his jarate and think players will be okay with it.

I think there are some unlocks that have flawed concepts. Jarate, in my humble opinion, borders this line as it has a huge reward for minimal risk. Note the reward isn't just in the weapon perks, as I see it it is mainly in the weapon use. It's a throwable, it requires little to no aiming. This is my main problem with it. It carries very big implications for very little effort.

Something like the sydney sleeper on the other hand provides similar bonuses but is a completely viable side-grade, imo. Combined with the buschwaka you could have some fun moments... but again jarate, the way I see it, bypasses something core to the competitive format

Most of the time people don't even want you to off class in a pug, at risk of upsetting the status quot: "others will off class and then I might have to fight a pyro :'[" or "but you could probably be doing more to helping the team win on scout"

the highest level will be the most rigid and difficult to sway, imo

Why was the sleeper banned again?

#359 Viaduct i'm pretty sure