I think everyone has wanted this for a while. 8:30-9 est will still give the 9-5 working west coast players time to get home and warm up. Also the majority of TF2 players are on EST from my experience anyhow and playing a season with a job that starts in the early AMs is just impossible for them. We would almost certainly have more people participating in seasons with the start time adjusted.

no it wont

I'm on West Coast. I run my own business and, as such, make my own schedule, but when I was working a regular job, I had to quit my team those seasons because I was getting home 10+ minutes past scrim time every night at 6:30(by the way, I lived literally the next block over from my job, which is unheard of.) I've also been playing a long time and have known many west coasters who, after high school/ first 2 years of college, had to quit because the current time is already too early.(Currently working at a bar or restaurant or fast food place or grocery store or gas station is off the table if you wish to play tf2 on the west coast.) Saying that there are fewer west coasters and so the time should be adjusted is a little crazy, considering that as a west coaster, I'd rather have later scrims than earlier. Also, many of this games' top players are West Coast or were for a very long time. B4nny, habib, skeez, marmaloo, arrekk, ether, exile, grape juice III, paddie, yosh, taz to name a few are all from or currently live in PST.

Also, I know of more than a few players who would rather not scrim until scrim time because they'd rather not make the sacrifices that a lot of West Coast players make to play TF2. (ie, they have work, or hang out with family. girlfriend, or friends, or go to the gym before scrims. It's not so clear-cut as to say that West Coasters are the only ones who benefit from a later time. In my experience, most of the invite teams already end up rescheduling most of the time anyway because players have real lives and unfortunately, cannot play TF2 all day, every day anymore.

Personally ive played on teams the last 2 seasons that play 2-3 days a week, and as a west coaster its honestly a blessing, i dont have to rush home, i can take my time and cook and go to the gym, and actually go out to stuff, most of the time im home by 10 pm which if i was an east coaster i could just do that and also play tf2, i wouldnt have to take days off or play on a relatively unserious team.

i have never met an east coast tf2 player

how come friday and saturday, the two days where people with jobs dont have to get up early the next day, are the two days that nobody scrims or plays matches on? i feel like making friday and saturday more regular days for scrimming and matches is better than changing the time.

I know this is wild to imagine but some people like to do things on their weekends (touch grass, etc.)

Also, would like to add that if you do full-time school, part-time entry-level position, you are more likely to work Saturday or Sunday because those are busier days for those types of jobs. I would argue this archetype of player is more common than the full-time office job worker, though I'm sure you see it more often in invite because the players tend to be older.

Nobody that plays tf2 competitively has a job or internship. Don't get it twisted.

u dont have better things to think about bro

PST -> too early
EST -> too late
CST-> 5 ping
MST-> Goated

On a serious note.
Just based on regular observation(among invite players), since most servers are in Chicago now. The amount of 5-40 ping players drastically out numbers the 50+ ping players. I know routing plays into that as well but it's difficult to accommodate for 4 time zones. I think if match times were adjusted, scrims would follow, not the other way around.

This link added is an old post on the player map but you get the idea. Seems like West coast players just have the louder voice. staying up until 12am+ everyday is awful when you have to wake up early the next day, but so is playing as soon as you get off work. I personally have missed a few seasons due to the fact that it was just too late. Regardless these posts come and go, nothing changes. It would be interesting to see the reasoning why ESEA chose 11pm. That is the only reason matches are still that late.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1jjOHJioDqo2rdcAhWEhW5aiuh9M&ll=21.992874364052543%2C34.85747437292483&z=2

I’m west coast and personally shifting scrims to 830/9 would work well. I would have zero warmup/review for 830 but currently scrims end pretty late since I make dinner afterwords and am ideally sleeping by 1est (so like one hour to cram my entire evening into and wind down). If it meant a significant increase of players from the east coast would play I’d be happy to make the change.

While we're talking about times, is it that impossible to put like an agreed upon buffer of 15 minutes in between the first game and the second game ? I've played a couple of seasons in NA and people just said it would make the evening too long, especially for EST people. That's fair if thats the case but i feel like a 7-10 minutes buffer would be enough for most cases and doesn't sound like a major addition, especially that (imo) it feels so bad to end map 2 early as it's the most productive one.