http://teamfortress.tv/thread/20882/arenarespawn-pug

I like the format, but I think alongside the 1 class ban per team. Maybe 3-4 weapon bans. I say this, because I'm getting the feeling they want the mode to avoid the mention of a "whitelist".

Maybe it's because they want it to be valve-friendly?

That looks really interesting and fun, i'd like to try it out asap.

It was a lot of fun and I would definitely be willing to play it again.

The class bans are interesting but eventually as the meta develops I feel as if the same classes are going to get banned constantly. Sniper is way too good in this mode as you can get a free kill without any real risk which is why b4nny banned it every time. We originally banned soldier but then banned engy for the next two maps when mangachu single handedly stopped a kritz push as engy on the first map. I personally dont like the ban system because it feels forced but if that's something everyone else enjoys then I don't really mind it.

I tried using uber for the first 5 or 6 rounds, shade never did and with good reason. Toward the end of the event both meds were using quick fix 100% of the time. Basically quick fix > kritz > uber in this mode. There isn't really a rock paper scissors feel to it at all, quick fix just wins.

The cap is extremely fast, which often leads to capping accidentally which could lose you the round but then again those clutch backcaps wouldn't be possible if that was changed so I don't really know what to do about that aside from maybe making the point smaller so that there's space to move around it? idk.

Thanks for posting these I missed them. This is a pretty interesting way to play Arena. Seems like it'd be better in pubs too.

Is there any reason to be the first team to cap? I feel like you'd want to hunt down as many of the other team as possible first, then cap to regen whoever you lost in the process.

All the things you mention about classes being banned and weapons are what valve need to see to get a feel for what needs balancing. I disagree with the class bans because like you said, it will just devolve into constant sniper/engineer/soldier bans, but only because these classes remain strong in this game mode and may/may not need balancing in the general tf2 community (except engineer, valve really needs to fix some of his shit).

Quick-Fix domination means it should be looked at again for its high reward, minimal risk, but only because this game mode caters to quick building for those dominant pushes. Ultimately things like the short circuit will get nerfed if valve takes information for this game mode into balancing, which is what valve needs to do.

I have been testing this alongside eXtine and many others for a couple of weeks; I wanted to pose a question to those who played the invite pug: What did you think of the time limit? Too long, too short? Should it even be there?

There was some good discussion in our mumble about it a few days ago, but I would love to hear other opinions.

I feel like after the first fight, it's beneficial for both teams to cap. The team with less players wants to cap to have a chance to win. The team with more players wants to have 5 up to ensure they finish killing the other team and winning the round.

What are some good custom maps for arena?

So far lumberyard seems to be the pinnacle of 5v5 AR

Have the original creators of the game mode posted the general direction they want to take the game or what they were inspired by? Because it currently makes absolutely no sense.

I had a few thoughts about AR. It's entirely possible other people have said these already but I wanted to get them out here nonetheless.

1. Make banning Medic prohibited. This obviously isn't a huge issue, but it will happen once in a while if you make AR into a league or even just a pug group or whatever. No medic makes the game way less enjoyable to watch imo, so it might make sense to just make sure no one bans it.

2. To follow up on what other people have said about weapon bans, why not have one primary, one secondary, and possibly one melee weapon ban per team (I'm worried banning gunslinger or GRU would make engy/heavy unviable)? So if engy and sniper are banned, then there will be six weapon bans in total, and they will all be on the seven remaining classes. That could encourage different class bans (which as ninjanick said is a problem), for example someone could ban short circuit which was the main reason engy got banned.

3. Something which many teams have done to great effect is to almost capture the point and then get off it until you need the cap. I would like to see the capture progress revert really quickly, to discourage that behavior. It seems like it would motivate more aggressive play and make it more difficult for one team to sac into another and then have the last player recap. I could definitely be wrong on this one, it's just an idea I had.

4. Other people have definitely said this, but a (3 second maybe?) delay on the minicrits while on point is really needed.

Thanks to all the people putting time and effort into this! Even if it doesn't grow into something big, it's really encouraging to see innovation coming from within comp TF2.

is the pug for good players or bad players?

Wheres the change log?

Since this got bumped, my one suggestion from the whole 5v5 Invite Cast is that if you're going to make 3 maps/match with bans a thing please make the classes from the previous round unbannable. That would lessen the issues of Medic being banned (because it would be unbanned for the next round), or teams just banning Sniper/Other Class They Hate every round because they think that class is overpowered. Then the ban system won't just constantly be stale.

When I first heard the name "Arena Respawn" I thought it would be like dodgeball. I imagined a KOTH style timer for both teams at something small like 25-30 seconds. I figured when the cap was neutral there were no respawns, and that capping a point would spawn the first player from the capping team to have been put in the death queue. From there the 30 second timer would count down for the team in possession of the point. All kills, for either team, would now also release a player from the death queue.

So if blue had 5 members and the point, and red had only 1 . . . that 1 guy would have to be a hero and find a way to get a kill and get one of his teammates back in the game to help stop blue's timer from reaching 0. That could be very exciting. Similarly, if blue somehow capped with 2 alive, and red were left with 3, blue would gain a spawner upon capping, and it would be a 3v3 KOTH situation where every kill would snowball into an additional player on the team getting the kills.

That would create all sorts of meta around when to cap, when to kill, what class to spawn as in order to best support your teammate at that moment, and when to give up the point so as to not die and let the other players spawn a new teammate.

It would be a tug-o-war of not just the cap point, but also the player count. First to kill their clock or wipe the other team would win the round.

Of course then I read and found out this was nothing like what I imagined. It still sounds really cool though. :D

Trukkie

This is closer to what I'd like.

I was thinking of a sort of shot clock (maybe 30 seconds) where every time it runs out, the team without the point spawns a player. And capturing the point would respawn everyone on the capping players team like it does currently. So if it's 4v1 or something, the 4 players would need to split up to hunt down the 1 before they lose their player advantage, and the 1 player would need to ambush the individuals hunting him (or her). And the point should cap fairly quickly, so if the 1 player manages to evade his hunters and clear any point defenses, it's an even higher risk/reward situation than ambushes. The only thing I don't know how to fix is C&D spies hiding forever to spawn teammates.

in a similar vein, how about adding the arena respawn servers to the tf.tv server page. Would probably get more traffic that way, and pub arena respawn could be fun if its the same people that regularly mge/dm/bball/jump/surf w/e

Not on Github :/

9:22 PM - obla: ah
9:22 PM - obla: is it due out in a few days?
9:23 PM - (A:R) seven: yep yep yep! I just assumed 1.1 was out already on github - but it's not been put up yet. We're incredibly busy WLC - it's been flat out for 3 months. Every single day.

https://github.com/winlosecontinue/arena-respawn

1.1 update out now

"tying Medics' heal rate to damage done". what does this mean?

Get your downvotes ready.

Why can't the TF2 community ever play a game mode or style without the need to add its own rules to it?
I've not been around these parts much recently, and I haven't even looked at this game mode. But it hurts me to see people try to manipulate a game mode into the game they want it to be, rather than playing the game how it currently is and let a meta evolve from that.

People talk about not allowing the banning of a medic, or forcing different bans each round. People talk of limiting one unlock per class or team or whatever. Can't you just stop? Play a game mode in the exact same way that a group of public players would play it so that people can relate. Stop alienating competitive play from the public community who feeds you. Games like League of Legends, Dota, Starcraft2, CS:GO, Fifa share two things in common. 1) They are or have been popular esports titles. 2) They have public modes are almost identical to their competitive modes.

There is a huge market for casual / competitive gamers. Those who want to play the competitive game but for some reason might not want to commit to a team (but might once they get into it). In CS:GO the ranked play is awesome, it allows random public players to try their hand at a competitive game, straight after watching some pros on a stream. They can immediately copy the strategies used by those players. Same goes with league of legends, dota etc... Now try that in TF2? A gamer watches Banny pull of some crazy move in a 6v6. They go onto a public server and realise they can't do that stuff because there are engineers everywhere. They can go into a pickup, but they have to learn 500 unwritten rules or they get banned. I get that by design, TF2's standard game can't have a public mode simmilar to the 6vs6 we enjoy. A competitive scene evolved from a game that simply wasn't designed to be played in small team sizes, at LAN events. It was meant to be fun and chaotic mass carnage with objectives to keep that carnage from stalemating; But when we do get given some sort of Arena mode, that is meant to be played in a semi-organised fashion, can't we embrace it?

I know AR isn't competitive TF2 and I know this post is an unnecessarily long rant that is completely pointless. But come on. Can't you just play something vanilla, exploit any fundamental issues with the game mode and let the developers adjust the game accordingly for once?

the thing with your argument Arx is that those games have public modes which were specifically designed by the game developers to be competitive and they were the ones that set the standard in terms of competition format

TF2 never got anything like that, so the current 6v6 game we have is basically the result of players of the game experimenting for years with different restrictions/maps/game modes until the one that was the most competitive and enjoyable was reached

if valve had come out shortly after TF2's release with this arena respawn format I think 6v6 as we know it probably wouldn't exist

i think this format sans the class bans (which I think are pretty arbitrary and would just mean that some classes never see any play time) is probably the best case scenario for any matchmaking system (if they do end up releasing one) as i cant envisage 6v6 ever getting valve support, ever

re: arx's argument

the problem is that many of the features that are banned out in competitive TF2 or those allowed in those bigger games have nothing to do with the games as e-sports and everything to do with the games as Free-To-Play money making machines. The actual competitions in CS:GO, DoTA and LoL would all benefit from simplified and pared down game, similar to how competitive TF2 handles things. The popularity of those games has nothing to do with the actual quality of the e-sport.

Competitive TF2 benefits tremendously as a product in its relative simplicity compared to even CS:GO, and certainly LoL and DoTA. The reason competitive TF2 isn't larger has more to do with the lack of people playing TF2 with an eye towards e-sports than with the failure of competitive scene to embrace the casual style rules of the game. If Valve promoted competitive TF2 the way it promoted DoTA and CS:GO, you'd have all the size and prestige you want.

The added rules in 6s are among the greatest strengths of this comp scene, and looking at CS:GO, with its anti-competitive economy, or any of the MOBAs, with their vast complexity, as a model, simply because they are bigger, is misguided.

tl;dr bigger ain't better, popularity != quality

The thing is. Valve will be the first to admit that when TF2 was designed, competitive TF2 wasn't even thought about. The community had to make rules for a competitive game to exist. I get that.

But after Valve noticed TF2 had a competitive side, they started working with our community. They added variables that helped the competitive scene, such as removing crits. They added a tournament mode to make match starts easier. They tweaked unlocks as requested by the competitive scene. They even added an arena mode which would have been perfect for the growth of competitive TF2, but sadly we already had refined our own version of the game at that point and a switch over wasn't really appealing to those who were playing.

I guess it's the same with this mode. People wouldn't want to switch to it as the primary competitive version of TF2 as it's 7 years too late, but I guess I'm just frustrated thinking of 'what could have been...' when it comes to all the attempts by Valve to give us a tournament viable game mode that works for both public and competitive play, and we just try to rewrite all their work, pass custom rules and restrictions that would never exist in the public environment, putting us back in the same situation we've always been in... a separate community from our public players.

People should realise the importance of casual players for any game title to make it as a successful eSport. They provide the funding through purchases and advertising that attracts competitive players and then competitive players make the game more visible which can attract new casual gamers. Watching high skill players can sometimes drive others to play more than they normally would as they want to emulate something cool they've just seen which leads to more play time, more purchases etc... But they need to both be playing the same game.

Anyway, sorry for another rant. Just wanted to vent an opinion that maybe with a game mode that plays 'quite well' when left vanilla, it might be a good idea to just play it like that rather than making small changes, even if we deem those small changes to enhance the mode. Maybe the developers would listen to the changes later down the line without the need to create another divide between public and competitive. I'll go back to my corner now and observe the TF2 scene from a distance like a good little arx :D.

Is that acidrenix? oh baby.

I'll post in response to you not disagreeing but stating that your argument is too well thought out for something like this.

I can almost guarantee this mode never gets large. It's fun, but it's random. There's a reason why we have weapon bans in TF2 6v6, there's a reason we limit classes to 1 medic 1 demo, and there's a reason every season we talk about map pools and new whitelists and rulesets (ESEA SHOULD MOVE TO THE EURO MATCH TIMELIMIT/RULES IMO).

It's that tf2 by itself isn't a balanced game. You can theorycraft all sorts of strats for this 5v5 AR mode but at the end of the day it might as well be All Random and not Arena Respawn. You can't plan for weapons on the other team at all, one round a pyro with degreaser shotgun axe and the next round natascha heavy, there's actually no way you can predict a round or organize a flawless rollout, or counterplay because literally you may as well be thrown in a blender every round.

If tf2 actually wants to be esports viable, which arguably it isn't in its current state due to the fact that pubbing and 6v6 are COMPLETELY different, it's going to need matchmaking and it's going to need matchmaking that is 6v6 and somewhat restricted weaponwise. We'll see what happens though, that's up to Valve.

AR is a cool idea, but again, this game needs weapon bans to be legitimate spectator-wise. You can't cast a game with no whitelist. "HOLD ON LET ME CHECK HIS LOADOUT" would be 90% of the cast.

Well, I haven't even seen the mode. So I can't comment too much on it. I gather that like everything Valve release for TF2, it isn't of particular interest to the competitive scene. I'll trust your judgement on this one :).

I think that actually, part of what you're saying is the reason for TF2's current state. The community has always argued that too many unlocks mean you can't plan for the weapons on the other team. This frustrates players. Also people like to keep things simple. They would rather be outplayed in the DM side of the game in its current form rather that be outstrategised. I guess there's nothing wrong with that.

I guess my opinion is that actually, I believe that not knowing what the enemy team is running until say, a mid fight, or even at any point of the game adds a huge skill element. I believe it's much more skillful to be able to produce the correct reaction to present circumstances than to come up with a predetermined plan before the start of a round. Unlocks in this game aren't really hard counters to the point where a round can instantly be decided based on the unlock choices of the two teams. Sure, some unlocks may be advantageous over others, but I think identifying this (or even concealing this until needed) and then reacting accordingly is a great skill that should separate top teams from the rest.

On the other side of the coin, predicting your opponents lineup and attempting to guess a strategy to counter it can also be skillful.

Class limits are really more about promoting diversity, reducing spam, and keeping the game flowing (enjoyable to play). They could always be tweaked about. I'm sure two medics might actually be kind of fun and take reliance away from strategies such as suicide bombing, but again, it doesn't really matter. There's a million combinations of class limits that could also produce a fun and entertaining game to play, but we came to a choice that most people accept and enjoy.

I agree. TF2 would need matchmaking to be viable as an eSport. But to a public player, the 6vs6 rules don't really make sense. Imagine if someone wanted to play full time engineer in a matchmaking competitive game. Do you ban engineers altogether? Well no, they aren't banned in 6vs6. But we know to use an engineer in just some circumstances. We have a bunch of unwritten rules that aren't enforcable which means players simply do not have to play the game that we want them to play it. There's also no motivation to play differently. Look at CS:GO. Players aren't forced to take any specific weapon. They can buy anything they can afford. Players aren't forced to work for objectives, but if they don't then they don't get any money or kills and lose the game. Timers, money, and objectives control that game with pretty much all the rest being decided by the players. They don't have to work exactly as a team, but it benefits them personally with mid-game character development (bigger guns), something TF2 doesn't have. A CS:GO game generally plays out to the same conclusions each time with a few exceptions where people are deliberately trolling.

Some sort of short Arena mode game, where all classes are viable and players are forced into action could be great for TF2. Maybe some sort of reward in the middle of the game that gives you motivation to play objectively. Sometimes I think the only motivation for TF2 players to push for objectives are for the critical killing spree at the end of a round. A brief moment of enjoyment melee killing the helpless enemy team!

Casters would just have to get better ;). I couldn't cast a game with all the unlocks in the game at the moment, but I'm sure there's a number of public players who adora unlocks that could probably name them all from just hearing a sound or seeing the corner of a model.