It is the most reliable weapon for demo to deal with scouts due to the faster det. time (imo). It also allows you to sticky snipe much easier. It allows the demo to have a bit more of a presence on the flank if they need it while still being able to get back to the choke and combo if he needs to if the map is laid out in such a fashion.

While I want this to happen, it probably won't. It would be nice to see some high-level testing going on with it. Anyone know if any invite-pugs or scrims have tried them to see if they work well for 6s? My lower-level pug experience with it is pretty good.

This is probably the only place the new stickies are really "fair." It by no means justifies the stickies against the other classes, but if it somehow it isn't a bug at least it will make sniping in 6s that much less annoying to deal with. It's still broken though.

The problem with sniper (especially in 6s) is the only way to kill him reliably is to snipe him. All the other classes in TF2 are only effective at close range. It's not as fun or interesting if you are forced to do the exact same thing as your opponent in order to counter him.

As for the new demo unlocks I really like them in the few pugs I've played with them. I think the Iron Bomber (if allowed in 6s) will just be a personal preference thing. It was hard for me to think about using them for area denial, and I ended up just using them like I would regular pipes to go for directs. The quickiebomb launcher allowed me as demo to put down damage wherever I wanted. I could rotate pretty easily and deal damage at the flank or the choke because stickies travel so fast. It also felt like the best way to deal with scouts. I'd love to see how the quickiebomb launcher is when falloff for stickies is fixed. I also, atm, don't think they should fix the quickiebomb launcher destroying stickies. If they keep it as is I think it is a viable sidegrade that will allow for 2 different, but relatively equal, demo playstyles. If they fix it and allow it to destroy stickies then I think it will function like the quickfix did and everyone will run it. There's no real point in setting traps if your opponent will always destroy them.

I caught it very quickly (within 15 seconds or less probably) and you can't really see any damage to the PCB.

I'm one of those guys with the H440. I am a sucker for white/black and mimalism. The LEDs inside are now off though as the PCB that controlled them started to smoke last night. Luckily I caught it in time and I am not going to risk using them again.

http://imgur.com/a/9O56Z

These classes/combos aren't overpowered. They are annoying and usually slow down the game. This detracts from the mechanical skill required in 6s and instead turns into people being forced to play a certain way at no real cost. It isn't the skill of the your opponent forcing you into situations but unlocks.

I need to watch these VODs, but I doubt the unlocks actually made the game any more exciting to watch or play, regardless of their effectiveness.

EDIT:

K, so watching this VOD reminded me of some of the big problems with some unlocks (especially scout unlocks). The pocket pistol, for example, is an absolute no-brainer to use. Pyros, even skilled pyros, generally won't be a big enough threat for scouts to have to worry about flame damage. Instead you make scouts, which in the current meta are super scary, even scarier because of the extra health and fall immunity.

Crit-a-cola and Bonk! might be something to use instead of the pocket pistol but these also shift a lot more power into the hands of scouts for very little downside. The pistol is a very powerful weapon, but I don't think it is on par (in 6s) with other scout secondaries in terms of the things they let a scout do. Mad Milk could also be a massive problem because it can possibly make fights last way longer than they should.

The Atomizer buffs the scout in combat a ton, and soldiers can build just fine so you can easily drop the basher to use it. The downside of the Atomizer is a joke. The best scout melee is the scattergun anyway, and it allows scouts to dodge a ton of damage at the cost of 10 whole HP. Scouts will also be able to do most basher jumps at nearly no cost.

If we move onto demo we have the caber. A free kill for when you were going to die anyway. becomes a no brainer to run instead of your bottle which will still get you killed, but doesn't guarentee the opponent will die, too.

if you're a medic there is no reason you shouldn't run the Solemn Vow or Vita-saw, I'd imagine. This buffs the medic again at little to no cost.

Soldier overall is probably fine. The Disciplinary Action and Beggar's Bazooka have some potential problems but they aren't as big as the scout unlocks and Caber imo. It will just make heavies more common, causing more stalemates, and medics will have very little recourse to live if they get unlucky.

The off-classes unlocks might be varied but they make it so any situation can be hell to try to break through. jarate heavily punishes a team for example for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gunslinger aims better than any human and you can keep placing them down to destroy the flank. Sandvich makes the heavy-medic combo even more. Having a 450 HP class with a slow runnign speed and no ability to RJ is rarely fun for the person playing it and it definitely isn't fun for the other team to kill. The weakness to this was the fact that the heavy needed a medic but this gives the heavy a way to give his medic a second chance. Giving the pyro to be anywhere he wants gives someone the ability to completely arrest someone else's movement, again at no real cost. There is no skill in airblasting an opponent into a wall, and it is unlikely that pure skill will get whomever out of that wall. Only time will get them out of that situation.

From what I saw this showmatch involved very little strategy. It was just each team trying to brute force their way through by constantly switching unlocks.

So from your blog post I think I picked up on ranking people differently based on their class. You might be a top-tier soldier for example but only a medicore scout. Would you also have a seperate system for 6s and HL?

Also, if you did, I think it would be really interesting to see the difference between HL-mains in 6s and 6s-mains in HL. My bias would lead me to suspect that mainly 6s players would transfer over to high-level HL better than HL players would transfer over to 6s. But that's just a little bit of bias and elitism on my part.

This isn't really the thread to get into this, but that's a whole different can of worms. Especially with airblast's extremely predictable nature.

The main thing is that all classes in TF2 require some level of technical skill, but some require a lot more.

Could you write something that looks at heals/health packs, and make it decide off that. It might not be 100% right because you might have a "pocket" that somehow never gets shot but it would be easy to tell in the large majority of cases who the pocket was.

Or if the system takes off whoever implements it might be able to work with logs.tf for integration. The matchmaking system and logs.tf could potentially communicate what role each soldier was picked for?

This tough love approach doesn't grow a game. Competition doesn't actually need money behind it. It helps motivate people (especially the best people), but it isn't necessary.

I keep bringing up ETF2L because it works probably as well as ESEA despite being a free league. Even the top level is probably about as competitive as Invite, and they have even less incentive to play well. They have a LAN at least, but only once a year. At i49 2 teams from a free league beat our NA superteam.

This, as far as I am concerned, is that free leagues can work if people go into them with the right mentality. I think ESEA should continue and grow, and I think pay-to-play is good for the scene, but making it the only option greatly inhibits growth. We need growth. We need new players. To do that you need to give them a place they actually want to play.

This is all well and good in theory, but you can't expect everyone to commit. People have school and jobs they have to attend to. You can't expect them to invest money and lots of time to remain competitive. I think that realsitically we need a good free alternative where people can play without having to invest as much as you do to play ESEA. The problem is at the moment our free alternative sucks and everyone looks down on it.

The problem is that if we get a new free league right now we will have 3 leagues again, which is deifnitely a problem. UGC 6s needs to die or improve, and if UGC dies we need a good, free league to take its place. You can't actually expect people to pay for a game they are new to and aren't sure if they'd end up liking.

Free leagues can work if done properly. ETF2L works reasonably well for a free league, and works reasonably well even compared to ESEA. Surely some European will tell me how they're not that great, but from the outside looking in it looks decent. Not the best, that's for sure, but it looks decent. Also, I believe CEVO's free CS:GO league is

You have to give lower level people a reason to care. Sure, making thempay for a league will make them care but it might sour their taste for the game if their first experience is in Open where they might just feel like they paid for a season for nothing.

I know the audience here is fairly devoted to this game and its hard to see why people won't pay to play our game, but new players are most likely turned off by the lack of a reasonable free alternative to ESEA. The top level of players will definitely be drawn in by a prizepot, and that can trickle down into hype for top-level teams, and especially the viewing experience. However, even in the games that do have a successful esport the majority of players are probably playing free alternatives to league play. If Valve won't give us a way to play 6s for free then the community has the do it. Start with better pug systems that are easier to get into and restrict or punish griefiers and potentially do a bit to find players of simlar skill levels so they can play together. Then for the players looking to step it up to the next level we need to have a place where they will want to play. Many of these people would be willing to throw money at a league, but many won't be until they know they can compete even a little bit.

We need new players. Everyone at the top needs to understand you can't be succesful just because you are good at the game. You need to build an audience who cares and understands the game you are playing. Because 6s is so different from standard TF2 you have to have ways for people to play 6s that is just punishing enough so they can still have fun and want to get better.

We need a better (or improved UGC) free league. As it stands UGC is bad. The map rotations often don't align with ESEA which makes people only want to play one or the other, people sandbag lower levels to stomp on new kids, people play once a week to just get medals, etc. Not everyone wants to start and hop into ESEA when they know they are new to the game. Open, despite the name, can be daunting because there are tons of amazing players in there who either need to get back into IM or Invite, or should be in there but have to go through Open first. And even then, not-so-amazing players can still be far ahead of a brand new team. A brand new team will probably want to play where they might still lose, but they havea chance to elarn something. When you are constantly 5-0'd, contrary to popular belief, you learn very little because it all goes by so fast.

We need a league that aligns with ESEA so teams can practice throughout the week the maps everyone is playing, a league that is more strict on team placement, and a league that the community doesn't look down upon so people starting can have some pride in their achievements, even if they aren't as amazing as seasoned players might have.

Everyone needs to start somewhere and if we can lower the barrier of entry (not dumb down the game) we can get more new blood.

Oh, and web PUGs, or something similar. IRC is great if that's what you've always done, but in the current state of gaming most gamers who want to play a competitive game want it to be simple. TF2center has simplicity down but it is plagued with people griefing in 6s, and it needs a way to be able to pick a team through a captain or a randomzied system.

ESEA has a much higher barrier of entry. The idea that pay-to-play is necessary to have good competition is also silly, imo. Look at ETF2L. It's actually not that bad of a league from what I know. Surely it isn't perfect but it seems to be policed better than UGC, and Perm. still puts out good and competitive teams. If ETF2L can be successful then something in America has the potential to also be successfull.

Can you make the stairs surfable? It's so frustrating to always get stopped by them.

I'm pretty sure UV coating does very little to affect the feel of the key. It will still be as thick as regular ABS and feel like ABS. I think the upside to UV coating is it can be done over pad printing to allow the printing to last a little longer. But that isn't really a benefit to you as a consumer, it is a benefit to the maker of the key because they don't have to use more expensive (and higher quality) methods to print long-lasting legends.

And, like Spllit said, WASD is only good for getting the color scheme you want. Or if you're willing to pay a lot, a bunch of custom printed keycaps.