I think trying to market to the "casual community" is basically useless because casual players as a whole will never be competitive-type players. RGL tried marketing to casual players with "No Restriction 6s" and to an extent Prolander which were total failures.

6s is its own game and needs to be treated as such; trying to appease people who say "I would play if I could use engineer more" or "I don't like the fact that there's x rule" will never help grow the scene and can only cause the 6s we know to die and get absorbed into the casual sphere. In other words, appealing too much to casual players can only cause 6s to lose its identity and not be 6s anymore. Sure, groups like TF2CC cast a really wide net, but then we get in a situation where (literally) people are asking to get their pubs demo reviewed, etc., and it ends with almost no one sticking around because they're all casual players at heart.

This is why it's important to appeal to competitive-minded people to begin with, rather than just TF2 people in general. Purebred casual players simply play a different game than us. Maybe trying to get people who already play competitive movement FPS games to test out 6v6 TF2, or having some kind of ELO-based matchmaking service that only appeals to competitive-minded players in the first place would work. Part of the problem is that a lot of people in and out of TF2 don't even know "comp" exists to begin with. I don't know how we'd fix that.

I hope you're feeling better if you're alive, spider. still have friend requests open to you if you see this.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." (John 15:18-19)

1. Implement the win-difference config in all divisions.
In my view this config should be made the gold standard for competitive 6v6 at all skill levels. It eliminates "parking the bus" as a viable strategy (something that is really only a problem in matches in the first place), and makes better use of 5CP's offensive/defensive map design. The main argument against this config is that it's too hard to understand, but it really isn't, and the config announcing when the winlimit changes in chat also helps with that.

2. Change the round timer to 4 minutes or 4 minutes 30 seconds.
We saw that a 3 minute timer was too restrictive even for high level teams, and that a 3 minute timer may have nerfed the attacking team too much by denying time for reasonable sac waves. Both the 3 and 5 minute timers are improvements from 10 minutes. However, 5 minutes is still too slow/does not go far enough. I think RGL should recognize that there is still room for reasonable experimentation with the round timer. I lean towards a 4 minute timer.

3. Implement the pick/ban system for all or most divisions.
I think expanding to allow Advanced teams to do pick/bans was a good move, but it's not like Main or even IM teams are too bad to be able to do pick/bans. Pick/bans increase the potential skill ceiling of every team and increase player participation and teamplay at no cost. If RGL wants to keep NC and AM on a set schedule I think that's fine (but not necessary), but there are basically no downsides to allowing teams in lower divisions to do pick/bans in the same way as Adv/Inv. (I also think pick/bans should be done minutes prior to map start, but that's more fringe on my part and more debatable.)

4. Only include new maps that are in active development.
Whenever considering whether to add a new map to the pool, the first question RGL should ask is whether the mapmaker is prepared and willing to change their map (even to a large degree) in response to being tested in the pool. Reckoner is the biggest example of why this rule should be implemented; any valid feedback about the map (the cap point under mid slowing the game down too much, the lower entrance into lobby that shouldn't exist, etc.) didn't matter because the mapmaker quit the game. It's not that most people mind playing new maps -- if suggestion 3 is implemented they can just ban them -- but that people don't enjoy playing new maps that never get updated or never have glaring issues fixed.

bump

advanced level dm, good at listening, switched main to scout but improving fast

bump s11

"Dictatorship arises naturally out of democracy."
Plato

"Democracy is the same tyranny, shared among many people."
Aristotle

"Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms."
Aristotle

https://endtimes.video/america-fall-to-communism/

would you write eMail or eCommerce

He's saying that instead of the maproom, there should be a spiral staircase that leads up to a room behind those windows under the lamp, with a dropdown out into alley on the right side of that room. I think a jump pad would work better than a spiral staircase though. No idea what the horizontal lines he drew mean, very cryptic.

oops

ok i like this map a lot. here are some suggestions

your head clips through the top of these doorways when jumping/double jumping
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/896967457737171025/1035203038064943214/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/896967457737171025/1035203617206050876/unknown.png

this shutter opens kind of slow, scout hits the shutter when jumping through it
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/896967457737171025/1035204608773070879/unknown.png

this new sightline is pretty good, maybe a window should be added so the team pushing out of last can see if there's a sniper there
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/896967457737171025/1035203276112658473/unknown.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/896967457737171025/1035206114838589531/map1.png

some pillars down here might be cool
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/896967457737171025/1035206479902408745/map2.png

dogb's spiral staircase idea is cool too

since you're making bigger changes, just call it cp_metalworks_2

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Matthew 15:11)

"But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5:22)

tripbwai looks like raphael
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Raphael_-_Portrait_of_a_Young_Man.jpg/800px-Raphael_-_Portrait_of_a_Young_Man.jpg

i edited my post