@screwball

I see your point about ESEA having problems since it's only down to two divisions, pitting high level players against low level players. I also see your point about us paying for services from ESEA that we no longer need such as TF2 scrim servers, pug servers, forums, and a kind of non-existent anti-cheat that we're not confident is actively being developed.

Just brainstorming here as I think it is an interesting discussion
If you truly think prize pools are not necessary to motivate players to continue playing this game, why not put more effort into developing UGC? Why not work with the UGC leadership to turn it into the league that you want? The reason I think UGC could be a prime candidate is because they already have infrastructure and an established NA player base. If you can get high level TF2 teams to play in UGC, you could probably get the rest of the NA scene to switch over too. I think the difficult part of getting the high level TF2 teams to switch to any F2P league is the lack of incentives, but I'd be interested in seeing what you think would motivate these teams if you feel prize pools don't matter.

If UGC is not a good option, why not work with ETF2L or other established brand to bring an F2P league to TF2? Would it be too much work with no payoff? Would you be able to recruit a large enough team to run this league? What is required to get it off the ground?

I'd encourage you to pursue your goals if you feel it truly is the best thing for TF2.

Yeah like someone mentioned before, we tried this approach with CEVO, trying to pay them to do the same job that ESEA was doing but better. It was cheaper and better adapted to the community's needs since it cut out Pug/Scrim servers, forums, and other crap we didn't need while working directly with the community to innovate and iterate. However, we've kind of made our bed at this point by picking ESEA and I'm not sure where else to go.

To the point others are making about joining UGC, it should be obvious that UGC has always been there. Anyone who currently plays in ESEA can leave at any time and go play UGC. That said, making a "better" version with different admins isn't really a compelling reason to switch -- we've already seen this issue with TF2Stadium trying to establish itself over TF2Center. So I actually think UGC does its job just fine, even if there are cheaters and it isn't run perfectly, it still serves its purpose just fine. Same can be said about the ESEA to CEVO/NATF2L/TFCL switch -- if it's not providing insanely more value, it probably won't work.

To the point others are saying that "TF2 is a dead game, stop trying to grow it", that's simply shifting the burden to others instead of yourselves. If you're fine with the game being dead, that's cool, just stop shooting down other people who are actually trying. It's not affecting you that they're trying, so stop putting them down.

If you actually want the game to grow, take it upon yourselves to find ways to grow the scene instead of waiting for the guy next to you to do it. If you actually want to see this game succeed, look for solutions rather than problems. Sure maybe you don't like what Sidular or Sigafoo or the UGC team is doing with their respective leagues, but I actually give them credit for giving it an honest effort when many other people wouldn't dare try because there's no money in it or they don't feel like doing it. Calling the game dead and shitting on everyone else while not taking action is just lazy.

I've also looked into running a league myself, and even the payouts are kind of a bitch. If you want to do it right, you have to collect tax forms and stuff, plus there's website maintenance and anti-cheat concerns... Sure ESEA has never caught anyone but I wasn't convinced I had the technical know-how to catch anyone either.

To many people it's just easier to pay the $30 each season to save themselves the grief of doing it themselves. $10 a month isn't even a bad deal, and we all know that ESEA only has the infrastructure to support this because they're utilizing the existing CS:GO infrastructure and their owner likes the TF2 community.

Agreeing with Clockwork that we have to work towards our optimal future, but playing devil's advocate, there's a ton of work to be done to spin up another league and there's a lot that people who play in ESEA take for granted. ESEA has created the infrastructure for NA to play online tournaments reliably for years, and while they're not actively trying to grow the pie, they are helping to keep us alive.

Side note, it annoys me that a lot of the people who are pushing to leave ESEA are Europeans. If NA makes the jump and fails, ETF2L will still be around. Sure the global scene shrinks but NA players are risking literally having nowhere to play cause lol UGC, so the new league better be rock solid. For those of you guys who are saying "someone" will step up and run the league, look around. It takes a lot of volunteer man hours to execute whether it's organizing the league, the prize pools, the live match-night support, etc. In order to make a league happen, someone has to decide not to play that season and spend their free time making sure you have an enjoyable experience.

The TL;DW
1) faster rotations, understand that you have number advantage and move faster
2) more decisive, need a strong maincaller
3) group up and fight together as a team

Video in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnfrqPgwfs8

Ah okay sounds good.

Yo Burko, here's the TL;DW:

1) play with team in teamfights
2) think a couple steps ahead, train your healing to become second nature so you don't have to think about it and can devote more of your brain bandwidth to thinking about gamesense
3) tips for better ubers
a) pop through chokes
b) don't pop in the middle of nowhere unless you get a couple kills
c) use number advantage to force their medic first on even ubers

Video: https://youtu.be/T-7mjng6pek

I prefer medic demos since that's my specialty but if you really want me to, I'm willing to do it.
Whatever I can do to help! Just know that I'm a medic main.

Hey kusoban. I enjoyed watching you play, so feel free to submit another demo later on in the season. A couple pieces of advice:

1) don't tilt when losing. the scrim started out strong but you lost focus.
2) have better awareness, look at soldiers when they shoot at you
3) think a couple steps ahead

I go into more detail in the video: https://youtu.be/V4EHANiGWAo

Hey tea, I'm sorry but I don't do demo reviews of other people -- I only do demo reviews of the person requesting the demo review! This is because I stream these commentaries and post them on my YouTube channel, and I wouldn't want people to feel like they're getting roasted publicly. Basically I don't want to be providing unsolicited advice!

If Xpym would like, he/she can post here and I'm more than happy to review.

Hey Rebite,

Shortening up my TL;DRs here -- you could be more aggressive. Make sure you check the end of the video where I draw out how you could be more aggressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT5mmqfFOkw

http://i.imgur.com/x1fmOrJ.jpg

here's my two favorites, i've got the official Twitch color and the Valve mugs -- sorry for the bad lighting.

woah, that's really rough for HL. anyone here who plays highlander that can speak to why this is happening?
[edit] inb4 sigafoo 7v7 or overwatch meme

Here ya go mojo! Also I'm only doing the first demo you posted cause I'm trying to do one for each person :)
You're pretty good for coming back to TF2 and being a bit rusty btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXP_rDkz3iQ

Hey EasyE, you have really good aim :o

Sorry if it sounds like I'm bashing your teammates, but your medic is simply healing your soldiers too much and ignoring you, which is not cool. Your medic had 5 deaths this scrim so it's clear to me that he's skilled, but he's not taking advantage of your crit heals which is a super inexpensive way to keep you alive, create space for the team, and get kills. He should be prioritizing crit heals on scouts at every opportunity, so work with your team to make that happen (it's possible your teammates are calling for too many heals and you're just not saying anything about it). Here's the TL;DR of the video:

1) Your medic needs to heal you more. Period.
1a) Crit heal you before teamfights as you're running in -- he should turn around and quickly tap you up to full before you enter the battle.
1b) He should heal you in the middle of teamfights. At a certain point your soldiers will jump away to high ground to zone out the opposing team or maybe they'll bomb in to get a kill. This is the perfect opportunity for your medic to hop on you and ride the chariot forward as you grab kills. This does a couple things: a) it gives you more health to survive as you push for those cleanup frags, b) gives the medic increased speed so he can catch up to the front lines, c) the increased speed will help him dodge bombing players.
1c) Caveat to point #1 - I don't want you to interpret this as a free pass to tank tons of damage and ask for heals all the time. Spend your health wisely, avoiding as much damage as you can. The buff is there to give you confidence to get aggressive. If you're at 125, you'll notice you have to play much more conservatively. Once you get that buff, boom you're ready to push and get frags.

2) Your aim was good, I thought you had great mechanics.

3) Don't build ubers to 90% on advantage pushes. Build them to 80-85%, then start moving towards the choke point you want to uber through while you crit heal players and set up for the push. By the time you're set up you'll be at 100%.

https://youtu.be/BrgER1lo9Q4