17 teams POGGERS

omega nerd essay coming in. headings underlined if ur only interested in a bit.

First thing: comp player's n1 priority is winning--while we care about fun and liking the maps, nothing will trump trying to win when match time comes. So when people ban maps, they ban the maps that either 1) their team is bad at playing or 2) the other team is good at playing.

This is why the map distribution works out the way it does. It's not just that people like process, snake, and gully more; it's that they feel most comfortable on these maps because they are well made. These maps are consistent and flow well, so teams can focus on higher level play and not be held back by gimmicks. Teams know that they cannot be cheesed out of a win on these maps--the better team always wins here.

on granary and badlands:

Granary and badlands are gimmicks--both maps have hugely exploitable layouts (granary slows to a snails pace so only uber advantage is relevent/badlands last is hell to push into and out of). So what ends up happening is people pick these maps not because they know the map better, but because they can exploit these problems better than the other team. As in, these maps are only picked when one team feels so much worse than the other that they feel like they need to cheese out the win.

Notably, both granary and badlands are hugely dependent on ubers, while also making it really fucking hard to sack for medics. So if a team wants to safely hold back and wait for uber, there isn't much you can do to stop them. These maps have always been hard to sack for medic on, but in recent years (MEDIC-SCOUT SPEED WHY) it has just become unreasonable. Not only do these maps make the game slow and boring, but they encourage 1-dimensional play: stalemate, sack for medic, repeat until 1 of the medics fuck up.

These maps are good at producing upsets, but not for the right reasons. You can cheese these maps really hard by playing defensively, to the point where the decidedly worse team can sometimes come out on top. Similar to how any soldier can beat you on spire if they just sit on the fence.

on new maps:

New maps are in an interesting position: when they come out, everyone is bad at them. So you can either ban them and focus on the maps you know, or you can try to learn the map before everyone else and leverage that map knowledge for some wins against unprepared teams.

So why didn't anyone try to pull ahead on cardinal (well some teams have, like King's Krew, but in general)? Because the map isn't the same quality as the core 6s maps. That is to say, with so many branching chokes and wide areas, the map still feels cheese-ridden with how players can potentially wrap/flank/backcap. Nobody would ever feel comfortable that they would certainly win going into that map.

Propaganda has reason to go over differently. The map plays much cleaner, like the rest of the core 6s maps. That should be enough encourage teams to play it--to get ahead of other teams on a map where they can win consistently and not get gimmicked.

At the end of the day, every map in rotation should eventually be held to the same standard as process, snake, and gully. They should feel consistent and non-gimmicky, and teams would pick between them based on more nuanced concepts: which maps favour soldiers over scouts, holds over team-fights, etc... It's not that worse teams should never be able to upset better teams, but that they must get these upsets by carefully picking maps which benefit the few, slight advantages they have. New maps need to be added to reach this ideal state, so we shouldn't be shooting them down right off the bat.

on viaduct:

It's not a bad map, but I really don't consider it very good either. And that's not because people just don't know how to play it--it's the opposite. If you know how to play viaduct, it becomes pretty simple: team-fight for point, losing team respawns, losing team 4 man sacks to break even ubers/uber disadvantage, then losing team refights with uber ad so that they become the winning team, then loop until time hits 0.

The only compelling parts of viaduct are the team-fights; but frequent team-fights occur because it's KOTH, not because it's viaduct. I'd be much more interested in developing KOTH maps which did not give the winning team complete positional advantage, making it viable for the losing team to dry-push instead of sacking their whole team for med.

A KOTH map which encourages dry-pushing by evening out positional advantage, and therefore encourages more team-fights, would be far superior to viaduct imo. And having more than 1 KOTH in rotation would be great too. That said, KOTH should stay in the rotation as way to reward teams with coordinated team-fighting, and as a way to encourage teams to work on coordinating team-fights (which is arguably the most complex and underutilized aspect of tf2 imo). Viaduct just might not be the map to keep KOTH relevant tho.

nerd essay end me

monkaS

Definitely a unique map. Plays better than it looks. Quick tangent:

I really love how a lot of the new maps recently, this one especially, are experimenting with drastic differences in elevation. People are quick to talk about how scout has been the strongest class in 6s--and soldier the weakest--for a few years now, and it makes the game stale. Introducing and developing maps like this which emphasize the soldier's best tool (jumping to high ground) while making that high ground difficult for scouts reach helps bring balance to the classes imo. While it's easy to say that game balance is a lost cause because valve will never do anything, I think people forget how we can really shape the meta by messing with the map rotation. Obviously map balance is a bit more nuanced than just adding new and weird maps, but it's important to think about! /tangent

Playtest the maps people. They're fun and good for the health of the game!

I also helped playtest most of these maps, and I have to say I'm excited. The thing about these maps is that they really stand on their own--they aren't just novel and gimmicky and only fun the first couple times. They already flow well from my experience, and I think the last bit of insight from top level players will be enough to push these maps into legitimate ESEA viability.

Especially excited for alamosa, probably the most aggression-friendly map I've played in a while. Really a big breath of fresh air.

meech really is high all the time and it's not for everyone. I haven't played with him in a while but him being high could cause him to do some pretty stupid stuff occasionally. That said, he had high-open DM back when I played with him so I assume his DM is either at that level or a little better. If you have a good maincaller that can micro him a bit then he could definitely make a run at open playoffs. Personality-wise I never had a problem with him (beyond him doing stupid stuff when high, which is all the time)

n e r d e s s a y

There is nothing inherently overpowered about wallbugs in comp play. As laz put it, they're functionally just hiding spots in unconventional areas. On paper, as long as more people become aware of them, they'll stop being nearly as effective. It's hard to be unbiased in saying they're too strong when literally only a handful of people even attempt them, so practically nobody ever checks. And just like normal hiding spots, not checking can cost you a lot.

The main practical difference is that wallbugs are way up high in the skybox usually. While it makes these spots harder to check, soldier doesn't really have any good ways to abuse this position aside from falling down right on top of someone. And most of the good wallbugs are in the skybox where there are no walls to shoot--any lower and they're easy to spot--so soldiers jumping off the wall is rarely an issue.

The only issue here is that all of the wallbugs on the currently played 6s maps are entirely unintentional. What that means is that no thought has gone into balancing them. So while having a wallbug over 1 or 2 chokes on a map is probably fine for a gimmick play here and there, if there is a wallbug over every other choke on the map, things get out of hand.

While hiding spots aren't broken, they're annoying to check and they slow the game down. They're good for the occasional upset play, but they shouldn't be common. The fact that each map has like at least 5 different wallbugs, and a lot of them over chokes and forward spawns, is concerning (especially the forward spawn ones).

But there's really no way to tell right now. On the one hand, people could just learn where the common wallbug spots are and that might make them bad and gimmicky. On the other hand, maybe there are too many good wallbug spots on each map such that it becomes really annoying/difficult to check each one no matter where you push from.

If it ends up being the case that some wallbugs guarantee a kill here and there, then they should be banned. Otherwise, they're just a gimmick and should stay unbanned. Until more people start testing these spots, I think it's too tough to call.

scout leashing for the speed buff is a way bigger issue than the crossbow. crossbow is overpowered but its not always braindead, if u miss an arrow u fuck over ur team because u also arent healing with the beam, so theres some small risk vs. reward (the reward far outweighs the risk rn tho i admit). scout leashing is braindead and makes the game more stalematey because its so fucking hard to bomb a medic that can surf u rocket into outer space. if u cant kill the med, and the other team cant kill ur med, then teams just wont push until one team accidentally bleeds two players. plus scout leashing makes ubers braindead because u can pop way back behind choke safely, and run a scout in and have more than half ur uber left for the push.

crossbow healing (and dmg tbh) should be nerfed, but scout leash should go first

https://clips.twitch.tv/BrightBumblingMetalKevinTurtle

last bump for s29

el bumpo

https://clips.twitch.tv/AthleticIronicPeppermintOSkomodo

sound warning

bimpity bumpity

Some great points, thanks for the civility. I guess I'm being optimistic in hoping that theres more than 6 absolutely top players in the game, considering the same could be said of melee (which is the only other esport i follow).

that said, im still confident that much of the talent in invite, and upcoming talent, can come together to form a strong opposition if they find the right teammates. I'm not asking for a clean 50/50 GF, but even a 20% chance to upset like you said would bring more than enough excitement back into top level TF2. It's just that that 20% doesnt seem to be there yet, and that's what's so demoralizing.

That's fair. I guess what I didn't make clear is that my criticism isnt really just directed at Ascent, it's to be directed at all of invite, or just higher level play in general. I don't think DM or individual play matters nearly as much once you get to higher level play (except on scout since that class is busted), and im hoping to stress that a consistent roster thats dedicated to not improving as individual players, but as a team might have a chance to legitimately upset a team like froyo. Ascent players might have the most potential in this regard, but i still find that many players generally need to start thinking in this regard. Investing in DM bears smaller and smaller benefits as you sink thousands of hours into TF2, whereas strong coordination and dedication to your teammates is untapped potential for many players.

I really dislike these kinds of observations because they have no depth whatsoever. Yes, they have the better players, and yes, they are the better team. But what people care about is why they are better, and how things got to be that way. Them being better isnt a problem, the problem is figuring out how other players can rise to meet them at the top.

And i really dont think its so lonely at the top. Even if b4nny puts more time into this game than anyone else, that time has diminishing returns regardless. This is why upsets happen. A player who puts in less (but only a little less) time into practicing should be able to win if, say, they have a good day and b4nny has a bad day. Good days and bad days happen, people arent just robotic algorithms. So even if everyone on froyo was technically better on their respective classes than their opponents, that shouldnt be enough in it of itself to secure wins for seasons on end. This is why I keep trying to stress teamplay. The thing froyo has that other teams dont is commitment as a team. This is the one aspect where i think froyo excels so far beyond the competition that they cant lose. This is the aspect that im hoping people will begin to pay more attention to.

im just a huge fucking nerd and the idea of what makes who the best really interests me tho so ill just keep pumping these nerd essays out