Yeah 1 game wouldn't help him see the light, but I do think it would serve well as a means of starting things off in a less confrontational matter and raise interest in newbie mixes which is the best noob onboarding process our community has. Just zesty saying a few nice things about his experience would be pretty big and help give the impression that the comp community isn't completely toxic and that there are helpful, community minded people involved. It could also lead to some good jumping off points for discussions about why x is like y in a natural, friendly way. Pubbers have a hard time even imagining what it is actually like to be in voice comms with your whole team and what that actually entails, so having zesty bring up how the coach suggested rotating around process mid would help the casual audience see that even if there is less class diversity than casual, there are other appealing aspects of competitive play that they will never get out of pubs. I don't think we will ever convince a large chunk of casuals that 6v6 is "real TF2", but we can try to convince them that it's fun in its own right.

I feel the same way. Framing it as a debate is also going to immediately put zesty on the defensive. What would be better would be to invite zesty to a newbie mix or something and have him talk about his experience.

I love reading r/tf2 threads about competitive play and one of the big topics is weapon bans. From what i've seen, once there's been a back and forth on the matter, most pubbers don't have much of an issue with weapon bans themselves, but using them to enforce the cookie cutter class line up. Their vision for competitive tf2 is a game where people constantly switch classes and weapons to counterpick each other for 30 minutes, which is the last thing the current community wants. To some extent, this is just a difference in taste, but I also think that the way you see "what tf2 is about" changes as you get better at it. casuals tend to view tf2 as a big game of RPS, whereas at high skill levels those class/counter class relationships usually seem much softer, and that how your team plays is often more important than what your team consists of. in competitive play, the best way to deal with a heavy is focus fire, but in pubs you switch to spy or sniper.

I'm not sure of how to solve this aspect of the divide, but I think having more high quality class tutorials aimed at pubbers would help raise the overall skill level of those who are at least somewhat interested in playing the game to get better at it. There are tons of bad scout guides out there in particular that say double jumping vs soldiers is bad and that if you aren't at point blank you should use the pistol.

It says a lot about the strength of your character that you are able to look at the situation with Lain and this community from such a rational perspective despite what you are going through now. I was never close with Lain, but we've known each other for a long time as long term members of the community, so the news of their passing made me feel sad, nostalgic, and reflective. I have a childhood friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years ago who recently went through an extremely traumatic event just as they seemed to be getting their life back under control again, so Lain's passing has me thinking about what I can do to support them. I wish the best to you and your family.

My issue with playing against the loch is that it adds so much to your mental stack when demo is already a class you need to dedicate a lot of your attention to. Demo does a lot to control the flow of the game by denying space and shitting out damage so you really need to keep an eye on what theyre doing at all times. Increasing his effective range now means that you have to actively pay attention to the demo even more actively than before. Situations where previously the worst he could reasonably do is hit you with a 35dmg air det sticky, you now have to worry about eating 100dmg. This is very frustrating on medic where you'll be looking up to keep track of a bombing soldier but then you get hit with a pipe from the opposite end of the point. The only way to reasonably deal with this is to position yourself so that the demo doesn't have any line of sight on you. This leads to much more passive and boring medic play where you're relying on walls as your main form of defense instead of your movement skills. It also leads to more "pussy popping" because if you're below 100hp and the demo has line of sight on you, you pretty much need to pop.

I'm also not really a fan of it it being meta for flavor purposes. The other grenade launchers with their arc and rollers add a lot to demo's class identity and to the game mechanically. The loch takes those interesting properties away replaces them with a flat speed increase which is anything but exciting or deep.

I really like the combination of airstrafing and single shot weapons. Airstrafing to the left to dodge a rocket and then snapping your crosshair back to the right to shoot the soldier is really satisfying. In other games the only thing you need to do with your crosshair is keep it glued on your enemy for the duration of your clip, so aiming in tf2 feels way more expressive to me in comparison scout would be so much less fun to play if he had an SMG because your air movement would get nerfed because you can't really airstafe and track at the same time.

pretty sure im stating the obvious here but i think the justification for this is that if the in-universe game is a sport, then people irl will be more likely to think of it as an esport. It makes sense for a game like rocket league, which is literally soccer, but for a tac shooter it just comes off like the game is going to be another forced esport. 5 years ago this might've worked to their benefit, but now even normie gamers are wary of anything that looks "esportsy".

I'm kinda confused about the whole "duality" thing. They say it's about having two bodies but to me it just looks like you can throw yourself via pokeball. Can someone break it down for me?

Hayworth-That ain’t lake Minnetonka
https://hayworthri.bandcamp.com/track/that-aint-lake-minnetonka

Ampere - Like Shadows
https://ampere.bandcamp.com/album/like-shadows
(theyre really more of a screamo band but i think the rhythms are very mathcore)

inside the beehive - drink bleach live forever
https://insidethebeehive.bandcamp.com/album/drink-bleach-live-forever

I'm not a shitposter. Im a bona fide satirist and social commentator.

that ebb n' flow video in the non-comp playlist is actually really neat.

Instead of being concerned about the distinctions between roamers and pockets, focus on how the soldiers play as as a duo. Are they holding different doorways, or are they playing together while the demo watches another doorway? Do both soldiers bomb in at the same time at mid, or does one of them seem to follow the other and their damage? You're totally correct that the difference between pockets and roamers gets pretty blurry, but thats also because they are often working together.

It really disappoints me that we don't have a map that has the same red tones that badlands does. We have other desert maps like gully but there's nothing like badlands or pl_phoenix. I've always thought badlands was the coolest looking map.

I'll play medic too I just wanna LAN so fucking bad it's unreal

i've been pubbing a lot lately through uncletopia and overall i've had a great experience. As long as you're not looking to play on a specific map with 15 ping you really shouldn't have a problem finding a slot on a reasonably full server somewhere in north america. Its the closest thing to playing on a community server back in 2010 so as a boomer I really appreciate uncletopia's existence.