I agree!!! I think a fix to the gamemode itself might as well come before a standardized ruleset. There are problems with either format, because there are just simply problems with 5CP. ESEA had set advantage, not map. That's definitely too much and only really works in fighting games. But I think an entire revamping to the game mode is more important than whichever region uses whichever ruleset. The difference is often negligible IMO.

As far as your second point, completely disagree. It's insulting to assume that players who have dedicated an entire season in the premier league to win the championship would ever choose a playoffs series over their social lives, especially after scrimming the entire week beforehand. And if you suggest this and it doesn't work, the scene crumbles.

I mean, yes? It's nice when it works, so if it does, do it? There is absolutely a chance it does not work, but I think resources should be put into running these events on the weekends. You could even play the matches at the exact same time you do on the weekday (like thursday) to eliminate work-related issues during the day. Because watching a playoff match at 8 CST or 9 CST on a weekend is much more achievable than doing so on a weekday usually. In fact if you just translated all the matches that are currently played at 10CST onto a weekend at the exact same time during playoffs, that would still be better.

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying if there are enough work-related reasons to not be playing on the weekends, then you should be playing on the weekends? Because playing TF2 playoffs on a weekend as the grand culmination of an entire season of invite TF2 isn't that much of an ask. I actually specifically said work-permitting more than once. I played TF2 for a very long time, trust me, I understand that the game has no money in it and you don't have the luxury of starting scrims at noon on the weekdays so you can play for 8 hours a day. I'm simply saying - if there are players who can play on the weekends (a lot of them will just be playing pugs or other games on the weekends anyway instead of TF2), then you should play on the weekends to be accommodating to spectators.

In fact your post just implied I insulted players by depriving them of a potential social event on a Saturday or something. I think it's more likely you're misrepresenting what I'm saying, as it was clear your very first quoted response to mine didn't even know I was talking about the playoffs. I don't really have any closing arguments, dunno how this even became a contentious topic. I didn't realize how annoyed you were about some players across the Atlantic possibly losing out on a social event for some weekend playoffs series. I think if players discussed it and eliminated any work-related issues, weekend playoffs would be way better for the health of the scene. I guess I don't really care about that though, because I left to make money in other games.

But it wouldn't take precedence over everything else no matter what? Unless the scale you're using encapsulates every single day of their lives over a 3 month span of time, scheduling a weekend for an important playoffs match or an all-weekend long playoffs event is not hard. And if you're going to be playing in the premier TF2 league, I don't see it as being very ridiculous.

And I'm sorry for...not assuming you incorrectly read my post? I did in fact assume that you were talking about exactly what I was saying, because you quoted my post. Next time I will assume that you did not read it correctly.

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about a playoffs match being played on the weekend. And in the best case, all playoffs matches being played during this weekend. If for one weekend out of the season, they play the scrims they'd normally play during the week, then spend their weekend playing their playoffs games to determine who wins the season, how is that a huge time commitment? This post is so exaggerated it's making me question if I have 0 reading comprehension. ALL of their social lives (for one weekend playing a game they love to play)? That's insulting? It's insulting to think that for the good of the game I would heartlessly suggest that invite players spend one weekend or... a few weekend days... playing the game they've played for a decade... I'm completely fine with the idea of working on a weekend preventing this from happening as I've already said, but social lives? It's one week and TF2 IS A SOCIAL GAME. You're playing with your team, who you have spent the season or many season playing with, to try to cement yourself as the best team that season.

I think for those who don't suffer from debilitating extroversion, this would probably be okay. A lot of people spent an entire year not going to LANs, seeing friends, going to bars, whatever. And those things are still up in the air for the foreseeable future. I think one weekend 3 months from now where they have to *gasp* scrim the entire week like they normally would but then play some playoffs matches that weekend instead of the offclass pugs they'd play would be completely fine, work-permitting. Maybe I've completely missed the mark here though and I heavily underestimate their dedicated commitment to their social lives.

EDIT: I'd really like to apologize for insulting these players by assuming they had the option of curbing their busy social lives for this meaningless event. If it were LAN? Now that's a different story. But I now realize that I was overvaluing TF2 and undervaluing their social lives for these 1-2 weekends. I've now come to the conclusion that absolutely any social event (or any other video game) takes precedence over the invite TF2 playoffs. Please disregard anything suggested in this post. I realize that all those weekends I'd voluntarily play TF2 when I was in invite just exposes me as being a loser and for players with a friend, every other weekend is absolutely booked by [any social event] for these players to pay TF2 any attention.

I think shortened round timer makes everything much better. But at the end of the day you always want to win the game by capping the point, i.e., reaching the score limit. It's the best for the players, who feel they actively won the game by capping the point, and best for the spectators, who always have a goal in mind that feels achievable by both teams. I don't disagree about tac pauses. IMO though 5cp has to change drastically re: round timer to make 30-minute long games worth it.

As far as the other stuff goes, it would really boggle my mind if teams refused to play the series earlier on a weekend because of "lack of scrim time," as if they couldn't make up for lost time on that day by scrimming more rigorously earlier in the week. At a certain point you have to dedicate some of your social life to TF2 if you're one of the top 4 teams in the game. They wouldn't wanna scrim the whole week and then play playoffs that weekend? Do they like the game? It always amazes me how different TF2 is to the more popular esports. Obviously more money is involved, but even when the stakes are so high, teams in Valorant will spend an entire weekend playing qualifier tournament, starting at something like noon or 2 CST. In Overwatch, we'd have early games in OWL and have to wake up in the morning to squeeze in a *barely* helpful scrim with another team who had a similar schedule just to prepare for our match that day. And none of that is even being suggested. Instead, it would just be more helpful to start playoffs earlier in the day, even if that meant 5:30 PST. You have to make some sacrifices if you want more people to watch the games.

Of course, all of this is null and void if people are working schedules in which weekends aren't always free for them. That's certainly possible and even likely. If that's the reason teams struggle to find times to play each other at accommodating times, then so be it. But if it's because you don't want to play *too much* TF2, then wtf? Why are you even playing the game in the first place?

I think work-permitting, online playoffs like botmode suggested would be way better for the future of the game. Tournament weekends are all the rage and it makes sense why that's the case. Also this forum sucks. There should probably be match threads created a la r/nba when any team in RGL-invite is playing each other in the actual forum discussion sub. Create some threads people have even an iota of a chance of posting in. I've gone on this forum during playoffs and struggled to find which teams are playing. And when one team wins (usually froyotech), I have no idea and just have to assume banny won again. No one cares. Maybe you guys should start caring? Even if they win, have a match thread where everyone can talk about the game while it's being played and post their thoughts afterwards. The only reason anyone is even having substantive discussion around the game right now is because banny finally lost. And btw, still just a "match" thread within the matches sidebar that no one talks in. I could only see what people are saying by checking a bumped thread from the last time he lost (which at the time I was surprised to even see tbh) within the general discussion subforum.

Assuming you guys want more people to watch, to play, challenge each other and banny, you need to create more avenues for people to consume pro TF2 content. A lot of that comes down to more accommodating scheduling, but also just a way for people to actually discussion the game and the matches being played.

personally I care way more that the entire world of tf2 uses the 30 minute ruleset than any rationalization of why one would be better than the other

tf2 is blowing up all over the world

I think you just watch too many movies if your mental image of pandemic is throngs of zombified people falling over in the streets. Perhaps you just don't know what pandemic means? Unfortunately, despite Pitbull's best efforts, life isn't a movie or just TIVO :(

There are real people suffering from the pandemic due to the disinformation campaigns against masks and vaccines, and the consequential indifference and credulity of the people.

Maybe 200IQ post by OP to reveal all the antivaxxers in the TF2 community? Hype!

I've played both and both formats have their flaws. 5CP is just a hard gamemode to find a good win criteria for that accounts for both pacing for spectators and time spent playing for players and spectators alike. And using the two best teams playing each as justification for either as if that will be the average player's experience is just silly. I used to much prefer the NA method, because games that end upon reaching a score will always be better than "see how many times you can score within x time." Aside from situations where you're rolling (reaching 5 before the other team) or getting rolled, you run the risk of garbage time, which is even more boring for spectators than players. And technically-not-garbage-time can easily turn into garbage time after taking highly inadvisable pushes in order to equalize the score. This is also a contentious topic in real sports - the NBA is awful during the regular season because so many games end before the 4 quarters are actually over. It's not a surprise most esports develop game modes where the best format is "first to reach x wins."

I think the blame can be placed on the gamemode (and subsequently the scoring format) for having to settle for a format that ends via time limit instead of score a good % of the time. It's so boring to end a game with time, just *knowing* you've won the game and running around in circles. We were up like 4-2 or 4-1 or something on snakewater at one of the iseries and I just ran around in circles with my bat out, telling my team to shut up and stop talking about the actual map we were playing because it was literally impossible to lose as we sat outside their last with 5 minutes left in the game. I think that might have even been caught on team comms and people thought I was just bming but I really just wanted to talk about the next map.

The biggest downside of the NA format is time spent playing, which is a problem for spectators. I agree that the World Ruleset should probably be used for that reason alone, namely time management. But also, it could also be, IDK, starting the grand finals at like 11 EST.

I'm aware that NA format can also end via time limit and that's the absolute worst case scenario and sucks because you spent all that time trying to force a score limit and it was still too hard for these stupid teams to have a good last push. But ehhh? Game mode issue? Map design issue? Who knows. The NA format is only good if it's expected you'll reach 5 within the hour, which in my time playing was pretty common, but sometimes you get unlucky. It felt often that 30 minutes was too short to reach 5 if the teams were somewhat even and IMO the hour long blockbuster event that ended 5-4 50 minutes into the game was really hype. It's not that different at all in time commitment to any of the esport events around the world. Except Overwatch that just speedruns its competitive format for whatever reason. So again, potentially the issue can lie with starting a GF event on a weekend at 11 EST. *I just remembered this was on Thursday, right? IDR. Either way it should probably take place on a Saturday.

I also think half-time is pretty good. You can actually change the course of the game after a good talk and strategy recap during half-time, which I have personally experienced many times before. Maybe you haven't experienced that because you are similarly biased to the World Ruleset and haven't played enough of the NA format. Sorry, just being annoying. Anyway, 5CP sucks. Play gravelpit or something.

this is especially true when you consider the fact that tf2 has had such a small influx of talent over its lifespan (no offense). over a decade ago platinum was primarily losing and sometimes winning vs b4nny in the exact same fashion the players today are. you have an obvious litmus test in b4nny, he's been at the top of the game (at least individually) for over a decade now. it's much harder to judge, for example, michael jordan and lebron james as they played in completely different eras with different refereeing, less emphasis on analytics, etc. tf2 has been essentially the same for over a decade, with a few changes that have definitely impacted the minutiae of the game the game, but not enough holistically to where I'd come back into an invite team and be completely lost. you'd have to think that b4nny had a way higher ceiling than any of his contemporaries (who honestly beat him wayyy more often than anyone does today) to think they players like plat would've completely fallen off 7-8 years later

still don't know why i'm at all involved in this thread anymore but on a serious note, people comparing the punishment philosophies of organizations like the NHL and NBA, or even esports leagues like OWL, LCS, etc. just completely miss the point. these leagues and games have the luxury of being extremely popular and lucrative. there is no shortage of reasons for people to continue pursuing competitive play for these leagues.

this is fucking tf2. there are not many people who play this game and cultivating a "for the community" approach should be the number 1 priority for the league. handing out severe punishments for even the most minor of offenses will do nothing but thin the playerbase. and there's nothing in this game but pride, so if they get banned and lose out on a season of playing the game, they might just not play the next season. i've seen similar things happen many times before, with players much more well known who have a lot more to lose. pure literally quit our team in esea after they didn't let us reschedule or fix a payment issue that left us forfeiting our first match. he felt that it wasn't worth the headache to play for a league that clearly wasn't player-focused at all. and that had a significant effect on the outcome of that season. we were one of the best teams pre-season and easily would've been fighting for first place had that not happened. that's the kind of shit you risk when a league makes it too difficult to play a game you only play for fun.

I completely agree with this line of thinking. And even if it becomes annoying (how many times do we have to extend the ban for this kid to finally give up or reform???), it's the mindset you have to have if you care about the community. every current player, whether they're ghosting for 10 seconds, forgetting to record a demo, hitting a spec bind by accident, or even exploiting bugs is someone you should look at as a future community leader rather than a pest you want to get rid of.

when i first saw this i thought to myself its so ridiculous to get banned for an entire month for hitting a spec bind (which shouldn't even be possible while the match cfg is live)

but then i realized if you trip someone in hockey it's still a tripping violation and if you shoot a nice 3 pointer after the shot clock runs out you get suspended for a month. and real sports are notoriously good with rules so there's really no argument here. sometimes you just have to admit you made a mistake and move on, and in a way you could be thankful that you're given a month to think about it and make sure it doesn't happen again

sry guys

I literally do not understand this mentality at all. TF2 is a video game, a subset of a game, which are things with rulesets played to win through a variety of means. Are some games more competitive than others? Sure. When you sit down with your friends and play a board game while catching up or hanging out, are you not trying to win? Surely you aren't just pushing the pieces into random places and just talking the entire time. Because that wouldn't be fun either for you or for them.

TF2 launched with a win condition, a loss condition, a scoreboard, kills, deaths, dominations, achievements for dominations, etc. Just because the format is more competitive than your average casual matchmaking pub, doesn't mean the game isn't also casual, because there are surely players in faceit pubs just playing to shoot around and talk to their friends. And just because your average Valve matchmaking server is casual, doesn't mean it also isn't competitive, because I've played pubs where people are really trying to win, type EZ when they win or throw slurs at you for cheating when they lose. It's such a crazy double standard that bad players with some weird narcissism complex have tricked themselves into thinking is just a one-sided, unfortunate reality they're living in. Every game you play, unless it's just an empty room where you're walking around taunting at each other, showing off your cosmetics, will be competitive (and even then you'll have people comparing each other cosmetics). And obviously they will be competitive, because they are games with rulesets designed to determine a winner. Whether or not you value that determination is entirely up to you and the degree to which you do is why new games are split into rated/unrated. Basically, people that you're describing don't want things that aren't competitive, they want to be one of the best players in the server. And that will either naturally happen because of elo, or they can take it upon themselves to try to get better at the thing they seem to value so much.

using the word groom to describe giving casual players the option to make a faceit account and play 12v12 tf2 does not empower your point, just makes you seem kind of disconnected

i don't disagree that the matchmaking has been relatively sweaty, but iirc isn't there already/going to be elo? if enough casual players play through the client then each server will have its own skill-level. if anything you can just blame valve for completely abandoning the game. and if you're really vindictive you can hold onto hope that faceit matchmaking is popular enough to force valve's hand in doing literally anything to support the community

thanks for the clarification! in the future I think you could take a bit more time to make sure your writing is on point when addressing all the complaints. I still get basically nothing from

but I guess I could've read a little more closely. I agree that whatever council you've put together should review pretty much anything that results in a league ban. at the same time, though, I'm still pretty confused by how the ban was issued. Like, you're referring to this discussion that occurred like it's some piece of lore with unknown origins. "an admin discord," like it's a faraway land that you or others with more jurisdiction don't have access to. is this admin discord prone to these missteps? how many people were a part of the discussion? should this discussion ultimately end with the banning of a player? I dunno, again, that's where I think most of my confusion with your writing stems from. "What happened is there was a discussion that happened in a discord." Like, IDK kinda hard to follow and get anything from that. Appreciate the transparency, though.

I think the more important thing people want addressed is the future of other people casting matches, because some vague promises on "fixing the admin process" really means nothing. Bans could be more difficult to hand out, you could require more infractions, minor penalties, whatever. I don't really think it fixes or comments on the topic at hand which is why someone got banned for casting a match, and if that rule can be updated.

edit: also I'd like to apologize for sort of going in on your writing! I was definitely kind of a dick, but it's just a pet peeve of mine. I think in situations like these, in which the league has to respond to a massive thread on the game's biggest forum, more attention to detail is probably advisable.