It is really funny to me that the one season that ppl didn't threaten a boycott, which again started because people didn't want playoffs to be messed up cause of a cheater,...had playoffs being messed up because of a cheater. Can't make this shit up lmao (sucks for everybody involved though)

Weren't esea open threads like this, if anything it's a sign that Nature is Healing

exhibiting real eater behavior during your first time is a good sign, i am impressed

where's the slaw (or did you sub it out)

Agree on the engineer part and on the points made saying that it can be pretty consequential to not be able to offclass. Engineer is definitely the biggest offender and honestly just making it so you can't be restricted off engie/spy probably solves most issues.

Possible I'm misunderstanding your point here, but I agree with this sentiment if people were trying to play "optimal 6's" in which case yeah putting an invite pyro main to airblast on gully last barely matters. But if you are already resigned to playing perma heavy/pyro and understand that a lot of the time they are objectively the wrong choice surely having an invite hl main on those classes is better than random combat player from x div if the div is low.

Regardless, I agree with your point that no matter what banning offclasses does make it more difficult to learn the format for the HL players in this instance. On the other hand though playing against the pyro/heavy team is surely not conducive to other teams in the div learning the format as well.

That one RGL admin who was like an IM 6's player made amateur playoffs on engineer (i don't even think they were a scout player, they were banned off soldier) and that class blows, I feel like a top heavy player could place in IM or something that class is not even that bad.

IIRC the reason is so players in lower 6s divs actually have the opportunity to learn how the format is supposed to be played as opposed to just playing against perma offclass teams, which at least to me makes sense. Perma spy seems super dogshit though tbh but perma heavy/pyro probably requires specific counterplay.

The side effect of course is that it kills offclassing on last which is not optimal (and also hurts the ability of the HL players to learn the format) which in theory could be rectified via some complex "no offclassing except on last" ban but that seems kinda nightmarish administratively.

Any invite hl player gets restricted off their class in IM or below (minus med), but it is funny lmao. Also a good idea tbh.

These mf's got the most detailed ban reason ever meanwhile Diddle Dee and Diddle Dum just get "Breaking RGL's player code of conduct" like what

Ngl the idea that some casual ppl went on this website for this thread and may have seen "pedophile nazi brony" on the sidebar is really funny to me.

Zesty Jesus has played HL before (actually with some players I know wtf small world), but tbh I don't really see the point of this. Him not liking comp is perfectly fine, nothing inherently wrong with that. He's much more of a video essay/theory youtuber (idk what the proper term is here). More focused on design/philosophy of the game rather than individual experiences I feel like, and the points he makes are not really things that are addressed/resolved from playing a single 6s game.

One example is insinuating that comp players ban things because they are "bad" or afraid of "meta shifting" (when mostly it's just cause u can't fucking push last lol). Not ideal obviously for PR purposes, but idk I feel like this opinion will always exist no matter what happens as long as a ban list exists. I've seen you in the trenches of /r/tf2 so I'm sure you agree with me on this, people will just post shit to post shit (they do get dunked on in the comments though which is nice to see). This sentiment has basically always existed even pre meet your match, and it if it still exists I highly doubt just playing a game resolves this. Shit even if Zesty Jesus were to take a complete 180 on this take I'm sure a lot of people would still have it.

TBH I think the best thing would be to just discuss things and clear up misnomers, like the quickplay stuff people mentioned earlier. I think it's also valuable to make known that comp (like casual) is not a monolith and if anything I think most people, especially in the past, disagreed with b4nny (who I imagine is the one and only face of competitive tf2 for somebody like Zesty Jesus who doesn't really play) regarding things like unlocks. It's unfair to characterize an entire community as "forcing Valve to cater to them" when most ppl (especially back then) were more or less happy to just fuck off and play the game with their whitelists. Although it is also unfair to just put the target on b4nny and those with similar ideas given that Valve just kinda botched everything, it would be like if people thought you were at fault for asking for an accessible entrance when you have a physical disability and the building owners respond by building u a shitty dirt ramp and then blowing up the main staircase.

I will say though that I think framing it as a debate is bad, it just further perpetrates the "us vs. them" mentality which I think is pretty unhealthy. Calling it a discussion is maybe more productive. A lot of people see competitive players as this inhuman bogeyman when in reality there is significant overlap and most competitive players do a ton of pubbing.

For those unfamiliar here is basically the summed up version of Zesty Jesus's viewpoint on comp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXzeUw3nLHE&t=102s (I think this is most up to date, correct me if I'm wrong).

I actually think the second half is something a lot of ppl here would agree with, which is essentially that comp and pubs are completely different. He says that you can't balance for comp without massively changing casual; I think I agree with this in sentiment only if you're trying to balance comp with the explicit goal of making all unlocks/classes full time viable. If you're ok with current meta or minor tweaks though I don't think it shifts things much. Good example is probably razorback nerfs; massive for HL, barely changes casual in my experience (your ass is NOT getting buffed) and the ways that it did change casual are probably only positive.

The first half is maybe...hyperbolic (competitive is the root of all evil) but if you take it more as "Valve's incompetence in trying to cater to comp has ruined things" then I think it's something people will still disagree with but is certainly defensible. Although I would say not sure how that directly leads to Valve basically letting bots taking over the game for years until people protested, like idk pretty sure the game still needs to be playable in order for them to make money lol.

This is pretty common tbh (rumpus mentioned this also), I think pokemon might be the biggest offender here. That game doesn't even balance within a generation like 99% of the time and very rarely retroactively nerfs things, and yet casuals roll up to the ladder and lose with x broken mon and insist that it's therefore not broken (the reason they lost is cause they also have an eevolution and a starter mon on their team).

Like capnfapn said though I don't think most people's positions are immutable, just mostly reactionary and probably not 100% serious. If you do CIA style torture and force tf2 casuals to try to push into last point against double wrangler double rescue ranger, and analogously if you force pokemon casuals to play into some giga ass shadow tag full stall team, both would probably emerge as Scarred but Changed Individuals.

Anyway while recent trends might have provoked more animosity towards comp I'd be pretty surprised if it actually affected player numbers in any meaningful way. Kind of circles back to the point that oftentimes the people that bitch and moan the loudest are the ones who were never going to try competitive anyway (and this goes for any game). It's basically identical to prolander/NR6's to me; I don't think that the people who say they hate the "current comp meta" are lying per se (prolander in particular has some very intense stans I've found), but the ones who will actually play an alternative comp format that purportedly resolves those issues and stick with it for more than 1 season are an insanely vocal but ultimately small minority.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM8RufZr5lw

Rest in peace.

I did not know her very well, but I'm one of those people who basically remembers nearly every random person they've seen around in this community and RainofLight was more notable than most, so to see a member pass in this way is very disheartening. My condolences to her friends and family.

mr. causa is my goat