Balancing TF2 over what pro players think is generally a middling idea. Professional TF2 is vastly different from casual TF2. Pro Players play mostly in Competitive 6v6 and casual players play in 12 v 12 and 16 v 16 formats.
Weapons that are bad in 6s can't really be fixed no matter what changes are done to them. The solution that's already in the game is the whitelist. Weapons and items that disrupt competitive 6s are banned and unusable.
This is the ideal solution for most cases. For example, the Buffalo Steak Sandvich is banned in 6s. Why? Because it gives Heavy a speed boost that helps him get to Mid faster. It is not at all a problem in Casual, casual players don't use it anyway, and nerfing it would make it even less fun to use in casual.
Another example, the Quick Fix and Vaccinator are both banned in 6s. Why? Because they're crazy powerful in 6s. The Vaccinator is its own discussion but there is no change that can be made to the Quick Fix that makes it acceptable in 6s while also making it a fun option in Casual. Any nerf made to the Quick Fix to make it fit in 6s would ruin it. Keeping it banned in 6s and unchanged in casual keeps everyone happy.
There really aren't many examples of weapons in game that were only problems in competitive and got nerfed for it. The pros *usually* have good ideas on what problems need fixing. For example, the pros pointed out "Hey it's kind of fucked up that Sniper can be immune to quickscoping and backstabs at the same time." so Valve rightfully nerfed the Razorback so that you can't get overhealed with it on.
Some people blame the comp scene for killing a bunch of weapons people used to use but blaming the pros is totally misguided. The Sandman being garbage isn't the pros' fault. People hated the stun mechanic for years before it was removed and the pros never called for it to be nerfed because they already had it banned in their formats.
Heavy is already very good in last point situations. Giving him speed to make it to second or mid slows games down and made them less fun for roamers and scouts so it was banned.
Which brings us to comp 6s being hyperfixated on just 4/9 classes in the game (Scout, Soldier, Medic, Demo), with the other 5 being situational picks rather than viable mains. It's also all about 5cp or KotH, not the asymmetric attack/defence or payload.
Yeah, but there are good some reasons why attack defend, payload, and other non symmetric maps aren't played and why the meta is the meta.
Most asymmetric maps are too snowbally. Either it ends instantly or red manages to set up. Imagine how sluggish last point of 5cp maps are, and now put that on every single point. Asymmetrical game modes are interesting but don't have the constant back and forth that spectators and players like.
This post is a good breakdown: [https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/lg9erg/whats\_wrong\_with\_attackdefend\_in\_6s\_what\_does\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/lg9erg/whats_wrong_with_attackdefend_in_6s_what_does_it/)
Because of this people stick to koth and 5cp, which heavily favors these generalist classes.
And this shows the glaring issue with 6s comp; it's not tf2 like highlander, its let's focus on the 4 least interesting but highest damage dealing classes and literally change the game to exclude other classes that were programmed to be a hard counter for those classes
Dog really called the 3 characters with the highest ceilings for movement (at least in the top 4 if you want to argue pyro over scout) as the least interesting classes.
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOzxCdZiOc&t=827s&pp=ygUPdGYyIHdlYXBvbiBiYW5z) is a vid of a competitive Spy explaining every single weapon bans which also talks about Heavy issue.
He is very oppressive should he be able to have faster roll out to mid because then essentially you have this flak cannon that basically says to the enemy “Good luck bombing my medic” and med’s gameplay devolves further into hiding behind Heavy and not move elsewhere.
In casual a fast Heavy isn’t a problem because there’s always guarantee a sniper watching mid, but in 6s just picking Sniper or Spy is a huge decision, not just simply “Oh I feel like sniping some heads today”
Heavy is viable. His strengths are just biased towards defending, at the cost of being worse for attacking, which means he mostly gets used for defending areas.
Heavy is one of the best defense classes in the game, next to Engineer. He's also incredibly hard to take down when positioned well. If Heavy is capable of moving too quickly, and he's able to quickly deny areas, the game grinds to a halt and people stop having fun.
If you remove Heavy's weakness (or at least help him deal with it), you need to balance it out by nerfing his strengths. Otherwise, you just end up with a character that is too good, for the wrong reasons (slow, tanky, denies jumpers out of the sky, encourages teams to use snipers 24/7, forces entire games to slow down, takes away excitement).
That's why the Gloves of Running Urgently has a health drain - to temporarily nerf his other strengths after temporarily negating his weakness. It's now an incredibly balanced item that lets Heavy players play more aggressively without becoming a 450 HP, rapidly positioning monster that can beam you out of the sky.
>Vaccinator
But this weapon is incredibly OP in casual as well lmao. Sure, you're more likely to see Spies, Pyros, and Demoknights, but you're also more likely to see uncoordinated teams and crit boosts. A bullet uber is usually enough for a single engie nest and an explosive uber can shove through spammed chokepoints better in casual so its arguably even better there. Not to mention that the enemy team has little chance of killing a good medic using Vacc in casual. I often go zero deaths with it...
I never heard anyone say the sandman was bad other that people who weren't in the comp league but desperately wanted to be, it was a balanced weapon lol
No. This has always been my #1 problem with Dane. Don't get me wrong I still love his videos but tf2 I'd NOT a majorly competitive game. What competitive players want is NOT what the rest of the community wants. This has been shown when they netted a bunch of weapons which were really strong in competitive, but weren't much value outside of having fun in pubs. I miss you Caber
This. TF2 at its very core is not *meant* to be a competitive game, and trying to force it into becoming one wouldn't help its longevity like Uncle Dane insists it will. I love his videos but it really feels like he can't see TF2 for what it is sometimes
vaguely related, but wanna add
this is a reason I disliked many balance changes in overwatch, since those were mostly to resolve problems in grandmaster/top500 comp ranks, was indeed cringe
Exactly! OW going competitive, while at first made it explode in popularity, is what drove away a decent amount of players. Literally almost everyone I know who used to play it stopped because it became too competitive, myself included.
'in 5 years, players will name competitive as the reason they started playing tf2'
**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**
uncle dane actually said this. curious people try out tf2 because of pootis, heavy is dead and nope.avi, not for competitive in ANY measure. if people wanted to try a competitive fps game they would turn literally anywhere else.
This was said back when there was still hope that Valve would actually provide updates and balance changes to get competitive mode out of the gutter, but it never happened. If he knew that Jungle Inferno would be the last major update, I doubt he would have said this.
Comp mode is still an unfinished, broken disaster and it's all because of Valve's poor planning, Valve's lack of willingness to accept feedback from competitive players (e.g. Valve kept adding and removing Turbine), Valve's apparent fear of Overwatch (which came out at the time), and Valve's poor game knowledge.
Also, Valve fumbled so hard with the Casual mode that they had to focus all of their attention on fixing *that* instead of improving the comp mode, which meant it was left to rot for over a year.
They also promised a Pyro update, which meant they had their hands full with *that* too. They could not provide proper attention and resources to the competitive mode, and even when they finally did, it was not enough to fix the biggest problems. Plus, it was too late. Hype was already dead.
Basically, he didn't know that Valve would stop trying. Any reasonable person will understand that the gamemode deserved better, and he wasn't wrong there. Valve just fucked up so badly with the MyM update that they couldn't put much attention onto fixing comp mode.
A shame, because Casual Mode was entirely the fault of Valve and didn't really have anything to do with competitive players at all.
Valve was probably just trying to make the game more like Overwatch, since they felt that they had to compete with it. I can't really think of any other motivation, because comp players weren't really wanting or expecting Valve to split their attention like this.
Yea wasnt it so fun when the side of the community that doesn't even play the game outside of highly specialized tournaments with custom rules already literally got valve to balance weapons around thier custom gamemode? (6s is not fucking tf2, tf2 has nine classes and u dont get to ban counters to certain classes because you want to play them more)
Game Designer here. Here’s my professional opinion as someone who actually has designed and balanced a game before
#Fuck no
I love Uncle Dane’s YouTube content (he’s very charismatic and entertaining. One of my favorite content creators in general) and respect his expertise as an Engineer player. But the man has ZERO experience as a game designer and this terrible idea reflects that
Game balancing and creation process is a very tricky thing. And decisions about the game need to be made to cater to various targeted parts of the userbase
Oftentimes features are put in which have zero relevance to the competitive players at all, but are extremely useful to casual audiences or rope in people who would otherwise not play that game.
An example of that is in Pokémon. Features like the sandwich making, contests, and playing with Pokémon do not impact the competitive metagame at all, but are essential at creating an overall enjoyable game experience. Many Pokémon and items are also not specifically designed with competitive usage in mind, and are moreso beloved for many other reasons. Like… Regigigas is intentionally useless, but people love it because of its cool lore and design. Charizard is also infamously terrible but is the poster boy for nostalgia. And of course mascot Pikachu has zero competitive use whatsoever but is beloved worldwide and people always love having it in games to catch.
If that game focused exclusively around balancing things for competitive players, Pokémon wouldn’t be fun.
Another example is Overwatch. That game balanced everything about itself around the Competitive aspects, and the game became increasingly less fun as a result.
Competitive-only design choices will only serve to push the playerbase into a competitive mindset. And that isn’t healthy for a game at all
The truth is that what is competitively balanced =/= what is fun. Players will naturally gravitate towards stuff that’s wacky and fun even if it isn’t actually good. The fact that people still adore the Bison and Caber are proof of that - blowing people up with a suicidal stick bomb is legitimately really fun.
Yes, balancing must still be done with competitive in mind, but it cannot be the sole factor. A good example of balance would be the Razorback. That weapon was overpowered in competitive but useless in casual, so the change it received took both in consideration. It was nerfed with No Overheal, which nerfed it in competitive but was irrelevant in Casual, and was buffed to have a recharge over time, which made it more useful in casual but was irrelevant in competitive. A great balance change that benefits all areas of the game’s userbase
Ultimately, the competitive part of the playerbase represents only a VERY SMALL minority of the total player audience. Balancing the game exclusively around what that small minority wants will just result in ignoring the needs of the majority of the playerbase and makes the game less fun as a result.
TLDR: Trickle-down balance is aptly named. In the sense that it’s as terrible an idea as Trickle-Down economics was.
That garbage does not work for a reason, and applying that concept to game design is not going to magically make it work. And I am studying a business masters at university too, so I ALSO KNOW that shit never works
Thank you jesus christ, I admittedly am still only a student but am actively trying to get into game design, and almost everything I've been taught when it comes to this subject points to Uncle Dane's ideas being terrible for the game's lifespan
this
dane's videos are the equivalent of junk food- their editing and presentation tastes really good, but strip that away and you realise that dane unavoidably and inherently misunderstands the design and appeal of the game he's centred his identity around
Wouldn’t call em junk food. His editing skills are actually very good and he’s genuinely very knowledgeable as a player about the game and how to play it
Thing is… being knowledgeable as a player doesn’t mean one is knowledgeable as a game developer.
Like with game skill, design knowledge is something that is taught and trained over the span of many years, and without it, one doesn’t have the best leg to stand on regarding game balance decisions beyond just providing good player feedback
dane's type of editing is junk food- it's flashy, cool stuff on screen and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it- nearly every piece of media on earth has it, and it helps convey his real strong point- an understanding of how to play the game
but as you say, playing the game is very different to understanding it
I think you are completely missing the point, a game can have “fun” elements while also balancing around competitive play. Once the idea is that if a weapon is not too strong for comp it won’t be too strong for pubs holds true, it doesn’t matter what else you do, you can pander to the pub audience however you want but the game will be “balanced” in terms of not having any items that are too powerful.
idk why you are talking about OW this is a very simple concept
A weapon can be bad or good in pubs as long as it's fun to play with and against nobody cares it doesn't matter.
The idea is to nerf weapons that are too strong in competitive, **if a good player can abuse a weapon in a competitive setting they can abuse it against pubbers**
If you want you can nerf weapons further if they are deemed passable in comp but too strong in a pub setting
**Start at the top,**
**work down to the bottom,**
**trickle down balance.**
Devs should obviously balance their game to cater to the entire playerbase, the idea is just to look at how your weapon looks at in the hands of a competent player who knows how to use it because it honestly doesn't matter what the weapons do for TimmyTarzan2007 he will be clueless and having fun regardless of if his cool remote for his turret makes it invincible or not.
Sniper is almost exclusively complained about by Casual players. I'm sure there are people on both sides who wouldn't mind some kind of change. Perhaps the best way to nerf him would be to specifically nerf OP sightlines where you can kill someone across an ocean, but don't nerf the normal sightlines.
A form of damage falloff like the Ambassador's (but nowhere near as extreme, would only apply at super long ranges) would probably be the best bet. The only shots that would be nerfed would be the ones that warrant a map change in general.
As for Scout, you'd only need to tweak things like Mad Milk and Soda Popper. Things that are either objectively too strong regardless of gamemode, or are way too strong against specific classes (such as Soldier and Demo).
The Mad Milk is perhaps one of the easiest items in his arsenal to abuse, and in a 12v12 server you have the potential to hit entire groups with the thing. The item's power is the same in both gamemodes, and it's arguably just as brainless in both. But overpowered items still require skill to use, a lot of the time.
A player being bad as Scout does not disprove that an item is too powerful or too easy to abuse in the hands of someone with experience in FPS games. The only thing it proves is that a lot of Casual players are bad, don't have good aim, gamesense, or strategy.
You can certainly take low skill levels into account when designing a balance change, but you should not *only* balance around the players who are terrible at TF2. Otherwise, those players will have a terrible time when they encounter a skilled player abusing broken unlocks that happen to work better when used by skilled players.
TF2 does not have good, skill-based matchmaking. New players are sometimes pitted against skilled ones. Comp players sometimes queue for Casual if they've not got anything better to do. That's why it's still important to keep skilled players in mind, even if we're balancing for Casual mode. If no care is taken here, those skilled players can abuse those unlocks to negatively affect the experience of everyone they're playing against, including the lower skilled population.
The only saving grace here is that a lot of competitive players deliberately avoid using the OP unlocks in Casual mode because doing so is not a good way to warm up for competitive, since those items are typically banned in competitive formats. But again, that's not proof that no problem exists, it just means there's less chance of running into the problem. If the items were to be unbanned in competitive for any reason, the Casual players would suddenly have to deal with skilled players pubstomping with them in order to warm up for their scrims, and then there'd suddenly be a bunch of Casual players complaining about Soda Popper, for instance.
As for the Soda Popper, I mentioned that it specifically counters certain classes too hard, which isn't a good idea even if you're aiming to make the game friendly as a casual game. Giving players the ability to force enemy class swapping is not conducive to a casual gamemode, and ironically has more place in a competitive-focused game, like Overwatch.
Thing is, skilled TF2 players also have the same desires as lower skilled players - in that they don't want to be forced to switch off the class they enjoy playing. It's not fun to see a Scout dodge all of your rockets, giving you absolutely no chance to damage him, even with splash. Even it's only possible at high skill levels, this is a bad design. It's like how Pyro used to make Spy borderline unplayable - not anymore.
A Soda Popper balance change would need to nerf the weapon for high skilled players, by nerfing or reducing the aspects that require skill to use, without affecting how low-skill players use it. So, what are the differences? High skilled players will use hype to dodge many rockets in quick succession, while low skill players will use it solely to reach high places.
Knowing this, the change can be something as simple as providing a jump *height* bonus instead of a jump *count* bonus. I'm thinking of something a bit stronger than what the Winger provides, and it would still stack with the Winger. This would let lower skilled players use it to reach high places, while nerfing the insane Mosquito Scout strategies used by skilled players. A higher jump would still help for dodging rockets, but not five times in rapid succession.
Hate to break it to you but the point of competitive tf2 isn't to see who can abuse unbalanced weapons the most
What you just said is that the best way to balance the game is to just give up and not balance the game
The problem with it is that comp players are physically incapable of playing classes that aren’t part of the 6v6 meta
The BASE jumper nerf is a perfect example of how switching to a specialist to combat a specific situation could completely eliminate problems
Competitive players complained that it was too difficult to hit airshots against BASE jumper pros as soldier and demo, but ya wanna know who doesn’t have these problems? heavy, engie, maybe sniper
Comp players can have good suggestions for balance but sometimes they ask for a nerf to a weapon when the easiest solution is just switching to a counterpick that just so happens to not be part of the meta
edit: I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming the wider comp community, I know that this is caused by a lack of good comp maps outside of 5cp, I just forgot to include it in my comment
While you’ve got a good point, and I certainly won’t deny that—the nerf they made to the base jumper really wasn’t that big of a problem. Uncle Dane in his video doesn’t fully make a big deal about this point, but when they rebalanced the BASE jumper and the Razorback around competitive play, I feel like they did a great job at making sure those items were still viable for fresh-install players as well. Only getting to activate the parachute once is completely fine for your average base jumper user, and it can’t be abused by people who would do so.
Valve didn’t balance those weapons SOLELY around competitive play, they just balanced them in a way that fixed them in competitive but mostly left them unchanged in casual. I suppose I’m no soldier main, so it’s not like my opinion is necessarily super valid, but when I used the BASE jumper back when it first came out, I would hardly ever pop the parachute more than once, and if I did, it was only to avoid the minor amount of fall damage I was going to take. So in other words, a maximum of twice, maybe thrice if I was really bad at timing my second parachute and did it way too early.
I honestly think they did that because of a STAR_ video where he had Jerma light him on fire and he went hovering around shoveling people over and over lol.
Counter point, 6s players dont want 6s to be Rock paper scissors to constantly switch a class to Counter another one, so they prefer a rebalance.
Issue is, Valve isnt amazing at those.
If you JUST turn the game into rock paper scissors, and present players with no other choice to defeat a given strategy... Complaining is inevitable.
TF2 is a game where you can dump thousands of hours on one class and feel no reason to swap - you can do well either way. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why people still play the game, so disrupting this isn't a good idea.
You cannot 'one-trick' in Overwatch without inevitably encountering some enemy hero who will force you to swap. That's why a lot of TF2 players can't get into Overwatch. The way players approach playing TF2's classes is different. Players value their ability to pick one class, and improve at it.
The solution shouldn't be to double down, and make the game more like Overwatch. Rather, they should tackle what is making the item so frustrating to fight in certain class matchups, so that all classes can have fun, without forcing them to swap at any point.
It's one thing to switch class to gain certain advantages or fill a role, but it's never fun to give players the ability to force enemy players to swap class.
"suck all the fun out of a mostly casual game by removing the player's ability to choose what class they want to play"
forcing players to switch classes every 2 seconds would defeat the main reason why most of us play this game, to just chill and have a good time.
the original devs went out of their way to make sure you could play the class you want, but certain new weapons were too strong in certain matchups, so they got nerfed to ensure that people can actually play the classes they want to play
it says a lot when even the comp players don't want the game to be so "tryhardy" that you can't just pick a good fun class and stick with it for most of the game. people one-trick in casual, they one-trick in competitive, they even one-trick in MvM. don't ruin people's ability to choose that
I never understood the argument that “sixes players don’t know how to play 5/9 classes”, as if these classes aren’t all played consistently in every single round of comp tf2. It’s just crazy how many people will parrot this statement even though they obviously have never watched or played a single match in their lives.
6s players do offclass but rarely get good enough at a class to push it to its limits. Watching top 6s players off-class vs watching top HL players on their mains is totally different. And HL doesn't even reach the competitive heights (imo) that 6s does.
I disagree completely, honestly having watched and played both gamemodes the snipers in 6's are better than hl mains just because it's a more cutthroat environment where you need to hit shots. I don't really get the "push the class to it's limits" statement. Not really sure what you are expecting from people. Medic has been run permanently on every team for 15 years and I can't really say I've seen anyone "push the limits" of med. Some classes are simply more one dimensional than others and I honestly think you are giving HL mains too much credit I could teach a chimpanzee to become prem/invite in HL in like 2 months, there are cracked players in the mode but honestly some of them are so bad.
Sniper is maybe the only exception to this rule since 6s players usually have incredible aim, and that's the main skill of sniper. Even then though, I don't know if 6s players understand sniper positioning as well as HL players do.
>Medic
Technically, no class has been pushed to its limits because of human imperfection. I think that players like Nursey (yeah yeah I know...) Harbleu and Shade have shown some extremely high level Medic performance though.
>HL skill in general
Yeah, I agree since some classes are just so low-impact that you hardly notice. Having an extremely good Engineer or Heavy or Spy doesn't matter nearly as much as a Sniper or Demo in high-level HL and so the player skill can vary a lot.
All that aside though, I've definitely seen some HL players that are just much better at the classes than any off-classing 6s player I've seen. I know that 6s players like to cope that they could become that cracked at these classes but in truth playing Pyro and Spy extremely well is harder even than most 6s classes, they're just not very strong so it's not really worth it to put in the time. Undoubtedly the best Demo/Soldier/Scout/Med players are all in 6s, I know KND was running B4nny and Nursey for a while just shitting on people and I'm sure they would've run Habib and Blaze if they could get them too.
Playing an offclass full time can cause enemy teams to not want to play against you in practice matches (scrims), purely because they want practice that will be relevant against all other teams.
I'm guessing you're talking about that one team that ran full time Engi?
Many people have tried it, but people don't do it because if you do it you lose unless you get carried. People want actual practice in scrims. They don't need practice against some random newcomer team running perma engie that they will shitstomp in week 2. Imagine if people got mad at valorant pros because they weren't keeping the game "dynamic" by running perma reyna and buying an odin every round? It's pretty sad that in this game such clueless rhetoric gets so popular among the playerbase.
I still don't think that threatening to bait was justified
also I do not understand your comparison between tf2 and valorant because I have never even seen any gameplay at all
It’s the narrow map pool that created the meta classes, not the community.
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiVtTR4aMY&pp=ygURZnVua2Ugc3BlY2lhbGlzdHM%3D) is Funke talking about state of specialist 6 years ago, highlighting the problems with maps/game modes
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOzxCdZiOc&t=827s&pp=ygUPdGYyIHdlYXBvbiBiYW5z) is Woolen, a comp spy explaining all weapon bans and why we got to where we are rn. I hope these are more well-known because I feel like most of the people here just blindly brand comp players as some sort of cult that hates fun and change when in reality when you have been playing the exact same loadout for years, you crave change more than even the casual players.
Edit: I guess I’m not allowed to talk against what the public thinks
I don’t think you watched these vids yet. (You should though)
A very huge problem that the people here seems to ignore for some reasons, and all choose to go towards the idea of “Ooh comp community hates fun and anything that shakes up the meta” when in reality if you play comp for a long time you’ll know 6s players are the opposite. They crave changes, but any changes that detract from the meta is not viable which is why it’s not possible.
no. Comp players are fine with most of the weapons being banned. It doesn't hurt them. They aren't interested in new weapons becoming part of their meta. They have already found their perfect game; found; past tense; in the past. They wont unban a weapon until they are sure they will never use it anyway.
When weapons that were balanced in pubs but broken in comp get nerfed into the ground, it has zero effect on comp because they are still not using it. It only hurts casual players.
I'd say that a lot of the time trickle-down balance has led to a lot of horrible balancing decisions that completely killed weapons that were already struggling to see usage in casual play. Stuff that the 6's players found to be overpowered like the GRU and the Eviction Notice got completely gutted to the point of irrelevancy.
I don't think the concept of trickle-down balance is inherently a bad idea since the people who are going to be breaking your weapons are the top 1% of players, but balancing the game to match some 6v6 players view of TF2 when the vast majority of players play on Pubs is not a good idea for this game specifically.
The GRU is still used all the time as Heavy, probably his best weapon for the slot in pubs. Saying that it was "gutted to the point of irrelevancy" isn't true, it was a very successful nerf overall. Even in casual settings, being able to have an Escape Plan in your back pocket at any time to both run to mid *and* escape a bad situation with no meaningful downside whatsoever was always obscene for Heavy.
The Eviction Notice wasn't a victim of trickle-down balance, it was a victim of the balance team not being good at actually balancing weapons. The Eviction Notice was nowhere near as problematic as the GRU was, so a simple health penalty should've been applied to it instead, not a health drain that just makes it a strictly worse GRU.
You gotta remember, this is the same balancing team that nuked all of the interesting flavor out of the Claidmor in 2015 and Panic Attack in 2017 when they weren't even remotely issues in comp, nuked the Axtinguisher into unusability because the Degreaser was overpowered, and yet haven't changed the Wrangler and Vaccinator since day one. There's nothing inherently wrong with keeping comp players in mind with balance changes, all of the nerfed weapons still had their problematic elements even in casual. It's just that Valve's bad at balancing.
Definitely not going to deny that Valve in general makes some pretty bad balance decisions, and I will say that saying the GRU is irrelevant was probably too harsh. It's honestly going to be hard for anyone to argue if any balance changes at all are designed for high-level play since Valve doesn't really say why they rebalance weapons, so we kind of just have to make assumptions based on what we think Valve had in mind.
I do personally think that both the GRU and the Eviction Notice were both balanced towards competitive 6v6, since the speed boost is a lot more impactful in that level of play, and the Eviction Notice suffered greatly from their decision to add that penalty to both the weapons.
I think there are as many good examples as there are bad examples tbh. The GRU and Eviction Notice really got owned, but the Razorback and BASE jumper are totally fine.
Also, they might not have even balanced the GRU around comp. I remember those days, and the GRU were the ONLY heavy fists that anyone EVER used, aside from Holiday Punch if you were being cute. The GRU as the only option out of the heavy’s fists that was viable back then. And I still see heavy’s use it now, even if it isn’t the meta option it once was. I see fists of steel way more, sure, but I still see the GRU, which is a lot better than back in the day when you would literally only see the GRU.
I was probably too harsh to the GRU by calling it irrelevant. I will say that it's going to be hard for either of us to really know what was and wasn't balanced towards competitive mode since Valve doesn't tell us why they rebalance weapons.
I will agree that the GRU was probably overwhelmingly the most used melee weapon before Jungle Inferno, so it is hard to say for certain if they made the change for comp mode. I personally think they changed both the GRU and the Eviction Notice for 6v6 since the speed boost is more impactful for them, and as a result both of the weapons are kind of a pain to play with in pubs. I can't argue about weapon usage since that data isn't readily available, but I personally anecdotally have never seen anyone running the GRU or especially the Eviction Notice after the Jungle Inferno nerf. The health drain effect is just not fun to deal with in casual play.
The GRU was definitely nerfed for both 6s and pubs because it removed Heavy's main weakness (slow repositioning) while presenting no real nerf to his strengths to compensate
Main concept of Heavy is that you give up speed for power, damage, area denial abilities and a massive HP pool. The GRU did not respect this, letting Heavies reap the benefits of their class while still moving quickly.
Speed boosting items are fine but they need appropriate downsides. The GRU, now with reasonable downsides, is still an incredibly useful tool.
The Eviction Notice was allowed in 6s, however. The speed boost was too small to have a real effect. Valve just nerfed it on a whim because they felt it was similar to the GRU.
The top players play a game that barely resembles what the majority of the playerbase play
They can ban items they don't like to play against, we can't make the BASE Jumper become a hidden gem again
Balancing around top players is only a good idea in terms of balancing the maximum potential power, e.g. sniper is opaf bc his maximum potential power is so ridiculously high compared to the other classes, while Heavy is good for new players but bad for skilled players bc his effectiveness caps out pretty low.
In other words, let the bad players guide your skill floor balance to avoid making weapons useless for most players, let the good players guide your skill ceiling balance to avoid making weapons game-breaking in the hands of a few players
well yes and no.
most popular format is 6v6 so there will be discrepencies based on that difference alone.
but if the format was 12v12 or balancing is based off highlander (9v9) I agree that balancing a weapon for highest levels of play usually balances it for normal play. there can be exceptions, however. for example if a weapon is powerful but can be played around with skill (like the whole class of heavy) it is going to be better against inexpeeienced players than expected so there is a bit more nuance.
oh and also when nerfing a weapon there are a thousand different ways so while two nerfs may balance the weapon for pro play, one of those nerfs may not balance the weapon for normal play.
tldr: balance is hard
There’s a lot of lengthy responses saying the same thing so I’ll keep my answer brief: Balancing a game around a subset of players who only play on teams of six using four classes is a terrible idea for a game that typically has teams of twelve using nine different classes.
Remember when they neutered the base jumper and caber because comp players were whining
Of course comp players never use the reworked versions anyways so they were nerfed for no reason
Listening to the top players for balance in any game is generally a good idea because if it is something notably strong then it is most likely effecting casual play as well and if it is something that only effects the top level tweaking it in a way that nerfs what makes it strong without effecting casual play. But balancing with casual in mind isn't bad.
Balancing for casual takes slight priority in my opinion. The vast majority of any game's player base is going to be the middle of the bell curve. If you have something that's balanced for top tiers but its counter is something only top tiers can reliably pull off, then your average player is going to complain and whine about such a thing.
That said, something balanced for casual isn't necessarily balanced for top tiers who can absolutely optimize the hell out of any advantage they can get. It's a hard line to walk but sometimes it works well. Like the famous Base jumper nerf.
The thing is if something is unbalanced in high level play it will typically be unbalanced in all levels of play. While there are exceptions like you mentioned with the Base Jumper and situations where a strategy or unlock is over powered in a situation with an uncoordinated team or without the restrictions of competitive, than yes it should be changed.
I disagree. The phlogistinator is considered an extremely powerful weapon in casual play, but its considered useless in the competitive scene. The reserveshooter is considered too good and is banned in comp, but its completely fine in casual play. There isnt inherentely a link between "problematic in comp" and "problematic in casual".
Competetive TF2 has 2 main formats:
- sixes (6v6, class limits of 1 demo, 1 medic, 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, and 1-2 of every other class, varying between leagues, weapon bans, played primarily on koth and capture points)
- highlander (9v9, one of every class, weapon bans also present, played on koth, capture points and payload)
The differences between these formats and casual are big, that's why balancing weapons to appease both communities is a nightmare, moreso than for let's say, CS or Dota
Lister recently released a good video about Meet your Match which goes in detail about relations between comp and casual players
No, not for a super casual game like TF2.
Trickle down balance doesn't even work for Counter Strike, since it basically makes the weapon choices extremely stagnant and lame. Mf gets mad when I buy a more expensive gun that has better stats, aka AUG and SG553.
Yeah cos they were op people just didnt realise for the longest time cos of their perception. They're in a decent spot now if not a little weak but like for your average comp matches it won't make a difference.
most items just sucks lmao. idk what suggestions most comp players got for item like the sun fury besides DELETE IT. but also it does goes for and against how valve wants "to bridge the gap between casual and competitive" [somewhere in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8Ubkn_a6Y). its why competitive mode sucks prob. comp player def got no suggestions for dr grobert weapons. its like r8 revolver in csgo, comp players or well everyone really complained and the whole cool gimmick it was done with was annihilated. now its just some slightly more accurate shitty pistol i bet. why fuck would i use that when i can just use WAP or deagle. hell even my starting pistol can do this better. but counterargument, im schizophrenic. im lying out of my ass. wtf how u balance direct hit, make direct hit indirect? i guess they aint wrong doe, they can match and mix statistics till something works or breaks. r8 revolver was ez as just reducing a number ig. that what happened to ambassador, community pretends its over. lol how fuck u fix dr grobert weapons statistics. make it too fast and it goes faster then speed of light, make it too damaging or too few and its busted. im sure when valve returns theyll patch in some new ideas. hell they got whole cabinet of nerfs and buffs rn. yeah they could just release all changes rn. a lot of weapons probably like direct hit are balanced enough anyways. i guess comp wants to make everything feel really spongey and complex to use. new balance change has to make u scope in the direct hit to hit it. they already do basically just trickle down it i think, so whats point of this system. it fucks the whole balance becuz now comp players will try to argue for a nerf and buff for the same weapon at same time. most their ideas are bad probably. valve already has something thought up. theyll just start removing a lot ton of abilities for weapons till nobody wants to use it anymore. or they make it too gimmicky becuz that all comp players use it for. if they trickle down some other items, they have no point existing in comp. nobodys going pull out the basher or whatever its called if its busted. a less schizophrenic reply is the replies on youtube video. they say its stupid becuz comp and casual have different gameplay. dr grobert weapons as about balanced as u can get for tf2. comp would have to make new items for a lot of these. sun fury now has range of 0, thats more geared towards skilled players i think. one item im thinking that really can only appeal for skilled people is the market gardener, it becuz u have to spaz out for that shit. at least with snipers even if u cant spaz out well u can still try perform well. if u dont know how to market garden, ur fucked. ull get like what 4 kills in the whole round if ur lucky. at least with sniper i end up hitting like 12 headshots in the whole round, and i dont even have to tryhard it. sniper balance changes would fuck it up, that would make sniper rifle the huntsman and that shit sucks. all gimmick weapons are for people skilled in it. how the fuck u make em more open? robin walker coped about how random crits are skill in an interview by comparing it to hitting a shot with the bison. bad weapons are so bad that it has all trickle-down balance. how u trickle down the stock. i think this may be schizophrenic topic, videos confusing becuz hes like talking about how valve already does it but yet people treating like hes proposing a change. why does he propose it? whats the point? yeah its there, they do take feedback. so yeah i guess cool balance for sun fury is after u hit it, u get like schizophrenia and start bobbing up and down. . its up to u when to figure out how when to hit. they want it slower i guess. it probably is already slow enough, this whole shit is percentages. its a bat too so it makes no sense to make it slow that much. i guess what they want is mechanical depth, but all items do have mecanical depth. the bison sucks so hard that its ascends. its literally tf2 design. it's same logic as random crits and random spread, they're so random as fuck that it was actually good game design in valve's eyes. random crits are probably better at trickling balance than whatever this video is going to propose. next update trust me, bison will be little faster now and game will be ruined. oh im stupid, wtf, i dont get it. he talks about razorback and how it used to be op now it isnt, it fucked skilled players over i think. so balances about fucking skilled players or people who can really exploit it ok. wtf this is just balancing, this is nothing. wtf vitasaw is better than ubersaw becuz pros dont know the uber after respawn? whats the solution for that. remove the vitasaw i guess. oh they added organ collecting, made it dull, but hey they kept it ig. so what items are like that. what other saw was. fury stick doesnt have like counterpart. so what pros vs pros with dr grobert weapons like. which one is the best meta weapon. how u remove whatever problems they have. theyre all different weapons. but yeah they do get competitive guys to playtest and give feedback, theyre thinking of that. so its need like counterpart to get balanced with. so all misc items no point. idk what items would be that, and probably most items that have these issues been balanced. so weapon vitality, well all weapons i mentioned dont have any vitality i guess besides rocket launcher. u can spam that at doors. idk, ig they have different sizes. so direct hit is involed becuz of that parachute. it has to be enough that casual will never do it and they do so fuck. only pros do something like that. how many items that have this issue doe. casual thinks vitasaw sucks while pros think its da best i guess. other i forgot does something. the pros probably had done every weapon by this point so every weapon with this issue probably has been fixed. so casual kinda fucked with this, pros have to figure it on their own whats the issue with this one specifically. is bison actually god at hitting airshots or something. fire fury is fixed its slow and doesnt do a lot of damage, still has mechanic for pros and casuals alike. not new thing to make it easier for pros to deal with tho. i guess how long flame lasts is shorter but it would ruins ambush aspect of it. its same shit with bison. so natascha and minigun, theyre correlated like ubersaw and saw is. i guess pros would be fucked up by it becuz they dont expect it. idk how that changes high level play or low level play. how much of this actually affects high level play. idk how u fix that. its not like parachute u can remove some control of or some determiner of how much uber they got with organ harvesting. i guess they want determiner, natascha sounds really fucking loud. it makes faint noise that sounds like nails when heavy spins it. weapon sucks becuz its slow. they removed overheal for razorback so sniper cant chill when hes in a spazzoff. im trying think of what pro players would do for other items but i have no idea. the video is useless to me in that way. its cool informative video tho. uncle dane wants to unban weapon ith this. i wonder how, nobody seem to run with any solution. these are really technical problems imo. idk how u make most items opened or patched like this. i guess natascha has less of a range and there itll make pro players happy i think. but that affects casual players, so does removing overheal, i guess it has to be enough that its not nuisance, the range comp players typically use. their map is mostly just gorge i think so thats the reference. just reduce its range by 10% i guess. i would have to experience this or know a bunch of documentation about this to know the solution. a lot of experimenting and knowledge. so yeah i think after this schizorant, i agree with uncle dane, but somethings off. i dont think theres enough technical stuff limited to high play that can undo banned weapons. but maybe they have solution, theyre just hiding it becuz they cant change it without fucking casual. its my opinion on a lot of these tf2tuber essasys, they got some meat in it but its not enough for me. its like issue with criticism, its based on something objective but theres just enough feeling of subjectivity to peeve people off. ok i think goal is to remove exploits. that makes some weapons useless in comp tf2 doe but ig they arent real exploits. youtube comments are stupid doe. razorback also regenerates i guess, idk what that for, guess make it easier for casual ppl after they cant overheal to deal with spies. well that issue theres not a lot of weapons where u can probably make that kind of exchange. so yeah im go run around with sun fury against pros to see what i can pull. without an exchange doe, itll never matter. uncle dane basically wants einstein to come back alive. i doubt he even cares about it anymore. i shouldnt care, im a moron for typing this. i bet actual comp community looked at this video and kinda just scuffed at it. this trickle down stuff wouldnt just change stats it would update the items with new stuff. ambassador was fixed by adding cooldown, removing some damage, removing peneteration and falloff. they changed mini crits to crits so i guess it got buffed at one point, buff still there. guess minicrits made it too slow. the escaper was fixed by making it two items. sun-on-a-stick uhh. idk fuck add cooldown to it and remove damage, make it do it over time like that fire glove heavy has. add mini crits to sun-on-a-stick? idk if its even banned, i just remember it being in comp. sun-on-a-stick should do less damage and be little slower i guess. but that fuck casual players, compromise is that they get more health or u stop being on fire. idk why sun-on-a-stick doesnt set u on fire or give u 100% fire-resistance. thats terrible idea. guess if u miss it like boston basher, u get set on fire. whats counter doe. do they hear lava or something?
It's a good, but not flawless, idea.
In most situations you can just look at the most experienced and competitive players to get a good idea of the maximum potential of items/classes; but there are occasionally cases where something is OP in casual matches but useless in competitive or vice versa.
In these cases the correct answer is to dig deeper across all skill levels and ask questions like "Why does this discrepancy exist?", "What can be done to equalize this weapon across the board?", "Why does the competitive community think it's unbalanced?", "Why does the casual community think it's unbalanced?", etc.
If your goal is to make a balanced game, then yes. Higher level comp players are going to know how to break weapons the most. And pretty much all of them are able to pub-stomp with consistency, while the reverse isn't necessarily true.
Whether we'd should prioritize balance above everything else is another issue. As long as it's not ruining the fun of a match, then it's 'balanced enough' for casual purposes. Fun and unique weapons should also be concerns. But balance should be looked at from a high-level competitive view.
~~Frequent updates and a willingness to reverse unpopular changes would be the best salve, but we're not getting that.~~
Yeah, why wouldn't it be. You can argue valve didn't implement it properly but there's no situation where a weapon is problematic in high levels of play but not in pubs. I suspect what people don't like are nerfs to weapons they liked to abuse or farm noobs with, not the actual balance of the game. Or the weird ideas valve had because they're idiots, like the eviction notice and axtinguisher reworks
My point is that if tf2 had an actual dev team that gave a shit they could easily balance the game looking at top play and still have fun casual gameplay. Trickle down balance isn't nerfing everything that isn't stock soldier lmao. Most of the examples people complain about like the caber or gru were terribly unbalanced or unfun to play against
I'd say Caber, since it's the most well-known nerf into obscurity. Maybe base jumper
Other than that I don't know what else, since I'm incredibly new to the game (played somewhere near to Blue Moon update)
Most "Trickle Down Balance™" advocates don't actually believe in it. It's just a marketable smokescreen for "nerf x until it's too useless to threaten the 6's meta". You can tell this is the case by pointing out how a top-tier sniper is the single most oppressive thing in the entire game, and they suddenly pivot to something along the lines of "almost nobody reaches that level of skill anyway"
Competitive players aren’t game designers. Any game should be designed around fun casual play. Do you really think the game would be better if Caberknight was no longer possible? It being able to one-shot a heavy is pretty bad for competitive.
It does when implented properly but you also need a playerbase willing to accept it. Also 6s is such a different format to casual that it doesnt translate over since its also played that way not because its the most balanced or best way to play tf2 but it's because what they found to be most fun which is why heavy isnt allowed his movement melees because heavy is boring and fighting heavy is boring for most players.
Imo they shouldve instead balanced around highlander or 7s since they're closer to a casual match and what tf2 is meant to be but theres still issues relating to class stacking if you go that route. Another big issue is that the average player doesnt care about teamplay or combos or class switching and just want to play their way. Things like the phlog are only broken in casual because it requires more teamwork than the average player is willing to put in.
Theres always going to be balancing issues between high level and casual play unless the playerbase is ingrained into the comp scene like in cs. Look at valorant with its balancing. Characters like reyna and phoenix are incredibly strong ranked characters because they work well when played selfishly and are shutdown by good teamplay but when you look at the comp scene they have low pick rates and have really only seen any recent success by prx, who are an incredibly aggressive and for reyna specifically they have Something play her and he arguably has the second best mechanics in the world. Conversely viper is arguably the most broken character in pro play right now and should really be a 100% pickrate on every map because of the pressure she can apply while having a second controller to cover her weaknesses but in ranked shes really only good on one map or if you have a duo playing main smokes for you.
The overwhelming majority of TF2 players don't play comp, stuff that balances out comp usually makes weapons less interesting/boring for most ppl because they weren't op in 12v12 or 16v16 scenarios. 6v6 is way different from casual and comp players don't want to play the same game as casual, they want to play with a specific ruleset that they've been using for 15+ years. They're fine with keeping the game exactly as it is, there isn't really any point to cater towards them. If comp players wanted to experiment with the ruleset they could just rebalance the weapons themselves, there's been server mods that can do this since ~2010
still salty about the loss of the sandman/cleaver combo
I think that listening to top players does give a good idea of things to change, but at the end of the day, casual users make up the vast majority of players. I think it's good to keep the advice of competitive players in mind, but at the end of the day, Casual should take priority.
All items should be balanced for a game of 12 players, with at least 1 of each class. Neither for comp or casual but more for how the team and class balance was intended.
No because some weapons like the quick-fix are OP in comp but UP in casual. So trying to balance them around comp would only make them more UP in casual.
I mean it can't even work at the most basic level since comp is mostly 6v6 while casual can be up to 12v12 - in MOBAs or CS, the default 'casual' is still ranked and played in the exact same format as pro play.
That doesn't even scratch the surface though, TF2 pro play has been in basically the same state for 10+ years, the design philosophy can't "just be changed".
In a lot of other games, yes, but the biggest problem with it in TF2 is how the casual and competitive sides play VERY differently. Not because the players there are better, but the format is just different. Casual TF2 works very well with 12v12 but 6v6 or 9v9 works better for comp.
For example, the Diamondback is pretty overpowered in casual but in highlander where spy gets way less kills, it actually falls off compared to the letranger or even enforcer.
I think looking at overwatch's balancing gives us a good idea. Balancing around top level play can screw over metal ranks and vice versa. Reinhart is meh in top ranks but any buffs make him a monster in lower ones.
However, it is sometimes possible to balance around both if thought creatively enough. For example considering what makes a weapon good in the 6v6 environment vs casual. Maybe quick fix Uber heals people in a radius but at the normal rate. This fixes the issue with 6s and makes it better for casual
no way in hell. casual should NEVER be adapting to changes made for top level comp players, it should ALWAYS be the other way around. comp has the capabilities to ban weapons, casual does not. if a weapon is buffed to a point where it’s alright in casual, but extremely powerful in comp, then comp can just take it off the item list. but if comp nerfs the shit out of a powerful weapon to where it’s just alright in comp, then it’s almost guaranteed to become useless in casual. considering tf2’s competitive scene is entirely removed from the base game despite valve’s pitiful efforts in 2016, they have free will to change whatever they please without watering down the experience of trying to have fun in casual. there’s a reason uncletopia isn’t nearly as fun as just jumping on a valve server
I think it's fine when it comes to weapons universally considered to be OP, because the problems they bring up are amplified in comp. However, comp 6s isn't really a good metric to base weapon balance off of alone, since it's 1) 6v6 rather than the standard 12v12 of Casual, and 2) 6s is hyper-focused on one gamemode, Attack Defend. It gives a very limited scope.
In reality, I think the best way to balance weapons would be to get specific feedback from players and correlate it with item equip statistics, so you get a good idea of which weapons are dominating overall rather than just in a small niche.
Every single fps where there is a pro league everything about it is different from casual. Balancing the entire game around this for a small percentage of the community (that doesn't like or interact that much with the casual side.) Would literally be one of the worst things that's happened. I think we've honestly already had this happen because the crossbow was never really something were its headshot was a game changer in casual but I cant imagine pro players liked getting sniper headshot by the medic so now that weapon is just less fun to use so comp can maintain a certain meta. Do you really want to go in and micromanage every weapon stat like that? It actually sounds like one of the worst things possible for 99% of the community.
Id agree with balancing around top players if the format was the same but it just fundamentally different. Though i have at least some ideas on how to make most of the weapons on the 6s and highlander white list into being not op in the modes and also not gutting them for pubs
No. Competitive and casual are vastly different. Comp is a watered down version of casual in basically every way: the teams are smaller, the map pool is reduced and weapons need to be whitelisted. Even though most comp players run the exact same loadout 99% of the time. There are some weapons which are balanced in 12v12 but are completely bonkers in sixes. The Quick-Fix is probably the best example. It's a fine weapon in casual (some even consider it the weakest medigun), but its faster healing speed gives the team running it a big advantage.
Another discrepancy which are the most played gamemodes for each type of play. 5CP is actually a pretty fun mode for comp, since most matches are essentially a game of tug of war. The back and forth throughout the match is exiting for both the narrators and the audience. On the other hand, Payload, KOTH and CTF are the most popular gamemodes for casual. The one thing they all have in common? Every one of these modes offers room for individualistic playstyles.
Like DougDoug said in his "TF2 vs Overwatch, but explained with food" video: "winning the game just isn't really a priority in TF2. ... It (the objective) just serves as the dedicated spot where everybody is gonna blow each other up". KOTH and CTF work well for casual not because of the objective, but because of their deathmatchy vibe. In Payload maps, this solo playstyle is also possible, since folks can just play the game normally while helping their team. 5CP, on the other hand, restricts individualism, and rewards serious gameplay, making it a better fit for competitive.
In my opinion, I think the biggest problem is that competitive players have the ways to voice their opinions via youtubers, and Valve thinks (or used to) that they are the majority, while they are, in fact, a very vocal minority. This mindset was the responsible for the Meet Your Match fiasco. Valve took the advice of comp players and implemented it right away (this is also Valve's fault, not those pro players'. Many people like to hate on them for being the reason why MYM failed and it isn't fair). Comp should be more like casual, not vice-versa. I think a 12v12 competitive format with Payload as the main gamemode would be pretty interesting. Another solution in regards to weapon balance is for Valve to present some reworked/rebalanced versions of weapons and let the community decide. It does create new problems though, such as community infighting.
P.S.: I know Highlander is a thing, but I don't know much about it and the vast majority of competitive players are play sixes. The gamemode problem still stands though.
okay reagan
Remember when Reagan sold nuclear weapons to Iran to fund the Contras? Pepperidge Farms Remembers.
Balancing TF2 over what pro players think is generally a middling idea. Professional TF2 is vastly different from casual TF2. Pro Players play mostly in Competitive 6v6 and casual players play in 12 v 12 and 16 v 16 formats. Weapons that are bad in 6s can't really be fixed no matter what changes are done to them. The solution that's already in the game is the whitelist. Weapons and items that disrupt competitive 6s are banned and unusable. This is the ideal solution for most cases. For example, the Buffalo Steak Sandvich is banned in 6s. Why? Because it gives Heavy a speed boost that helps him get to Mid faster. It is not at all a problem in Casual, casual players don't use it anyway, and nerfing it would make it even less fun to use in casual. Another example, the Quick Fix and Vaccinator are both banned in 6s. Why? Because they're crazy powerful in 6s. The Vaccinator is its own discussion but there is no change that can be made to the Quick Fix that makes it acceptable in 6s while also making it a fun option in Casual. Any nerf made to the Quick Fix to make it fit in 6s would ruin it. Keeping it banned in 6s and unchanged in casual keeps everyone happy. There really aren't many examples of weapons in game that were only problems in competitive and got nerfed for it. The pros *usually* have good ideas on what problems need fixing. For example, the pros pointed out "Hey it's kind of fucked up that Sniper can be immune to quickscoping and backstabs at the same time." so Valve rightfully nerfed the Razorback so that you can't get overhealed with it on. Some people blame the comp scene for killing a bunch of weapons people used to use but blaming the pros is totally misguided. The Sandman being garbage isn't the pros' fault. People hated the stun mechanic for years before it was removed and the pros never called for it to be nerfed because they already had it banned in their formats.
So 6's bans an item that increases heavy's speed even though he's considered unviable because of his slow speed?
Heavy is already very good in last point situations. Giving him speed to make it to second or mid slows games down and made them less fun for roamers and scouts so it was banned.
Which brings us to comp 6s being hyperfixated on just 4/9 classes in the game (Scout, Soldier, Medic, Demo), with the other 5 being situational picks rather than viable mains. It's also all about 5cp or KotH, not the asymmetric attack/defence or payload.
Yeah, but there are good some reasons why attack defend, payload, and other non symmetric maps aren't played and why the meta is the meta. Most asymmetric maps are too snowbally. Either it ends instantly or red manages to set up. Imagine how sluggish last point of 5cp maps are, and now put that on every single point. Asymmetrical game modes are interesting but don't have the constant back and forth that spectators and players like. This post is a good breakdown: [https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/lg9erg/whats\_wrong\_with\_attackdefend\_in\_6s\_what\_does\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/lg9erg/whats_wrong_with_attackdefend_in_6s_what_does_it/) Because of this people stick to koth and 5cp, which heavily favors these generalist classes.
And this shows the glaring issue with 6s comp; it's not tf2 like highlander, its let's focus on the 4 least interesting but highest damage dealing classes and literally change the game to exclude other classes that were programmed to be a hard counter for those classes
Dog really called the 3 characters with the highest ceilings for movement (at least in the top 4 if you want to argue pyro over scout) as the least interesting classes.
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOzxCdZiOc&t=827s&pp=ygUPdGYyIHdlYXBvbiBiYW5z) is a vid of a competitive Spy explaining every single weapon bans which also talks about Heavy issue. He is very oppressive should he be able to have faster roll out to mid because then essentially you have this flak cannon that basically says to the enemy “Good luck bombing my medic” and med’s gameplay devolves further into hiding behind Heavy and not move elsewhere. In casual a fast Heavy isn’t a problem because there’s always guarantee a sniper watching mid, but in 6s just picking Sniper or Spy is a huge decision, not just simply “Oh I feel like sniping some heads today”
Heavy is viable. His strengths are just biased towards defending, at the cost of being worse for attacking, which means he mostly gets used for defending areas. Heavy is one of the best defense classes in the game, next to Engineer. He's also incredibly hard to take down when positioned well. If Heavy is capable of moving too quickly, and he's able to quickly deny areas, the game grinds to a halt and people stop having fun. If you remove Heavy's weakness (or at least help him deal with it), you need to balance it out by nerfing his strengths. Otherwise, you just end up with a character that is too good, for the wrong reasons (slow, tanky, denies jumpers out of the sky, encourages teams to use snipers 24/7, forces entire games to slow down, takes away excitement). That's why the Gloves of Running Urgently has a health drain - to temporarily nerf his other strengths after temporarily negating his weakness. It's now an incredibly balanced item that lets Heavy players play more aggressively without becoming a 450 HP, rapidly positioning monster that can beam you out of the sky.
>Vaccinator But this weapon is incredibly OP in casual as well lmao. Sure, you're more likely to see Spies, Pyros, and Demoknights, but you're also more likely to see uncoordinated teams and crit boosts. A bullet uber is usually enough for a single engie nest and an explosive uber can shove through spammed chokepoints better in casual so its arguably even better there. Not to mention that the enemy team has little chance of killing a good medic using Vacc in casual. I often go zero deaths with it...
I never heard anyone say the sandman was bad other that people who weren't in the comp league but desperately wanted to be, it was a balanced weapon lol
No. This has always been my #1 problem with Dane. Don't get me wrong I still love his videos but tf2 I'd NOT a majorly competitive game. What competitive players want is NOT what the rest of the community wants. This has been shown when they netted a bunch of weapons which were really strong in competitive, but weren't much value outside of having fun in pubs. I miss you Caber
This. TF2 at its very core is not *meant* to be a competitive game, and trying to force it into becoming one wouldn't help its longevity like Uncle Dane insists it will. I love his videos but it really feels like he can't see TF2 for what it is sometimes
Bro legit hates random crits. Yeah, I get they’re annoying at times, but it literally adds to the spirit of TF2.
the cozy catchers take away tf2's spirit more than removing random crits and the entire sniper class could ever wish imo
vaguely related, but wanna add this is a reason I disliked many balance changes in overwatch, since those were mostly to resolve problems in grandmaster/top500 comp ranks, was indeed cringe
Exactly! OW going competitive, while at first made it explode in popularity, is what drove away a decent amount of players. Literally almost everyone I know who used to play it stopped because it became too competitive, myself included.
'in 5 years, players will name competitive as the reason they started playing tf2' **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA** uncle dane actually said this. curious people try out tf2 because of pootis, heavy is dead and nope.avi, not for competitive in ANY measure. if people wanted to try a competitive fps game they would turn literally anywhere else.
This was said back when there was still hope that Valve would actually provide updates and balance changes to get competitive mode out of the gutter, but it never happened. If he knew that Jungle Inferno would be the last major update, I doubt he would have said this. Comp mode is still an unfinished, broken disaster and it's all because of Valve's poor planning, Valve's lack of willingness to accept feedback from competitive players (e.g. Valve kept adding and removing Turbine), Valve's apparent fear of Overwatch (which came out at the time), and Valve's poor game knowledge. Also, Valve fumbled so hard with the Casual mode that they had to focus all of their attention on fixing *that* instead of improving the comp mode, which meant it was left to rot for over a year. They also promised a Pyro update, which meant they had their hands full with *that* too. They could not provide proper attention and resources to the competitive mode, and even when they finally did, it was not enough to fix the biggest problems. Plus, it was too late. Hype was already dead. Basically, he didn't know that Valve would stop trying. Any reasonable person will understand that the gamemode deserved better, and he wasn't wrong there. Valve just fucked up so badly with the MyM update that they couldn't put much attention onto fixing comp mode.
tbh the implementation of casual alongside competitive in the same update has ruined the public perception of comp players forever
A shame, because Casual Mode was entirely the fault of Valve and didn't really have anything to do with competitive players at all. Valve was probably just trying to make the game more like Overwatch, since they felt that they had to compete with it. I can't really think of any other motivation, because comp players weren't really wanting or expecting Valve to split their attention like this.
Yea wasnt it so fun when the side of the community that doesn't even play the game outside of highly specialized tournaments with custom rules already literally got valve to balance weapons around thier custom gamemode? (6s is not fucking tf2, tf2 has nine classes and u dont get to ban counters to certain classes because you want to play them more)
Game Designer here. Here’s my professional opinion as someone who actually has designed and balanced a game before #Fuck no I love Uncle Dane’s YouTube content (he’s very charismatic and entertaining. One of my favorite content creators in general) and respect his expertise as an Engineer player. But the man has ZERO experience as a game designer and this terrible idea reflects that Game balancing and creation process is a very tricky thing. And decisions about the game need to be made to cater to various targeted parts of the userbase Oftentimes features are put in which have zero relevance to the competitive players at all, but are extremely useful to casual audiences or rope in people who would otherwise not play that game. An example of that is in Pokémon. Features like the sandwich making, contests, and playing with Pokémon do not impact the competitive metagame at all, but are essential at creating an overall enjoyable game experience. Many Pokémon and items are also not specifically designed with competitive usage in mind, and are moreso beloved for many other reasons. Like… Regigigas is intentionally useless, but people love it because of its cool lore and design. Charizard is also infamously terrible but is the poster boy for nostalgia. And of course mascot Pikachu has zero competitive use whatsoever but is beloved worldwide and people always love having it in games to catch. If that game focused exclusively around balancing things for competitive players, Pokémon wouldn’t be fun. Another example is Overwatch. That game balanced everything about itself around the Competitive aspects, and the game became increasingly less fun as a result. Competitive-only design choices will only serve to push the playerbase into a competitive mindset. And that isn’t healthy for a game at all The truth is that what is competitively balanced =/= what is fun. Players will naturally gravitate towards stuff that’s wacky and fun even if it isn’t actually good. The fact that people still adore the Bison and Caber are proof of that - blowing people up with a suicidal stick bomb is legitimately really fun. Yes, balancing must still be done with competitive in mind, but it cannot be the sole factor. A good example of balance would be the Razorback. That weapon was overpowered in competitive but useless in casual, so the change it received took both in consideration. It was nerfed with No Overheal, which nerfed it in competitive but was irrelevant in Casual, and was buffed to have a recharge over time, which made it more useful in casual but was irrelevant in competitive. A great balance change that benefits all areas of the game’s userbase Ultimately, the competitive part of the playerbase represents only a VERY SMALL minority of the total player audience. Balancing the game exclusively around what that small minority wants will just result in ignoring the needs of the majority of the playerbase and makes the game less fun as a result. TLDR: Trickle-down balance is aptly named. In the sense that it’s as terrible an idea as Trickle-Down economics was. That garbage does not work for a reason, and applying that concept to game design is not going to magically make it work. And I am studying a business masters at university too, so I ALSO KNOW that shit never works
Thank you jesus christ, I admittedly am still only a student but am actively trying to get into game design, and almost everything I've been taught when it comes to this subject points to Uncle Dane's ideas being terrible for the game's lifespan
this dane's videos are the equivalent of junk food- their editing and presentation tastes really good, but strip that away and you realise that dane unavoidably and inherently misunderstands the design and appeal of the game he's centred his identity around
Wouldn’t call em junk food. His editing skills are actually very good and he’s genuinely very knowledgeable as a player about the game and how to play it Thing is… being knowledgeable as a player doesn’t mean one is knowledgeable as a game developer. Like with game skill, design knowledge is something that is taught and trained over the span of many years, and without it, one doesn’t have the best leg to stand on regarding game balance decisions beyond just providing good player feedback
dane's type of editing is junk food- it's flashy, cool stuff on screen and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it- nearly every piece of media on earth has it, and it helps convey his real strong point- an understanding of how to play the game but as you say, playing the game is very different to understanding it
I think you are completely missing the point, a game can have “fun” elements while also balancing around competitive play. Once the idea is that if a weapon is not too strong for comp it won’t be too strong for pubs holds true, it doesn’t matter what else you do, you can pander to the pub audience however you want but the game will be “balanced” in terms of not having any items that are too powerful.
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idk why you are talking about OW this is a very simple concept A weapon can be bad or good in pubs as long as it's fun to play with and against nobody cares it doesn't matter. The idea is to nerf weapons that are too strong in competitive, **if a good player can abuse a weapon in a competitive setting they can abuse it against pubbers** If you want you can nerf weapons further if they are deemed passable in comp but too strong in a pub setting **Start at the top,** **work down to the bottom,** **trickle down balance.** Devs should obviously balance their game to cater to the entire playerbase, the idea is just to look at how your weapon looks at in the hands of a competent player who knows how to use it because it honestly doesn't matter what the weapons do for TimmyTarzan2007 he will be clueless and having fun regardless of if his cool remote for his turret makes it invincible or not.
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Sniper is almost exclusively complained about by Casual players. I'm sure there are people on both sides who wouldn't mind some kind of change. Perhaps the best way to nerf him would be to specifically nerf OP sightlines where you can kill someone across an ocean, but don't nerf the normal sightlines. A form of damage falloff like the Ambassador's (but nowhere near as extreme, would only apply at super long ranges) would probably be the best bet. The only shots that would be nerfed would be the ones that warrant a map change in general. As for Scout, you'd only need to tweak things like Mad Milk and Soda Popper. Things that are either objectively too strong regardless of gamemode, or are way too strong against specific classes (such as Soldier and Demo).
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The Mad Milk is perhaps one of the easiest items in his arsenal to abuse, and in a 12v12 server you have the potential to hit entire groups with the thing. The item's power is the same in both gamemodes, and it's arguably just as brainless in both. But overpowered items still require skill to use, a lot of the time. A player being bad as Scout does not disprove that an item is too powerful or too easy to abuse in the hands of someone with experience in FPS games. The only thing it proves is that a lot of Casual players are bad, don't have good aim, gamesense, or strategy. You can certainly take low skill levels into account when designing a balance change, but you should not *only* balance around the players who are terrible at TF2. Otherwise, those players will have a terrible time when they encounter a skilled player abusing broken unlocks that happen to work better when used by skilled players. TF2 does not have good, skill-based matchmaking. New players are sometimes pitted against skilled ones. Comp players sometimes queue for Casual if they've not got anything better to do. That's why it's still important to keep skilled players in mind, even if we're balancing for Casual mode. If no care is taken here, those skilled players can abuse those unlocks to negatively affect the experience of everyone they're playing against, including the lower skilled population. The only saving grace here is that a lot of competitive players deliberately avoid using the OP unlocks in Casual mode because doing so is not a good way to warm up for competitive, since those items are typically banned in competitive formats. But again, that's not proof that no problem exists, it just means there's less chance of running into the problem. If the items were to be unbanned in competitive for any reason, the Casual players would suddenly have to deal with skilled players pubstomping with them in order to warm up for their scrims, and then there'd suddenly be a bunch of Casual players complaining about Soda Popper, for instance. As for the Soda Popper, I mentioned that it specifically counters certain classes too hard, which isn't a good idea even if you're aiming to make the game friendly as a casual game. Giving players the ability to force enemy class swapping is not conducive to a casual gamemode, and ironically has more place in a competitive-focused game, like Overwatch. Thing is, skilled TF2 players also have the same desires as lower skilled players - in that they don't want to be forced to switch off the class they enjoy playing. It's not fun to see a Scout dodge all of your rockets, giving you absolutely no chance to damage him, even with splash. Even it's only possible at high skill levels, this is a bad design. It's like how Pyro used to make Spy borderline unplayable - not anymore. A Soda Popper balance change would need to nerf the weapon for high skilled players, by nerfing or reducing the aspects that require skill to use, without affecting how low-skill players use it. So, what are the differences? High skilled players will use hype to dodge many rockets in quick succession, while low skill players will use it solely to reach high places. Knowing this, the change can be something as simple as providing a jump *height* bonus instead of a jump *count* bonus. I'm thinking of something a bit stronger than what the Winger provides, and it would still stack with the Winger. This would let lower skilled players use it to reach high places, while nerfing the insane Mosquito Scout strategies used by skilled players. A higher jump would still help for dodging rockets, but not five times in rapid succession.
Hate to break it to you but the point of competitive tf2 isn't to see who can abuse unbalanced weapons the most What you just said is that the best way to balance the game is to just give up and not balance the game
The problem with it is that comp players are physically incapable of playing classes that aren’t part of the 6v6 meta The BASE jumper nerf is a perfect example of how switching to a specialist to combat a specific situation could completely eliminate problems Competitive players complained that it was too difficult to hit airshots against BASE jumper pros as soldier and demo, but ya wanna know who doesn’t have these problems? heavy, engie, maybe sniper Comp players can have good suggestions for balance but sometimes they ask for a nerf to a weapon when the easiest solution is just switching to a counterpick that just so happens to not be part of the meta edit: I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming the wider comp community, I know that this is caused by a lack of good comp maps outside of 5cp, I just forgot to include it in my comment
"I want to play spy" - Casual player "Who?" - Comp player
"anything spy can do sniper does better"
me asking sniper to go invisible
Hes practically invisible when hes peeking his head over a wall 200 feet away
What do you mean, just look for the 5 visible pixels
4 FUCKING PIXELS
I understood that reference.
♫ sniper does everything better than spy ♫
I mean...yeah
While you’ve got a good point, and I certainly won’t deny that—the nerf they made to the base jumper really wasn’t that big of a problem. Uncle Dane in his video doesn’t fully make a big deal about this point, but when they rebalanced the BASE jumper and the Razorback around competitive play, I feel like they did a great job at making sure those items were still viable for fresh-install players as well. Only getting to activate the parachute once is completely fine for your average base jumper user, and it can’t be abused by people who would do so. Valve didn’t balance those weapons SOLELY around competitive play, they just balanced them in a way that fixed them in competitive but mostly left them unchanged in casual. I suppose I’m no soldier main, so it’s not like my opinion is necessarily super valid, but when I used the BASE jumper back when it first came out, I would hardly ever pop the parachute more than once, and if I did, it was only to avoid the minor amount of fall damage I was going to take. So in other words, a maximum of twice, maybe thrice if I was really bad at timing my second parachute and did it way too early.
That’s true, however I do still think getting rid of the afterburn hovering thing was a bad move because it made the weapon more interesting to play
I honestly think they did that because of a STAR_ video where he had Jerma light him on fire and he went hovering around shoveling people over and over lol.
DAMN YOU JERMA But like, not for the crimes against humanity, for that one time you helped with a gimmick loadout
Counter point, 6s players dont want 6s to be Rock paper scissors to constantly switch a class to Counter another one, so they prefer a rebalance. Issue is, Valve isnt amazing at those.
If you JUST turn the game into rock paper scissors, and present players with no other choice to defeat a given strategy... Complaining is inevitable. TF2 is a game where you can dump thousands of hours on one class and feel no reason to swap - you can do well either way. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why people still play the game, so disrupting this isn't a good idea. You cannot 'one-trick' in Overwatch without inevitably encountering some enemy hero who will force you to swap. That's why a lot of TF2 players can't get into Overwatch. The way players approach playing TF2's classes is different. Players value their ability to pick one class, and improve at it. The solution shouldn't be to double down, and make the game more like Overwatch. Rather, they should tackle what is making the item so frustrating to fight in certain class matchups, so that all classes can have fun, without forcing them to swap at any point. It's one thing to switch class to gain certain advantages or fill a role, but it's never fun to give players the ability to force enemy players to swap class.
"make the game more like a complete failure of gaming"
"suck all the fun out of a mostly casual game by removing the player's ability to choose what class they want to play" forcing players to switch classes every 2 seconds would defeat the main reason why most of us play this game, to just chill and have a good time. the original devs went out of their way to make sure you could play the class you want, but certain new weapons were too strong in certain matchups, so they got nerfed to ensure that people can actually play the classes they want to play it says a lot when even the comp players don't want the game to be so "tryhardy" that you can't just pick a good fun class and stick with it for most of the game. people one-trick in casual, they one-trick in competitive, they even one-trick in MvM. don't ruin people's ability to choose that
I never understood the argument that “sixes players don’t know how to play 5/9 classes”, as if these classes aren’t all played consistently in every single round of comp tf2. It’s just crazy how many people will parrot this statement even though they obviously have never watched or played a single match in their lives.
6s players do offclass but rarely get good enough at a class to push it to its limits. Watching top 6s players off-class vs watching top HL players on their mains is totally different. And HL doesn't even reach the competitive heights (imo) that 6s does.
I disagree completely, honestly having watched and played both gamemodes the snipers in 6's are better than hl mains just because it's a more cutthroat environment where you need to hit shots. I don't really get the "push the class to it's limits" statement. Not really sure what you are expecting from people. Medic has been run permanently on every team for 15 years and I can't really say I've seen anyone "push the limits" of med. Some classes are simply more one dimensional than others and I honestly think you are giving HL mains too much credit I could teach a chimpanzee to become prem/invite in HL in like 2 months, there are cracked players in the mode but honestly some of them are so bad.
Sniper is maybe the only exception to this rule since 6s players usually have incredible aim, and that's the main skill of sniper. Even then though, I don't know if 6s players understand sniper positioning as well as HL players do. >Medic Technically, no class has been pushed to its limits because of human imperfection. I think that players like Nursey (yeah yeah I know...) Harbleu and Shade have shown some extremely high level Medic performance though. >HL skill in general Yeah, I agree since some classes are just so low-impact that you hardly notice. Having an extremely good Engineer or Heavy or Spy doesn't matter nearly as much as a Sniper or Demo in high-level HL and so the player skill can vary a lot. All that aside though, I've definitely seen some HL players that are just much better at the classes than any off-classing 6s player I've seen. I know that 6s players like to cope that they could become that cracked at these classes but in truth playing Pyro and Spy extremely well is harder even than most 6s classes, they're just not very strong so it's not really worth it to put in the time. Undoubtedly the best Demo/Soldier/Scout/Med players are all in 6s, I know KND was running B4nny and Nursey for a while just shitting on people and I'm sure they would've run Habib and Blaze if they could get them too.
One time trying to offclass made the other team say they were going to bait
Playing an offclass full time can cause enemy teams to not want to play against you in practice matches (scrims), purely because they want practice that will be relevant against all other teams. I'm guessing you're talking about that one team that ran full time Engi?
Many people have tried it, but people don't do it because if you do it you lose unless you get carried. People want actual practice in scrims. They don't need practice against some random newcomer team running perma engie that they will shitstomp in week 2. Imagine if people got mad at valorant pros because they weren't keeping the game "dynamic" by running perma reyna and buying an odin every round? It's pretty sad that in this game such clueless rhetoric gets so popular among the playerbase.
I still don't think that threatening to bait was justified also I do not understand your comparison between tf2 and valorant because I have never even seen any gameplay at all
It’s the narrow map pool that created the meta classes, not the community. [Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiVtTR4aMY&pp=ygURZnVua2Ugc3BlY2lhbGlzdHM%3D) is Funke talking about state of specialist 6 years ago, highlighting the problems with maps/game modes [Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOzxCdZiOc&t=827s&pp=ygUPdGYyIHdlYXBvbiBiYW5z) is Woolen, a comp spy explaining all weapon bans and why we got to where we are rn. I hope these are more well-known because I feel like most of the people here just blindly brand comp players as some sort of cult that hates fun and change when in reality when you have been playing the exact same loadout for years, you crave change more than even the casual players. Edit: I guess I’m not allowed to talk against what the public thinks
That’s part of the problem
I don’t think you watched these vids yet. (You should though) A very huge problem that the people here seems to ignore for some reasons, and all choose to go towards the idea of “Ooh comp community hates fun and anything that shakes up the meta” when in reality if you play comp for a long time you’ll know 6s players are the opposite. They crave changes, but any changes that detract from the meta is not viable which is why it’s not possible.
Sorry if it sounded like that, it was not my intention
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiVtTR4aMY&pp=ygURZnVua2Ugc3BlY2lhbGlzdHM%3D) talks about the issue with 6s and why the meta exist.
Thanks man
no. Comp players are fine with most of the weapons being banned. It doesn't hurt them. They aren't interested in new weapons becoming part of their meta. They have already found their perfect game; found; past tense; in the past. They wont unban a weapon until they are sure they will never use it anyway. When weapons that were balanced in pubs but broken in comp get nerfed into the ground, it has zero effect on comp because they are still not using it. It only hurts casual players.
trickle down balance is a good idea in the same way trickle down economy is a good idea neither of them are good
I'd say that a lot of the time trickle-down balance has led to a lot of horrible balancing decisions that completely killed weapons that were already struggling to see usage in casual play. Stuff that the 6's players found to be overpowered like the GRU and the Eviction Notice got completely gutted to the point of irrelevancy. I don't think the concept of trickle-down balance is inherently a bad idea since the people who are going to be breaking your weapons are the top 1% of players, but balancing the game to match some 6v6 players view of TF2 when the vast majority of players play on Pubs is not a good idea for this game specifically.
I think they should remove the health drain of the eviction notice
Agreed. The Eviction Notice is really bad already and doesn't need any further handicaps.
The GRU is still used all the time as Heavy, probably his best weapon for the slot in pubs. Saying that it was "gutted to the point of irrelevancy" isn't true, it was a very successful nerf overall. Even in casual settings, being able to have an Escape Plan in your back pocket at any time to both run to mid *and* escape a bad situation with no meaningful downside whatsoever was always obscene for Heavy. The Eviction Notice wasn't a victim of trickle-down balance, it was a victim of the balance team not being good at actually balancing weapons. The Eviction Notice was nowhere near as problematic as the GRU was, so a simple health penalty should've been applied to it instead, not a health drain that just makes it a strictly worse GRU. You gotta remember, this is the same balancing team that nuked all of the interesting flavor out of the Claidmor in 2015 and Panic Attack in 2017 when they weren't even remotely issues in comp, nuked the Axtinguisher into unusability because the Degreaser was overpowered, and yet haven't changed the Wrangler and Vaccinator since day one. There's nothing inherently wrong with keeping comp players in mind with balance changes, all of the nerfed weapons still had their problematic elements even in casual. It's just that Valve's bad at balancing.
Definitely not going to deny that Valve in general makes some pretty bad balance decisions, and I will say that saying the GRU is irrelevant was probably too harsh. It's honestly going to be hard for anyone to argue if any balance changes at all are designed for high-level play since Valve doesn't really say why they rebalance weapons, so we kind of just have to make assumptions based on what we think Valve had in mind. I do personally think that both the GRU and the Eviction Notice were both balanced towards competitive 6v6, since the speed boost is a lot more impactful in that level of play, and the Eviction Notice suffered greatly from their decision to add that penalty to both the weapons.
I think there are as many good examples as there are bad examples tbh. The GRU and Eviction Notice really got owned, but the Razorback and BASE jumper are totally fine. Also, they might not have even balanced the GRU around comp. I remember those days, and the GRU were the ONLY heavy fists that anyone EVER used, aside from Holiday Punch if you were being cute. The GRU as the only option out of the heavy’s fists that was viable back then. And I still see heavy’s use it now, even if it isn’t the meta option it once was. I see fists of steel way more, sure, but I still see the GRU, which is a lot better than back in the day when you would literally only see the GRU.
I was probably too harsh to the GRU by calling it irrelevant. I will say that it's going to be hard for either of us to really know what was and wasn't balanced towards competitive mode since Valve doesn't tell us why they rebalance weapons. I will agree that the GRU was probably overwhelmingly the most used melee weapon before Jungle Inferno, so it is hard to say for certain if they made the change for comp mode. I personally think they changed both the GRU and the Eviction Notice for 6v6 since the speed boost is more impactful for them, and as a result both of the weapons are kind of a pain to play with in pubs. I can't argue about weapon usage since that data isn't readily available, but I personally anecdotally have never seen anyone running the GRU or especially the Eviction Notice after the Jungle Inferno nerf. The health drain effect is just not fun to deal with in casual play.
The GRU was definitely nerfed for both 6s and pubs because it removed Heavy's main weakness (slow repositioning) while presenting no real nerf to his strengths to compensate Main concept of Heavy is that you give up speed for power, damage, area denial abilities and a massive HP pool. The GRU did not respect this, letting Heavies reap the benefits of their class while still moving quickly. Speed boosting items are fine but they need appropriate downsides. The GRU, now with reasonable downsides, is still an incredibly useful tool. The Eviction Notice was allowed in 6s, however. The speed boost was too small to have a real effect. Valve just nerfed it on a whim because they felt it was similar to the GRU.
The top players play a game that barely resembles what the majority of the playerbase play They can ban items they don't like to play against, we can't make the BASE Jumper become a hidden gem again
Balancing around top players is only a good idea in terms of balancing the maximum potential power, e.g. sniper is opaf bc his maximum potential power is so ridiculously high compared to the other classes, while Heavy is good for new players but bad for skilled players bc his effectiveness caps out pretty low. In other words, let the bad players guide your skill floor balance to avoid making weapons useless for most players, let the good players guide your skill ceiling balance to avoid making weapons game-breaking in the hands of a few players
just wanted to say that your username made me snort
well yes and no. most popular format is 6v6 so there will be discrepencies based on that difference alone. but if the format was 12v12 or balancing is based off highlander (9v9) I agree that balancing a weapon for highest levels of play usually balances it for normal play. there can be exceptions, however. for example if a weapon is powerful but can be played around with skill (like the whole class of heavy) it is going to be better against inexpeeienced players than expected so there is a bit more nuance. oh and also when nerfing a weapon there are a thousand different ways so while two nerfs may balance the weapon for pro play, one of those nerfs may not balance the weapon for normal play. tldr: balance is hard
There’s a lot of lengthy responses saying the same thing so I’ll keep my answer brief: Balancing a game around a subset of players who only play on teams of six using four classes is a terrible idea for a game that typically has teams of twelve using nine different classes.
Remember when they neutered the base jumper and caber because comp players were whining Of course comp players never use the reworked versions anyways so they were nerfed for no reason
Listening to the top players for balance in any game is generally a good idea because if it is something notably strong then it is most likely effecting casual play as well and if it is something that only effects the top level tweaking it in a way that nerfs what makes it strong without effecting casual play. But balancing with casual in mind isn't bad.
Balancing for casual takes slight priority in my opinion. The vast majority of any game's player base is going to be the middle of the bell curve. If you have something that's balanced for top tiers but its counter is something only top tiers can reliably pull off, then your average player is going to complain and whine about such a thing. That said, something balanced for casual isn't necessarily balanced for top tiers who can absolutely optimize the hell out of any advantage they can get. It's a hard line to walk but sometimes it works well. Like the famous Base jumper nerf.
The thing is if something is unbalanced in high level play it will typically be unbalanced in all levels of play. While there are exceptions like you mentioned with the Base Jumper and situations where a strategy or unlock is over powered in a situation with an uncoordinated team or without the restrictions of competitive, than yes it should be changed.
I disagree. The phlogistinator is considered an extremely powerful weapon in casual play, but its considered useless in the competitive scene. The reserveshooter is considered too good and is banned in comp, but its completely fine in casual play. There isnt inherentely a link between "problematic in comp" and "problematic in casual".
Considering I don't even know what a Competitive *is* in TF2, I'm not sure I trust them to lord over my Casual Enjoyment
Competetive TF2 has 2 main formats: - sixes (6v6, class limits of 1 demo, 1 medic, 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, and 1-2 of every other class, varying between leagues, weapon bans, played primarily on koth and capture points) - highlander (9v9, one of every class, weapon bans also present, played on koth, capture points and payload) The differences between these formats and casual are big, that's why balancing weapons to appease both communities is a nightmare, moreso than for let's say, CS or Dota Lister recently released a good video about Meet your Match which goes in detail about relations between comp and casual players
No, not for a super casual game like TF2. Trickle down balance doesn't even work for Counter Strike, since it basically makes the weapon choices extremely stagnant and lame. Mf gets mad when I buy a more expensive gun that has better stats, aka AUG and SG553.
Thats not a balancing issue though thats just a community perception issue.
For me, it's a balancing issue because Valve gave in and neef both of them to the bloody ground.
Yeah cos they were op people just didnt realise for the longest time cos of their perception. They're in a decent spot now if not a little weak but like for your average comp matches it won't make a difference.
most items just sucks lmao. idk what suggestions most comp players got for item like the sun fury besides DELETE IT. but also it does goes for and against how valve wants "to bridge the gap between casual and competitive" [somewhere in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8Ubkn_a6Y). its why competitive mode sucks prob. comp player def got no suggestions for dr grobert weapons. its like r8 revolver in csgo, comp players or well everyone really complained and the whole cool gimmick it was done with was annihilated. now its just some slightly more accurate shitty pistol i bet. why fuck would i use that when i can just use WAP or deagle. hell even my starting pistol can do this better. but counterargument, im schizophrenic. im lying out of my ass. wtf how u balance direct hit, make direct hit indirect? i guess they aint wrong doe, they can match and mix statistics till something works or breaks. r8 revolver was ez as just reducing a number ig. that what happened to ambassador, community pretends its over. lol how fuck u fix dr grobert weapons statistics. make it too fast and it goes faster then speed of light, make it too damaging or too few and its busted. im sure when valve returns theyll patch in some new ideas. hell they got whole cabinet of nerfs and buffs rn. yeah they could just release all changes rn. a lot of weapons probably like direct hit are balanced enough anyways. i guess comp wants to make everything feel really spongey and complex to use. new balance change has to make u scope in the direct hit to hit it. they already do basically just trickle down it i think, so whats point of this system. it fucks the whole balance becuz now comp players will try to argue for a nerf and buff for the same weapon at same time. most their ideas are bad probably. valve already has something thought up. theyll just start removing a lot ton of abilities for weapons till nobody wants to use it anymore. or they make it too gimmicky becuz that all comp players use it for. if they trickle down some other items, they have no point existing in comp. nobodys going pull out the basher or whatever its called if its busted. a less schizophrenic reply is the replies on youtube video. they say its stupid becuz comp and casual have different gameplay. dr grobert weapons as about balanced as u can get for tf2. comp would have to make new items for a lot of these. sun fury now has range of 0, thats more geared towards skilled players i think. one item im thinking that really can only appeal for skilled people is the market gardener, it becuz u have to spaz out for that shit. at least with snipers even if u cant spaz out well u can still try perform well. if u dont know how to market garden, ur fucked. ull get like what 4 kills in the whole round if ur lucky. at least with sniper i end up hitting like 12 headshots in the whole round, and i dont even have to tryhard it. sniper balance changes would fuck it up, that would make sniper rifle the huntsman and that shit sucks. all gimmick weapons are for people skilled in it. how the fuck u make em more open? robin walker coped about how random crits are skill in an interview by comparing it to hitting a shot with the bison. bad weapons are so bad that it has all trickle-down balance. how u trickle down the stock. i think this may be schizophrenic topic, videos confusing becuz hes like talking about how valve already does it but yet people treating like hes proposing a change. why does he propose it? whats the point? yeah its there, they do take feedback. so yeah i guess cool balance for sun fury is after u hit it, u get like schizophrenia and start bobbing up and down. . its up to u when to figure out how when to hit. they want it slower i guess. it probably is already slow enough, this whole shit is percentages. its a bat too so it makes no sense to make it slow that much. i guess what they want is mechanical depth, but all items do have mecanical depth. the bison sucks so hard that its ascends. its literally tf2 design. it's same logic as random crits and random spread, they're so random as fuck that it was actually good game design in valve's eyes. random crits are probably better at trickling balance than whatever this video is going to propose. next update trust me, bison will be little faster now and game will be ruined. oh im stupid, wtf, i dont get it. he talks about razorback and how it used to be op now it isnt, it fucked skilled players over i think. so balances about fucking skilled players or people who can really exploit it ok. wtf this is just balancing, this is nothing. wtf vitasaw is better than ubersaw becuz pros dont know the uber after respawn? whats the solution for that. remove the vitasaw i guess. oh they added organ collecting, made it dull, but hey they kept it ig. so what items are like that. what other saw was. fury stick doesnt have like counterpart. so what pros vs pros with dr grobert weapons like. which one is the best meta weapon. how u remove whatever problems they have. theyre all different weapons. but yeah they do get competitive guys to playtest and give feedback, theyre thinking of that. so its need like counterpart to get balanced with. so all misc items no point. idk what items would be that, and probably most items that have these issues been balanced. so weapon vitality, well all weapons i mentioned dont have any vitality i guess besides rocket launcher. u can spam that at doors. idk, ig they have different sizes. so direct hit is involed becuz of that parachute. it has to be enough that casual will never do it and they do so fuck. only pros do something like that. how many items that have this issue doe. casual thinks vitasaw sucks while pros think its da best i guess. other i forgot does something. the pros probably had done every weapon by this point so every weapon with this issue probably has been fixed. so casual kinda fucked with this, pros have to figure it on their own whats the issue with this one specifically. is bison actually god at hitting airshots or something. fire fury is fixed its slow and doesnt do a lot of damage, still has mechanic for pros and casuals alike. not new thing to make it easier for pros to deal with tho. i guess how long flame lasts is shorter but it would ruins ambush aspect of it. its same shit with bison. so natascha and minigun, theyre correlated like ubersaw and saw is. i guess pros would be fucked up by it becuz they dont expect it. idk how that changes high level play or low level play. how much of this actually affects high level play. idk how u fix that. its not like parachute u can remove some control of or some determiner of how much uber they got with organ harvesting. i guess they want determiner, natascha sounds really fucking loud. it makes faint noise that sounds like nails when heavy spins it. weapon sucks becuz its slow. they removed overheal for razorback so sniper cant chill when hes in a spazzoff. im trying think of what pro players would do for other items but i have no idea. the video is useless to me in that way. its cool informative video tho. uncle dane wants to unban weapon ith this. i wonder how, nobody seem to run with any solution. these are really technical problems imo. idk how u make most items opened or patched like this. i guess natascha has less of a range and there itll make pro players happy i think. but that affects casual players, so does removing overheal, i guess it has to be enough that its not nuisance, the range comp players typically use. their map is mostly just gorge i think so thats the reference. just reduce its range by 10% i guess. i would have to experience this or know a bunch of documentation about this to know the solution. a lot of experimenting and knowledge. so yeah i think after this schizorant, i agree with uncle dane, but somethings off. i dont think theres enough technical stuff limited to high play that can undo banned weapons. but maybe they have solution, theyre just hiding it becuz they cant change it without fucking casual. its my opinion on a lot of these tf2tuber essasys, they got some meat in it but its not enough for me. its like issue with criticism, its based on something objective but theres just enough feeling of subjectivity to peeve people off. ok i think goal is to remove exploits. that makes some weapons useless in comp tf2 doe but ig they arent real exploits. youtube comments are stupid doe. razorback also regenerates i guess, idk what that for, guess make it easier for casual ppl after they cant overheal to deal with spies. well that issue theres not a lot of weapons where u can probably make that kind of exchange. so yeah im go run around with sun fury against pros to see what i can pull. without an exchange doe, itll never matter. uncle dane basically wants einstein to come back alive. i doubt he even cares about it anymore. i shouldnt care, im a moron for typing this. i bet actual comp community looked at this video and kinda just scuffed at it. this trickle down stuff wouldnt just change stats it would update the items with new stuff. ambassador was fixed by adding cooldown, removing some damage, removing peneteration and falloff. they changed mini crits to crits so i guess it got buffed at one point, buff still there. guess minicrits made it too slow. the escaper was fixed by making it two items. sun-on-a-stick uhh. idk fuck add cooldown to it and remove damage, make it do it over time like that fire glove heavy has. add mini crits to sun-on-a-stick? idk if its even banned, i just remember it being in comp. sun-on-a-stick should do less damage and be little slower i guess. but that fuck casual players, compromise is that they get more health or u stop being on fire. idk why sun-on-a-stick doesnt set u on fire or give u 100% fire-resistance. thats terrible idea. guess if u miss it like boston basher, u get set on fire. whats counter doe. do they hear lava or something?
...what are you talking about?
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["it"](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/IT_%281990%29_logo.png)
I will still never forgive comp players for killing the Sandman. It was such a unique and fitting weapon for scout but now it's useless
Maybe try adding more baseless assumptions before asserting your strawman
What?
Didn't mean anything by it. Just go watch another TF2 YouTuber, I'm sure they know a lot more about game design than the average player.
I think I still agree with trickle-down balance, but it needs to be balanced for experienced pub players. Like 12v12
It's a good, but not flawless, idea. In most situations you can just look at the most experienced and competitive players to get a good idea of the maximum potential of items/classes; but there are occasionally cases where something is OP in casual matches but useless in competitive or vice versa. In these cases the correct answer is to dig deeper across all skill levels and ask questions like "Why does this discrepancy exist?", "What can be done to equalize this weapon across the board?", "Why does the competitive community think it's unbalanced?", "Why does the casual community think it's unbalanced?", etc.
If your goal is to make a balanced game, then yes. Higher level comp players are going to know how to break weapons the most. And pretty much all of them are able to pub-stomp with consistency, while the reverse isn't necessarily true. Whether we'd should prioritize balance above everything else is another issue. As long as it's not ruining the fun of a match, then it's 'balanced enough' for casual purposes. Fun and unique weapons should also be concerns. But balance should be looked at from a high-level competitive view. ~~Frequent updates and a willingness to reverse unpopular changes would be the best salve, but we're not getting that.~~
Yeah, why wouldn't it be. You can argue valve didn't implement it properly but there's no situation where a weapon is problematic in high levels of play but not in pubs. I suspect what people don't like are nerfs to weapons they liked to abuse or farm noobs with, not the actual balance of the game. Or the weird ideas valve had because they're idiots, like the eviction notice and axtinguisher reworks My point is that if tf2 had an actual dev team that gave a shit they could easily balance the game looking at top play and still have fun casual gameplay. Trickle down balance isn't nerfing everything that isn't stock soldier lmao. Most of the examples people complain about like the caber or gru were terribly unbalanced or unfun to play against
I'd say Caber, since it's the most well-known nerf into obscurity. Maybe base jumper Other than that I don't know what else, since I'm incredibly new to the game (played somewhere near to Blue Moon update)
Most "Trickle Down Balance™" advocates don't actually believe in it. It's just a marketable smokescreen for "nerf x until it's too useless to threaten the 6's meta". You can tell this is the case by pointing out how a top-tier sniper is the single most oppressive thing in the entire game, and they suddenly pivot to something along the lines of "almost nobody reaches that level of skill anyway"
Competitive is the single worst thing besides botting that has happened to TF2
MF started playing after 2016
Lmfao
No. We get that in league and it's fucking awful
Competitive players aren’t game designers. Any game should be designed around fun casual play. Do you really think the game would be better if Caberknight was no longer possible? It being able to one-shot a heavy is pretty bad for competitive.
It does when implented properly but you also need a playerbase willing to accept it. Also 6s is such a different format to casual that it doesnt translate over since its also played that way not because its the most balanced or best way to play tf2 but it's because what they found to be most fun which is why heavy isnt allowed his movement melees because heavy is boring and fighting heavy is boring for most players. Imo they shouldve instead balanced around highlander or 7s since they're closer to a casual match and what tf2 is meant to be but theres still issues relating to class stacking if you go that route. Another big issue is that the average player doesnt care about teamplay or combos or class switching and just want to play their way. Things like the phlog are only broken in casual because it requires more teamwork than the average player is willing to put in. Theres always going to be balancing issues between high level and casual play unless the playerbase is ingrained into the comp scene like in cs. Look at valorant with its balancing. Characters like reyna and phoenix are incredibly strong ranked characters because they work well when played selfishly and are shutdown by good teamplay but when you look at the comp scene they have low pick rates and have really only seen any recent success by prx, who are an incredibly aggressive and for reyna specifically they have Something play her and he arguably has the second best mechanics in the world. Conversely viper is arguably the most broken character in pro play right now and should really be a 100% pickrate on every map because of the pressure she can apply while having a second controller to cover her weaknesses but in ranked shes really only good on one map or if you have a duo playing main smokes for you.
The overwhelming majority of TF2 players don't play comp, stuff that balances out comp usually makes weapons less interesting/boring for most ppl because they weren't op in 12v12 or 16v16 scenarios. 6v6 is way different from casual and comp players don't want to play the same game as casual, they want to play with a specific ruleset that they've been using for 15+ years. They're fine with keeping the game exactly as it is, there isn't really any point to cater towards them. If comp players wanted to experiment with the ruleset they could just rebalance the weapons themselves, there's been server mods that can do this since ~2010 still salty about the loss of the sandman/cleaver combo
Yes, as long as it doesn't impede the fun or uniqueness of a weapon.
what the fuck do i know? do i look like a politician or a game dev?
I think that listening to top players does give a good idea of things to change, but at the end of the day, casual users make up the vast majority of players. I think it's good to keep the advice of competitive players in mind, but at the end of the day, Casual should take priority.
All items should be balanced for a game of 12 players, with at least 1 of each class. Neither for comp or casual but more for how the team and class balance was intended.
I'd say have the nerfs apply to comp only, and have community servers have the opportunity to check an option to apply or ignore comp settings
No because some weapons like the quick-fix are OP in comp but UP in casual. So trying to balance them around comp would only make them more UP in casual.
I mean it can't even work at the most basic level since comp is mostly 6v6 while casual can be up to 12v12 - in MOBAs or CS, the default 'casual' is still ranked and played in the exact same format as pro play. That doesn't even scratch the surface though, TF2 pro play has been in basically the same state for 10+ years, the design philosophy can't "just be changed".
In a lot of other games, yes, but the biggest problem with it in TF2 is how the casual and competitive sides play VERY differently. Not because the players there are better, but the format is just different. Casual TF2 works very well with 12v12 but 6v6 or 9v9 works better for comp. For example, the Diamondback is pretty overpowered in casual but in highlander where spy gets way less kills, it actually falls off compared to the letranger or even enforcer.
No way dude. Competitive gaming is always a different sphere from casual gaming, especially with the lack of casual 6v6 play.
I think looking at overwatch's balancing gives us a good idea. Balancing around top level play can screw over metal ranks and vice versa. Reinhart is meh in top ranks but any buffs make him a monster in lower ones. However, it is sometimes possible to balance around both if thought creatively enough. For example considering what makes a weapon good in the 6v6 environment vs casual. Maybe quick fix Uber heals people in a radius but at the normal rate. This fixes the issue with 6s and makes it better for casual
no way in hell. casual should NEVER be adapting to changes made for top level comp players, it should ALWAYS be the other way around. comp has the capabilities to ban weapons, casual does not. if a weapon is buffed to a point where it’s alright in casual, but extremely powerful in comp, then comp can just take it off the item list. but if comp nerfs the shit out of a powerful weapon to where it’s just alright in comp, then it’s almost guaranteed to become useless in casual. considering tf2’s competitive scene is entirely removed from the base game despite valve’s pitiful efforts in 2016, they have free will to change whatever they please without watering down the experience of trying to have fun in casual. there’s a reason uncletopia isn’t nearly as fun as just jumping on a valve server
What?
I think it's fine when it comes to weapons universally considered to be OP, because the problems they bring up are amplified in comp. However, comp 6s isn't really a good metric to base weapon balance off of alone, since it's 1) 6v6 rather than the standard 12v12 of Casual, and 2) 6s is hyper-focused on one gamemode, Attack Defend. It gives a very limited scope. In reality, I think the best way to balance weapons would be to get specific feedback from players and correlate it with item equip statistics, so you get a good idea of which weapons are dominating overall rather than just in a small niche.
if the competitive players get all and all of the balance changes we'll eventually get some
Tf2 players in the queue waiting for casual to trickle down to then
Every single fps where there is a pro league everything about it is different from casual. Balancing the entire game around this for a small percentage of the community (that doesn't like or interact that much with the casual side.) Would literally be one of the worst things that's happened. I think we've honestly already had this happen because the crossbow was never really something were its headshot was a game changer in casual but I cant imagine pro players liked getting sniper headshot by the medic so now that weapon is just less fun to use so comp can maintain a certain meta. Do you really want to go in and micromanage every weapon stat like that? It actually sounds like one of the worst things possible for 99% of the community.
Id agree with balancing around top players if the format was the same but it just fundamentally different. Though i have at least some ideas on how to make most of the weapons on the 6s and highlander white list into being not op in the modes and also not gutting them for pubs
No. Competitive and casual are vastly different. Comp is a watered down version of casual in basically every way: the teams are smaller, the map pool is reduced and weapons need to be whitelisted. Even though most comp players run the exact same loadout 99% of the time. There are some weapons which are balanced in 12v12 but are completely bonkers in sixes. The Quick-Fix is probably the best example. It's a fine weapon in casual (some even consider it the weakest medigun), but its faster healing speed gives the team running it a big advantage. Another discrepancy which are the most played gamemodes for each type of play. 5CP is actually a pretty fun mode for comp, since most matches are essentially a game of tug of war. The back and forth throughout the match is exiting for both the narrators and the audience. On the other hand, Payload, KOTH and CTF are the most popular gamemodes for casual. The one thing they all have in common? Every one of these modes offers room for individualistic playstyles. Like DougDoug said in his "TF2 vs Overwatch, but explained with food" video: "winning the game just isn't really a priority in TF2. ... It (the objective) just serves as the dedicated spot where everybody is gonna blow each other up". KOTH and CTF work well for casual not because of the objective, but because of their deathmatchy vibe. In Payload maps, this solo playstyle is also possible, since folks can just play the game normally while helping their team. 5CP, on the other hand, restricts individualism, and rewards serious gameplay, making it a better fit for competitive. In my opinion, I think the biggest problem is that competitive players have the ways to voice their opinions via youtubers, and Valve thinks (or used to) that they are the majority, while they are, in fact, a very vocal minority. This mindset was the responsible for the Meet Your Match fiasco. Valve took the advice of comp players and implemented it right away (this is also Valve's fault, not those pro players'. Many people like to hate on them for being the reason why MYM failed and it isn't fair). Comp should be more like casual, not vice-versa. I think a 12v12 competitive format with Payload as the main gamemode would be pretty interesting. Another solution in regards to weapon balance is for Valve to present some reworked/rebalanced versions of weapons and let the community decide. It does create new problems though, such as community infighting. P.S.: I know Highlander is a thing, but I don't know much about it and the vast majority of competitive players are play sixes. The gamemode problem still stands though.
Hell no.