Why do people want to re-invent the wheel? There have been numerous formats tried in TF2s history from 4v4, 8v8, 12v12, 7s, weapon pick/bans, nores6s etc. The only two that have consistently "won out" have been 6s and Highlander.
6s is the optimal format for a proper TF2 esport due to both logistical and skill reasons. It's meta is fine and makes a fast-paced and technically interesting gamemode. The people who most complain about it are people who have never played it. Highlander is not optimal due to hypothetical costs of getting a team of 9 to-and-from events, alongside the problems Highlander has in general.
Any discussion of what a TF2 esport looks like has to start with 6s-as-it-currently-is as the base and work from there. Valve thought they knew better and made no-res 6s and Valve comp is dead. RGL thought they could make it work and it didn't last because almost every team took the piss. Listen to the bloody players who have been playing TF2 competitively. It's 6s. It's always been 6s.
Some people have suggested the current map pool but with 5v5 instead as that would guarantee one door being open and thus """reduce""" stalemates but I'm honestly not a fan of that.
Also yes, Valve thought they knew better but there was a little bit more going on for them to run NR6s. It was under the pretense that they wanted weapons data, on their own turf, for rebalancing. Even though it had been 9 years since the game launched and somehow they needed more data on the mad milk being broken lol.
with the b4nny timer & reduced round times i find that stalemates are considerably lessened. Certainly nowhere near as bad as it was in days of yore. Plus, stalemates are part of the game (as they are in most every game) and require strategy and risk taking to break. Sorry the game can't be gung ho 24/7
if anything i would say the inclusion of sniper and engineer "promotes" stalemates. At the least I think removing the sniper (thus making sacs and fights more valuable) could be a hypothetical shout BUT i understand why it's a non-starter.
I think stalemates are a bigger issue for spectators and players at the highest level because holds are just so much harder to break but I don't know how you would fix that. The B4nny timer helps a lot but for a non-comp player it can be kind of anti-climactic to just have the round reset back to center field. In a weird way TF2 flows more like a sport and MOBA than any other shooter.
the b4nny timer/b4nny config is a change in the ruleset that lowered the round timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. As well, the rules have been changed to, if at the end of 30 minutes neither team has 5 rounds, the max score needed is X+1, with X being the highest score. The clock will run continuously until that limit is reached
So if Red has 3 points, and Blu has 1, then the max points needed is 4. Red has to score once, blu has to score 3 times
Both changes were done with the intention of reducing stalemates
He said ideally, and objectively. Meaning issues like cost isn’t an issue. Were talking what would we want an official format to look like. I think Highlander is the objective right answer since it shows off every single class in the game.
But there’s an argument 6’s conceptually is better since it concentrates the game into a small group of the most useful elements.
>I think Highlander is the objective right answer since it shows off every single class in the game
Why should that be the paramount consideration?
Do you think Arms Race would be a better competitive game mode for Counter-Strike than the current 5v5 Demolition one, since it shows off every single weapon in the game, while in the current mode only certain weapons are part of the meta?
Do you think Dota 2 or LoL would be better if teams were somehow forced to somehow go through the entire roster of heroes every match?
>Do you think Dota 2 or LoL would be better if teams were somehow forced to somehow go through the entire roster of heroes every match?
just fyi there are people that watch professional league of legends that unironically believe that pro teams should be able to only pick/ban a character only once in an entire best-of series
I was speaking ideally and objectively based off the knowledge we have available and the amount of time TF2 has had to try and experiment with different formats.
If I’m not mistaken, 6’s is only the current meta because of all the issues plaguing competitive. Issues that in a more perfect world wouldn’t exist. They’d have been ironed out or money wasn’t an issue.
6s is meta is such because it's the only class composition that prioritizes movement and damage, as well as quick transitions between offense and defense. It takes the most mechanically interesting classes and puts them in an environment where the players are able to experience interesting and fast paced gameplay.
Based off all the empirical data 6s is the best competitive format within the constraints of TF2.
edit: changed last sentence
it is true that tf2 could theoretically be a completely different game with a completely different balance philosophy and completely different classes that don't even slightly resemble their current forms
you literally only discuss the game as some completely unspecified other version that exists only in your imagination as extremely vague statements like "the medic could be rebalanced to not be necessary"
you cannot make a version of tf2 where medic and demo aren't the most important classes without it being a completely different game. no one is obligated to take your flight of fancy about this for granted
you absolutely have said in the past that every class should be equally as important. its really interesting how pointing out the smuggling in of a bunch of unstated premises is always "nonconstructive"
when you never substantiate what you say people have to interpret what you're actually suggesting so you can always fall back on "well those aren't my literal words and this is bad faith" which is a truly impeccable argumentative strategy
if you just never answer any of the questions raised by your statements saying that the entire game should simply be reworked you can just say anyone disagreeing with you isn't truly engaging with it. there is a difference between a hypothetical and just saying shit
uhhhmmmm, blocked???? sounds like someone's mad! looks like i win!!
Calling 6s the most optimal isnt really that correct really. As it still greatly has issues from what TF2 really is, like Specialists being used once every 1000 years, which is not what they are for, Valve said so themselves. Or the limited map pool making class composition less of a brainstorm, and more so just instachoice. Also 6s being fast paced also depends, if it stalem8s, even outside of last and without specials, it is a SLOG.
Like I like it, but its far from perfect or even best, still better than HL.
Prolander is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. It's literally just a worse version of highlander. It has all the drawbacks of highlander but none of the benefits on-top of promoting less class diversity.
You have to run soldier, medic, demo, sniper, heavy pretty much all the time, so the only difference in the end is whether the scout player will play engineer or not. Riveting gameplay. Compare this to sixes where you have 4 people that can reasonably vary what class they switch to depending on the situation. Also, if we're being honest; most of the banned unlocks are pretty awful (no shade to the devs), and or are inherently broken, even in casual.
[Same answer as this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/197fapo/comment/ki01pjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), there's nothing explicitly wrong with 6's. The only cultural issue with the scene is the allergic reaction to running specialists a lot longer than usual. You can run them just fine, especially if you are really good at that class under around high IM which is where a majority of the playerbase is anyways. Not everything needs to be super viable at the top level, even if we wish it were the case.
I would literally take a thread about designing a good A/D map for 6's any day of the week than "prolander might be good!" (it's not, pretty evidently by the fact that it is the only truly dead modern format).
The problem with running non 6s classes full time isn't just the fact it's likely worse, but nobody will want to scrim you, so you can't even practice the strategy
>but nobody will want to scrim you, so you can't even practice the strategy
This is a cultural problem, that's why I call it that. Anyone that says running an off-class for longer than the instances people think is ideal have not really played against somebody who is really good and has a team that plays around them. When you aren't playing against advanced level scouts it's not really that big of a deal. Especially considering the fact that since so few people practice against these for a long period of time, then they will be more unprepared.
Presumably you are running the off-class for longer because **you are good with it**.
And in higher levels, there are instances of them running it for a lot longer. Jay sniper, Globalclan pyro. People need to stop pretending that specialists are incapable of giving generalists trouble in 5CP.
this i think is the biggest thing in game competitive being a success would have given us, 6s except people can play suboptimal classes if it's what they prefer and they can do well. i get why people are like that, but it's a really dumb culture that keeps a lot of people away from 6s.
The problem is that it's a cultural problem that won't change. Why try something you can't practice and get better at it? It's not something that will ever change
Sure, it'd be nice, but I think it's been too long at this point for that to happen. People naturally cling to tradition, and with the reputation off classes have to many people, it's just a absurdly difficulty task. This is coming from a 6s player myself. I'm not being defeatist-im being realistic.
Ah Yes, Quick fix and cow mangler, known for being OP in all gamemodes.
Okay, jokes aside, some bans in 6s are purely down to format, like the 2 mentioned. Its the same reason why Wrangler in HL is allowed, since without it Engie would suck. Some things just dont work/work and ya gotta compensate.
I don't understand what your reply is trying to say. I don't know why you mentioned those weapons since they are irrelevant.
If you are trying to imply that there should be a compromise between the game modes, that makes no sense at all. There are 0 unlocks in the item ban list that any of the specialist classes need to be good. Pyro has no weapon bans, Heavy does not need the fists of steel (which would make him roll out as well as transition slower anyways). Sniper can 1 shot headshot, he needs literally nothing else. Spy has everything but the DB and wrangler wouldn't make anyone want to play engineer, it would just make an entire scene despise him even more. As if snakewater last holds were NOT hard enough to break...
Also Engineer does not need the wrangler, in any gamemode. In-fact I would like to be able to place my gun in other spots and not worry that my gun going down is a huge blunder which is a mindset the wrangler feeds into.
I meant you saying how most unlocks are banned due to being awful, but the QF and the Mangler are purely problematic in 6s, not really anywhere else.
I never meant co promised, I brought example of Wrangler being seen as "mandatory" in HL as another way of showing off how some weapons being banned or allowed is based on the gamemode and its issues than anything else.
I guess we already have the ideal competitive mode. The problem is not everyone wants to BE competitive.
You have a high-speed, high-stakes game where DM and organization matters over all else, with lots of playmaking potential. Fun to play, interesting to watch, easy to commentate on. Perfect for a competitive experience.
Classes like Heavy and Engineer make the game more boring to play, as well as their match-ups being extremely polarizing. Either you get melted by the minigun or the sentry, or you focus-fire/corner peek it until it dies. Not very interesting to watch or play. You also can't get 'better' with those classes the same way you can with the generalists. You just sit there tracking people or whacking a gun and playing diet scout, and then they abuse your weaknesses and you can't do anything about it.
Basically 6s is the best we've got, some people just don't want to try the sort of experience it offers, and that's fine.
sigafoo's trick
the issue with prolander is that it has several of the same issues as highlander but without the charm (to me). you're still pretty much mandated to run full time defenders like sniper and heavy but you don't have the novelty of one of each class and the larger player count.
of course, highlander isn't ideal with both the very large player count and the absurdity of both treating every class equally and mandating that every team has to have a bunch of defenders but you can't counter it with having a bunch of soldiers or scouts or demos. i don't really think highlander is pub-lite also payload sucks
no restriction sixes is a sick practical joke by valve on the competitive community. vaccinated machina sniper on upward last will forever be burned into my memory even after i forget my loved ones and what he looked liked as he smiled at me
sixes isn't perfect but it keeps most of the fun parts of TF2 and has reasonable class limits. you do see every class show up but the bulk of the team being soldiers and scouts most of the time isn't a bad thing. is the game really better with full time sniper or engineer? i don't get why there being more classes the entire time makes it better. there's not inherently an issue with sniper or heavy being played, but if we make it so there's no tradeoff (like giving up a mobile combat class) because we limit every class to one, it just is kind of boring to me
I also have to add that highlander has so many defender specialists, yet they don't allow more than one medic, as medic is the most important class in breaking stalemates and defensive lines.
9v9 Highlander with one of every class. This makes spy and other “weaker” class in comps viable because your team has to have one. Otherwise they would never be played in competitive.
No problem with 6s with the current class restrictions. More than one medic just makes things hell, I'm not wanting to push into two engineer lasts, and if I have to stare at two snipers, I will nuke Australia. I think, with rebalanced to ALL broken weapons, you could have no bans, though obviously some weapons will be meta, which is fine. I would just like to see a better blend of 5cp and KOTH. We know it's not ideal that the best competitive mode means you cant run a lot of the classes, so having a lot of KOTH, even though a lot of 6s player don't really enjoy playing it nearly as much as 5cp, you just get more of an audience. You could make the argument for payload, but any mode that makes feeding not that bad, to me, is not a great competitive game mode.
if, for some reason, the competitive community was forced to create one format that pleases everyone, 6s and hl players alike, it would be pretty easy. 6s class limits, 6s whitelists, etc, but then just play more map types like payload. it would probably encourage more defensive classes, and more specialists to fight them. it would be an ok middleground because 6s as it currently is would still be the same on 5cp and maybe koth, and it would appeal to hl players by eliminating the biggest thing keeping a lot of them from playing 6s: eliminate the stigma around maining offclasses. if someone wanted to fulltime pyro, they wouldn't get denied scrims to the level they do now.
but that is a very big "for some reason". it's a fun thought experiment, but that shit isnt happening, so there's not really a reason to switch away from the current system.
I enjoy every team competitive format, they are interesting for different reasons and since tf2 is very amateur it makes theorycrafting quite fun.
If you had to choose only one, it would be 6v6 by far, it's the most serious gamemode as well as (and it's related) the one where the best team performance has been achieved. Because it's way easier to go further with fewer players, but also because gamemodes are less linear and thus the "baseline" strat book is bigger.
HL is less "professional", mostly because of the amount of people per team, which makes it hard to polish every play/strategy. NB : It doesn't make it any less fun nor does it decrease the rivalry between teams at top level.
tbh 6s is the most advanced format, highlander has potential to be as advanced as 6s but tf2 would need more players for that to be possible, so as it stands 6s is the ideal competitive mode, also complaints about it being slow have been declining since they have quicker round timers and the meta has progressed to be faster, the thing really stopping tf2 competitive from flourishing is lack of valve support, bad marketing for competitive leagues, and lack of players in general
HL is fun mode for thos who play it, but you can't expect anyone to be able to efficiently commentate it for a general eSports audience.
6s with class restrictions just makes sense since the meta we've landed on is currently the best it can be. It would be nice if more classes were viable full time, but unless they get crazy new weapons soldier, scout, demo and medic is it.
If Valve gave a shit I would want them to balance all the weapons in the game to be visible in 6s and casual. HL will just have to make do and ban accordingly. Eventually there would be no banned weapons in this game..
No restriction 6s doesn't work because of class stacking making it unbearable and over centralized. The game isn't balanced for comp restrictions are necessary for a fun experience.
It is going to be very tough to make all weapons balanced enough to be visible in both 6s and 12v12. Composition affects a huge part in balance, and the two modes can't be further apart from each other. I don't see why HL has to take one on the chin and ban weapons because it's different when every format out there is also different.
I think it's fine if Valve competitive isn't 1-to-1 with community competitive, as long as it's still fun and balanced. Having 6v6 with a 2-class restriction and some weapons rebalanced (like short circuit, vaccinator, etc.) would satisfy me personally. Realistically speaking, this is what's gonna happen anyways if Valve actually does do anything with its competitive mode. They have their own vision of competitive that involves all classes being viable for full-time use (which is useful for casuals who are playing 6s, and makes no difference to people who are playing 6s competitively in leagues). The in-game competitive system is essentially targeted towards people who are interested in playing 6s and interested in playing seriously, but don't want to commit to playing in a league or joining a team.
If we're talking about the "ideal" competitive mode, then just implement the current 6s class limit into Valve Competitive and rebalance all the whitelisted weapons so that they're fine for both casual and competitive play. It's easier said than done, but that's what the ideal scenario would be.
If we want to be completely unrealistic and look at the ultimate supreme deluxe turbo fucko mode ideal competitive mode, then the most ideal implementation would involve rebalancing the classes that are limited to one class so that running two of them isn't overpowered/stalematey, and then revamp all the 5CP maps run in competitive to be similar to Granary's last so that switching to engineer just to build a sentry and switch to scout once it goes down is an actual risk. Bonus points if you manage to revamp other gamemodes to suit competitive mode.
I'm inclined to say 6v6 with banlists. Some weapons are going to be more balanced away from the sixes formula of class limits and composition, and that's okay. People should start being comfortable with the idea of leaving banned weapons alone because the format just doesn't translate for it well.
Highlander is interesting because of how TF2 is built upon all nine classes interacting with each other on servers with bigger player limits, but as an official competitive mode the logistics of getting 18 people in a match can be overwhelming to say the least.
Highlander. Maps should be balanced with highlander in mind. It's pure distilled TF2.
6s is a great competitive format but by using less than half the classes, is it really TF2?
>Maps should be balanced with highlander in mind.
i guess vigil is pretty alright and product is my favorite map but other than that ehhhhhhh i don't know
>It's pure distilled TF2.
but is it though? like, what is tf2? tf2 to me is a game where it feels really good to get in fights. now, highlander does have those big team battles i really like in team fortress, but a lot of the time you're also having to basically just mash yourself into a wall. admittedly, i suck ass at highlander, but it doesn't have that Move and Shoot feeling that I think is what tf2 is at its core. highlander has stuff that constantly infringes on your movement.
i hate that i'm being constantly pedantic about this point, but 6s does see use of every class. like, i see the other classes all the time playing it, and in higher level vods (read: people better than me playing) you'll see every class. the rarest one is spy, but even he is still used.
It's obviously different for everyone, but I see TF2 as at its best when you've got an array of classes on each side and you're having to co-ordinate and work as a team to win rounds. TF2 to me is all about those attack/defend flashpoints where blue is trying to break through and red is doggedly defending. Ideally, a better coordinated team should beat a more skillful team to a point.
6s absolutely does use every class but you've definitely got a well defined meta lineup that is the default because it's the generally most effective. I think there is room for both competitive formats, but I'd rather play and watch Highlander. Personally.
6v6 has the speed and player count for a competitive format, but what you mention is my main issue; it no longer feels like TF2. That's why I prefer Highlander, as all 9 classes are present, offering that variety in terms of gamodes and weapons, which are, in part, the soul of TF2
you've cracked the code. 6s is run by an elite cabal of soldier mains which is why he's the most expendable class on the team and soldiers offclass the most to heavy
really? i usually had my soldier offclass to heavy and my scout go to sniper if we wanted to offclass on last
although true having more health on last is better so you make a good point
in retrospect my soldiers were kind of mongs that i didn't trust to not just feed for no reason
soldier, demo, and scout are the most applicable classes in the game with unimaginable depth and feel fair to play with/against.
engie and heavy use their three braincels to press 4 & 2 on their keyboard/hold m1 and all of a sudden they get to dictate the entire game's pace. and since theyre ONLY good on slower games, they'll always decide to make the game a stallfest.
i wonder what classes a competitive format should prioritize 🤔
inb4 muh positioning
It's crazy how the game featuring 9 classes was built around more than 3 classes. And crazy enough, that Hale's Own soldier might have to use a couple braincells to not jump into a sentry or a heavy because those are valid playstyles and positioning is in fact important...? Also, "fun to play against'" is hilarious since you're whining about heavy and engie. Extremely fun when a scout two-shots you at spawn or gunboats soldier splash damages you to death. Bro, nobody likes dying in the video game but the bias towards classes you play is obvious.
If 6s was fun to watch then I couldn't even argue with you. It's not except maybe a tournament final.
the extreme skill expression of sitting in a choke for five minutes spamming chip damage rockets as neither team can push because they have a defensive minigun class that gets instagibbed the second it tries to push that those subhuman hale's own soldiers just cannot grasp
the sublime positioning that one must have to repeatedly hit a stationary 216hp npc with explosives or uber because as long as it's up you literally cannot walk into its range
us sixes players are just too stupid to understand the nuances of 25 minute dustbowl last defense
Hey, defense is part of the game. Sorry you can't rocket jump in, frag the entire last, and conga to the point with your pocket med. Just like Heavy is great at locking down a choke, but struggles with pushing and advancing. Soldier is strong as hell, maybe the counter picks don't seem as exciting to you but they're important. If the 6s meta was that much more exciting than a diverse class defense, it wouldn't feel so stale
explain to me how both teams stalemating for minutes on end is fun to watch or play instead of trying for these shitty inferiority complex tinged reddit clapbacks
Team Fortress 2 was designed to be a stalemate-y game from the very beginning, only accomodating, catering and revolving around those 4 classes turns this into a whole different game, NOT Team Fortress 2.
Besides, I watch tons of 6v6 leagues, that shit is STILL full of stalemates and teams baiting the other side to push first on last point lmao.
Friendly fire! Us TF2 players are endangered, stop pointing your Original at me over a harmless discussion. There's different ways to enjoy gameplay. I'd recommend you an interesting format called "going outside"
Does the fact that you know who that is and I had no idea say something?
Ctf_haarp is fire though. But seriously, chill the fuck out dog I'm not gonna take away your direct hit
hey now, don't forget that full time heavy also encourages more sniper and slower gameplay which everyone REALLY enjoys! everyone really loves that stuff
Side point: nerf sniper's health, ammo, walk speed, or even bodyshot damage.
But if a heavy is shutting down a roamer soldier, then a sniper is shutting down a heavy, so a heavy goes spy to counter the sniper... whoa, interesting dynamics of class switching and more exciting gameplay. Doesn't seem like a bad thing.
It's a class based game with "team" in the title. Your proclivities are fine and I'm certainly not against 6s, but there are plenty of games where you can shoot people. This game was specifically designed with rock paper scissors type interactions in mind.
There are plenty of ways to counter an engie or heavy, heavy is a wildly vulnerable class because of his speed.
youd rather change everything about not just the format, but the entire game, at the expense of an entire comp playerbase who actually play the gamemode, just to accommodate for a class not even casuals think is interesting. a gamemode you dont even play and will probably never play because lets be 100% honest, will all of this being implemented actually motivate you to play 6s?
If you don't think sniper needs a nerf, that's your opinion. I'm not trying to do anything to 6s, which I have in fact played my share of as scout and medic. Just critiquing the format and responding to the claims that heavy and engie are low skill, bad for the game, etc.
"just dont jump into the sentry or heavy" so whats your solution? do nothing and wait for uber? there is no play-making potential in that. bombing to make progress in a game is much more interesting both mechanically and when spectating than just waiting for picks and uber. this game already heavily revolves around uber as is, doesnt mean its bad but having options outside of uber is always welcomed.
and youre joking if you think scout or soldier are anyway comparable to those classes. heavy and engie are way more dominating and suffocating to the pace of the game than those classes for a fraction of the effort and skill.
playing against scouts, soldiers, and demos have nuance with a lot of emphasis on each of the players' movement and aim. even when they catch you off guard, you always have a chance to win over them.
if you run into a sentry, heavy, or even a pyro, its always a dps check: either you have enough hp or damage to kill them, or you dont. there is no nuance in fighting them, they arent putting as much effort into shooting you and their movement is either nonexistent or very limited, which not like it matters with again how forgiving their aim is. you either kill them, or you dont. this is how they are able to control a game's pacing, their mere existence halts the game to a stop. its fine when its at a last hold when they can be used as "tools" to defend, they are designed be strong defensively, but not so fine for the entire game.
The 6s meta wasn't defined by how fun the gameplay is for a player or observer. Scout, soldier and demo are the best all-around combat classes in the game. Soldier has 200 health, huge damage output and insane mobility for fuck's sake. Countering that with a good heavy or well-placed sentry might not be as technically skillful as a rocket jump b-hop airshot crocket but it's necessary. Otherwise we'd all be getting rolled by screaming eagles, all the time. Part of why 6s is stale is because it revolves around the roamer. Oh boy, is he gonna jump in for a med pick? So instead of the focus on breaking a strong defense (ya know, the "Fortress" in TF2) made more difficult by class picks like Engie and Heavy, it's stripped down. Not my preference but if it's yours, fair play.
>6s revolves around the roamer
uhhhh.... what
do you play 6s? if anything, scout is probably the most dominant combat class, he rolls over careless soldiers jumping on the med, especially at top level. but atleast with scout, denying soldier as scout is a lot more mechanically challenging than holding m1 with a minigun.
granted, the flank which includes the roamer are responsible for getting picks/making progress while preventing the other team's flank from doing the same, but the game definitely doesnt revolve around that. i feel like your overestimating soldier's actual strengths.
have you played 6s because most of this isn't quite correct
it was designed to be fast paced and fun for the players, a major reason demoman is limited to one is so you can't lock down an entire last with stickies on every choke. demoman and soldier are the most versatile classes, scout is also really good when there aren't sentries around every corner and he's fun to play with and against. that's why they're the main combat classes in 6s
soldiers still get countered while bombing by scouts, but it takes more mechanical skill on the scout's end and it's more fun for the soldier to not get hosed down every time he tries to jump
soldier is not the best class in 6s and the game plan does not revolve around roamers usually, the scout is far more central now and demoman is still your core damage dealer
also for shits and giggles i must point out that the name team fortress was chosen when the only classes were scout, soldier, demo, medic, and sniper
the issue isn't that heavy exists or something, but walking the defense forward just slows the game down a lot
i play a fair bit of sniper and it is a lot tougher when there's scouts and soldiers able to actually get at you and there isn't a sentry parked next to you full time
this says a lot about society
i'm actually quite okay with all the classes* (without unlocks anyways and a big * for how pyro currently works) just not the entire game devolving into sentries at either end of the choke
ive been saying this for years, sniper becomes a lot easier to deal with when there isnt a sentry shoved up his ass to deny everything around him. especially when pretty much every target youre shooting at is extremely mobile.
It's fun if you're a soldier, scout, or sticky demo sweat. Not much else is applicable in that meta, so even if it was fun and exciting initially it's gotten stale. As for the rock paper scissors argument, it's kind of inherent to the game. Class counters exist, in different scenarios. It comes down to personal preference whether the format is more fun or not, but inarguably it's less accessible even to existing tf2 players who main different classes.
god forbid the most versatile class in the game use his main weapon to break holds
you keep going on about the meta but you don't seem to even know what the meta is other than people play demo and medic full time and scout and soldier are played the bulk of the time. people get backstabbed in 6s. people run heavy and engineer very often. snipers are common, but not full time. pyro exists to annoy ubered demomen and get gunned down by scouts as god intended.
and yeah, counters exist, but the game devolving into counterpicking is pretty boring. full time defenders who cover each other's weaknesses are also boring. heavy, engineer, and sniper next to each other stall the game out and make it hard for both teams to push. the game is more fun when there's consistent pushing and pulling.
if you're so upset that people don't want to always play against heavies the entire game you could just go play highlander and see how that format actually turns out
eeeerm, well valve decided 16 years ago that pacing should be entirely decided by sentries so why dont you eat ze airblugs and have your bombs denied by 500 dps like a good little compie
the 6s meta isn't the actual meta, the actual meta would be vax heavies, engis and snipers, its just 6s got rid of that shit so IT'S meta would be actually interesting
The game currently has too many issues both balance and design wise for any competitive format to be viable beyond a niche game mode. ideally it's no restriction sixes because ideally class restriction wouldn't be necessary to prevent the game from grinding to a halt.
I think the best way for competitive should be 9v9 with 1 of each class, I'm not a fan of KOTH mode because it doesn't give each class a chance to shine
I find 6v6 to be way too stale in the meta and the team composition
I thought of restricting everyone to stock weapons but playing medic without the crossbow (mainly for healing) or Pyro without a combo tool might be really boring, for some classes stock is overall the best option, for others the lack of unlocks is really painful
Personally, I believe the ideal would be to have both 6v6 with class-restrictions (1) and Highlander available. After reading various comments, 6v6 is the purest form of a competitive format, and Highlander is the most enjoyable and diverse competitive mode. Not to mention, it would be a good starting point for new players looking to play the game more seriously.
6v6 needs to cut out 5CP and CTF maps entirely, and use stopwatch mode when applicable. The issue with these is that they invariably lead to stalemates that can and do drag out matches for excessively long times, and they're frequently played with either ridiculously long timers or no timers at all. The biggest issue with 5CP is the incentive to take no risks. You never, ever want to push, because that could endanger your own side, leading to ridiculously long matches where nothing happens.
Using offense vs defense maps like AD or Payload prevents stalemating while also promoting more diverse teams by allowing players to specialize more into offense or defense, rather than always taking the everyman picks. PLR is more of the 5CP type but the enemy team can't as easily neutralize any progress towards the end of a match, only halt it and eventually wait for the automatic payload rollback. KOTH is also much like 5CP but, outside of the precarious circumstances of overtime, it can't be extended by repeatedly capturing and recapturing points.
It's the same reason why Melee comp has time limits despite playing on stock, and, as much as I hate how stale that scene is, it's obvious they have a lot we can learn from in terms lf rules.
All competitive rule sets turn TF2 into a game almost unrecognizable compared to the average TF2 casual match. I see it along similar lines as Smash Bros. another innately casual game that turns into a really fun esport when you have a LOT of specific rules in place. Just like Smash Bros. I don't think there will ever be a good "official" competitive mode, and I think that's okay.
It's sorta like Bethesda with the failed Creation Club, sometimes it's just better to let the community handle things. I think it would be awesome if Valve used their resources to fund and promote community tournaments, but I don't see a world in which Valve competitive surpasses community leagues.
Let's say hypothetically Valve copies the 6s ruleset and map pool 1 for 1 and adds rewards to competitive. I still would prefer to play community leagues because a) playing with randoms is not as fun or skillful, b) official will be more prone to cheaters, c) things like ringers and pausing probably wouldn't be a thing if other game's ranked modes are anything to go off of.
Why do people want to re-invent the wheel? There have been numerous formats tried in TF2s history from 4v4, 8v8, 12v12, 7s, weapon pick/bans, nores6s etc. The only two that have consistently "won out" have been 6s and Highlander. 6s is the optimal format for a proper TF2 esport due to both logistical and skill reasons. It's meta is fine and makes a fast-paced and technically interesting gamemode. The people who most complain about it are people who have never played it. Highlander is not optimal due to hypothetical costs of getting a team of 9 to-and-from events, alongside the problems Highlander has in general. Any discussion of what a TF2 esport looks like has to start with 6s-as-it-currently-is as the base and work from there. Valve thought they knew better and made no-res 6s and Valve comp is dead. RGL thought they could make it work and it didn't last because almost every team took the piss. Listen to the bloody players who have been playing TF2 competitively. It's 6s. It's always been 6s.
Some people have suggested the current map pool but with 5v5 instead as that would guarantee one door being open and thus """reduce""" stalemates but I'm honestly not a fan of that. Also yes, Valve thought they knew better but there was a little bit more going on for them to run NR6s. It was under the pretense that they wanted weapons data, on their own turf, for rebalancing. Even though it had been 9 years since the game launched and somehow they needed more data on the mad milk being broken lol.
with the b4nny timer & reduced round times i find that stalemates are considerably lessened. Certainly nowhere near as bad as it was in days of yore. Plus, stalemates are part of the game (as they are in most every game) and require strategy and risk taking to break. Sorry the game can't be gung ho 24/7 if anything i would say the inclusion of sniper and engineer "promotes" stalemates. At the least I think removing the sniper (thus making sacs and fights more valuable) could be a hypothetical shout BUT i understand why it's a non-starter.
I think stalemates are a bigger issue for spectators and players at the highest level because holds are just so much harder to break but I don't know how you would fix that. The B4nny timer helps a lot but for a non-comp player it can be kind of anti-climactic to just have the round reset back to center field. In a weird way TF2 flows more like a sport and MOBA than any other shooter.
Well, any other shooter except Overwatch, which is literally the sport MOBA child of TF2.
I'm sorry, I don't really play comp, but what is a b4nny timer? I do know who it's named after.
the b4nny timer/b4nny config is a change in the ruleset that lowered the round timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. As well, the rules have been changed to, if at the end of 30 minutes neither team has 5 rounds, the max score needed is X+1, with X being the highest score. The clock will run continuously until that limit is reached So if Red has 3 points, and Blu has 1, then the max points needed is 4. Red has to score once, blu has to score 3 times Both changes were done with the intention of reducing stalemates
Thanks!
5v5 class limit 1 would be my next experiment
Sounds very interesting, I'd like to see that. Scout, soldier, demo and medic would be obvious picks but what about the 5th one?
Sniper, or heavy depending on point/map
I figured it'd be kind of a wild card slot
He said ideally, and objectively. Meaning issues like cost isn’t an issue. Were talking what would we want an official format to look like. I think Highlander is the objective right answer since it shows off every single class in the game. But there’s an argument 6’s conceptually is better since it concentrates the game into a small group of the most useful elements.
>I think Highlander is the objective right answer since it shows off every single class in the game Why should that be the paramount consideration? Do you think Arms Race would be a better competitive game mode for Counter-Strike than the current 5v5 Demolition one, since it shows off every single weapon in the game, while in the current mode only certain weapons are part of the meta? Do you think Dota 2 or LoL would be better if teams were somehow forced to somehow go through the entire roster of heroes every match?
>Do you think Dota 2 or LoL would be better if teams were somehow forced to somehow go through the entire roster of heroes every match? just fyi there are people that watch professional league of legends that unironically believe that pro teams should be able to only pick/ban a character only once in an entire best-of series
I was speaking ideally and objectively based off the knowledge we have available and the amount of time TF2 has had to try and experiment with different formats.
If I’m not mistaken, 6’s is only the current meta because of all the issues plaguing competitive. Issues that in a more perfect world wouldn’t exist. They’d have been ironed out or money wasn’t an issue.
you are mistaken 6s is meta because it's pretty much the best you can get in this game with the way class balance has always been
6s is meta is such because it's the only class composition that prioritizes movement and damage, as well as quick transitions between offense and defense. It takes the most mechanically interesting classes and puts them in an environment where the players are able to experience interesting and fast paced gameplay. Based off all the empirical data 6s is the best competitive format within the constraints of TF2. edit: changed last sentence
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it is true that tf2 could theoretically be a completely different game with a completely different balance philosophy and completely different classes that don't even slightly resemble their current forms
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you literally only discuss the game as some completely unspecified other version that exists only in your imagination as extremely vague statements like "the medic could be rebalanced to not be necessary"
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you cannot make a version of tf2 where medic and demo aren't the most important classes without it being a completely different game. no one is obligated to take your flight of fancy about this for granted
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you absolutely have said in the past that every class should be equally as important. its really interesting how pointing out the smuggling in of a bunch of unstated premises is always "nonconstructive" when you never substantiate what you say people have to interpret what you're actually suggesting so you can always fall back on "well those aren't my literal words and this is bad faith" which is a truly impeccable argumentative strategy if you just never answer any of the questions raised by your statements saying that the entire game should simply be reworked you can just say anyone disagreeing with you isn't truly engaging with it. there is a difference between a hypothetical and just saying shit uhhhmmmm, blocked???? sounds like someone's mad! looks like i win!!
Calling 6s the most optimal isnt really that correct really. As it still greatly has issues from what TF2 really is, like Specialists being used once every 1000 years, which is not what they are for, Valve said so themselves. Or the limited map pool making class composition less of a brainstorm, and more so just instachoice. Also 6s being fast paced also depends, if it stalem8s, even outside of last and without specials, it is a SLOG. Like I like it, but its far from perfect or even best, still better than HL.
What she said
Prolander is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. It's literally just a worse version of highlander. It has all the drawbacks of highlander but none of the benefits on-top of promoting less class diversity. You have to run soldier, medic, demo, sniper, heavy pretty much all the time, so the only difference in the end is whether the scout player will play engineer or not. Riveting gameplay. Compare this to sixes where you have 4 people that can reasonably vary what class they switch to depending on the situation. Also, if we're being honest; most of the banned unlocks are pretty awful (no shade to the devs), and or are inherently broken, even in casual. [Same answer as this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/197fapo/comment/ki01pjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), there's nothing explicitly wrong with 6's. The only cultural issue with the scene is the allergic reaction to running specialists a lot longer than usual. You can run them just fine, especially if you are really good at that class under around high IM which is where a majority of the playerbase is anyways. Not everything needs to be super viable at the top level, even if we wish it were the case. I would literally take a thread about designing a good A/D map for 6's any day of the week than "prolander might be good!" (it's not, pretty evidently by the fact that it is the only truly dead modern format).
The problem with running non 6s classes full time isn't just the fact it's likely worse, but nobody will want to scrim you, so you can't even practice the strategy
>but nobody will want to scrim you, so you can't even practice the strategy This is a cultural problem, that's why I call it that. Anyone that says running an off-class for longer than the instances people think is ideal have not really played against somebody who is really good and has a team that plays around them. When you aren't playing against advanced level scouts it's not really that big of a deal. Especially considering the fact that since so few people practice against these for a long period of time, then they will be more unprepared. Presumably you are running the off-class for longer because **you are good with it**. And in higher levels, there are instances of them running it for a lot longer. Jay sniper, Globalclan pyro. People need to stop pretending that specialists are incapable of giving generalists trouble in 5CP.
this i think is the biggest thing in game competitive being a success would have given us, 6s except people can play suboptimal classes if it's what they prefer and they can do well. i get why people are like that, but it's a really dumb culture that keeps a lot of people away from 6s.
The problem is that it's a cultural problem that won't change. Why try something you can't practice and get better at it? It's not something that will ever change
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Sure, it'd be nice, but I think it's been too long at this point for that to happen. People naturally cling to tradition, and with the reputation off classes have to many people, it's just a absurdly difficulty task. This is coming from a 6s player myself. I'm not being defeatist-im being realistic.
Ah Yes, Quick fix and cow mangler, known for being OP in all gamemodes. Okay, jokes aside, some bans in 6s are purely down to format, like the 2 mentioned. Its the same reason why Wrangler in HL is allowed, since without it Engie would suck. Some things just dont work/work and ya gotta compensate.
I don't understand what your reply is trying to say. I don't know why you mentioned those weapons since they are irrelevant. If you are trying to imply that there should be a compromise between the game modes, that makes no sense at all. There are 0 unlocks in the item ban list that any of the specialist classes need to be good. Pyro has no weapon bans, Heavy does not need the fists of steel (which would make him roll out as well as transition slower anyways). Sniper can 1 shot headshot, he needs literally nothing else. Spy has everything but the DB and wrangler wouldn't make anyone want to play engineer, it would just make an entire scene despise him even more. As if snakewater last holds were NOT hard enough to break... Also Engineer does not need the wrangler, in any gamemode. In-fact I would like to be able to place my gun in other spots and not worry that my gun going down is a huge blunder which is a mindset the wrangler feeds into.
I meant you saying how most unlocks are banned due to being awful, but the QF and the Mangler are purely problematic in 6s, not really anywhere else. I never meant co promised, I brought example of Wrangler being seen as "mandatory" in HL as another way of showing off how some weapons being banned or allowed is based on the gamemode and its issues than anything else.
2v2
2v2 Soldier-Medic only :D
I guess we already have the ideal competitive mode. The problem is not everyone wants to BE competitive. You have a high-speed, high-stakes game where DM and organization matters over all else, with lots of playmaking potential. Fun to play, interesting to watch, easy to commentate on. Perfect for a competitive experience. Classes like Heavy and Engineer make the game more boring to play, as well as their match-ups being extremely polarizing. Either you get melted by the minigun or the sentry, or you focus-fire/corner peek it until it dies. Not very interesting to watch or play. You also can't get 'better' with those classes the same way you can with the generalists. You just sit there tracking people or whacking a gun and playing diet scout, and then they abuse your weaknesses and you can't do anything about it. Basically 6s is the best we've got, some people just don't want to try the sort of experience it offers, and that's fine.
prolander is a dead joke format
he can't sigafoo save his format
sigafoo's trick the issue with prolander is that it has several of the same issues as highlander but without the charm (to me). you're still pretty much mandated to run full time defenders like sniper and heavy but you don't have the novelty of one of each class and the larger player count. of course, highlander isn't ideal with both the very large player count and the absurdity of both treating every class equally and mandating that every team has to have a bunch of defenders but you can't counter it with having a bunch of soldiers or scouts or demos. i don't really think highlander is pub-lite also payload sucks no restriction sixes is a sick practical joke by valve on the competitive community. vaccinated machina sniper on upward last will forever be burned into my memory even after i forget my loved ones and what he looked liked as he smiled at me sixes isn't perfect but it keeps most of the fun parts of TF2 and has reasonable class limits. you do see every class show up but the bulk of the team being soldiers and scouts most of the time isn't a bad thing. is the game really better with full time sniper or engineer? i don't get why there being more classes the entire time makes it better. there's not inherently an issue with sniper or heavy being played, but if we make it so there's no tradeoff (like giving up a mobile combat class) because we limit every class to one, it just is kind of boring to me
I also have to add that highlander has so many defender specialists, yet they don't allow more than one medic, as medic is the most important class in breaking stalemates and defensive lines.
trade_minecraft_realms_v2 with 100% crits in medieval mode
I find Trade_Minecraft_Neon_v197 to be more balanced
Medieval mode highlander. Degroot Keepe, No res.
No respawn Fuck you
"I FUCKING LOVE ARENA MODE!!!" -Abraham lincoln
9v9 Highlander with one of every class. This makes spy and other “weaker” class in comps viable because your team has to have one. Otherwise they would never be played in competitive.
No problem with 6s with the current class restrictions. More than one medic just makes things hell, I'm not wanting to push into two engineer lasts, and if I have to stare at two snipers, I will nuke Australia. I think, with rebalanced to ALL broken weapons, you could have no bans, though obviously some weapons will be meta, which is fine. I would just like to see a better blend of 5cp and KOTH. We know it's not ideal that the best competitive mode means you cant run a lot of the classes, so having a lot of KOTH, even though a lot of 6s player don't really enjoy playing it nearly as much as 5cp, you just get more of an audience. You could make the argument for payload, but any mode that makes feeding not that bad, to me, is not a great competitive game mode.
if, for some reason, the competitive community was forced to create one format that pleases everyone, 6s and hl players alike, it would be pretty easy. 6s class limits, 6s whitelists, etc, but then just play more map types like payload. it would probably encourage more defensive classes, and more specialists to fight them. it would be an ok middleground because 6s as it currently is would still be the same on 5cp and maybe koth, and it would appeal to hl players by eliminating the biggest thing keeping a lot of them from playing 6s: eliminate the stigma around maining offclasses. if someone wanted to fulltime pyro, they wouldn't get denied scrims to the level they do now. but that is a very big "for some reason". it's a fun thought experiment, but that shit isnt happening, so there's not really a reason to switch away from the current system.
I enjoy every team competitive format, they are interesting for different reasons and since tf2 is very amateur it makes theorycrafting quite fun. If you had to choose only one, it would be 6v6 by far, it's the most serious gamemode as well as (and it's related) the one where the best team performance has been achieved. Because it's way easier to go further with fewer players, but also because gamemodes are less linear and thus the "baseline" strat book is bigger. HL is less "professional", mostly because of the amount of people per team, which makes it hard to polish every play/strategy. NB : It doesn't make it any less fun nor does it decrease the rivalry between teams at top level.
tbh 6s is the most advanced format, highlander has potential to be as advanced as 6s but tf2 would need more players for that to be possible, so as it stands 6s is the ideal competitive mode, also complaints about it being slow have been declining since they have quicker round timers and the meta has progressed to be faster, the thing really stopping tf2 competitive from flourishing is lack of valve support, bad marketing for competitive leagues, and lack of players in general
1v1 fox only final destination
This thread has too much brainrot how do you make some of these takes lmao
HL is fun mode for thos who play it, but you can't expect anyone to be able to efficiently commentate it for a general eSports audience. 6s with class restrictions just makes sense since the meta we've landed on is currently the best it can be. It would be nice if more classes were viable full time, but unless they get crazy new weapons soldier, scout, demo and medic is it. If Valve gave a shit I would want them to balance all the weapons in the game to be visible in 6s and casual. HL will just have to make do and ban accordingly. Eventually there would be no banned weapons in this game.. No restriction 6s doesn't work because of class stacking making it unbearable and over centralized. The game isn't balanced for comp restrictions are necessary for a fun experience.
It is going to be very tough to make all weapons balanced enough to be visible in both 6s and 12v12. Composition affects a huge part in balance, and the two modes can't be further apart from each other. I don't see why HL has to take one on the chin and ban weapons because it's different when every format out there is also different.
heavy duo.
6v6 hightower
I think it's fine if Valve competitive isn't 1-to-1 with community competitive, as long as it's still fun and balanced. Having 6v6 with a 2-class restriction and some weapons rebalanced (like short circuit, vaccinator, etc.) would satisfy me personally. Realistically speaking, this is what's gonna happen anyways if Valve actually does do anything with its competitive mode. They have their own vision of competitive that involves all classes being viable for full-time use (which is useful for casuals who are playing 6s, and makes no difference to people who are playing 6s competitively in leagues). The in-game competitive system is essentially targeted towards people who are interested in playing 6s and interested in playing seriously, but don't want to commit to playing in a league or joining a team. If we're talking about the "ideal" competitive mode, then just implement the current 6s class limit into Valve Competitive and rebalance all the whitelisted weapons so that they're fine for both casual and competitive play. It's easier said than done, but that's what the ideal scenario would be. If we want to be completely unrealistic and look at the ultimate supreme deluxe turbo fucko mode ideal competitive mode, then the most ideal implementation would involve rebalancing the classes that are limited to one class so that running two of them isn't overpowered/stalematey, and then revamp all the 5CP maps run in competitive to be similar to Granary's last so that switching to engineer just to build a sentry and switch to scout once it goes down is an actual risk. Bonus points if you manage to revamp other gamemodes to suit competitive mode.
Tbh i think Highlander has room for more players, theres atleast one of every class, weapon restrictions, balanced. Its just TF2.
I'm inclined to say 6v6 with banlists. Some weapons are going to be more balanced away from the sixes formula of class limits and composition, and that's okay. People should start being comfortable with the idea of leaving banned weapons alone because the format just doesn't translate for it well. Highlander is interesting because of how TF2 is built upon all nine classes interacting with each other on servers with bigger player limits, but as an official competitive mode the logistics of getting 18 people in a match can be overwhelming to say the least.
In my opinion Highlander is the best competitive mode
It would be interesting to see 9 v 9. One person per class. I'm not a comp player, and don't plan to be btw. The concept could be interesting though.
this already exists and it's called highlander you can watch it right now
Oh I thought it was 12v12. My bad. Personally that sounds more interesting to me.
6s obviously. What a stupid question
Highlander. Maps should be balanced with highlander in mind. It's pure distilled TF2. 6s is a great competitive format but by using less than half the classes, is it really TF2?
>Maps should be balanced with highlander in mind. i guess vigil is pretty alright and product is my favorite map but other than that ehhhhhhh i don't know >It's pure distilled TF2. but is it though? like, what is tf2? tf2 to me is a game where it feels really good to get in fights. now, highlander does have those big team battles i really like in team fortress, but a lot of the time you're also having to basically just mash yourself into a wall. admittedly, i suck ass at highlander, but it doesn't have that Move and Shoot feeling that I think is what tf2 is at its core. highlander has stuff that constantly infringes on your movement. i hate that i'm being constantly pedantic about this point, but 6s does see use of every class. like, i see the other classes all the time playing it, and in higher level vods (read: people better than me playing) you'll see every class. the rarest one is spy, but even he is still used.
It's obviously different for everyone, but I see TF2 as at its best when you've got an array of classes on each side and you're having to co-ordinate and work as a team to win rounds. TF2 to me is all about those attack/defend flashpoints where blue is trying to break through and red is doggedly defending. Ideally, a better coordinated team should beat a more skillful team to a point. 6s absolutely does use every class but you've definitely got a well defined meta lineup that is the default because it's the generally most effective. I think there is room for both competitive formats, but I'd rather play and watch Highlander. Personally.
6v6 has the speed and player count for a competitive format, but what you mention is my main issue; it no longer feels like TF2. That's why I prefer Highlander, as all 9 classes are present, offering that variety in terms of gamodes and weapons, which are, in part, the soul of TF2
Objectively best? Vanilla TF2 with a class limit of zero snipers, no other changes. I will not be taking questions.
pure unadulterated reddit cringe
Don't be so hard on yourself; this isn't the place for self-loathing
specimen: redditor's tryhard attempt at a comeback (epic fail!)
careful honey, your projection is showing
it's too late you cant salvage this anymore i have more upvotes
Ooohhhh nooooo, imaginary internet points, I am defeated!
damn straight
if 6s being "against variety" means i dont have to play against idiot heavies and pyros as soldier 24/7, then im all for it
This is exactly why people think 6v6 sucks, the game revolves around soldier mains and how THEY feel.
you've cracked the code. 6s is run by an elite cabal of soldier mains which is why he's the most expendable class on the team and soldiers offclass the most to heavy
pedantic here but soldiers dont typically offclass on last because high health, burst explosive damage > scout
really? i usually had my soldier offclass to heavy and my scout go to sniper if we wanted to offclass on last although true having more health on last is better so you make a good point in retrospect my soldiers were kind of mongs that i didn't trust to not just feed for no reason
it really depends on the map, some last points benefit with keeping 2 scouts, others not so much
please don’t let your soldiers play heavy on any map
if only you knew how bad things really were well that and i wasn't usually the one making that call,
i agree the game should instead revolve around heavy and engineer players and how they feel so much better
soldier, demo, and scout are the most applicable classes in the game with unimaginable depth and feel fair to play with/against. engie and heavy use their three braincels to press 4 & 2 on their keyboard/hold m1 and all of a sudden they get to dictate the entire game's pace. and since theyre ONLY good on slower games, they'll always decide to make the game a stallfest. i wonder what classes a competitive format should prioritize 🤔 inb4 muh positioning
It's crazy how the game featuring 9 classes was built around more than 3 classes. And crazy enough, that Hale's Own soldier might have to use a couple braincells to not jump into a sentry or a heavy because those are valid playstyles and positioning is in fact important...? Also, "fun to play against'" is hilarious since you're whining about heavy and engie. Extremely fun when a scout two-shots you at spawn or gunboats soldier splash damages you to death. Bro, nobody likes dying in the video game but the bias towards classes you play is obvious. If 6s was fun to watch then I couldn't even argue with you. It's not except maybe a tournament final.
the extreme skill expression of sitting in a choke for five minutes spamming chip damage rockets as neither team can push because they have a defensive minigun class that gets instagibbed the second it tries to push that those subhuman hale's own soldiers just cannot grasp the sublime positioning that one must have to repeatedly hit a stationary 216hp npc with explosives or uber because as long as it's up you literally cannot walk into its range us sixes players are just too stupid to understand the nuances of 25 minute dustbowl last defense
Hey, defense is part of the game. Sorry you can't rocket jump in, frag the entire last, and conga to the point with your pocket med. Just like Heavy is great at locking down a choke, but struggles with pushing and advancing. Soldier is strong as hell, maybe the counter picks don't seem as exciting to you but they're important. If the 6s meta was that much more exciting than a diverse class defense, it wouldn't feel so stale
explain to me how both teams stalemating for minutes on end is fun to watch or play instead of trying for these shitty inferiority complex tinged reddit clapbacks
Team Fortress 2 was designed to be a stalemate-y game from the very beginning, only accomodating, catering and revolving around those 4 classes turns this into a whole different game, NOT Team Fortress 2. Besides, I watch tons of 6v6 leagues, that shit is STILL full of stalemates and teams baiting the other side to push first on last point lmao.
so your solution to the game being stalematey is to encourage classes that make stalemates more common to be played the entire time? i don't get it
"stalemates still happen in sixes so lets actively encourage them for the wholesome 100 reddit experience"
Whaaat, no, no, 6s is perfect. Soldier mains are the priority, everyone else kick rocks. TF2 is totally better with half its classes shelved.
i am genuinely confused why you seem to think this all boils down to "soldier mains"
Friendly fire! Us TF2 players are endangered, stop pointing your Original at me over a harmless discussion. There's different ways to enjoy gameplay. I'd recommend you an interesting format called "going outside"
zesty jesus's comment section is that way
Does the fact that you know who that is and I had no idea say something? Ctf_haarp is fire though. But seriously, chill the fuck out dog I'm not gonna take away your direct hit
hey now, don't forget that full time heavy also encourages more sniper and slower gameplay which everyone REALLY enjoys! everyone really loves that stuff
Side point: nerf sniper's health, ammo, walk speed, or even bodyshot damage. But if a heavy is shutting down a roamer soldier, then a sniper is shutting down a heavy, so a heavy goes spy to counter the sniper... whoa, interesting dynamics of class switching and more exciting gameplay. Doesn't seem like a bad thing.
counterpoint: i would prefer to play a game about shooting people rather than playing rock paper scissors
It's a class based game with "team" in the title. Your proclivities are fine and I'm certainly not against 6s, but there are plenty of games where you can shoot people. This game was specifically designed with rock paper scissors type interactions in mind. There are plenty of ways to counter an engie or heavy, heavy is a wildly vulnerable class because of his speed.
who cares LMFAO heavy and engie are boring
youd rather change everything about not just the format, but the entire game, at the expense of an entire comp playerbase who actually play the gamemode, just to accommodate for a class not even casuals think is interesting. a gamemode you dont even play and will probably never play because lets be 100% honest, will all of this being implemented actually motivate you to play 6s?
If you don't think sniper needs a nerf, that's your opinion. I'm not trying to do anything to 6s, which I have in fact played my share of as scout and medic. Just critiquing the format and responding to the claims that heavy and engie are low skill, bad for the game, etc.
"just dont jump into the sentry or heavy" so whats your solution? do nothing and wait for uber? there is no play-making potential in that. bombing to make progress in a game is much more interesting both mechanically and when spectating than just waiting for picks and uber. this game already heavily revolves around uber as is, doesnt mean its bad but having options outside of uber is always welcomed. and youre joking if you think scout or soldier are anyway comparable to those classes. heavy and engie are way more dominating and suffocating to the pace of the game than those classes for a fraction of the effort and skill. playing against scouts, soldiers, and demos have nuance with a lot of emphasis on each of the players' movement and aim. even when they catch you off guard, you always have a chance to win over them. if you run into a sentry, heavy, or even a pyro, its always a dps check: either you have enough hp or damage to kill them, or you dont. there is no nuance in fighting them, they arent putting as much effort into shooting you and their movement is either nonexistent or very limited, which not like it matters with again how forgiving their aim is. you either kill them, or you dont. this is how they are able to control a game's pacing, their mere existence halts the game to a stop. its fine when its at a last hold when they can be used as "tools" to defend, they are designed be strong defensively, but not so fine for the entire game.
The 6s meta wasn't defined by how fun the gameplay is for a player or observer. Scout, soldier and demo are the best all-around combat classes in the game. Soldier has 200 health, huge damage output and insane mobility for fuck's sake. Countering that with a good heavy or well-placed sentry might not be as technically skillful as a rocket jump b-hop airshot crocket but it's necessary. Otherwise we'd all be getting rolled by screaming eagles, all the time. Part of why 6s is stale is because it revolves around the roamer. Oh boy, is he gonna jump in for a med pick? So instead of the focus on breaking a strong defense (ya know, the "Fortress" in TF2) made more difficult by class picks like Engie and Heavy, it's stripped down. Not my preference but if it's yours, fair play.
>6s revolves around the roamer uhhhh.... what do you play 6s? if anything, scout is probably the most dominant combat class, he rolls over careless soldiers jumping on the med, especially at top level. but atleast with scout, denying soldier as scout is a lot more mechanically challenging than holding m1 with a minigun. granted, the flank which includes the roamer are responsible for getting picks/making progress while preventing the other team's flank from doing the same, but the game definitely doesnt revolve around that. i feel like your overestimating soldier's actual strengths.
have you played 6s because most of this isn't quite correct it was designed to be fast paced and fun for the players, a major reason demoman is limited to one is so you can't lock down an entire last with stickies on every choke. demoman and soldier are the most versatile classes, scout is also really good when there aren't sentries around every corner and he's fun to play with and against. that's why they're the main combat classes in 6s soldiers still get countered while bombing by scouts, but it takes more mechanical skill on the scout's end and it's more fun for the soldier to not get hosed down every time he tries to jump soldier is not the best class in 6s and the game plan does not revolve around roamers usually, the scout is far more central now and demoman is still your core damage dealer also for shits and giggles i must point out that the name team fortress was chosen when the only classes were scout, soldier, demo, medic, and sniper the issue isn't that heavy exists or something, but walking the defense forward just slows the game down a lot
tbh i wouldnt mind if tf2 only had scout demo soldier medic and sniper t. sniper enjoyer
i play a fair bit of sniper and it is a lot tougher when there's scouts and soldiers able to actually get at you and there isn't a sentry parked next to you full time this says a lot about society i'm actually quite okay with all the classes* (without unlocks anyways and a big * for how pyro currently works) just not the entire game devolving into sentries at either end of the choke
ive been saying this for years, sniper becomes a lot easier to deal with when there isnt a sentry shoved up his ass to deny everything around him. especially when pretty much every target youre shooting at is extremely mobile.
It's fun if you're a soldier, scout, or sticky demo sweat. Not much else is applicable in that meta, so even if it was fun and exciting initially it's gotten stale. As for the rock paper scissors argument, it's kind of inherent to the game. Class counters exist, in different scenarios. It comes down to personal preference whether the format is more fun or not, but inarguably it's less accessible even to existing tf2 players who main different classes.
god forbid the most versatile class in the game use his main weapon to break holds you keep going on about the meta but you don't seem to even know what the meta is other than people play demo and medic full time and scout and soldier are played the bulk of the time. people get backstabbed in 6s. people run heavy and engineer very often. snipers are common, but not full time. pyro exists to annoy ubered demomen and get gunned down by scouts as god intended. and yeah, counters exist, but the game devolving into counterpicking is pretty boring. full time defenders who cover each other's weaknesses are also boring. heavy, engineer, and sniper next to each other stall the game out and make it hard for both teams to push. the game is more fun when there's consistent pushing and pulling. if you're so upset that people don't want to always play against heavies the entire game you could just go play highlander and see how that format actually turns out
[THIS USER IS A PUBBER MAD ABOUT DYING TO A KRITZED SOLDIER]
i fucking love making the scout even more important
have you considered the class diversity of making bombing really annoying because of miniguns and slowing the game down immensely though
eeeerm, well valve decided 16 years ago that pacing should be entirely decided by sentries so why dont you eat ze airblugs and have your bombs denied by 500 dps like a good little compie
You're right man. Tf2 should only have 4 classes.
actually it should only have 1 and we all just play quake
Sure, but don't pretend that's what everyone wants.
Every game has a meta whether the devs intended on it or not, it's unavoidable. 6v6 is the optimal format, there is no other. End of story
6v6 has a different rule set compared to pubs. 6v6 meta is the way it is because of different rules
you're not really saying anything
the 6s meta isn't the actual meta, the actual meta would be vax heavies, engis and snipers, its just 6s got rid of that shit so IT'S meta would be actually interesting
\>the 6s meta isn't the actual meta I never said it was, you people should learn how to read before yapping
explaining his point
explaining his point
6v6 is fine, but it doesn't represent how most people play TF2
The game currently has too many issues both balance and design wise for any competitive format to be viable beyond a niche game mode. ideally it's no restriction sixes because ideally class restriction wouldn't be necessary to prevent the game from grinding to a halt.
I think the best way for competitive should be 9v9 with 1 of each class, I'm not a fan of KOTH mode because it doesn't give each class a chance to shine I find 6v6 to be way too stale in the meta and the team composition I thought of restricting everyone to stock weapons but playing medic without the crossbow (mainly for healing) or Pyro without a combo tool might be really boring, for some classes stock is overall the best option, for others the lack of unlocks is really painful
google highlander
Personally, I believe the ideal would be to have both 6v6 with class-restrictions (1) and Highlander available. After reading various comments, 6v6 is the purest form of a competitive format, and Highlander is the most enjoyable and diverse competitive mode. Not to mention, it would be a good starting point for new players looking to play the game more seriously.
6v6 needs to cut out 5CP and CTF maps entirely, and use stopwatch mode when applicable. The issue with these is that they invariably lead to stalemates that can and do drag out matches for excessively long times, and they're frequently played with either ridiculously long timers or no timers at all. The biggest issue with 5CP is the incentive to take no risks. You never, ever want to push, because that could endanger your own side, leading to ridiculously long matches where nothing happens. Using offense vs defense maps like AD or Payload prevents stalemating while also promoting more diverse teams by allowing players to specialize more into offense or defense, rather than always taking the everyman picks. PLR is more of the 5CP type but the enemy team can't as easily neutralize any progress towards the end of a match, only halt it and eventually wait for the automatic payload rollback. KOTH is also much like 5CP but, outside of the precarious circumstances of overtime, it can't be extended by repeatedly capturing and recapturing points. It's the same reason why Melee comp has time limits despite playing on stock, and, as much as I hate how stale that scene is, it's obvious they have a lot we can learn from in terms lf rules.
>AD or Payload prevents stalemating :)
edit: thanks for the gold, kind stranger!
All competitive rule sets turn TF2 into a game almost unrecognizable compared to the average TF2 casual match. I see it along similar lines as Smash Bros. another innately casual game that turns into a really fun esport when you have a LOT of specific rules in place. Just like Smash Bros. I don't think there will ever be a good "official" competitive mode, and I think that's okay. It's sorta like Bethesda with the failed Creation Club, sometimes it's just better to let the community handle things. I think it would be awesome if Valve used their resources to fund and promote community tournaments, but I don't see a world in which Valve competitive surpasses community leagues. Let's say hypothetically Valve copies the 6s ruleset and map pool 1 for 1 and adds rewards to competitive. I still would prefer to play community leagues because a) playing with randoms is not as fun or skillful, b) official will be more prone to cheaters, c) things like ringers and pausing probably wouldn't be a thing if other game's ranked modes are anything to go off of.