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can someone explain why lakeside ever got removed from the map pool and isnt being readded again?

so whats the point? its a unique map and the sniper sightlines get less powerful when your flank is good enough to counter it because then it actually becomes more of a flank map than a sniper map

Quoted from Hildreth

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Considering we’ve got a history of banning Valve’s changes and seen no growth as a community, don’t you think it’s time to take them a little bit more seriously anyway?

Yet NA which has taken a far harsher aproach to banning weapons has kept far healthier numbers and the skill level has stayed higher. It feels like weapon bans aren’t really the biggest factor in player numbers.

The game is 8 years old now and this near religous talk of the future and making the game in sync with Valves vision is a little absurd tbh. Letting people already playing enjoy the game without unfun mechanics is probably the best way to keep people from leaving the game and keeping a viable player base.

Oh and the maplist looks like a nice mixture of the best maps and pushing the mappool wider. If it stays the way it is it would be a nice progression.

Quoted from Munky

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Yet NA which has taken a far harsher aproach to banning weapons has kept far healthier numbers and the skill level has stayed higher. It feels like weapon bans aren’t really the biggest factor in player numbers.

The NA scene? You mean UGC that is the only Highlander league in North America so teams can’t join an alternative, where the top level 6v6 gamers actually bother to play Highlander and take it semi-seriously, where the scene in general is huge? Or UGC EU where it’s dead because there is an alternative that is 10x better. Weapon bans definitely aren’t the biggest factor in levels of play, but don’t give me this absurd notion that UGC is large and successful because it has better unlock rules.

Quoted from quintosh

they said they want feedback from the community but used to not get it because we banned everything now we played a whole off-season and nations cup with medigun picks allowed….

One Nations Cup isn’t enough time to truly adapt to a weapon, half the time we forgot it was allowed, teams rarely adjusted to it and majority of the games were unaffected by the use of the pickup.

Quoted from quintosh

….here we’re showing we don’t like the change, so it’s time for them to adapt not for us to just play really aids games

Penny for everytime I hear this, trust me in a year you wouldn’t care cos by then we’ll understand how to play the mechanic/new unlock.

Quoted from Hildreth

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The NA scene? You mean UGC that is the only Highlander league in North America so teams can’t join an alternative, where the top level 6v6 gamers actually bother to play Highlander and take it semi-seriously, where the scene in general is huge? Or UGC EU where it’s dead because there is an alternative that is 10x better. Weapon bans definitely aren’t the biggest factor in levels of play, but don’t give me this absurd notion that UGC is large and successful because it has better unlock rules. .

NA UGC which I made quite clear. You said the league would benefit by being closer to Valves ‘vision’ and I offered a counterpoint of a league which is more restrictive but is more successful.

And I wasn’t saying that NA HL is more successful because of weapon bans. In fact I was arguing the opposite. I was saying that weapon bans play almost no role in the success of a league so arguing that staying somehow closer to Valve for the scene to grow doesn’t make sense.

If you think weapon pickups are good then thats your opinion but arguing that allowing it has some vague wide ranging benefits is a load of twaddle. No one will stop playing comp because they can’t pick up a medigun.

Quoted from Munky

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NA UGC which I made quite clear. You said the league would benefit by being closer to Valves ‘vision’ and I offered a counterpoint of a league which is more restrictive but is more successful.

And I wasn’t saying that NA HL is more successful because of weapon bans. In fact I was arguing the opposite. I was saying that weapon bans play almost no role in the success of a league so arguing that staying somehow closer to Valve for the scene to grow doesn’t make sense.

If you think weapon pickups are good then thats your opinion but arguing that allowing it has some vague wide ranging benefits is a load of twaddle. No one will stop playing comp because they can’t pick up a medigun.

You make some very good points, I will agree that it won’t have a significant impact. I am not delusional in thinking this one singular issue will be the saviour of competitive TF2, but I can say that it has divided our scene, both within the competitive community and outside of it. Since unlocks were invented, it was a problem, historically it’s developed by our secular attitudes as a community towards unlocks and gameplay changes. Such a division from the rest of the wider TF2 community can only have negative effects, how big an effect is down to debate.

There is a wider issue outside of just the medi-gun pickup mechanic, it is only one gameplay mechanic we’re choosing to exclude because we don’t like how it changes the game. It isn’t inbalanced, both teams have access to it, it doesn’t effect the game significantly (at least in Highlander, uber-centric gameplay is more valuable in 6v6). The wider issue is we choose to restrict this mechanic, why don’t we ban a whole load of other mechanics that pre-exist and we don’t like? I keep mentioning Pyro, but airblasting projectiles/ubered players back has a larger impact on the game in my mind than the Medi-Gun pickups ever will, same with Stickies.

We don’t get rid of them as they are a) Part of every main weapon therefore difficult to remove b) We have always used them. So when Valve add future changes to the game that are optional for us to use, from unlocks to other types of mechanics, it doesn’t seem a bit absurd we want to get rid of it rather than invest in potentially a new era of tactical changes the game that advance how we think? Banning Medi-Gun pickups as it “changes too much” is the beginning of going backwards, we’re a progressive league and we’ve gone so far in many years since the dark days of Cinnamon unlocks, but then again I am a radical so perhaps ETF2L have gotten it right for now.

I would like to re-enphasise once again how this issue isn’t singular and based off the merits of a mechanic which in my opinion doesn’t hugely impact the game, but it is instead based the wider issue of our general attitudes towards change.

Quoted from Hildreth

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ETF2L admins know I preach all the time, rightly or wrongly, sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t – up to them really but they have a big duty in shaping our game and they will be held accountable if they fuck things up.

When you make a counter argument with more articulation than “meh” or “no…” then I will acknowledge your existence further.

no

Hildreth vs The World