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Quoted from skinnie

[…]

people can play heavy in competitive already? and 90% of the teams don’t bother to sign up to esh atm, so that argument sounds unlikely to me

Didnt’ they just increase the latest one from 32 slots to 64?

I think they did.

So that argument sounds likely to me :D

Quoted from GangsterAlgot

[…]
Since it was fun two years ago why shouldn’t it still be fun?

This is exactly what’s wrong with that mentality. People are too lazy to learn new ways to play which may be more fun.

Where is the guarantee that you’ll still find a game you’ve played for 2 years still fun in another year? Or even right now?

Games which don’t evolve become stale and die, as what happens when the top players who we’ve catered to for so long become bored and quit the game? We’ll have no-one new underneath to re-energise the scene. This has been proven countless times in the past, be it promod, cpma or whatever, yet no-one ever learns.

Quoted from skinnie

[…]

and then also I want to add something to why vanilla is the way to go: ever since the unlocks came out we have this policy of allowing and banning some unlocks. The problem this causes are the endless discussions about which unlocks to allow and which to ban. Also the result of this is a huge list (that will only get bigger) with unlock limits, bans, … so how will this help in getting pubbers to competitive??!??

I agree with part of this, the ‘Policy’ of allowing some and banning others was wrong
Either ban ALL (and I mean ALL) or Allow all

If we follow the ban all policy we are potentially limiting the stream of new players, nearly everyone starts on a public server, and learns the classes weapons there, they move into the competitive arena, they are told that they can not use any of the weapons they have learned, so don’t bother.

If we follow the existing policy of banning and allowing what a few people think should be allowed we are still complicating joining the competitive scene, so lots will not bother

If we allow every weapon and let valve worry about balancing them, we become open and easy to migrate from public to competitive play, and the ‘pro’ teams at the top can still have whatever agreements they like

My personal main gripe with the unlocks is that they give some classes even more spike damage, and mainly that they move away from the class-roles.

The few times a month I play on pubs I play sniper with vanilla loadout (maybe the absolutely retarded shield), soldier with vanilla loadout, demo with vanilla loadout, scout with vanilla loadout or heavy with natasha (stupidly powerful). Vanilla was when valve still followed the “1 job for 1 class” recipe, aka pyros didn’t have weapons to counter their counters (flaregun, reflect every rocket), scouts didn’t have a backstab, demos didn’t take 2 damage from rockets, engineers weren’t safer snipers, etc. I liked that game.

TF2 now…not so much. It feels to me almost like some shitty indie game where the devs were like “oh man, and I always liked quadruple rocket rocketlaunchers, let’s put it in!” and the game went from fun and over the top to dumbed-down-spam-shitfest.

So yeah, I’ve long given up on valve making reasonable adjustments to classes and weapons, vanilla + medic unlocks is the way to go as far as I’m concerned. Even if it means no equalizer, which soldier needs badly imo.

Quoted from Buffalo Bill

Didn’t Valve say in the UKGamer interview that they wanted to know what the game was like if everybody had 10HP or other things like that? Massive global changes they currently had no way of testing?

That’s what current TF2 feels like to me anyway- like you have 10 HP.

I see a couple of other posts are made when i was writing this reply, but this post was a reply on kuma and other people who think the same way.

The real problem is what is fun? For a competitive player fun is something else as a casual pub player. For me as competitive player there is also the skill, strategy and teamplay part involved in fun. For a casual player there doesnt need to be skill, strategy or teamplay involved to have fun. The thing is that this is a competitive community so i would assume that we only focus on competitive players and what they think is fun. I am all up for adding unlocks or classes or other changes if they satisfy my definition of fun. There is also no point in discussing these things and say something as fun if you dont define what fun is for you. Most highlander teams consists of casual player who do some random things and still have fun. I have respect for these players, but it doesnt make sense to rate the changes of the game to the fun of casual players on a competitive forum.

Another thing i wanted to say is: there is absolutely no reason why utility classes will ever be more valuable. The problem is not the class balance. The problem is the class definition and how the competitive play works. Thats the reason why engies, pyro’s and spies will never work. Competitive play works around skill, strategy and teamplay. A pyro doesnt work in competitive because he is not usefull in midrange. Every competitive player knows how to keep your distance from the pyro and have decent aim to finish him off. Moreover, there are comms in competitive environment, so pyro’s wont surprise as well. Compare that to the casual environment where are no comms, no strategy and shit aim/skill. Pyro’s are suddenly usefull because they have all the time they want to come close. Solving this by increasing the range of the flamethrower will make it OP, while giving him another weapon means it isnt a pyro anymore. Pyro does not fit within the competitive environment because of the design and definition of this class. Same for spy to some extent. For example you hold choke, are you shouting to your spy “hold the resup!” in the same way you do to your scouts? Of course not, because spy hasnt the ability to defend. Thats the reason why its shit to have a full time spy. You only see it on last points for example. The engie can defend, but he has the problem that he cant push out. So you are giving up attacking power. So saying it is not set in stone what are the most competitive classes, i would say it is set in stone. How classes are designed and defined and the way how we like competitive play, engies, pyro’s and spies will always be utilities. I havent talked about sniper and heavy because they are a bit more tricky. But the true value of scouts, soldiers and demoman is because they have both defensive and agressive value and are mobile (rocket/sticky/double jump) and have a huge damage output. Like spy and engy lack defensive and aggresive power respectively, pyro lack damage output on mid range, heavy and sniper arent really mobile and cant be really agressive either. Thats the reason why soldiers, scouts and demoman are the classes of choice for competitive. When there is a cramped area where the mobile/agressive part isnt a problem or on defense (gravelpit for example) you see a lot of other classes used as well.

The conclusion is that making utility classes more usefull results in redefining classes or nerfing soldiers/demoman/scouts which ultimately leads to a less competitive environment and less skill/strategy/teamwork. Which again results in less fun (at least my definition of fun).

Maybe you should read my post again. But you can also try to beat me with some very good suggestions for the utility class which preserves class balance, skill, strategy, teamwork. Because what i am saying, there is none, thats how logic work. Because if you define a pyro as a weird guy with a mask with a flamethrower in his hands, meant for short range harrasment, the outcome is he fails horribly in a competitive enverinmont. Or you have to change your definition of fun or the definition of what a pyro is. But otherwise there is no way to make him more usefull, thats what i am saying.

EDIT I am stupid… You already partially agreed with that part. lol

Quoted from Tikcus

To make other classes viable you need to reduce the cl to 1

That wouldnt make them viable, it would just enforce the use of them.

Maybe a thing that could be looked at is easier switching of classes. So it will be easier to switch to spy when you need a pick or switch to pyro when there is an opening for harassment. Because at the moment you either need to suicide a player or run all the way back to the last point.

Example solution: Whenever you stand on a capture point you own and you switch class it will switch to that class after 5 seconds of standing still. Damage will interupt the process.

That way the power of the classes would stay the same, it would just become easier to select those classes in the right situations.