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Am I the only person that’s fine with everything as it is?

Quoted from CanFo

[…]
Season 10! 360 21.67% drops
Season 11 304 21.59% drops
Season 12 powered by Tt eSPORTS 288 20.49% drops

Numbers are decreasing over time, drop rate is a tick lower this season though.

Curious to see what S13 is going to bring though, 3 month break might make people want to play it more again.

scouts double jump rewards bad play, ban it

*sigh* I’ve got a lot of work to do – lets proceed shall we?

Quoted from Spike Himself

I’m not a big fan at all of pulling out the “who are you?” card, Yuki, but anyone that manages for Monkeh to write a post that long obviously is new to the scene and not very clever at all. Sorry mate, truth is harsh innit.

edit; just saw you registered over 1000 days ago.. You best go sit in a corner and be embarrassed :D

Hi Spike Himself! I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t always make assumptions of someone. Just because they have an opinion that is different than yours, doesn’t mean they are a complete nobody, let alone “not very clever at all”. As far as I know, that’s just not how the real world works, friend. “Truth is harsh innit” indeed!

Moving along to the subject matter at hand – the main vocalist against unlocks (and pretty much any which apparently seem to put every medic’s life in the game under immediate threat, eliminating any fun for the medic players, reducing the skill ceiling of the game as a whole, as I’ve seen in his post history in other threads) my dear friend Monkeh. It has not been long at all, and I already see that we have bonded. Unfortunately, you have called me out – and alas I have to respond.

Quoted from Monkeh

Starting to think that I’m being deliberately baited by Yuki…you can’t seriously think like that…it…can’t….be…possible.

First you say equalizer is great because you can get away luckily..then you say it doesn’t reward bad play. If you need a lucky escape you’ve positioned yourself badly…this is bad play.

You’re not reading enough of what I’ve said, and not reading between the lines at all either it appears, so I shall proceed through this slowly. The Equalizer (NOW the escape plan, let’s just call it skill stick in this case) is a great unlock. It gives increased mobility to a class that is almost universally shat on in the current style/level of play, allows a different style of rollout to be purused (IF ONE SO WISHES, saving a few rockets is great!), allows for some different/interesting/exciting plays.

You’re trying to say that it “rewards bad play” because you can apparently press 3 to run away and it’s like you’ve got god mode on, when it is the complete opposite. Yes it gives you a movement speed buff, but how much? From what I remember, at 1-40 hp it’s something like 16 units or around there slower than scout, yet apparently that’s a soldier moving at scout speed running at me to whack a medic in the face, so ok. Either way, 9/10 times it’s a scout chasing that soldier and either way the soldier is 90% of the time going to get owned by a stray/aimed scatter/rocket/sticky/pipe/crossbow/pistol. So what if I’m in the “perfect position” (don’t forget, if you’re in the “perfect position” it’s not bad play) – I have to die and there’s not a smidgen of a chance for me? Just because I’m about to die, it means it is bad play? Get over that lame old argument – it really doesn’t work anymore. If it were to reward any sort of bad play (re: it really doesn’t), it would reward bad play for the player that cant shoot that soldier that’s running away on 1hp that a light breeze will kill.

The only people that watch TF2 are the people who play it. Most others just feel it’s, ‘lol cartoon noob game’. I want to have fun playing it, being dribbled on by a solly moving at scout speed isn’t fun.

I don’t know about you, but I have friends that hadn’t played TF2 before that know I’m a competitive player that have asked me if I would provide them a stream link to a game that I’ve either played in or casted. After they watched a few games, they were really interested and actually started playing the game and enjoyed it, and to this day still watch a lot of my games (note that they aren’t actually in comp teams or anything, they just have FUN playing it AND watching it). A large number of people that watch starcraft (or any other esport for that matter) are those who play that respective videogame also. It’s just how videogames are, and why they’re much different to conventional sports – doesn’t detract from the fact that there should still be some spectator appeal, and unlocks like the skill stick attest to that.

We played with unlocks when they were released in EU for 3 seasons I think, then most realised they made the game more about ‘luck’ and less about skill so we, as a community, decided to make skill the most important factor again, less jars of piss, more strategy, teamwork and thinking.

Ok, thank you. You FINALLY provided some background to shed some light on the reason why there may be such negativity directed at 95% of unlocks, alas providing some basis towards your argument! *pat*. But what you are saying later is that “..unlocks made the game more about luck… decided to make skill the most important factor again, more strategy…” yet apparently, said unlocks don’t allow for MORE strategy, MORE teamwork, MORE thinking? How much do you think people have thought with their double or triple rocketjumps (not relevant to the skill stick, but you brought it up). From what I know, executing multiple rocketjumps in a row via skipping isn’t ACTUALLY luck. That is something that, *gasp* something you pointed out. SKILL! TACTICS! STRATEGY! Doesn’t kritzkrieg allow for more strategy, teamwork and thinking? If I’m not mistaken, getting those sick long range crit sticky snipes on a medic isn’t luck – but it must be right? Don’t worry, it’s on the medic – not an op unlock at all (Which is your class after all, right? Hence why you haven’t mentioned anything about older unlocks, I daresay :))

What makes you think what happened in Australia, all be it a mirror image of EU, should influence our thinking now?

I never said that European TF2 should be a mirror image of Australian TF2, but whatever – think what you want. I shall address the last part of your post. The reason why I stated that it should perhaps influence on the European scene’s thinking is because that we’ve been there. We had people thinking that “oh our medic died to that, it must be imbalanced”, so said unlocks were banned (gunboats were the case in point at this time, apparently deemed to powerful and were banned for 3 seasons). We tried it for a while, and many players (skilled and not so skilled players alike) were disgruntled by the fact that their role (roaming soldier being the role I am referring to) was pigeonholed in usefulness and variety. They were less effective at operating without little to no heals (as a result of that, less mobility, more heals taken from the combo, resulting in a slower, LESS INTERESTING/FUN/SKILLED game). I don’t know about you, but doing a double or even triple rocketjump to fire a rocket or two at the medic as your team follows you in to provide support is pretty good teamwork/skill/strategy to me – wouldn’t you agree? We have the base of “skill,strategy,tactics,teamwork AND FUN” covered, and also allowing for more spectator enjoyment with these interesting, creative, even wacky plays that have been devised by the teams.

When etf2l continued with using unlocks and a rival league decided to ban them EVERY one of the top teams boycotted etf2l and played in the other league. It was a horrible time. I don’t fancy returning to that situation.

This is an interesting point – more background information! I thank you once again.
Why was this other league looked on as a rival league? Shouldn’t more leagues = more games to play = more of a thriving community? Why does there have to be so much hostility between different leagues? I don’t know of any specific examples right now (it’s 6am and I’m on my last limbs), but I daresay there are different leagues in conventional sports that are run by different organisations and I daresay there is very little (if any) hostility, let alone boycotting, between the different leagues. This probably goes back to a lack of communication between the admins of the different leagues, and it’s a shame that it had to resort to something a serious as boycotting in EU TF2’s case. Moving on.

Every single person playing 6v6 TF2 competitively in Europe has accepted a vanilla ruleset and we still had 360 teams sign up for this season just gone, (any admin feel free to correct that and make it accurate), I see absolutely no reason to change, ( I don’t buy the whole, more exciting to play malarky…mebbe to watch, but I think I mentioned my stance there already), and many reasons to keep it as is.

Again at the start of your post, some more background information and alas, more basis for your argument, shedding some light on the issue. I thank you again. But I’ll refer back to my previous posts to retort at you seeing “absolutely no reason to change(I don’t buy the whole more exciting to play malarky…)”

Why don’t you buy the whole exciting to play malarky? Is it because that you play medic, and have been “abused” by these unlocks many times in games in the past and, as a result, hate pretty much any unlock that isn’t for the medic class? I don’t know about you (well I technically do, you play medic so you don’t really know), but when my roamer was able to use gunboats 3 seasons after they were banned, he was jumping for joy. He was really happy with the fact that he wasnt pigeonholed with the way that he had to play: he could CHOOSE between shotgun or gunboats and vary his play. Regarding the previous point you made on unlocks being “more luck, less skill + strategy + teamwork” – doesn’t having a different choice allow for more skill + strategy + teamwork, as you are communicating with your team what unlock you are using, what you are planning to do, and in general just change the way that you CAN play? Maybe YOU don’t see any reason to change, but I’d like to hear words from other players before I just leave this to rest (one’s that don’t play classes that apparently don’t get hard done by all these “overpowered” unlocks). I don’t care if they are for or against unlocks – I would like to hear different opinions.

We’ve had this debate many times over the years…many, many, many, many times. We’ve split the scene up over it, we’ve got back together. Let’s just leave it as the popular game it is and move forward.

Okay – I think this just leads up to people having a not so open mind when it comes to the potential of TF2 as a game to be played, and as a spectator game. I don’t see any reason why “scenes should be split up” over something like unlocks – something that allows for variety in people’s play. I thought people were all for things that are “different”, and NOT stupid. And the problem is – you aren’t “moving forward” by just throwing away this issue. The EU TF2 scene is the only scene in the WORLD that has such a stance against unlocks – players are looking towards the NA scene because, not only does it have good players (yes EU TF2 has good players also, before you decapitate me), it has all these unlocks which allow for different unlocks. They give variety towards players playstyles, don’t pigeonhole people into doing one particular thing, and allow for extremely exciting games.

To end this – I just want if you are reading this and have actually gotten to the end to congratulate yourself for a start. You bored your way through my boring as hell wall of text that I conjure up at stupidly ridiculous times (it is currently 6 am where I live) and is riddled with horrible formatting, spelling, etcetera. I also want you to look at what I have said with an open mind, and hope that maybe there can be further (hopefully more POSITIVE) discussion regarding unlocks. I would love to see european players employ these unlocks in their play – seeing someone like Gear with gunboats as an example would be really cool, because he is such a good player and I feel that he is limited in his potential simply because of such a negative stance on something that should be positive for the game.

Thanks

we are going to do this discussion over and over again until more unlocks will be permitted.
you all know that…

shut up spike himself

Quoted from Yuki

Ill shorten the post when ive slept, but I had a lot to get off my chest, and tend to go over overboard on this kind of thing. Though i do hope that you seeing the lengths ill go to show you how passionate about this game.

May I ask if you have ever actually played in Vanilla ruleset? I just find it more enjoyable, after playing 3 seasons using unlocks. I don’t think it’s rocket science to like or not to like it. I think the majority here in ETF2L like the vanilla ruleset and thus it’s the current ruleset in ETF2L.

I don’t think these useless arguments solve anything or change people’s opinions. Although I admit that new teams have never had the chance to play in Cinnamon (unlocks) ruleset, but I don’t see how they could test them in action to make out their opinion.

Why you heff to be mad, it’s only a game