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Quoted from AcidReniX

Holy mother of god. That was a long one ;p

a lot of words, very few points

Quoted from AcidReniX

Holy mother of god. That was a long one ;p

that’s what she said

Hi.

Just like to add my 2 pennies.

This one time in a pcw, I used gunboats and I liked them.

Thanks for reading.

Spira out.

Quoted from Cooler

[…]
Watching the good peaple is the best way to improve…

No.

Quoted from Dummy

[…]
combined with other stuff it is c:

As if you’d know about that.

Quoted from AcidReniX

@skeej

High risk / reward does not always make a better game. If it does, by that logic, instagib is the way forward. To be 1 shot, or to 1 shot. That is about as high risk / reward as you can get. But even so…

Instagib levels the risk reward to exactly the same value for every player. It removes the dynamic that makes TF2 unique (mind you I say “dynamic” and not “variety”)

What about the weapons that have a higher risk / reward? What about the weapons that actually require more skill to be effective with? TDH, Sandman (less HP, higher risk, can be 1 shotted by several weapons now), Crit-a-cola, degreaser, That new Heavy gun, FaN. Are these by the same logic, better for competitive TF2 than the vanilla weapons?

Well if you read my previous post I actually advocate for a re-evaluation of most of the weapons that you are naming. Degreaser is not a high-risk weapon imo, the main use of a pyro isn’t direct contact fire kills anyway, so the decreased damage is no huge disadvantage in actual play. I think the risk there lies in switching (probably) a scout to pyro, gaining defensive power but losing offensive power. The quick switch makes axetinguisher kills ridiculously easy, so I think it lowers risk and increases reward.

For your ‘adding elements of not knowing’ comment. (Game)sense, anticipation and prediction are some high valued skills in any sport. I understand what you are saying, in there being a sense of luck… but there are very few complete hard counters to other weapons in the game. Should you force all players to take a single route to the mid fight, so that you know in advance which route they are going to take, eliminating the ‘luck’ factor of choosing the right route?

On a map like Granary, there is a large risk involved if you head to the right hand entrance, and their demoman comes down the left. By a simple rock/paper/scissors decision, he can effectively deal huge amounts of damage, if not completely lock your entire team out of the midfight, or help your team gain a significant map position. Having some rock/paper/scissor situations in the game does not neccesarily make the game bad. It can test the ability of the other team’s level of adaptation. Being able to think on the spot, and react successfully to a pre-determined choice. This is the same as a team rolling out with a set of unlocks that are unknown to their opponents.

But positioning can be adapted to in an instant. It’s a totally different matter. This is what the flow of this FPS emerges out of. You try to spot the enemy early and react to it. But for instance, a Vitasaw? You can’t even see if the medic is carrying that. You had this discussion with Kuma already. Players aren’t going to go in resup constantly to swap out weapons to counter the enemies’ weapons. This is not an RTS. Countering should be possible by adapting your positioning/focus/teamwork alone. It’s too tedious already to have a scout go all the way back to spawn to switch to spy (for instance) when you have a standoff between cp2 and cp3 on granary, even though that can be effective.

Bottom line: Unknown positioning is entirely different from unknown item use. I think Kuma actually made a perfect point already, but apparently not effective enough.

In regards to your #1 point. There are still limited variables when using unlocks. There are just more variations, thus increasing the skill cap needed to effectively ‘master’ the game. In number 6 you used ‘decreasing the skill ceiling’ as a negative statement, yet by reducing the number of variations available, you are also decreasing the skill ceiling as there is less for a player to learn. Why is one bad when the other is not? Are we supposed to hit the skill ceiling before we raise the bar? Why not have the skill ceiling be as high as possible (or at least higher), right from the start?

In a 100% theoretical sense you are totally right. However in practice we will never reach this skill ceiling. There is no “perfect play”. I could say that, for instance, you could increase all the players’ walking speed by 300% which makes prediction near impossible and 1 on 1 scout duels only fit for persons with superhuman senses and reflexes. Does this increase the skill ceiling? Theoretically, yes. In practice, just as many kills will occur by (pseudo)random rockets being fired around by players in the hopes that some enemy will eventually catch splash damage. Do you see how practical skill ceiling is different from theoretical? Then there are loads more of practical variables to take into account, the most obvious being the average lifecycle of an esport game. You cannot apply “infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters”-esque reasoning to this discussion.

A top level player will probably understand the game more than a lower level player. It’s not definite though, so don’t instantly rule out the opinions of lower division players. […] This is a forum, people have time to think about what they write. Don’t rule out lower division players, JUST because they are low division.

Totally agree with you; but I think you’ll agree with me too that in the general sense, my statement is true. Of course I don’t rule out everyone, that would be insanely stupid. I actually kinda counted on you not taking that in such an absolute way.

I agree a succesful spectator sport has clearly defined rules and consistency. But watching a game of chess, isn’t so enjoyable, and I’m pretty sure most would agree.

That is just because the general public does not exhibit the intelligence nor the patience to enjoy a good game of chess. It has nothing to do with the rules and variables being too constricted or consistent, imo. Not that I myself enjoy spectating a chess game. I don’t enjoy watching the rock-paper-scissors world cup finals either, and so do most people.

For a successful spectator sport, you have several factors. There are people who play the game, who want to see the game being mastered at the highest level. There are people who play the game who want to see the entertaining moments; the ‘WOW’ moments.

Yes but how can there be “WOW” moments if it’s just a bunch of coincidences occuring after another? The moment loses any significant meaning. Again I refer to my last post; go spectate saigns.de. Enough crazy shit happening there.

There are also people who want to spectate a match, who have never played the game before, who have no idea what is meant to be the pinnicle of TF2… they just want to see explosions, a team pushing, melee kills, taunts, and all the comedy stuff that TF2 can add to the game. Which of these groups is the majority? Hmm I’m not sure, but I think a lot of them are simply there for the entertainment and comedy.

Maybe… Too many assumptions being made here. I’ll just simply say: I wouldn’t know either. But yeah, maybe you’re right. But for me personally I wouldn’t even want such a crowd… It’s like when you’re playing in a band, and your band has got many fans, but most of those fans are also Nickelback fans. Nah, I’d rather stay in the shadows then, personally.

The only reason why allowing full unlocks is bad in this argument, is that additional unlocks are added over time, which removes the element of consistency. But permanently adding select unlocks can only add to the game. The rules would be clear, once people have read them.

I can agree with this. Problem is that we will never come to a concensus which weapons can stay in forever. And to make another false dilemma, I’d rather have no unlocks than a bunch of unlocks of which 50% are shit. But if aforementioned (by you and myself) unlocks that actually have a high risk/reward value are re-evaluated for competitive TF2, I would totally not mind. As a medic, I personally don’t like the gunboats (more chance on being bombed by enemy, less chance at good protection by own solly), but I can still see how that unlock can add an interesting and fair dynamic to the game. Same goes for some other unlocks.

TF2 does have more variety than most FPS games. We also have even more variety available to us through unlocks. There are players who would spend their time, mastering these new strategies and techniques available with additional weapons, so why hinder them? Some people are too lazy… well let them be lazy, and let the people who do want to spend some time attempting to ‘master’ the game, accel ahead.

Once again, don’t agree; refer back to the skill ceiling discussing, unless we are talking about those possibly interesting unlocks (most of those which were designed earlier, and with input of competitive player, before the whole explosion of community-designed unlocks).

Less ‘can’ be more yes. But more is often what it is.

In the end, the balance is to be found somewhere in the middle. Absolute minimalism is just as meaningless as absolute maximalism. And as long as we can have a civilised discussion about it, we might be able to reach that balance eventually. In the end, all the opinions about unlocks/vanilla/cinnamon/jalapeno are just that, opinions. In the end, you can’t base any of these arguments on hard facts. This is a made up game, this is fictionalized competition. A man-made construct. I think we both know that.

What is a fact though, is that this game became a competitively played game, because it had worthwile qualities to be played competitive. The unlocks that are added these days are shifting those qualities by an insanely great measure. There are only so many unlocks and changes until “TF2” isn’t really “TF2” anymore. So, even though all the arguments for/against unlocks can be disputed by subjective opinion, ultimately we are playing that game that came out in 2007, and it would be nice to at least remotely keep it being the same game. It’s not good for a competitive environment when the people at the top of TF2 got there by playing an entirely different game. (and once again I’m not arguing for myself, I’m not at the top, and neither am I oldskool, I only started playing compet TF2 14 months ago)

Last edited by skeej, 13 years ago

Quoted from Dummy

[…]
because going personal is obviously the right way for this topic ;)
anyway:
combined with other methods it is, if you can’t answer to that without attacking me personally then don’t

Stating fact doesn’t constitute an attack on your person.

I could fetch you a random homeless person off the streets and force him to play and to watch the pros for 24/7 and he would not progress at ideal rate nor would his progress be favoured by the material he is exposed to.

As this doesn’t add to the topic I’ll leave it at that. Proper people know ways to reach me, however proper people probably don’t require my words anyway as they already know.