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Quoted from AnimaL

go play with ur unlocks in ur own league, stop arguing with ppl who know better

If it’s a “dying game” then what the fuck does it matter anymore.

I love how you see ANYONE who enjoys tf2 more than hat fortress 2 as ignorant, elitist, or just a dick and selfish prick :D

Can people stop trying say that unlocks are the cause of high viewing numbers in NA. There is literally ZERO FUCKING PROOF OF THAT.

As Ads and myself said:

More streams
ESEA gets them a ton of views because of the website
ESEA also keeps more top players since there are 3 LANs a year with money
Newbie Mixes

Plus a ton other. This the one of the best examples of confusing cause and correlation I have ever seen.

Some other things that the NA has:

Engie limit 1
Different ruleset
Different maps
Lower numbers of players
One language

We need to change everything to above, because if they do it, IT MUST 100% BE PART OF THE CAUSE FOR GROWTH.

Fuck me.

If you want to argue for unlocks on gameplay basis, go ahead, but please, please stop saying it will make the scene grow, without any sort of proof.

Quoted from freshmeatt

[…]
I love how everyone makes him and others alike think that everyone, who enjoys tf2 more than hat fortress 2, is an ignorant, elitist, or just a dick and selfish prick.
Oh wait.

bitch please, he ignores any decent comments to why unlocks are bad idea and starts to go to personal insults on anyone who repeats it in maybe more rude way…

Just because someone is a dick doesnt invalidate their opinion and while many of the high level tf2 players (not Koeitje) may lack grace, tact and/or social skills, that doesn’t mean that what they are saying is any less than the truth. The truth is that it’s hard for players below (or far below) the top of the scene to bring anything new to a discussion on balance because they simply don’t understand the game to the same degree. Until you grasp tf2 in the same way, it’s very unlikely (although not impossible) that you’d be able to actually add anything of substance on the impact of unlocks on the game both for the top level and the consequences of those unlocks in the lower divs. That isn’t to say that all of the players in the higher divs are intelligent or right about their opinions, lots certainly aren’t.

If we’re to look at say the Boston Basher in terms of what it does for the game, arguably in the majority of situations where it comes into affect it does more to slow down the game than it does to increase the pace. This is simply because losing your classes that can easily build uber is often anti-momentum and you’re likely to fall behind in the uber race, giving the other team momentum and a chance to steamroll with a significant pushing advantage. By making sure that your medic always has someone that can build, you’re essentially reducing the punishment for teams that lose their heavy classes and increasing the frequency of situations where both teams will have an uber. Of course this can work in other ways and it can be used to increase momentum for a team with the advantage, but for me those situations are outnumbered by those that work against the pace of the game.

Another side-effect of the Boston Basher is that it, like many unlocks before it, have the potential to make teams/players from the lower divs more effective in virtue of that unlock. If you’ve never mentored a team div3 or below, you’ve probably never realised just how bad they can be at both building uber and ammo management; the Boston Basher happily fixes both of those issues! Well, as long as the team goes and says to their scout “you’re going to build uber for us now”, it should be more obvious to build uber than for the pocket solly. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when discussing unlocks it’s not just the top level of tf2 that should be considered. Back when the FaN was broken, it wasn’t particularly broken at the top level of tf2 other than for certain mobility options it gave the scout. What it really changed was it turned every scout div2-4 into a 2-shotting machine given its ease of use and brought their DM up far above what it was before with little practice.

The discussion is fairly pointless as it generally revolves around loaded terms anyway. Mercyless falling back on the ol’ “No that’s different, that IS gamebreaking” when what we call “gamebreaking” and what we call “gamechanging” is almost always down to the preference of the person as to which direction they want the game to move in: GRU on pro-heavy = gamechanging, anti-heavy = gamebreaking. Also people that throw down “increasing the pace of the game” as an inherently good thing are also just throwing their preference into the ring; increasing the pace of the game is only a good thing if you think that the current pace of tf2 is a bad thing.

The real kicker though is that unlocks don’t even really change much. They make certain playstyles more effective than they do enabling them. The main difference why na tf2 is much faster paced than european tf2 is because the playstyle of the players are the top level tend to be a lot more aggressive. American teams don’t push without signifcant advantage because they have gunboats or boston basher, just like european teams don’t push on insignificant advantages because they lack unlocks. Nobody in Infused said “shit, we don’t have gunboats, better park the bus” and sit outside last for 10 minutes while they were in the lead. Changing the ruleset would go further to fixing such a playstyle than allowing unlocks, but the sad truth is that increasing the amount of time that a team would need to aggressively turtle for doesn’t negate the advantage that turtling gives you (forcing a team to make a much riskier play).

If you’re bored of tf2’s current playstyle, what I say to you is just try new things. Play more aggressively. Push without obvious advantages. Sit down and work out new tactics for you to try. You don’t need unlocks in order to make such a playstyle viable. Many, many teams could afford to play a lot more aggressively without even sacrificing their playstyle: they just don’t take advantage of the advantages that they have in a given situation. While it can be hard for players below the top level to truly innovate, give it a try. You might just surprise yourself.

If you’re looking for unlocks to bring in a pub scene, then stop talking almost exclusively about the big 3 most used unlocks in the US scene and start talking about the more useless weapons that are banned for simplicity’s sake. There are few pubbers that will go “fuck yeah gunboats!” and nobody that goes “fuck yeah boston basher!”. And while you’re at it, go get some actual evidence that a completely different scene with completely different circumstances (as Crashsite has pointed out many times) is thriving due to its unlock rules rather than the many other factors that could be attributed to its growth.

Good post Vali :D

I still think the theory needs to be backed up with some facts as well though. Have you played any serious 6v6 with boston basher and gunboats?

I like the fact you say it won’t really change much in terms of playstyles and meta game etc, as that’s also how I feel, but the casts and streams of gunboating soldiers and scouts not being constantly glued to the flank might be more enticing to newbies.

I’m beginning to shift towards the 30 minutes rounds being the major difference rather than the unlocks, but gunboats soldier makes for some awesome casting moments.

Quoted from Kaneco

[…]

Look at it from their pov for a second. All you’re doing is bringing up things that have been argued against ad nauseam for the past few years without having anywhere NEAR the amount of experience and knowledge (a fair assumption) they have. Is it really that weird that eventually they’re tired of having to repeat themselves over and over again when “you’re bad, we know better” is an effective tl;dr (albeit not exactly polite)?

vali wins the thread