[TF2] Valve Comp Is A Complete Joke

Valve's official Competitive mode sucks. Let's find out why and see what we can do to fix that.
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Music used:
TF2 OST - RED Victory
Ratchet and Clank Going Commando OST
Oahu Beach Stroll - • Oahu Beach Stroll - n...

[@RangerSnow]

I want to find the person at Valve who decided Turbine should be in the comp map pool and ask them why they hate humanity

[@AnnaSue81]

you should probably bring a concealed carry too just for that quick .exec

[@dumbleking5172]

I agree. I also want to find thier game testers and why that agreed that it was a good map.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

same man that added terror and polar in the game

[@ishouldkillmyself]

to be fair theres alot of reasons to hate humanity, but adding turbine wasnt in hate of humanity, but rather the concept of enjoyment

[@turkishjanitor3666]

10:21 Music's lower notes can be heard immidiately once he saw they were sending him to Turbine

[@purplehaze2358]

I once actually tried competitive. The pay barrier, unfun experience where I was thrown into a match of people who are all better than me and not even by a little bit, and queue time that took several purgatory sentences turned me off from ever doing it again.

[@theadministrator.6632]

Dr Bright you are needed at site redacted scp redacted escaped.

[@DenDen-fv8bf]

Competitive mode have only like 5% of whole game online from the start of it because its really bad dont play it

[@coolguy-xd1bg]

get gud

[@theadministrator.6632]

@@coolguy-xd1bg how are you supposed to get good when getting constantly stomped?

[@Hazkal-ep3zs]

@@theadministrator.6632 i mean playing with good players is the way to get good really quick.

[@ThatGuyLachlan]

Valve comp is the major reason I never got into competitive. (That and being a native Australian, comp matches are more scarce than Burning Flames Team Captains). The possible changes listed here are all wonderful ideas that could breathe life into the rotting corpse that is Valve Comp. The Rewards System especially could potentially fill up servers by itself. (Earning items in game is much more satisfying than lucking into/paying for them, to me at least) Amazing work as always fish. Clam Squad Out

[@readytoplay7874]

👍

[@thexkey]

Valve competitive is really only barely alive in the USA, and since TF2's matchmaking is sorted by regions - Comp mode is dead outside of the USA.

[@edgii]

and also removing turbine from the map pool

[@mostafakoubi3722]

🦪🐚

[@suspecm6316]

I feel like in the current state TF2 is, comp is the least of our problems.

[@notarealspy4090]

Might also start yelling at valve to bring old items back like Halloween curses or collector kits, curses being completely unobtainable and collector kits being expensive as hell, in addition to the other old items that are also retired

[@matchanavi]

Halloween spells being back would be nice.

[@drivanradosivic1357]

@@matchanavi Halloween spells being item drops on EXP gain from Comp matches(as in RNG, but there is a chence for them) as well as Old Halloween items(with a chance for Haunted and Strange haunted drops) would be great, as well as normal comsetics with a chance at strange drops, with also merc grade comseitcs having a chance to drop and be strange quality.

[@funnycatenjoyer2758]

i'd love that especially collectors kits beacuse you can't even buy them for certain weapons and the ones you can are more expensive than mid-tier unusuals

[@burloneicb]

oooh the bots are gonna go crazy

[@drivanradosivic1357]

@@funnycatenjoyer2758 yeah, if you went through the trouble to get premium and Competive game pass, why not be rewarded for it with strangefiers, collector kits, contract and old event pass cases, older contract cases, civ grade freelance and merc grade skins and merc grade comsetic drops, warpaint drops and civ grade strangefier and Mann Co crate key as reward for doing good in Valve Comp. of course, Casual gets item drops but appropriately mae, mealing craft tokens, scrap metal, reclaimed metal, refined metal, unique grade cosmetics civ grade war paint drops and occasional merc grade cosmetic drop would be good as casual rewards pool, IMO.

[@reagansido5823]

You have to wonder why they even bothered to put this in the game if they were just gonna abandon it and do nothing to fix its problems.

[@evdestroy5304]

They abandoned it because literally no-one plays it.

[@ReikuYin]

Money, me boy. Was just another way to try and squeeze some money out of the game with minimal effort. Either get their 2 factor or buy a comp pass. If it took off, great, we can milk it. If not, we just go back to ignore it and still get some money from those curious.

[@reagansido5823]

@@evdestroy5304 Which, ironically, is partly because they abandoned it. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy sort of situation. people won't play it because they weren't doing anything, so now that no-one is playing it, they aren't doing anything.

[@evdestroy5304]

@@reagansido5823 Such is the fate of trying to make a game something it isn't. It's sad, but that's how it goes I guess.

[@evdestroy5304]

@Aquarium Gravel Someone already commented this, but yes it is.

[@readytoplay7874]

what if you wanted to have a semi-serious 6v6 game but Valve said *Match Over* _A player abandoned the match and will be penalized. It is now safe to leave, but you may continue to play._

[@readytoplay7874]

👍

[@davidhong1934]

... here's a durian

[@drillbitz2816]

🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐🫐

[@mynamese1103]

When I saw 6v6 I immediately thought óvó

[@HuntersonWolf]

Very accurate.

[@FrogInShorts]

The biggest issue with comp right now honestly is griefers, not hackers, griefers. You can idle or do whatever the whole match and there is nothing anyone can do about it. On top of that you can reset the round timer to make people constantly have to re-wait for the timer.

[@silvo5955]

i dont play comp any more but when i did every game i joined had at least 1 hacker

[@ktaeoh]

"the biggest issue" being "griefers" is quite an overstatement compared to some other, much larger flaws with valve comp

[@letsgosame1651]

I mean I played a lot of valve comp and some people are idle for the whole game because they just queue for valve comp, forget that they're in queue because of "x" reason, and then kicked for being afk

[@Ultra289]

Griefers? Yeah, that happens on casual all time And friendlies too, these grief too

[@tiberiustiberius]

YOOO FROGINSHORTS MY BOY (its me cat penguin)

[@doctoradventure413]

I remember in high school telling my friends who were really into csgo how much I enjoyed tf2 and they decided to give it a go only to start with valve competitive not knowing anything about the game and completely wrote it off thinking that it just wasn’t good

[@Conductor01]

Csgo players are so strange they don't even play the game for 5 minutes and already go to competitive

[@linuscracktips4986]

@@Conductor01 I play both games and CSGO has the exact opposite problem, where casual is the joke and people only play comp

[@Ultra289]

@@Conductor01 both tf2 casual and csgo casual are just boring... Well, they are ok but become boring quickly No wonder why tf2 isnt just appealing for most public and why the game never went above 150k players in the last 10 years... No wonder why every CS was more dominant than every tf Yeah, its casual is ok... But comes boring quickly ,no one takes it seriously and no rly good reason to play if most ppl are just going to taunt or dance (tf2 casual) all day or talking about their life problems (csgo casual) But hey.. at least tf2 has contracker and Halloween ,but friendlies make it impossible to complete contracts and for Halloween contracts you have to wait an entire year THANK GOD tf2 has a coop mode where its actually fun to play ,MVM

[@Ultra289]

@@Conductor01 I dont understand what is it so strange about it... Sure ,its not a good step, because you need some warm up, but for the noobie that wants to try the game ,why not

[@Ultra289]

@@linuscracktips4986 There is ppl playing casual just like tf2 competitive but they are minority Obviously the csgo minority id waaaayyy bigger Cuz csgo is way bigger

[@chillycaty]

I wish 9v9 comp was real

[@Kalmaro4152]

Why is there no Highland comp scene?

[@GoldfisH_]

No, no you dont. If highlander pugs were taste of what unorganized 9v9 would be like i would kill myself if 9v9 was ever added to official tf2.

[@pouyanchakameh8594]

It would be so fun tbh

[@demoman5864]

@@GoldfisH_ uhhh? English?

[@JoNarDLoLz]

@@demoman5864 It is English?

[@abicto]

valve comp is just an official way to crash the game of 4/6 people in your party without them noticing

[@audraambrozy9443]

I dont think we want comp versions of weapons, that would only limit the experience transferable from casual to comp even further and cause even fewer people to bother. It would also make the game much harder to maintain. Besides which, its an idealistically ugly concept that adds unnecessary bloat to the game. Realistically if valve were actually interested in improving the game that would require testing weapon changes on test servers separate from the main game like they used to, maybe taking cues from community projects of the same nature when appropriate

[@nathan_thorn6906]

If anything, they should be balancing around highlander, rather than the 6s crap that’s, while admittedly most popular, isn’t actually good for game balance. Highlander is a competitive mode where every class is represented, which makes it much closer to the core of casual mode, minus class stacking.

[@tippyc2]

Tbh, 6v6 is the main reason i never tried comp. That low of a player count is an entirely different game than 12's or 16's.

[@purpleapple4052]

Once I had a boring casual match in CP Well where we fucked around for long enough for most players to leave and when it fell to 6s and even 4s I suddenly understood the "appeal" for comp... it was nice but I still wouldn't play it, too stalematey, the only reason the match even ended is because eventually we were 2v2 and the defense gave up

[@MrGreySky05]

The nox cheetah guy that shot you around 3:58 is a bot hoster, I've run into them too many times

[@-eminence]

🤓

[@Nonname_From_The_Internets]

I swear he is banned now

[@Sho_Ung]

For me, comp just doesnt feel special or rewarding. Its just casual with limits, nothing more, no rewards, no nothing.

[@Calvin_Coolage]

The way comp was implemented is the primary reasons I am so biased against competitive TF2 and 6's specifically. Valve made dumb balance changes nerfed multiple weapons into the ground for a good amount of time, and it still wasn't enough to get them unbanned.

[@vyor8837]

Not all weapons are banned because they're OP. A lot of them are banned because they're mechanically broken. The gas can, as an example, is banned because it can be thrown through certain walls.

[@maskofthedragon]

Weapons only seem to get unbanned when they become so bad that they might as well still be banned

[@cowserthekhelinace]

That, or they weren't going to be unbanned EVER, just because of what they do. Base Jumper: allows Soldier and Demo to stall landing, allowing them to mix up their movement in mid air. Instead of using streams of hitscan such as Heavies, Sentries, SMGs, Pistols, etc. to immediately kill their momentum and lock them in place, they had Valve overnerf it to automatically make you a sitting duck in mid air. Gloves of Running Urgently: allowed Heavy greater speed at the cost of an Escape Plan-esque Mark for Death, less damage and being forced to hold out his Melee, aka, not shoot his gun. Instead of utilizing classes that can more easily deal with Heavy, such as Spy or Sniper (hardscope), Valve nerfed it so it makes the HEAVY, known for having the HIGHEST health pool in the game, have LESS health than a base health LIGHT class. Ullapool Caber: allowed Demo a single use explosion that could be used as a last resort "fuck you" at the cost of forced self damage. While a damage cap is a nice idea in theory, the damage when smacking someone regularly is so low that light classes can still walk away with single digit health when you're dead, AS WELL as a swing speed penalty and deploy penalty, making you even more fucked. Righteous Bison: do I need to explain what went wrong here?

[@homesinc]

@@cowserthekhelinace base jumper when used correctly was impossible to hit with projectiles and was very unfun to have to shoot at. All of the extra mobility it gave you just for the secondary slot was stupid OP. The GRU pre nerf was OP compared to every other melee for Heavy. The new change made the GRU actually fair for the other team by making the heavy to mid a lot weaker. The caber is actually still viable in sixes as a last ditch burst damage option. I do think it should come back on a 15s cool down or picking up ammo or something. These changes aren’t made with just comp or casual in mind, and they were made by valve, not the comp community. Stop lying to yourself that it was the “comp scene”. The change was invented and implemented by Valve.

[@LyritZian]

@@homesinc The changes Valve made were influenced by competitive players -- especially in MYM. This is no secret. And almost every time it was influenced by competitive players, they overnerfed -- especially when the base game, as OP points out, is 12v12...

[@nb9121]

I was in the beta for competitive matchmaking, and honestly it was really fun. Everyone at least knew what they were doing, people communicated on mics, class composition was actually semi-balanced, and games were relatively balanced. Though a lot of this was down to it being a beta and every one there cared a bit about the format and had experience. As for the required graphics performance, yeah that’s really stupid. Also your idea for class swapping is exactly what they use in the games Verdun and Tannenberg. It works really well!

[@Kossumies6]

Just remember that TF2 devs were against any 6v6 comp format during the days of Robin Walker. The reasons being that it discards half of the classes, almost all the maps and gamemodes and bans basically all unlocks aside of a traconian whitelist which hasn't been changed in almost a decade (except with even more bans). They even went as far to say that they'd rather take highlander instead of 6v6.

[@simplysmiley4670]

They do have a point though let's be honest. Game wouldn't really be the same without a clusterfuck of 12 players going against 12 players with all of 9 classes in whatever composition they want with weapons ranging from crap to frankly too good and still have it work.

[@abicto]

the days of robin walker buffing the heavy to be more competitively viable wich brought us one of the most broken heavy unlocks to ever exist good days

[@ayumu_osaka]

6v6 is basically a completely different game, if you add to that the complete unwillingness for of 6v6 players to change their meta and demand the game be balanced around it, yeah Valve should just ignore them

[@franagustin3094]

Well Robin shit out on tfc an Qwtf so he is not a saint. Also, if he didn't want 6v6, he should have knew the essence of the game instead of the stalemate and slower game that 12v12 is

[@franagustin3094]

@LOAN NGUYEN Enjoyable but not competitive. The best format is 4v4 ctf with concs but instead they make a casual game

[@alexsmith7313]

Fish, I love ya; but telling Valve to do anything about comp is over a decade too late.

[@beanz6970]

Kind of worth noting that 6v6 Comp and 12v12 Casual are almost w entirley different games, therefor it's almost impossible for the unlocks to always be equal between both of them (defi etly not an excuse for whatever the fuck the caber is though) I also really like the idea for Competitive rewards. It would be nice to have something kind of like this integrated into casual to replace the very flawed random drop system (it can be abused by bots VERY easily). I would alter it though to be somewhat similar to other games with a kind of 'battle pass' or equivalent focusing more on time played than actual performance in said time. Overall, great video as always .

[@ThatGuyLachlan]

Beanz!

[@readytoplay7874]

👍

[@literallyvergil1686]

The last thing tf2 needs is a goddamn battle pass please no

[@matchanavi]

I don't want them to require playtime on casual, the current system allows you to still get drops by playing on community servers (I enjoy MvM custom missions for example).

[@mrghost6034]

So your solution for the random drop system is to make TF2 like all the generic shooters/games we have been getting the last few years?

[@hubanimations]

Knowing the state of TF2. I don't think Valve will ever touch the mode again. It's hard enough just to get them to fix game breaking issues.

[@No-Me3]

Every time I see a video of people asking Valve to change something, I can only picture that gif of the guy talking to the brick wall.

[@Everik-ct6pg]

Meet Your Match is genuinely the worst update this game ever got. The removal of Quickplay was genuinely one of the dumbest moves valve ever pulled off. The best option would've been to keep Quickplay as the true casual TF2 experience, then make “Casual” mode a 12v12 version of comp. Removing Quickplay was completely unecessary and just made the game worse for no reason. If i were Valve, i would bring back Quickplay (just as it was back in the day. No matchmaking, you choose a server with the map you want), and then make it so that casual and comp are under the same “competitive matchmaking” tab, as 12v12 mode and 6v6 mode respectively. I also would implement all of the ideas from this video.

[@waker_link]

You have no idea how much I agree with you, I miss Quickplay servers so fucking much (especially the ability to instantly join a server with a map that you want)

[@turmspitzewerk]

there's no reason quickplay and casual can't be one in the same. casual itself is pretty functional, but just like... let us tick a box and put community servers in the queue too? like how quickplay worked back in the day? if we had quickplay, but with ranked matchmaking, we'd have all the incredible community servers with all the benefits of fair ranked matches. there was absolutely no reason to remove community servers from the queue other to intentionally outcompete and destroy them; and kneecapping community servers is the very last thing tf2 needs.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

meet your match killed almost every single misc gamemode

[@CyrogenicNation]

@@turmspitzewerk lmao matchmaking is terrible at making fair matches, especially when matchmaking doesn't look at current server performance. in-game team scrambles between rounds is the best balance format that takes into account how well you're doing currently, not historically.

[@funnycatenjoyer2758]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 plus it also killed the one new mode it added

[@literallyvergil1686]

Tf2 competitive would never work unless a complete overhaul, the game was never intended with 6s in mind and it's obvious the balancing in it is horrible and encourages and incredibly strict meta which completely defeats how the classes should work, and balancing between them is also basically impossible some weapons like the quick fix can't be balanced for both unless you ruin the weapon , it's no surprise valve abandoned it most of the playerbase isn't interested in it

[@johnnodwarf1201]

i think a fair bunch of the playerbase is interested in trying it out, there's just such a level of entry. Also people forget that highlander exists

[@VagueCastle649]

@@johnnodwarf1201 Because people very often claim highlander isn't real competitive.

[@johnnodwarf1201]

@@VagueCastle649 people who say that are fucking bozos lmao

[@lamptowel]

I'm going to assume you're someone who has never tried it lol the vast majority of people that shit talk 6s are pub heavy mains that have literally no experience at all

[@literallyvergil1686]

@@lamptowel because heavy isn't viable in 6s? No shut they get mad when they favorite class is non-existent in 6s, literally half the classes are considered non viable, how do you not see the problem

[@ethan-ps9pm]

main issue with rewards with financial value is that it directly incentivizes the worst comp behavior. people will cheat for those rewards and toxicity will be a major problem

[@PrototypeMann]

Even with all these changes, I doubt comp will ever get a meaningful amount of players. Most of the player base isn't very interested in competitive, and things like weapon bans and class limits just do more to drive the average player away. If competitive was more like casual and not the other way around, I could see more players trying it out, but I doubt they'd stick around.

[@phagesuffersatgaming.3797]

Fish made a post about this before, half of his fanbase was interested in comp but they couldn't get into it because of how hard it is to get into. Infact he said it in this video too, people smugly claim there is no interest in comp because of the low player count, when in reality it's because valve's comp sucks ass.

[@albam6392]

@@phagesuffersatgaming.3797 it's more because 6v6 sucks ass while other, better, formats never got the spotlight

[@phagesuffersatgaming.3797]

@@albam6392 I don't think that's the reason people don't touch comp though.

[@me-vx4wi]

@@albam6392 I mean even if that's the argument you want to make, that's arguably still a problem with Valve's competitive since the only format it supports is 6v6.

[@VestedUTuber]

Another issue I can think of? The 6v6 format. While I don't like the 6s format in general, I'm not going to go down that road. Instead, I'm going to focus on why 6v6 specifically doesn't work for random matchmaking competitive where ANYONE can group up with some friends and start a team, or even just queue-in solo. The problem with 6v6 for ValveComp is an issue of game design, balance, and how teamplay works in smaller games. First off, certain classes get stronger or weaker with team size - Scout, for example, is an absolute monster in 6v6 where he can usually pick fights with single opponents, but gets weaker in larger games where he's more likely to encounter multiple opponents in flank routes. Whereas Pyro generally does, well... less poorly in a target-rich environment where afterburn's effects are magnefied. As a result, a class that works as intended in 12v12 or even 9v9 can work VERY differently in a significantly smaller team size, and that creates balance issues. That works fine for 6s (even though I'm personally not a fan of it regardless) because the players know what they're getting into, but if some random person likes playing one of those classes that gets really hurt by smaller team sizes and decides to queue up for ValveComp, it's going to be a problem both for that player AND his team. Secondly, some gamemodes and maps just don't work for 6v6, others result in certain classes becoming extremely powerful or extremely weak in ways that get smoothed out by larger team sizes. Payload becomes a slog because you can't devote many players to the cart without leaving yourself vulnerable to flanking. Attack-Defense becomes Engineer Hell. CTF is... well, the concept is actually not that bad but the maps all suck. There's more, I just don't want to turn this paragraph into a giant wall of text. Finally, there's a significant difference between organizing a 12-man or 9-man team and organizing a 6-man team. With larger teams, you can kinda buddy up into multiple groups, providing backup for each other, covering weaknesses and looking out for each other. With smaller teams, the focus becomes more on each player specifically having to fill a role to the best of their ability, while trusting that their teammates do the same. Again, this is fine for people who are used to 6s. They know what they're getting into. But it's a jarring transition going from casual to competitive, and one that you really don't want to deal with if you're queueing solo or just putting together a team of friends to give comp a try.

[@PoneDtheGuy]

It's not that big a mystery. Tf2 was not built for an official comp mode, and it doesn't need it. Idk how everyone can agree that it requires completely different balance for the weapons or a banlist and all these other things that would basically be a complete rework of the game but can't put together my previous statement. Community comp fills the role of competitive tf2 fine enough. If there's a lack of interest and flow of new players, that's on the comp community to "bridge the gap" and make it easier to get into, not valve.

[@Velvety_]

Smash brothers and early shooters like counter strike and quake weren’t meant to be competitive but they change. Just because the comp side of tf2 is small doesn’t mean valve should just ignore them. Mvm is not as big as causal, doesn’t mean mvm players don’t deserve new updates for them. The comp community put their own money to fund competitions, while csgo and dota have million dollar tournament funded by valve, why wouldn’t the comp tf2 scene be upset at this?

[@PoneDtheGuy]

@@Velvety_ maybe because the comp modes for those games don't require completely neutering the entire game? Except for maybe comp Smash but at least the changes they make so comp Smash works are options rather than sweeping unoptional changes to the entire game to appease a minority of the player base. MvM is a completely different mode that can be updated and changed without really effecting casual. When was the last time you saw a weapon get nerfed or buffed for the entire game because of it's performance in mvm? Never. I'm not sure how funding tournament prize pools are relevant to what I said. I said that Valve doesn't need to make an official comp mode because community comp mode has been doing the job of giving players a competitive version of tf2 for years. Would it be great for Valve to contribute to the prize pools? Of course, I'd love to see it. But Valve has no obligation to and should not be changing the base game to force people to play more competitively "to bridge the gap". If community comp wants more people interested in community comp, then it's on community comp to make it more accessible/welcoming/appealing to people new to the comp scene.

[@simplysmiley4670]

The game just isn't designed around competetive with lower player numbers, and from what I recall at the time of Robin Walker still working on this game they didn't really want to add 6v6 anyway. It's a wildly different experience between casual 12v12 mess and 6v6/highlander matches. One has no meta, just 24 players on one map doing whatever the hell game let's them get away with while competetive (6v6 especially) has tight meta around it, with maps the game has being designed around 12v12 rather then 6v6/9v9 as well.

[@LyritZian]

Call me a contrarian, but I'm not so sure rewards in Competitive would be such a good idea when the _majority_ of the playerbase just enjoys the game casually. It may feel like an agenda is being pushed, so to speak. But in particular, _tradeable_ rewards for free would definitely cause a lot of griefing and other chaos. The game is F2P, so not only would you be giving hackers profit, but you'd be giving _smurfing_ hackers profit.

[@literallyvergil1686]

It would also make the game toxic where people play for rewards rather than fun

[@kitschydotpre4302]

I don’t see an issue with rewarding the most dedicated players. Besides, MvM has rewards and no one complains about that.

[@literallyvergil1686]

@@kitschydotpre4302 mostly because mvm isn't a competitive pvp mode and you have to pay for the rewards

[@simplysmiley4670]

Though honestly, it could use some misc stuff like backpack expanders, maybe name tags and such being possible to obtain so f2ps can get something out of it, instead of "oh look an australium weapon for doing well in this season"

[@evdestroy5304]

DID SOMEONE SAY FACEIT?

[@alexalcalaortiz368]

the rewards system would just create an extreme amount of toxicity

[@evdestroy5304]

So like most competitive games

[@alexalcalaortiz368]

@@evdestroy5304 probably even worse since the items would be tradeable

[@video_ouija7114]

As opposed to what? Who cares

[@evdestroy5304]

@@video_ouija7114 As opposed to...no extreme toxicity? Kind of self explanatory tbh.

[@Henrix1998]

As in people trying to win...?

[@sal311]

11:41 Medic! MEDIK! Doc! DOC C’MON MAN!

[@readytoplay7874]

dawc, cmahn mayn

[@jimmyrustler5801]

I see 6s, Highlander, Prolander, really anything but 12v12 as a third party mode that shouldn't be weighted heavily in terms of balance and changes Even if official 6s got an update to make it functional on the level of normal 6s comp, I still wouldn't give it any thought. Having so few players makes the vast majority of weapons, maps, and on average over half of the classes essentially an automatic lose or stalemate condition. And rebalancing the entire game around a fairly niche mode that doesn't utilize most of the game anyway would be a horrible experience for the vast majority of players. Imagine Spy made into a Scout-like flanker just so he can function in 6s and Highlander. Functional, yes, but also not fun at all. The best solution is just let third party modes function with third party rules. In other words, ditch official endorsement and just put official acknowledgement on the third party sources already refined

[@literallyvergil1686]

Yeah, tf2 casual balancing contradicts 6s so balancing towards it would be awful for the balancing of weapons and classes

[@homesinc]

Irrelevant when there are weapons OP in any mode like the wrangler, vaccinator, quick fix, bazaar bargain or machina.

[@badasscrusader]

@@homesinc no its still relevant because there are weapons that are completely fine in normal 12v12 but are strong in 6v6

[@jimmyrustler5801]

@@homesinc that doesn't refute my points at all and actually makes some others. There being more players and generally multiple sources of every type of damage in the game make those weapons at least tolerable in most pub settings, whereas they're banned because they're literally uncounterable in a 6s format

[@thirty_two2370]

You balance around comp because comp players will abuse stupid weapons way better than anyone in casual will, and when someone qeues up casual who knows how to abuse them, the game instantly becomes unfun. Ever played against that one engie with a wrangler? Balancing is 100 percent valves job and they should make weapons fun and good in 12v12, and not cancerously broken

[@FelipeJaquez]

The time Valve tried to make TF2 into Overwatch to placate the Competitive players who didnt even use the mode anyway. Remember never listen to the competitive community game devs.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

The whole reason competitive mode failed was due to valve not listening to comp community lol. You can ask people who worked with valve on the official comp (like b4nny or sigafoo). All feedback that was provided to valve was straight up thrown away. And how's overwatch even relevant to this topic? Valve started developing comp mode before overwatch was even launched

[@me-vx4wi]

@@OwO-vy2mg The Meet your Match update came out within weeks of Overwatch's release. I don't think that was a concidence.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

@@me-vx4wi I know, but valve started developing comp before overwatch beta even launched. The release version of comp was indeed way too similiar to what overwatch matchmaking is, but you can't just say that the whole idea of adding the official comp gamemode was just to compete with overwatch.

[@me-vx4wi]

@@OwO-vy2mg I'm well aware that Competitive was already being worked before even Overwatch's beta was released and that the idea for it was floating around before Overwatch was even announced. I'm more trying to insinuate that the mode (And the Meet your Match update in general) was released in a state where it clearly wasn't ready yet just to try to compete with Overwatch.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

@@me-vx4wi true. The release version of matchmaking was just awful. Valve had a streak of bad updates from the start of 2015 to the end of 2016 and MyM was arguably the worst update in that span.

[@Kanteike]

In a competitive directed game, valorant, the reward for hitting a high rank is a keychain to put on your weapons with the symbol of your peak rank in the seaon (eaxh season is about 5-6 months). I think a 1 or maybe 2 exclusive rank hats or war paint would be a decent reward, and maybe having paint3d the season you got that rank in roman numbers (is cooler)

[@Koyu_Ruh]

Ah yes. Reward good players with items for comp. . . That's totally not going to inflate the already fucked up economy and totally won't allure cheaters into comp to get the best crap right away. I like the idea in general - but look at how well VAC is working right now. It'll be a disaster, a total disaster! It can't be handled now, if we give them a chance to get STONKS out of it on top of that, that will only bait more players into cheating. I think comp can't be saved like that.

[@whensomethingcriesagain]

You could always make them not tradeable or marketable, at which point nobody will pursue them for economic reasons

[@evdestroy5304]

I don't wish I could go back to Meet Your Match, at least now we can actually join the casual servers. Couldn't do that when MYM came out. MYM is also the reason the game is in the state it's in now, competitive's failure pretty much killed any future this game may have had in modern Valve. The people who dislike the concept of competitive TF2 are not talking about Valve comp, they're talking about actual comp because it has to radically change the game to fit a more competitive nature since the vanilla game was not designed around it. Meet Your Match was Valve's attempt at trying to unify the two radically different game styles and, man, it is the prime example of why comp vanilla TF2 is just a bad concept. Tons of weapons that were fine in casual being nerfed into the ground because they didn't work in competitive, the death of quickplay for a more unified queue system leading to massive queue times, you used to get penalized for leaving matches in casual; All of this on top of the vanilla competitive mode which has all the flaws you mentioned in the video, it is just the best example ever of how TF2 was just not designed for competitive play.

[@Tobithecomic]

I fully agree the game just wasnt build for ranked games. Tf2 I feel like is the last still active game where I can just play for fun. I just dont want Tf2 to turn into another sweatfest where you are not even allowed to play casually in casual mode.

[@Kaiserboo1871]

I feel like Valve‘s creation of MYM was done as a result of them panicking at the sight of Overwatch’s success.

[@randomcommenter10_]

And the funny thing is Overwatch basically killed itself and Valve wouldn't have had to do anything with the game to compete

[@me-vx4wi]

@@randomcommenter10_ I mean hindsight is 20/20 to be fair. Overwatch started out incredibly strong and it wouldn't be until like a year or two ago where it started to crash and burn.

[@tearex8688]

Yes. Now scream it louder for the blunt-heads in the back !

[@gogglesesm9122]

The thing is ultimately in my opinion and the reason comp never got me interested is that tf2 was never designed to be a competitive game at its core its a casual game where you can join a server for 10 hours or just five minutes if you so choose comp just turns tf2 into its competitors and into something nobody truly wanted. Its not because valve comp is shit beacuse comminity comp. I have met over 100 friends playing tf2 and not a single one ever cam to me and said "Yo lets play comp".

[@alex222333ful]

I disagree No, tf2 wasn't always meant to be a competetive shooter but it absolutley has the potential to be one. The game has an immense amount of depth and complexity beneath the wacky characters and goofy weapons. It could be a ton of fun for a lot of people who enjoy getting better at the game. I also don't know why you say nobody wants competetive. Tf2 is a game that is old as hell and has basically never seen any official support for competetive, but there is still a competetive community and esports scene. Many games get millions of dollars shoved up their esports scene's ass and they just die out, but tf managing to survive despite valve's hate for comp means there is some dedication and love for it. Saying tf2 comp turns tf2 into it's competitors also doesn't make any sense to me. I guess you are referring to games like overwatch, but casual tf2 is more than just whacky overwatch, and this claim does a disservice to the mechanics tf has to offer. When it comes to individual and mechanical skill, tf2 is much, much harder than overwatch and offers a way higher skill ceiling. Of course most people won't pick up competetive. Honestly I haven't played tf in a good while and I wouldn't even know where to look. If I was a new player I would play valve comp for 2 rounds before deciding I will never try comp again. I do get that tf2 was primarily designed for casual, but it's not like tf2 comp is something that can't work or that nobody wants

[@literallyvergil1686]

@@alex222333ful tf2 comp is basically overwatch, that's the problem it's takes everything good and unique about tf2 to make it a sterile experience, the complex mechanics you mentioned are used in casual it's not a comp thing

[@gogglesesm9122]

@@alex222333ful That is a good perspective to have and I mostly agree at the end of the day tf2 should be as fun as possible for as many people as possible. +Respect I really enjoyed your response.

[@alex222333ful]

@@literallyvergil1686 Of course they are used in casual. That would go for most games. But for many people the fun comes in when you seriously compete with others. Also can you explain why you feel like Team Fortress competetive is like overwatch? I really don't understand

[@Tommuli_Haudankaivaja]

I just realised that my viewing/playing ratio for TF2 is in the few hundreds. (viewing/playing ratio is basically just time you spend watching content of a game divided by your playtime in it)

[@scout4996]

Giving monetary, tradable rewards for competitive has to be one of the worst suggestions I have seen in a while. Impressive, fish. Other than that, I agree with most things. Mostly map selection and no graphic requirements. Weapon and class limits shouldn't be a thing I think.

[@GaminGuy_]

rewards i can get, but making them tradable makes no sense, you shouldn’t be able to buy something that needs be earned

[@compatriot852]

I really wished valve could at least allow a separate group to update the competitive mode. There is an audience who wants it and it wouldn't required drastic changes only minor tweaks that community groups have already done in the past

[@bayoyo5938]

in cs go comp there are a couple rules that could be applied to tf2 comp: 1. You can choose which maps you esnt to play 2. if someone leaves the game, the team gets a small bonus after some rounds for the lack of missing a person 3. if that doesn't work the team can choose to give up and end the match prematurely 4. this is for casual aswell, add an xp bar that for every 2 levels a week can give you an item drop like a hat, skin, strange patt etv.

[@ctje1638]

Noooo! Not keyless crates! You’re screwing the Dutch and Belgian!

[@mr.slappii513]

I've only taken part in five comp matches. The first one was fine, and we won so I decided i could do it more every so often. In two of the matches someone left and/or failed to connect. And one of them had a bot in our team so both teams decided to just not play because of it.

[@Zebberz1031]

i think a good idea for a valve comp cue is: a menu would be showed of teams when you click comp, which would be organized into highlander or 6v6, and each team would work kind of like a temporary clan in clash of clans. you'd join a team off of a menu of not full teams or make your own, everyone decides on a team name, you can know the usernames of the teammates, decide classes, etc. When your team is full (with one or 2 ringers), your team would cue for a game, which would bring up a menu of other cued teams. once 2 teams agree to play, any member of both teams would nominate a map, and the map would be voted on. Teams would play, and then you'd leave that team after the game is over. keep in mind, you cannot stay on a team if your not actively cued with the other members of your team. the creator of the team can kick certain members. this would take the unpredictability/unreliability out of an automatic cue & join system, make players leaving much less likely, due to the effort required to join a team and such. This would also make it much harder for bots to play, because any bot could be booted from any team if the team leader spots a bot. things like class limits, weapon bans and others you mentioned i agree on. you could also have a system where you and some of your steam friends could all join into your own comp team. if the leader of a comp team logs off or leaves the cue, a different member on the team will become leader. if you make a team and leave the cue with no one else on, the team will be deleted. I'm not a game designer, but i just kinda thought of a casual-in-a-comp-format type of game mode, where it's not formal, but it doesn't use an automated system that likes to fuck up on a lot of cues. Let me know what y'all think!

[@BeanBups]

They don't need rewards, specifically things with effects or things like keys. We have a big enough of a bot problem already that isn't getting fixed. This won't work.

[@ihazsucks]

maybe the reward can be a untradeable seasonal medal that can get more fancier depending on your ranking

[@quartercheese6571]

15:50 fighting game tournaments barely pay lmfao, EVO (the biggest tournament in the world) payed only 10k for the winner of guilty gear strive which had 2k entrants

[@maeistired1437]

Y'know, maybe I'm biased because my favorite class is one of the ones that gets shafted in sixes meta, but I don't really like sixes in general. I wish they'd add a second queue for 9v9. I just don't get why you'd want to play the game while ignoring 3/9 of the classes. It feels like you're not playing the whole game to me. I'm also probably biased because I've never liked 5cp either, but hey it is what it is

[@TKsh1]

TF2 itself is already a massive "no" when it comes to competitive. A game designed to be casual with many players, unlockable weapons with big differences between and rather complex map structures goes as well as it sounds. Even with a "perfect" comp setting, it still woudn't be as popular or massive as... well, any game designed with competitive in mind.

[@grgh8]

pretty sure smash was made with no competitive intent and it still struck an audience cs 1.6 was hailed for being great shooting wise and all it was supposed to be was a hl1 mod and no, i dont expect tf2 to be as big as something lioe valorant, but its stupid to deny that it can be something more than a stupid hat game

[@literallyvergil1686]

@@grgh8 not really, smash comp was naturally developed by the fanbase, and smash comp is the exact same as normal smash, tf2 12v12 is completely different game to 6s and after years it's still not popular, smash didn't really have a dedicated comp mode and it still hit popular tf2 didn't, it's not hard to accept tf2 is casual to the core in design

[@alex222333ful]

@@literallyvergil1686 I think there *could* be potential if valve actually tried. The gap between competetive and casual is huge but valve could try to being it closer together. As an example SARPBC was a a pretty shit game for comp and was meant to be just casual fun, but it managed to spawn a competetive community. When the sequel Rocket League came out they did a lot to support the comp scene and now Rocket League is a decently sized esport and for most players Comp is the true way to play. Maybe it's already too late but tf2 absolutley had potential to become a good competetive game.

[@literallyvergil1686]

@@alex222333ful there's basically no way to balance classes and weapons for 6s and make them compatible with casual the game was very heavily designed with high player numbers

[@OrangeCatface]

The game's potential for its mechanics whether it be movement or aim would be enhanced even more if the game became more focused around comp and could probably have a similar playerbase consisting of different people as well as increasing the size of sub communities in the game like the jumper community in my opinion

[@gameplayer42069]

Here's hoping valve doesn't watch any of these videos of youtubers trying to groom people into competitive, causing a MYM 2.0 update that nerfs every weapon and finally kills the game.

[@lamptowel]

What the fuck are you talking about dude. Yes bro competitive players are totally why valve is incompetent. Competitive players love the game more than you, they play it more than you, are better than you, and have more passion. Do you seriously think people would be playing comp tf2 if they hated tf2 and wanted to kill every weapon and the game itself? This hate boner is fucking disgusting. Is it so hard to see that people can enjoy the game in different ways and still want the best for it? People like you make me sick to my stomach, dogshit take

[@meat.]

🤡

[@gameplayer42069]

@@meat. cool selfie buddy

[@lamptowel]

@@gameplayer42069 playground insults too, have no idea why you have this hate boner lol it's not like comp scenes are extremely important every other multiplayer fps game nowadays

[@gameplayer42069]

@@lamptowel I have this hate boner because MYM (the competitive update) got a lot of weapons nerfed (that competitive went on to ban anyways, fucking over casual players aka the majority of people playing the game)

[@henseltbrumbleburg3752]

I've always wanted to see a payload comp mode for 6's. It's TF2's flagship mode and it's easy to understand. Not only that, but stalemates are basically impossible in payload. Of course though this would require development to make maps around 6 players.

[@lamptowel]

Payload is great for pubs but becomes incredibly meh when the players on both teams are equally good and coordinated. Essentially, it's even harder to make plays compared to 6s on 5cp/koth because you have more defensive classes which slow the pace. This is exacerbated if the player count is increased as well, which is evident in highlander

[@thirty_two2370]

One teams entire goal on pl is to stalemate, as casual said, it's amazing for pubs, but in a competitive format it only works in like hl because someone has to constantly push the cart+other reasons

[@davidhong1934]

Weird question, but what does Valve want TF2 to be at this point?

[@FrogInShorts]

dead

[@kevinf8439]

It's just a typical legacy product a company has to support, but doesn't really want to. That's something very, very common in IT companies.

[@GigasGMX]

The one thing it can never be: Low-maintenance.

[@zaezae64]

One thing I've always thought about was if Valve implemented the class wars like Pyro V. Heavy into a splatoon splatfest style event You basically choose a mascot (in this case, pyro or heavy) and then you play comp games and playing the game contributes points to your mascot's team and then at the end of the war/season, players on the winning team get a little reward for their victory

[@LyritZian]

You forgot the part where there hasn't been a major update or even a single balance change in over five years. Not much for them to vote on, huh? eheh

[@zaezae64]

@@LyritZian You do realize that this same argument applies to the entire video to, yes?

[@LyritZian]

@@zaezae64 Yes, actually. Honestly, I regret Fish wasting his and others' headspace thinking and discussing Valve's 6v6 mode when it was almost inherently a mistake from the get go and there are dozens of more important issues that are affecting the entire playerbase. rip

[@jUppers]

remember when this update came out and ppl who didn't like it were all shunned and all the tubers were saying "omg best thing ever thx valve" same with mannpower and pass time. the tf2 community never learns you really didn't need a lot of brain cells to see these gamemodes are bad and won't last

[@GigasGMX]

Man, I love clowning on the competitive community but seriously fuck off. Mannpower and Pass Time are both cool and fun.

[@me-vx4wi]

Mannpower is honestly really fun even if it is unbalanced as all hell.

[@Sarum9nich]

All solutions that you have mentioned require some degree of effort and hard work from Valve, things that they hate.

[@unidorsalicosahedron7416]

A lot of really solid points. I only play casually on community servers so I haven't had the "comp experience". That said, with regards to the whole map rotation thing, only choosing the most popular maps I think is just an all-around good thing. Some maps just have to go away, and we've seen so much map inflation. New scenery is nice and all, but map balancing and mechanics matters way more in the long run, comp or not. Sometimes it really feels a bit like TF2 forgets that it's a game, and even more so a team game.

[@smietan2699]

In my opinion tf2 isn't built for 6vs6 matches I think the playerbase would be way bigger if they made Highlander an official Cometetive format (9vs9, 1 of every class) By official I mean making an ingame matchfinder, not adding official badges

[@Trainlover1995]

I always saw Meet Your Match as Valve's kneejerk reaction to Overwatch.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

It's pretty much what happened. The comp mode was in development for very long time (people like b4nny were actively working with the devs to help them with balancing the gamemode) but when overwatch came out valve decided to just kill everything they've been working on and copy overwatch matchmaking (which is also a shit on itself). The original version of comp was really different, it even had highlander at some point iirc

[@madezio2]

I really enjoy the no weapon bans and no class limits aspect of comp. If the queue times were shorter and Valve improved everything related to player abandoning games (this is the part of the video i agreed the most with) i would really enjoy the gamemode. Adding rewards would be cool, but i think they should be untradeable. Making your comp medal a cosmetic and adding a season based system where you get a temporary cosmetic item (like the hat for winning more duels in a day) for doing well that season would give incentives to people to play the gamemode.

[@lamptowel]

NR6s has been tried and it's incredibly boring and full of stalemates anyone who says that NR6s seems fun needs to just try it and realize how cancer it is

[@mechanicalsilence1]

@@lamptowel what is NR6s ?

[@madezio2]

@@lamptowel I tried it and it was super fun. What are you talking about?

[@lamptowel]

@@madezio2 NR6s with actual players as in league play or pugs with already experienced players winds up being cancer because they can fully abuse broken weapons and mechanics, far more than the pubbers that queue valve comp or whatever

[@CharmineX]

This is basically a bad weapon academy, but he's talking about one entire section of the game.

[@-cams.]

"...and then after that, you might get a funny cardboard Burger King crown for the meme." "GET THIS DEMO CHUCKLENUTS OFF THE PLANE!"

[@AkiraSatou]

Lmao

[@Durgon-Man]

FSOAS: "Wait, it's all Turbine?" Valve: _aims gun_ "Always has been."

[@QueeQuey]

I’ve had conversations/left a comment similar to this not too long ago, so sorry about the wall of text that is about to follow. I’m hoping to add this as a constructive part of the conversation. If you don’t know who I am, I’m the video team head at RGL and I ran the last NR6s cup as you can see on match pages. I VERY strongly believe in NR6s as you can probably tell based on my 2 videos talking about how I feel about competitive TF2, so I’m really happy to see any discussion around it. I’m also not just a 6s Soldier player that only wants the meta to be played with 0 experimentation, I just finished my season playing full-time engineer. There are a lot of good suggestions in here, namely the prizes and removing graphical requirements but I feel that some of the suggestions here build up too large of roadblocks to have a seamless transition between Casual and Competitive TF2 (weapon bans and class limits) and I want to clarify something. 5CP and KOTH vs Payload and A/D I do think we could have Payload and A/D more integrated into NR6s and Traditional 6s, but the issue is that maps are rarely designed around competitive play, or if they are, are made by non-competitive players. We get 5CP map designs often, for example right now I’m very interested in cp_sultry; KOTH rarely gets good designs but some great ones have emerged such as koth_bagel (already in game as Cauldron for any non-competitive players reading), and koth_clearcut being my favorite KOTH map. But I can on 1 hand count the amount of BOTH Payload and A/D maps made for 6s. For A/D the only notable map is now being made into a map for highlander (which is fine and it seems promising), and there are only 3 payload maps that I know of that were made for 6s but have been abandoned. The major issues with Payload right now are a) needing a cart bitch to push the cart, b) maps being too large leading to far too much downtime which leads to stalemates, and c) last being too easy to hold, but that’s also an issue of 5CP. A payload map that actually played well (but wasn’t used due to tournament mode not working) was Cactus Canyon. Depending on the point it mostly eliminated 2 of the 3 problems, and I would like to see more condensed Payload maps but I don’t know if it’s in the cards given that most maps are made for casual. I personally would like to see problem “a)” be eliminated by removing the x3 cap limit, and allowing a team to stack the cart to push it as fast as possible, and “c)” to be eliminated by adding a vestibule to each last point to prevent auto-resupping being a problem which also goes for 5CP. The main issue for in-game comp that I see is that casual players don’t know how to play 5CP. I play in Uncletopia which is supposed to be the “tryhard” casual server apparently and it’s extremely rare for me to see my teammates actually push advantages/be ready to retreat on disadvantages; because of this, 5CP in casual mostly ends up as a major stalemate, or a roll. So less people queue for 5CP, which leads to other players not playing 5CP and it’s become a self-sustaining loop of people not playing, then not knowing what to do when they do play. Weapons There are weapons that absolutely need to be changed and are too strong in NR6s in my experience as a player and as someone running it. Those items are: Mad Milk, Natascha, Fists of Steel, Wrangler, and most notably the Vaccinator. But to be absolutely honest, they’re the only items that really NEED a change. RGL has the least amount of weapon bans in all of competitive TF2, and most items that are banned shouldn’t be, or haven’t been tested since they’ve been nerfed. The most recent actual banning of items were the Quick Fix and Rescue Ranger for a LAN 6 years ago, and they’ve been nerfed since then with the Quick Fix being nerfed twice and just has never been unbanned/tested since. There are some items that might need some small tweaks for sure, but most of them don’t cause major issues with the game like the above items. Not every weapon has to be good in both casual and competitive, and I’m perfectly fine with items being trash in competitive if they’re fine in casual and vice versa ex. Phlog. Then there are changes that can be made to meet in the middle for a few weapons, like I don't think anyone would complain if the Reserve Shooter only got mini-crits if you or a teammate knocked someone into the air, rather than doing mini-crits on any soldier/demoman/pyro who jumps. Pick/Ban Prolander with weapons is something that should never be implemented into stock TF2, it’d be far too cumbersome for players to get a grasp on, and imagine someone auto-banning the crossbow. Class Limits: I understand the class stacking issue you bring up, but outside of low-level matchmade comp games, it never actually is a problem at higher levels. Class stacking just doesn’t work if you want to win, you can look at the cup or the two seasons of NR6s, but teams that try it just get diffed by natural class counters (or the vaccinator but that’s another problem). But I can see how it being an issue for new players could lead to being a bad experience, the issue now is that you have players that lock in classes that they suck at or are trolling, such as having 1 medic slot, but one guy instantly takes medic and only wants to play battle medic with the blutsauger. Again, thanks for the video! I wish more people would have conversations/be willing to talk about competitive TF2 that don’t have it as a major proponent of their content so I really appreciate it.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

natascha just needs to be inverted, instead of slowing others down it should give heavy more mobility when shooting

[@GigasGMX]

Great comment, great suggestions, wish the 6v6 community had been more like THIS during the one period when Valve was interested in engaging with them (~2016). Alas, they were not, and so we got the Meet Your Match that we got.

[@budybas]

I agree with the sentiment that Comp should have some incentive, but making them have a monetary gain just means we'll see more cheaters and bots filling the already small comp pool to farm drops.

[@budybas]

Wouldn't be an issue if Valve would make a working Anticheat but it's Valve. That's as likely has TF3.

[@RdTrler]

Competitive supporters: "We need rewards for competitive" Bruh. The MvM community is toxic af (remember Tacobot?) and it has the PvE equivalent of competitive rewards.

[@FenexDragonis]

We can sit here and make excuses all day long, but the reality is meet your match was the update that caused tf2 to begin to decline quite rapidly.. The real problem comes down to the fact the majority of players in valve comp are players who think they are way better than they are.. the good players are playing in third-party leagues.. Matchmaking and by extention valve comp are nothing more than systems designed to make bad players feel like good players

[@turmspitzewerk]

what exactly is wrong with that? having deeply unbalanced matches isn't fun for either side involved, and there's a good reason every single game worth its salt has MMR if it can afford it.

[@CyrogenicNation]

@@turmspitzewerk MMR only theoretically works when it looks at previous performance, when in TF2 looking at current server performance is a much better system. Let's say you're usually a god-tier Soldier who carries teams to victories any other day of the week, but you decided to play some Huntsman Sniper for a game or two. With MMR, you're going to be matched with lower skilled players because it only sees your previous experience as a god-tier Soldier, and not your current performance as a less effective Sniper. That makes the game unbalanced towards you as your team is basically gimped when you want to play as something else. With Valve's previous autobalance system where it would scramble teams after the same side won twice in a row, it takes into account each player that is there and how well they are playing currently, not historically. It's a much better system that allows for you to play more freely and try out new strategies or classes without having the burden of think you should play as your main to pull your weight.

[@FenexDragonis]

@@turmspitzewerk yet the matchmaking system does it commonly.. Tf2 and overwatch as well use a "win rate" based matchmaking system, the goal of this system isn't to make each Match as fair and possible.. but instead makes them with the goal of keeping all players within an average win rate threshold. As a result this system rewards bad player, by helping them win way more than they actually should.. with time the player develops this idea that they are way better than they really are. This is further worsened by the fact the matchmaking system effectively punishes the genuinely good players.. The difference is the good players are going to notice the matchmaking system punishing them. Where as the bad players generally won't ever notice that matchmaking is setting them with stronger players or against weaker players. Ultimately the matchmaking system is a marketing tool to retain those players who are actually dumb enough to throw money at tf2.. and those players sadly are bad most of the time, not due to skill, but ignorance

[@turmspitzewerk]

@@FenexDragonis all it does is attempt to ensure a fair fight. why should it matter *how* good a player is? it is less fun to lose than it is to win, im sure we agree. i would hope that we can also agree that it is fun to prevail against an equally skilled foe, but i gather you don't. but regardless, bad players gain fun by being in fair matches, but players who enjoy being challenged won't necessarily lose fun in the same way. i'm a decent player, and for years i have continued to play this game and others like it because i certainly do enjoy becoming more skilled at it. keyword being *my* skill, because improvement is a personal journey. i don't need to dominate some poor noobs to know that i'm getting more skilled; because its not about who i am better than, but rather that *i* am getting better. i play to challenge myself- a FAIR challenge, where i not only need to be playing to the best of my ability, but also to win out against them with superior moment-to-moment decision making, plays, and counters. so that i can overcome and face even harder opponents head on. you say that bad players will learn to be good if they face good opponents, but why wouldn't this be true for opponents of equal skill as well, you have to BEAT them after all. everyone is playing to get better and practicing every game to overcome better opponents whether they know it or not. players are constantly in a learning process, and they're going to internalize it a lot better if they try out a new strategy and it nets them a win against otherwise even odds, not because they're getting spawncamped for 10 minutes. playing in a fair environment is conducive to improvement and yields far more immediate results. you say that matchmaking caters to bad players by making them feel good, but why wouldn't the opposite be true as well? what good comes from filling up matches with noobies to make people feel better about themselves? who's to say that its not you who is skilled, but rather you're just sub par and have a bunch of noobies to stomp on to feel better about yourself? if you obsess over your K/D and want to know you're skilled, why not just look at the rank instead? or like, accuracy statistics or something to *prove* your raw aim ability rather than just leaving it up to if you randomly get good opponents or not. MMR has an incredibly tangible benefit to those below the curve, and you can only kinda argue that it might be a little bit less fun for those above the curve because they'll have to play matches where the enemies can actually fight back. but for christ's sake, we figured out its not a good idea to have a little league team go up against hall of fame MLB stars centuries ago. you said it yourself: having challenging opponents IS a reason to try and do better and prevail. it applies to high skill players just as much too. i can only imagine that the apprehension against MMR is purely from the pubstomper: they don't *want* to be challenged, they don't *want* to be better than they are, they just want to rack up the highest kills no matter what. but there is someone on the other side of the screen! negativity bias aside, every little dopamine hit you get from dominating is as good to you as it is frustrating to someone on the receiving end of an unfair fight. and there is only the one of you, but there are multiple players on the opposing team. pubstomping is exhilarating when you *earn* it, but in an unfair match its just the expected outcome. the pubstomper does not want that rare popoff moment, they want *every* game to be full of little plebs to dominate purely for the sake of dominating some noobs. they're probably not interested in challenge, merely getting off on the frustration of others to stroke their own ego. i'd say thats a pretty gross mentality! falls in line with griefing or trolling or other such provocative pleasures. but oh well, pubstomping is just the nature of the game and you can't blame them for just playing after all. it may be frustrating to be stuck in a match against a brick wall, but everyone deserves to have fun with the game and it would be ridiculous to suggest they stop playing the game just because they make it unfair. if only there were some solution to make sure that *everyone* can have a fair match, but clearly that's impossible since everyone has a different skill level! the fact of the matter is that MMR is nothing new, it is simply a natural trend towards leveling the playing field that has existed long before even computer games. tournaments, leagues, ranks, handicaps, team balancing, so on. ELO was made for chess, after all. video games didn't have it only because they *couldn't* have it. when there was only couch parties or community servers with a lack of any internal infrastructure to guarantee fair matches. it was a sorry time when games handicapped their skill ceiling and stuffed as much random bullshit in as possible to ensure you'd have at least some chance to beat the guy sitting on the couch with you. another form of skill balancing mind you, just a shitty one that involves literally removing possibilities for skill. but with MMR this is a time of the past, no longer do you have to care about pros ruining some new player's day because you can simply separate them. the pros can get as technical as they want and the noobs never have to suffer for it. the only time MMR doesn't help is when it literally can't exist: such as games with minimal player counts or for couch party games. this is all predicated on the idea that TF2's MMR even actually does anything. all of us suffer from bots, right? but if MMR did anything, then all the bots would fly up to the top ranks and most of us would be none the wiser. this isn't the case: we all have just as many shitty unbalance games and hackers as anyone else. clearly casual MMR is ineffective, perhaps purposefully, to the point where it might as well not exist in the first place. so after MYM, community servers were butchered, matchmaking was broken for a year, and it was all in vein.

[@CyrogenicNation]

@@turmspitzewerk how good a player is affects how you're going to be matched by the MMR. however, the problem is that it assumes that you will always be playing at your best, or at least, within your historical skill level. I don't think that this is a good way to create matches in TF2, since it takes away your own freedom of play and puts a large expectation on you to try as hard as you can. how impactful you are when you're trying as hard as you can differs from a lot of factors. You could be, as I've said, a god-tier pubstomper Soldier on any other day of the week. however, whenever you decide to try something out of TF2's large bag of classes and loadouts, that expectation of being a Soldier carry sticks with you if you had MMR on. you are then forced to match with bad teammates because the game assumes that you are going to play as a god-tier Soldier, and not, for example, trying out classes you might be unfamiliar with or weapons you've hardly been using. that problem doesn't only apply to the individual players, but to their enemies as well. for example, let's say you got matched against 2 gold medal-winning comp Snipers on the other team. you yourself aren't too shabby and have a couple of comp players on your team, and all of you decide to play as your best classes. but, if for that game the enemy gold snipers decided to play as two Engineers instead of Snipers and then ended up being far less skilled at it than they could be, the game ends up stillbeing unbalanced and unfair because the MMR system doesn't see what the players are actually doing in game and how well they're performing currently. I think autobalance and teamscrambles are a much better option in ensuring fair games in TF2, since it only takes into consideration your current performance. that means that you won't be forced to continue having bad teammates because the game expects you to carry them, and instead it could detect that the game is unbalanced and puts you in an appropriate team with appropriate teammates.

[@sevinPackage]

I'd prefer 12v12 for competitive. The current "1 player for these 4 classes, 2 for the rest" wouldn't have to change, and reliance on 1 clutch gamer may not be so high; 1 or 2 rookies may not ruin your chances of a win. If the mode gets more players after fixing the other crap, maybe the ratio of toxic hardcore Comp players will diminish as well....? ....Now, what to do about Pass Time - does it need an annual event to ever be played? I don't know anybody that's ever played it.

[@GigasGMX]

Casual Pass Time is the stupidest experience imaginable and I love it. No coordination, no plans, no idea what we're doing, we die like men. ...Honestly, I think what Pass Time needs is: 1. A tutorial. Maybe even one that covers some basic tactics. 2. A class limit on Engineer. Alternatively, make sentry bullets in Pass Time not cause Knockback. Just *something* to prevent one team from going all Engineer and ruining the "Go Fast, Play Sportsball" feel of the game.

[@Superluigi881]

This was so worth losing quickplay for. What a fucking joke.

[@f145hr3831jr]

The community weapon ban list only exists because competitive players have been unable to adapt to new strategies and diversify their playstyles. Meet your Match already showed what happens if we let them have their way: they turn a game designed to be casual and wacky fun into another bland CS clone.

[@Conductor01]

Bans exist because the weapon can be broken or a straight upgrade or are way to op like jarate and mad milk can wipe a enemy push its not that comp players don't change their playstyle its because the weapons are unbalenced or don't work properly like the gas passer going through walls as a example

[@GigasGMX]

@@Conductor01 the fact that the gas passer goes through walls doesn't matter because it's still useless. please find better examples. And use punctuation!

[@PineappleDealer37]

Another video from the series "Water is wet and 6v6 doesn't work in TF2"

[@Awesomeness-iz3dh]

Complaining about competitive considering the state of the rest of the game is like saying a totaled car needs a new paint job.

[@Duothimir]

Competitive is literally the reason the game is in its current state.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

mfw valve nerfed steak heavy into the ground for no real reason

[@Starpotion]

It's arguably the biggest offender for TF2's current state besides the bots

[@Awesomeness-iz3dh]

@@Starpotion It's not a majorly competitive focused game, and seeing as it basically invented loot boxes and nobody is mad about it somehow, Valve doesn't need to care about competitive to make boatloads from it, which is what they as a company care about.

[@squeaks5677]

@@Duothimir How so?

[@jknifgijdfui]

I do still want casual 9v9 highlander lobbies that you can just join from the server browser (unless that already exists in that case ignore this comment)

[@Nate303]

I didn’t know about the graphics limits. That’s stupid and I’m surprised none of the other TF2 KZbinrs who have done essays on this mentions it. It is really important to understand why matches often don’t work

[@ryvn_ryvn_18]

there's also prec, a plugin that automatically records demos for comp matches. using it in valve comp instantly crashes your game :P

[@EnoughCactus]

I don't understand the point of a video like this. Everyone already knows Valve comp is shitty and that Valve won't do anything about it, and has known for over half a decade. This is just aimlessly continuing to beat a dead, almost fossilized horse that everyone has already accepted won't be revived and moved on from.

[@stop6426]

Me watching this having never played and will ever play competitive tf2: Interesting... 🤔

[@ThatOneGuy-id7mo]

I play as much comp as I can and almost every time someone picks a spy and we lose because of it

[@neverendar1778]

I just hate playing with a banlist, because it makes it less fun and you have less choices to switch between when wanting to solve a problem.

[@nathan_thorn6906]

If the banlist and competitive play was based entirely on Highlander, 9v9 with 1 class limits, I’d get behind it. But they balance around sixes which only shows off 4/9 classes 99.99% of the time since all the maps played are symmetrical.

[@vlad9tf2]

whitelist exists cause certain weapons are unfair to fight for certain classes and therefore make the game less fun. when "having a problem" probably reffers to countering a single player...

[@HammMann]

1:12 i completely forgot i had you added, so i had to do a double take when i saw my name on the board.

[@TyIer7]

Crashing has nothing to do with the "jump in graphical quality" it has to do with having the game set to Direct X 8 because the game can't effectively change dx levels while loading into a map.

[@me-vx4wi]

I mean his point is still the same since that still has to do with graphics

[@TyIer7]

@@me-vx4wi An entire Direct X change is different than playing at potato settings. The game wouldn't crash if not on DX8. Videos like this give people the wrong talking points. The community clinging onto DX8 support even though DX9 compliant hardware was the norm several years before the release of the game is part of the issue of performance. Valve could remove DX8 fallbacks and overall compatibility in favor of more efficient rendering for DX9 or better were they to drop DX8 support.

[@Gildedbolt]

I like how around the opening transition he snuck in the level 4 dispenser from the outro of one of the bad weapon academy videos

[@oORoOFLOo]

Meet your match has gota be the worst update, right? It just ruined pubbing for me.

[@adversarry]

This Is a really banging video. Thank you for this beut

[@seanm3029]

I just miss Quickplay, it was so much smoother than casual

[@bruschetta7711]

Today's casual feel like that kid using the longest and most convoluted slide animations in Powerpoint

[@GigasGMX]

TF2 competitive was doomed to obscurity the instant that the arbitrary band of internet weirdos who invented it settled on a 6v6 format in a game fundamentally designed around chaotic 12v12 matches. The problem is that they somehow managed to be loud enough that they convinced Valve otherwise. I would welcome a competitive 12 v 12 format, but I’m not holding my breath. EDIT: None of this is to say that 6v6 is bad or that people who play it are bad (I just like to make fun of them because they do--or at least did--consider themselves to be the supreme arbiters of balance in TF2), just that the mode has fundamentally different appeal from "normal" TF2, which isn't true for, say, Overwatch or CS:GO (where the "competitive" modes are just the "casual" mode but with ELO). I don't think it's bad that 6v6 has an official Valve implementation (if Pass Jack, Medieval Mode, and Mannpower have official implementation, why *not* 6v6?), just that Valve decided to half-ass a compromise between their design principles (principles that I very much agree with, like "entire classes shouldn't be useless") and the existing practice of the 6v6 community and THEN take that terrible compromise and try to make it Ranked TF2.

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

I'm going to be real with you, Fish, I don't think this will work. Valve's clearly abandoned the Comp scene at this point. Adding prizes and "team ranks" (Which you don't even explain how teams would work in the video from what I've seen.) would only make it Valve's Faceit. Plus, the prizes wouldn't really matter to the vast majority of people, as they'd likely just be things you can get from somewhere else or an ugly hat you never wear. Think of Pass-Time and how that's fallen to the wayside because it's not 2fort or some other stupidly popular map. Valve Comp died. It's going to remain dead. Get used to it.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

passtime and player destruction will always be better than ctf

[@thebushbros6626]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 wrong

[@LyritZian]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 they're smarter, funner, and more interesting modes, I agree, but they're not as noob friendly and don't have many maps -- let alone classic and popular ones like 2Fort.

[@Nickythepickle]

First comp match I went into on Viaduct was, on the enemy team, a trolldier with godlike skill, a heavy that was aim hacking and spawncamping us, and their whole team flaming us. On my team, was 2 spies and a demoknight. You can imagine how that game went. I think anything tf2 and competetive related will always be community driven.

[@memory9769]

valve : made competitive mode for player duel tool : am I a joke to you?

[@pikazilla6405]

I’ve always been of the opinion that in some level, competitive players have to make a compromise if they want their scene to appeal to more people, a massive gap between a regular player’s experience and a ranked players experience is never good for any game and while I’ve seen many propose the idea that casual should be changed to more resemble a competitive environment, I think the opposite, I think competitive should be more like casual, when competitive players play 6v6 in a game made for 12v12 in nothing but 5cp it’s practically a different game all together where they just learn to forget half the class roster even exists, I definitely think the game mode pool at LEAST should be expanded excluding ctf

[@Imirui]

A thing I hate about Valve Comp is the ridiculous graphics requirements, I play tf2 on medium to low settings, my computer isn’t good and it can’t handle anything above subpar level. One time I played valve comp and got into a game and my computer instantly shut off because of how hot the computer was getting. The ridiculous graphics requirements hard crashed my pc.

[@Star-de7om]

Why isn’t comp 9v 9

[@Linkman8912]

You mean why doesn't valve comp have a Highlander mode? That's probably because it takes at least some teamwork on figuring out who's playing what, whereas it would probably end up being people trying to get their favorite class first, not whichever the team needs. Also, probably because they're lazy. If you mean why is 6v6 not 9v9, idk what to tell you

[@imconfused6955]

You would not believe how badly I want to infiltrate valve and fix comp mode myself. Some of those fixes are so easy

[@applejhon8308]

I don't mean to be too much of a pessimist but I've seen a few videos like this now and all it's done is reinforce my belief that official comp was a bad idea in the first place. Even in a world where most of these changes were implemented from the get go I just don't see a scenario where the mode is successful. The player count would likely never be high enough to keep things stable and there was never a chance it could even begin to compete with community comp.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

The original idea of valve's comp was to introduce people to the 6v6 format so that they could get into unofficial comp much easier (which has always been a big problem). But instead, they made something absolutely messy and not similiar to the actual competitive.

[@applejhon8308]

@@OwO-vy2mg I'm sure they had lots of good intentions but that doesn't dispute my point. Creating a game mode to get people to the point where they don't have to play it anymore? Trying to mimic a massive community controlled endeavor with a single update?Trying to blend what are essentially two entirely different games together in a way that pleased everyone? There was no end goal here, it was all an exercise in futility.

[@OwO-vy2mg]

@@applejhon8308 Maybe if valve cared about this sort of stuff since the start of the game instead of just adding 1-2 console commands to make things easier then, to the moment this update came out it would've been much better. I don't see a reason why valve would only care about 1 part of community (the casual one) while neglecting the other. Not to mention that a lot of people will naturally start playing the game much more competitively over time and would want to try themselves in something else. That's pretty much how eveeyone got into competitive in the first plays. People used to be pubbers but started having a desire in a different experience.

[@applejhon8308]

@@OwO-vy2mg Stop and think about the logistics here dude. For starters the entire thing was an attempt to throw the competitive community a bone as mishandled as it was something that created some controversy on its own. Secondly there just isn't this silent majority of players desperately trying to play "comp" as competitive players have designed it. It's not what the game was made for and it's not what most people play for. I would have enjoyed seeing a good competitive mode be added but the idea that it would be anything other then a novelty, let alone somehow effectively tie into community competitive is ludicrous.

[@justsomeogrewithinternetac1494]

0:37 OH NO THE LEVEL 4 DISPENSER LOOK OUT

[@YourLocalRaider]

I agree with a lot of these. But except for the rewards thing. Unlike MVM, i've seen players just casually dick around with other players and collect the prizes after laughing repeatedly (Elitists don't count.) Comp though... you have to try your BEST to get these, which removes the entire purpose of what TF2 is: A casual game. MvM is a PVE game mode, where the only thing you do is kill robots as fast as you can, Competitive is a PvP game mode where the meta, skill and sweatiness comes. Rank reward systems are usually what grows a competitive community, which also grows a toxic one, then to people getting bored of the rewards or hating the sweatiness, then to eventually making it dead. Especially since your rewards can be really high valued, the comp scene will just become worse, but not in terms of popularity, but in terms of likability. Well, this is my opinion on that specific suggestion, if anyone disagrees with what i said, let me know.

[@uteluna]

Valve comp is a COMPlete joke

[@MuichirouTokito416]

*drum noise*

[@NojsGraphics]

Ratchet & Clank soundtrack in background is so nostalgic for me damn

[@dazeen9591]

I would probably play Valve comp even if it's CRAP... if only I could actually play it without changing my settings and removing mods every time I want to do so. The graphical restrictions are a major turn off. Also the skill based matchmaking is definitely a other turn off because no one in my team ever has even 1/10th of my skill.

[@mistahstyle]

I played 3 valve comps my whole life, all of them had a queue time greater than 20 minutes, all of them ended up with both sides having the exact same team comps and same weapons... In game 2 we absolutely crashed them and someone in the enemy team just fucking left 😡, game 3 my team got stomped on cuz the enemy team had a cheating sniper 🤬... Then i gave up comp for a while, went for my usual 2fort and payload, and sat through 6 constant lobbies of cheating ear raping spinning sniper bots in pub, and just quitting my queue because in some queues there were dual bots on my team that started vote kicking to always take the vote space so no one could kick them 😡🤬💥🗿... Then i got pretty tired of the fact that every lobby just had a bot in it, and if it didn't it just waited 10 minutes to send a bot and i gave up, i think to counter this issue valve needs to give the game the csgo treatment and just supply prime matchmaking with phone link, yeah everything without prime will be a literal hell to go through but at least there will be somewhere a playable game!

[@Coxick]

I don't think that a one contractor can do all of these changes

[@timrthoward7007]

Stop trying to make comp happen. It's not going to happen

[@damianateiro]

If traditional 6v6 is already rubbish, valve is worse, the only good thing is there is no meta written in stone and more game modes

[@kitschydotpre4302]

I really want to grind valve comp but the only thing stopping me is that it messes with your config, as a league comp player I have put a huge amount of effort into my config so the game feels exactly like I want it to and I am not willing to play valve comp with the chance all that work will get messed up.