Why Do Competitive Players Restrict Classes?

Class limits are a polarizing addition to competitive TF2, with a common misconception attributing the lack of class diversity to restrictions. I talk about what the class limits are, how they affect the metagame, and ask the question of how the meta would be different without them.

[@MrSquiy]

Thank god one of the few comp tf2 content creators is a demo main. All of the worlds demo advice at my fingertips

[@jacklystackly]

WLG enjoyers be like

[@kimgkomg]

Use the shield it's good in this game

[@krollic]

prior to 6's there was 8's and it was the same except with two demos and two medics. I remember playing it on old granary. entirely abysmal

[@gunwr2ng]

that sounds like the most boomer fortress format ever, love it

[@krollic]

@@gunwr2ng it was really really not very good lool. stalemates and spam fests for days

[@itsasecrettoevery1]

"I call flank demo"

[@gunwr2ng]

@@itsasecrettoevery1 in tears bruh hahahaha

[@2copy3copy4cpoy]

>demoman demo starts playing >MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE on brand

[@wudlle]

tbh never expected there to be so many things behind comp tf2 these highkey interesting dawg

[@WhatScienceCouldntDo]

"oh my god kjr is in this pugscrim this is awesome" first time that sentence has been said

[@Lawlz4Dayzz]

I kept hearing how sniper is "balanced" in 6s but I see more what they meant by that in this vid. I def see how sniper is a ton weaker in 6s vs where in casual he can sit behind a wall of players and have all the time to charge shots, aim for the head, and has no effective punishments if he misses. So while sniper cant exactly shutdown entire lobbies in 6s. He is still an absolute pain to go up against and a solid net negative to the experience that will make the game more like a stalemate more similiar to Turbine or 2fort than a fast paced 6s match.

[@rain28980]

8:01 the demo tried to caber the scout but hit a wall and killed himself

[@ReiCaixa]

Considering there are 9 classes, I HATE the TF2 Competitive scene for even allowing 2 classes in 6v6 or 5v5. It makes absolutely no sense that you'd allow 2 soldies, increasing the amount of missing classes from 3 to 4. I love 9v9 restricted to 1 per class. And I wish we had a Chaos-Competitive, 13v13 with all the 9 classes, plus a Demoknight, a Huntsman, a Trolldier, and a Mini-Engi. Or even a 14v14 including a Dragon's Fury Pyro. Or having 1 normal Spy, 1 with Dead Ringer. Etc.

[@iamsixsyllables9679]

lmao, that's why Highlander exists; 9v9, 1 of each class. Although HL has their own issues due to those restrictions, people like to play that way as well. Also imagine actively throwing by forcing subclasses, that literally defeats the whole purpose of a subclass.

[@ubermorpth2208]

As a full time medic player (both in casual, but a tiny bit of experience in a newbies mix for one season. Fun time if a bit chaotic!) Medic is by far the most important class, and uber's the most important thing when it comes to decision making from both sides. Even in casual/community matches (uncletopia/tf2 match making) Any players who even know about paying attention to uber percentages can heavily influence how they play, being passive or more aggressive. I believed this as such even before I played my first 6s season as med, this just re-confirms it. Class stacking would just take out by far one of the most important game play mechanics of (not just 6s) but even casual play if there's more then 1 medic on either side, just allows for the silliest and dumbest of strats to work, along with sacs on medics becoming way less valuable as many classes excel in this. (Solly, Scout, Demo, Spy).

[@MegaDman321]

Love having consistent tf2 content not aimed at 6 year olds

[@damsen978]

That doesn't mean it should be 30 minutes. Most of it is mumbling around and side-tracking. It could have been summarized in 10.

[@Kolo41741]

@@damsen978 man woke up and choose to be a hater

[@TarlukLegion]

@@damsen978 maybe, but that also would take a lot more time refining a script than Wild Rumpus might feel comfortable dedicating. and I like my tightly edited video essays as much as the next guy, but sometimes I also like to just put on a minimally-edited, podcast-like kind of video while on a walk, keep the monkey brain going.

[@bethnicz]

the real MEN are here to talk about THE REAL SHIT. So what do you think about the loose cannon, should it be dare I say… banned? 🤭

[@colatf2]

@@damsen978maybe, but this video format is better. You don’t have to sit and stare at the screen for a half hour.

[@forthopinion1438]

I just wanna say, even though I've only found your channel a little while ago, your videos are SUPER pleasant to listen to, they're nice to have on in the background and just kinda chill.

[@Felipe-yv4bc]

What if two demos were allowed as long as one is running a shield? Would people even bother to play demoknight at all?

[@isenokami7810]

I’m sure someone with more comp or coding experience could better elaborate, but that doesn’t sound too enforceable to me. Class limits are simple and can be enforced with a server plugin; it’d be a lot harder at the very least, if not impossible or not worth coding, to make a plugin that says “actually you CAN be a second demo, but only if you’re using a Demoknight loadout.” Generally it would probably come down to players just having to be trusted to play nice with those rules, and I don’t think that would last too long. A similar wish and same logic shutting it down could be applied to Medic. While it’s important to limit Medic to one for the push and pull of Uber tracking, you could argue for allowing a second if they’re restricted to the other mediguns: Uber tracking would be more of a thing with the main while the off Medic gives purely offensive buffs or extra healing with the Kritzkrieg and Quick Fix…or maybe just the Quick Fix, Kritzkrieg might still be too much. However, this runs into the same problem of it being easier to restrict classes entirely than player loadouts: you’re telling the second medic they can’t use Stock Uber, but what’s really stopping them from switching to it anyway? And I know server plugins do exist that restrict weapons and maybe swap them out if they’re on your loadout, but I’ve never heard of one that allows one of the offending weapon to exist like how the class restriction plugins work.

[@tillburr6799]

@@isenokami7810 idunno just check every 20 seconds or smth to see if there are two demos and if both are using stickies just killbind the one who went demo second. Not a coder but it probably wouldn’t be too hard

[@Kat-fs1oj]

@@isenokami7810”idk if thats possible, i do know that *describes the exact solution to the problem* “

[@oiytd5wugho]

Wasn't sniper limit 1 because on certain lasts you could run 2, one on each spawn door and switch back for free? Like, a lot of those bans are because of 5cp last and nothing else - iirc pyro also had a limit of 1 for a bit, because you could run two to be guaranteed enough airblast time to deny an uber on last entirely

[@Wild_Rumpus]

thats a fair point and i dont remember exactly what the discussions were at the time, but im not sure that 2 sniper last hold is worth giving up a soldier (engi still required ofc). something to think about i guess

[@lorry3535]

@@Wild_Rumpus i believe this was discussed by Sideshow on his channel many years ago, regarding two snipers in forwards being too strong. It's called "RANT: Prolander & the BEST class composition". Interesting watch if you haven't seen it before ^^

[@muti7632]

Yes this is was abused in etf2l quite a bit in maps like process and granary. It was of course more of a map problem and etf2l took the easiest option in solving the issue. I think its still for the better because koth would just be a sniper hell since it is already meta in product to have one full time sniper.

[@enn1924]

Casual players when the class designed to defend last is only used to defend last: 0o0

[@ToastedEgg89]

Another thing about Medic being restricted to 1 is that Medics can heal and overheal each other. Killing a 225 HP Medic is far more difficult than killing a 150 HP Medic which slows the game even further and dual ubers would alone. Because you didn't quite go into it -- I want to ask: What makes Heavy+Engie in a last hold not as effective as a theoretical Engie+Engie and Heavy+Heavy? I can remember some discussion from some time ago where someone was lamenting the fact that Demoknight or even Non-Stock Demo (Booties+Quickie was the example used) will never be used in comp because of the Class Restrictions. I feel that goes hand-in-hand with my belief that Valve should have made Demoknight its own class instead of tacking all the swords and shields onto Demoman. Also, interestingly, from what I have seen in No-Restriction 6s matches, two Medics will usually be Ubering the same patient (A Demoman most of the time) for a Uber+Kritz combo than the two of them both running Uber and rotating heals among the other players on the team.

[@Grapevin]

There would be no reason to go engi + heavy with class limit 2. If you don't have time to set up a proper sentry, you'd rather go dual heavy, and if you do have time to set up a proper sentry you'd rather go double engi. It's kinda just the same reason you would pick between the two now, only twofold I feel like I saw stock + vacc used in nr6s more, for the sake of having a proper uber and then also a sort of flex healer as you would see in other class shooters like Overwatch. But obviously that's just anecdotal, I could be wrong about what was more common

[@capnfapn]

There was a brief period back in like 2010 or something where the meta for holding last was double Natasha heavies lmao.

[@halen7846]

For a game that’s so unbalanced in a casual setting, sixes with the proper ban list is nearly perfect

[@Lawlz4Dayzz]

I wonder if its possible to have role limits instead of by class so there are more casual comp games with Demoknights instead of scouts.

[@iamsixsyllables9679]

there's offshoot tourneys that do alternative gamemodes like demoknight only, but your matchup against scouts would just be even worse if you play demoknight if they have a functioning brain.

[@headcrab4]

So a question I didn't see get answered in the video is sort of the inverse of the "Why limit to one" decisions for Demoman, Medic, etc. What is the argument that the other classes *don't* have a 1-class limit, like Soldier and Scout? Something you bring up in the video is how "You're only going to see two of that class in situations where you'll already see one of that class". Does this argument not apply as equally to Scout/Soldier? The meta is already 2 Scout 2 Soldier; so it would make sense that the same thing describes those two. In situations where you're going see one scout, you're most likely going to see a second scout. Same goes for soldier. I'm not involved in the comp community at all, and I'm genuinely curious what the reasoning is behind allowing doubles for those classes over others.

[@Wild_Rumpus]

it's because a.) 2 is the historic default class limit (pyro and spy are limit 2 for example) and b.) including an extra scout or soldier doesn't have the same cannibalizing effect like medic and doesn't overemphasize defense like demo, heavy, or engineer also scouts and soldiers are generally quite fun and fair to play against

[@idontbelieveinmagic]

a big thing is because scout/soldier are both generalist classes, having multiple of them does not lead to the game being over centralised around any 1 thing. This is doubly true because the 2 scouts/soldiers are almost always playing vastly different roles, something not as common with other classes (with the exception of demoman vs demoknight).

[@yeahmansoul]

I would love to see a stickie launcher limit of one rather than a demo one be tried While i have demoknight in mind i would be curious about your opinions about the stickie jumper

[@jadynandchara640]

another thing is that if the class limit for medic is 2 then there'd be less other classes, therefore not only halving the value of killing a medic, but increasing the cost of risking the sacrifice

[@Blucario90]

gotta include the random steam notification to mess with us

[@bbfitzgerald1827]

mr. rumpus i have a question. why cant i play heavy in 6's if you could (assuming the "it isnt fun" factor isnt in play) how far could you take heavy in 6's. how would the meta shift with this change? would the other team be forced to run sniper?

[@JohnSmith-wf1xq]

you can play heavy full time, it is just only good for defending

[@Wild_Rumpus]

heavy is generally very exploitable via spam and the slow movement speed makes him overall less effective. and yes teams do sometimes run full time sniper in response to full time heavy

[@yeahmansoul]

I have only seen heavy being seriously played on last, but while 95% of the time it is defensively it can also be use to push last, typicaly with uber ad to have the time to roll out and to take position during the uber

[@junkyporpoise4254]

You know, I have absolutely no interest in playing comp TF2, I’m a filthy casual for life, but I find completely fascinating hearing someone who is very clearly skilled at what he does talk about the gamemode. Comp is such an alien concept to me, but you’re a very nice insight into that battlefield.

[@techwizsmith7963]

Honestly, regardless of how many rules or bans I may disagree with, this one I will always whole heartedly support. It would be awful to have more

[@youngthinker1]

I don't think the ban list or the class limit is meant to stop off meta stuff. (I feel like some of this video came at me for my prior comments.) It is more like stopping things that aren't fun to fight or fight with. Like fighting against the old sandman which stunned uber players, or the sandman guillotine combo which allowed a scout to one shot most classes, might be fun for the scout, but no one else is having fun. Vaccinator is a pain in the butt to deal with, no matter what you want to do. Especially when you can uber a diving soldier for a better chance to kill the enemy medic. A few other white lists are iffy. The quick fix isn't busted, as it requires a different playstyle to maximize it's potential, and I don't think it forces the other team to use a quick fix. Focus fire can kill that uber quickly, and it is meant to quickly heal a wounded team, which puts you at risk to explosive damage. A critical uber destroys a quick fix one any day. But outside of that, I take it as nearly two decades worth of experience making each particular choice to facilitate that the community wants.

[@capnfapn]

Quick fix is really really good in 6v6. Getting Uber of any sort significantly faster than stock is huge and being able to launch your medic into the air whenever a soldier bombs him makes him really hard to kill

[@youngthinker1]

@@capnfapn To me, the optimal play with the quick fix would be a banner soldier that will either boost team wide defense, or offense. So the demo moves to a more backline position, while the pocket soldier acts as defense for the medic. This means a more mobile healer, with a scout supporting the demo to help protect him.

[@idontbelieveinmagic]

bans are usually for both fun and balance. A big part of the ban list comes from "does this force the other team to do x or instantly lose". See old sticky jumper caber, which forced both demomen to become suicidal medic bombers. old sandman guillotine WAS broken, it was unfun because it was obscenely strong and let scout deny anyone from playing the video game. same with vaccinator. That weapon is just lowkey broken, and especially in a 6v6 setting, a skilled medic is functionally impossible to kill, especially with the quicker uber. and quick fix is just broken. once again, in a 6's context, the quick fix uber is much harder to outdamage, but more importantly, it forces the other medic to also run quick fix otherwise they just lose the first engagement, lose uber advantage, and get fucked anyways.

[@youngthinker1]

@@idontbelieveinmagic Not really. As a man who uses the quick fix quite a bit, it is countered by snipers (headshot burst damage), pyros (flames retard healing), and Kritzkrieg (critical burst damage). A combo pyro could be an option if you check the medic's medigun, and that would stop it.

[@idontbelieveinmagic]

@@youngthinker1 the thing is, all of those stop all mediguns, they're not weaknesses f the quick fix, they're just general weaknesses. same with kritz, it's irrelevant to this convo, because the problem with the quick fix is not the uber, it's the fact that you simply always win fights without uber. A kritzkrieg is not useful against a team with a quick fix because you will never get up your uber in the first place because you lose every team fight.

[@henseltbrumbleburg3752]

I wonder what the meta would be like if there were a CTF mode where one team attacks and another defends, instead of both teams having flags.

[@iamsixsyllables9679]

that's literally the competitive TFC format! Basically attack/defend halves of CTF, and unfortunately, it one of the most BORING gamemodes I have ever seen. It's 4v4, with one team having 2 scouts and 2 meds or 3 scouts and 1 med, while the other has a heavy/demo/engi/soldier. It's literally throwing yourself at a brick wall and hoping to inch the flag a meter every life. Not very enjoyable.

[@Spenji]

7:05 how on earth did you survive there lmfao

[@RumpIeForeskln]

I wonder if a one stickybomb launcher limit would make playing demoknight a thing.

[@3awesomelegodudes]

I wonder if there was a a team building limit instead of a class limit would people still run 2 engineers on last if they could both only build a single sentry. I wonder if that would make the game more interesting

[@muti7632]

probably no since you would just have one knockoff scout

[@iamsixsyllables9679]

that would just defeat the whole purpose of the second engineer, literally just a slower scout at that point.

[@Lawlz4Dayzz]

Is Demoman overpowered? I see this from time to time and he is very strong but I dont think id say blatantly over powered like Wrangler Engineer or especially Sniper.

[@robert9016]

No plz we already got nerfed😢

[@capnfapn]

Demiman is arguably the best class in the game but they're not broken in a competitive setting as long as they're limited to 1. Medic and demo are similar in the sense that the game gets really dumb when you can have multiple of them, but when they're limited to 1 they add a ton of depth because they're powerful classes for the rest of the team to play around

[@mouthwide0pen]

​@@capnfapnI'd still say Medic is better. Comp's meta is basically built around Medic.

[@qwerty-cr6po]

We need more tf2ber from comp player

[@alexcrisman1954]

Would be neat if they made the demo limit 2 but restrict it to only one stickybomb launcher . Hybrid demo probably still wouldn’t be optimal but would be more viable if it didn’t replace the sticky demo

[@bilateriannewt4222]

This video opened my eyes

[@mrstudent9125]

I wonder what would happen if Scout and Soldier had no limits

[@Grapevin]

probably not much honestly, having half your team play the same class is just begging for counters. like I could be wrong but I feel like the obvious response to triple soldier is just pyro, for example you could argue that means more variety but in reality I just don't really think anyone would try it

[@muti7632]

I think one or the other would be stacked depending on the map. In my opinion it wouldn't add anything positive to the game.

[@Die1PumaSchildkroete]

Ever fought a HEAVY stack?

[@kaleb2643]

I'm not a comp player, but I think that limiting all classes to 1 would open up more variable strategies

[@suchpower4780]

it exists and is called highlander

[@kaleb2643]

@@suchpower4780 I mean in sixes

[@duarteribeiro1520]

TF2 without sniper 😍

[@jibawub8515]

another great vid, thanks!

[@sharinganmoon]

I would love to watch a video about the whitelist bans. Learning about what they do to the state of a match is really interesting

[@Wild_Rumpus]

already been recorded ;)

[@robert9016]

People use good weapons

[@Scout-Fanfiction]

Too many Scouts? Never! We're shipping up to Boston boys! Boston forever! ❤😂

[@MisterDevel]

6s but 3 demos and 3 medics.

[@CoolSs]

A: no fun allowed

[@CoolSs]

btw, i am being cheeky. it's just the way they prefer to play the game.

[@klipsfilmsmelbourne]

Casual too many sniper cheat bots maybe limit two two bots can’t have many snipers that’s slow down but it would be unfair for players who want to play the marksman

[@michlop452]

Just say double demo is overpowered, it's not hard

[@user-nm9yd4wq4s]

go rumpus!

[@skulle]

8:02

[@mrstudent9125]

Hi

[@elsuertes1748]

Because they are lame and boring and ruin tf2

[@conkerisdumb]

30 mins ago

[@Bears-Are_Swell]

Because they gay

[@isaacargesmith8217]

I honestly kinda wish we saw like some smaller tournaments that had a hard 1 person per class rule on all classes. I really would be curious to see how that might affect the metagame in general. Would be interesting to see characters like sniper or pyro or something ran more in the process and it makes me wonder if forcing this as an alternative rule set could actually help find new ideas in normal 6s, given so many things are still Id argue not fully explored due to their (usually justified) precieved inefficiancy vs the meta. Giving more classes the ability to be used on attack makes me wonder if there's things that could be found in the process that may apply to normal 6s. Plus even if that doesnt, visually it'd be kind of interesting to see the sorta mix up that's that drastic for oncefrom a spectator side of things, at least imo. Same for maybe more game modes or just something. Like just a tournament for more experimental 6s alternative rules like that in general could be kinda fun to play and watch I feel.

[@emirwattabor6991]

Sounds a lot like what Prolander is. In practice, most teams wouldn't really go with the spirit of it. They'd just pick Sniper and Pyro full time and play normal 6's but less fun.

[@seductivecyndaquil6777]

Based on how most of these offclasses seem better at defence than offence based on their range and mobility issues (+ the difficulties that come with running a full-time spy), I reckon it would mostly make the game more stalematey, at least on 5cp. It'd be a cool experiment, though.

[@isaacargesmith8217]

@@seductivecyndaquil6777 Honestly I kinda wish 5cp had a like gameplay aspect that punished stalemate defenses. Like maybe both teams have a timer, holding mid counts the owners time down, and if their countdown ends and they have everyhting other than last they still win, to sorta punish maybe just STAYING on defense without doing any initiative to encourage pushing more I guess. Unno, something should imo be done about 5cp stalemating as a gamemode even in stock 6s, its by far the part people hate the most about the format I feel.

[@Peacock__]

Prolander already exists and you just end up with a sniper and a heavy

[@ttty2242]

@@isaacargesmith8217 the problem with awarding a win to a team that holds midpoint is that you could just stalemate after winning mid and win the game.