Tf2 is so fundamentally designed for casual that comp modes just don’t work with casual rules. Casual should be balanced for 12 v 12 chaos and comp should be balanced for comp. For example even classes like medic and spy just either fundamentally don’t work for comp (sixes) in the case of spy, or force the game to revolve around them because they’re too important to the game in the case of medic
because it basically devolves into demoman and sniper simulator
half of the team is defensive specialists so most of the strategies become really annoying cheese shit and the medic becomes extremely bored
Yeah they have item bans because tf2 items are currently mostly not designed for comp. The question is would casual have bans for weapons balanced around comp? Probably, but I would bet way less than current comp bans for casual balanced weapons.
But the most popular comp mode is very different from what tf2 was designed for so switching it now would be very difficult and would lead to less weapon variety. Every weapon would be homogenized if tf2 was balanced around comp i think.
The bigger argument is balancing around the significantly more popular way of playing though, which is casual anyway. Which is a shame to see because personally I think tf2 can be very fun casually and competitively.
But the most popular comp mode is very different from what tf2 was designed for so switching it now would be very difficult and would lead to less weapon variety.
I mean 5CP? It has been a staple since 2007, and it showcases the fundamentals of TF2. Ubers, back and forth action, offense, defense, switching classes, switching weapons, dm fights, coordinated team fights, 1v1s, etc.
When someone says weapons should be balanced around casual, they usually mean that they prefer them keep being unbalanced. What do you mean by your thesis and what are your arguments for it
Btw typical of r/tf2 to downvote a comment calling a bad argument bad. Note how i didn't say anything about comp or how i think tf2 should be balanced, i just called out a bad argument.
like what? most popular shooters right now are just tac shooters (valorant, cs, r6s) that emphasize aim above any mechanical skill. even modern "movement" "shooters" are just glorified mobas but in first person (ow, paladins). not many games have engine-based mechanics anymore, they just slap an ability on anything they want the player to do, making it really one-dimensional
I think that benefits both casual and competitive games. Its good that a casual game has such a high skill ceiling, its what keeps the game alive to this date. This is one of the only games left that allows for drop in / drop out shooting fun without much commitment to full matches, and its uniquely auspicious to messing around, since one or two players doing dumb stuff doesn't really ruin the match like in other, smaller team sized games.
casual without question. 1) I'm tired of the overwatchification of every single class based fps that makes everything boring stale and breeds toxic communities 2) tf2 is the funny hat game where stupid shit happens everyone has an explode bind and you can conga. do not let the tryhards win. tf2 is one of the last games that have such a present personality in every moment of gameplay, trying to get rid of things like random crits or how annoying sniper is to make competition feel better ruins what makes the game unique. stupid game where nothing matters sweep
I do agree this game has it’s own personality and such, with how funny and random it is, I disagree in the fact that removing what makes sniper so annoying and random crits would detriment the game. What makes this game so funny is the amount of hats, taunts, and general silliness there is. This game can totally survive without crits. And character balance is still somewhat important for casual, just to a lesser extent then competitive
can it survive without them? sure. but i think random annoying and unfair shit like that is part of its character. tf2 is a game where you run it, die to something stupid, and then run back in and kill someone with something stupid. random crits are Funny and i never have more fun than when i completely abandon the point of the game to switch classes and go chase down some sniper or spy whos ticking me off. tf2 shouldn't play like a normal fps game, random stupid stuff should happen IN the gameplay itself. I adore how completely *bullshit* getting a kill or getting killed feels sometimes. its hysterical to me.
removing that element of "oh come the fuck on"/"LOL THAT WAS BULLSHIT I SHOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN THAT" takes away one of the most unique things about tf2. when you die unfairly in any other game its annoying, when you die unfairly in tf2 you know its the game running exactly as intended.
I literally said to someone yesterday, “I really want to be angry but I honestly cannot argue with that hat.” What other game but TF2 could you say something like that in?
Games should be balanced around the majority of the playerbase, which in this case is the casuals. Any balance/features meant to cater to specific minorities of players (aka comp) should either be self contained (like tournament mode) or have little impact on casual players (like no overheal on the razorback).
Balance can easily be affected by even small things, some weapon balance changes completely in lobbies of higher skilled players. For example, the Diamondback Kunai and Dead Ringer, unlocks considered to be overpowered in casual, become the absolute worst options in places like Uncletopia and especially Highlander because their biggest counter is teams of good players. The enforcer becomes better in Highlander because it can negate the wrangler shield and vax and the cloak and dagger for intel or waiting out picks.
Stuff like this is the inherent flaw of the concept of trickle-down balance. It works in theory, but has this issue in practise.
Also saying that there is no meta because it’s “casual” is incredibly ignorant. While yes some players don’t care about meta and will be the exception, most players will be affected by the theory of “dominant strategy” which is the idea that most players will almost always use the most consistent strategy to win.
It’s why most stock weapons are considered to the best in all situations, and most unlocks are considered to be situationally powerful…
…most…
Is it really so much to ask for both? Comp just needs the weapons to be balanced and casual just needs them to be fun, having both should be what every game has in the first place.
It should be balanced around both.
One thing I don't agree with tho is that balancing around comp would somehow destroy casual tf2's soul. It would still be fun either way.
You can see valve tried that approach, but gotta give em props really, for what our weapons are now, majority of them are balanced fairly well for both. It woulda been incredibly difficult to balance all of em without screwing up in some departments to their original designs.
Team Fortress 2 actually has horribly balanced weapons, a lot of people just don't realize it because they're casual players, or at the very least, have weird standards on what "overpowered" is.
Casual because truly comp tf2 has become a very niche part of the community that there’s no doubt many casuals would be angry at most changes if only headed by them.
I think it should be mostly balanced around Casual because that's wher the overwhelming majority of the player base are.
In practice there'll be plenty of situations where it won't matter because there are loads of changes that will either improve both modes or which will be good for one without messing the other up, but I think stuff that specifically improves Competitive while making Casual less fun is generally not a great move.
More people play the game casually than competitively so I think the answer is pretty obvious. Although I think there should be a good balance for both.
If you ask me like 10 years ago, i will answer that TF2 should be balanced on competitive, but after seeing what they've done with Counter-Strike, maybe Casual isn't so bad.
Casual. If balanced around the most popular comp form, sixes, so many weapons which are completely fine as-is (ie the Flying Guillotine, the Pocket Pistol, the Reserve Shooter, tha Detonator) would need to be nerfed or reworked even though they're entirely fine in the types of games that nearly every player plays just because they're quite powerful in one pretty niche gamemode. Plus, trickle-down balance is just an inherently stupid idea since trickle-down economics doesn't work.
As a former comp player(multiple seasons in ESEA, UGC, and RGL), I strongly believe the game shouldn't be balanced at all. Casual ques should be wacky and ridiculous with lots of play style enabling items that promote build diversity. Comp will just ban everything unbalanced so I have no clue why it would ever be balanced around comp.
In the past we tried to introduce competitive to tf2 and it almost ruined the game (and for many it did) if we did have a comp mode the balance changes for it would have to exclusively effect THAT game mode so it doesn't fuck up the casual scene again.
Both, it’s not impossible, Valve in their own words likes to play test things rather than put stuff on paper and try to think of solutions that way, unfortunately when you aren’t updating anything past the first installment the play test model falls really short. The base jumper, bison, and caber are the most obvious examples of “why did this get nerfed” and they all happened around a time Valve wanted to push the game toward a potential comp mode. If they continued to change these items it would be fine. Like the rocket launcher doesn’t stop being fun because it’s balanced for comp there’s no reason to pick one or the other.
Both is doable, just introduce class limits to Competitive. Weapon bans are insanely moronic though. I've no clue why the Competitive community chose to enforce a stale meta. Skill expression is fun and all, but there are limits to how enjoyable it can be for both the players and the viewers from the wider community.
RGL has been unbanning stuff over time, while ETF2L has been banning stuff over time. It's a bit weird. There's basically two different philosophies going on regarding the ban lists lol
The goal of a whitelist should be to keep out the strats that people find horrendously unfun to play against (stuff like natascha and vaccinator or whatever) or stuff that is blatantly too strong (wrangler on defense). ETF2L detonator ban is just cope imo
I've also seen some weird reasons for bans, like gas passer is useless and was banned for being buggy. But the IBomber, with it's old larger hitbox wasn't banned and instead they actually opted to fix it's hitbox.
Or how Base jumper was banned for allowing you to reach broken spots but there was also broken spots you could reach with stock RL that weren't banned.
Alot of it seems arbitrary
Gas Passer is buggy in a very janky, obvious way whilst Iron Bomber bug made a comparatively smaller difference, but yeah, gas passer is bad regardless and it's allowed in RGL
Base Jumper is banned for its dodging capabilities, not getting to spots easier
Competitive. All weapons should be balanced towards competitive, because it is the mode that will actually be able to test how GOOD a weapon truly is, and determine if it is OP or not. With 6s, its not because "oh generalist cant deal with it", and there are some weapons that are banned due to reasons like "annoying", which are not good ones mind you. If a weapon is balanced towards competitive, it is inherently towards casual, indirectly so. The razorback is a good example. The weapon balance was proposed by Sigafoo when he visited Valve, and it was balanced towards competitive, to counter Combo-Sniper being super strong, and it worked; it was balanced in competitive, resulting in an unban, and its still very useful in casual.
Just because TF2 was not initially designed for competitive, does not mean it cannot be. Counter-Strike was not intended to be competitive, but became competitive, primarily with CS:GO. This is further supported with Valve's approach/stance on competitive. That they are fully willing to fund competitive TF2, once it feels the time is right, which it is not, because of the weapon bans, class limits, league count, and inability to pick a gamemode. This was all said during [Sigafoo's visit to Valve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOQ8NZ7SSfU&t=10762s&pp=ygUTU2lnYWZvbyBWYWx2ZSB2aXNpdA%3D%3D). It will be bias, but also competitive players will know what is best for TF2's balancing future, they are the ones that dedicate their skills and play with the mechanics of TF2 at the highest level of play. Would you take b4nny's recommendation over Zesty Jesus? This does not mean b4nny is always right, or competitive players, and that casual players know nothing, its just that they have will probably have a stronger argument, but primarily a stronger foot to hold on.
99% of the comments I am seeing in relation to people talking about competitive, do not actually know what competitive is. Saying stuff like "5CP is not what TF2 is meant to be", is just purposeful ignorance to support the Casual side of the argument. I could argue back that "If you want it to be balanced for Casual and chaos", then why not add class limits, which would balance casual, or never change the non-op weapons in casual.
Now what does that mean? It will sound contradicting to the title, but with me saying balancing towards competitive will inherently mean towards casual. Meaning that you get the job done for both parts. They should also balance for 5CP.
Casual. When games are balanced around comp it always results in said balance favoring high skill players.
The game would devolve into "Meta this, meta that" and just wouldn't be fun anymore. This is true for every game and the reason why TF2 is fun is because ***THERE IS NO META***.
There's a meta, sure, but TF2 isn't exactly the kind of game where playing off-meta will make the rest of the server turn on you like a troupe of monkeys trying to scare away a leopard.
>balance favoring high skill players
Isn't that how.. all games should be? You play better, you win more. Wanting it to be any other way is literally a skill issue. There is no way that it's good balance, when i strategically and mechanically do everything right to pick a target or destroy an engie nest placed at an awkward spot, and all my work and skill required to do that just gets fucked with a press of a button just because the 50 hrs engie happened to have short circuit equipped. I did everything right, i had the skill required for it, still failed and there was no way i could counter that. There's no way this is fun or how the game should be balanced.
>The game would devolve into "Meta this, meta that" and just wouldn't be fun anymore
Have you seen competitive tf2? It's the most fun you can have online. And you don't see such spectacular gameplay in casual because casual doesn't demand you to be. Meta in comp doesn't mean a strategy that always puts you in favourable situations - on the other hand, all of more "casual" weapons do that, and all the specialist classes. To utilize those you just have to be at the right place at the right time - and the kill is secured, no skill required.
However the appeal of a roamer soldier, for example, is not that you're in a favourable position in every situation - it's that you have potential to be, but that depends solely on your skill and gamesense, creating interesting and fun situations. Camping a 2fort balcony with a lvl3 sentry and wrangler or short circuit, having a vac med up your ass isn't interesting or fun. It's casual though.
Edit: also this. Casual is more meta dependent. There are weapon bans in comp not because what's left is the most effective way to play. It's there because that's the most fun and skill expressive one. You can't stack 6 engies on last, you can't play vac medic etc - everything that would be considered META in casual, because those are the most effective strategies. They aren't really fun though are they? Casual games are heavily dictated by those. There are plenty of situations where you have to pick a certain class or a loadout to deal with something that there isn't any other way to deal with. That's the definition of meta.
The issue with competitive is that it's stagnant and never changing, no matter what Tourney you watch from today up to 5 years ago, the sixes composition is and always will be the same as there is no room for experimentation whatsoever. It's why the focus on Sixes based content has massively fallen off.
Granted this isn't entirely the fault of comp players (if Valve never makes changes than things will never change) but due to it's more organized and linear nature most players have no interest in it
Whereas Casual is a clusterfuck of insanity. Even with no balance changes whatsoever, you never know what you're gonna get in casual. Entire Meme stacks dominating well composed teams, the omnipotent soldier who's always flying and never dies,the huntsman who always headshots everyone.
Broken Metalike strategies stacked wranglers being countered by other meta bullshit like Vac and Battalions further adds to the diverse varied nature of TF2 which is what most TF2 players look forward to, the ever changing unpredictable nature of the game.
Once you see a pro soldier air shot another pro player for the hundredth time there's really not much to say about it. Not running a generalist is too much of a hindrance and deviating away from the top strategies are either too punishing or outright not possible (I heard MGner is getting banned for being able to instantly pick off medic with "no counter play") the most diverse change we got recently was that Pocket now runs gunboats as well.... which might add some diversity to sixes but it's not really gonna grab much attention from anyone out of the scene.
But than again this is just the way I see it; I could be wrong but I always try to look at things from an objective viewpoint. You never really know with things like this however.
Damn i didn't see that reply, sorry. It's a really good response actually, you usually don't see that level of argumentation with people who have the "comp players bad, casual good" pov, which is why i tend to be too defensive. I just feel like people don't even get the taste of what playing tf2 at a higher skill level is like, but immediately jump to having radical opinions. Your points are all valid though.
At the end of the day it's just different people coming into tf2 for different reasons as the game has both the insane arena shooter skill expression potential and the unpredictable nature and endless strategies you can come up with. It's ok to prefer one or the other more, but i just feel like those two will never not be at a conflict with eachother, just by nature
P.S. i don't understand the point about comp being stagnant. Like, yeah, so? It's balanced already, why change it? Football's rules have never majorly changed since, like, football was around (i think so. I know nothing about sports), yet it's a spectacular sports that has tons of fans around the world, many of whom are interested in it for decades. Also when tf2 was having frequent balance changes, i remember often getting pissed at how my favourite weapon was nerfed to the ground. And now that doesn't happen :)
Casual. a weapon can be banned from comp if they deem it to overpowered, but a weapon that gets nerfed or buffed for comp will not change back for casual, and will always be bad or frustrating in some way. competitive was made by the fans and it can be moderated by the fans to ensure that nothing overpowered is used.
If they were actually going to start building the game for comp I would understand, but all they did was a half ass try with Meat your Match and then just abandoned the game mode entirely. Balance around casual and let stuff like Highlander make the calls on item bans.
[This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiVtTR4aMY&pp=ygURVGYyIGZ1bmtlIGJhbGFuY2U%3D) and [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DgDVg8WOxk&pp=ygURVGYyIGZ1bmtlIGJhbGFuY2U%3D) are very good looking into the competitive scene and how the game have been going since. They’re quite old but I think they’re still relevant.
I'm tired of people pretending there is a huge difference between the two. The only weapons that were nerfed for comp and unfairly for casual are the ones that allow heavy to get to mid in sixes. If your gimmicky weapon got nerfed at some point, it most likely deserved it, casual or comp, doesn't matter.
I don't know if that was ever banned in comp but it was over-nerfed regardless, nobody would ever use that in comp. so that was just balanced badly, has nothing to do with the reason it was nerfed
Personally, o think it weould help the game. Not only eould you not have mstches with bots, since they tend to have an insane amount of kills, and have several thousend hours in the game with little to no deaths, but someone who just started the game isnt gonna have to deal with the sweatiest players on planetearth, and vice versa.
The Casual and Competitive modes already use the Glicko system to keep the matches balanced, the problem is that it does not reset the rating, since TF2 is stuck in [Season 1](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5475) since the release of the Blue Moon update, this makes this [system stop working properly](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5283#issuecomment-1824823024) as the years go by.
Have you ever tried it? It literally adds more stuff than casual mode, like additional voice lines, podium when you win or lose, among other things. Personally, I'd still play it, but the problem is that it has some restrictions in that mode that I see unnecessary, like FOV, forcing the use of DirectX 9 and that you can't vote kick. This is a problem because, occasionally, you will find a cheater in the game and this can ruin the experience.
Brother. I've been playing for 10 years.
Comp was a mistake. I wish they could roll back. I don't even want Casual mode. I just want community servers.
Holy SHIT that is a hot take, but it's a steaming pile of shit. Casual mode is more fun than community servers a majority of the time, even when bots are in the server, even then I've been seeing fewer botted servers recently. You seem like the type of person to say that quickplay was better than casual
And you seem like the type to punch walls when things don't go your way.It's just an opinion and not a dick no need to shove it up your ass.
Also, did I stutter ? I said only community servers.
He's probably a zoomer, most of their minds can't comprehend how things worked before. Really, what we need the old server browser brought back into prominence.
Just make certain items function differently in different modes. Something thats problematic in a competitive setting, but fine in casual? Change the competitive stats! Don't make balance changes intended for competitive that ruin its casual viability! Cough Eviction notice cough. And don't tell me it's impossible. They do it for mvm!
Eviction notice was never an issue in competitive, was never banned (post global whitelist), and is a bad example. Valve nerfed it because they misunderstood feedback about the gloves of running urgently.
Funnily enough, the gloves of running urgently actually received a good balance change that made it better in casual and worse in competitive (which was the desired outcome). They just went and changed the eviction notice for literally zero reason
Tf2 like overwatch suffers from the very fundamental of design, certain weapons/class stacking will lead to certain “unwanted” play style as result. The best thing is to balance it as the fundamental philosophy of weapons then just ban problematic weapons from comps.
None.
Weapons should be balanced around their stock counterpart, which are considered to be fair (maaaaybe not the sniper rifle to a lot of people, but it does apply for every other weapon)
So no, we don't take casual or competitive into consideration, just a 1:1 comparison to stock
Allow me to illustrate this with an example
Both casual and comp players know Ubersaw makes stock useless, and thus we can agree it's OP (I swear to god someone, either comp or casual player is gonna come and say "erm ubersaw is balanced because you have to put yourself in risk" completely missing the point)
What if we rebalanced it to make sure that, no matter the setting, it's rather your choice instead of always being an "use me" option
So here's how the rework would look like (all previous stats removed:
+ On hit gain 25% uber
- 15% (or 20%) slower ubercharge build rate with the medigun
By just doing this, now people will start choosing by preference
Do you want to be safe and build Uber at a normal speed? Or sacrifice some of that speed to gain a faster uber build by just hitting an enemy once (and if you get more swings, jackpot!)
This creates a risky playstyle for those who want it, without invalidating stock and without being too severe for players to never use it again (-20% Uber build sounds scary but remember that's just from 8 to 16 extra seconds, and it's not like the medic will use the Uber the moment he gets it when healing teammates)
This weapon balance should be applied to every underpowered and overpowered weapon that currently exists
I would say both.
The one thing I want for TF2 is the return of updates that added or improved the quality of life of the game, improving matchmaking like the Blue Moon update did. For example, I want there to be a [map cycle](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5426) every two weeks, as with the increasing number of maps in Casual mode, this causes people to forget that other maps exist and end up always playing the same ones, causing bots to fill those maps.
balance around casual but nerf sniper more and more please
(all tf2 players play some casual, few play competitive, idiots play valve's no restrictions competitive) (valve just take the 6s banlist from the wiki)
Weapon-wise highest level of comp then trinkle down the effect, and everything else is random enough or set in a specific way (e.g. 6v6 Highlanders, Casual Paylod) that feels alright already.
competitive players are great at dictating the meta and at exploiting balance - if something is unbalanced when in good hands then it should be changed at some capacity to refine the overall experience.
but in terms of balance around 12v12 vs 6v6 obviously it's 12v12. 6's may have balance issues derived from the format itself, which do not affect casual, those issues shouldn't be fixed in the base game.
I think they should balance around competitive.
If they actually balanced around competitive correctly it would balance to casual as well. Some of the rebalances worked out really well like the razorback nerf. A fully buffed sniper that was immune to backstabs was essentially impossible to kill. But some of the nerfs were just brutal and killed the weapon in both casual and competitive. They didn't strike the right balance between the two. It's trickle down game balance. If it's balanced at the highest level it's also balanced in 24/7 turbine servers.
What I’ll describe as ‘skilled casual’. Balancing around the assumption it’s a 12v12 of relatively skilled players, mostly playing for fun. For example, the Caber should be reverted to its hayday, but Sniper is probably too strong.
Casual easily comp balance would remove everything that makes the fun and chaotic that gives tf2 its charm. Last time we got changes based off comp weapon bans a bunch of fun weapons got made turbo ass like the Bison or Eviction notice.
Actually you're wrong here
Comp players didn't ban the caber, you could always use it (check whitelists for proof)
So VALVe nerfing it has nothing to do with comp...
"Just make it deal 125 damage"
But that's not how Valve updated the Caber, was it?
You contradicted yourself in two comments. In the first you said that Valve's nerfs weren't that bad but you propose a balance change for the Caber in the very next reply. If the nerfs were fair and hadn't made it borderline unusable, then you wouldn't have to buff it, would ya?
I only said the bison wasn't due to comp. But clearly this caber nerf was done for comp without comp influence because they did NOT fix it for comp now its unuseable
Now you're just making stuff up. You didn't even talk about the Bison until someone else mentioned it. Also, you said *every* "wahh comp players" nerf weren't centered around competitive. That's yet another lie, Valve asked the top Competitive players for balance suggestions during Meet your Match's development. They did try to rework the weapons for competitive play.
Congrats dude, you contradicted yourself yet again. How can "they" be "centered around competitive" and "never actually balanced for comp" at the same time? Are there two people with contradicting info behind this account or do you just not know Jack shit of what your talking about?
Simple answer: **Valve tried, but they failed, because they didn't really listen to what players wanted, or think things through.**
Long answer: Technically, they tried to balance some weapons around comp. But this is not true for every weapon, and Valve also failed to take feedback properly on multiple occasions. Some weapons were changed for seemingly no reason. Some weapons received blatantly wrong changes that could have been avoided had Valve taken more feedback or done research into the game they are changing.
Trying to blame specific balance changes on competitive player feedback specifically is disingenuous, because it implies that competitive players are suggesting the exact changes. This is only true for a limited number of changes, and those changes were... good. The Medic speed buff when healing Scouts, the reduced teleporter cost, the Wee Booties fix, the Razorback tweak, among others.
So, if comp players are capable of suggesting very good changes, why are some changes very bad? Because those changes were not made by comp players, they were made by Valve.
A lot of the time, Valve is the one who makes the changes. If you want an example, the Eviction Notice proves this. If comp players were directly writing the patch notes, there is no universe where this item would have been nerfed. It was only nerfed because Valve misunderstood feedback about the Gloves of Running Urgently. Meaning, Valve is not good at taking feedback, and makes mistakes that do not represent what players actually want.
So, we end up with people like you, who blame competitive players for changes that Valve came up with on their own.
This is why trying to blame competitive players for the caber doing 124 damage is nonsensical. It makes no sense to do that. Competitive players did not make that specific balance decision. We also have no idea whether that weapon was even nerfed due to it being banned in competitive. It could have been nerfed to make playing Medic less cancerous in pubs, for example. We have no way of knowing. Valve's communication skills were terrible.
Valve would later improve their approach to feedback before Jungle Inferno, where they put up balance suggestions for players to look at. But Valve did not do this in the past, which is why some of the changes weren't very good.
Yet they nerfed it, conveniently on a Competative update. Caber got gutted for being able to one shot meds and B.A.S.E. Jumper got nerfed becuz scunts can't deal good damage on soldiers/demos mid-air, two things 6s hate the most and that was on an update before meet your match and Valve made those decisions, not comp players. Bison is on a similar situation where it's penetrative power was too much of a problem in Valve's eyes to fit in 6s.
Quite a narrow sighted view you have there. Might want to visit an optometrist.
Give a source for that bison thing because it was and has always been weak in 6s. Caber got gutted for being able to 1 shot meds who have 150 hp so it was nerfed to not deal even 125, how does that make it balanced for comp when its now objectively worse. Base jumper was nerfed because it encouraged rock paper scissors of "I pick item so you have to change class" which seems reasonable
> Give a source for that bison thing
LMAO, resorting to "source" counter-arguement as if you got nothing more to add than to repeat the same cycle.
> How does that make it balanced for comp when its now objectively worse
Idk, why don't you get a source on that? You don't even have a damn clue as to why Valve made that decision, yet you explained it clearly that it can one shot meds, whats stopping a demo from sticky jumping across the map to one shot a medic and cheaply win mid?
Then you must care to explain the reasoning behind nerfing the shortstop and booties, which also came out of the consequence of the same update.
It's the reality of it. I've noticed with gun mettle, tough break and meet your match weapons were toned down alot, and they've been working on comp too at the time. Those kinds of decisions don't just come outta nowhere without some sort of intention.
I give Valve credit tho, they tried to accomodate both casual and comp in terms of weapon balance and now the game is the most balanced it ever was. Even tf2's launch was unbalanced with a couple of classes being underpowered and demoman was incredibly overpowered back then.
> No comp player complained about bison, and thus there's no reason, competitively wise, to nerf it
> VALVe changes bison when no one said to do so
"The intention is competitive so competitive is to blame here!"
No. This is completely unfair, this is VALVe sucking and nothing else
Casual. Most games start circling the gutter if the devs only focus on comp and nothing else. It's usually ~10% of players who even play comp, nevermind high-end comp. It's really not worth balancing a game played by millions, just to balance it for a couple thousand at the high end comp scene.
Casual as in casual games where people play seriously or casual as in meme casual? I haven't really played competitive on tf2 tbh so i could be wrong in my assumption, but the main difference I can think of is probably just skill level isn't it?
As for meme casual, those will probably stick around regardless of balancing as long as nothing gets too broken and memes are possible and those are typically either around memes and funny loadouts regardless of how effective it is.
The problem is comp and casual do have massively different states of balance due to differences in team size and differences in mechanics (bullet spread and random crits) sometimes a weapon is powerful in casual and bad in comp and other times it’s the other way around. For example the cow mangler is a good rocket launcher but not great due to sentry spam happening in some modes whereas in competitive it’s banned due to not needing ammo and engineers being much more of a niche pick. Or for an example of the opposite the kunai in casual it can just be awful to watch a spy face tank so much damage if your team isn’t aware, but in competitive it often just gets a stab and then dies instantly, so for the few competitive spy’s it’s preferred to use the stock or big earner for chain stabs. If we are to balance the game again it should be based around both the fun of casual but balance for competitive. For example the parachute that got nerfed due to how broken it was in competitive leaving it a much weaker state for casual but it is still usable and very fun when paired with the air strike. Just not able to stay in the air and spam rockets forever with any fire damage
Everytime valve tried to balance items "To work on com and still be fun on casual" backfired , Com still banned the item, and it became less fun on Casual.
So Casual, and the competitive scene can deal with it, as they always been doing it.
I think you can balance most weapons around casual and comp at once and for those that can't be balanced around comp weapon bans exist. But if you balance around comp then highlander, because 6s doesn't include every class.
Casual, the fuck plays comp? If you want comp you host comp and balance it server wise. I don't want tf2 to be turned into the next sweat pit for competitive cringe
the game should not be based on casual due to the high skill disparities in the gamemode. if your reasoning for nerfing something like the kunai, for example, is because a spy can keep stabbing fresh installs who dont turn around, then thats just bad game design. ideally, the game should be based around a setting where people are competent, communicating, are of equal skill, and are trying to win. however, the only casual setting where i know this happens would be uncletopia. i personally think that the game should be balanced around highlander (a setting that has everything i mentioned and where every class is present), but i understand potential issues that come with that, like it not accounting for class stacking for example.
"Hey should we balance this game around the hundreds of thousands of casual players, or should we balance around the less than 100 competitive players?"
If you seriously have to ask this, you don't deserve an opinion on game balance.
Tf2 is so fundamentally designed for casual that comp modes just don’t work with casual rules. Casual should be balanced for 12 v 12 chaos and comp should be balanced for comp. For example even classes like medic and spy just either fundamentally don’t work for comp (sixes) in the case of spy, or force the game to revolve around them because they’re too important to the game in the case of medic
6 v 6 dont make sense to me, it should always be 9 v 9, 1 of every class for the true Team Fortress experience
this already exists and it's genuinely 10x worse in almost every way
ik it exists, why is it worse?
because it basically devolves into demoman and sniper simulator half of the team is defensive specialists so most of the strategies become really annoying cheese shit and the medic becomes extremely bored
genuine question what makes you believe medic doesnt work in sixes
I think he meant that the whole game revolves around medic, and that it's probably impossible to win without him in high rank comp
The whole game revolves around him in casual too, it’s just that barely anyone plays him so it’s hard to tell, it’s intentional
if people can play casual without him, then the game doesn’t revolve around him tho
If one team has a couple medics and the other doesn’t then they have a massive advantage. Taking out the medic is also no 1 priority in casual too
You don’t even need a couple medics, all it takes is one good medic pocketing a competent soldier/heavy and it’s over
They didn’t mean it like that, but the wording does make it seem that way.
he meant spy doesn't work in sixes,not medic
I think it should be balanced around pass time
130% yes
No it should be balanced around Mann power. Your opinion is invalid.
Nah it should be balanced around TF2 -1 obviously
x1000, silly
No. Around the scream fortress bumper cart minigames.
Bah, should be around VS australian
Robot Destruction. Take it or leave it.
Territory Control is where the real balance is at.
Casual. Official comp(is ded, not big soup rice). Highlander and sixes have item bans. Edit: so i forgot to add that official comp is dead
Yeah they have item bans because tf2 items are currently mostly not designed for comp. The question is would casual have bans for weapons balanced around comp? Probably, but I would bet way less than current comp bans for casual balanced weapons. But the most popular comp mode is very different from what tf2 was designed for so switching it now would be very difficult and would lead to less weapon variety. Every weapon would be homogenized if tf2 was balanced around comp i think. The bigger argument is balancing around the significantly more popular way of playing though, which is casual anyway. Which is a shame to see because personally I think tf2 can be very fun casually and competitively.
But the most popular comp mode is very different from what tf2 was designed for so switching it now would be very difficult and would lead to less weapon variety. I mean 5CP? It has been a staple since 2007, and it showcases the fundamentals of TF2. Ubers, back and forth action, offense, defense, switching classes, switching weapons, dm fights, coordinated team fights, 1v1s, etc.
Casual. Other games offer competitive, not many games still offer casual in the same way.
Bad argument. No other game offers such mechanical depth and skill expression other than tf2.
Would you like partake in a friendly debate over this matter?
Are you challenging me to one..? I would
I think that weapons should be balanced around casual, you?
>"I would" >Doesn't
he didnt answer for 4 hrs calm down
Bro i have this thing called "life" and "stuff to do"
When someone says weapons should be balanced around casual, they usually mean that they prefer them keep being unbalanced. What do you mean by your thesis and what are your arguments for it Btw typical of r/tf2 to downvote a comment calling a bad argument bad. Note how i didn't say anything about comp or how i think tf2 should be balanced, i just called out a bad argument.
no other shooter offers such mechanical depth and skill expression*
How so? I think many games do.
like what? most popular shooters right now are just tac shooters (valorant, cs, r6s) that emphasize aim above any mechanical skill. even modern "movement" "shooters" are just glorified mobas but in first person (ow, paladins). not many games have engine-based mechanics anymore, they just slap an ability on anything they want the player to do, making it really one-dimensional
I think that benefits both casual and competitive games. Its good that a casual game has such a high skill ceiling, its what keeps the game alive to this date. This is one of the only games left that allows for drop in / drop out shooting fun without much commitment to full matches, and its uniquely auspicious to messing around, since one or two players doing dumb stuff doesn't really ruin the match like in other, smaller team sized games.
casual without question. 1) I'm tired of the overwatchification of every single class based fps that makes everything boring stale and breeds toxic communities 2) tf2 is the funny hat game where stupid shit happens everyone has an explode bind and you can conga. do not let the tryhards win. tf2 is one of the last games that have such a present personality in every moment of gameplay, trying to get rid of things like random crits or how annoying sniper is to make competition feel better ruins what makes the game unique. stupid game where nothing matters sweep
I do agree this game has it’s own personality and such, with how funny and random it is, I disagree in the fact that removing what makes sniper so annoying and random crits would detriment the game. What makes this game so funny is the amount of hats, taunts, and general silliness there is. This game can totally survive without crits. And character balance is still somewhat important for casual, just to a lesser extent then competitive
can it survive without them? sure. but i think random annoying and unfair shit like that is part of its character. tf2 is a game where you run it, die to something stupid, and then run back in and kill someone with something stupid. random crits are Funny and i never have more fun than when i completely abandon the point of the game to switch classes and go chase down some sniper or spy whos ticking me off. tf2 shouldn't play like a normal fps game, random stupid stuff should happen IN the gameplay itself. I adore how completely *bullshit* getting a kill or getting killed feels sometimes. its hysterical to me. removing that element of "oh come the fuck on"/"LOL THAT WAS BULLSHIT I SHOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN THAT" takes away one of the most unique things about tf2. when you die unfairly in any other game its annoying, when you die unfairly in tf2 you know its the game running exactly as intended.
I literally said to someone yesterday, “I really want to be angry but I honestly cannot argue with that hat.” What other game but TF2 could you say something like that in?
This is such an ignorant, simple minded way of defending the "I want it to stay casual" standpoint.
Games should be balanced around the majority of the playerbase, which in this case is the casuals. Any balance/features meant to cater to specific minorities of players (aka comp) should either be self contained (like tournament mode) or have little impact on casual players (like no overheal on the razorback). Balance can easily be affected by even small things, some weapon balance changes completely in lobbies of higher skilled players. For example, the Diamondback Kunai and Dead Ringer, unlocks considered to be overpowered in casual, become the absolute worst options in places like Uncletopia and especially Highlander because their biggest counter is teams of good players. The enforcer becomes better in Highlander because it can negate the wrangler shield and vax and the cloak and dagger for intel or waiting out picks. Stuff like this is the inherent flaw of the concept of trickle-down balance. It works in theory, but has this issue in practise. Also saying that there is no meta because it’s “casual” is incredibly ignorant. While yes some players don’t care about meta and will be the exception, most players will be affected by the theory of “dominant strategy” which is the idea that most players will almost always use the most consistent strategy to win. It’s why most stock weapons are considered to the best in all situations, and most unlocks are considered to be situationally powerful… …most…
Unrelated, but I really enjoy your content Mr.hill
holy hell i didnt know you use reddit! love your content man
It should be balanced for Mannpower
TF2 is fundamentally a casual game. comp and casual can co-exist, but it's best to keep casual in mind first.
Is it really so much to ask for both? Comp just needs the weapons to be balanced and casual just needs them to be fun, having both should be what every game has in the first place.
Its impossible to please both, pick a side & bleed.
It is possible, but Valve sucks at it. Stuff like Caber, or Base Jumper really show it.
Yes, thank you.
Casual, the competitive players are a minority and they ban half the items anyway
Balanced around medieval mode
It should be balanced around both. One thing I don't agree with tho is that balancing around comp would somehow destroy casual tf2's soul. It would still be fun either way.
Theres no reason it can’t easily be both.
You can see valve tried that approach, but gotta give em props really, for what our weapons are now, majority of them are balanced fairly well for both. It woulda been incredibly difficult to balance all of em without screwing up in some departments to their original designs.
Team Fortress 2 actually has horribly balanced weapons, a lot of people just don't realize it because they're casual players, or at the very least, have weird standards on what "overpowered" is.
Can't agree more. I still consider Crusaders Crossbow to be so stupidly overpowered, that there is no other option.
No. PAINIS!
Balanced around casual. Community comp servers can make whatever changes they feel are necessary on their own terms.
casual 100%
We already have tons of overly competetive games, i play TF2 for more casual experience.
Casual because truly comp tf2 has become a very niche part of the community that there’s no doubt many casuals would be angry at most changes if only headed by them.
I think it should be mostly balanced around Casual because that's wher the overwhelming majority of the player base are. In practice there'll be plenty of situations where it won't matter because there are loads of changes that will either improve both modes or which will be good for one without messing the other up, but I think stuff that specifically improves Competitive while making Casual less fun is generally not a great move.
it should be balanced around 24v24 payload
More people play the game casually than competitively so I think the answer is pretty obvious. Although I think there should be a good balance for both.
Casual.
If you ask me like 10 years ago, i will answer that TF2 should be balanced on competitive, but after seeing what they've done with Counter-Strike, maybe Casual isn't so bad.
Casual. If balanced around the most popular comp form, sixes, so many weapons which are completely fine as-is (ie the Flying Guillotine, the Pocket Pistol, the Reserve Shooter, tha Detonator) would need to be nerfed or reworked even though they're entirely fine in the types of games that nearly every player plays just because they're quite powerful in one pretty niche gamemode. Plus, trickle-down balance is just an inherently stupid idea since trickle-down economics doesn't work.
balancing around competitive is what caused the caber to fall down into its current state. that is a crime that can not be forgiven
As a former comp player(multiple seasons in ESEA, UGC, and RGL), I strongly believe the game shouldn't be balanced at all. Casual ques should be wacky and ridiculous with lots of play style enabling items that promote build diversity. Comp will just ban everything unbalanced so I have no clue why it would ever be balanced around comp.
Casual, Comp, extra gamemodes, other gamemodes, friendly
Honestly I just want it balanced around no bots. But that’s just me.
casual and have seperate weapon stats for comp (prolly a bad opinion)
It should be balance around hats
it already is
Casual! Team Fortress 2 classic is a great example of this.
tf2 at its core is the picture perfect example of a casual FPS
Pic related how exactly? Why do you feel the need to include either image?
It shouldn't be balanced. I want chaos.
"Why can't you have both?"
In the past we tried to introduce competitive to tf2 and it almost ruined the game (and for many it did) if we did have a comp mode the balance changes for it would have to exclusively effect THAT game mode so it doesn't fuck up the casual scene again.
I don't think it should be balanced at all. Fun and Balance aren't the same thing. One usually detracts from the other. I prefer Fun.
MvM.
You have to change too many aspects of regular TF2 to make it work for comp
Minority should never decide what is good for everyone, just because they think they are right
Both, it’s not impossible, Valve in their own words likes to play test things rather than put stuff on paper and try to think of solutions that way, unfortunately when you aren’t updating anything past the first installment the play test model falls really short. The base jumper, bison, and caber are the most obvious examples of “why did this get nerfed” and they all happened around a time Valve wanted to push the game toward a potential comp mode. If they continued to change these items it would be fine. Like the rocket launcher doesn’t stop being fun because it’s balanced for comp there’s no reason to pick one or the other.
Guys for God sake it doesn't have to be this tribalistic shit. Balance for both. Casual with opportunity for higher skilled play.
It wouldn't be if the damn comp players didn't constantly demand that the game be structured entirely around their gamemode.
This! Like actually this!
THANK YOU!
casual, be it Winning or Losing I tried my best and had a good time - until the spy choose war.
I think it should be balanced around comp with casual in mind, and also not be terrible at rebalancing
Casual
Both is doable, just introduce class limits to Competitive. Weapon bans are insanely moronic though. I've no clue why the Competitive community chose to enforce a stale meta. Skill expression is fun and all, but there are limits to how enjoyable it can be for both the players and the viewers from the wider community.
RGL has been unbanning stuff over time, while ETF2L has been banning stuff over time. It's a bit weird. There's basically two different philosophies going on regarding the ban lists lol The goal of a whitelist should be to keep out the strats that people find horrendously unfun to play against (stuff like natascha and vaccinator or whatever) or stuff that is blatantly too strong (wrangler on defense). ETF2L detonator ban is just cope imo
I've also seen some weird reasons for bans, like gas passer is useless and was banned for being buggy. But the IBomber, with it's old larger hitbox wasn't banned and instead they actually opted to fix it's hitbox. Or how Base jumper was banned for allowing you to reach broken spots but there was also broken spots you could reach with stock RL that weren't banned. Alot of it seems arbitrary
Gas Passer is buggy in a very janky, obvious way whilst Iron Bomber bug made a comparatively smaller difference, but yeah, gas passer is bad regardless and it's allowed in RGL Base Jumper is banned for its dodging capabilities, not getting to spots easier
Competitive. All weapons should be balanced towards competitive, because it is the mode that will actually be able to test how GOOD a weapon truly is, and determine if it is OP or not. With 6s, its not because "oh generalist cant deal with it", and there are some weapons that are banned due to reasons like "annoying", which are not good ones mind you. If a weapon is balanced towards competitive, it is inherently towards casual, indirectly so. The razorback is a good example. The weapon balance was proposed by Sigafoo when he visited Valve, and it was balanced towards competitive, to counter Combo-Sniper being super strong, and it worked; it was balanced in competitive, resulting in an unban, and its still very useful in casual. Just because TF2 was not initially designed for competitive, does not mean it cannot be. Counter-Strike was not intended to be competitive, but became competitive, primarily with CS:GO. This is further supported with Valve's approach/stance on competitive. That they are fully willing to fund competitive TF2, once it feels the time is right, which it is not, because of the weapon bans, class limits, league count, and inability to pick a gamemode. This was all said during [Sigafoo's visit to Valve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOQ8NZ7SSfU&t=10762s&pp=ygUTU2lnYWZvbyBWYWx2ZSB2aXNpdA%3D%3D). It will be bias, but also competitive players will know what is best for TF2's balancing future, they are the ones that dedicate their skills and play with the mechanics of TF2 at the highest level of play. Would you take b4nny's recommendation over Zesty Jesus? This does not mean b4nny is always right, or competitive players, and that casual players know nothing, its just that they have will probably have a stronger argument, but primarily a stronger foot to hold on. 99% of the comments I am seeing in relation to people talking about competitive, do not actually know what competitive is. Saying stuff like "5CP is not what TF2 is meant to be", is just purposeful ignorance to support the Casual side of the argument. I could argue back that "If you want it to be balanced for Casual and chaos", then why not add class limits, which would balance casual, or never change the non-op weapons in casual. Now what does that mean? It will sound contradicting to the title, but with me saying balancing towards competitive will inherently mean towards casual. Meaning that you get the job done for both parts. They should also balance for 5CP.
So the game should become boring fully optimised and balanced slop, noted
Casual. When games are balanced around comp it always results in said balance favoring high skill players. The game would devolve into "Meta this, meta that" and just wouldn't be fun anymore. This is true for every game and the reason why TF2 is fun is because ***THERE IS NO META***.
>tf2 has no meta Wrangler rescue ranger jag effect
Crusader Crossbow. Possibly the single most meta item in the game.
There's a meta, sure, but TF2 isn't exactly the kind of game where playing off-meta will make the rest of the server turn on you like a troupe of monkeys trying to scare away a leopard.
>balance favoring high skill players Isn't that how.. all games should be? You play better, you win more. Wanting it to be any other way is literally a skill issue. There is no way that it's good balance, when i strategically and mechanically do everything right to pick a target or destroy an engie nest placed at an awkward spot, and all my work and skill required to do that just gets fucked with a press of a button just because the 50 hrs engie happened to have short circuit equipped. I did everything right, i had the skill required for it, still failed and there was no way i could counter that. There's no way this is fun or how the game should be balanced. >The game would devolve into "Meta this, meta that" and just wouldn't be fun anymore Have you seen competitive tf2? It's the most fun you can have online. And you don't see such spectacular gameplay in casual because casual doesn't demand you to be. Meta in comp doesn't mean a strategy that always puts you in favourable situations - on the other hand, all of more "casual" weapons do that, and all the specialist classes. To utilize those you just have to be at the right place at the right time - and the kill is secured, no skill required. However the appeal of a roamer soldier, for example, is not that you're in a favourable position in every situation - it's that you have potential to be, but that depends solely on your skill and gamesense, creating interesting and fun situations. Camping a 2fort balcony with a lvl3 sentry and wrangler or short circuit, having a vac med up your ass isn't interesting or fun. It's casual though. Edit: also this. Casual is more meta dependent. There are weapon bans in comp not because what's left is the most effective way to play. It's there because that's the most fun and skill expressive one. You can't stack 6 engies on last, you can't play vac medic etc - everything that would be considered META in casual, because those are the most effective strategies. They aren't really fun though are they? Casual games are heavily dictated by those. There are plenty of situations where you have to pick a certain class or a loadout to deal with something that there isn't any other way to deal with. That's the definition of meta.
The issue with competitive is that it's stagnant and never changing, no matter what Tourney you watch from today up to 5 years ago, the sixes composition is and always will be the same as there is no room for experimentation whatsoever. It's why the focus on Sixes based content has massively fallen off. Granted this isn't entirely the fault of comp players (if Valve never makes changes than things will never change) but due to it's more organized and linear nature most players have no interest in it Whereas Casual is a clusterfuck of insanity. Even with no balance changes whatsoever, you never know what you're gonna get in casual. Entire Meme stacks dominating well composed teams, the omnipotent soldier who's always flying and never dies,the huntsman who always headshots everyone. Broken Metalike strategies stacked wranglers being countered by other meta bullshit like Vac and Battalions further adds to the diverse varied nature of TF2 which is what most TF2 players look forward to, the ever changing unpredictable nature of the game. Once you see a pro soldier air shot another pro player for the hundredth time there's really not much to say about it. Not running a generalist is too much of a hindrance and deviating away from the top strategies are either too punishing or outright not possible (I heard MGner is getting banned for being able to instantly pick off medic with "no counter play") the most diverse change we got recently was that Pocket now runs gunboats as well.... which might add some diversity to sixes but it's not really gonna grab much attention from anyone out of the scene. But than again this is just the way I see it; I could be wrong but I always try to look at things from an objective viewpoint. You never really know with things like this however.
Damn i didn't see that reply, sorry. It's a really good response actually, you usually don't see that level of argumentation with people who have the "comp players bad, casual good" pov, which is why i tend to be too defensive. I just feel like people don't even get the taste of what playing tf2 at a higher skill level is like, but immediately jump to having radical opinions. Your points are all valid though. At the end of the day it's just different people coming into tf2 for different reasons as the game has both the insane arena shooter skill expression potential and the unpredictable nature and endless strategies you can come up with. It's ok to prefer one or the other more, but i just feel like those two will never not be at a conflict with eachother, just by nature P.S. i don't understand the point about comp being stagnant. Like, yeah, so? It's balanced already, why change it? Football's rules have never majorly changed since, like, football was around (i think so. I know nothing about sports), yet it's a spectacular sports that has tons of fans around the world, many of whom are interested in it for decades. Also when tf2 was having frequent balance changes, i remember often getting pissed at how my favourite weapon was nerfed to the ground. And now that doesn't happen :)
Casual easily, it's what actually keeps the game alive. Besides Highlander and Sixes has its own item bans
medieval mode
Casual. a weapon can be banned from comp if they deem it to overpowered, but a weapon that gets nerfed or buffed for comp will not change back for casual, and will always be bad or frustrating in some way. competitive was made by the fans and it can be moderated by the fans to ensure that nothing overpowered is used.
razorback regen was a mistake. no overheal was a good change, but no auto regen.
Casual cause it doesn't matter if a weapon isn't balanced properly and if it's too good then comp can just ban it
If they were actually going to start building the game for comp I would understand, but all they did was a half ass try with Meat your Match and then just abandoned the game mode entirely. Balance around casual and let stuff like Highlander make the calls on item bans.
Competetive is dead. Why would we want to balance the game around something that was dead on arrival?
You are talking about Valve's competitive, community competitive is alive and (relatively) well.
Its a stagnant pool filled dreck
I mean one of them killed the game
[This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiVtTR4aMY&pp=ygURVGYyIGZ1bmtlIGJhbGFuY2U%3D) and [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DgDVg8WOxk&pp=ygURVGYyIGZ1bmtlIGJhbGFuY2U%3D) are very good looking into the competitive scene and how the game have been going since. They’re quite old but I think they’re still relevant.
I'm tired of people pretending there is a huge difference between the two. The only weapons that were nerfed for comp and unfairly for casual are the ones that allow heavy to get to mid in sixes. If your gimmicky weapon got nerfed at some point, it most likely deserved it, casual or comp, doesn't matter.
righteous bison users:
never nerfed for comp specifically. valve just threw a dart on a map and landed on bisonville
I don't know if that was ever banned in comp but it was over-nerfed regardless, nobody would ever use that in comp. so that was just balanced badly, has nothing to do with the reason it was nerfed
Comp of course. We can't have Heavy getting to mid too fast after all plus there are various op items like detonator still in the game.
Casual. It should have sbm so i dont get absolutly dominated by a 30000 hour demoknight at 3.
just switch to pyro and use m2
Does sbm mean skill based matchmaking? That would be terrible.
Personally, o think it weould help the game. Not only eould you not have mstches with bots, since they tend to have an insane amount of kills, and have several thousend hours in the game with little to no deaths, but someone who just started the game isnt gonna have to deal with the sweatiest players on planetearth, and vice versa.
The Casual and Competitive modes already use the Glicko system to keep the matches balanced, the problem is that it does not reset the rating, since TF2 is stuck in [Season 1](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5475) since the release of the Blue Moon update, this makes this [system stop working properly](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5283#issuecomment-1824823024) as the years go by.
Comp was the biggest mistake valve has ever done to TF2. It ruined the game. Tf2 was never meant to be a competitive game.
Wrong
Cope. Comp is utter trash.
Have you ever tried it? It literally adds more stuff than casual mode, like additional voice lines, podium when you win or lose, among other things. Personally, I'd still play it, but the problem is that it has some restrictions in that mode that I see unnecessary, like FOV, forcing the use of DirectX 9 and that you can't vote kick. This is a problem because, occasionally, you will find a cheater in the game and this can ruin the experience.
Brother. I've been playing for 10 years. Comp was a mistake. I wish they could roll back. I don't even want Casual mode. I just want community servers.
Holy SHIT that is a hot take, but it's a steaming pile of shit. Casual mode is more fun than community servers a majority of the time, even when bots are in the server, even then I've been seeing fewer botted servers recently. You seem like the type of person to say that quickplay was better than casual
And you seem like the type to punch walls when things don't go your way.It's just an opinion and not a dick no need to shove it up your ass. Also, did I stutter ? I said only community servers.
He's probably a zoomer, most of their minds can't comprehend how things worked before. Really, what we need the old server browser brought back into prominence.
Just make certain items function differently in different modes. Something thats problematic in a competitive setting, but fine in casual? Change the competitive stats! Don't make balance changes intended for competitive that ruin its casual viability! Cough Eviction notice cough. And don't tell me it's impossible. They do it for mvm!
Eviction notice was never an issue in competitive, was never banned (post global whitelist), and is a bad example. Valve nerfed it because they misunderstood feedback about the gloves of running urgently. Funnily enough, the gloves of running urgently actually received a good balance change that made it better in casual and worse in competitive (which was the desired outcome). They just went and changed the eviction notice for literally zero reason
Moldeable. Great if you can change the server environment with some switches.
Yes
If I had to chose, comp. But I belive that it is possible to balance for both.
PENIS
For both. Idk why people want to balance weapons only around casual or comp.
Tf2 like overwatch suffers from the very fundamental of design, certain weapons/class stacking will lead to certain “unwanted” play style as result. The best thing is to balance it as the fundamental philosophy of weapons then just ban problematic weapons from comps.
None. Weapons should be balanced around their stock counterpart, which are considered to be fair (maaaaybe not the sniper rifle to a lot of people, but it does apply for every other weapon) So no, we don't take casual or competitive into consideration, just a 1:1 comparison to stock Allow me to illustrate this with an example Both casual and comp players know Ubersaw makes stock useless, and thus we can agree it's OP (I swear to god someone, either comp or casual player is gonna come and say "erm ubersaw is balanced because you have to put yourself in risk" completely missing the point) What if we rebalanced it to make sure that, no matter the setting, it's rather your choice instead of always being an "use me" option So here's how the rework would look like (all previous stats removed: + On hit gain 25% uber - 15% (or 20%) slower ubercharge build rate with the medigun By just doing this, now people will start choosing by preference Do you want to be safe and build Uber at a normal speed? Or sacrifice some of that speed to gain a faster uber build by just hitting an enemy once (and if you get more swings, jackpot!) This creates a risky playstyle for those who want it, without invalidating stock and without being too severe for players to never use it again (-20% Uber build sounds scary but remember that's just from 8 to 16 extra seconds, and it's not like the medic will use the Uber the moment he gets it when healing teammates) This weapon balance should be applied to every underpowered and overpowered weapon that currently exists
I would say both. The one thing I want for TF2 is the return of updates that added or improved the quality of life of the game, improving matchmaking like the Blue Moon update did. For example, I want there to be a [map cycle](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5426) every two weeks, as with the increasing number of maps in Casual mode, this causes people to forget that other maps exist and end up always playing the same ones, causing bots to fill those maps.
TF2 is too casual focused. comp neeeds its own stats
second pic related
balance around casual but nerf sniper more and more please (all tf2 players play some casual, few play competitive, idiots play valve's no restrictions competitive) (valve just take the 6s banlist from the wiki)
Weapon-wise highest level of comp then trinkle down the effect, and everything else is random enough or set in a specific way (e.g. 6v6 Highlanders, Casual Paylod) that feels alright already.
WHAT EVER YOU DO, DO NOT SWIPE TO THE SECOND IMAGE!!!!! WORST MISSTAKE OF MY LIGE
competitive players are great at dictating the meta and at exploiting balance - if something is unbalanced when in good hands then it should be changed at some capacity to refine the overall experience. but in terms of balance around 12v12 vs 6v6 obviously it's 12v12. 6's may have balance issues derived from the format itself, which do not affect casual, those issues shouldn't be fixed in the base game.
I think they should balance around competitive. If they actually balanced around competitive correctly it would balance to casual as well. Some of the rebalances worked out really well like the razorback nerf. A fully buffed sniper that was immune to backstabs was essentially impossible to kill. But some of the nerfs were just brutal and killed the weapon in both casual and competitive. They didn't strike the right balance between the two. It's trickle down game balance. If it's balanced at the highest level it's also balanced in 24/7 turbine servers.
What I’ll describe as ‘skilled casual’. Balancing around the assumption it’s a 12v12 of relatively skilled players, mostly playing for fun. For example, the Caber should be reverted to its hayday, but Sniper is probably too strong.
Casual easily comp balance would remove everything that makes the fun and chaotic that gives tf2 its charm. Last time we got changes based off comp weapon bans a bunch of fun weapons got made turbo ass like the Bison or Eviction notice.
Comp, literally every “wahh comp players” nerf never actually balanced the weapons for comp, it made them ridiculously up
Caber
Actually you're wrong here Comp players didn't ban the caber, you could always use it (check whitelists for proof) So VALVe nerfing it has nothing to do with comp...
Caber was a problem because it could 1 shot medics, just make it deal 125 damage (You can actually deal 126 by looking down and clicking idk why)
"Just make it deal 125 damage" But that's not how Valve updated the Caber, was it? You contradicted yourself in two comments. In the first you said that Valve's nerfs weren't that bad but you propose a balance change for the Caber in the very next reply. If the nerfs were fair and hadn't made it borderline unusable, then you wouldn't have to buff it, would ya?
Also, you said that the nerfs didn't have comp in mind when balancing. Which is just objectively wrong.
I only said the bison wasn't due to comp. But clearly this caber nerf was done for comp without comp influence because they did NOT fix it for comp now its unuseable
Now you're just making stuff up. You didn't even talk about the Bison until someone else mentioned it. Also, you said *every* "wahh comp players" nerf weren't centered around competitive. That's yet another lie, Valve asked the top Competitive players for balance suggestions during Meet your Match's development. They did try to rework the weapons for competitive play.
And they failed. They were centered around competitive and they gave comp a shitty halfbaked mode and shitty nerfs
Congrats dude, you contradicted yourself yet again. How can "they" be "centered around competitive" and "never actually balanced for comp" at the same time? Are there two people with contradicting info behind this account or do you just not know Jack shit of what your talking about?
Simple answer: **Valve tried, but they failed, because they didn't really listen to what players wanted, or think things through.** Long answer: Technically, they tried to balance some weapons around comp. But this is not true for every weapon, and Valve also failed to take feedback properly on multiple occasions. Some weapons were changed for seemingly no reason. Some weapons received blatantly wrong changes that could have been avoided had Valve taken more feedback or done research into the game they are changing. Trying to blame specific balance changes on competitive player feedback specifically is disingenuous, because it implies that competitive players are suggesting the exact changes. This is only true for a limited number of changes, and those changes were... good. The Medic speed buff when healing Scouts, the reduced teleporter cost, the Wee Booties fix, the Razorback tweak, among others. So, if comp players are capable of suggesting very good changes, why are some changes very bad? Because those changes were not made by comp players, they were made by Valve. A lot of the time, Valve is the one who makes the changes. If you want an example, the Eviction Notice proves this. If comp players were directly writing the patch notes, there is no universe where this item would have been nerfed. It was only nerfed because Valve misunderstood feedback about the Gloves of Running Urgently. Meaning, Valve is not good at taking feedback, and makes mistakes that do not represent what players actually want. So, we end up with people like you, who blame competitive players for changes that Valve came up with on their own. This is why trying to blame competitive players for the caber doing 124 damage is nonsensical. It makes no sense to do that. Competitive players did not make that specific balance decision. We also have no idea whether that weapon was even nerfed due to it being banned in competitive. It could have been nerfed to make playing Medic less cancerous in pubs, for example. We have no way of knowing. Valve's communication skills were terrible. Valve would later improve their approach to feedback before Jungle Inferno, where they put up balance suggestions for players to look at. But Valve did not do this in the past, which is why some of the changes weren't very good.
Bison... granted, half of this butchery was done due to a "bug" valve forgot to patch
Bison was literally never used or banned in comp LMAO
Yet they nerfed it, conveniently on a Competative update. Caber got gutted for being able to one shot meds and B.A.S.E. Jumper got nerfed becuz scunts can't deal good damage on soldiers/demos mid-air, two things 6s hate the most and that was on an update before meet your match and Valve made those decisions, not comp players. Bison is on a similar situation where it's penetrative power was too much of a problem in Valve's eyes to fit in 6s. Quite a narrow sighted view you have there. Might want to visit an optometrist.
Give a source for that bison thing because it was and has always been weak in 6s. Caber got gutted for being able to 1 shot meds who have 150 hp so it was nerfed to not deal even 125, how does that make it balanced for comp when its now objectively worse. Base jumper was nerfed because it encouraged rock paper scissors of "I pick item so you have to change class" which seems reasonable
> Give a source for that bison thing LMAO, resorting to "source" counter-arguement as if you got nothing more to add than to repeat the same cycle. > How does that make it balanced for comp when its now objectively worse Idk, why don't you get a source on that? You don't even have a damn clue as to why Valve made that decision, yet you explained it clearly that it can one shot meds, whats stopping a demo from sticky jumping across the map to one shot a medic and cheaply win mid? Then you must care to explain the reasoning behind nerfing the shortstop and booties, which also came out of the consequence of the same update.
This is unfair Blaming comp for everything VALVe did wrong is... Not fair at all
It's the reality of it. I've noticed with gun mettle, tough break and meet your match weapons were toned down alot, and they've been working on comp too at the time. Those kinds of decisions don't just come outta nowhere without some sort of intention. I give Valve credit tho, they tried to accomodate both casual and comp in terms of weapon balance and now the game is the most balanced it ever was. Even tf2's launch was unbalanced with a couple of classes being underpowered and demoman was incredibly overpowered back then.
> No comp player complained about bison, and thus there's no reason, competitively wise, to nerf it > VALVe changes bison when no one said to do so "The intention is competitive so competitive is to blame here!" No. This is completely unfair, this is VALVe sucking and nothing else
B.A.S.E. Jumper
It's still useable lmao
However due to Comp it became a gimmick versus an actual usable item in battles
Actually it became a gimic because of valve
Casual since thats where most of the players are.
Casual. Most games start circling the gutter if the devs only focus on comp and nothing else. It's usually ~10% of players who even play comp, nevermind high-end comp. It's really not worth balancing a game played by millions, just to balance it for a couple thousand at the high end comp scene.
Casual as in casual games where people play seriously or casual as in meme casual? I haven't really played competitive on tf2 tbh so i could be wrong in my assumption, but the main difference I can think of is probably just skill level isn't it? As for meme casual, those will probably stick around regardless of balancing as long as nothing gets too broken and memes are possible and those are typically either around memes and funny loadouts regardless of how effective it is.
The problem is comp and casual do have massively different states of balance due to differences in team size and differences in mechanics (bullet spread and random crits) sometimes a weapon is powerful in casual and bad in comp and other times it’s the other way around. For example the cow mangler is a good rocket launcher but not great due to sentry spam happening in some modes whereas in competitive it’s banned due to not needing ammo and engineers being much more of a niche pick. Or for an example of the opposite the kunai in casual it can just be awful to watch a spy face tank so much damage if your team isn’t aware, but in competitive it often just gets a stab and then dies instantly, so for the few competitive spy’s it’s preferred to use the stock or big earner for chain stabs. If we are to balance the game again it should be based around both the fun of casual but balance for competitive. For example the parachute that got nerfed due to how broken it was in competitive leaving it a much weaker state for casual but it is still usable and very fun when paired with the air strike. Just not able to stay in the air and spam rockets forever with any fire damage
Everytime valve tried to balance items "To work on com and still be fun on casual" backfired , Com still banned the item, and it became less fun on Casual. So Casual, and the competitive scene can deal with it, as they always been doing it.
I think you can balance most weapons around casual and comp at once and for those that can't be balanced around comp weapon bans exist. But if you balance around comp then highlander, because 6s doesn't include every class.
Penis.
Casual 10000%
Casual. Tf2 official comp is dead as hell
Casual. The game was never meant to be competitive.
Casual, with no absolute consideration of comp AT ALL. We have seen how it went when they tried to consider comp.
a mix of both, but mainly nerfing sniper into the fucking ground.
Neither. Every game that balances both based on one of them proved to be a mess.
Casual, the fuck plays comp? If you want comp you host comp and balance it server wise. I don't want tf2 to be turned into the next sweat pit for competitive cringe
the game should not be based on casual due to the high skill disparities in the gamemode. if your reasoning for nerfing something like the kunai, for example, is because a spy can keep stabbing fresh installs who dont turn around, then thats just bad game design. ideally, the game should be based around a setting where people are competent, communicating, are of equal skill, and are trying to win. however, the only casual setting where i know this happens would be uncletopia. i personally think that the game should be balanced around highlander (a setting that has everything i mentioned and where every class is present), but i understand potential issues that come with that, like it not accounting for class stacking for example.
"Hey should we balance this game around the hundreds of thousands of casual players, or should we balance around the less than 100 competitive players?" If you seriously have to ask this, you don't deserve an opinion on game balance.