[PSA] A Game Should Always be Balanced Around its Competitive Scene

[Average Jeanne d'Arc Enjoyer]

Hello, I'm Kaiayos. Some of you may know me, I'm a relatively old forumer, although I haven't been active in quite some time.
I also haven't played TF2 in quite some time.

In the meantime, I picked up a game called For Honor. (Insert obligatory "For Honor is dead" joke.) Over the 8 months it's been around, I have gone from a more casual player, to becoming more and more involved with the competitive community. I play in tournaments, I participate in scrimmages, and I talk daily with some of the best players in the world.

But why is any of this important? Well, my experiences there really taught me an important rule of thumb that applies to pretty much every video game.
A game should always be balanced around its competitive scene.
Balancing around its casual scene may seem like it would make for a more fun and relaxed game, but the reality is that no matter how you balance it, there will always be people who will take the game to its maximum potential. Your friendly, casual game will soon become a mess of pubstomping and exploitable, broken mechanics.
On the other hand, balancing around its competitive scene, where everything can and will be used to its maximum potential, makes sure that nothing is too strong or abusable. Sure, it might be more of a challenge for those who aren't as willing to put serious time into the game, but at the end of the day, you still have a properly balanced game.

And why post this public service announcement now? Well, I didn't do it just for fun. After yesterday's patch notes were released, I noticed a lot of people complaining about specific weapon balancing. They said things along the lines of, "This [weapon] is dead," or "This [weapon] is unuseable," etc.
A lot of their arguments include mentions of how the weapon won't be fun to use, or how they should have kept the casual community in mind.
I am not a member of the TF2 competitive community, but I have heard from people who are (including Grant Vincent), that almost, if not all of the weapon balances were necessary.
From my undestanding, these changes were very important for the competitive side of the game, and therefore, for the entire game itself.

I know for some, maybe a lot, of you, these weapons were very fun to use, and now they might have lost that touch, but balancing around TF2's casual side would have been detrimental for both sides of the community.

Edit: It doesn't matter what the game was designed for, if it can be played competitively, it will be, and that will show every crack and flaw in the game.
Balancing around a casual scene allows broken mechanics to stay in the game, and those, regardless of how serious you or anyone else takes the game, will be exploitable to its full extent.

Edit 2: Again, I am not a competitive TF2 player, I have simply heard opinions from competitive TF2 players regarding the new balance changes, and agree with the decision to balance the game around its competitive scene based on my experience with the competitive scene in For Honor.
I cannot answer questions regarding TF2's competitive balance. Sorry.
There may be people in the comments or elsewhere you can ask those specific questions to.

[mishael1]

This like a potentially good read. I recommend adding more formatting to this: Use

Titles

and sprinkle in some Emphasised key words and sentences.

[Logan]

You talk about tf comp?
Damn worst topic ever.
I'm out,good luck.

[doriyani is my dad]

The immediate issue with this is that just because it's okay for 6v6, doesn't mean it's okay for HL, or 4v4, or 7v7, or ultiduo, or pubs. This is potentially true for any set of game formats in TF2. If everyone was playing the same format, then sure, balance it for competitive. In TF2 though, with multiple formats, there is no way to balance everything for, "competitive," because there are many many different interperetations of it, and if you balance for one, you exclude a lot of people.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

6v6 and 12v12 balance are different. The game was built for 12v12. Insisting on balance primarily for competitive when the player count is all wrong to begin with doesn't work.

[Cee]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

competitive when the player count is all wrong to begin with doesn't work.

If something works in Comp it works in pubs. OP in comp? OP in pubs, can be even more OP actually.
Comp is just good players against good players.
Think like this: They're pubbers, but with alot more knowledge and skill.

[Punch Munchem]

Except this game was never meant to be taken seriously, if it did the mercs would not look like cartoon characters, the hilarious sterotypes wouldn't be there, Pyro would be revealed as the manliest man because he shoots fire, there wouldn't be any hats nor taunts, and every class would be limited to the weapons they start with, no more, no less.

Second, the comp scene for TF2 is literally a fraction of the main playerbase. I would say on average that 70% of players play casual, 10% play MvM, 5% play competetive, and 15% play those wacky pub games that include x1000 Randomiser RTD No Cap Highertower, why balance a game around such a small percentage of the people who play it?

Third, this ain't no Call of Duty, I shouldn't have to train to be able to just play the game without getting stomped. Sure pub stomping and steam rolls exist in the casual gameplay, but that's part of the deal, sometimes you get put with the really good players and roll, or you get put with the gibuses and get rolled. Point is I should be able to just pick up the game and learn gradually instead of being thrown into the pool with no experiance in swimming.

Sorry if I sound like a prick, but I just wanted to give a Casual player's view of whenever people say Competetive is the next best thing since sliced bread

[Vlad the Impala]

Originally posted by Hashtag/BrokenHashtag:

Except this game was never meant to be taken seriously, if it did the mercs would not look like cartoon characters, the hilarious sterotypes wouldn't be there, Pyro would be revealed as the manliest man because he shoots fire, there wouldn't be any hats nor taunts, and every class would be limited to the weapons they start with, no more, no less.

Second, the comp scene for TF2 is literally a fraction of the main playerbase. I would say on average that 70% of players play casual, 10% play MvM, 5% play competetive, and 15% play those wacky pub games that include x1000 Randomiser RTD No Cap Highertower, why balance a game around such a small percentage of the people who play it?

Third, this ain't no Call of Duty, I shouldn't have to train to be able to just play the game without getting stomped. Sure pub stomping and steam rolls exist in the casual gameplay, but that's part of the deal, sometimes you get put with the really good players and roll, or you get put with the gibuses and get rolled. Point is I should be able to just pick up the game and learn gradually instead of being thrown into the pool with no experiance in swimming.

Sorry if I sound like a prick, but I just wanted to give a Casual player's view of whenever people say Competetive is the next best thing since sliced bread

Looks like the best way to cater to that is to make Gmod free to play.

[Blue Candle]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

6v6 and 12v12 balance are different. The game was built for 12v12. Insisting on balance primarily for competitive when the player count is all wrong to begin with doesn't work.

I was about to mention this myself. Local comp bans are ok but don't go messing around with the main game when it was originally meant to be a fun 12V12 mashup and not a 6V6 comp game trying to copy overwatch.

[rept]

I mean I agree with this 100% but unfortunately most pubbers have this weird perception that competitive is some arbitrary format where all the meanies play >:(

[Vlad the Impala]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

6v6 and 12v12 balance are different. The game was built for 12v12. Insisting on balance primarily for competitive when the player count is all wrong to begin with doesn't work.

The game was actually built on 8v8, they arbitrarily increased it to 12v12 for unknown reasons.

The result is that already cramped maps become even more cramped, dragging down gameplay into massive spamfests and stalemates with unlocks designed to allow sentries to withstand insane punishment.

[Baby_Cookie[WOLF]]

balanced around comp

would be a meaningfull statement if this game were comp
for 9 years there NEVER was a competitive scene on valves behalve

there were independent competitions but none of them were in valve controll
tf2 has been since it's birth a casual cartoonystyled shooter "for fun"

competitive was INTRODUCED as an answer to other upcoming competitve games that were stealing the playerbase from this one
( let's not get into it, but we all know who and what :) )

for 9 years valve didn't care because they had no viable competition in this market
suddenly they were forced to wake up
( NOT BECASUE THE COMMUNITY WANTED IT, BUT BECASUE THEIR MARKET WAS ENDANGERED )

-------

this game should not be focussed around it's comp setting
it's comp setting is a lie to keep people tied... and it's rushed and half-done ( as is most of what valve has done in the last couple of years )

-------

you are kinda an out of place topic here :)

[Exaeta]

Originally posted by NobuPyro the Whole Time:

Hello, I'm Kaiayos. Some of you may know me, I'm a relatively old forumer, although I haven't been active in quite some time.
I also haven't played TF2 in quite some time.

In the meantime, I picked up a game called For Honor. (Insert obligatory "For Honor is dead" joke.) Over the 8 months it's been around, I have gone from a more casual player, to becoming more and more involved with the competitive community. I play in tournaments, I participate in scrimmages, and I talk daily with some of the best players in the world.

But why is any of this important? Well, my experiences there really taught me an important rule of thumb that applies to pretty much every video game.
A game should always be balanced around its competitive scene.
Balancing around its casual scene may seem like it would make for a more fun and relaxed game, but the reality is that no matter how you balance it, there will always be people who will take the game to its maximum potential. Your friendly, casual game will soon become a mess of pubstomping and exploitable, broken mechanics.
On the other hand, balancing around its competitive scene, where everything can and will be used to its maximum potential, makes sure that nothing is too strong or abusable. Sure, it might be more of a challenge for those who aren't as willing to put serious time into the game, but at the end of the day, you still have a properly balanced game.

And why post this public service announcement now? Well, I didn't do it just for fun. After yesterday's patch notes were released, I noticed a lot of people complaining about specific weapon balancing. They said things along the lines of, "This [weapon] is dead," or "This [weapon] is unuseable," etc.
A lot of their arguments include mentions of how the weapon won't be fun to use, or how they should have kept the casual community in mind.
I am not a member of the TF2 competitive community, but I have heard from people who are (including Grant Vincent), that almost, if not all of the weapon balances were necessary.
From my undestanding, these changes were very important for the competitive side of the game, and therefore, for the entire game itself.

I know for some, maybe a lot, of you, these weapons were very fun to use, and now they might have lost that touch, but balancing around TF2's casual side would have been detrimental for both sides of the community.

The problem is the competitive community does not want a balanced game. They just want solly+demo pubstomp. Notice how those overpowered classes weren't nerfed.

[doriyani is my dad]

Originally posted by TWITCH IS RETARDED:

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

competitive when the player count is all wrong to begin with doesn't work.

If something works in Comp it works in pubs. OP in comp? OP in pubs, can be even more OP actually.
Comp is just good players against good players.
Think like this: They're pubbers, but with alot more knowledge and skill.

Stop. Breaking down competitive TF2 so that it's, "just good players against good players," is a terrible simplification, and it's wrong. A worse player can many times, fit into a roster and improve the team more than a good player. A great example of this from NA Highlander is Second Wind changing out Metawe to Daffodil.

As far as something working working in comp working in pubs, that statement only works if it assumes comp and pubs are the same exact thing. The issue is, a pub follows a different format (Or really a nonformat) than does comp, and comp formats are still different from eachother. The blanket statement that whatever works in comp works in pubs doesn't fit at all.

[rept]

Originally posted by Hashtag/BrokenHashtag:

Except this game was never meant to be taken seriously, if it did the mercs would not look like cartoon characters, the hilarious sterotypes wouldn't be there, Pyro would be revealed as the manliest man because he shoots fire, there wouldn't be any hats nor taunts, and every class would be limited to the weapons they start with, no more, no less.

Second, the comp scene for TF2 is literally a fraction of the main playerbase. I would say on average that 70% of players play casual, 10% play MvM, 5% play competetive, and 15% play those wacky pub games that include x1000 Randomiser RTD No Cap Highertower, why balance a game around such a small percentage of the people who play it?

Third, this ain't no Call of Duty, I shouldn't have to train to be able to just play the game without getting stomped. Sure pub stomping and steam rolls exist in the casual gameplay, but that's part of the deal, sometimes you get put with the really good players and roll, or you get put with the gibuses and get rolled. Point is I should be able to just pick up the game and learn gradually instead of being thrown into the pool with no experiance in swimming.

Sorry if I sound like a prick, but I just wanted to give a Casual player's view of whenever people say Competetive is the next best thing since sliced bread

hi
I play pubs every day and have never played a comp format in my life.

This game already has a really high skill ceiling (which is good, since that's why I've put 6k hours into the game), and players already have to practice to get good. New players get absolutely demolished. But many unbalanced weapons let bad players do well, which creates a false perception of their own skill. This prevents any actual learning and improvement. Also, some OP weapons allow a good player to completely stomp enemies with no effort at all.

If the game is balanced with good players in mind, it will also make it more intuitive to learn because new players won't get thrown into a mess of horribly OP and UP weapons.

[rept]

Originally posted by Exaeta | Selling 8 Unusuals:

Originally posted by NobuPyro the Whole Time:

Hello, I'm Kaiayos. Some of you may know me, I'm a relatively old forumer, although I haven't been active in quite some time.
I also haven't played TF2 in quite some time.

In the meantime, I picked up a game called For Honor. (Insert obligatory "For Honor is dead" joke.) Over the 8 months it's been around, I have gone from a more casual player, to becoming more and more involved with the competitive community. I play in tournaments, I participate in scrimmages, and I talk daily with some of the best players in the world.

But why is any of this important? Well, my experiences there really taught me an important rule of thumb that applies to pretty much every video game.
A game should always be balanced around its competitive scene.
Balancing around its casual scene may seem like it would make for a more fun and relaxed game, but the reality is that no matter how you balance it, there will always be people who will take the game to its maximum potential. Your friendly, casual game will soon become a mess of pubstomping and exploitable, broken mechanics.
On the other hand, balancing around its competitive scene, where everything can and will be used to its maximum potential, makes sure that nothing is too strong or abusable. Sure, it might be more of a challenge for those who aren't as willing to put serious time into the game, but at the end of the day, you still have a properly balanced game.

And why post this public service announcement now? Well, I didn't do it just for fun. After yesterday's patch notes were released, I noticed a lot of people complaining about specific weapon balancing. They said things along the lines of, "This [weapon] is dead," or "This [weapon] is unuseable," etc.
A lot of their arguments include mentions of how the weapon won't be fun to use, or how they should have kept the casual community in mind.
I am not a member of the TF2 competitive community, but I have heard from people who are (including Grant Vincent), that almost, if not all of the weapon balances were necessary.
From my undestanding, these changes were very important for the competitive side of the game, and therefore, for the entire game itself.

I know for some, maybe a lot, of you, these weapons were very fun to use, and now they might have lost that touch, but balancing around TF2's casual side would have been detrimental for both sides of the community.

The problem is the competitive community does not want a balanced game. They just want solly+demo pubstomp. Notice how those overpowered classes weren't nerfed.

except scout dominates in comp so you have no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue what you're talking about