How to ACTUALLY fix TF2 in-game competitive

A guide on how Valve could ACTUALLY fix the competitive scene...

Credits

Inspired by these people, although their guide had several major illogical flaws and also they delete their comments.
Also some information taken from cfg.tf, mastercomfig.com and Chris's and Comaglia's configs.

All feedback is appriciatted - we are a community and we deserve normal competitive.

General TF2 fixes

Viewmodels

Default viewmodels are not very pleasing for eyes.

Suggested fix:
First of all - Viewmodel_fov should be changed from 54 to 70
Fov should be default 90 as with 70 its very hard to play the game and actually see your surroundings.
Also, there should be an official fix for the original (soldier's rocket launcher) where you can use higher viewmodel_fov than 70 without visual glitches.

When a player first boots the game they should be greeted with:

• visual examples of minimized viewmodels and the chance to apply them
  
• viewmodel_fov slider with visual example of how would it look like

Interpolation (refered to as "interp") settings

Default interp settings are a joke, especially for projectile based classes. The projectile weapons literally shoot a second after the click.

Suggested fix:
cl_interp should be changed from 0.1 to 0.0152
cl_interp_ratio should be fixed at 2
rate value should stay at 60000
cmdrate and updaterate should stay on 66
cl_smooth should be changed from 1 to 0

When a player first boots the game they should be greeted with:

• a automatic connection "test" where the game would check their connection and apply the best settings possible OR a menu where they can select if their connection is bad or good.

An example of good and bad connection internet settings:

Misc settings

Fast weapon switch should be always on due to it being an essential.
When the game boots up for the first time - a menu to instantly apply crosshair and hitsounds (they are an essential aswell)
Crits and bullet spread. Do I have to even say anything about this? Delete them entirely from the game - as Uncle Dane said - random crit community servers would get more popular, making community servers gain more attention.

Main competitive problems:

• Lack of players (long queue times)
  
• Bad maps and gamemodes
  
• Pay to play
  
• Unfair matchups
  
• Rank is pointless and there is no reward for playing

Lack of players (long queue times)

The lack of players might be the biggest problem for the TF2 competitive scene and why people don't want to play the in-game competitive (ironic).

I am not really sure how would it be able to attract more players to the game, unless Valve can promote the game with more animated shorts or make the following changes.

Allow players on dx81 play competitive aswell!!! - This might be the biggest reason why people who are interested in competitive go to third party sites such as UGC or ETF2L. TF2 is a badly optimized game and good fps is very important, so people with average PC builds can't afford to play on dx90 and higher.

Also, when someone leaves, don't cancel the whole match, just wait for another person to join.

Bad maps and gamemodes

A bad map is very saddening to join after a hour of queue time.
This is a major flaw of TF2 in-game competitive.

An example of a bad map that noone in the right mind likes: (ctf_turbine)


An example of a good map: (cp_reckoner)

Suggested fix:

• Remove maps that are hard to understand (cp_vanguard) / are generally bad (ctf_turbine)
  
• Add more community made competitive maps that are popular in 6s and highlander communities (koth_coalplant)
  
• Add a map queue selection (similar to CSGO comp, where you can queue only for maps you like)
  
• Add more "popular" gamemodes such as Highlander and 6s.*

* - My idea was to have 3 different competitive gamemodes - 6s, highlander and the no-restrictions one that is currently in the in-game competitive. In this way new players would be able to learn basics of any class in a more competitive setting, and when they feel ready, they can go and put their new skills to use in 6s and highlander. Also, when joining a highlander / 6s game people would have to queue as their selected class (This would make wait times for highlander and 6s lobby queue times longer, as most people will want to play pick or offense classes tough.).

Pay to play

You may only play TF2 competitive if you have a "premium" Steam and TF2 account (5$ at least total).
This system is okay to keep, but there should be an option for the players who can't afford to pay for games to play aswell.
There could either be a casual level you have to reach to play or the players would need enough playtime on the game, similar to how tf2center works (250 hours?).

Unfair matchups

Everyone has joined a game where no matter how skillful you are, your teammates are not willing to cooperate OR the enemy team has really good and experienced players.

Suggested fix:

• Rank balance - high ranks get matched with high ranks, low ranks with low ranks
  
• Introduce a similar system as in CSGO, where you can see at which location you are (callouts), so you can communicate with your teammates easier.
  
• Introduce players to comp.tf where they can check out the information they might be looking for (a help section in-game?)

Rank is pointless and there is no reward for playing

Some people might be attracted to comp because of a reward.

This could be fixed by either adding something similar to dueling badges where the badge / medal / hat would show your competitive rank. Also, a monthly / yearly top system could be added where top players get either a special item (unique medals / hats ect.) or account balance (Very unlikely).

Summary

Although the competitive is in a very bad state, there are only some fixes Valve has to make.

Also, check out the warpaint Ive made if you enjoyed this guide.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2353161718


Please leave your comments down below, also share (or dont)!

[Smidge <3]

Interp shouldn't be that restrictive. It'd be better if they just capped cl_interp at 0.1

Also definitely don't cap rate. A good connection can use 1048576.

[jekabs]

if you read it carefully, then you can see that the 250 hours are required to have so people can play comp without paying

[Tony Pajamas]

lol 250 HOURS required to play comp? i thought you want people to play it.

[jekabs]

Its unlikely that anything will be changed. Thanks for your interest tho!

[.Phillipo]

I totally agree with the map choices, Maps such as turbine and vanguard should be removed in favour of maps like vigil, coalplant and perhaps even product replacing viaduct.

Personally I would say that the 2 options should be highlander and 6's if we are going to give more options. in this case 6's would not have restrictions as ideally all weapons should also be balanced for competitive play at the same time a competitive update is rolled out.

Also, I would also say that a map selection for competitive would in some cases ruin it. It would case players to split into different maps so a person queuing for a less popular map (Like metalworks) may struggle to get into a match as most players would likely queue for more popular maps (such as swiftwater or sunshine).

Great discussion piece though and your arguments here for changes to competitive mode will hopefully get a discussion brewing in the community and hopefully I will be proved wrong.