Tf2 Matchmaking System

[Summer 180]

Originally posted by Salamancer:

 

"I promised some exciting news through twitter, so here it is.

 

eXtine and I had a long meeting with the TF team and Robin. They are happy to make a competitive lobby system in-game.

 

However, there are serious caveats and hurdles to overcome for us to get there. These fall into "philosophical" and "tactical" categories. Let's start with philosophy:

 

1) 6v6, and even most forms of highlander, are currently too different from regular pub play. This matters because the TF team is time-constrained and they simply can't spend time providing updates to a small subset of their customers. Robin's thoughts on clearing this hurdle boil down to "highlander with a pick/ban item system." More on this below.

 

2) The competitive format is currently too stagnant. Robin articulated this brilliantly and I'm not sure I'll do him justice, but here goes. Robin barely watches competitive TF2 anymore because nothing surprises him. There are no "sick new strats" for him to see, especially not at the pace of other games. He wants to see Vhalin's black box innovation happening once every 2-3 months. Highlander allows for this a bit more than the current ESEA setup, but it's difficult for Valve to get feedback on which items are truly overpowered vs. which ones are just hated or loved as the flavor of the month. Again, clearing this hurdle is the same: highlander with pick/ban data that Valve can see. If a weapon is banned in 95% of games, then the TF team can obviously see "oh nobody likes playing against that, now let's revisit it."

 

Now, the tactical hurdles:

 

1) Valve hasn't had good insight into what works best for competitive. I think that's solvable by doing some testing and experimentation, and that's where you come in.

 

2) Current reasoning and feedback for league weapon bans aren't always data-driven, and Valve has no insight into that. This will probably be solved when (if?) they roll out a Highlander Lobby Update. Data on what gets banned in the pick/ban system, as I said before, will make it abundandtly clear what is just not fun to play against.

 

Given all this, here's the path forward for putting lobbies into competitive TF2:

 

TESTING AND FEEDBACK.

 

By no later than this Saturday, everyone should try to play in a pick/ban PUG. The tactical questions, I leave to you. Should each team ban 5 weapons for the game? Should each team pick 9 non-stock weapons that become their only choices? Should defaults be in play for bans? Have a chat about this and run some PUGs with different rules. See what works, what's fun to play. Do so with the knowledge that you are essentially alpha-testing a competitive lobby system for TF2.

 

I'm hoping the PUG.NAHL and other IRC titans will be able to experiment with these systems, and I hope you all get the word out. 6v6 players may be somewhat disappointed with this update, but I'm going to make it very clear: highlander is the only way Valve will ever support competitive TF2. Let's make it happen."

 

Original thread over at: http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/8952-how-to-get-to-in-game-comp-lobbies

[blurr 52]

So is this going to be implemented into AF PUGs?

[joe 76]

Great read, thanks for sharing Ben! Interesting to note Robin's comments on competitive TF2.

[Summer 180]

Nah not on AF pugs. I posted this mainly because the biggest issue regarding comp tf2 is support from its developers.

 

The fact that they are finally going to promote somewhat competitive tf2 through highlander matchmaking is the first step into making it a huge game like d2 or csgo

[Madman 185]

#18 Royce:

Have you ever played a 6s lobby? They are awful. And the playerbase is significantly smaller and already kind of knows about competitive. You put a bunch of pub players in that environment and it would be even worse. Without people knowing what they're doing, 6s is not fun. It makes TF2 look bad and it makes 6s look bad.

 

 

 

#23 Killing:

I'm extremely excited for an in game comp lobby system but this weapon pick/ban thing is going about it the wrong way. I can't remember anyone saying CS is boring as shit because they don't go for the auto sniper or that quake had two few weapons. The strategic differences in MOBA and FPS are more than you can possibly count so going about the games in the same way is kinda ridiculous. If anything, this will eventually devolve from who has better aim into who has better items. That literally kills what I find so beautiful about this game, the majority of TF2 is pure execution. Aim, movement, awareness.. not gimmicky weapons.

 

If robin finds players striving for perfect execution boring and that we need to have heavys punching people to laughter then tis a sad sad day.

 

 

#26 the301stspartan:

 

... Let's be realistic-basically no one on here who is into comp at a higher level already was really gonna play a "valve" 6s league (probably with no mumble comms) seriously, were you? It will simply boost the comp tf2 scene a lot if it goes well, and all options are open for the future.

 

 

QFT LOL

[Shounic 143]

it seems the whole point of it is for valve to gather data and find out what players ban most and see if there's a problem with that weapon. People in the thread are arguing about some pointless shit. The system is going to bring pub players to highlander, and they'll eventually play 6v6.

[iridescentFUZZ 178]

Like Mr. Inadequacy and others have pointed out, this is an excellent first step for competitive TF2.

A year ago, I'd never have thought something like this would see the light of day, but now "competitive" TF2 has a shot at official support from Valve.

 

All this hand-wringing and fretting about there being no 6v6 match-making, or that HL is too 'casual' is pointless. More HL players means more attention for competitive TF2, and more potential 6v6 players; in my book, that's a good thing.

[Summer 180]

Yeap but the word so far is that the game we know now may be seeing drastic changes to the meta, as they want more unlocks to be utilized to make the game more interesting...

 

I would hate to have to play against GRU heavies and sydney sleeper

[iridescentFUZZ 178]

Yeap but the word so far is that the game we know now may be seeing drastic changes to the meta, as they want more unlocks to be utilized to make the game more interesting...

 

I would hate to have to play against GRU heavies and sydney sleeper

 

Like Sal said, all of this is going to be HL-specific, because no one in 6v6 is going to budge on the current class+unlock restrictions.

[-sq 2]

Apparently, it might not be HL-specific.

 

 

From sal's post

#483 Enigma asked that question to me and I relayed it to Robin yesterday. Robin agrees that 6v6 can work for the same purpose as long as some game-by-game item balancing system is in place.

[Shounic 143]

Again though, they'll probably rebalance those weapons (GRU and Sydney Sleeper) through this system if that weapon actually has a problem.

[Badaimer :/ 0]

From UGC HL news:

 

" - In an effort to have a more inclusive weapon list and to provide Valve with feedback on previously banned weapons we have decided to remove the following weapons from the ban list: The Enforcer, The Cleaner's Carbine, Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol and The Huo Long Heatmaker"

 

So becaz of this matchmaking thingy, op stuff gettin unbanned? I guess its somehow related?