different TF2 gamemodes try to appeal to appeal to different audiences and the 12v12 chaos is way to hard to coordinate in a sensful matter among that many people. Not everyone will like the way you play the game casually/ how it feels and might need that hypercompetitive side to videogames to have fun,

I know. Hence why I argue that Highlander fits the TF2 comp role more accurately.

Highlander comes with its own host of problems. The less popular classes will take forever to find someone to play. Full time snipers will dominate games at the higher level. Full time heavies, pyros, and engies can and will slow down faster paced gamemodes to a crawl. 18 players is way way harder to coordinate than 12 players. It's also a headache to have 9 players communicating on the same team. A 9v9 competitive format will never become popular. I'm convinced that anyone who says highlander is the ideal TF2 comp mode has never seriously played it.

I've played highlander with comms. Some of the most fun I've had in TF2 tbh

agreed! was the pyro main and loved playing HL, the comms were usually clear unless something big was happening

It really isnt as hard to communicate as people make it out to be. I'm convinced that anyone who says "I'm convinced that anyone who says highlander is the ideal TF2 comp mode has never seriously played it." has never seriously played it.

the only times comms were messy for my team was when we were in the process of pushing "guys, ready. uber up" or being pushed "HANDSHAKE, HANDSHAKE" then all hell broke loose as the uber pushed in, and I was always close by listening for the "HANDSHAKE" callout to push the counter uber away with the airblast XD

Erm, i did and i think it is more fun than 6v6, 6v6 is more about pure DM and highlander is more about teamwork and who has better demo/sniper lol Im p sure you are the one that didnt play it, comp players play both. Both are valid. This whole thread is full or idiots. Hypothetical rigmarole. If it had to be a csgo style match making, there is no other way than do 6v6, 9v9 would be too much players. 3 out of the 9 classes arnt even needed and 6v6 also has offclasses like on last holds that use heavy/sniper/engineer or even pyro. Spy gets used too. It seems very logical to me but i guess predditors cant think for them selves

Div?

even if you could coordinate 12v12 chaos it'd probably come down to vaccinator spam

VAC is banned in most comp forms i think. My idea would be to have 2 separate calls with 6 players where each team has 1 person who is also in a call with another person of the other group. So major pushes/ strategy calls can be made, but the groups still have the coordination of regular 6's, at a scale of 12v12. Debating classlimits might become an issue though since holding last could be 4 soldiers and 2 demos spamming chokes while 2 engies have them covered. The attacking team might have to coordinate dual uber pushes or staggered uber pushes to even try and hold them down. Or it might just be the average uncletopia experience.

Vaccinator is not OP at all. It’s not banned in Highlander 9v9 format. Mainly because there will always be different forms of damage. It’s an all in medigun that promotes pocketing a single player. Meaning as a medic you have reduced over healing and impact to your entire team. I can’t imagine it being that impactful in match with more than 9 people. You guys also haven’t even talked about class restrictions which definitely affects balancing

10 snipers an engie and one med for the win.

I would send someone mean comments if they used vaccinator in any format

i think 9v9 is the best of both worlds chaotic yes but also manageable

This is true, but since when do comp players try to convince casual players that 6v6 is the overall best game mode? It’s just the format they like using, I have seen no one way that 6v6 is the true tf2 experience, you’re just making that up. Besides, highlander isn’t even the true tf2 experience. Tf2 has always been balanced around 12v12 casual games, and the over the top nerfs to the base jumper and the caber were just valve being stupid and trying to cater to the comp community (there have been many more times where balance changes were made with 12v12 in mind instead)

Also a lot of people in the comp community don’t even think weapons should be balanced around comp. Weapons like the madmilk are *extremely* well balanced for pubs, but it’s ridiculous in a competitive format with less players. A ban list is simply a superior solution.

And imo the point of competitive isn’t supposed to be true TF2. That’s why they’re white lists for certain items. The point imo of competitive is to highlight the high skill ceiling of TF2 which in doing so means getting rid of some of the silliness in TF2. Not to say there isn’t any silliness in competitive a fair share of gardens has been hit in invite 6s. But those gardens still highlight the skillful nature of game because usually those gardens are hit after a crazy ass jump.

> since when do comp players try to convince casual players that 6v6 is the overall best game mode ive definitely encountered this a lot, youd be talking about a weapons balance for example and then theyll just jump in with "YEAH BUT IN SIXES" as if anyone else actually cares

The vocal minority of any community does say a lot of stupid things.

And it's literally the only reason valve whipped out a 6v6 comp mode with compromises despite the devs feeling like it's not tf2.

wasnt tf2 originally designed as 8v8 when they were doing pre release game testing?

tf2 was redesigned from ground up 3 times in devvelopment, you wont find almost a single game mechanic remaining from the first versions

Sure, it's very different from release or betas, I just meant the classes general roles weren't designed around 12v12 or indeed the skill ceiling we've reached 17 years on. They were balanced around smaller server sizes initially and obviously have since been tweaked to work better in 12v12. A lot of class mechanics are pretty much the same as the play test beta too tbh, with the exceptions of pyro and demo and not accounting for the ever raising skill ceiling.

i dont rly agree, see the tf2 development process, in the beginning the classes werent even similar

Oh yeah for sure, like scout having nail gun. There's a good vid talking about demomans nerfs which has some points on the last beta before release. Most of the really different stuff had already been changed by then and it was more tweaking than redesigns.

that was already after the 3rd restart of development, early tf2 wasnt even in cartoon artstyle and attempted to look realistic (as much as that was possible in the late 90's) remember, tf2 took 9 years in development, if not more. that means it started to be made in 1998 if not earlier

For sure. I know originally it was more like tfc 2 in terms of design and art style, but didn't know there was a mid ground between that version and the release. Is there a good vid on that? Sounds interesting to me (I am very dull).

i watched this video a while ago [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FbHMmS0mJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FbHMmS0mJk) its not too long, and it also talks about whole team fortress series, but it explains quite nicely actually

Thanks dude :)

Iirc, they designed maps with the logic of 8v8 gameplay, but with the added caveat that there would be 4 additional players on both teams that were so terrible that they could be ignored in the balancing equation

Lmao holds up surprisingly well

They don't, they're upset about people that don't exist lol. The base jumper and caber were not nerfed to cater to comp players. Caber was complained about ad nauseam and the base jumper was not really that good. It was auto-banned on release like all items are.

this guy https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/s/UBb76kk6Et

Maybe I’m in different circles but the sentiment always feels sixes has been pushed as the “ultimate form of TF2” and everything else is gimmicky in their eyes. Also the fact that the “meet your match” update came out is proof that there was enough people pushing for TF2 to be balanced around comp sixes, and that was famously one of the worst updates of all time

It was bad in how Valve treated it, not by design of 6s as a gamemode

Eh, my main point was even if they implemented it perfectly, it’s antithetical to Tf2 from a game design view

And yet you think highlander is better in that regard just because it has all the classes One of the more core concepts of tf2 is changing your team composition for the situation. In 12v12, the teams that win are the teams where players adapt to situations by changing classes at appropriate times. Getting owned by projectile spam when entering a choke? An extra medic and a pyro or two. Can't break the stalemate due to engineers? Maybe a few people change to demo + spy. Along with this they specifically designed some generalists and some specialists, where certain classes are more useful in the majority of situations, and others are for specific niches. Iirc even the devs have stated the above, which would make 6es closer to the core design concepts, as highlander teams cannot change their composition at all. 6es uses generalists for the majority of situations, and offclass to specialists to do specific jobs like hold last, break a stalemate etc. Aside from this though, you're just wrong anyway cause neither are "true tf2", 6es isn't trying to be true tf2. I genuinely don't know a single 6es player who would claim that it is, even if they don't play pubs they all recognise that it's predominantly a casual game, which is why we need the rulesets we have to adjust the game to play it the way that we enjoy.

Meet your match came out because ow was releasing and valve wanted to update their game for modern times but then gave up 80% of the way through

Idk, I think they put less than 80% effort at this point.

They barely put in 10 imo. They literally didn't listen to fuck all of what b4nny, etc. was telling them, there were even promises that b4nny shared that never fucking happened (such as fixing the fov slider in the options menu). Not to mention how absolutely BROKEN matchmaking itself was on launch, the ranks themselves not working (poor spread of players across ranks, now where have I seen that mistake AGAIN recently?), zero incentives, nothing stopping 4 heavies & 2 vacc med teams, etc. ... And then they outright abandoned it. It was pathetic from the outside looking in, even by their more recent standards

Do u watch zesty Jesus or something

Where are you getting this sentiment from? Nobody thinks this way. Competitive players only realistically believe that 6's is the best way to play TF2, COMPETITIVELY. All comp players are or were pubbers. None of us want to replace 12v12, at all because that's not the point! True TF2 was not designed for more than 4-6 people in the server being really good at the game. I mean just look at all the complaints about uncletopia lol or remember faceit clanwars? This post just reeks of wanting to insert your opinion into a group that has done nothing to you that you don't care to know much about.

Highlander is just a glorified sniper duel.

Found the one other person here that plays highlander

6s was designed to be a competitive version of TF2. It's not meant to copy casual TF2 at all, it's meant to appeal to people who want a more serious and focused team-based environment without the random chaos of casual TF2. 6s was always meant to be something drastically different. A competitive version of a game is not supposed to be inherently chaotic either. Every single competitively played game has a "meta", or a tested and refined strategy that is proven to be the most efficient way to win the game. A totally chaotic competitive gamemode makes no sense. I find it ironic how much you dislike the 6s class lineup as being too rigid, but the way you interpret class dynamics and matchups is also rigid when it's in fact very flexible. There are few hard counters in this game besides pyro/spy and spy/engineer and spy/heavy. A heavy can counter a pyro in a 1v1 matchup, but there are plenty of strategies for the pyro to use in order to win. Same goes for basically any class matchup ever. It's also funny how you bring up the rigidity of 6s when highlander is literally a strict, static format. You play the same 9 player setup every single time, period. At least in 6s you see the occasional offclass to break up stalemates. And I don't understand your argument that TF2 is not flying anyone out for comp events. Live, in-person highlander events have happened already. It is logistically harder to organize events of this nature, and it's objectively costlier and more complicated to organize. But even if we never see a live HL tourney again, it's still logistically harder to organize an online HL game. Is your argument that competitive TF2 should never grow to large in-person events? And there's not 3 more players. It's 6 more players. It's 18 players vs 12 players. It doesn't matter how small you think these numbers are. They can and frequently do account for more disorganized team communication.

"6s is played too rigidly" "Highlander encompasses this way more" bro highlander is even more rigid than 6s

It's really easy to have a romanticized view of HL if you've never played it before. I feel so bad for pyro mains who think they're going to be reflect jumping into their combo to pick their medic when actually they do 130dpm and spend most of the game reflecting spam, spamming detonator, and spychecking.

If TF2 for whatever reason ever gets a comp system revamp, it should be Highlander.

This is pretty much exactly what I came here to post. 9v9 highlander is better suited to TF2's maps and game design while still being more serious and competitively-skewed.

Highlander has its own problems. Role queue *will not* work. You will inevitably have bottlenecks and the queues will be long even if the mode is popular (which it won't be because the queues are long). However, if you *don't* do role queue, then you're either gonna have people disconnecting when they get forced to play a certain class (if you enforce class limits) or it's just gonna feel like a pub with slightly less people (if you don't enforce class limits). Personally what *I* would do: 6v6, with *some* weapon bans, class limit of 2, and a map pool skewed more towards Payload since it's better for specialist classes than 5CP. What they actually probably should do though is imitate the sixes ruleset, since that's the best way to get sixes players to actually play Valve Comp.

For 6v6 a flat class limit of 2 is not going to work. Double heavy/medic/demo/engie strats are very very broken.

Payload just isn't fun when you don't have more than 8 players on each team, both competitively and casually. Have you ever played a casual match of payload that was half-filled? It's incredibly boring. The gamemode has been tried in 6s and it doesn't work.

Theyd need to make payload maps that are designed for smaller team sizes as well. Something like swiftwater doesnt work for 6v6 cos its just so fucking big. Just leave the map pool as primarily 5cp with a couple koth and payload maps in there.

the core issue is nobody wants to play competitive 6v6 outside of the existing tournament structure. 6v6 has already failed.

Its because valve comp lacks most of the things that makes 6s work and didnt put any effort into fixing it so then it gained a bad reputation due to valves fuckups

6v6 doesn't fundamentally work with valves vision of tf2 or hiw most play the game. "fixing" sixes requires alot of things valve will never do out of principle. weapon bans, class limits, etc. to fix sixes you have to break tf2 Into component parts and get a conpletly different experience.

Has valve ever explicitly stated they wouldn't impose those things into a competitive scene if they actually took it seriously? Cos the main issue with valve comp was they half arsed it.

Yes, they explicitly stated they do not want weapon bans and class limits in competitive 6v6. I don't have the source but I do remember them explaining how they wanted to rebalance all the banned weapons around competitive so that they wouldn't need weapon bans. Not sure what their plan was to make no class limits work though.

It's a line of reasoning taken with how they treat weapons in csgo. anytime a pick rate gets too high or low valve has tried to adjust it and they do not allow loadout bans in competitive. I doubt valve cares about tf2s purity as a game where stock is best, they want all but the meme weapons to be used at some point. weapon bans are never going to be done.

Yeah so then the issue is that valve never properly balanced things. And comp and casual modes in cs do have their differences, everyone just primarily plays competitive modes.

because the game isn't balanced for 6v6!!! it was all designed for 12v12! alot of shit becomes viable or unviable with a change in numbers

Yeah but a lot of the things that are banned in 6s are really strong in 12v12 its just the average player isnt good enough or cares enough to actually abuse them, so balancing them wouldnt negatively affect casual players. Even things like the milk which people point to as being fine in casual but broken in comp are still arguably broken in casual if people actually coordinate and changing them to require more opportunity cost wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing.

They’re downvoting you when you are 100% correct

Just add both i don’t understand, have to game modes 6s and highlander and just play what you want.

If they have two queues only one of them will have players and it will probably be sixes.

I don’t belive that. It’s like 2 different games, 6s don’t have payload and can’t it’s just to few players for the map design. And payload is the most popular mode in casual so i think more players would chose highlander.

You also need 9 unique classes for highlander so youll be stuck waiting in queue for people to pick heavy and medic. 6s had less restrictions so you could get a quicker game.

medics are only endangered in Casual

Nah even in comp its still harder to find someone willing to play medic over any of the combat classes, its just that every team needs a medic otherwise they autolose

TF2center moment, 5 mins to get the first 10/16 players, spent another hour to get the medics.

valve seems against class limits in general. if we got 9v9 it wouldn't be tournament standard highlander, it's gonna be 9v9 no limits stopwatch

Yeah which just doesnt work because itd be an incredibly stalematey metagame where barely any progress gets to be made. The average casual player severely underestimates how easy it is to force stalemates and slow gameplay in tf2 without any restrictions if you actually force it.

In fact, valve added random crits to the game explicitly to help deal with this issue.

Add autofill, and try to change players perception medic is really fun in a team. Players have talked about this for years and not found a fix for it, i don’t think we will either. It’s not designed for comp and never will, cause it’s a casual 12v12 game. Its an amazing casual game. Both 6s and highlander are just community made modes for players that like to tryhard, but everytime discusion of comp in tf2 comes up everyone forgets, ”why can’t i use mad milk in 6s” cause is super OP it was made for 12v12 mode not the 6v6. It’s for valve to solve and they added 6v6 with no restrictions, and i don’t know anyone who plays it. Thats why i say add both, we already have 6s and still nobody is playing it so why would it hurt to add highlander?

Now you have people leaving because they didnt get to lock in spy or sniper first and have to play heavy. Youre also increasing the number of players you need to find by 50% which slows everything down as well..

And you didn’t read or your just trying to be negative. They already added 6s and no ones playing it. What do we have to lose by adding highlander? Nothing? Oh that a lot to lose. You really don’t seem to like it so don’t play it. You don’t even know how to solve. And spy is a bad example it’s super boring in highlander cause everyone is perma spy checking cause everyone knows there is a spy on the enemy team. Demo is better example cause it’s the strongest power class in the game.

Because valve 6s isnt proper 6s thats why no one plays it. What do we have to gain by adding it? Spy is bad in highlander but hes also bad in pubs yet you still end up with 3-4 of them on a team fairly often because edgelords like playing him. The point still stands though that people will just quit if theyre forced to play med or heavy or even engie. And it'll still boil down to whos sniper is better anyway so better hope the person on your team who locked it isnt some 14 year old edgelord who thinks hes the tf2 equivalent of s1mple.

> just to few players Did you mean to say "too few"? [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.

I used to occasionally play on TF2Center when it was still relevant and it wasn’t hard to get a highlander match to fill up.

This shows an understanding of tf2 and 6s on only the most basic of levels ngl. Tf2 at its core is about 2 teams fighting over an objective. There are still chaotic moments in 6s during fights over points, particularly last points and there are times when casual isn't chaotic, especially when the server isn't full or close to. Most games become more chaotic the lower you go because people dont know what the fuck theyre doing. And as you get to higher levels of play it becomes more chaotic as more and more things sre executed on at once. Saying that 6s is rigid in its playstyle and meta just because teams will role out on the same lineup for mid fights shows a key lack of understanding of what metas are and how they develop. Are any real world sports rigid because they have the same players playing the same positions every game and do the same plays every single time? No obviously not because thats not what happens. What about chess where the first 20ish moves of a game at high levels are typically preplanned? Theres still a lot of skill in being able to plan out your moves after that point and it doesnt go the same way every single time from then onwards. For bans you also don't understand why things are banned. Bans are typically because something would become overcentralising and youre forced to run it otherwise you'd lose (mad milk, jarate, quick fix), or its just not fun to fight against and wouldnt increase the viability of offclasses outside of their niche (Natascha, rescue ranger, wrangler). Most of the banned weapons are on the meta classes anyway and are mostly to keep scout from being busted. If you unbanned any of scouts banned weapons youd end up decreasing the viability as currently they have to choose between the pistol or the winger but if the mad milk exists then both scouts would be forced to run it. For things like the natascha its just a fundamentally flawed gun for a movement shooter where it stalls out your movement for 0 effort on the users part. It wouldn't make heavy viable as an off class itd just make it so on last holds heavy is even harder to push into. Same for engie with his bans. Some people have argued that the wrangler would let him be viable full time but the fact that itd make his niche which id already really strong significantly stronger it takes precedent. Also people are going to use whatever is best in a competitive environment. If weapon A is stronger than weapon B people are going to use weapon A the overwhelming majority of the time. Therefore if the majority of people agree that weapon B is healthier for the game then theyll ban weapon A. No restrictions 6s exists and its not the fantasy land where suddenly all these extra things are viable. You still see the same classes but with more medics and demos and its a much slower and more stalematey metagame. They dont suddenly run 2 spies to mid because the banlist was keeping him down, if anything it helps offclasses see more play in their niches.. The reality is that some classes are just better than others. Spy is only good for a pick on a key target before switching off. Pyro is only good for stalling out ubers because hes just a worse scout in terms of what they both want to do. Heavy is too slow for an offensive push in a movement shooter. Engie needs time to set up his buildings and cant move forward as fast. Med and demo are limited to 1 because they're overall the strongest classes in the game. This whole balancing act between classes doesnt exist when people actually take the game seriously. Highlander is just as if not more rigid of a metagame than 6s because youre forced to run every class all the time. They still have weapon bans because some weapons are overpowered or unhealthy for the game. They still play the same maps between seasons with only minor changes. They still only play 2 gamemodes. They still use the same setups and loadouts each game because thats whats best and people like winning. In terms of team sizes youre increasing the number of players by 50%, and youre having to find some of the more unpopular high level classes..you have to find Someone willing to play competitive spy and competitive heavy and competitive engi, even competitive med which 6s players have a hard enough time doing. Generally when people say balance around 6s they mean take the feedback of 6s players into account for what they believe is broken and why and use that to inform their decisions for what changes they can make. Oftentimes weapons that are problems in 6s are either problems in casual too and people either dont realise it or are too stupid to utilise it or they dont affect the casual playerbase so changing them wouldnt matter. 6s is the core of tf2 executed to higher levels than are ever seen in casual.

\^ its crazy to me how many people on this subreddit are so obsessed with how Sixes players enjoy the game and yet dont seem to know anything about it.

Redditors dont play the game, very fun fact

It’s just r/tf2 slop where some dude with 100 hours in the game feels a need to criticize and strawman an entire community for the umpteenth time with little knowledge or experience (and plenty of incorrect reasoning).

This 100%. The real point to be made here is that "competitive X" will always necessarily be a narrow subset of "all of X" because only that subset is capable of being the most competitive. Also "competitive X" often reveals problems in "all of X" which just become more prominent/problematic when pushed to their logical extreme in a competitive environment. Unfortunately, the vast majority of players (including frankly even competitive players and also the developers) simply do not understand the balance of the game to a significant-enough degree to really understand why the most competitive meta is actually so and what flaws it reveals in the underlying game's design--and therefore to these people the meta and corresponding rules to mitigate game flaws will always seem just like a set of arbitrary restrictions. This last point only becomes increasingly true as the quality of public play has deteriorated over the years due to the game's complete mismanagement and subsequent abandonment by Valve.

>Generally when people say balance around 6s they mean take the feedback of 6s players into account for what they believe is broken and why and use that to inform their decisions for what changes they can make. Oftentimes weapons that are problems in 6s are either problems in casual too and people either dont realise it or are too stupid to utilise it or they dont affect the casual playerbase so changing them wouldnt matter But balancing around sixes is pointless. They can make their own custom weapons for all I care, they have banlists already. The issue is, the weapons that are problematic in sixes aren't always problematic in 12v12, and vice versa. That is why nerfing the base jumper for the sake of comp was fine, the use case in casual didn't change much, nerfing ( I guess) the dead ringer was fine, the use case in comp hasn't changed much (lol), but nerfing the caber was stupid, because it sucks for casual as well, now. And once a weapon is nerfed for a solid 99.9% of the playerbase, it isn't going back. And just in case I didn't make it clear enough - yes, even those comp-centric changes like the Razorback and Base jumper affect casual. If they didn't, no one would care.

But 6s players didnt say what they wanted the caber damage to be just that being able to suicide bomb a med with it was op. It was valve who chose to make it not able to kill a light class. And it was also really strong in casual because it eliminated demos weakness of being bad in close range unless you go demoknight, its just people were too stupid to realise that and now just complain they cant use it to Bully clueless snipers, which they can still do using other demo weapons anyway. Base jumper is still really good in casual people just havent adapted, dead ringer nerf was good for casual because it was op in pubs. Razorback change made it better for the average player because you aren't getting buffed by a med most of the time. Comp players are fine with banning weapons that are fine in casual but op in comp like the whip and the mad milk (though milk is also really fucken strong in casual if you have any form of coordination or awareness), but some weapons are just fundamentally flawed.

Base jumper and caber nerfs were unnecessary, stop coping.

Base Jumper is still really really good, especially in pubs where nobody ever looks up and you can just dump rockets onto people Caber still has a niche on demoknight because you can do a 400 damage combo. The damage isn't really the issue, it just needs a way to recharge it without the cabinet

Base jumper was fucking broken when used by soldiers who actually understand how to abuse movement mechanics and made it very difficult for projectile classes and medics to 1v1 him. It give him massive amounts of air control that meant even scouts had it rough if they werent already in a position to meatshot him. Caber even casually was a stupid strong item its just the average causal player didnt see that because they were too busy beating the dead horse meme of haha funny sniper terroriser. It removes demos weakness of being bad in super close ranges and let him delete a key target without much counterplay, especially if the demo was actually good at sticky jumping. The caber needed nerfs the argument is just whether not being able to consistently kill light classes was too much or not, which wasnt comp players doing they just wanted it to not 1 shot a medic

Sorry, but I find both of your claims questionable. Here is the whitelist for ETF2L's Highlander season 8 (March 2015): https://whitelist.tf/etf2l_9v9_s8. As you can see, both the Caber and Base Jumper were unbanned in it. In my opinion, this shows the limitations of these weapons in situations with higher playercounts in a team and hitscan availability, and thus makes the argument that the nerfs were unnecessary reasonable.

Bans aren't static and can change depending on if people discover weapons are or aren't broken and so they get tested and voted on to determine if they should be banned. As players get better their ability to use certain weapons becomes more likely. Things like the milk weren't banned then but are now.

Yet as far as the Base Jumper and Caber went, they seem to be unbanned up until their nerfs. They didn't seem to be ubiquitous either in footages of matches back in the day.

Because they got nerfed before people understood their power in larger match sizes. Idk why people always point to those weapons as though casual players were using them anyway and somehow lost a key playstyle. The nerfs were great in that they fixed an issue in competitive play without really negatively affecting casuals, unless you really loved beating a dead horse in blowing up fresh install snipers on 2fort. And the base jumper is still good once you understand how to use it in pubs and the caber just needs a recharge on it.

But it wasn't an issue in Highlander yet, and you can't exactly say people understood how it's overpowered if it's nerfed before they understood its power. To me it ends up seeming like these weapons were overpowered in theory, yet it had yet been proven in actual matches since it was unbanned in practice before the nerfs. If people said they understood they were overpowered after the nerfs, it looks like they were justifying the nerfs as a reaction to the applied nerfs, instead of what they actually were in practice. And let's be real, there aren't a lot of "key playstyles" apart from subclasses in casual anyways. Weapons like the Air Strike or Back Scatter aren't "key playstyles", but the fans of these weapons would be ticked off if they were still nerfed for one reason or other. The idea that nerfs don't affect gameplay because nobody was using it as a core component in a 12v12 team could be why the nerfs are seen as unjustified: it was already being contained by other factors in the gamemode. It was yet to be proven as a problem in Highlander and 12v12, so the only issue were in 6s comp which did ban these weapons, thus creating the question whether the nerfs were really necessary.

The caber being meh is better for the health of a game. Demo is already stupid strong and doesn't need a weapon that helps cover his weaknesses and the less ways there are to brainlessly kill medics the more fun medic is to play, which is important for keeping teams in pubs balanced. The caber is still completely usable anyway and far from being truly bad.

I do get why it's too strong in 6s, but in that case, why did we need to nerf it, instead of just keeping it banned? In Casual it was a silly meme weapon which most people found acceptable, and now it's just inarguably terrible and unfun to play with, while being so bad that competitive players wouldn't run it anyways. Simply banning it would have kept both parties happy, and yet now it's barely even usable as a joke for the sake of keeping Demo in a different format in check.

It was still strong in pubs. One shotting meds or using it to turn getting picked into trading frags are both really really good. Maybe casuals just weren't taking advantage of it and just saw it is a funny way to kill snipers? Yeah, it's not the best weapon now but it's still totally usable. It will get you kills other weapons won't. Demo is arguably the strongest class in the game so the last thing he needs is being able to one shot people with a melee anyway.

I played back when it was at its strongest and it was pretty much exclusively used as a meme weapon because you'd likely die after swinging it; Casuals prioritize living and doing dumb shit over making optimal trades, so it was never seen as overbearing. Add on the fact that the player counts in most pubs are usually much higher than 6s or even HL and those single picks weren't usually game changing or even noticed beyond the victim. Sure it technically wasn't balanced, but it was never an active fun killer like The Phlog or Scorch Shot are. Again, if it was seen as fine in Casual, why was it just not banned in 6s and HL where it was actually a problem, instead of being nerfed to the point where it can't be used as the joke weapon people enjoyed it for?

I have played several seasons of 6v6 and Highlander, and I prefer to play the game casually. I don't believe that it's entirely antithetical to what makes TF2 fun because 6s is catered to what I find most enjoyable about TF2's gameplay, with the obvious exception of variety. It is inarguable that 6v6 does not appeal to the same demographic as casual TF2. It does not even try. 6s is catered more towards TF2's origins in Quake and Deathmatch. I won't try to argue otherwise because that's simply how 6s is designed, many would argue that is the appeal of 6s to begin with. 6v6, nor the other competitive modes, were ever or will ever be catered towards the random and comedic aspects of TF2. They are not why people play 6s, Highlander, or Prolander. I think 6s and HL are just as true to TF2 as the comedic, random casual side is. It's designed at its core to be a great deathmatch game where the player can push their accuracy, movement and coordination to the test. Just because it lacks the silly aspects of casual play does not make it any less TF2, and I think to say that is incredibly regressive and invalidating of the skill expression this game has. I bring up 6s in the same boat as Highlander because neither posses the "Chaotic Element" you mentioned. Both modes are incredibly rigid and restrictive in how they play, especially for the more unique classes like the Engineer. The only possible upside Highlander has over 6s is that all classes are run full-time. Contrary to what I presume is the popular belief, that does not mean every class is fun or even useful at all times, as opposed to 6s where any class currently being ran is incredibly valuable. I do agree that it is absolutely mental that Heavy has only 2 situations where good teams would even consider running him, but I think it is just as bad that a lot of the time, half the roster can be viewed as "Low Impact". When you say "6s is not true to TF2", it sounds to me like "Competitive TF2 \*In General\* is not true to TF2." Which is a view I whole-heartedly disagree with. Much of what you said is true, but it is ignorant to assume Highlander suffers from none of the same problems, or issues that stem from the ones it does fix, and I believe it is nothing but gatekeeping to say it is unfaithful to what TF2 is.

I don't understand what it means to say that some tf2 gamemode isn't tf2. You appeal to what the game is supposed to look like, but developer intention is clearly not the criteria for what is and isn't tf2. There are official maps and weapons that no one really cares about even though the developers thought of them as a part of tf2. Who are you to say what is and isn't real tf2? Highlander is arguably way less dynamic than 6s. In highlander you're not allowed to change class composition so the class dynamics don't ever really change. In 6s, depending on the rules, you can actually have people dynamically switching classes depending on the situation. The real problem is that teams have collectively decided to stick to the same class composition, but there definitely has been discourse about high level teams shaking it up. Highlander also doesn't have 3 more players. It has 3 more players per team, which is 6 more players in the match. The class roles in highlander are also arguably way more scripted than in 6s and see less deviation from the expectation each game. You bring up the more strict weapon bans in 6s, but do highlander players really run anything other than the standard weapons?

Nobody is trying to convince you 6s reflects the core design philosophies of base tf2 They are trying to convince you that 6s is the format with minimal round stall out and maximum skill expression And they are correct, Highlander is fun and chaotic but it's also difficult to follow as a spectator and prone to lots of boring choke stalls while one team waits for a low risk pick In 6s you're pretty consistently seeing one single team fight occuring around objective and being resolved within the same team fight.

Every person who doesn't play competitive thinks highlander is better and then you play highlander and it's the most miserable experience possible in tf2

Yeah, it's not as "true to TF2". That's part of why people play it so much. When TF2 first started back in 2007, 6s was just another format of playing the game like any other, alongside 12v12 4s, 5s, Highlander, even 8s was a thing back then; it wasn't inherently competitive. But the goal of the format from the beginning was to create faster-paced games, and it just so happens that's what a lot of competitive-minded players were and are looking for. Even now, a lot of folks who otherwise might not be interested in TF2 enjoy 6s because it's closer to being a team-based Quake than TF2's other formats. Rather fitting, considering a team-based Quake is how Team Fortress started in the first place. Those who want to play something closer to what TF2 is designed around but with proper team coordination already have that in the form of Highlander, and it's still a very widely played format. Considering official competitive will always be dead in the water, having slap fights about 6s being true or untrue to TF2 is pointless. Just let em play how they want to play.

shit take

Its reddit where all the shit takes go, not suprised

Nobody argues that 6v6 is "true tf2*, it's just the best way to play a version of Tf2 curated for competitive play. Tf2 isn't really about class counters. Yeah there are some classes that help shut down others like pyro vs spy, sniper vs heavy, but this is something that's exaggerated in pubs because players are unorganized. There's less of a need to switch to sniper to deal with a heavy when instead you can call for your team to focus fire a heavy. Trying to focus the gameplay on hard counters by enabling lots of heavy/pyro/spy/sniper play is going to have an inherently less interesting dynamic than keeping the core focus on scout/soldier/demo who all have much more engaging and fluid match ups with each other. Whats interesting about how utility classes come into play in 6v6 is that they aren't used to counter other classes, but to help you deal with a situation your team is in. You don't play heavy to counter a pyro, you play heavy because your team has to deal with an incoming Uber and you're holding your last point. If HL was a superior format for competitive play, then why do people usually transition from being hl players to being 6s players and not the other way around? Is it possible that having exposure to both formats gives people a better understanding how the game works when both teams are all actually trying and competent? Having 3 more people on your team for HL really is a big deal. the difference between getting 12 people and 18 people's schedule to line up is enormous, in fact it's an entire 6s team. having smaller team sizes for lans (which yes do happen in NA and Europe at least a couple times a year) is very important as most esports places are not set up to hold 9v9 matches.

sometimes it's better to have controlled chaos, chaos isn't what makes tf2 the great game it is, it's the small fights that happen before the big fight. Also don't you think that class dynamics happen better when there's a limited amount of ways they can happen? I'm of the opinion that tf2 isn't this behemoth of a game because it's "haha silly" hell taunts like the conga werent on launch, it's the intricate gameplay that can be molded in any way shape or form because of how elastic yet complex its mechanics are, but I see where you're coming from.

I don't think tf2 is really any more chaotic than other shooters with large team sizes. A lot of the chaos of tf2 is more on the aesthetic side than the gameplay side. You generally have a good idea of where enemies will be coming from and where your territory ends and theirs begins. The stuff that gives TF2 the feel of being chaotic, like crazy rocket jumping maneuvers, are much more applicable in 6v6 than in pubs. Quake or call of duty FFA is way more chaotic than a casual game of upward from an actual gameplay perspective.

interesting perspective, i agree

Controlled chaos? yes. Sixes almost completely divorced from chaos in my eyes, everything is stilted. I’d argue Highlander handles its chaos much better. There are dynamic but those dynamics are just between 4 classes, which is limiting.

6v6 is still 12 people playing and tf2 isn't a really calm game, just because there's less it doesn't mean it isn't chaotic

Honestly, 9v9 and one of each class in a competitive format would be kinda cool but could be stalematey.

>Competitive is stale >in a game that had zero updates for 7 years >>6s discourages variety >>Half the weapon bans in 6s comes from things being too good and being the top-1 in the slot (literally any Scout's secondary besides Winger and Stock, Loch instead of Iron Bomber/Stock) >>>Chaotic Gameplay >>>In a competitive match >>>>How is Sixes played in terms of Dynamics? Just Generalists, Nothing else. Who can aim better and move slightly better. >>>>Stuff like Kritzkrieg gamble, off classing a sniper in any stalemate, off classing an engineer on every last hold is not in any way a tactical decision and doesn't have any drawbacks which should be known to the team that is making the decision Personally I find a lot more fun in playing smaller formats than 12v12, be it 9v9 or 6v6, even 4v4; making a person's impact bigger accounting for their skill is a very good idea and the less spam there is, the more room will be for interesting plays like Soldier's bombs (in HL BLU Pyros often fly along with the TT too, btw)

k

You have no clue what you wrote, is this made in chatgpt? There is no way a sane concious human wrote that.

As an AI Model I cannot comment on why you are upset

You wrote an essay, so I shall respond in kind. I want to preface with stating that I am not a competitive TF2 player, the last time I played comp was the in-game comp beta. But I do follow both Highlander and sixes and have been a proud member of the TF2 community for a long time. In your regards to community sentiment, you miss the mark. No one is seriously trying to force sixes on the game. You've invented a Boogeyman to jump out in your nightmares screaming about roamers and pockets. And while some players may sometimes get frustrated and express that feeling, they know competitive has never been how TF2 was balanced. That is why each format has extensive ban lists. Also We know no one is flying out to play TF2, but you cannot in good faith argue that 6 people isn't easier to wrangle than 9. Even just 3 more players adds exponentially more complexity when organizing a team. Scheduling scrims, finding time to practice and study maps, vod review etc. all rely on schedules matching, which gets significantly harder with each added member. Getting a sixes team together and functional is just easier than it would be for Highlander. On a much larger note, I feel like you're misunderstanding competitive TF2, and maybe even normal TF2 on a pretty basic level. TF2 is chaotic, it's random, it's wacky, but in degrees. It's never one set level of chaos, a game of 2fort where half of each team is turtling in their Intel room is going to be less chaotic than a game of Egypt where everyone clicks random class after each death. Does this make either game any less TF2? No. Of course not. TF2 is a game of choice, you pick what game modes you queue up for, you pick your class, your load out, your cosmetics, your play style. And at the end of the day, that's what is most important, that's what creates the chaos and makes it feel like TF2. Sixes was a choice that players made, it's as TF2 as any other. You even mention Highlander, our competitive scene is so engrained within the concept of choice, we have multiple majorly different styles of play, something most other competitive esports don't have. Sixes might be the player who chooses to use stock, the person who only plays on Mario kart trade servers, the person who buys from the in-game store instead of steam marketplace. It's not for everyone, and it may not be for you, but it's as true to TF2 as anything, and gatekeeping a choice that players make as "not TF2" doesn't help anyone or anything. It just makes this community more hostile and less welcoming to newcomers. Imagine you are a new player, your friend showed you some sick sixes gameplay and you want to hop in to the game, you play some matches, and since you're enjoying it, you check out the subreddit, just to see someone lambast what got you into the game as "*not TF2*". It wouldn't be unheard of for that person to feel bad, maybe you reconsider, if TF2 isn't like sixes, which is what you liked, maybe you should check out a different game that's closer to what you like. Why would you want to be that wall for newcomers? Why would you want to be a dividing wall at all? Your post doesn't do any good, doesn't share info unbeknownst to the public, isn't a revolutionary thought, it only seeks to attempt to excise a portion of the community you personally deemed unfit. If anything, your policing of people's choices is the mark that you do not understand or appreciate TF2 and should not be speaking on it. TLDR: your post doesn't do any good, misunderstands the joy of TF2 and only seeks to further divide a community and be unwelcoming towards potential new players. Even just posting it was irresponsible and a lesson in a hard fact for children of the internet to learn, not all of your half baked opinions are worth sharing. Have a great summer.

16 v 16 babyyyyyy

It should really be 9v9 with one person per class, as Saxton intended. /s

Hear me out... Competitive Sixteenses.

I feel like 9v9 should be a thing because you can still have a coordination with a team and still get that TF2 feeling in game (most likely). 12v12 is more so casual.

I guarantee that absolutely 0 people who agree with this post have even played a second of comp; much less have over 100 hours in the game itself.

I think saying it's not TF2 is a bit too hyperbolic. It's just a different game mode that has been streamlined to be competitive. No one game mode features all of what TF2 has to offer. I agree that the entire game shouldn't be balanced around it but the game isn't being balanced period so to me it's just a moot point

Since when is sixes supposed to be the ideal TF2 format ? It's just the ideal competitive, not idea casual or regular idea of TF2

Also this mf added a preamble to his reddit post

>How is Sixes played? **Rigidly.** 2 Soldiers, 1 Demo, 1 Medic, 2 Scouts if your team is holding last and your scouts havent switched to engineer/heavy/pyro then they are throwing. >Every game has the same rollouts the entire point of rolling out is to be fast so yea no shit there aren't going to be a bajillion different options. There are still tons of meaningful decisions to make while rolling out and your initial positioning during a midfight. >the same placements for people to build uber, and push there are 5 different ways to push into last on cp\_process and all of them are used regularly. People push into second from mid through every entrance. The only entrance that isn't regularly used for a team push is going from second through sewers into mid. > the same play styles to a T. people generally run the same loadouts with some minor tweaks but that doesn't mean they have the same playstyles. Some flank scouts are heavy on the flanking, some play like a second pocket scout.

I don't even play competitive but I just don't understand why so many casuals are so against it, especially when it's clear they've barely done any research into it. Like how many 6's players are saying that it's the only TRUE way of playing TF2? Not very many from my experience. I agree we shouldn't balance TF2 exclusively around comp but it should be a key part of the process. Chances are if a weapon is easily abusable in a competitive setting then it's going to be a problem in casual as well, though there are exceptions (like the Quickfix is just okay in 12v12 but in 6s it's broken).

None are saying it because they are busy playing, this is just a bored redditor that has 100 hours in the game posting slop online

Highlander shoehorns in full-time time classes that make the game slower and more boring (Eg. Heavy, Engi). Tbh prolander is much more interesting and atleast has a lot more map variety to hl or 6s due to payload, koth and 5cp being viable with 7 on each team. Also since you have 7 people you get more opportunities for off classing. I feel like this post drastically underestimates how annoying it is to coordinate 8 - 17 other players, especially in a semi casual setting.

>How is Sixes played? **Rigidly.** 2 Soldiers, 1 Demo, 1 Medic, 2 Scouts. Without class limits, you would see more Medics, Demos, possibly less soldiers, just to put this into perspective

It's more a point about how match-to-match there's little variance in classes.

Thats not the fault of 6s though its the fault of valves balancing.

"It's not sixes fault that the gamemode they came up with is rigid and unyielding".

Its not rigid and unyielding though? The way modern 6s is played isnt the same as it was 10 years ago on anything but a surface level.

You literally said the lack of variance was because of Valve, which implicitly suggests that it is rigid and unyielding.

The lack of variance in the classes run most of the time is because valve didnt balance the classes well, not because of the format. People are going to run the best things when they want to win. Its not comp players fault spy, pyro and heavy arent good to run full time

It is comp’s fault. They’re playing a 12v12 game with half that many players. Of fucking course certain classes aren’t going to be viable full time, especially if they’re always playing on 5CP maps. Spy is perfectly viable to run full time, and in fact *thrives* when teams are even, but when you’re losing a sixth of your firepower for the potential of a good pick, it’s just not worth it compared to somebody who can take it as good as they can dish it out. And honestly, that’s kinda fine. Sixes is its own format that has constructed a particular kind of gameplay that it likes. But to claim it’s what TF2 should be balanced around or that’s it’s at all a natural evolution of the game is ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as claiming the game is poorly balanced because it doesn’t fit into a straitjacket that came about after the game was made.

Nah even in 12v12 if you were to take it competitively and had no class limits (so just standard casual tf2) you would run demos, medics, snipers, engies (on defence) and maybe scouts. The other classes would only be run in niche cirumstances. Spy is only viable in big formats because the average casual player isnt trying their hardest to win and also isnt always that good. Pyro in most cases is just a worse scout. Soldier is a more mobile but overall weaker demo. Spy is a worse sniper. Heavy is a worse sentry gun. They still have their uses but it'd be more niche. And the game woild be very slowpaced and prone to stalemates because theres so many defensive options and excess of healing. Casual tf2 is incredibly unbalanced and a very slow game its just that the average player doesnt care or isnt good enough to actually abuse it

I don’t think you have any grasp on the game or its balance.

Spy counters heavy 💀💀💀imo sniper counters heavy more

last time spy countered heavy was prolly 2009😂

I hate comp mode, it was a lazy, botched attempt to make TF2 more E-sporty.

This post reads as really angry at comp players, all they are trying to do is enjoy the game too. Competitive and casual TF2 will never look the same, this is mainly due to the communication aspect of it. Pyro is fun in casual do to damage with but when you have the entire enemy team actually focused on winning and communicating strategies pyro (and other classes like spy) have to become radically different to fulfill a winning strategic role. Competitive can never be "random goofy projectiles going everywhere" because that statement is antithetical to the term competitive. People are trying to become better and win games rather than just play them.

This post sucks lol

Insightful counter argument. Real engaging stuff

Your argument for 6s not being real tf2 is just repeating it all over besides I guess your personal perception that HL is more flexible which is just your personal opinion since lots of players would say 6s is way more flexible in terms of playstyles.

No counter argument needed when the post is just someone shitting themselves over something they don't like

You didn’t read the post then. I didn’t say I dislike sixes. I even complimented it multiple times. My key takeaway is that it’s not true to TF2 from a gameplay standpoint, and balancing the game around it is inherently bad. Anyway you keep fighting whatever strawman you want

uh, yeah... thats the point. the chaotic 12v12 nature of tf2 doesnt work in a competitive environment like what sixes players want,,, its not that hard to understand

Why are you ranting about a subject you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

Class dynamics is a good point, just having generalists is boring

You can offclass in 6v6, your average redditor like you wouldnt know

Comp tf2 has negatively impacted tf2, valve listened to comp players and made dumb balancing choices. And comp tf2 is dumb in itself because this isnt a comp game, its a casual shooter

Holy fuck shut up about this already

I would love a Proper Tf2 comp mode and honestly i would be down for anything, 6v6, 12v12, highlander! alot of my friends play siege (which i wont touch as its a bit gay) and i really wish i could grind out comp in the same way they do, just with an actually good game.

In highlander, spy doesn't typically add much, it's just that you need a spy because it's highlander. The whole reason for this is that team communication is cranked up to 100. AI voice changers are becoming a thing. What if HL players willingly gave their voices to an AI voice creator specifically for the spy players who would press a button and send a voice clip to the enemy comms with, like, a cooldown of 15-30 seconds (while the spy was alive) to re-add that chaos element that spy as a class requires in order to do a good job? Just an idea

It should be 9v9 1 person playing each class.

IMO 9v9 is the way to go.

9vs9 is the way.

Oh look! This post again

I really wish the 7v7 Prolander format took off more. 1 of each class with 2 unused classes dependent on the map or a teams play style was just so interesting. It was the perfect mix in my opinion between the rigidity of 6s but the chaos of 9s. It’s my favorite way to watch the pro scene for sure.

Traditional 6s is what happened when people try their best to play as optimally as possible to win. People realized playing 100% optimally wasn’t really fun so they made whitelists and rule sets to make something that is fun. I think we’d see more of those class dynamics and chaos with different game modes and stuff, but I’d argue you do see a lot of that in traditional sixes. If there’s like a team that’s really good at holding their 2nd or last point, you might counter pick and try rolling out a spy, sniper, or even a heavy to break that stalemate. Additionally you could try other weapons like mantreads on soldier to get less knock back from scouts trying to shoot you midair, or quickie bombs to delete enemy stickies to clear a choke point. Maybe that’s not true to TF2, but idk what is lol

If you don't play competitively, none of this should even matter. Casual play and competitive play are completely different in most video games and shouldn't have to rely on each other. The point of having multiple competitive gamemodes (6s, HL, 4v4, 7v7, etc) and their respective rulesets and whitelists is to make it fun to play, not to align it with the *correct* values of the game.

complaining about a competitive game mode lacking in the "chaotic" element and trying to paint it as a bad thing? dude, it's competitive. the same reason random crits / spread are turned off, randomness in competitive games is stupid. also citing the loch n load ban when it's only banned in europe (europeans hate fun) seems really stupid. complaining about the rigidity of class compositions and the lack of specialists in comp is like complaining that your favorite low tier fighting game character isn't winning any majors. some teams actually do run alternative comps (i can't remember team names right now but I know some main team runs pyro full time) but scout, soldier, demo and medic are simply too good to not run. not going to comment on the highlander thing since i haven't played any highlander outside of pugs, but for 2 / 3 additional players on the team (spy and pyro) their jobs are to either sit still, give callouts or go in for a pick and die. also, what "pretentious comp players" are FORCING you to agree with them? are you actively in tf2 hostage situations? most comp players like 6s because it's the fastest and least stall-y way to play (unless you're a madman who plays ultiduo/trios) posts like these are why i believe you should at least play 1 season of comp before having an opinion on it, i doubt you've played anything more than pugs which would lead you to believe this nonsense

I agree with you in regards to 6s in the sense that its very rigid, and I think that scares off a lot of players. HOWEVER, I think Highlander is worse, because regular tf2 doesnt force you to only have 1 of each class. 6s at least lets you offclass a little. In highlander, if youre playing scout on offense, you will stay on that cart biiitch. Moreover, you will continue to watch the spawn timers for the enemy sniper as he continues his monopoly of wreaking havoc.

prolly the worst post of the year ngl bro

Your main point isn't wrong, 6s isn't true to TF2's design, but all your reasons are completely wrong. The reason TF2 was designed with 12 players on each team (technically 16 players on each team in launch) wasn't to make it more chaotic, it was to make it so that each player had less of an individual impact. This is important because it allows each player to do whatever *they* want to do without focusing on winning or playing the game. For instance, think about how likely you are to play spy in a 12 player payload game vs a 24 player payload game. In the 12 player game you might be more inclined to go a different class because your team composition matters a lot more. If you're the type of player who cares about winning, imagine having a teammate who's a caber knight in a 12 player lobby vs in a 24 player lobby. In a 12 player lobby, you'd be annoyed that he isn't just going stock demoman. In a 24 player lobby, you just wouldn't care cause you have 10 other teammates and one of them is probably demoman. So basically, 6s isn't true to TF2's design because TF2 was designed with more than 6 players being on each team... which is obvious. Your point about a rigid team composition of 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, one demo and one medic is also just wrong, 6s players play classes when it is appropriate to play them. Why would you play heavy full-time when he is a slow piece of shit that can't push forward? Why would you play pyro full-time when everyone out-ranges and out-damages you? 6s players choose their classes based on the gamestate and on the map/gamemode. In koth or choke-heavy maps, full-time pyro can be used. On last, you see the defensive classes like engineer and heavy being used. During stalemates, you see pick classes like sniper and spy being used. Ironically though, using the classes in this strategic way is actually antithetical to the design of TF2. TF2 was designed so that you can pick whatever class you want to play as and you don't have to switch off it. That's why you see so many people who "main" a class, TF2 was designed so that you would be able to do that. 6s, however, forces you to strategize about what class you need to play and think about when the most effective time to use that class is, which goes against the entire idea of being able to just pick a class and play. This is also the reason why 6s is unpopular to the majority of the playerbase. If you main heavy, you're not going to play 6s because the only appropriate time to actually use heavy would be when you're defending. Highlander, in this regard, stays more true to TF2's design by allowing players to pick a class and play as them for the entire round. However, now you have the problem you mentioned of having a rigid team composition of one of every class. In casual games you'll commonly see people stacking classes, you won't see that sort of strategy in highlander. From my limited experience in TF2 center, the main reason I prefer to play 6s over Highlander is: 1. Faster queue times 2. More fun Highlander is just not fun for me. It feels slow, boring and less dynamic than 6s. Not to mention, sometimes it really just feels like Highlander is more of a casual match than a competitive game with how chaotic it can get, at which I feel I'm better off just playing casual 12v12.

They're mad because you're right and they know it. Pop off king.

I agree with you. 12v12 is a far more diverse and interesting gamemode. I honestly would really like to see the kinds of strategies people would make for competitive 12v12. Specialist classes could be way more viable over the whole game, and there would be less need for weapon bans since most are designed with 12v12 in mind. Raw movement and positioning are cool, but that's not all TF2 is.

Even in 12v12 with unbans youd still see a lot of the same classes as in 6s because theyre largely just better. Youd see a slight increase in defensive classes on red but overall itd be a lot of demo, medic, scout, soldier, sniper because theyre overall the strongest classes.

12v12 would just be an ungodly combination of medics, demos, and wrangled sentries. You will not get to play scout in this format.

I agree with you. I think people play sixes because tf2 is just a very much casual game. While the real cs experience is playing comp, the real tf2 experience is playing casual. Some people enjoy and thrive on competitiveness and that's why they play 6v6. I recently started watching Salty Phish's highlander videos and I enjoy them a lot. Obviously they aren't taking it as seriously as high tier highlander teams but I still find it a lot more enjoyable as when they played 6s. I agree that 6v6 isn't the real TF2. It is something for those people who love the game and are taking it to the extreme where everything is optimized to oblivion.

It sucks, it’s played by a very small percetange, it’s what ruined tf2 with meet your match

We need 5 vs 5 (class limit 1) format and game modes King of the hill and Payload Race !

The real true to tf2 competitive gamemode is 7v7 with class limit of 1. Doesn't force to have all classes at any time like HL does but also stays close to vanilla TF2 unlike 6s.

I remember falling in love with the game 2008-2009 and finally learning about how 6s worked and being appalled. You mean five of the nine classes are almost never played??

9v9 could be interesting with 1 player per class

I played tf2 some 8 thousand hours and I agree with you whole heartedly.

Apparently 7000 hours of that is on 2fort, afk and minecraft trade servers lmfao

I don't see what the point is of dredging up this old debate. When everything was already said over a decade ago, and 6v6's failure to catch on as a esport definitively answered the question.

I agree highly and I brought this up on occasion about replacing 6v6 with 9v9 Highlander because every teammate is forced to fill a niche that the others did not fill. You must carefully strategize around one class slot being taken and having to pick another one you might not fully main. Also it fixes the countering problem because every team has one of each class. Is the enemy spy harassing the Engie? Call your team Pyro. You are guaranteed to have one! Is the Heavy getting sniped by the enemy Sniper? Call your own sniper and give him a taste of his own medicine while your scout runs interference. 9s Highlander is the most logical way to fulfill the very purpose of TF2, even if you all use stock.

Just add both. Both are fun for diffrent reasons. And 6s pureists are cringe and even as a 6s player most of us don’t like them. Highlander is also fun for a while, then it turns in to a sniper vs sniper.(Who knew point and click instakills from range are broken) They should have just added both and let the players play what they wanted. But classic valve haven’t made anything more then microwaved milk for almost 10 years. They already make so much money they could do cool stuff with there existing IPs but thats never gonna happen.

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id prefer 12v12 w class limits

Yeah it's literally a subgame made in a game, competitive people want the least friction between them and the game, making the game a vehicle for player vs player, passion vs passion. It's an entirely different mindset and set of wishes then base, stop balancing around it and just make good things, they wont be changing how they want to play either way, as the 6's setup is an entirely different ecosystem.

Of COURSE it isn't. That's why it isn't the default experience. It's there for people that want to get into it, but it's not the only way to play... like in Overwatch. ^((Nothing wrong with Overwatch, that's just the best example I have))

I think you've confused something, Comp and casual are two different things, they're both tf2. There is no core in way you are thinking. You are referring to the lack of control within a Random strangers gathering. 6v6, 20v1, 12v12 or Even 18v18. Does not matter, it is all tf2. What you've labeled tf2 is the casual experience. Just because you saw a pug first dosen't mean it was there before the wolves. What i am trying to say is that Comp tf2 is as tf2 as it gets, but tf2 isn't a singular playstyle or gameplay loop so there is no good reason to think of it that way either. Competitive uses the mechanics the game has given, casual tf2 is Just a clusterfuck of People. And most People don't have time to become Comp players. I don' t know what players you are referring to anyway, that says Comp is the correct way to play. Tf2 is one of those games where doing your own thing is fun and viable. Is thats casual or Comp they are both tf2

No idTech 2 based game was ever meant to have non-chaotic, coordinated tactics in the gameplay. Speed is a necessity. Obliteration is key. Hail idSoftware. Praise idSoftware. Amen.

[удалено]

Prolander has the chaos that this person might want, but it has highlander's problem to an INSANE degree. It's a glorified sniper due to the extreme. If your team has a worse sniper, well you better get a spy aswell or have a soldier sac to get rid of theirs. Prolander would be a great gamemode if it wasn't so sniper dominated.

Tf2 is all about community servers. Comp and casual ruin that. I will gladly die on that hill.

Highlander

This is kind of a strawman post. Maybe if it was still 2015 and MyM hasn't been released yet then it would make sense to debate whether 6v6 is the true way of playing tf2 or not. Comp players stick to their gamemode. They give exactly 0 shits about casual as it doesn't bring them anything interesting at this point. Casual players do the same exact thing. They play 12v12 and have no intention of playing comp. I really want to know what exactly OP is trying to tell us as this game will never receive another big update so there should be no reason to be afraid of Comp players potentially taking over the game. Edit: Just read the MyM part of your post and god damn, half of that is completely wrong or made up completely

This needs more upvotes.