Refocus and League Play

[Bakey]

I've had a bunch of fun picking up TF2 again recently, so much so in fact that I'm going to refocus on TF2 being my FPS of choice for now, which means I'm ignoring QL, UT3 (Sorry Captain_Tea) and L4D (Sorry Whon).

Having said that, and knowing that we get a TON of people online for TF2uesday, what's the status on ToJ fielding a team for a league? I'd love to get involved with league play for STA, and I believe that ToJ has good enough players that with a bit of practice and some scrims (we need to work on match comms for sure) we'd be ready to go in STA.

I've still got friends in several of the STA league teams and I'm sure we can get 8v8 scrims easily.

What say you, Mighty Gerbil and other TF2 players?

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

I've had a bunch of fun picking up TF2 again recently, so much so in fact that I'm going to refocus on TF2 being my FPS of choice for now, which means I'm ignoring QL, UT3 (Sorry Captain_Tea) and L4D (Sorry Whon).

Having said that, and knowing that we get a TON of people online for TF2uesday, what's the status on ToJ fielding a team for a league? I'd love to get involved with league play for STA, and I believe that ToJ has good enough players that with a bit of practice and some scrims (we need to work on match comms for sure) we'd be ready to go in STA.

I've still got friends in several of the STA league teams and I'm sure we can get 8v8 scrims easily.

What say you, Mighty Gerbil and other TF2 players?

Member interest in scrims is definitely enough for 6vs6 but beyond that IDK. I've been trying to get TWL going however in addition to inexperience with such things and being busy, our name/tag has already been taken. The member who has control of it in TWL I have not been able to contact. The net result of these 3 things is I haven't gotten very far along on it . From what I've gleaned so far from reading the different leagues rules and my own past experiences notables are.

1. TWL matches are supposed to continue where they let off from in the event of a server crash. I have no idea how to set the time limit or score though.

2. Everyone must record demos so everyone must know how.

3. On TWL wins and losses must be reported by a team captain within an hour of a match being played. Which means we must have a team captain on hand at every match.

4. Configs must be installed. Plus I know there is a way to exec configs on the fly thus changing the setup without restarting the server but I don't how.

5. I think we should start with 6 vs 6 (or 7 vs 7 if STA has it) scrims for league play. I tried arranging a 9 vs 9 man scrim and we managed to get 8 with a lot of PM's on my part (with fdg remember ). It's not that we don't have 8 interested it's just getting more than 6-7 reoccurring is very difficult due to many members being on different schedules. Many of the Toj you saw Tuesday are not interested in scrims too. I'd like to do 8 vs 8 on a regular basis but I just don't know if we can swing it :/ we do have you now though... maybe we could do it hmmm.

6. Whatever league we join we have to make sure the scrim is not on Tuesday. We may have to use our server, locking it and booting out our own non-scrim members if we use Tuesday. One group I looked at had their default scrim day on Tuesday nights. Previous scrims/practice where on Thursday 7:30pm central. Tek is unavailable Friday. If possible (but I don't think it is) we should try for a day unused by other Toj groups. However I think only the weekend is un-taken and (believe it or not) the most members seem unavailable then.

7. When I was running the few scrims we've had I was switching out members between maps giving more than 6 a chance to play. This seemed to work well keeping alts happy and available. TWL and CEVO appear to allow this at halftime hopefully STA allows this too but IDK. While I was keeping the best players in overall I was not limiting anyone who wanted to play regardless of skill. What I am saying is I am not going to exclude Toj members from playing scrims purely based on skill. Honestly though I haven't had any terrible players press to scrim. My main thing is keeping it fun for everyone. Roll feasts aren't fun but neither is separating friends or having one booted out.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Anyway I am not against joining any league you think best. You've mentioned CEVO is supposed to be tough (on the FDG forums) plus they require you download an anti cheat program and have other things which lead me to exclude them. If you think STA is the one for us I'm all for giving it a try. Regardless I was already thinking about asking you to be our scrim coordinator as I'm unfamiliar with setting up league scrims. You'll probably have to coach me on some of the server commands needed and help get everyone in the know on the rule set too (no sandman etc.). Basically I'm willing to help out on the technical end (pms, forum posts, map uploads) but you'd be the one responsible for arranging scrims.

As far as scrims themselves I tend to bark out orders but I question my competency (and/or annoyance factor XD to my team) so you may want to take the lead there IDK. My scrim style is much different than my laid back pub style though so you may be surprised at the communication difference when you see us scrim. I try to let everyone play what they feel they are best at but request certain classes at needed times. If you peruse the forums you can see me asking people what classes they are good at to get an idea how to build teams. We are pretty low on Demos BTW.

Elihu is our other team captain and he does a fine job. Bassman would be a good pick for a team captain too IMO.

Side note: I continue to attempt to make the map pack work now on third upload attempt -_-. Custom map night should happen soon... I hope XD.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

YAY! I just got a reply from the owner of the account so we should be able to do TWL would you want to do TWL or do you think STA would be better Bakey? Input anyone? Let me know so I can get the ball rolling .

Here are the TWL league rules for everyone to see http://www.teamwarfare.com/rules.asp?set=Team+Fortress+2+NA+League#3-7 and here are the ladder rules http://www.teamwarfare.com/rules.asp?set=Team+Fortress+2+NA+Ladders.

I'm still not totally certain what all the differences between league and ladder play are and which we should choose. I'm thinking the 7vs7 ladder would be what we want? I think the pre-season for season 4 league has already started however I am unable to find the date you must sign up by :/. Of note in the rules...

In the event of a server crash, the map will be restarted with the remaining time and score intact.

I don't know how to do this.

# 6.2 - Config Overview

There are four config files: twl_default, twl_push, twl_stopwatch, and twl_ctf. The default config contains all of the standard default cvars and other things that are not dependent on the game type. The push, stopwatch, and ctf configs should be executed when playing a map that matches that gametype. They will call the settings in the default config. The default config should not ever be executed.

Nor do I know how to exec a config.

Not Allowed: The Sandman

# 5.1 - Default Date and Times

TeamWarfare League Team Fortress 2 League matches will take place on Mondays at 9:30PM EST.

Teams should be prepared to play on the default date and at the default time. Teams are asked to give common courtesy to each others situations but are not required to. If there are any problems trying to set an alternate date and/or time, the default time will be upheld and teams that fail to show will receive a forfeit loss. If a team receives two forfeit losses they will be removed from the league.

# 5.3 – Rescheduling

Specific match times and dates can be negotiated between team captains. If no agreement can be made, then the default match time and date stands. If teams agree to reschedule, the new match date/time must be documented in match comms. Rescheduling more than 3 days past the default date is not permitted. All matches must be reported or disputed within 24 hours of match completion. NO EXCEPTIONS.

So I am thinking ladder is more scrim day flexible and based on challenges?
Nothing is set in stone yet so if you think STA is better we can do that.

 

[slalomdms]

We are pretty low on Demos BTW.

At your service

School gets out in a week and a half and once I am finished with this semester I will be more free to play on game nights. After I fix my computer. A league sounds like it would be fun and I think we would have a good team if we can get the people and get some practices in.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

At your service

School gets out in a week and a half and once I am finished with this semester I will be more free to play on game nights. After I fix my computer. A league sounds like it would be fun and I think we would have a good team if we can get the people and get some practices in.

Yay! We only have you and Bassman for Demos.

 

[Bakey]

Gerbil, I've got tons of ideas, advice, thoughts, etc. to bounce off of you that will take too long to type out here. Do you use any sort of IM program other than steam?

 

[Hamm468]

If you guys want to get into league play, you have a medic ready and willing to play!

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Gerbil, I've got tons of ideas, advice, thoughts, etc. to bounce off of you that will take too long to type out here. Do you use any sort of IM program other than steam?

I've got Trillian but I haven't used it for more than a couple messages that needed to be secure. If you are concerned about typing a bunch of stuff we can get together on teamspeak and discuss things if you like or we can use steam. You will have to find me find me via steam either way and we can hop on the teamspeak server from there if desired. I won't be on tonight though (or at least in a non-zonked out way ).

If you guys want to get into league play, you have a medic ready and willing to play!

Thanks the more the merrier .

 

[Tek7]

My scrim style is much different than my laid back pub style though so you may be surprised at the communication difference when you see us scrim.

QFT.

Playing alongside scrim team members in a match is very different from playing alongside the same players on a public server. I was very impressed with how quickly scrim team members picked up the essentials of team communication during the few matches we've played so far.

Bassman would be a good pick for a team captain too IMO.

I think Bassman had previously said his schedule wouldn't allow for him to be consistently involved with scrim matches, but I might be mistaken.

 

[Bakey]

Good responses in the other thread so far, but I'd like to see that number hit 12+ before we really started looking at 8v8 play. We can field a 6v6 team now, but it's just not as fun as 8v8 IMO.

1. TWL matches are supposed to continue where they let off from in the event of a server crash. I have no idea how to set the time limit or score though.

There are rcon commands for this. I know you guys use SourceMod on the server, but if we're going to run a competition server, I highly recommend that we run a different box with no mods on it at ALL. Learn to use rcon to admin it. I can teach you a bunch here.

2. Everyone must record demos so everyone must know how.

This is very easily done through a console command. "record ToJvSoC_R1"

3. On TWL wins and losses must be reported by a team captain within an hour of a match being played. Which means we must have a team captain on hand at every match.

For this reason we need a minimum of 2 captains, one of which can report scores. In STA, I've manually reported scores via IRC to the league admins before when our captains weren't around.

4. Configs must be installed. Plus I know there is a way to exec configs on the fly thus changing the setup without restarting the server but I don't how.

Configs are uploaded to the server via FTP and executed like so:

rcon exec STA_TF2_8v8_CTF.cfg

5. I think we should start with 6 vs 6 (or 7 vs 7 if STA has it) scrims for league play. I tried arranging a 9 vs 9 man scrim and we managed to get 8 with a lot of PM's on my part (with fdg remember ). It's not that we don't have 8 interested it's just getting more than 6-7 reoccurring is very difficult due to many members being on different schedules. Many of the Toj you saw Tuesday are not interested in scrims too. I'd like to do 8 vs 8 on a regular basis but I just don't know if we can swing it :/ we do have you now though... maybe we could do it hmmm.

This may seem like a good idea on the surface, but I can say from experience in STA that you find more and better teams at 6v6 than 8v8. Virtually all the 8v8 teams also field a 6v6 team with their 6 best players and you've got more teams that can't quite field 8 yet fielding a 6 man team. 8v8 is more fun IMO and you get a slightly more laid-back feel to the games than the hardcore 6v6 stuff you see in STA.

6. Whatever league we join we have to make sure the scrim is not on Tuesday. We may have to use our server, locking it and booting out our own non-scrim members if we use Tuesday. One group I looked at had their default scrim day on Tuesday nights. Previous scrims/practice where on Thursday 7:30pm central. Tek is unavailable Friday. If possible (but I don't think it is) we should try for a day unused by other Toj groups. However I think only the weekend is un-taken and (believe it or not) the most members seem unavailable then.

Again, I must disagree. The whole point of TF2uesday was for us to play together and have fun, right? If we can fill up a 20 slot server for hours on Tuesday night, that proves that we can have 8 folks available on that night to play in league matches. Yes we may have some weeks with a match in our server, but there will be others where the match is elsewhere. In STA, each week has a "home" and an "away" team. Home teams get to use their server if they have one.

7. When I was running the few scrims we've had I was switching out members between maps giving more than 6 a chance to play. This seemed to work well keeping alts happy and available. TWL and CEVO appear to allow this at halftime hopefully STA allows this too but IDK. While I was keeping the best players in overall I was not limiting anyone who wanted to play regardless of skill. What I am saying is I am not going to exclude Toj members from playing scrims purely based on skill. Honestly though I haven't had any terrible players press to scrim. My main thing is keeping it fun for everyone. Roll feasts aren't fun but neither is separating friends or having one booted out.

I'm all for people getting to play who want to play, but I'm all for winning too. I don't want to sub in guys who want to play and have the overall skill level of the team drop because of it. Yes, if we're rolling the other team or getting rolled ourselves it's not that big of a deal, but if the matches are close I'd prefer to keep our best players in and play to win.

That being said, STA plays multiple rounds, so there's definitely chances to substitute.

 

[Captain_Tea]

I've had a bunch of fun picking up TF2 again recently, so much so in fact that I'm going to refocus on TF2 being my FPS of choice for now, which means I'm ignoring QL, UT3 (Sorry Captain_Tea) and L4D (Sorry Whon).

BOOOOO

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Good responses in the other thread so far, but I'd like to see that number hit 12+ before we really started looking at 8v8 play. We can field a 6v6 team now, but it's just not as fun as 8v8 IMO.

I agree the more the merrier. I actually already did a similar thread to that one though it is good to do another on a regular basis. Off the top of my head we had 4 other people in addition to the ones that have already replied that were in our previous scrims. Omega Amen, Whon, Parabellum and Bassman. Not all of which are forum surfers. When I send the custom map night announcement I'lll add that the thread exists.

There are rcon commands for this. I know you guys use SourceMod on the server, but if we're going to run a competition server, I highly recommend that we run a different box with no mods on it at ALL. Learn to use rcon to admin it. I can teach you a bunch here.

This is very easily done through a console command. "record ToJvSoC_R1"

I'm personally a recording zealot but it was and is rather difficult to get our scrim members all into teamspeak at scrim time. Because of that I expect it's going to be difficult to get everyone in the recording habit. Plus TWL wants a bunch of screenshots. Honestly though it sounds like something that will never be used unless there is a dispute. Even then I expect having just some demos and screenshots will be enough.

Side note: Vent seems to be more popular among scrimmers (IDK why) so we may switch to it later.

For this reason we need a minimum of 2 captains, one of which can report scores. In STA, I've manually reported scores via IRC to the league admins before when our captains weren't around.

Agreed.

Configs are uploaded to the server via FTP and executed like so:

rcon exec STA_TF2_8v8_CTF.cfg

Roger that. I got the uploading and installing part down easy just not the rcon command. I've had issues with not being able to use rcon I've typed in rcon "command here" before and it's told me I'm not in rcon. So I think I have to put in the password but it doesn't accept it (with a copy/paste). Technically I should already be in rcon since I am flagged for it in the admin file. Anyway I haven't messed with it much so it's probably something simple I am doing wrong just need to take the time to figure it out.

This may seem like a good idea on the surface, but I can say from experience in STA that you find more and better teams at 6v6 than 8v8. Virtually all the 8v8 teams also field a 6v6 team with their 6 best players and you've got more teams that can't quite field 8 yet fielding a 6 man team. 8v8 is more fun IMO and you get a slightly more laid-back feel to the games than the hardcore 6v6 stuff you see in STA.

I'm not against having 8 in fact I'd much prefer it (can't really be a spy with 6). It's all about having the people committed to showing up that's my only concern. The only time we tried for 9 we couldn't really get 8 (one of the 8 was only a sub) and I PM'ed 80~ people in Toj (I kid not). For myself I actually cannot commit to any time or date. Though if I remember correctly I've actually only been unavailable for one scrim practice and one Toj Tuesday since I took over. It looks like we will be getting more people with school ending for several so I'm really thinking 8 with extra is now possible .

Again, I must disagree. The whole point of TF2uesday was for us to play together and have fun, right? If we can fill up a 20 slot server for hours on Tuesday night, that proves that we can have 8 folks available on that night to play in league matches. Yes we may have some weeks with a match in our server, but there will be others where the match is elsewhere. In STA, each week has a "home" and an "away" team. Home teams get to use their server if they have one.

I actually agree with everything you've said until this. We could do it on Tuesday but then we would have to move the day which would be a pain but perfectly doable. I am not going to be locking the door on Gator Missile, Zoey and others to have a scrim, that's not fun for them or me. Plus even if we do have the match elsewhere you'll be taking half the regular players (and most of the admins) away from populating our server with the non scrim'ers. Bottom line isn't that we can't have it on Tuesday it's just whatever day we have the scrim must be on a separate day from our public Toj game night. I actually went to STA's site long before your posting about it and saw this...

Based on the success of our 6v6 league on Sunday night, STA is considering swapping nights with our 8v8 league on Tuesday. Sunday we would hold 8v8 matches while Tuesday we would hold 6v6 matches. How would this change effect your team?

At that time the results were not in so I blew off STA and went to look at TWL. Now the results are in STA 8 vs 8 is on Tuesday. This means our regular day must change if we do it I'm thinking Thursday which has been our practice day / scrim day in the past and is also proven to get people in (Poor Toj COD 4'ers I tried to warn them because I knew this would happen T_T maybe they can swap days with us).

I'm all for people getting to play who want to play, but I'm all for winning too. I don't want to sub in guys who want to play and have the overall skill level of the team drop because of it. Yes, if we're rolling the other team or getting rolled ourselves it's not that big of a deal, but if the matches are close I'd prefer to keep our best players in and play to win.

That being said, STA plays multiple rounds, so there's definitely chances to substitute.

Fun for everyone > Winning. If winning gets us there I am all for it but I am always going to consider the enjoyment of all members good and bad over winning. I'm not going to substitute all the best players but if someone comes as an alt I'm not going to have them bench warming the whole season. What can I say I want the little geeky kid to have a chance to hit that home run too .

What is the class limit on 8 vs 8 STA? I can't find it though I found the 6 vs 6 and highlander ones easy in the rules. Is there even one? Even if there is not one we are still going to have to have self imposed limits.

Here is the STA 8 vs 8 page for all to see http://base.sta-league.org/tf2/

One thing I do need to know now Bakey is if we do go STA will you be our liaison to them arranging scrims and such?

 

[Bakey]

What is the class limit on 8 vs 8 STA? I can't find it though I found the 6 vs 6 and highlander ones easy in the rules. Is there even one? Even if there is not one we are still going to have to have self imposed limits.

Here is the STA 8 vs 8 page for all to see http://base.sta-league.org/tf2/

One thing I do need to know now Bakey is if we do go STA will you be our liaison to them arranging scrims and such?

There are no class limits for 8v8 STA. Literally if you want to run 8 pyros you can. Not that it's a good idea, but there you go. Typically you see 2 medics, 2 demos, 2 soldiers and then a mix of scouts, heavies, snipers, spies depending on what's going on. If a team has a good pyro you may see that some as well, but not terribly often. Engineers are also rare with certain exceptions on attack/defend maps (Gravelpit comes to mind).

As far as STA, I'd love to run point on that. I'm pretty good friends with some of the folks at (x_x) with were the 2nd place Gold League 8v8 team in STA last season. I'm sure I can get us a scrim with them if you guys want to see what playing against a pretty good STA team looks like.

 

[BassMan449]

I think Bassman had previously said his schedule wouldn't allow for him to be consistently involved with scrim matches, but I might be mistaken.

Don't know where you got that Tek. My schedule is really open in the evenings mostly. And I would absolutely love to play some competitive with you all.

 

[Tek7]

Don't know where you got that Tek. My schedule is really open in the evenings mostly.

My bad. I must have been thinking of your schedule before you graduated.

 

[Bakey]

Ok, to summarize the "Gauging Interest" thread so far, we've got 6 people who say Tuesday is a good night for them, and the majority of the rest either don't have a best night or they're not sure yet.

8 people say they prefer 8v8 with a handful more saying they've got no preference.

7 people say they prefer league play, and only 1 actually posted ladder.

It seems to me like STA's the perfect place for ToJ. Tuesday nights, 8v8, League format.

So far we've got 13 responses, but I'd like to see that number hit 15 or so before we really commit to this.

Gerbil, any other thoughts here?

 

[Whon]

I like MG's point about everyone getting a chance to play. Like myself I don't consider myself good or bad at playing, but I do know I get frustrated with the game when there are communication problems in the team. I'm just as happy playing in the match as I am watching them and pointing out tips and weaknesses.

 

[exodus]

you guys holding tryouts for the team?

 

[Bakey]

I don't think so. I think it's more of a "hey if you're interested and you show up on Tuesdays we'll try to get you some playing time"

Gerbil, correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

[exodus]

gotcha.

i tried to jump in to spec last night when i got home, but didn't have the password and I can't access the team forums, so no soup for exodus