Santa

Im sick and tired of going to the kit selection screen and seeing 3 of a class. Its especially terrible, like it was tonight, when there are two or three classes with this problem. Just stop doing it. I refuse to believe everyone is simply ignorant of how many of each class there is, as it seems more likely that people refuse to play anything other than "their" class or they are purposefully being assholes to the detriment of their team.

If you were the first of a class that eventually has 3 of it, ask the last one that picked the class to switch. If thats not successful, then just man up and pick a different class to help your team and prevent the server from dying out like it did tonight from this stupidity.

Finally, please do not be that asshole who misses the point of this thread and lists all the exceptions when 3 of a class is appropriate. We've played the game long enough to know what those exceptions are, this thread merely reminds everyone to be mindful of the kit selection of the team.

Beatnik

We had a team full of regulars two games in a row tonight, one with 3 engineers and 3 snipers on ctf_well (edit: fixed), and another ridiculous loadout on Corporation.

Every person on the team was a Focused member, and the awful class situation was called out repeatedly in VOIP. It was needless and it killed the server 2+ hours earlier than last night.

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Tarheel

Left right after you guys did due to this - made for a frustrating night, and I didn't need it.

The CTF_Well map we were doing ok to start with, but with the 3-4 snipers doing NOT A DAMN THING to help us cap the intel, which was sitting in the midfield forever. We soon started to get rickrolled. The other sad part is we had NO forward sentries.

During this, I was spy to start with, changed to soldier when we were trying to dismantle defenses, and then damn near everything except sniper during that clusterfuck of trying to advance the intel 3 feet at a time while it was IN our freaking base.

Corp comes up, I forget what I went to start with, but went medic soon thereafter even though it's not something I play often, since we had none. We did have 4 engineers on the second stage, yet no freaking turrets. Next thing I know there are like 3 medics plus the engineers, leading to me having no healing targets other than engineers and other medics while we get bumrushed. Beat left, Santa left, and I figured I'd join 'em.

Seriously, this is stupid. I hit TAB often during the game to see A: how many of each team is alive and dead, and B: to see what kits our team has. I try to switch as situations change, unless I'm an engineer and have a base set up. Even then, like on Granary last night, I switched when we had 2 other people go engineer and we were having issues taking the last point. I hoped we could hold CP #4 with only 2 Engineers (sarcasm).

I'm starting to think the suggestion in the "lack of communication" thread that many are just playing for themselves and not the team is accurate for some folks these days. This would explain some snipers, spies, engys, etc. that seem more concerned with their position on the scoreboard, as seemed to be the case tonight. For others it's like other things mentioned in that thread - lack of situational awareness. They just aren't looking at the scoreboard OR the number of people already playing a kit when they're in the selection screen.

I'm hoping it's more of the latter than the former, but I'm starting to wonder lately......

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thundeer

Something I've noticed recently too, which may or may not be related, is that a lot of people tend to join up together on the same team round after round after round. This isn't a problem when you have people who can play and DO choose to play multiple different classes depending on what is needed, such as arf, bleak, downeast, salmon, and santa, among many others. Sure they have their favorite classes but usually they aren't afraid to play something if it's desperately needed.

The problem is when you get the team where you know a certain someone will always go pyro, a certain someone will always go spy, someone will always go sniper, and someone will always go scout because they don't like/don't want to play other classes, despite the rest of the team's kit loadout.

Usually this becomes a problem when there are pubbies who you can't talk to. But not always! Sometimes I mention 'we need a medic' and am pleasantly surprised to see a pub change kits. But if it's a team full of -F-, some people might think 'whatever, I'm going to play what I want, other people can switch, and no one's going to call me out cause I'm -F-' so no one changes. Usually, in my experience, the class layout almost always evens out eventually. At least, on the teams I've been on.


Good rule of thumb: if you're playing something and you don't feel like you're helping your team, consider CHANGING YOUR CLASS. I would like to think we're all here in -F- because we enjoy helping out our team instead of playing for points.

Aside on tonight's ctf_well (not 2fort) round: when I saw the (almost exact same from last round) teams, I thought we were going to get rolled considering who was on the other team (a very skilled group of people who worked well together and were good at what they did). Our team was not aggressive at all in the beginning, we had 2 sentries in the intel room and we couldn't get a cohesive attack going. UNTIL the other team, being very aggressive, picked up the intel and brought it out of our base into the middle. What happened next was that our ENTIRE TEAM followed the intel defending it all the way into the enemy intel room, which took approximately 10 whole minutes. In the meantime, we were like 'oh since we're in their base anyways, might as well cap it... three times.' I heard someone on the other team say at the end of the round that they had no offense. I'd like to think that WE were the ones with no offense, and THEY were the ones with no defense (not offense) because we just had pyros walk in and take the intel and walk out unchallenged. Needless to say, I was very surprised at the outcome given the team until I heard the complaints about kit layout.

When corporation loaded up, we had THREE SNIPERS OUT OF A TEAM OF SEVEN as assault! Didn't look good. But a little talking and poking got them to switch within the 1st minute of gameplay and we ended up with a very decent kit layout. So hey all it takes is a little more communication and a little less stubbornness.

Bommando

It would be good to see more people with 4-5 favourite classes instead of one. Look at your time spent stats and consider trying something new for a while. It might even put a new spark into the game for you

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Lyramion

When I joined for the latenight game the kitselection was 100% fucked up. I just switched to Sniper after because actually caring on the -F- server hurts too much inside.


People just stopped caring about TF2 or whatsoever. When I play medic everyone just comes to get overhealed then rocketjumps away to wtfpwnzor some random guy instead of sticking around in a group of 3-4 people for a good push.


I have like 170 hours medic compared to 120 engi and 70 spy - my max Assault class hours are 20. I would like to play some assault classes more but every time I try noone played medic. Santa go play some more medic.

Snail

glad i didnt stay on. It was fine until i left which was around 10 est but i had really good games for the most part up till then. I usually try to pick a class that we have the least of, but more often then not ill play soldier or demo simply because i KNOW ill contribute more to the team as that no matter what else we have. If we have no spys snipers or scouts, im not going that cuz ill suck big nutsack. I know what im good at and what i can help the team with. That said, ill go medic if we need one but i can only take medic for so long.

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Beatnik

I joined up a few minutes before that push and the whole team was on D, except for maybe one or two people. Two sentries in the base, 3 snipers, 3 engineers. I finally got in to grab your intel and bring it to your front door, after which that 10 min battle of attrition took place. By the time you guys were defending our flag in our front door, the whole team was essentially camped to submission, not being able to leave our spawns.

So it went for total defense to zero defense, with just about zero offense the whole round.

Yeah, it was awesome.

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icky

It really would have been nice if Pablo, Crank, and Lyramion would have switched from sniper to allow the game to be competitive. I can't remember who stepped up as the fourth sniper, but I took it as a bit of a joke and was well beyond caring by that point.

With respect to offense and defense, our team was never all defense. They were mostly all dead because those of us who were pushing forward were only supported at any given time by 1 scout and 1 sniper. Not exactly a powerhouse offense. It was pretty funny to watch how the other team, when they realized they were unchallenged in the middle, just marched right through and took complete control of our base, camping both spawn doors for the entire time it took to make the last two caps.

It ruined what can be an interesting map and ruined the evening for many people, so don't be surprised if we are more forceful in our requests for kit changes next time.

BHack

Poor kit selection is the reason you'll often see teams that "look" stacked just get rolled.

I'm sure everyone understands there is actually strategy invovled with picking the correct kits for a given map and situation. This is one part of the game that suffers from not having a "commander" figure to pick kit loadouts for situations that people can then 'bid' on to play.

I'm just going to list some of my thoughts on the matter and hope that it provokes someone to consider their choice more when sitting at the class selection screen.

1. Engy's: I KNOW people are going to disagree with me on this but, hey, it's my opinion. Contrary to popular belief I believe the most useful tool the engineer has is the teleporter, not the sentry. Therefore, I find engineers much less effective on push CP maps like well and granary because of the constantly moving spawns. Engineers are also much less effective in low pop situations because any time the teleporter is charged and not being used means the engineer is being less effective.

While Sentry's are awesome, any map where you need to have any offense at all I find more than one a waste. Sure, if you are defending gravelpit or something, and can't attack at all, then yes, have 2 or 3 sentrys. In a push map like well or any CTF map where both teams can attack, the cost trade off of having multiple engineers is NOT WORTH the fact that your offense suffers so much. PLEASE keep that in mind.

Oh and one last thing - when you are the attacking team on an attack defend map, there is no reason to start the round as an engineer for the initial push. None. Setting up a sentry at the gate? Thanks, but would rather have the free uber. Got the teleporter entrance set up? Great, but we aren't going to be able to build any sort of helpful exit for at least a minute or so, rather have the free uber. You get my drift. I'm really going to start being an asshole (more than usual) about this now that it's posted on the forums.

2. Snipers: This stupid class becomes its own meta game most of the time. You are actually removed from the round of Team Fortress 2 that you are currently in, and instead, are playing a cool game of 3D whackamole with your mouse and cursor, trying to whack the mole heads of enemy players. Not to mention the the retardedness that develops from the mini battlement sniping game on 2fort.

Too many people have this as their 'goto' class. I challenge people that play this kit the most to start focusing on Medic instead. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU.

P.S. - You make the game less fun for everyone else. Thanks for that.

3. Spies: You're not helping as much as you think you are. No really, you're not. Usually you aren't working with a push or group of your teammates so everything you do in the back is totally worthless to the map objective. Anytime you do accomplish a clutch move it's incidental. There should never be more than 1 spy on a team. Stop going spy.

4. Scout: Awesome, dominating class in low pop environments. Arguably worthless in 12 on 12 spam.

5. Medic: FOR FUCKS SAKE. GO. MEDIC. ALFKJSDL:FKJSDL:F

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Secretary of Keepin it Real