I apologize in advance if this writeup isn't very entertaining.  As expected by many, this match was a roll in favor of PaC so I'll jump straight into the details.

 

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The Mentor Program will be hosting a group mentoring led by Wanderrful (Patriot on Steam Community), this Saturday, 26 September 2009 at 8pm EST (gmt-6). The class will be over the middle fight on Badlands, especially for Soldiers and Medics. It's extremely recommended for those classes, and especially teams to check it out. The first 11 people get a spot in the server, but there will also be a STV set up, along with a Ventrilo. We want everyone to come into the Ventrilo so that people in the STV can ask questions as they want, along with the players who are already in the game. We will also have admins monitoring the Ventrilo to get rid of griefers, annoying people, and to mute those who prefer to interrupt and take over the class. We'd also ask to RSVP as soon as possible if you're interested, as again, the first 11 get a spot in the server. For more information, contact either Wanderrful or myself via PM on CommFortress or in Steam Community.

Wanderrful
Fish #641

sourcetv server ip: connect 72.5.152.148:27020
ventrilo: tx1.leetvent.com port 3798

Following up on some Medic Statistics published earlier, I've moved on to another key class, the Demoman. All demos with at least 90 minutes played in ESEA Season 4 are listed in order of their Kills per Hour as of 9/16.

The Demoman stats can be found here.

Some notes:
 - ESEA-I demos outfrag ESEA-O demos, despite dying more frequently. Open demomen are able to get more pipe kills, and rely on pipes for more of their kills.

- The top Open Demomen really dominate, and the bottom gets dominated pretty hard. Invite demos are closer together in most categories.

- Dummy caps 4 points for every cap by wo0t, who seems to enjoy running forward off non-essential points. Top fragging demos tend to stick with their team and capture.

- Demomen on weaker teams will naturally have a harder time getting kills and staying alive with weaker teammate support. Sule deserves credit for holding down 5th in Open Frags per Hour, despite having played on a team with a record of 0-8 - with most of those losses pretty heavy blowouts. On the other hand, jack_frost probably isn't doing his 5-4 team many favors.

The regular season of TWL concludes and I would like to congratulate the TWL again for a successful season. The number of dropped teams really didn’t affect any of the results and there were rarely any complaints about how the admins were handling the league. I am biased (because I’m a writer for TWL), but if it wasn’t for the cash prizes, TWL is unquestionably the best TF2 league out there right now.

Let’s not waste any more time. This is supposed to be a detailed TWL Division 1 playoff preview and I’m not going to make you guys read any more about anything else. One more thing, Michael Crabtree is a dumbass.

For the people who are still confused about how the playoffs will work, every team in Invite Division is in the playoffs, seeded from 1 to 7. And the top 5 teams in Division 1 is in, seeded 8-12. The top 4 teams in the Invite division will get the first round BYE while the 5-12^th seeds fight it out to see who gets to the second round. You can see the bracket here.

*Note: The bracket you see there is unofficial.

Now let’s talk a little bit about each team and what they will need to do to become the TWL S4 Champs.

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Hostile Faction’s Boogz is one of the most underrated players in the game. I was lucky enough to score an interview with this rising star.

UniversalSnip: To start off with, why don’t you introduce yourself?

HF`TF2|boogz: Hello! My name is Chaz. Most people know me as boogz or boogie. I play demoman for the team Hostile Faction which currently participates in ESEA Invite as well as TWL Invite.

So, a little about you and Hostile Faction... how long have you guys been together?

The team Hostile Faction has been around for around 3 months now, yet the players have been constantly changing. St. Patrick and I are now only remaining members from when the team first started. It's been unstable, but we're getting to the point of a solid roster.

It's pretty unusual to improve as much as you guys have been doing. You have a respectable 5-4 record in esea invite right now and you're often called "almost high". Have the roster changes made that harder, or is it where a lot of the improvement is coming from?

Every roster change in this team has been for the better. The newest pickups of paladin, phaser, and punisher were probably the best pickups we could ever hope for. Even though this may require us to change strats and re-learn playstyles, it still gets easier because of the increased overall experience of the team. It always helps to have players who have competed at the highest level of competitive play on the team.

Do you think the general pace of improvement in tf2 needs to increase?

Yes I do. I think that TF2 has too big of a skill gap in comp play. In this game, there are the high teams and the low teams. There are barely any teams that last long enough to improve. I think that they disband way too fast to improve at all. This is because when new teams join a league like CEVO, the experienced teams always destroy the newer ones.
One FREE level is not the way to run a league as big as CEVO. This is why I support TWL. They did a good job on separating the skill levels. In the long run, it will allow more teams to improve and work their way up the board. The pace of improvement will go up no matter what as long as teams stay together.

What do you think is the most important quality for a tf2 league right now?

No one likes to get rolled by a team so I think every TF2 league should have some way to separate skill. Also, people need to be reminded that comp play is all for the fun of it.

So TWL is definitely where it's at.

Yup. In some time, it could be one of the bigger leagues. ESEA however is a different type of game. It is a good league for the highest level of gameplay since it requires pay.

Say you’re on a mid level team. What is the best thing you can do to make competitive tf2 – the game, the community, either, both – better and healthier?

For a mid level team, just stay together no matter what. I would just keep my head held high even after being rolled by a team. I think that if they keep together and just scrim on a regular basis, they will find themselves at a higher level in no time. If every team did this, then the competitive community would be way more active and populated.

Say you’re on a high level team. Same question.

As a high level player, I wouldn't mind helping out the people willing to improve. For example, I am currently participating in the Mentor/Mentee program hosted by Community Fortress and I am helping about 4 individual players and 2 teams to get better by sharing strats, tactics, and routines.

That was my next question, actually - from the viewpoint of a mentor, how is the program coming along?

The program is going well. I enjoy helping people willing to improve. I get them in on a few scrims with high level invite players. The only thing I would recommend is for more teams to be mentored as a team rather than individual. This way, it's easier for teams to learn playstyles and strategies.

Last night I was talking to somebody you mentored, and he was very happy with what he was learning... so good reviews from both ends.

I'm very glad to hear that. :)

What do you think the most significant dangers facing the community are?

I think that many TF2 players, including me, are awaiting the release of Natural Selection 2 which is currently being worked on. TF2 I think is the only game right now that can stand up to Counter Strike and the updates need to come out sooner in my opinion if it plans to keep its players. Also, there has been much talk about whether or not comp TF2 will die or not. I don't think it would if more TF2 pubstars were introduced to competitive play.

So you consider the updates essential to competitive tf2's growth?
Or survival, even.

Yes. They are a big part of comp TF2. I'd also like to add that I think if all 9 classes were equally playable, the game would be far more interesting

Just because everyone expects me to ask this: why isn’t Paladin on your twl roster?

Actually, he is. His name on TWL is gloomer.

And now we know.
Alright, I think that about covers it... any shoutouts before you head back to the battlefield?

Thank you! I feel honored to be interviewed. It was certainly a pleasure. Shoutouts to: All HF, Drone's new team, Knights of Goku, LpG, #team, GrieVe, Low Pear (lopert), and Aaron (who talks a lot)

Thanks for a great interview!

Thank you too!

Big update today.  Peep the changelog:

Engine

• If the installation is an HLTV relay we allow clients to connect as HLTV clients even if tv_enable is set to false. A recent exploit fix made it such that we ignore the flag indicating that the client is an HLTV client if tv_enable is false, but it is possible that relays won't have this ConVar set

Additions / Changes

• Backpack improvement
  
  • Added support for 100 slots in the backpack
  • Backpack can now be sorted by type
  • Multi-selection in the backpack is now done by holding down the Ctrl key
• Alt-fire on the Sandvich now drops sandviches
  
  • A single sandvich can be dropped at a time. Dropping the sandvich removes it from the Heavy
  • A Heavy can regain his sandvich by collecting a healthkit while already being at full health
  • Eating a sandvich using the taunt method now heals a Heavy to full health
  • Dropped sandviches heal 50% of the collector's health
• Medic regen changes
  
  • Base regen amount increased from 1/sec to 3/sec
  • Regen amount increase since time of last damage decreased from 3x to 2x
  • End result of above: Old healing scaled from 1/sec to 3/sec based on time since being damaged (maxed out at 10 seconds). New healing scales from 3/sec to 6/sec
• Blutsauger
  
  • Replaced "No critical hits" negative attribute with "-2 health drained per second on wearer"
  • Health drain stacks on top of the above Medic regen changes, lowering the base regen by 2h/sec
• Added "mp_windifference" server ConVar (default to 0)
  
  • When set to X, matches will be considered won if a team gets X points ahead of the other team
• Added a "Remember the active weapon between lives" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
• Added "Disable weather effects" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
• Added "Show non-standard items on spectated player" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
  
  • If set (default), it'll show non-standard items being carried by the player you're spectating
• Tournament mode changes
  
  • New item whitelist allowing tournaments to control what items can be used by players
  • Added "item_whitelist_example.txt"
  • Added "item_show_whitelistable_definitions" command to get a list of whitelistable items
• Added Tournament mode Spectator HUD
  
  • Added "Use advanced spectator HUD in tournament mode" option to the Multiplayer->Advanced options dialog
  • Shows all the members of your team (or both if you're a spectator) at the top of the screen, along with class/health/respawn time/charge level
  • Spectator indices are now shown on the team members, and hitting the corresponding weapon selection key (slot1-slot12 commands) will spectate them
• Changed idle player check to include spectators & players who haven't chosen a team

Bug Fixes

• Fixed explosive radius detection using an axially aligned box instead of a sphere
  
  • Compensated by increasing the radius of grenades, pipes, and rockets to 50% of what they lost at the corners of the OBB
  • Grenades/Pipes radius change: 132->159
  • Rocket radius change: 121->146
  • End result of above: Explosives have had their radius reduced at some angles, and increased at others. Radius is now consistent, angles are now irrelevant
• Fixed Sniper using the reference pose if he has the Huntsman deployed when his team loses
• Fixed Spies speaking their response rules lines after killing a player as the class they were disguised as
• Fixed Medics getting MedicCallerPanels in their HUD for cloaked enemy Spies disguised as their team
• Fixed the Huntsman not firing crit arrows when the Sniper is being CritBoosted
• Fixed being able to fire the Huntsman under water if you jump into the water with the arrow charged
• Added check to prevent clients using the "firstperson" command to get out of thirdperson view while they're phasing, taunting or control stunned
• Fixed Halo glow effect not being hidden for cloak/disguised enemy Spies
• Fixed wearables not destroying their attached particles when they're removed
• Fixed several player & viewmodel simulation issues that occurred when the game was paused
• Fixed a DX8-based exploit that allowed modified particle effects to work under sv_pure 2

Community Requests

• Added the entindex() of the object being built to the "player_builtobject" game event
• Added flag to allow CTF map authors to turn off the Overtime mode when timers expire
• Added IgnitePlayer input to TFPlayer

I thought I would point out two competitive TF2 matches that will be casted this week:

Evil Geniuses vs Hostile Faction on cp_gravelpit tomorrow at 10:30 PM EST - Pwnage.tv

Point and Click vs Strickland Propane on cp_gravelpit today at 10:00 PM EST - TGBF.tv

Loaded's Jaeger was featured in a recent ubercharged.net article about competitive TF2.  Check out his tips on playing Soldier:

When doing these “long jumps” it is important to control your height so as not to take fall damage. This is a common mistake I see inexperienced competitive soldiers making.

There is also another jump which I suppose you might call a short jump. These are fast, low 27 damage rocket dashes. These are useful for catching up with your team, blocking capture points, denying health packs to enemies, accessing health packs which require a rocket jump when low on life, and chasing down a fleeing opponent.

In competition a soldier is often limited by his ability to kill before having to reload. Almost invariably you will kill someone and be rushed by an enemy scout while you’re weapons are empty. It is thus important to not overkill an enemy.

Make it a habit to use one rocket and one shotgun to kill unbuffed light classes and two rockets and a shotgun to kill unbuffed soldiers. After getting the kill with your shotgun switch back to your rocket launcher without reloading the shotgun until there is a lull in the action. A common mistake I see is for soldiers to only switch to their shotgun in desperate situations when they are caught without any rockets loaded. When switching from rocket launcher to shotgun make sure you press your key to switch to shotgun immediately after you fire your rocket, otherwise it will take too long to be able to shoot your shotgun and you might die or miss and easy kill shot while the enemy is recovering from the rocket hit.

Prefiring/spamming rockets at choke points or long range opponents is a common practice for soldiers and a good one. When doing this make sure to keep at least one rocket loaded to defend against unseen threats like scouts or spies.

Direct rockets do substantially more damage than splash rockets. When aiming at an enemy try to aim for the ground about a foot behind them. This will let you hit them directly and pop them up if you predict their movement correctly and if you miss slightly still give you good splash damage. A common mistake I see is people shooting rockets directly at the feet and allowing a mostly well-aimed rocket to fall just short of the enemy letting them get away with only splash damage taken instead of direct damage.

In general I try to fire one rocket and reload it before firing again if I’m shooting at targets that I’m not likely to immediately kill such as far away targets. You should note that a rocket finishes reloading before the animation of the reloading completes. Practice consistently firing one rocket as fast as possible after reloading it so you always have at least 3 ready for more immediate threats and opportunities.

Check out the rest of the article here: http://www.ubercharged.net/2009/09/12/competitive-tf2-part-nine-tips-and-tricks-from-the-pros/.

 

Many within the community play in #tf2.pug.na on Gamesurge.net for their TF2 pick-up-games.  If you want to check out demos of these games (or find a demo of a game that you participated in), go here: http://demos.tf2pug.org/. 

I'd also like to give a shoutout to the TF2 Log Parser.  Although it has fallen into disuse, it is very helpful if you want to analyze your scrims/matches.  Check it out here: http://www.thursday.com/tf2logger/index.php.

Superfly of Vicious Gaming has compiled some statistics on the Medics that are playing in ESEA's fourth season of TF2.  He used the built-in ESEA stat tracking system.  Check out the data here: http://www.filedropper.com/medicstats_1.

He concluded (in this GotFrag thread) with the following:

- Invite medics and open medics stay alive for almost exactly the same amount of time per life on average, but invite medics get more ubers and assists per life. Invite medics also get more assists per uber used.

- Medics with top numbers for ubers and minutes per death (more 'conservative' medics) tend to have slightly lower numbers for assists and points per minute, as well as assists per uber. (Fibby, Superfly, mikemikemich)

- Medics with top numbers in assists/points per minute, or assists per uber tend to die a little more often. Ruwin, for example, has the worst lifespan in ESEA-I, but best assists per minute.

The numbers are dependent on ESEA of course, and I think their stats have missed some rounds from a few games. 

Very interesting statistics.

You can find the Loaded match comms for the recent and intense match with EG at the bottom of this page.