Our friends over at Resupply.eu have interviewed Buffalo Bill and Up about their "pubbers in competitive TF2" experiment. Check it out:
Whose idea was this project originally, how did you get it started?
Buffalo Bill: The original idea was Up's, and he mentioned it more as
a passing thought of "hmm, I always wanted to try that".
UP: Yeah. It was really just a pipedream until I was talking to Buff about
all the misconceptions public players seem to have about competitive play.
Buffalo Bill: As we talked, we worked out who would do what and how we would do it,
and eventually all it came down to was "So, are we both actually willing to go through with this?", I think.
Buffalo Bill: He and I both agreed, and after that it was merely technicalities. Just a matter of
getting the thread started and seeing how people would respond.
UP: Since Buff is pretty well known on the Steam forums as a competitive player, he made a post there asking for
some applicants. Two days later we had a team and started the training.
Buffalo Bill: I think I'm mostly known as an elitist douchebag, tbh :p
How often do you go through tactics with the team?
UP: As often as we have enough people for it to be worth it.
Buffalo Bill: If it was up to Wildcard he'd be going through sessions with them every night. That's not really a bad thing though, they've made tremendous progress since we first got them started.
UP: I've been pretty surprised by how willing they are to go through this stuff, to be honest.
Buffalo Bill: Agreed. The first time we had the whole team together Wildcard said "a quick session to go through Granary" and we ended up in mumble and the server for 2 hours. Not a single complaint. Just questions about "What happens in situation X"?
You mentioned wildcard, which raises a question, just how many people are involved in the coaching of your team?
UP: At the moment it's just Buff, Wildcard and me, but I've tried to contact some high level players
and we've had Blame give them a load of help with comms.
Buffalo Bill: We want to get them the basics first, and a set strategy for each map first with Wildcard.
After that, we'll probably get others in for finetuning, little tricks/jumps, etc.
Buffalo Bill: Gotta say I'm also surprised at how people respond, Especially on the steam forums given how
they usually respond to anything related to competitive TF2.
UP: When they're only playing at low- level anyway, it's not really worth getting really high level players in right now, but I've actually been hoping they'll be ready for division 5 next season if the effort and commitment they're putting in right now is maintained.
So, the team is looking quite strong, it's good to hear that they're making progress!
How talented do you think the players you chose are, as individuals?
UP: It's a range of talent really. I was amazed when I first got airshot by one of our soldiers, or when our scout got a really amazing two shot on me.
Buffalo Bill: I'd say it differs from person to person. Freakshow/Dawn surprised me, they're quite decent players to begin with. Solblind, the 7th player, is quite good as well. Techyworm was not very good to begin with, but he's made major strides since then.
UP: I think one of the major faux pas on behalf of competitive players is assuming all public players can't be as skilled as 'us'. When I was discussing with the idea with some other people, I was kind of disappointed by how much prejudice they had for public players in terms of skill.
Buffalo Bill: ^ That.
UP: In my opinion, the biggest gap between a public player and a competitive player is comms and 6v6 gamesense rather than skill.
Buffalo Bill: Some people deserve every insult they get because their attitude deserves it. Ofcourse it goes both ways.
How does your players' progress in their skills show, is it more in their individual talent or their ability to cooperate with their team-mates?
Buffalo Bill: Both, although again it differs per person. Some have improved their teamwork and don't really need to work on their individual skills, others need to work on both.
UP: I'd say they've made massive strides in both, but it's their teamwork that really makes the difference in the end. Comparing the comms from their first matches where they got steamrolled to their first win is kind of amazing considering there's only about a 4 day difference.
Buffalo Bill: Their comms in the first match were for instance: "guys, I think there's a scout behind us somewhere?" Now it's more "Scout behind".
What do you think about hosting a 6v6 cup for these kind of teams only, if one was announced would you sign your team up?
Buffalo Bill: I would sign them up. A 6v6 cup for these kind of teams would be nice, but it's going to need a TON of preparation. You need servers + Mumble channels for all, at least 1 mentor for all, you need someone to deal with problems that arise etc etc. That being said, if it works it is a great way of getting people familiar with competitive TF2 without letting them get steamrolled or go in unprepared.
UP: We'd sign up without a second thought. The whole aim of this project is to try to expand not only the horizons of your average public player, but also to make competitive players consider how they would go about passing on their 6v6 wisdom. The more players that decide to mentor a team like this, the better a community we'll have, in my opinion.
Buffalo Bill: Agreed. It would close the gap between competitive and pub TF2 a lot more by letting pubbers get a feel of competitive TF2 and the competitive players.
UP: Obviously get a feel of competitive players in a non-literal sense
Twisted mind, I like it. A big amount of effort would indeed be required to make this kind of cup work, and alot of willigness from players. Do you think it would be essential to have the mentors be division 1 players, or would any kind of player cut it?
Buffalo Bill: No, not necessarily Div1.
UP: All someone really needs to do something like this is general knowledge of how 6v6 works and patience.
Buffalo Bill: An experienced player is necessary, however. We have Wildcard helping us.
Buffalo Bill: Div1 players helping however would be great. Let's face it, anybody with aspirations in competitive TF2 looks up to those guys to a certain degree. They're the biggest names, they're the best players. To have them helping you out, it creates expectations.
UP: One disadvantage of having a high level player help is that they won't consider that most people experienced in competitive play won't be able to play the same way they do, let anyone people completely new to scene, so they might throw them in at the deep end a little.
Buffalo Bill: That is something that can easily be solved though. A simple question of "what do you know of
competitive TF2? Do you know any strategies?" should suffice. But that is something to look in to and discuss when such a cup is actually organised.
If this project would aim towards hosting a cup of this kind, do you think it would require coordination from, say you two, so that you would assign players for each mentor. Or would more of a personal initiative to gather these kind of teams work?
Buffalo Bill: I don't think assigning individual players would work well. I think for a cup, it might be best to create a single massive thread for people to sign up in teams and get every team to choose their Mentor.
UP: I'd say it would be best to give mentors the option. They could gather some people themselves, or they could just apply and we would gather up as many public players as possible and assign them a mentor.
Buffalo Bill: On the other hand, that creates the trouble of people creating threads "looking for a Demo!", so perhaps getting a seperate forum for that so people can get their teams together there. Once we have the teams, we post a list of Mentors and the teams can choose the Mentor they want on a "first come, first serve" basis.
Buffalo Bill: Getting the Mentors to get their own teams could take a while though. At the very least I would be interested in seeing how this would work out. If we were to get a cup though, even if the other teams had for instance a month to train their teams I think our team would have a big advantage simply because they are already well underway in practicing.
Don't you think the "first come first serve" basis would lead to problems. Say someone like dunc is entering as a mentor, and he's possibly the greatest British player known to man, and many would want to play under him. Essentially it
would mean that the team that is first to form up is going to get the best player to mentor them, and it might cause imbalances between the teams?
Buffalo Bill: Obviously the choosing of the Mentor would only happen after a certain period of time, when enough teams are ready. For instance, you have a month to get a team together and sign up for it. During that month, the only info is "You have until date X to sign up with a team."
After that month, signups are closed and only complete teams are in. Then, the list of Mentors will be released and people will have, say, a week to pick their Mentor. After that week the remaining Mentor-less teams will get one of the remaining available Mentors assigned to them and once that's done the Mentors can get to work with training their team.
WildCard: Well I would say that yes "teams" would be more inclined to approach the more well known players as their mentors, but to be honest I don't think it would cause too much of a problem, simply randomly give a "mentor" a team or vice versa so that it is done fairly I guess.
WildCard: Biggest problem I would foresee with it is having some staked teams, ie players who although have not competed in etf2l say for example have played in many pickups and are talented enough to roll any actual newly formed teams with pub players, so would have to be some form of screening provess to make sure teams are actually made up of non-competitive players.
Buffalo Bill: But how would you check they are truly pub only?
WildCard: Get there steam ids and run them through the comp league sites to verify they dont play there etc
Buffalo Bill: Could do.
How far do you think this project goes towards bridging the gap between competitive and public players?
Buffalo Bill: Hopefully it will remove some of the misconceptions that non-competitive players have about competitive TF2. For example, some people think competitive TF2 runs only Scout/Soldier/Demo/Medic and ONLY THOSE.
WildCard: From my experience with this current crop of players buff and UP have put together it has the potential
to be huge, none of them had any experience in 6v6 play which was shown after their first match (5-0) in 6-7 mins.
Yet after a few days of going over tactics/positions and their overall teamplay + comms, they took their first win vs a
div6 team and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd expect any pub players who got involved in a similiar process would also change their views regarding competitive players and the misconceptions competitive play has.
UP: The main thing I want to do get across to public players with this project is that competitive play is fun,
rather than the chore they seem to think it is.
Buffalo Bill: As far as I'm concerned, it's already a success. Our little group of pubbers has noticed the major
difference between pub play and competitive TF2: teamwork. A lot of people think the only difference is the ego and that any pubstar can get in competitive TF2 and do well, whereas our pubbies have noticed it's the teamwork.
Buffalo Bill: And yes, work or fun. Sure, it requires quite a lot of work to get started and it still requires you to play regularly if you want to keep your team up to par but it's by no means a chore. Not if you enjoy winning/teamwork at least
Any shoutouts?
Buffalo Bill: To our pubbies for being fucking awesome for trying it and ofcourse to Wildcard for taking so much time to help them/us
UP: Shoutout to all the people thinking of trying out this idea themselves, to chelschels, EnigmatiK
and f1shface and everyone at FacePalm. (And anyone willing to help us out with mentoring add me or Buff in steam, please)
Thank you for your time and good luck to your team, hope they turn out well!
a passing thought of "hmm, I always wanted to try that".
UP: Yeah. It was really just a pipedream until I was talking to Buff about
all the misconceptions public players seem to have about competitive play.
Buffalo Bill: As we talked, we worked out who would do what and how we would do it,
and eventually all it came down to was "So, are we both actually willing to go through with this?", I think.
Buffalo Bill: He and I both agreed, and after that it was merely technicalities. Just a matter of
getting the thread started and seeing how people would respond.
UP: Since Buff is pretty well known on the Steam forums as a competitive player, he made a post there asking for
some applicants. Two days later we had a team and started the training.
Buffalo Bill: I think I'm mostly known as an elitist douchebag, tbh :p
How often do you go through tactics with the team?
UP: As often as we have enough people for it to be worth it.
Buffalo Bill: If it was up to Wildcard he'd be going through sessions with them every night. That's not really a bad thing though, they've made tremendous progress since we first got them started.
UP: I've been pretty surprised by how willing they are to go through this stuff, to be honest.
Buffalo Bill: Agreed. The first time we had the whole team together Wildcard said "a quick session to go through Granary" and we ended up in mumble and the server for 2 hours. Not a single complaint. Just questions about "What happens in situation X"?
You mentioned wildcard, which raises a question, just how many people are involved in the coaching of your team?
UP: At the moment it's just Buff, Wildcard and me, but I've tried to contact some high level players
and we've had Blame give them a load of help with comms.
Buffalo Bill: We want to get them the basics first, and a set strategy for each map first with Wildcard.
After that, we'll probably get others in for finetuning, little tricks/jumps, etc.
Buffalo Bill: Gotta say I'm also surprised at how people respond, Especially on the steam forums given how
they usually respond to anything related to competitive TF2.
UP: When they're only playing at low- level anyway, it's not really worth getting really high level players in right now, but I've actually been hoping they'll be ready for division 5 next season if the effort and commitment they're putting in right now is maintained.
So, the team is looking quite strong, it's good to hear that they're making progress!
How talented do you think the players you chose are, as individuals?
UP: It's a range of talent really. I was amazed when I first got airshot by one of our soldiers, or when our scout got a really amazing two shot on me.
Buffalo Bill: I'd say it differs from person to person. Freakshow/Dawn surprised me, they're quite decent players to begin with. Solblind, the 7th player, is quite good as well. Techyworm was not very good to begin with, but he's made major strides since then.
UP: I think one of the major faux pas on behalf of competitive players is assuming all public players can't be as skilled as 'us'. When I was discussing with the idea with some other people, I was kind of disappointed by how much prejudice they had for public players in terms of skill.
Buffalo Bill: ^ That.
UP: In my opinion, the biggest gap between a public player and a competitive player is comms and 6v6 gamesense rather than skill.
Buffalo Bill: Some people deserve every insult they get because their attitude deserves it. Ofcourse it goes both ways.
How does your players' progress in their skills show, is it more in their individual talent or their ability to cooperate with their team-mates?
Buffalo Bill: Both, although again it differs per person. Some have improved their teamwork and don't really need to work on their individual skills, others need to work on both.
UP: I'd say they've made massive strides in both, but it's their teamwork that really makes the difference in the end. Comparing the comms from their first matches where they got steamrolled to their first win is kind of amazing considering there's only about a 4 day difference.
Buffalo Bill: Their comms in the first match were for instance: "guys, I think there's a scout behind us somewhere?" Now it's more "Scout behind".
What do you think about hosting a 6v6 cup for these kind of teams only, if one was announced would you sign your team up?
Buffalo Bill: I would sign them up. A 6v6 cup for these kind of teams would be nice, but it's going to need a TON of preparation. You need servers + Mumble channels for all, at least 1 mentor for all, you need someone to deal with problems that arise etc etc. That being said, if it works it is a great way of getting people familiar with competitive TF2 without letting them get steamrolled or go in unprepared.
UP: We'd sign up without a second thought. The whole aim of this project is to try to expand not only the horizons of your average public player, but also to make competitive players consider how they would go about passing on their 6v6 wisdom. The more players that decide to mentor a team like this, the better a community we'll have, in my opinion.
Buffalo Bill: Agreed. It would close the gap between competitive and pub TF2 a lot more by letting pubbers get a feel of competitive TF2 and the competitive players.
UP: Obviously get a feel of competitive players in a non-literal sense
Twisted mind, I like it. A big amount of effort would indeed be required to make this kind of cup work, and alot of willigness from players. Do you think it would be essential to have the mentors be division 1 players, or would any kind of player cut it?
Buffalo Bill: No, not necessarily Div1.
UP: All someone really needs to do something like this is general knowledge of how 6v6 works and patience.
Buffalo Bill: An experienced player is necessary, however. We have Wildcard helping us.
Buffalo Bill: Div1 players helping however would be great. Let's face it, anybody with aspirations in competitive TF2 looks up to those guys to a certain degree. They're the biggest names, they're the best players. To have them helping you out, it creates expectations.
UP: One disadvantage of having a high level player help is that they won't consider that most people experienced in competitive play won't be able to play the same way they do, let anyone people completely new to scene, so they might throw them in at the deep end a little.
Buffalo Bill: That is something that can easily be solved though. A simple question of "what do you know of
competitive TF2? Do you know any strategies?" should suffice. But that is something to look in to and discuss when such a cup is actually organised.
If this project would aim towards hosting a cup of this kind, do you think it would require coordination from, say you two, so that you would assign players for each mentor. Or would more of a personal initiative to gather these kind of teams work?
Buffalo Bill: I don't think assigning individual players would work well. I think for a cup, it might be best to create a single massive thread for people to sign up in teams and get every team to choose their Mentor.
UP: I'd say it would be best to give mentors the option. They could gather some people themselves, or they could just apply and we would gather up as many public players as possible and assign them a mentor.
Buffalo Bill: On the other hand, that creates the trouble of people creating threads "looking for a Demo!", so perhaps getting a seperate forum for that so people can get their teams together there. Once we have the teams, we post a list of Mentors and the teams can choose the Mentor they want on a "first come, first serve" basis.
Buffalo Bill: Getting the Mentors to get their own teams could take a while though. At the very least I would be interested in seeing how this would work out. If we were to get a cup though, even if the other teams had for instance a month to train their teams I think our team would have a big advantage simply because they are already well underway in practicing.
Don't you think the "first come first serve" basis would lead to problems. Say someone like dunc is entering as a mentor, and he's possibly the greatest British player known to man, and many would want to play under him. Essentially it
would mean that the team that is first to form up is going to get the best player to mentor them, and it might cause imbalances between the teams?
Buffalo Bill: Obviously the choosing of the Mentor would only happen after a certain period of time, when enough teams are ready. For instance, you have a month to get a team together and sign up for it. During that month, the only info is "You have until date X to sign up with a team."
After that month, signups are closed and only complete teams are in. Then, the list of Mentors will be released and people will have, say, a week to pick their Mentor. After that week the remaining Mentor-less teams will get one of the remaining available Mentors assigned to them and once that's done the Mentors can get to work with training their team.
WildCard: Well I would say that yes "teams" would be more inclined to approach the more well known players as their mentors, but to be honest I don't think it would cause too much of a problem, simply randomly give a "mentor" a team or vice versa so that it is done fairly I guess.
WildCard: Biggest problem I would foresee with it is having some staked teams, ie players who although have not competed in etf2l say for example have played in many pickups and are talented enough to roll any actual newly formed teams with pub players, so would have to be some form of screening provess to make sure teams are actually made up of non-competitive players.
Buffalo Bill: But how would you check they are truly pub only?
WildCard: Get there steam ids and run them through the comp league sites to verify they dont play there etc
Buffalo Bill: Could do.
How far do you think this project goes towards bridging the gap between competitive and public players?
Buffalo Bill: Hopefully it will remove some of the misconceptions that non-competitive players have about competitive TF2. For example, some people think competitive TF2 runs only Scout/Soldier/Demo/Medic and ONLY THOSE.
WildCard: From my experience with this current crop of players buff and UP have put together it has the potential
to be huge, none of them had any experience in 6v6 play which was shown after their first match (5-0) in 6-7 mins.
Yet after a few days of going over tactics/positions and their overall teamplay + comms, they took their first win vs a
div6 team and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd expect any pub players who got involved in a similiar process would also change their views regarding competitive players and the misconceptions competitive play has.
UP: The main thing I want to do get across to public players with this project is that competitive play is fun,
rather than the chore they seem to think it is.
Buffalo Bill: As far as I'm concerned, it's already a success. Our little group of pubbers has noticed the major
difference between pub play and competitive TF2: teamwork. A lot of people think the only difference is the ego and that any pubstar can get in competitive TF2 and do well, whereas our pubbies have noticed it's the teamwork.
Buffalo Bill: And yes, work or fun. Sure, it requires quite a lot of work to get started and it still requires you to play regularly if you want to keep your team up to par but it's by no means a chore. Not if you enjoy winning/teamwork at least
Any shoutouts?
Buffalo Bill: To our pubbies for being fucking awesome for trying it and ofcourse to Wildcard for taking so much time to help them/us
UP: Shoutout to all the people thinking of trying out this idea themselves, to chelschels, EnigmatiK
and f1shface and everyone at FacePalm. (And anyone willing to help us out with mentoring add me or Buff in steam, please)
Thank you for your time and good luck to your team, hope they turn out well!
