CommFT-sponsored LASER BEAMS is currently the top team in ESEA-Intermediate with a 10-1 record. After winning the MGE Open Cup, the team started the ESEA season with seven straight wins and went on to claim five shutout victories during the season. LASER BEAMS' only loss was a close one to Xensity with a score of 1-2 on cp_gravelpit. At this point, the team has three more weeks of matches of regular season play on cp_standin, cp_granary, and cp_gullywash. These three weeks will be followed by playoffs where they are likely to meet Xensity again in their path to the championship game.
Since the regular season is winding down, I thought it would be good to provide everyone with an update of the team's progress and a Q&A session with the team members. Each question/answer combo below is with a different member of the team on a different topic. Press Read More to continue reading...
Graham: LASER BEAMS had a close win over the dinosaurs on koth_viaduct earlier in the season. Other than Xensity, they seem to be your biggest competition going into playoffs. What makes playing against the dinosaurs challenging and how do you and your Scout partner seanbud plan on dealing with them if you face them in the playoffs?
PYYYOUR: "Dinosaurs, formerly Pinball Wizards, was the IM favorite from day one. We were underrated and we really liked it that way. It seems that has changed though since then, sitting atop and all. Vhalin knows how to play an aggresive style of TF2 which is the most pure form of TF2. It eliminates a lot of what makes TF2 a bad game at times and lets your team all push together and win or die together. Vhalin was a large reason x6 won a few seasons ago in invite and that carries over into IM, except he does not have Harbleu, TLR, and the rest of them dorks. Seanbud has surprised everyone, except for me. This game is not about pure aim, this game is about being selfless and choosing your team over yourself. If more people realized this they wouldnt be forever in open, or stuck in an MGE server."
Graham: So, to be clear, the team has to keep vhalin under control? What's the general strategy against a team like this?
PYYYOUR: "It is less about controlling vhalin and more about controlling what follows vhalin's jumps. Well against the top teams I can generally easily understand how they are going to play and I try to educate my team on that. And from there we come with our own ideas on how to play. One of the biggest issues I had on The Experiment was that it was a team full of superstars so everyone has their own idea of how to play. I was very very very dissapointed with how we lost against mixup and it was simply because we played into their game and didn't play ours. As for The Dinosaurs, I am sure they changed something up since we last played them, so I will let you know :)"
Graham: As the team's Demoman, you have a lot of responsibilities in mid fights, in pushes, and so on. What aspects of playing Demoman are most important and what do you think new Demomen should focus on as they try to break out of Open? How, in particular, do you fit in your team's overall strategies (do you help pocket the Medic, are you aggressive, etc)?
ben: "I'd say that the single most important aspect of playing demoman is the ability to keep yourself alive. There are certainly other objectives that you have, like doing damage, area denial, etc. So to answer your first question I'd say that players in open should focus on positioning, always try to be in an area where you can't get picked easily, everything else will improve over time. Once you've got a firm understanding and are comfortable with the basics you can start to experiment with different playstyles. In regards to how I fit into my team's strategies I'd say it's different for each map that we play. Lange generally leads the team as pocket soldier on the 5 cp maps, but on CP_Standin it was a lot different, Drdonutman and I made the majority of the calls, and it worked out very well."
Graham: As a Scout, what do you think about the Bonk and the other non-vanilla Scout weapons? How do you think the Scout fares in comparison to the other classes given the unlocks available to him? What do you wish could be changed about the Scout or his relation to the other classes?
seanbud: "I think most unlocks released so far for scout have been gimmicks. The only unlock added so far that really adds much to the scout in competitive play has been Bonk. Bonk gave scouts something to do at chokepoints, against sentries, and through sticky traps. I personally liked Bonk because of this. Choke holds at granary were way less painful and you no longer just sacrificed someone getting out of gravelpit spawn. I think it was banned because it allowed the scout to get out of situations they shouldn't have, but the same could be said for gunboats or equalizer.
The others are mostly just gimmicks. Nothing that really adds to the class. Replacing the primary is tough and FaN was interesting until the knockback nerf made it useless, not to mention the fact that messing up your movement is kind of a big tradeoff. Shortstop is "ok" but I think the scattergun is still #1. Finding a hitscan weapon that's viable as a scattergun replacement is rough and unless they add a projectile weapon or lightning gun-ish weapon I don't see anything better than the scattergun popping up without being auto-banned by competitive players.
The secondary unlocks and melee unlocks are mostly gimmicks and nothing added has really been eye catching or really beneficial to scouts in comp play. I think bonk solved a lot of problems the scout faced in competitive play and would like to see it return if unlocks are left in the game. That being said I'm mostly in favor of vanilla/mostly vanilla tf2. I don't like the randomness/gimmicks that a lot of unlocks add to tf2. I'd be fine if the only unlocks allowed were Equalizer, Bonk, Charge/sword, and kritz."
Graham: As the Medic of LASER BEAMS, you have a lot on your hands keeping your teammates alive and dodging the damage coming from your enemies. This season saw the addition of cp_standin to the map rotation and this map is notoriously hectic (especially for Medics). How does LASER BEAMS play on cp_standin, what is your view of the map, and what advice could you give to fellow Medics who are playing the map?
drdonutman: "The addition of cp_standin to the rotation was a surprise because of its difference to the usual game types. As everyone else did, we tried to avoid scrimming it until we had to play it. During week 2 of the MGE Open cup we were placed against a new team that had just gotten into tf2 so we tried some pretty dumb strategies like the "chariot strat":
http://tf2demos.com/demo/1318472311/seanbuds-shitters-vs-blue-devils
http://tf2demos.com/demo/1318472195/seanbud-vs-blue-devils
As the ESEA week came along I became increasingly involved with the New Map Weekends - TF2 Pugs, which test maps that are in the prerelease stage, notably cp_standin. During those pugs the strategy that came out on top was the 'split and pinch', where you break the team apart to cap A and C then proceed to pinch B. The way we did it was send Ben and Seanbud to C, since Ben can easily sticky trap the doorway, and the rest of us would go A. Once we had both points capped we'd either push A with uber or cycle through spawn to B to ensure we got the last ~30% of uber. We used this strat with great success vs. Mayhem, beating them 5-0 in less than 20 minutes. As we prepared for our match vs. BANNED FROM EHARMONY people started to counter the 'split and pinch' by stopping one of the side caps while capping B. We tried various counters but none really worked. One in particular was backing off the point they contested, cycling through spawn to catch the people who were capping the opposite point, capping it and pushing to B. It sounded great on paper, but we just kept getting "back capped".
As for my view of the map, I like how the hectic, fast paced, and the highly strategic play style pushes the limits of the team and its main caller. The most important things on this map are for one or 2 people to be calling, everyone to be on the same page, and the medic staying alive. I also like how TF2 is finally getting new game types. Someone make a good ctf map please.
And for all my fellow Medics, whoever you are, as always, it’s just about staying alive, healing, and getting Ubers. The only specific piece of advice I can give to you is to keep moving and always have a planned route to the B spawn door when you’re fighting on B. Also, don’t be afraid to go for the Ubersaw."
Graham: Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the Equalizer and its role in competitive play. As a Soldier, what is your perspective on the Equalizer and, for that matter, the other non-vanilla Soldier weapons?
Lange: "I think that the equalizer needs to have it's damage nerfed, probably down to that of the scout's bat. The speed is okay and it gives the soldier some much-need escapability. The Euros may view it as a "get-out-of-fail free card", but I think the speed of the Equalizer is important to a more aggressive and less boring style of TF2. That said, the impact of having two 300 health soldiers at the start of every mid fight is something that really needs to be looked at. I can't say right now if it's better or worse for the metagame because I have nothing to compare it to as I don't follow European TF2.
I will concede that Gunboats + Equalizer may be giving the Soldier too many ways to escape a poor situation that he has placed himself into. IMO removing one of these unlocks would force roamers to play smarter, but making a roamer's job harder may not be a good thing. There aren't many truly talented roamers out there as it is, and giving people more reasons to not try the position could be a mistake. Plus DJC would quit (or full-time highlander pyro) if he lost either of his unlocks, and I don't want that. :]
Aside from the Equalizer and Gunboats, the only unlock I care about is The Original. I would not miss the other unlocks if they were whitelisted out."
Graham: Following up on my question to Lange, what do you think of the vanilla weapon debate (not just in terms of Soldier weapons)? On a related note, what do you think of the current European perspective on weapon bans?
dearjohncarter: "As much as I enjoy some of the unlocks we have (especially the Degreaser/Flare gun combo that morphs Pyro from an uber impediment into a behemoth), I am squarely on the side that supports Vanilla. Having played more European TF2 than American, I may have developed some sort of confirmation bias but I enjoy the Euro games I play way more than any I play in America. While there are many good aspects brought about by the two primary unlocks (Gunboats/Equalizer), such as the faster pace, the increased level of aggression and the different strategies that can come abut on a midfight, none of those things are particularly lacking in a well-played vanilla match. Every season in ESEA, there are going to be a handful of games where the servers have no connection to Steam and everyone has to play vanilla and I have yet to hear someone after a night of vanilla games start arguing that vanilla is terrible and we need to stay “cinnamon” forever. Further, the argument that using “cinnamon” unlocks opens up so many different strategies is pretty bizarre to me since nobody actually uses any unlocks to develop strategies or tactics or set plays or anything. At times, it feels like people are just arguing for unlocks on some weird, nebulous principle that restricting items is B.A.D. Outside of the Pain Train, Gunboats and Equalizer, nobody even uses unlocks in a way that yields major results or impact.
That sort of answered both parts of the question... but at the same time as I side with vanilla, Europe's unlock views and methods of argumentation are pretty bizarre in their own right. When the Original came out, the argument was that since it was an unlock there would be absolutely no exceptions made to The Vanilla Rule and that the Original would remain banned. Of course, that ignores the fact that three (and now four) exceptions to the rule already exist in the form of the Blutsauger, the Crusader's Crossbow, the Kritzkrieg and the Ubersaw. The argument has always been that the first set of Medic unlocks were the “most balanced” and had a “no negative impact on the game,” but those two clauses apply directly to the Original which is banned and will remain banned for no reason other than people furiously typing that it's an UNLOCK and UNLOCKS ARE EVIL. That exceptions are made for some things and not for others when the same criteria can apply to both confuses me. Regardless, I do support their vanilla ruleset in spite of my one complaint (I LOVE THE ORIGINAL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!)."
Graham: As manager/backup of LASER BEAMS and a caster of Quake Live events, you have a unique perspective on both TF2 and Quake Live. What do you think the competitive TF2 world could learn from the Quake Live community? What is it that has made Quake so successful with such a long history of competitive play?
nvc: "The difference between Quake and TF2 is that Quake is closer to Starcraft 2... arguably the largest eSport title right now. These games are not only easier to spectate and broadcast to the public (easier to follow), but they come with other equally important benefits too.
Regardless of how good a game may be to play, both SC2 and Quake allow, right now, for the focus to be shifted outside of game toward the players entirely, as they are but 2 single players in any given 1v1 match... regardless of the team behind them i.e. they retain individuality. It's easier to develop a following for an individual, than it is for a team. Think about it: 'Is following Team Dignitas' TF2 results in Europe since 2009 a true representation of their current lineups ability to play the game in 2011? Well no because of a) new teams entirely, b) player substitutions and c) reshuffling of team rosters... most of which is overlooked because at the end of the day, it's just the organisation that the majority ultimately care about. Do you even know who the individuals in the Dignitas lineup were in 2009, I'm not suprised because they were probably called something else... with a slightly different lineup also.
To put this all into perspective, how do you compare two teams when commentating an event in order to make an impression on your viewer, perhaps gain a fan or two. Titles like QL and SC2 allow the broadcaster to easily analyse specifics, redeveloping the idea of player history into a format that will better engage your viewerbase. A simple example is from 2x Quake Live events: Did you know Rapha lost 3-0 to Cypher at Dreamhack Winter? Well he lost the same 3 maps to Cypher at Dreamhack Winter (toxicity, aerowalk, furiousheights)... why didn't he pick the one he won at Dreamhack Summer aka Lost World? Oh yeah, because out of 10 events he's only won that map once (that last part was made up to prove my point). This is all something that must be discovered and reshaped for TF2.
To summarise, we need to find our own way of pushing this forward. Perhaps that'll start with coverage providers making sure the players are just as famous as the name behind the team, or perhaps it won't. Ultimately though, the realisation that our current player base is not going to increase is what's most important, and focusing on marketing what we already have in a positive way is the only logical step forward without cheating and getting a short term boost with a $1 million valve-sponsored TF2 tournament.
I do have my own ideas on how I'd push TF2 forward... but they ultimately require more time and effort than it's probably worth, as a hobby..."
Thanks to LASER BEAMS for answering all of these questions and I wish them good luck for the rest of the season!
