Talk:Community competitive play

Outline

At this point it might be good to talk about the plans for competitive articles and their scope, so here goes.

The two main purposes for the competitive articles are...

• Give new competitive players and noncompetitive public players (who understand the basics of TF2) a resource to learn about competitive dynamics and concepts, as well as some information about the scene itself. This is why there are articles on fundamentals like standard competitive format and sections on straightforward usage trends like in the class articles.
• Give all competitive players a reference for consolidated information, and general ideas for aspects of competitive play they might not be familiar with, like certain loadouts or maps. This is why there is stat collection on the class pages (which assume all settings of the standard competitive format so competitive players immediately get the accurate stats they want) and a plan for competitive-focused map articles.

What the competitive articles are not includes...

• Competitive news outlet. Current events discussions would be better relegated to a forum or news portal.
• Pub vs. comp controversy. Whether or not competitive players are really "playing the game as intended" or what have you is highly subjective at best.
• What the current TF2 strategy pages are. Articles describing strategy and tactics should be concise and based on observation of competitive trends and consensus, not individualized advice/preferences.
• A replacement of the general wiki articles. Competitive articles are meant to provide metagame and consolidation for TF2's competitive aspects. Things that are not important to competitive play specifically (like articles on specific game mechanics, like Pickups, articles on general/non-gameplay topics, like Crafting, and sections that are about lore or trivia, like on the regular class articles) should be left to general articles.

At the moment, the competitive articles are clearly unfinished, most of them being either stubs or nonexistent. Currently, my main concerns are laying down the templates, layouts, scope(s), and guidelines/policies of the competitive articles. At the moment, prose is mostly only concerning for the foundational articles like competitive play, and maybe one example article of each type to use as a figurative template for others. Some things to ponder over are...

• How detailed should strategy discussions be, and what range of strategy should be included? How common should a strat need to be to be included? How "advice"-driven should they be?
• What should be included in each article type? (types being things like "[class] (competitive), [class] weapons (competitive), and [map] (competitive)") How specific should the information be on those respective pages, and where should redundancy be tolerated or avoided?
• Which articles should be fully fleshed out first as examples for others to take from? Of the maps, the obvious choice is badlands (competitive), but I dunno about classes.
• How detailed should be be about discussing the TF2 scene itself? Should leagues have articles? Maybe an article about leagues?
• What policies/guidelines should we make to ensure that the articles stay consistent and avoid subjectivity and irrelevance?
• When ready to be presented to the general public, how should the competitive articles be integrated into the general wiki? Where should links and mergers take place?

If anyone has any thoughts on any of this feel free to share here, post on my talk page, or message me on Steam. Hopefully we can get through these articles and get them integrated into the general wiki before going into Valve Time. :) ~G-Mang (T|C) 02:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Here's some general notes for editing the competitive articles:

• Don't give advice, give information. If something is common in competitive play, you can say it's common, but don't say it's "better" or "recommended"; this is subjective, assumes a certain infallibility in the meta, and discourages innovative strategy. If your article/section is starting to look like a user guide, stop and try to revise it so that it reads more like a scientific/journalistic study.
• Talk. Whether you're going to edit or not, these articles are still in their formative stages, and have plenty of room for new suggestions, planning, and revising. You can have just as much impact--if not moreso--in discussions than page edits: the talk pages are here to stay; individual articles and their sections might not be.
• Anticipate changes. The articles are all works in progress, so revisions, article restructuring, and the like are very likely to take place. Your material may not appear in the public integrated version of the competitive articles. Current focus should be less on prose and more on foundation.
• Maintain proper writing. Don't let yourself lapse into second-person, and avoid any jargon that is not clearly defined on the wiki. A lighthearted tone is good, but your prose should maintain formal grammar and spelling.

Thanks, and happy editing. :) ~G-Mang (T|C) 03:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Old Discussion

What about the wireplay league http://tf2.wireplay.co.uk/ --mark"d"davis 13:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK the only European league that has the mainstream competitive following that CEVO, ESEA, and TWL have is ETF2L. There are a bunch of other great, less prominent leagues like STA, UGC, and wireplay, and I'll probably compile a list of leagues like that to add to the page. If you think wireplay should be added to the major league list, could you provide some third-party sources treating it as a major league? If it looks significant enough I'll probably check it out and add it. CEVO, ESEA, and TWL all have major competitive attention, especially on sites like GotFrag and Community Fortress, the hubs of NA competitive topics, and in those same discussions, whenever Euro play is mentioned, it's always been talking about ETF2L from everything I've read. No offense to wireplay or its participants. G-Mang 22:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Good stuff, just a few suggestions. I don't think we need competitive pages for every weapon as well, a few people think it's slightly confusing already having alternate versions of the class pages. Also, at some point we should clear up all the unadded competitive terminology to the glossary or give them their own pages (if there's enough to say) rather than sitting around as stubs/wanted pages forever. I was also considering the possibility of merging some of the info in these articles with their counterpart non-competitive pages and possibly merging the rest of the info in these competitive class templates with relevant articles (once the information is down) to avoid the aforementioned confusion some have voiced. This is especially since the weapon damage values on these pages appear to be up to date, creating something of a disparity with the main class pages. Please let me know your thoughts on these suggestions! --Wilsonator 16:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Wilsonator, as you can see if you look at the hotlinks in more recent edits, or from the extremely short discussion here, weapons are no longer getting their own articles. Glossary expansion would be good. For the damage values, please keep in mind that all competitive information is written and tested with tf_damage_disablespread set to 1, which will inherently give different damage ranges than their noncompetitive counterparts. The reason that the competitive articles have some of the general stats like health and movement is because the articles are meant to be consolidations of information for those classes, so some redundancy is expected (a lot of health and movement specifics are currently spread around various places). G-Mang 20:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

In which case, can the articles that have none existent links be cleaned up, as Wilsonator mentioned. I was going to put a cleanup template on them but I figured your still working on them. --Aurora (talk | contribs) 15:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The competitive articles in general are all unfinished. I wouldn't bother administering them until they're actually done. Are there any articles in particular you had in mind? G-Mang 20:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Might be worth putting a reference in linking to pick up games as a taste of competetive play ?? http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/team-fortress-2-pickups/65313-rules-overview is where i play, nb the wireplay league has over 500 registered clans and 4000+ registered players and 2300 steam group members--mark"d"davis 15:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Maps

Made some redirects. For competitive maps I recommand doing infos inside the main map article, too many articles is not something very cool. Nightbox 20:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Competitive articles are very WIP, red links are fine. Ask G-Mang if you want to help out with these. Don't connect Competitive articles to main articles, please. -The Neotank ( | Talk) 21:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, as Neotank said, we're keeping competitive stuff totally separate, at least for the time being, because everything is still under construction. Even after they're done, competitive play and pub play have such vastly different play styles that we might keep the map articles separate indefinitely. For now, if you want to add stuff to map articles, stick with the "Name (competitive)" copies. :) ~G-Mang (T|C) 21:52, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Locking

As these are still in development should we consider locking or removing links to uncreated pages as they are probably uneeded at present???--Markd 11:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Competitve play pages: Anyone here a comp player?

Because I don't see a lot of information being added to it. And it seems to just grow more and more outdated/stale as time rolls by. --Vaught 19:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and we've actually had tons of content added in the past couple months. They just haven't been to this page specifically (yet). If you're unsatisfied with the progress or see content you believe outdated, you're welcome to contribute. ~G-Mang (T|C) s 21:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

That's the thing. I'm not a competitive player, so I cannot contribute to something I've no experience in. Sure, the basics have been rolled out, but I know more could be tacked on. I can't exactly "go pro" in a few days and all that, which is why I ask others if they're in the competitive scene and could add on. --Vaught 21:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from. If you don't want to edit that's fine; I think the main thing to keep in mind is that the competitive articles are currently under development (haven't been linked to any other main articles in the wiki), so it will be a while before they're as fleshed out as they should be. In the mean time, if there are areas you think are of particular interest due to lack of clarity, important missing content, or outdated material, please feel free to speak your mind. :) ~G-Mang (T|C) s 22:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I would if I wasn't afraid of stepping on toes or giving out blatantly wrong information. Some things I'm aware of, such as competitive terminology and so on, but when it comes down to the actual competitve play, I'm about as useful as a sack of boards. I'm willing to try, but still.. --Vaught 03:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, there are more ways to contribute than adding prose. For example, starting or contributing to discussions is always good, and I'm sure many of the competitive articles could use a little copy editing for writing and consistency. ;) ~G-Mang (T|C) s 21:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose. I figured I could start up on classes that have red links. I know there is a lack of consistency on some pages, so I can toy with that. As long as it's fine with you. (I've been meaning to start up on the Pyro (competitive) page, as well as weapons, but wasn't sure if you'd like that :X )--Vaught 23:17, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I've read basically every guide, watch videos all day, and done semi-competitive, so I know a fair amount, but no one wants me on their team since all I like playing is Spy, despite excelling at Scout and Soldier during try outs. XD SilverForce 04:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup?

Personally I feel that most of this category needs cleanup or better consistency but more specifically the weapon and class pages. Why are the weapon info boxes required on the class page when there are dedicated pages providing the same infoboxes, but with more information regarding the weapons and strategies around them? I propose that the main Class articles be reserved for the application of the class, and the weapons be restricted solely to their own pages, like so:

Class page (competitive)

|-->Class_weapons_(competitive)

The class page would house all the strategies for that class, whilst the weapons page would house all the weapons. And on that note, should a Banned Weapons page be created, rather that having the information regarding the ban status of a weapon in its infobox? At the moment the infoboxes, on either the class or class weapon page, do not give any indication as to which leagues the weapon is banned in.

This would help keep the infoboxes a little cleaner, and would provide a uniform repository of sorts which could be updated without needing to mess with the individual weapon page. In addition, all the major leagues which ban a weapon could also be indicated. The layout for such a page would go:

Class (would link to competitive class page)

• Weapon (would link to competitive weapon page)

This weapon is banned in the following leagues:x y z

• Next weapon

Next class

etc.

From then on, if a weapon is (un)/banned in any league, a link would be provided in the infobox of said weapon to the Banned Weapons page stating "this weapon is banned in certain leagues, click here for more information" linking to Banned_Weapons#Weapon.

Or we could follow the style of the non-comp wiki pages by not having a separate weapons page, but then shift all the strategy to Class_strategies_(competitive).

Thoughts? I-ghost 19:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Moving the infoboxes from the class articles to the class weapons articles isn't something I'm opposed to inherently. Unless other people object we can try it. The league banlist article would also be an acceptable setup, as long as it was properly linked to. ~G-Mang (T|C) 07:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Competitive dynamics

A general outline of the basic dynamic of competitive play is needed. Though the Dynamics page introduces the idea of a roll-out, it needs to also address the hold/push/retreat style of play which is much more pronounced in competitive play as the combo moves as a unit across the map. Included in this description could be a few notes on what many teams take into account when deciding whether they should be holding or pushing, such as picks, ubercharge, positioning and hitpoints, and how controlling territory is usually more important than just chasing after individual frags. Also explained could be the idea of 'uber advantage', and how both teams usually try to keep tabs on the charge of the opponent. The overview should describe the features of a map which competitive players take into account, such as choke-points and flanking routes, and how the pace of game changes around these points (for instance, choke points often slow the game down until one team gets an advantage).

The thing is, competitive play feels and plays so differently to public play, most pub players probably don't even have any conception of what a competitive game plays like. The Competitive Dynamics page should address the differences to give a better understanding. Any more ideas of what it should include can go here, and someone could start drafting. Sketel 09:13, 2 September 2011 (PDT) Sam

TF2Lobby

How about a paragraph about or a link to TF2Lobby? It is a great way to start learn the basics of competitive play (the format 6v6 and 9v9, what classes are used, rollouts etc.), and you will experience the skill level of the competetive players.Dinkleberg 06:15, 6 February 2012 (PST)