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October 2025

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[Berath]

I imagine that's more-or-less the same as the ETF2L HL banned list.

I'll take a look. Then compare with the banned 6v6 list taking particular account of what's banned for pyro, heavy etc. Then we can see what we think.

The maplist looks uncontroversial but I'm speaking from a pub perspective. Some maps may be okay in themselves but what people dislike is the 4 engies at last on a payload map type scenario.

We still don't know about mini sentries. Have them or not? I still don't mind them but so many people hate them. However engie mains may be very unhappy without them. I'll have to talk to a few perhaps.

[Leftism]

Mini-Sentries are fine.

They go down with a single pill (and I think a rocket?). They're a hard counter for Scouts and seeing as WDG have quite a number of Scout mains complaints were always going to happen.

[Berath]

Yes, as a generally crap demo I find minis give easy points 'cos they don't move or do no tricky dodging stuff 

As I said it could be more that people are objecting to too many on a server rather than the weapon itself. We perhaps should be looking at class limits which we have already but I can't get them now.

[Sk1nn3d]

Mini-Sentries are fine.

They go down with a single pill (and I think a rocket?). They're a hard counter for Scouts and seeing as WDG have quite a number of Scout mains complaints were always going to happen.

AFAIK its 2 rockets.

[Jebus]

Yeah think its 2 rockets.

In terms of unlocks the question I think it is whether an ETF2L 6v6 only setup is something that might actually attract people given that I don't think there are many servers (if any) that run it. Ofc maybe there is a reason for this!

If you go with HL unlocks there are loads of servers with that and you have to then compete with them. Seeing how hard it seems to be to actually fill servers... if you can have something a bit special or different people might try it rather than trying to take traffic away from established servers.

I once ran a public HL 9v9 server with class limit 1 etc and it was really popular until the plugin broke with an update and never got updated.

If someone won't play because they can't run mini-sentries or some banned weapon well there are lots of other servers where they can including the WDG main server.

Personally I would start simple with 6v6 whitelist and then if its not working or gets stale then grow the whitelists and map pools. Seems a lost opportunity to see if there is an actual demand for a server which plays how TF2 used to be before all the updates.

[Power]

I don't mean to interrupt, but on which days will the second server be populated? As far as I can see Server 1 is still empty most of the time and I don't think it's really down to the configuration of it. Would it be better if there were two servers with what population there is split up between them?

[Leftism]

If someone won't play because they can't run mini-sentries or some banned weapon well there are lots of other servers where they can including the WDG main server.

Not sure I'd side with that. I'd agree that Soldier and Scout would be fine with a 6s whitelist. Although I have to point out:
- Pyro is useless and nobody who likes playing Pyro will join. No Degreaser, No Flare Gun, No Axtinguisher, No Homewrecker and Reserve Shooter.
- Demoknight (which is pretty fun) isn't allowed on a 6s whitelist
- No Sandvich, No GRU, No Fists of Steel - Options for Heavy are limited and look undesirable.
- No Gunslinger for Engie
- No Quick Fix for Medic
- No Jarate or Razerback for Sniper
- No Spy Watches

If people are that unlock friendly, I'm fine with going for a Vanilla+Medlocks+Whatever ETF2L throws in. Although I do think it'll get stale far quicker than having it with a HL whitelist.

[DeadlyAvenger]

Yeah, I mean to be honest, I kinda would have expected it to become a fairly scout/soldier/demo/medic heavy server anyway as those are the competitive classes and that's kinda the whole point of the server (?).

I guess the key thing to decide is what we're aiming at here:
- 'hardcore' competitive server where it's basically public etf2l/6v6 style
or
- a slightly more serious than server #1 server where it's no crits, fixed spread, more considered map choices and *some* (?) restricted weapons

Deciding on that I think will probably make a lot of the decisions clearer (i.e. if the former - probably just etf2l weapons and accept that it might not be popular for people playing other classes)

[Berath]

As part of that, it's who we're aiming to attract as well.

And of course what we want.

Power is right when he wonders about server 1 and splitting the population. I think this would be true if server 1 was busy, setting up server 2 could be a threat.

However, server 1 is only full when we decide to start it up, at least at the moment. As far as I'm concerned we'd just be looking to run server 2 on a Tuesday (I think this was the preferred day?), to start with anyway. So basically instead of jumping on to server 1 to start it, we'd be jumping on to server 2.

As Jebus said, a 6v6 setup is rare...we could start with that but bearing in mind what Lefty said...some classes are just less fun to play. Although a thwarted demoknight, for instance, could join us on Friday and could be regarded as fun but niche, what about pyro mains when the axtinguisher and degreaser have become such a part of basic play in Highlander? I still like the idea of the server being used as somewhere to trial weapons under review like quickfix in an environment closer to comp than the usual pub.

Whatever, we are talking about a server aimed at a relatively small sector of the TF2 community.

[Jebus]

I agree with Deadly with needing to decide who you are aiming at and what you are trying to achieve with the server which will decide the rest.

No matter what weapons you choose to lock some people are going to be unhappy. I think it would be interesting to go to the furthest extreme which is the 6v6 setup and see how it works - can always add. If nothing else it would offer something very different to a normal server and might attract different players. Nice way to warm up before pcws/officials or introduce players to 6v6 class setups...

You can have nights where you actively test new weapons and maps (something to post about on reddit/etf2l forums) like Quickfix that are being debated by the competitive community and see how they work.

Also I think all the classes actually would play okay. You need to consider that all the classes have items taken away, so that e.g. a sniper who doesn't have the razerback is actually not that hindered as the spy is much harder to play without the watches. Equally the spy is not that bad off in other situations because the pyro doesn't have homewrecker etc. Its all just weapon creep that Valve introduced with each update to counter the previous update.

That said HL is growing quickly and more suited to a 24 man server. Plus with possible Valve support for some sort of competitive system within the game it might be popular.

I do kinda feel that there are so few weapons that are banned in HL you could argue you might as well just allow the lot and just run a no crit server (like HH). In which case why split the server traffic and instead look to just adding a crit vote plugin/or run a no crit setup on another night (I dunno if this would damage quickplay rating).

[Power]

I think before you discuss the unlocks you should settle on the slot numbers. Is this supposed to be a 6vs6 server with just 12 slots? Because if you leave the teams as they are and go with the standard etf2l whitelist, then what about class limits? Do you want to have 6 scouts per team? Another 4 demomen and 2 medics?

I'm really not sure what it is supposed to be at this point. The ETF2L whitelist restricts weapons, because they would be wildly unbalanced at LOW player numbers. If you aren't going with 6vs6 I doubt there is any point in actually enforcing a whitelist as it would just make the server a normal server with a lot less weapons to choose from.

Basically keep team size the same = just install a nocrit vote on server 1 again
Make teams 6v6 = keep the whitelist, maybe modify it for weapons that are definately wanted by the community (but there are some classes almost never used in comp for a reason and that is NOT the whitelist)
Anything in between I can't see working as with a whitelist you will just keep getting multiple copies of the classes that are typically utilized in comp and without a whitelist you just get the same as server 1 with no crits.

Highlander setup might work, but I think it's hard to join a random server with classlimit one and find just the class that you enjoy playing right away. Highlander is usually set up before the game so everyone knows what class to go for.

Basically I don't see the need of the second server, this sounds to me more like a special event on server 1 (same ip, keeps people coming back).

[Berath]

That crossed my mind, just have a special weekly event on server 1. That way people could keep the ip

But I'm not sure about what it might do to our Quickplay rating.

Server slots.....not 12. We were thinking of a 12v12 (or 10v10) server but yes, class limits. And I think less weapons is the attraction....certainly for me....I can't stand half the weapons you find on a standard pub server.

And yeah, I don't like the idea of a highlander set up - I couldn't play on it as most of the times the only classes free would be ones I have no idea about.

I think the attraction of server 2, is that it means it will be used for something in a relatively painfree way. I think that is one of the reasons we could try something pretty radical. Server 1 for playing safe, Server 2 for cutting edge. We'd have the option of running further nights if we wanted.

[DeadlyAvenger]

Player numbers: It's a public server so it wouldn't be 12 slots. The server currently has 20 slots so we'd probably start off with that.

I don't think highlander classlimits would work - I think it was more a question of using the highlander whitelist as it is less restrictive than the 6v6 one.

Basically I don't see the need of the second server, this sounds to me more like a special event on server 1 (same ip, keeps people coming back).

Switching in and out of configs / settings etc. tends to be a pain as it's a manual thing so I'd be reluctant to use Server #1 for it. Also - as Server #1 is our main server, if we ever did get to the stage where people would join it from empty and populate it again we'd generally want it to be available and running the 'standard' configuration. If we started running different configurations on #1 then it wouldn't be "well I know what to expect on Server #1 so I'll go there" etc. The other advantage to running it on Server #2 is that if it proves popular - maybe it'll tick over by itself or people will join on other nights.

The thing about the 'Tuesday night' is that this is the night that WDG will make an effort to populate it - just like Friday we try to populate Server #1 and any other weekly events etc.

I'm kind of inclined to agree with Jebus - I think it would be good to try a server that's almost 'as competitive as can be given player numbers' and then we can moderate/adjust that as necessary . That'll hopefully provide something that really differentiates.

It's not so much our quickplay rating that would be affected - things like turning off crits just turns off quickplay which means we wouldn't receive any traffic from it - I don't think it would actually affect our rating (which is affected by server popularity, busyness, time people are connected for etc.).

[DeadlyAvenger]

Hi all, just an update on this from me... I have now started making configuration changes to Server #2 to kind of suit the kind of thing we're aiming at here.

Map Rotation
cp_gullywash_final1
cp_granary
cp_snakewater
cp_process_final
cp_badlands
cp_gravelpit
koth_pro_viaduct_rc4
koth_lakeside_final
pl_barnblitz_pro4

Config

// ETF2L Style Config
mp_allowspectators 1
mp_bonusroundtime 0
mp_disable_respawn_times 0
mp_fadetoblack 0
mp_footsteps 1
mp_forcecamera 1
mp_fraglimit 0
mp_idledealmethod 0
mp_match_end_at_timelimit 1
mp_respawnwavetime 10.0
mp_stalemate_enable 0
mp_teams_unbalance_limit 0

sv_allow_votes 0
sv_allow_wait_command 0
sv_alltalk 0
sv_cheats 0
sv_client_max_interp_ratio 5
sv_client_min_interp_ratio 1
sv_client_predict 1
sv_consistency 1
sv_gravity 800
sv_pure 2
sv_pure_kick_clients 1
sv_restrict_aspect_ratio_fov 0
sv_timeout 10

tf_arena_first_blood 0
tf_avoidteammates_pushaway 0
tf_clamp_airducks 1
tf_ctf_bonus_time 0
tf_damage_disablespread 1
tf_flag_caps_per_round 0
tf_teamtalk 1
tf_tournament_hide_domination_icons 1
tf_use_fixed_weaponspreads 1
tf_weapon_criticals 0

In short: no crits, fixed weapon spread and most of the rest of the etf2l config (except mp_tournament mode)

Map Specific Config
CP
maxrounds 0, timelimit 30, windifference 5, winlimit 0

PL/Gravelpit
maxrounds 2, timelimit 0, windifference 0, winlimit 0

CTF
maxrounds 0, timelimit 10, windifference 0, winlimit 5

KOTH
maxrounds 0, timelimit 0, windifference 0, winlimit 3

Classlimits
Demo, Engi, Heavy, Medic, Sniper, Spy: 2
Soldier, Scout, Pyro: 4

Item Restrictions
ETF2L 6v6 Whitelist (although absolutely happy to discuss/consider this further... the ESEA 6v6 whitelist, for example, is a lot less restrictive than the etf2l one but not quite as lax as the ETF2L highlander whitelist)

Plugins
- RTV, Nominations, Mapvotes etc.
- Scramble plugin
- afk_manager
- high ping kick
- advertisements

Note: This is just an initial config so that *some* progress has been made on this - I've tried to take advice from the various people that have commented so far so we can give this a go and see how it goes! I think the server is currently a private server so I'll see about getting it made public. At the moment, the password is the same.

[Berath]

Excellente!

I'll give it a try out