I'm not sure how to start this post off, so I guess I'll give some background first.

A couple of friends and I recently started a team know as Dark Matter about a month ago. We scrim every night for about two hours (sometimes a lot more), and we all find it enjoyable because we love competitive tf2.

We are especially fond of matches were it's a nice good struggle between the teams and both teams are pretty much even skill level... or to put it simple: A good even match.

Now,
With all good comes some bad I suppose, and the bad being mid/high teams "trolling" lower teams. I've heard that your supposed to play people better than you to get better, but when you come into the server saying "please go easy on us.... were a new team", it's just plain disrespectful.

It's pretty frustrating when 40% of my scrims are like this.

So what I'm proposing is, could some leaders/members of low and low/mid teams add me on steam? That way I could cut the fat of using tf2.scrim and ask for a scrim directly.

I hope this doesn't sound like a butthurt post or anything :tongue: and I apologize for any spelling errors, I'm extremely tired.

thanks.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198001910015

Added you.

Just started a team.

Not sure when I can get the guys together, but we really need someone to scrim.

Don't worry, you'll roll us. My guys, while talented, most of them have no experience at comp and my roaming and I have been giving them a crash course on 6v6.

Added for scrim purposes.

I'll start asking you when looking on friends list for a scrim.

people lie in tf2.scrim all the time and that's the main thing which frustrates me. This is why when my team is looking I usually try to find a team on my friend's list.

In fairness, I'm almost positive that it isn't actual mid/high teams getting you guys to scrim them. Mid/high teams don't really get much enjoyment out of 5-0'ing lower level teams and given that they are at a higher skill level want matches that they can learn stuff from. In all likelyhood it is mid/lowish teams or something. Occasionally mid/high pug teams will play lower level teams, but in general that is just when there is literally nobody else looking and they just want to play.

GrieVe has a good point, and that holds true in many cases, but sometimes there's just a few trolls looking to roll a match because they don't want a challenge just so they can end the match by saying "2EZ" and making the other players feel bad.

Personally I think there should be sort of a "team skill ranking", where the collective data of all the players comp. history (or maybe like their TF2Lobby profile) can be added to auto-select a skill level of that team.

Aw, too bad you are in the US I'm actually looking for some low level teams myself but I live in Europe.

In fairness, I'm almost positive that it isn't actual mid/high teams getting you guys to scrim them. Mid/high teams don't really get much enjoyment out of 5-0'ing lower level teams and given that they are at a higher skill level want matches that they can learn stuff from. In all likelyhood it is mid/lowish teams or something. Occasionally mid/high pug teams will play lower level teams, but in general that is just when there is literally nobody else looking and they just want to play.

Well I'm not the BEST judge of skill, but your right about the mid/high pug teams. Like I said, It's just disrespectful and gives off a bad image when someone comes and plays with us (with the knowledge that they are better than us) and start spamming keybinds and rubbing in our faces that their skill level is much higher than ours.

But honestly, it's the internet. I shouldn't expect any less.

As far as trash talking in game, I don't limit that to any skill group honestly, the concept of sportsmanship seems to have left gaming ages ago in all honesty.

The friends list approach is definately the best way to find even level teams, and expose holes in your game you need to fix.

What we did:

We were in the same situation starting off. So we joined as many leagues as possible during one season (so all the matches would stack in a week). We were placed in divisions suited for our level at the time and there were no mid+ teams off classing us or dumb shit like that.

TBH, that's the best way to do it right there.


Starting off, your record shouldn't matter in ANY of the leagues. Who cares if you consistently lose each week. At least you are losing to teams at your level (which means yall are doing something wrong and need to discuss things!!!).

Yeah, I'll add you as well. TMP is on my team so contacting him basically contacts me as well. We're going through some pretty major roster changes right now though since half our team's main roster left.

I'd hardly call this a butthurt post either, there are quite a few troll teams on #tf2scrim that are in the mid range that just like making their e-peens feel larger, while a challenge is good it's hardly giving you any good experience to be 5-0'd over and over. I'd look for teams where the scores will be 5-2 or 5-3, it means they're better but not to the point where you're just getting rolled.

What were you advertising as? I know my team advertises as low/mid, but there are some low/mid teams we just roll through, but then there are low/mid teams we get rolled by. Also, a 5-0 isn't that bad, if you guys won a few mid points, and maybe were close to getting last, then that is a great team to scrim. This means that you are doing something right, and just need to piece things together.

Of course, if you are just getting rolled the whole time, and aren't really getting kills, then you should scrim a lower team for sure.

Also, there are a lot of teams that will call themselves "mid" and think they are a mid team (even though they didn't even play in esea), but will only scrim low/mid teams in fear of losing to a team that is actually mid. So just try to get to know teams, maybe try and scrim the div4 teams, they are low.

Yeah, I'll add you as well. TMP is on my team so contacting him basically contacts me as well. We're going through some pretty major roster changes right now though since half our team's main roster left.

I'd hardly call this a butthurt post either, there are quite a few troll teams on #tf2scrim that are in the mid range that just like making their e-peens feel larger, while a challenge is good it's hardly giving you any good experience to be 5-0'd over and over. I'd look for teams where the scores will be 5-2 or 5-3, it means they're better but not to the point where you're just getting rolled.

I saw TMP was part of #blackout, power-mangoes ringers for us as scout a lot, great guy :biggrin:, just thought I would give a shout out :P

also, we usually advertise as low/mid or low.It just depends on who on our team is advertising. I know a lot about these mid teams that only scrim low/mid, I won't slander anyone, but I usually don't accept their requests to scrim.

Thanks for the support everyone, It got kind of ridiculous last night when we were being trolled by people making alternate nicknames on tf2.scrim and asking us to scrim. Also, thanks for being mature about all this :) I was a little weary posting this thinking I would get responses like: "umad", "get better", etc, etc. But community fortress seems to have a more "mature crowd"

To everyone that added me:
Do you think it would be better if I made a list of your steam pages on my original post for future/current low teams to refer to?

add me for low-low/mid scrims. I'm pretty tired of trolling idiots that have nothing better to do than roll un-experienced players... seriously... just today, we advertised for a low-low/mid scrim, and fucking coL. Jaeger shows up and rolls using nothing but his god damn shotgun.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197990900121

There is a HUGE gap between low to low/mid. Almost as big as mid/high to high. I feel like the only way for your team to move from low to low/mid IS to take those 5-0 beatings and stay alive, and go through a whole season of league, TWL, UGC, ESEA or CEVO.

low would be middle/low ugc teams, twl d4, MAYBE lower end d3

low/mid would be d3-lower end of d2, d2 middle starts at mid/low


imo anyway

Added

Pretty accurate description by jeeka, i always find it hilarious when div3 teams say they are mid

or when high teams say they're low/mid :>

going by TWL.

low - okay div 4 team
low/mid - playoff div 4 all the way to playoff div 3, and lower div 2 teams
mid/low - div 2, open league (ESEA and CEVO) below average
mid - good open league team, perhaps some main, basically above TWL since div 1 is dead
mid/high - playoff open season and strong main level teams
high - invite

I wish we could implement a damn Elo rating for TF2 rather than this dumb low/mid/high shit.

We would need to have all the teams play eachother otherwise the ELO is pretty meaningless, in a sense that the ELO would be set at the Invite division, another at the Main/Open and another for Amatuer, TWL would add a lot of complexity to it. But give me a few weeks...

There's no need for an ELO system, the best system is the one of the European league, ETF2L. If this could be implemented here it would solve many problems.

There's no need for an ELO system, the best system is the one of the European league, ETF2L. If this could be implemented here it would solve many problems.

Could you describe this? I'm a bit curious, I don't keep up with what the euros are doing.

Euros just have one big league with 7 different divisions, and everyone bases their skill levels off that. Obviously div 1 is the top teams (dignitas, tcm, etc) while div. 7 is teams equivalent to our low. (Actually, their division 7 teams seem to be our mid level, fucking Euros.)

Euros just have one big league with 7 different divisions, and everyone bases their skill levels off that. Obviously div 1 is the top teams (dignitas, tcm, etc) while div. 7 is teams equivalent to our low. (Actually, their division 7 teams seem to be our mid level, fucking Euros.)
The number of divisions are set by the number of teams, and their division 7 teams are just as fresh and new as ours. Really the only reason they have number of people they do is because their leagues are various countries playing together while we have two countries mingling.

*Edit*
Looking at the ETF2L site there are 6 divisions, but Division 6 has A-L

Vpolice regularly trolls for low or low/mid teams, but otherwise GrieVe is right - very strong teams rarely try to play below their level, though some mid or low/mid teams might try to find easier scrims to warm up on.

I think our very first scrim off of mIRC ended up being an ESEA-O playoff team with a lot of skill looking to warm up. This is when we FIRST started scrimming. And then suddenly, "we have a playoff match, kthxbai". I won't dare say their names... that would be terribles of me.

yea my low/mid (mid/low? who the hell knows) team has had quite a few run ins with teams troll scrimming us. we had to do like 4 or 5 against failin with vhalin before we learned our lesson. i think we played vpolice early on too. we played a pug team with kaytee and jaeger on freight too, but they were all sufficiently off classing that it was actually an interesting scrim.

Finding an evenly-matched scrim is always nice, however playing a good team that will roll you is always an excellent learning experience too. Instead of sitting there thinking, "that sucked, we suck, we got rolled, and they're trolls," think of what you could've done better. And think about what they did so well that you lost so badly, and try emulating it on your next scrim. Of course, if you get 5-6 scrims in a row where you get rolled, it is never fun.

But I find it better to roll with the punches. Leave the guaranteed close games for matches. Scrims are for practice. Go above your skill level sometimes for maximum improvement. Just make sure your team knows when you do it intentionally, so they don't get discouraged by it.

/2 coppers

I think our very first scrim off of mIRC ended up being an ESEA-O playoff team with a lot of skill looking to warm up. This is when we FIRST started scrimming. And then suddenly, "we have a playoff match, kthxbai". I won't dare say their names... that would be terribles of me.
They love trolling, we've had a similar experience with them as well. Just got rolled right up to 4-0 then they all went Engi+Spy+heavy and sat around their last taunting.

added you, hope we can scrim some time :D

Low scrims are hard to come by any more. Low/Mid scrims are becoming scarce too. Still, this is the internet and you will ultimately get trolled or find a team that is just looking for a warm up that is mid level.

All I can say is if you do get trolled don't let it bother you too much (I know easier said then done) and if it is a mid team (that isn't trolling) just set your team some goals. Things you know you need to work on. For example... Mid on badlands... Set that as your goal against a mid level team. Just to get mid. If you get it, consider the experience you gain from that. Look at what you did and then try to repeat it. You learn more when you lose than when you win.

As the great Afrocentric once said "You don't get better by scrimming bad teams".

I understand what he's talking about. I currently help out a lowish team with basic stuff that helps any team that's starting out and they have the same issue when it come's to scrims. Pin I'll add you so you I can get you in contact with them so you guy's can play each other often and what not.

For example... Mid on badlands... Set that as your goal against a mid level team. Just to get mid.

If you can't get to mid, you should probably disband 8D

low team: Team Miley
add me: http://steamcommunity.com/id/applesnbananas

Getting mid and getting to mid are two very different things.

If you can't get to mid, you should probably disband 8D

He said "get mid" not "get to mid"

get mid

I don't think there are a lot of teams that are mid and are trying to play low/mid teams just so they could roll. That would be a total waste of a scrim

Finding an evenly-matched scrim is always nice, however playing a good team that will roll you is always an excellent learning experience too. Instead of sitting there thinking, "that sucked, we suck, we got rolled, and they're trolls," think of what you could've done better. And think about what they did so well that you lost so badly, and try emulating it on your next scrim. Of course, if you get 5-6 scrims in a row where you get rolled, it is never fun.

But I find it better to roll with the punches. Leave the guaranteed close games for matches. Scrims are for practice. Go above your skill level sometimes for maximum improvement. Just make sure your team knows when you do it intentionally, so they don't get discouraged by it.

/2 coppers

If you're not learning from your losses, then you might as well not be playing at all. Then again, advertising low/mid and then playing a team that was a fucking ESEA-O playoff team is sometimes just... humiliating.

woah man im fucking dyslexic chill out

Finding an evenly-matched scrim is always nice, however playing a good team that will roll you is always an excellent learning experience too. Instead of sitting there thinking, "that sucked, we suck, we got rolled, and they're trolls," think of what you could've done better. And think about what they did so well that you lost so badly, and try emulating it on your next scrim. Of course, if you get 5-6 scrims in a row where you get rolled, it is never fun.

But I find it better to roll with the punches. Leave the guaranteed close games for matches. Scrims are for practice. Go above your skill level sometimes for maximum improvement. Just make sure your team knows when you do it intentionally, so they don't get discouraged by it.

/2 coppers

That's an issue a lot of teams have because they just think there 'bad' or try blaming issues on other they take it as 'oh there better then us we're going to get rolled' the time they step into the server. I highly recommend teams getting an auto STV recorder (http://orangad.com.ua/?page_id=4&did=6) to see what the other team did to capitalize or whatever the case may be.

Low scrims are hard to come by any more. Low/Mid scrims are becoming scarce too. Still, this is the internet and you will ultimately get trolled or find a team that is just looking for a warm up that is mid level.


It reminds me of DotA pretty much. I wanted to play it on higher level because of its complexity and varying gameplay, but I've got trolled in nine of ten rounds I've joined. Funny tho, as scrims are advertised as a ramp for new teams and play4fun teams, some of you guys still want them to be 'mid/low' from the very beginning.

[quote]some of you guys still want them to be 'mid/low' from the very beginning. [/quote

This is true, I run a low team and i nearly always take higher scrims because people tend to lie. I was absolutely appalled when we scrimmed a team that was actually at mid/low level, but to be fair this has happen... once...twice?

In my way of seeing it no matter who or how badly you get rolled, even if they are trolls, you have an opportunity to get better. You can watch their run outs and placements and how their DM is affected by their strats. You can usually figure out WHY they are better than you. Besides getting thrashed sometimes helps you start initiating the same strats faster and DM better.

Add me, I run the legumes, we're one most nights:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993511038

Hi, I'm a member of a low team, and we'd be happy to scrim against you. Contact me or my leader Renegade Replicant. My steam name is Nerdlights, and Renegades steam profile is http://steamcommunity.com/id/renegadereplicant Hope you get back to us!