TF2: Examining Quickplay vs Casual (also, community servers)
Is Quickplay or Casual better? Should Quickplay return? Maybe Casual should be improved instead? But does that effectively turn it into Quickplay? The goal of this video is to examine Quickplay and Casual, their history, upsides and flaws, then present broad paths for the future, and additionally, suggest ways to better integrate community servers into the game.
Check the pinned comment for corrections, clarifications & additional thoughts.
Notes
I mention links being on the screen, because I planned to put them in cards. Turns out this feature is only available when you're a YouTube Partner.
Moderation on the comment section is set to "None". If your comment is deleted, that's thanks to our machine overlords.
Some screenshots are crusty, because they come from 10+ year old livestreams. It's surprisingly difficult to find old screenshots of the TF2 UI.
If you want to dig deeper, I highly recommend checking out the sources spreadsheet and reading through especially the emails, very interesting stuff.
Thanks to everyone that discussed these topics with me during my not-so-secret research. You know who you are :)
Quick links
Quickplay vs Casual feature comparison & Full update history: https://theothertored.github.io/tf2-q...
Sources (livestreams, posts, emails): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Team Comtress 2: https://teamcomtress.com
My server browser version: https://theothertored.github.io/tf2-s...
Vanilla Fortress (community server sessions): https://vanillafortress.github.io/
Section timestamps
00:00 - Intro, About me, Goals
01:32 - Brief update timeline
03:09 - Quickplay vs Casual comparison
11:03 - Skill-based matchmaking explanation
14:56 - Casual's variance reduction
16:41 - Simple Casual improvements
18:01 - Rollback (drop SBMM)
25:26 - Redesign (improve SBMM)
30:41 - Community servers
42:25 - What should be? (conclusion)
Sources
03:02 - Quickplay vs Casual feature comparison & full update history: https://theothertored.github.io/tf2-q...
05:24 - Livestreams, Steam Community and Reddit posts, emails between Valve and community server operators (from the HLDS mailing list):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
18:25 - "Play now" high ping screenshots:
Top left: https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/di...
Top right: https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/di...
Bottom left: https://redd.it/3xz71a
Bottom right: https://redd.it/3xouof
18:31 - "Show servers" 200+ ping list: https://redd.it/3c3l4l
18:39 - Quickplay Styled Gamemode Portraits mod (multi-gamemode search slide uses the original version):
https://gamebanana.com/mods/27053
22:53 - Quickplay Beta email: https://www.mail-archive.com/hlds@lis...
29:39 - Team Comtress 2: https://teamcomtress.com
32:08 - "Losing traffic since Quickplay started" email: https://www.mail-archive.com/hlds@lis...
(Note: I am aware this is a 2014 email, earlier complaints in the Google Sheet)
33:12 - "Rethinking the community quickplay ban" email: https://www.mail-archive.com/hlds@lis...
33:50 - "A look at our small community server stats since the quickplay update": https://redd.it/1wx9zu
40:19 - My server browser version: https://theothertored.github.io/tf2-s...
47:55 - Vanilla Fortress (community server sessions): https://vanillafortress.github.io/
Software & assets
Brainstorming/diagramming: diagrams.net
Scriptwriting: VSCodium
Audio processing: Voicemeeter
Audio editing: Audacity
Screen & audio recording: OBS
Slides & graphic design: Figma
Video editing: Blender
Title card screenshots: Team Fortress 2: Gold Rush :)
TGA conversion: ImageMagick
Thumbnail drawing: Krita
Font: Tahoma
Icons: Material Design Icons
Shoutouts to you for getting to the end of the description!