If they're not, why would anyone interested in a fair fight play them? Does Baseball need to be fair? Why not give the older hockey teams bigger goalie pads? Why not let whoever won the Superbowl the previous year field an extra player?
If you want an unfair game, go for it. I want meaningful competition with stateless, equal starting positions. As soon as your game factors in pointless meta like how many hours you've played, I'm calling bullshit.
If they're not, why would anyone interested in a fair fight play them? Does Baseball need to be fair? Why not give the older hockey teams bigger goalie pads? Why not let whoever won the Superbowl the previous year field an extra player?
Nothing about sports or life is ever fair or balanced. Players who spend more time practicing already have an advantage. People who play the maps over and over again have an advantage over a noob. Baseball is not "fair" if different cities have different funding to buy players. The team that won the SuperBowl last year is "unfairly" discriminated against with the lowest pick placement in the draft.
Those of us who love RPGs are fans of this. Someone brand new to an MMO will not have the same equipment as a level X player who's been farting around the realm for a year. That's just life.
Nothing about sports or life is ever fair or balanced.
The rules of the game itself, however, are far and balanced. They're stateless, with rare exceptions (like banning of a player for violating a serious rule). Any given game of baseball has two teams starting from the exact same state with the exact same rules.
Training makes a difference. Skill makes a difference. That's' the point of a game. In a stateless version of TF2, this would also be true: the objectively better players are more likely to win.
But when you alter the rules of the game to confer unequal states to an instanced game, you've ruined that. TF2 doesn't inherently reward the players who practice more and, by virtue of that, are better. It rewards players who have completed arbitrary objectives outside of this instance with tangible advantage. It's a completely different situation, both in the theoretical realm of Game Theory and in the practical realm of reality.
I guess it has been more than a year since the last time:
1) TF2 is not a stateless game anymore. Get the fuck over it! 2) TF2 is not the game you want it to be and it hasn't ever been that. Tough for you. Get the fuck over it! 3) You people are complaining about unlockables which are trivial to unlock! 4) TF2 is still fair. Everybody has the same chance of unlocking the same additional components for the classes of their choice. Even people who have already unlocked them don't have an irreconcilable advantage because none of the unlockable weapons are strictly better (which is to mean, there is no situation where one is always better than the other) than the standard ones. 5) And this is the important one: TF2 is still FUN! It is you who are jaded and wanted to have a hardcore FPS that could probably never meet your dream standards anyway but that doesn't deteriorate from the fact that it is still an entertaining and enjoyable game for everybody who is not jaded like you!
And this is the important one: TF2 is still FUN! It is you who are jaded and wanted to have a hardcore FPS that could probably never meet your dream standards anyway but that doesn't deteriorate from the fact that it is still an entertaining and enjoyable game for everybody who is not jaded like you!
NS and NS2 are hardly old "hardcore" FPSs, but they're still awesome (or look like they will be awesome). TF2 was fun before they added states to it, despite not being terribly skill-based. They basically dumbed it down to appeal to people who are less competitive, less skilled, and less wanting actual direct competition. That's great for the people who like that sort of thing.
After all, Monopoly is still fun to people who playing with children, unable to understand the game, or enjoy wasting their time. TF2 is basically the Monopoly of the multiplayer FPS world. Rampantly successful among a certain segment of the population who don't want anything more than what it offers and are shy of games that challenge them.
I guess it has been more than a year since the last time:
3 4 and 5 are wrong.
3) It takes TIME to unlock these things. Maybe you're a college student with no life, good for you. My time is incredibly valuable. I have no time for unlocking. 4) TF2 is not fair. We have explained this repeatedly. If you don't get it, you're wrong. 5) It's fun for you, IF YOU SUCK.
No reason to pull punches or hold back. If you like this kind of game, it's probably because you just suck at games, and playing hard manly games of skill makes you go cry to your mommy.
No it isn't! Monopoly is a game that is basically entirely based on random chance. TF2 is not because there is still a certain degree of skill involved as well as tactics. Otherwise people who have been playing FPSs to the degree you have wouldn't be able to dominate the game at will as you said you can. However, the other factor that comes in here is that you essentially solved TF2 as you have solved many other games, e.g. Monopoly or a lot of other, more advanced board games. Taking Monopoly aside, would you declare that those other board games that you essentially solved were or are not fun to play?
At least those are tangible and valid complaints you have there. These complaint consists of TF2 not being skillful enough for you guys. That's ok. The problem I have is what appears to be you trying to stack it up against your imagination of what you wanted TF2 to be, rather than judging TF2 on it's own merits or lack thereof.
I'd also like to say that you are largely wrong about your estimate of which people TF2 is popular with. I have a few old friends from the CS clan whose server I used to frequent back in the day and they genuinely liked TF2 as well despite them having payed their dues to the FPS world in full, similar to you guys. They are definitely not shying away from games that challenge them. However, they can still play games for the simple fun of playing them, even if it isn't a game that absolutely challenges them.
I guess it has been more than a year since the last time:
3 4 and 5 are wrong.
3) It takes TIME to unlock these things. Maybe you're a college student with no life, good for you. My time is incredibly valuable. I have no time for unlocking. 4) TF2 is not fair. We have explained this repeatedly. If you don't get it, you're wrong. 5) It's fun for you, IF YOU SUCK.
3) You unlock the weapons while playing the game. If you can't be bothered to play the game there is simply no helping you. There is no additional time investment besides playing the game. Your complaint is ridiculous and invalid. 4) It is fair because every player has an equal chance of getting the weapons and no player is barred from obtaining them. What is so unfair about it? 5) See below.
No, we actually discussed that article in full which is where I explained to you that the complaints you and the author of this article have are completely different ones. You were complaining about the mere existence of achievements declaring them completely useless and senseless additions to video games. The author complains about the implementation of achievements but still finds them to be capable of furthering the entertainment value and playability of video games.
No reason to pull punches or hold back. If you like this kind of game, it's probably because you just suck at games, and playing hard manly games of skill makes you go cry to your mommy.
Go fuck yourself. Really? The only thing you can really add to a discussion is making unfounded ad hominem attacks, committing logical fallacies and being a dick?
You think that TF2 is slightly skillful. I can see why you think that. Here is why you are wrong.
Let's say you have a game of soccer. That's a skill game for sure. However, at the end of the game, they flip a coin. The team that wins the coin toss gets 30 goals.
Now, is the soccer still a game of skill? Yeah, maybe one team can shut out the other team 31 to 0, guaranteeing victory before the coin toss, but the fact is that in such a system, luck matters way way more than skill. It matters so much more, that the skill effectively doesn't matter at all. In TF2 there are so many stateful factors, and the skill cap is so low, that this is the exact situation. You think there is skill going on, because you are doing all sorts of things that seem skillful. The soccer players do the same thing. However, in the end, skill is really a non-factor.
Let's say you have a game of soccer. That's a skill game for sure. However, at the end of the game, they flip a coin. The team that wins the coin toss gets 30 goals.
Ludicrous hyperbole is ludicrous.
OK, tell me Scott, why are you, as a skilled player, able to dominate TF2 if skill doesn't matter in TF2?
Now, is the soccer still a game of skill? Yeah, maybe one team can shut out the other team 31 to 0, guaranteeing victory before the coin toss, but the fact is that in such a system, luck matters way way more than skill. It matters so much more, that the skill effectively doesn't matter at all. In TF2 there are so many stateful factors, and the skill cap is so low, that this is the exact situation. You think there is skill going on, because you are doing all sorts of things that seem skillful. The soccer players do the same thing. However, in the end, skill is really a non-factor.
I don't think this is a fair analogy about the situation. Could you back this up with examples of a similar occurance of luck could effect a round in TF2?
I don't think this is a fair analogy about the situation. Could you back this up with examples of a similar occurance of luck could effect a round in TF2?
I'm saying the statefulness has the same skill diluting effect as the luck.
Question to Rym and Scott: If the manager of a soccer team finds, purely by chance, a very good player and adds him to the team, does this make soccer and unfair and stateful game?
Not to take sides (I honestly just don't care), but it seems like the argument has shifted to picking apart the analogy rather than what Scott is actually saying. Scott's not saying anything about skill level in his analogy.
And not to answer for them, but
Question to Rym and Scott: If the manager of a soccer team finds, purely by chance, a very good player and adds him to the team, does this make soccer and unfair and stateful game?
No more so than being Fatality makes Quake 3 or whatever a stateful game. When they say "stateful", I'm pretty sure they mean "changes occur within the rules of the game that persist between matches", not "Every match is a brand new experiance with nothing carrying over". The state of a previous Q1/OpenArena/Monopoly/Setters of Catan game (such as who won, who had the most roads, who shot the most bullets, etc.) does not effect the state of the next game. The same cannot be said of TF2. Whether you thing that's good or bad is up to you.
Their complaint about statefulness in TF2 is about unlockable weapons, thus carrying over from one game to another. The unlockables change how players are equipped and what choices they have. However, Scott dragged up the comparison with soccer as a stateless and fair game. However, in soccer it is common that from one game to another the roster of the players change, thus possibly making a team better (but sometimes also worse) equipped to play than in the previous game. Free agents get signed, trades between teams are made, players go on and come off injuries or simply the coach making changes to the line-up. In fact, the state of the previous game may have direct affect here as well. Maybe a player gets convinced to sign based on the recent performance of the team. Injury is another obvious example. Maybe the coach opts to start a different goaltender due to recent performance of regular starter, etc.
In that regard, soccer is not really any different from TF2, yet Scott thinks soccer is a stateless and fair game and TF2 is not. To me this is a case of cognitive dissonance and also betraying the complaints Scott has about TF2. Similarly, Rym made the same analogy with hockey and baseball where in fact same things apply that do to soccer as iterated above. Both parade around organized sports as examples of stateless and fair games when they aren't stateless at all. If they don't have any complaints about these sports, why the fuck do they level those complaints about a video game?
The difference is skill is the state of the PLAYER. A player gets better or worse over time. The unlockable weapons are a state of the game. While you may not enjoy, or care about, the difference, it is a difference none-the-less.
The difference is skill is the state of the PLAYER. A player gets better or worse over time. The unlockable weapons are a state of the game. While you may not enjoy, or care about, the difference, it is a difference none-the-less.
How the fuck does this pertain to the TF2-Organized sport argument at all?
The difference is skill is the state of the PLAYER. A player gets better or worse over time. The unlockable weapons are a state of the game. While you may not enjoy, or care about, the difference, it is a difference none-the-less.
How the fuck does this pertain to the TF2-Organized sport argument at all?
Because you're getting distracted by the analogy? You're trying to argue that state-of-players = state-of-game, such that a skilled player on a team make a game stateful. However, a game is only stateful if the game has a change in the ruleset based on the outcome of at least one previous game. You're trying to introduce a human element into a "read the rules" situation. Statefulness or statelessness of a game is purely a rules thing. It has nothing to do with things that are simply intrinsic to the players. For example, I'm fairly good at game X, which is a generic stateless game of whatever kind you wish. As I play Game X, I gain skill in Game X, but I do not accrue in-game changes for my previous matches. If I start a match of Game X with my friend who's never played Game X before, we both get the same starting layout/items/etc.. It is then up to me to use the skill I've gained in Game X to make the most of the starting layout I get from Game X. I am a stateful being playing a stateless game. The GAME is stateless, but I'M stateful, because I'm capable of using previous experiences to inform my future actions (at least, if we assume for the moment that free will exists). The game doesn't give a shit if I've played 0, 10, 100, or ten million games before. I get the same starting layout as everyone else.
Next, I'm playing a game of Game Y, which is a generic stateful game of whatever kind you wish. As I play Game Y, I accrue in-game benefits based on the outcomes of previous games, as well as skill in the game. So then, if I play a game of Game Y against my friend, who's never played Game Y before, it's partially about my skill in using the starting layout/items/etc., but it's also partially about WHICH starting layout/items/etc. I choose. The game DOES give a shit if I've played 0, 10, 100, or ten million games before, because those games, or their outcomes, effects what things I get.
TL;DR: You're confusing state of players with state of game, and using the two interchangeably, when they're not interchangeable.
How the fuck does this pertain to the TF2-Organized sport argument at all?
The statefulness is a greater factor in determining victory in TF2 than skill is. It's the same as luck being a greater factor in determining victory in my soccer example.
As for teams going out and getting better players, that has two components. One component is the fact that the highly skilled player has skill within himself. It's not like it's a regular player who happens to be allowed to break the rules and use a MEGA BAT. Steroid use really messes this all up, so let's ignore it for now.
The second component is the money of the team. The Yankees have more money, therefore they can go get better players. There is no limit on the amount of money they may spend. They get better players, they win more often, thus they get more money. The cycle repeats. This is the Magic: The Gathering problem. It absolutely is not fair. I advocate for salary caps in all sports. The cap should not limit the amount of money an individual player may make. It should only limit the amount of money a team may spend on player salaries in an individual year.
The argument I'm making isn't about skill but about the fact that you people declared various sports as stateless despite the fact that the way a certain sports team is made up may change from game to game due to changing players for various reasons (trades, injury, coaching decisions, free agent signing etc.). This is directly analogous to players unlocking weapons in TF2, yet in that instance you declare that to induce a state to the game because the starting condition of the player changes when he has another weapon available. How can one be stateless and the other stateful?
And no, the conditions or mechanics on how the sports teams or tf2 players alter their starting position doesn't change the fact that in both cases their starting position may vary from game to game. (However, I do agree that all professional sports leagues should have a salary cap.)
(trades, injury, coaching decisions, free agent signing etc.). This is directly analogous to players unlocking weapons in TF2, yet in that instance you declare that to induce a state to the game because the starting condition of the player changes when he has another weapon available. How can one be stateless and the other stateful?
All teams have equal ability tro trade. All teams have coaches. All teams have equal access to free agents. There is nothing unequal about it. Older teams don't have first dibs on free agents or anything. We already discussed the issue of wealthier teams.
The only one that is problematic is injury. Injury makes a game stateful and unfair, and adds in an element of luck. However, it's a reality of life we can't avoid. The thing is, all sports do a great deal to mitigate it as a factor. All teams have trainers and injury time outs. Players on the DL can often be replaced by players brought up from the minor leagues. Attempts to purposefully cause injury and actions that are likely to cause unintentional injury are severely punished with suspensions.
Items in TF2 are purposeful and unmitigated unequal statefulness.
he argument I'm making isn't about skill but about the fact that you people declared various sports as stateless despite the fact that the way a certain sports team is made up may change from game to game due to changing players for various reasons (trades, injury, coaching decisions, free agent signing etc.). This is directly analogous to players unlocking weapons in TF2
It really isn't. You're not understanding this at all.
Consider this: what skills is a game testing? That's the core of any game: the list skills that it tests.
TF2 tests willingness to level up in addition to the other things it tests. Is that not a silly metric in a contest?
The statefulness is a greater factor in determining victory in TF2 than skill is.
Is it possible that you believe these stateful additions are the reason you are no longer dominating the game, instead of the possibility that your skills have decreased or that the average level of skill has increased in your absence?
Is it possible that you believe these stateful additions are the reason you are no longer dominating the game, instead of the possibility that your skills have decreased or that the average level of skill has increased in your absence?
No. I stopped playing because I could see clear advantages in using the equipment to which I was denied access.
All teams have equal ability tro trade. All teams have coaches. All teams have equal access to free agents. There is nothing unequal about it. Older teams don't have first dibs on free agents or anything. We already discussed the issue of wealthier teams.
Every player in TF2 has the same chance of unlocking the weapons. The analogy doesn't break here at all.
It really isn't. You're not understanding this at all.
Now that's just a silly logical fallacy. "You're wrong because you don't understand."
Regardless, again, I am not discussing the skill involved in either TF2 or sports right now, I am discussing the validity and value of stateful games. I am arguing that sports are in fact stateful because the way teams are made of may change from game to game. Thus it would refute your position that sports are stateless and transitively would refute your argument that stateless games have no value as you have already said that sports have value.
Is it possible that you believe these stateful additions are the reason you are no longer dominating the game, instead of the possibility that your skills have decreased or that the average level of skill has increased in your absence?
Possible, but incredibly unlikely. The skill cap of the game is far too low. Mainly because the speed of the game is so low, and the accuracy of the weapons is so low. This increases the importance of having more tactical options available, because dexterity alone is not enough to overcome and achieve victory.
Consider this situation. You have two organized teams, a miracle. One team clearly has more skills. They dominate in repeated games of Quake. The same teams play TF2. The team that lost Quake has fully leveled guys in TF2. The team that won Quake has nothing unlocked in TF2. In this situation, how confident are you that the team that won Quake will dominate in TF2 as well?
Every player in TF2 has the same chance of unlocking the weapons. The analogy doesn't break here at all.
This is wrong.
Now that's just a silly logical fallacy. "You're wrong because you don't understand."
The fact that your first statement is wrong is proof of your lack of understanding. You aren't wrong BECAUSE you don't understand. You are wrong, period. Therefore, you clearly do not understand.
Comments
If you want an unfair game, go for it. I want meaningful competition with stateless, equal starting positions. As soon as your game factors in pointless meta like how many hours you've played, I'm calling bullshit.
Those of us who love RPGs are fans of this. Someone brand new to an MMO will not have the same equipment as a level X player who's been farting around the realm for a year. That's just life.
Training makes a difference. Skill makes a difference. That's' the point of a game. In a stateless version of TF2, this would also be true: the objectively better players are more likely to win.
But when you alter the rules of the game to confer unequal states to an instanced game, you've ruined that. TF2 doesn't inherently reward the players who practice more and, by virtue of that, are better. It rewards players who have completed arbitrary objectives outside of this instance with tangible advantage. It's a completely different situation, both in the theoretical realm of Game Theory and in the practical realm of reality.
1) TF2 is not a stateless game anymore. Get the fuck over it!
2) TF2 is not the game you want it to be and it hasn't ever been that. Tough for you. Get the fuck over it!
3) You people are complaining about unlockables which are trivial to unlock!
4) TF2 is still fair. Everybody has the same chance of unlocking the same additional components for the classes of their choice. Even people who have already unlocked them don't have an irreconcilable advantage because none of the unlockable weapons are strictly better (which is to mean, there is no situation where one is always better than the other) than the standard ones.
5) And this is the important one: TF2 is still FUN! It is you who are jaded and wanted to have a hardcore FPS that could probably never meet your dream standards anyway but that doesn't deteriorate from the fact that it is still an entertaining and enjoyable game for everybody who is not jaded like you!
After all, Monopoly is still fun to people who playing with children, unable to understand the game, or enjoy wasting their time. TF2 is basically the Monopoly of the multiplayer FPS world. Rampantly successful among a certain segment of the population who don't want anything more than what it offers and are shy of games that challenge them.
3) It takes TIME to unlock these things. Maybe you're a college student with no life, good for you. My time is incredibly valuable. I have no time for unlocking.
4) TF2 is not fair. We have explained this repeatedly. If you don't get it, you're wrong.
5) It's fun for you, IF YOU SUCK.
I don't know, maybe you guys didn't read this article back when we linked it originally http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2009/11/awesome-by-proxy-addicted-to-fake.html
No reason to pull punches or hold back. If you like this kind of game, it's probably because you just suck at games, and playing hard manly games of skill makes you go cry to your mommy.
At least those are tangible and valid complaints you have there. These complaint consists of TF2 not being skillful enough for you guys. That's ok. The problem I have is what appears to be you trying to stack it up against your imagination of what you wanted TF2 to be, rather than judging TF2 on it's own merits or lack thereof.
I'd also like to say that you are largely wrong about your estimate of which people TF2 is popular with. I have a few old friends from the CS clan whose server I used to frequent back in the day and they genuinely liked TF2 as well despite them having payed their dues to the FPS world in full, similar to you guys. They are definitely not shying away from games that challenge them. However, they can still play games for the simple fun of playing them, even if it isn't a game that absolutely challenges them.
4) It is fair because every player has an equal chance of getting the weapons and no player is barred from obtaining them. What is so unfair about it?
5) See below. No, we actually discussed that article in full which is where I explained to you that the complaints you and the author of this article have are completely different ones. You were complaining about the mere existence of achievements declaring them completely useless and senseless additions to video games. The author complains about the implementation of achievements but still finds them to be capable of furthering the entertainment value and playability of video games.
Go fuck yourself. Really? The only thing you can really add to a discussion is making unfounded ad hominem attacks, committing logical fallacies and being a dick?
Let's say you have a game of soccer. That's a skill game for sure. However, at the end of the game, they flip a coin. The team that wins the coin toss gets 30 goals.
Now, is the soccer still a game of skill? Yeah, maybe one team can shut out the other team 31 to 0, guaranteeing victory before the coin toss, but the fact is that in such a system, luck matters way way more than skill. It matters so much more, that the skill effectively doesn't matter at all. In TF2 there are so many stateful factors, and the skill cap is so low, that this is the exact situation. You think there is skill going on, because you are doing all sorts of things that seem skillful. The soccer players do the same thing. However, in the end, skill is really a non-factor.
OK, tell me Scott, why are you, as a skilled player, able to dominate TF2 if skill doesn't matter in TF2?
And not to answer for them, but No more so than being Fatality makes Quake 3 or whatever a stateful game. When they say "stateful", I'm pretty sure they mean "changes occur within the rules of the game that persist between matches", not "Every match is a brand new experiance with nothing carrying over". The state of a previous Q1/OpenArena/Monopoly/Setters of Catan game (such as who won, who had the most roads, who shot the most bullets, etc.) does not effect the state of the next game. The same cannot be said of TF2. Whether you thing that's good or bad is up to you.
In that regard, soccer is not really any different from TF2, yet Scott thinks soccer is a stateless and fair game and TF2 is not. To me this is a case of cognitive dissonance and also betraying the complaints Scott has about TF2. Similarly, Rym made the same analogy with hockey and baseball where in fact same things apply that do to soccer as iterated above. Both parade around organized sports as examples of stateless and fair games when they aren't stateless at all. If they don't have any complaints about these sports, why the fuck do they level those complaints about a video game?
You're trying to argue that state-of-players = state-of-game, such that a skilled player on a team make a game stateful. However, a game is only stateful if the game has a change in the ruleset based on the outcome of at least one previous game. You're trying to introduce a human element into a "read the rules" situation.
Statefulness or statelessness of a game is purely a rules thing. It has nothing to do with things that are simply intrinsic to the players. For example, I'm fairly good at game X, which is a generic stateless game of whatever kind you wish. As I play Game X, I gain skill in Game X, but I do not accrue in-game changes for my previous matches. If I start a match of Game X with my friend who's never played Game X before, we both get the same starting layout/items/etc.. It is then up to me to use the skill I've gained in Game X to make the most of the starting layout I get from Game X. I am a stateful being playing a stateless game. The GAME is stateless, but I'M stateful, because I'm capable of using previous experiences to inform my future actions (at least, if we assume for the moment that free will exists). The game doesn't give a shit if I've played 0, 10, 100, or ten million games before. I get the same starting layout as everyone else.
Next, I'm playing a game of Game Y, which is a generic stateful game of whatever kind you wish. As I play Game Y, I accrue in-game benefits based on the outcomes of previous games, as well as skill in the game. So then, if I play a game of Game Y against my friend, who's never played Game Y before, it's partially about my skill in using the starting layout/items/etc., but it's also partially about WHICH starting layout/items/etc. I choose. The game DOES give a shit if I've played 0, 10, 100, or ten million games before, because those games, or their outcomes, effects what things I get.
TL;DR: You're confusing state of players with state of game, and using the two interchangeably, when they're not interchangeable.
As for teams going out and getting better players, that has two components. One component is the fact that the highly skilled player has skill within himself. It's not like it's a regular player who happens to be allowed to break the rules and use a MEGA BAT. Steroid use really messes this all up, so let's ignore it for now.
The second component is the money of the team. The Yankees have more money, therefore they can go get better players. There is no limit on the amount of money they may spend. They get better players, they win more often, thus they get more money. The cycle repeats. This is the Magic: The Gathering problem. It absolutely is not fair. I advocate for salary caps in all sports. The cap should not limit the amount of money an individual player may make. It should only limit the amount of money a team may spend on player salaries in an individual year.
The argument I'm making isn't about skill but about the fact that you people declared various sports as stateless despite the fact that the way a certain sports team is made up may change from game to game due to changing players for various reasons (trades, injury, coaching decisions, free agent signing etc.). This is directly analogous to players unlocking weapons in TF2, yet in that instance you declare that to induce a state to the game because the starting condition of the player changes when he has another weapon available. How can one be stateless and the other stateful?
And no, the conditions or mechanics on how the sports teams or tf2 players alter their starting position doesn't change the fact that in both cases their starting position may vary from game to game. (However, I do agree that all professional sports leagues should have a salary cap.)
The only one that is problematic is injury. Injury makes a game stateful and unfair, and adds in an element of luck. However, it's a reality of life we can't avoid. The thing is, all sports do a great deal to mitigate it as a factor. All teams have trainers and injury time outs. Players on the DL can often be replaced by players brought up from the minor leagues. Attempts to purposefully cause injury and actions that are likely to cause unintentional injury are severely punished with suspensions.
Items in TF2 are purposeful and unmitigated unequal statefulness.
Consider this: what skills is a game testing? That's the core of any game: the list skills that it tests.
TF2 tests willingness to level up in addition to the other things it tests. Is that not a silly metric in a contest?
Regardless, again, I am not discussing the skill involved in either TF2 or sports right now, I am discussing the validity and value of stateful games. I am arguing that sports are in fact stateful because the way teams are made of may change from game to game. Thus it would refute your position that sports are stateless and transitively would refute your argument that stateless games have no value as you have already said that sports have value.
Consider this situation. You have two organized teams, a miracle. One team clearly has more skills. They dominate in repeated games of Quake. The same teams play TF2. The team that lost Quake has fully leveled guys in TF2. The team that won Quake has nothing unlocked in TF2. In this situation, how confident are you that the team that won Quake will dominate in TF2 as well?