Is Arena played competitively?

**PizzaSHARK!** · 05-04-09, 06:28 AM

I was wondering about it here at work, and I can't search gaming sites (fucking websense...) here to answer my own question. So.

Is arena played competitively? If it's not... why not?

**Captain Coors** · 05-04-09, 10:31 AM

Nope, because its the equivalent of playing a free throw competition to win a basketball game instead of the basketball game itself....its just not fun at all so it isn't played.

**shoi** · 05-04-09, 06:51 PM

my guess would be that it would be hard to motivate people to go and try to kill each other before the point became available... both teams would likely turtle before fighting for the point, at which point it basically becomes the fight for a center point on a 5 point CP map. it would be over before anything got started

**PizzaSHARK!** · 05-04-09, 11:04 PM

Except that by getting a single kill early you can make the battle for the CP much easier on your team, especially with trying to deny the other team the opportunity to score first blood. I just don't see how regular 5-point maps are more fun than arena, when a single death can completely change the rest of the round.

**kyle700** · 05-04-09, 11:25 PM

"I just don't see how regular 5-point maps are more fun than arena, when a single death can completely change the rest of the round."

It's not like public servers, I would expect. With the way pros play, it would be a very off match, since they are just good. Plus, the maps are WAY to small for even 6v6. Well, I always think of Lumberyard, so...

**PizzaSHARK!** · 05-04-09, 11:33 PM

Yeah, but if we're assuming both teams are relatively equal in skill, how does it differ from a pub or pug, other than the competitive teams will be more organized? It seems like you'd see a lot more class diversity in arena than you would in 5-point maps, too.

And yeah, I tend to use arena_lumberyard as the textbook example of an arena map since it's balanced so well.

**Hocus Pocus** · 05-04-09, 11:36 PM

because in pug or public the objective is to capture points, in arena the objective is to stay alive. therefore it would be a giant turtle fest.

**Captain Coors** · 05-04-09, 11:50 PM

Its basically replaying the battle for mid on a 5 point map over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Battle for mid is fun, but tf2 is so much more than that. Battle for mid is moving your pawn and the entire chess game is yet to be played. Yeh, I love analogies I know.