This is another interesting discussion.
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I want to clear up any confusion with our current Class limits and try to explain why we've set the servers that way. I'll also share my own opinion. Feel free however to keep the discussion going, nothing is ever set in stone, and feedback is always very important for us to make sure the servers are always fun to play on.
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We are limiting only 1 class: the Spy. There can only be
2 spies per team when there are less than 18 players on the server. When there are 18 or more players, there can only be
3 spies per team.Donors and admins are allowed to pick Spy even if the class is "full" (this feature hasn't been tested in a while; please report if it's not working as intended).
Reason for limiting the spy class only:We've decided that the Spy is the only class that can really be overpowered when played
en masse by skilled players (and we do have a lot of very good spies on Payload).
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I don't like limiting all classes; if people want to play a particular class, they should be able to (except spy for the reason above). While the server has a pretty high skill level for a public 32 slot server, it's not supposed to be a competitive pro match. A team with 6 snipers will have a very high chance of losing if nobody switches to a class that is needed. Choosing a class depending on whether you're attacking or defending is part of the strategy in TF2. Notice the opposite team has only 1 Pyro? 3 Spies will get rid of all defenses very quickly. A team with 6 engies? A couple of demo/medic teams and the sentries are gone. Changing the team composition on the fly requires some teamwork and strategy. Heck, sometimes just going with 6 scouts to push that cart down the last capping point might be a good idea (maybe? lol).
If we force arbitrary class limits, then we're restricting strategy and gameplay, I feel. I've also noticed when the team composition is unbalanced, team members will speak out and request someone to switch from sniper to a medic for example. Does it work nicely all the time? Nope, but it doesn't have to. If a team with 6 snipers gets steamrolled, the autoscramble should kick in and make sure the teams are a bit more balanced the next time around. It's not a perfect system, obviously, but I like to have more freedom than restrictions.
Finally, when you're artificially limiting classes, there's always a high risk of having 3 bad snipers preventing that one skilled sniper to do his job, leading to a lot of frustration from both the guy trying to play sniper and his team yelling at the bad snipers to switch class.