when we had another class restriction thread recently, this was a team i had in mind when i was making my posts about not really playing as "a fun team with friends" but a team that just has an excuse to roll weaker teams for fun. i don't really see a reason a team with 4 players that have multiple top 3 placements in higher divisions is allowed to play in a lower one.

as a reminder: this team excluding playoffs (which they won 2-0 for maps in the first match so far) has only dropped 10 out of 48 rounds the entire time and not lost a single game (or map if you include playoffs). a majority of those rounds were also lost early in the season which you could attribute to getting used to their new off classes and finalizing their planned roster

In hindsight I'm really not a big fan of the decision, and it's up for debate if it's valid or not. We're seeing this across a lot of divisions actually, where players may be offclassing but the brain gap/prior experience creates a wide enough gap to be unfair (particularly playoffs adv players playing main). I assume in future seasons it will be a focus to force these teams to play the division up as it both makes the higher division stronger and the lower division more fair. I have a lot of thoughts on skill gap between divs and within the same div, which kind of goes along with this. I don't have the time right now to write something coherent and in detail to describe why restrictions are incredibly fluid and difficult to make because of this, but I may get around to it at some point.

i understand that some teams genuinely belong in lower divs when they're playing off classes as a friend team and i do see the point in keeping the rules about this kind of thing fluid so teams like that don't get fucked over but i think there comes a point where some sort of concrete numeric rule about previous placements and previous divs played should be non negotiable

https://i.imgur.com/7C1xKhX.png

new name = new team is certainly a hot take.

I would agree RGL can be kind of lax with restrictions, and egregiously inconsistent, but I don't see what's the problem here? Or how it conflicts with any rules? Killo and Fluey are scout/solly players, both restricted off scout/solly (which in effect med locks one of them). Fluey went 4-4 on demo in AM last season... Jib is a noted soldier one trick. Smile was and is a sub/roster rider right? So who cares what he plays? the guy has 586 logs and people are bitching about him being allowed to play soldier in AM? Come on.

Camper making the restrictions for his former teammates is definitely icky, admins shouldn't make decisions that effect members of their circlejerks. So I understand having concerns with the process here and I certainly share them, but I don't see the issue with the outcome here.

Definitely, this is something I mentioned with making playoffs advanced and sandbagging in main with the other admins, same I think could apply generally across the league. I think sandbagging becomes worse the more skilled players are, as when players are experienced enough, they tend to pick up other classes way quicker than normal, meaning by the end of the season they end up becoming the best or second best team (while may be effective for them to learn a new class, but certainly not fun for the people that have to play them).

My dogshit AM team that played together in IM and didn't even go positive in IM got class locked even harder than these guys did.

After S1 i got restricted from demo in AM after making playoffs (lost in quarter finals, though we were the first ranked team after week 8). The thing is I literally to this day have never played a season or even a week of demo, like ever. Not in RGL, not in the few weeks of ESEA I had, nor the few seasons of UGC, and yet after doing decent in AM on Soldier I was restricted off of a class I had never played before.

I don't know much about any of these players except Jib, but some guy earlier explains pretty well that

If you've played higher divs, you could choke half your shots on a class you don't play, but since you know what to do, you ultimately win out. Jib on demo or scout (Idk how good he is on those classes) or the other people that are off-class restricted are just diffing people in amateur. It doesn't matter if the players never played a certain class when they're checking every corner for traps, watching for bombs, pushing on ad, things that lots of teams in amateur don't know how to/are inexperienced in doing so. Especially when amateur is comprised of newer and newer teams bc RGL isn't allowing anyone with prior seasons in NC, so you have more teams who you could view as belonging in NC in terms of DM/game sense being put in ama.

setsul for RGL admin, always based

In theory, I agree with you but the reality is different for different divisions.

In NC, AM and IM, what you are saying is 100% valid and should be part of the player/class restrictions process. You can't allow them to fuck over new players by just having experience. I agree.

However, once you get into MAIN+, this changes completely and should not be much of an issue/factor when deciding on restrictions. I don't buy that anyone from MAIN+ can't factor in the experience aspect of the game. They should restrict players from classes based off the rules but you cannot ban players completely in MAIN+ because of the same reason you did in IM and below. If you are playing MAIN+ then learning and dealing with better and more experienced players is part of the deal.

That said, the rules seem difficult to make because it cannot be a blanket set for all division and players. IMO the league needs to look long and hard about these specific rules and possibly make them apply differently for each division.

keep in mind that this is the first (maybe 2nd?) season in which keeping a roster for multiple seasons has even been a feature of the rgl website

Yeah, I'm mostly speaking about NC-IM. I haven't played Main to know anything about that. For lower div players thou, it's frustrating to play with, i.e., 4 NC players, and get rolled by players who have upper div experiences. The fact that you're allowed that in the same div is just frustrating.
edit: Having different blanket rules for different divs sounds awesome if they could implement it tbh. Kind of like how they're more stringent on who plays in NC.

does this mean froyo has to disband since they won their div

The problem with tighter restrictions in main would be that people can't get experience against advanced players in scrims/matches as easily if it's harder to interact/see them. If the advanced players are off classing, it's easier to get used to their strats/tempo and stuff without getting mechanic diffed as hard, which makes it easier to catch up.

There is already a pretty big "gap" going from main to advanced in general, which can be easily observed by how few adv teams there have been recently in comparison to the number of main teams. Making this gap even larger, by making main "easier" for teams/players that aren't sandbagging will further incentivize playing main again even after a successful season.

This is honestly more of a problem with TF2 (or maybe comp games in general? idk I haven't been in any other community) where teams don't stick together, so more often than not, if people win a div, they likely won't stick together. Some will play low adv, others will go back to main on offclasses. Also, I feel like the only teams that benefit from sandbagging are high main teams, and while it's important to bridge the gap between main and advanced, by having sandbagging you also increase the gap between high main and mid-low main, as the low teams gain 0 benefit virtually from being rolled. Overall, I don't really think having sandbagging benefits high main teams enough to justify the negative effects on fairness and enjoyability of the lower divison teams.

did u forget that was an actual ruling decision that happened in the first few seasons

LOL

That's a very fair point. I think it could potentially be a good time to a least investigate the return of div 1/div 2 because as it stands, main is really congested (at one point of pre szn, I think there were more main teams than adv and im combined, though this could be wrong). The return of div 2 could potentially mean high main teams/players that want to do advanced, but don't want a zero win season (the main fear) could just play against what would ideally be mostly high main teams and some low advanced teams. Of course this could end up flopping if everyone decides they just want to win main/div 2 becomes overstaurated with div 1 teams and whatever but I think it could be worth exploring.

As i've always said, sandbagging in paid divs (sandbagging free divs is always loser behavior) only really becomes a major issue when u start giving any meaning to winning any div below adv. If u really don't want people to sandbag the first step to take is to stop giving prize pools and permanent recognition (badges etc) for winning lower divs.

By analogy, a sports player doing well in the minor leagues/collegiate level shouldn't feel accomplished because he's beating a bunch of mediocre players, he should be excited because he's got a good shot of making it to the league that matters (tho yes this analogy is obv relative to the size of the sport)

I think the biggest issue is the game sense. Players that have played in IM/Main are used to a totally different game play for scenarios such as pushing off as, sacking, etc. that’s why I feel even if those players aren’t playing their “mains” they still know wtf they are doing. Also higher level players often pug more than newer players which adds to their game sense. My AM team questioned a bunch of our player restrictions and other teams but never got anywhere. Funny fact. One of our players was restricted from solly bc he played a little in advanced invite HL. That player left and joined a new AM team 4 matches in and was allowed to play soldier. I honestly feel that if you have played high IM/Main you shouldn’t be allowed to play in AM. Why? Because your good/bettter game sense wise than most of thr division which is what happend with the team in question in this thread. I dunno why it’s fun to roll teams? TF2 is such a nuanced game that game sense and expierence really matter and should be taken into consideration more than someone’s official “main” class. If you wanna play with friends who are expierenced then play according to your expierence level.

Disagree on this, there's no reason winning NC/AM/IM/Main can't mean something especially for players with only a few seasons' experience. People know that the ADV/Invite champs matter more by definition because they're the highest divss. To use the real sports analogy, everyone knows that the World Series is the top championship of all baseball, but that doesn't mean collegiate teams can't be proud of their College World Series win or even a little league team can't be proud of their LLWS win. Of course it means a fraction of what the real World Series does but that doesn't mean it's not an accomplishment. We recognize that those levels of play are a stepping stone for less experienced players as they rise towards the highest level, just as we do with the RGL divisions.

rgl bad

part of where the analogy breaks down is a lot of stuff like little league is restricted by age. u cant go play little league when ur 27 so it sort of functions like a weight class which gives the championship at least a little credibility. in tf2 there's no real way to enforce weight or age class type stuff so people can kind of dictate how much they challenge themselves

stuff like college basketball is important cos its a huge media enterprise and the top level is very close to professional play

also do u really think anyone is really proud of their LLWS win when theyre college age+? like yea its a cool thing and its a neat story to be able to tell but no right minded adult is bragging like yea i won the LLWS

I mean yeah, if someone is still bragging about their LLWS win when they're in college or above they're a bit of a tool, and I think the same goes for RGL. Since AM winners don't get any money or special medals, anyone who sandbags in AM is doing it so they can brag for clout or just to be a dick and stomp lower level players. If someone came on here flaunting an AM win from like 5 seasons ago to prove they're good they'd probably be laughed off.

damn thats crazy, the same dude who restricted my scout (and pootis) in iM after i ended 17/29 is also sandbagging in AM immediately after...

https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Thinking_Face_Emoji-Emoji-Island.png

unlucky

https://gyazo.com/d5bd58872103cd0e283a6828e0e1cf34