I can't really speak for EU but NA pugs right now are abysmal. Everyone knows that less people are pugging in general, but the quality of pugs has also kinda gone downhill. It's just speculation but we've been missing an incentive for a long time now, and I'm not talking about faceit points or anything like that, even an ELO system would be good enough. Right now there's no weight to pugs so it's all about picking your friends or trying to inflate your stats. (Obv playing with your friends isn't bad in itself but I've seen some fatkidding atrocities in pughub over the past month or two)

pughub i beg of you please stop hosting faceit pugs and just run normal pugs

I assume I'm preaching to the choir here because people loved pugchamp, but I much prefer the web based system to FFA discord pugs for a few reasons:

• No chance of getting someone randomly selected as medic who is gonna troll because he's mad
  
• What class you signed up for is what you play
  
• More control over team balance: as a captain you can know exactly how good your draft is when everyone is assigned a class
  
• Fatkids: if a pug is above my skill level and there is competition, I'm not gonna get picked in it. That's a good thing.
  High level pugs create themselves, and then B pugs follow.

I think tf2.online would benefit a lot from seeing more FFA players trying out tf2.online, since the extra activity will mean more B pugs can start and the people playing them can improve faster when mixed with overflow from A pugs.

dont worry guys, rgl pugs are coming out soon guys.

i got unbanned quicker than rgl pugs came out theres a problem with the system

i want pugs that i, a shitty noob, can play where people are actually trying. banny faceit was the only time i got to do this

I think pugchamp style captain system is better for top level players because I’d rather wait for a high level game but rah mix system is better for lower levels so everyone can play, there isn’t usually 24 players for 2 pugs.

Also I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to force at least one person in a pug to stream since 50% of players add up from watching a pug on stream, maybe forcing them to have the site name in their stream title. I think this will help the longevity of the site after the hype dies down.

stop giving rahmed power

Summer months jul-aug-sep are always lower and there's more to do this year compared to covid infested 2020-2021, people are enjoying that while they can.

There's not many medics. This means that A pugs don't start quickly or start with non med players and that B pugs often just fizzle out because of this. Not sure how you would fix that though.

There also should be some formal rules put in place about captaining, offclassing limits (if any), communication, etc. This would enable pugs run smoother and a better experience to be created imo.

Ok kitten, rahdaddy will be taking your admin role until you learn to behave yourself

b4nny refusing to play pugchamp killed the NA pug scene don’t @ me

would be a better system if tf2online followed how the tf2pickup sites worked (first come first serve), that way you can sign up for a class and get to play said class without getting fatkidded cause you arent prem or div 1.
imo pugs are supposed to be a fun way for lower level players to get to play with some higher div players, learn something and have fun, rather than the same 12-16 prem/d1 players playing and just picking each other

first come first serve is the worst path for a pug group/website to go down and ill die on that hill
fatkids are the best way MOST ( 90 or so %) of the time and im not speaking as a high level player cuz ive been getting fatkidded all the life

Tbh it depends on what the pug group is like
Rahmix is first come first serve and to many people who rarely get picked in tf2.online, or if they just want to be in a guaranteed pug, it works for them

That's why I don't mind both pug services running together - players get a choice in how they get to pug

you say this and idk bout EU but in NA the same thing happens, everytime theres a central system ie. pugchamp/pughub when ppl dont get picked or simply dont like a group of ppl they immediately think in their retard brains to run and make a separate pug group, which results in 50 different offshoots that splinter off from the main thing, ive seen it happen too many times

it happened with pugchamp and someone making etherpugs/all the other pug groups of that era, its happening with pughub with ppl making pastapugs, hoboleaguepugs, bravo pugs, hell theres even tf2.games to compete with pugchamp which is rarely used, i think cause its not finished yet or cause ppl arent keen to it, one of the two, but ya instead of going to one central place for whatever reason or not they just go make their own pugs, like its honestly so stupid because ive been around forever and we go thru this whole cycle and all it leads to is 4-5 separate pug groups that i all stare at that ALL dont start for the longest time and ALL have 10/12 or 8/12 for hours on end

not to mention theres the fact of a majority of the ppl in this game or atleast people who have the admin power to run said pug groups just stonewalling anyone they dont like out of them cause theres sooooooooooo many ppl who dont wanna play with this person or that person or these people, like its lame

Nobody wants to medic in pughub NA because the quality of the pugs is so inconsistent. I very often volunteer med in inhouse pugs (even if there’s 12) but it’s much rarer for medic mains to volunteer in a pug that may be of dubious quality. Most of the hate for playing medic in pugs comes from playing medic in bad pugs, not from the class itself.

just out of curiosity would something like an ability to forfeit if you are down 3-0 or something like that make a significant impact to the med-enjoyers willingness to add to pugs like that? I feel like the worst part of a shit pug is that the team that's winning usually manages to take 30 minutes even if they're rolling

how much do you guys think would cost to pay the volunteers of RGL pugs to finish and release a public beta

I'm down to pay for it; or at least for some of it

One place to go to is terrible for any system, and terrible for any service. 50 offshoot tiny ones is just as bad, but we've seen the problems already with "one central place" involving something like playing comp TF2 in general. Get banned from RGL or don't like the way they run things? Too bad, they're the only ones around. You want SOME competition because it offers people choices. If RGL, ESEA, and UGC were all equally active, RGL might actually have to respond to some of their criticisms or risk people simply leaving for a better service.

If all of NA was dependent on PugHub, most of the people who play 6's TF2 would either just not pug or rarely get to pug. It would be terrible. The only reason the many teeny tiny Discord groups thing exists is because most of us lack knowledge for web-based coding to create some competition for FACEIT or TF2Lobby. If RGL pugs came out (which, based on screenshots. basically looks like PugChamp), on top of PugHub FACEIT, plus TF2Lobbies as that "third option", I don't think we would see as many offshoots as we do now where it's basically either play PugHub, play a lobby, or make your own pug group.

Obviously there would still be some, but not to the extend of, "I made my own because I'm AM and I don't get picked in PugHub" or "I made my own because I got banned from PugHub but I still want to play" or "I made my own because I'm tired of playing with <this regular> who is ALWAYS in PugHub and is very annoying". You need at least three or four major places to pug and not just one central or we run into the current problem of a lot of smaller clubhouses to solve a service problem.

thats because pugs nowadays r pretty fucking bad in the fact that niggas think its funny to go up 4 rounds and just troll on the last round turning a 10-15 min roll into a full 30 min game cause they wanna have "fun", its been too many times i want to get the fuck out of a pug and close it out then i turn and see a liberty launcher or a jumper or some retard shit

there's nothing wrong with multiple pug groups. i'd rather run inhouses 100% of the time than play a pughub because it's just way more fun
honestly jemond had the right idea when he banned all the invite players from his pug group. i think the problem indecency mentions is from noobs making their own pug group and slowly inviting better and better players to the point where they end up splitting the player base between the groups. by banning all the invite players you avoid that issue so you have pugs where the groups of people aren't always competing with each other

the last time pugs were good was 2017-18 pug champ imo at least in terms of public pugs. after that the only way pugs have been good has been private inhouses which will inherently not have many people (and have other downsides like randoming medics)

i always got an itch to pug but i have no clue how to pug

Even pugchamp right at the end (b4 website died) was pretty good. If you were newer/lower div there were always pugs starting around 5pm that had a good mix of invite players and lesser known players. They were always really chill too

bring back west coast pugs

In my experience as someone who is down to pug/mix but is a washed middie at best, most of the 'popular' places to pug that are created eventually become the same circlejerks of Top Mid to D1 players who all know one another and generally result in quite cringy pugs in general. Even these new sites just feels like PugChamp 2, with all the same upsides and downsides.

Someone said it best early on, most pugging groups start fairly accessible but over time more and more players join and it then just becomes another one of these circlejerk groups. I can only think of like two groups of in-houses I've played in where the matches have been good, even actually enjoyable, and both of them are fairly tightknit groups and not a openly public method of pugging.

Just having more players pugging is not the solution, its about having a system where people of all skill levels can find a group or community around their level where they can actually play competitive. Whether thats a formal matchmaking system like faceit, multiple smaller community pugging sites like tf2pickup, simple in-houses, or a mixture of all three. In all honesty, I'd actually be down for some more div-locked pug groups/site but I feel that in practice they would either a) suck and/or b) be dead af.

It's hard to divlock as well when some players just get better faster than others in the group. I keep my PUGs generally NC to Main with the bulk of the playerbase being AM/IM, and put emphasis on drafting evenly and exercising patience and/or willingness to teach with newer players.

Also, it's a lot of work sometimes, but closely monitoring the kind of people who get invited and how people behave during games has, I think, probably done the heavy lifting for the group's longevity and people's desire to keep playing and making friends.

We had our 1-year in April and still run regularly, so I think it's worked pretty well so far.

k so the real issue is pugchamp is dead, and faceit sucks. so we need a new site. ie tf2pug .me