Idk how others felt about it, but (Invite)S12 stage 2 should not have been a bo3, it felt like too much.

Possibly an unpopular opinion. But, it may be time for RGL to combine divisions if the team numbers will remain low. I remember talking to Scream about the expectations of the divisions being larger due to it being Summer but it was quite the opposite of that. The problem with Amateur/Newcomer is that the team numbers are always extremely healthy but teams never survive past that single Amateur or Newcomer season. Most play their season and then disband the team. If anyone can find the statistics of number of teams transitioning from AM > IM in a given season, that could inform RGL's future decision making. There has to be more done to encourage newer players to want to move up from 1 match a week to 2 matches a week.

I can't speak much about the Advanced issue. But, it feels as though the ownership changes have disorganized the league heavily. Also, the public outbursts of the admins in the forum showing that there are multiple disagreements between staff and ownership. That indicated there are a large amount of internal issues that RGL has to figure out before they fix anything else. However, not giving players a set playoffs format is a huge blunder. Hopefully they can put it behind them and do better from now on.

I've thought for a while now that the 3 paid divisions of IM, Main, and Advanced should be combined into two divisions
Newcomer is the introductory division with heavy restrictions to foster a newbie-friendly environment
Amateur is an unpaid division for those who have progressed past Newcomer
Invite is the div that you have to earn your spot in and cant just join
IM, Main, and Adv however all fill the same role of being paid divisions that anyone can play in, just with varying degrees of skill. It doesn't really mess with too much to crunch them into two divs

I'm sure there's still conversation to be had about class restrictions in Advanced also. I know people get tired of sandbag invite teams but the division has felt kind of weak lately.

good for the viewers and broadcast teams, not so much for the players imo

main issues I experience (my opinion)
- playing season after season feels like such a burden time wise
- seasons decrease in value as they go on (they become less important)
- feels like they've been the same for a while now (stale)

might just be me losing interest/prioritizing other stuff but thats what I've gathered from my friend group/people I talk to

Fix main.

I thought for awhile now that AM+IM and Main+Advanced should go from four divs to two divs. It feels like in those divs there is always one team reigning supreme because there isn't a lot of challenging competition. Often when that team moves up a div, they struggle to place in the middle of that div. Having a wider pool of teams to play against would very gradually improve a lot of people's skill instead of this current situation where the skill gap between IM and Main or Main and Advanced feels huge. I think a lot of people run into that scenario as the season progresses where their team is getting better and there's only two or three teams worth scrimming at that point. Even just improving that number to six or seven teams worth scrimming could make things feel less stale in the long run.

Newcomer (Unpaid)
Intermediate (I don't know if this should be paid or if that would chase away newbie move-ups. Maybe a lower price, but there's more teams, so it evens out?)
Advanced (Paid)
Invite (Paid)

Something else that needs to be mentioned is the fact that for the past 3 or 4 seasons, there has been a very delayed map pool announcement. The most notification about which maps are in the rotation that I can remember was a week before the first match, while this past season I'm pretty sure we only had confirmation about the map pool the weekend right before the first match, so around 2-3 days before.

I think that we should know the map pool at least a month before the season begins, especially for Advanced if we want to continue having pick/bans during the regular season. Most good preparation is going to be pre season while when the season starts you're just refining your teams map strats and plays, and now because we didn't know [volatile map #3] was going to be in the map pool, now we have to try and fit in practicing that map and ultimately deciding to just perma ban it for the rest of the season, which is pretty much what happens with most advanced teams.

I'm not sure how RGL would like to fit that time in, maybe right after map pool surveys or some time after, but I do know that this is a change that really needs to happen.

From an observer, Vet players leaving the scene is natural and unavoidable. Combining divs would probably help create more competitive teams, but the fact of the matter is that (for lower divs) there isn't anything to aide new players in moving up unless they search for it.
Without a continuous cycle of fresh meat moving through divs, you'll inevitably just have superteams shitstomping their competition for a season because hardstuck main/im players can't challenge them (could be apart of the reason IM+ players quit).

it doesn't seem like an issue of new players not being interested in 6s. Like you've said, RGL has done a lot to push 6s towards a wider audience. Issue seems to be just that the commitment to take your skill to the next level is insanely high for a ""dead"" game.

NC is a joke div comprised partially of sandbaggers, and does a mediocre job at teaching players the format.
I see a lot of interested players lose motivation here simply because the shock of dealing with so much new information can feel overwhelming.
AM is somewhat the same way (probably with even more sandbaggers (the current top team in AM literally has multiple AM finalists and intermediate players)), but I believe that it's partially people looking to make a permanent move to IM and partially people who could play IM but aren't confident enough to foot the bill for league fees.

One can make the argument that YouTube is free and you can ask a mentor, but there is literally no way new players will instinctively know how to schedule scrims or review maps. Consulting YouTube videos that are almost 10 years old is ridiculous, and finding information on newer maps such as bagel and sultry is stupidly difficult. Newbies are expected to learn all of this by themselves, and with the addition of practicing with no signs of improvement and learning through a trial by fire, it can be very demotivating.

Overall, my tldr is just help newbies better.
It should be obvious but there's no way to get more players into higher divs without teaching them how to get there in the first place. RGL already did the hard part which was getting them interested in competitive now just get them gud. Obviously some players will quit/fester in low divs, but at least they'll have a positive experience with the league and be confident with recommending it to prospective players.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong about anything. I don't really play competitive tf2 so my opinions aren't entirely based in truth, but this is what I've gathered from watching the league. I know RGL has made somewhat of an effort to reach out to baby players (such as partnering with tf2cc), but I feel like leagues and players could always do more.

More old players are leaving now than in the past, as in the rate of people leaving is faster. Your point about new players is true but my point is that as it stands it feels like so many resources are pooring into making the newbie experience better and easier, with the idea that this new blood will then climb the ranks etc. The issue is though the upper divs are just suffering, and expecting people to be contesting froyo or something a year after getting into 6s is super unreasonable.

More resources should be put towards finding what higher div players actually want out of the game and things that could make people want to keep playing. In your post you mentioned IM+ even has problems. The game will not be sustainable if it's dedicated to new players who don't want to pay, and the people who are fine to pay for higher divs feel like they're being ignored/the divs mean less and less, and people keep leaving. The cycle rgl is going for in get new players that will eventually make invite is fine, but neglects current adv/invite has been on the decline in # of players and "actual competition" for years now. Once the new players are good enough to play at higher divs, why would they? Higher divs require a much more significant time commitment than lower divs, and the experience feels like it's a second thought or something so frequently. I get invite gets more casted matches, but past that, what is there?

Rgl doesn't necessarily need to incentivize people to play higher divs- I don't think something like higher prize pools or something will fix this. If people don't want to play they won't. I just think the people who do want to play shouldn't feel like it's an uphill battle to do anything, as there are so many unnecessary annoyances or constantly mentioned problems, like not knowing map pool, experimental/no playoffs format, season too long for most people etc. just to name some of the issues that were brought up in this thread.

Rgl is acting too afraid to really make the changes people want. Rather than make people play higher divs, I don't know why there isn't more incentive to have teams live season to season, which lets us finally move away from this 2 month reg szn format. If a team will live, it doesn't care about shorter formats, and if a team will die, I'm sure some people wouldn't mind being released from their teams a week or 2 early. More living teams will also actually lead to more teams in higher divs, instead of the constant decrease.

Would love to see concrete evidence of this, as far as I'm concerned this is not the case as the leash has been tightened on the restrictions for NC (sorry for derailing thread). There was an issue with a player with AM 6s/IM HL experience (don't remember) being allowed to play but this was due to internal policy not being followed at RGL from the cookie crumbs I picked up. Your opinion on the Amateur division is very true though and is one of the pain points of RGL at the moment.

Many Newcomer teams have mentors that are provided through Newbie Mixes & TF2CC which is a collateral effort. It's a bit sad to see this said as someone who has covered and kept tabs on the division since Season 9. RGL, while being a league provider, shouldn't be expected to provide mentors/guidance on how to play 6s. I think that's far outside their responsibility

Even newbie recruitment efforts are ... less than optimal sometimes by RGL. For some god-forsaken reason the newbie cup that ran recently was nr6's which is not even offered as a real format (let alone problems with the format itself lmao). My only guess was that it was either because the youtuber support they had wouldn't support traditional 6s or highlander for whatever reason or that nr6's is seen as more "accessible", a completely irrelevant point. That's like teaching teenagers how to drive by putting them in go karts lol; there's literally zero point in introducing them to some weird facsimile of actual competitive like some strange bait and switch.

There was this thread recently on the rgl forums; ignoring the non-cup related stuff for now and actual specifics about the cup scoring or whatever, you can see an admin response saying that the cup was a success because they brought in ~84 new players. Except later digging in this post found that of the 82 true newcomer players, only 5 had played in any logs since the cup. Keep in mind that this cup was deemed a success. I sincerely hope the criterion they used to judge this cup as a "success" is not the same as how they judge the lower divisions of the league.

To be abundantly clear, stop focusing on the magnitude of new players entering the league season by season as a measure of growth/health. # of new player signups or new team signups in newcomer/amateur, once it has crossed some minimum threshold, literally does not matter. Player retention is the statistic that actually counts. Yes it is cool and all that new players try out comp for the first time but if they dip after a season, if they even last the entire season, who cares.

Thank you that is a valid assessment. Again, I don't really play competitive tf2. As such, I've got no clue about the inner-workings of RGL, so I can only speak from what I see from an outsider's point of view.
It's not me disregarding the criticisms of players more invested in the scene, I actually just don't know what's going on behind the scenes besides what I read, so I can only speak on what I see.

I still think bringing up newcomers should be more than just "go ask these people they'll probably know," but I accept that there are more pressing issues regarding higher divs. I really have no say in what should be done besides encouraging more players to continue gamering, but thank you regardless.

Sorry, not higher level plays being rostered, but rather ringing for these low level teams -- I don't really know the right term.
I've seen teams ring players way outside of their div, although being in AM or IM makes a world of difference against beginners who don't know better. Even just having the experience of a seasoned player on lower level teams can be deciding factor tbh restricting their class doesn't mean much.

Not sure what can be done to teach newbies better in this regard, since having rgl babysitting teams 24/7 for no pay is a ridiculous idea to suggest, but it wasn't really the main focus of the post. Just a small comment at how a div made for newcomers doesn't really help them

imo the only way to realistically retain a vet playerbase is through cups

i understand that they are more intense work for admins than running seasons but i feel like etf2l has a good formula of alternating cups or shorter seasons and actual seasons with gaps inbetween. it would work just as well for rgl because they could probably alternate cups and lan seasons

also rgl still found a way to host the chucklenuts cup which was pretty lame honestly and would have been better off an actual 6s cup

No worries you're good. It's really hard to vet players prior to a scrim. It really sucks

An actual open division with no fees, prizes, or class restrictions would be cool. It's increasingly not worth it for people like me who just want to play a couple times a week with friends.

Also add a way for us to apply prize money directly to league fees

Personally, I am disappointed with the rgl survey, as I feel it is leaving out a lot of stuff asked for by the community, while also including things that no one is asking for.

I am not sure if this is because people did a poor job of talking about changes they want to see, or if the rgl staff were not aware of the discussions. Hopefully for the future there is a place/way to communicate with rgl openly to avoid situations like this. I understand rgl tries to communicate well, and I think that effort has been clear recently as seen by the new invite format amongst other things, however asking about attack/defend again, or asking about the soda popper being unbanned, feels like 3 steps backward.

Most of this thread has been about 6s, but as a HL player, the same core issues seem to be happening from my perspective.

- Limited resources & incentives for teams/players to move up divisions

- Lack of cups to try different maps/bans, and engage players to play outside of the season.

- Forced changes with very little warning or feedback.(map pool, advanced quals & playoff brackets)

- Amount of free to paid divisions is unhealthy

My quick thought it to fix some of these points is removing IM, and making main free & mostly unrestricted. This allows teams to just play for fun in main, where there is a wide variety of skill. At the same time, make advanced open to register for all teams. Sure advanced loses the round robin, but it being the lowest paid div still will make it very competitive. The majority of the playerbase will have options when deciding a div, and won't feel forced to a div. (especially when moving up from AM)

sidenote, what happened to the medals?

+1 to the idea of an unrestricted div, i know i and plenty of other people would love to be able to play the game, but don't care enough to practice for advanced, and get restricted or wouldn't be able to play main (also having cups and/or maybe shorter seasons for the unpaid one? would be nice too)

It sucks but I think another reality is pugs were a huge lifeblood of the game and the current abysmal state of them definitely hurts the game, RGL pugs seem like they'll never be a thing but literally if tsc just put pugchamp/mixchamp up again or hell if dango put tf2pug.me back up even, any sane functioning system would be infinitely better than the scattered/dead before midnight discord pugs we have now

Also, I tried to play the last two seasons in main and then advanced, and it was a gigantic headache both times going back and forth with admins about restrictions. Figuring out which players they'll let us play with/on what classes and then them going back on their previous decisions, shit is so dumb and has definitely made me and most of my friends not want to bother playing again. My essentially pubber/6+ year since playing open friends tried to play a few years ago and got put in main because Niko Jims plays highlander engineer, they got like 5 rounds total in the entire season (3 of which were me ringing on medic lol), they were all so frustrated with the experience they said screw this and didn't play again.

Obviously I get not wanting a super sandbag team to roll the division, but a no-scrimming team of washed up invite players who haven't properly played in 3+ years is not that big of a deal lol. All the restrictions actually end up doing is rewarding players who are scrimming actively now (vs 3 years ago) and actively deter older heads from wanting to play. Directly undermining player retention, at the benefit of *theoretically* saving newer players from the terrible fate of having to play vs better players (pro tip: it actually makes you better at the game to play better opponents!) is not a very good strategy long-term.

rgl invite highlander (only paid division)
pay $150 (includes lan sustainability fee)
get forced to play proot and eruption due to the votes of lower/non paid divs

wait do hl fees actually go from $0 in adv to $150 in invite lol

pretty sure that's $150 for the entire team. split between 9 people that's like $17/person

edit:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/450415920964304908/1141854924079116408/image.png

o to be on the third best na hl team and profit $1.80 ea

hunter is right lol i did the math backwards

isnt it more like 55 cents each

.

I'll echo the sentiment of wanting to play the game, and emphasize that the time commitment for higher level tf2 is one of the biggest detractors for consistently playing seasons. I would be willing to bet that it's also why there's the retention problem towards the upper levels. 3-4+ nights a week of 2 hours of scrims for ~3 months is just a lot, and leads me to just be burnt out at the end.

I don't think pugs are really the solution, as a lot of the time they're unbalanced, or people don't really take them seriously. And playing a pug will never be the same as playing on an actual team.

More consistent cups seems to me to be a good solution because it allows for people to play the game, but not have to commit to a full season. We went a whole summer without any 6s cups, which is a little crazy to me. But I can also see an unrestricted and free divs being good for rgl as that way it's not as much of a problem if you join with a no scrim team or something.