Do top 6s ugc teams even stay in ugc?

More the merrier. There are many of us who have worked for years to see Highlander taken seriously and become an important competitive game mode for TF2. If another league like ESEA picks it up then it would show a lot of hard work has paid off and TF2 is expanding. It would also diversify the potential player pools. Do it!

Stop saying 6s is stagnant. It isn't.

And that plan is mutually beneficial. It would bring more competition to UGC because it would make platinum more competitive. I skipped UGC completely because it's not actually competitive. I'd rather go 2-14 in ESEA-O then win UGC Platinum. If this reward was put in place I would have had a reason to play in UGC before going to ESEA. I'm pretty sure most of the top UGC Platinum 6s teams are either comprised of ESEA players or move to ESEA after 1-2 seasons anyways.

Well the problem is that you seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't see UGC 6s as a stepping stone into ESEA. No one is going to stick around in UGC Plat if they have the money for ESEA. It would be beneficial to everyone if the top UGC teams could get a free season in ESEA because they'll likely want to move over anyway for more competition, and you don't grow the competitive scene by being greedy and trying to keep people in a free beginner's league. You grow it by fueling the main league that everyone is willing to support. Fragmenting the community by separating the leagues just because you're afraid of looking subservient is negatively impacting the community (and you don't need to be afraid, you already look subservient because you're a free to play league). I'm all for supporting UGC 6s to a certain degree because everyone has to start somewhere and not everyone has the money for ESEA, but you can't hold players back from the league that, in the end, is the only one that will be taken seriously for your own greedy motives.

I just looked at the UGC 6's teams, and it seems the top 6 teams have almost all ESEA veterans on the teams

...who quit and came back to tf2, or who didn't want to keep committing so much to comp gaming, so they went in a free league.

If people want to move from UGC 6s to ESEA that's fine, nobody at UGC is stopping them. To suggest that since we dont see any benefit giving our top teams a free pass to another pay-to-play league is somehow fragmenting the community and being greedy is ludicrous. What's next? The maps? Our configs and rules? You could use that argument for anything.

It's all a matter of perspective. If you think the only way to be competitive at an online computer game is to pay league fees and possibly make a few bucks at a LAN then thats your perspective. I on the other hand feel that every league is equal in that the teams within said league all aspire to win and be the best by practicing hard.

In response to your statement, I contend that ESEA is being the greedy one by not allowing a "free" division in their 6s league. I can't think of a more obvious issue with ESEA that is keeping 6s from expanding to it's full potential, yet you blame us because we are the only other popular free to play league? Gimme a break man.

We Like Shapes has both Namlay and Bl4nk. For Science / Runaway 5 has DJC / some other people. I don't think these people "quit", since Bl4nk was in Invite and DJC wanted to play before the HRG slaying.

Edit: (In response to Pizza)

if ESEA is a for-profit business than UGC is a for-idiot business

HAHAHAHXDXDXDXDLOXLDOXDLXDLXODL

I think its more about prize pots + dedicated servers + LAN for ESEA. Those things are mostly available in ETF2L (afaik) which is why it does well over the pond. It competes somewhat with UGC EU divisions but ETF2L is way bigger.

The reason players will play in a league are because of the prize pots and support. We like ESEA because it's pretty damn hard to hack in the matches. If you do well, you literally make money. People in ESEA are serious because they paid money to be there and have the opportunity to make money. I've played on relatively highly ranked UGC 6s and HL teams and there were lots of people who played competitive casually in those leagues (even at the very top divisions). That is why ESEA is seen as more competitive than UGC.

I really like infinite's idea of having a combined event for UGC and ESEA. If we could get some sort of unity in the NA scene we could focus a lot more on bringing in more players rather than arguing over 6s/HL or Pay/Free leagues.

How exactly does anyone besides you benefit from people sticking in your league when they could have better competition in another league? Ideally, yes, your configs/maps would be similar. But that's not the topic here. I'm just curious why it's beneficial to the players or to the community to keep the top UGC 6s players stuck in that league when there's a way to give them better competition and help them on their way to the top league: ESEA Invite.

First of all, I'd like to point out that I play in UGC HL, and I do not play in ESEA nor do I intend to in the near future. I think that a free league is definitely an important part of the community. At the same time, I strongly disagree with most of your posts here.

You can't really say ESEA is greedy when you're the one shutting down the "free season of ESEA" proposition. They have every right to make their league pay-to-play, and so would you. You haven't, and as a result of that you can "feel that every league is equal," but few will agree. I don't see UGC 6s get taken nearly as seriously as ESEA. People practice much much harder when they're paying and when there's a significant prize pool to win (the keys this season are a good start, but ESEA's prizes are obviously much bigger, which is another reason that more serious players prefer the pay-to-play leagues).

The sooner you accept that UGC 6s Platinum is basically one step below ESEA Open, the sooner you'll gain support and stop calling out "let's see how many -frags I get now!" Honestly, that's a really stupid thing to say as an admin. You should really try appealing to the crowd more instead of repeating stupid arguments that you already know to be unpopular. I don't think I'm saying anything new here, and others can tell me if I'm completely wrong, but this is what I see as the popular opinion on these forums, and you aren't going to change that.

One big flaw I see with offering freemium to UGC teams is that you would probably see a lot of open and maybe some im players making teams just to cash in on that opportunity. Most of the top teams in UGC are already full of open and im players anyways. Doesn't seem like the incentive would go to the players that need it the most. And it's probably not even necessary since like everyone has said a lot of teams graduate from UGC 6s to open already.

About all the nasty youtube comments though, it seems like that kind of stuff is inevitable when there's that kind of a divide in the community. Not that the divide is a bad thing at all, but it gives shitheads something to argue about. "6v6 IS BETTER" "NO HIGHLANDER IS BETTER". I doubt that kind of idiocy will ever go away. That being said I strongly encourage everyone to try out both formats. They're both a lot of fun because it's still TF2, the game we all play. Not everyone is going to be your best friend, but everyone should realize that the people who bicker and troll are a small minority of the people who play this game. Already you can see in the comments of that video people balancing out the trolling and shit talk with sensible ideas and talking points. Have faith that deep down this community isn't completely overridden with assholes.

This infinite guy makes me look like a saint