What he's trying to say is that since it's hard to prevent sandbagging, they decide not to reward the sandbaggers, therefore reducing the incentives to sandbag

ppl give ugc shit but it must be hard running a league where people specifically use it to sandbag

how are you people real

people sandbag cause they blow in their "stated division"\

or for free money oops

yeah i bet barycenter is really gonna love that prize money for winning steel

Alright man but what's your excuse for no silver 4v4 placement badges? I was so hyped for those.

4v4 is the lifeblood of competitive TF2 and deserves more respect. I have no excuse for you.

I'm upset that I don't get a medal for being the 3rd best sandbaggers in ugc steel 6s :(

***I AM STACKING UGC PLATINUM FOR A 1ST PLACE BADGE BASED ON RECENT INFORMATION I HAVE RECEIVED SERIOUS OFFERS ONLY LINK YOUR ESEA ACCOUNT AND CONTACT ME IN THIS THREAD***

stop

all ur doing is contributing to the lolugc mindset and having an excuse for not being an admin that actually takes care of the league and promotes an actually health division

placement badges would be the hypest thing ever for lower level players tbh

Youtube VODs are up here, including the part where my room mate came in and yelled at me to get a job
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDiIla-XjMk

i know when i played steel my team had a chance at winning, but without any real reward-based motivation to win we really just didn't feel compelled to work hard to beat sandbagging teams (like the Hell Xpress + asianriceguy team that didn't even win)

yes ugc is a joke but it has the potential to not be

This is how I felt during my season of steel, not really fun playing against some people who played in plat HL when its your first real season of 6s. Provided my team made it pretty far (6-4), but I think alot of it was luck that we didnt get the really bad sandbagged teams, atleast in my last match of 6s playoffs I got to outsnipe Feint alittle.

i made more money for getting 2nd place in a random ultiduo tourney than i did in my seven seasons of highlander

I've made as much money not winning in open as I have not winning in ugc.

At least I have 4s to pay the bills.

You're missing the part where we want people to actually leave steel. Perks for higher divisions add to the prestige, making people work harder to improve and reach those levels. You might not think so, but to many people, being able to call yourself a "gold player" means a lot. That gold participation badge is something you can't just get by asking your pub buddy to roster ride, it means something to players.

Winning steel isn't supposed to feel like a big deal, because chances are whoever did it was intentionally sandbagging (trying to appear less skilled than they are so they don't get moved up)

These perks such as placement medals also serve to keep higher level players from thinking "I could try my hardest to place, or i could go down a division and win every match running full time spy". There is a strong case for 6s gold medals, but that will come when the competition warrants it.

It's not laziness, it's not stupidity. It's what we think is best within the constraints Valve puts on medals. Giving placement medals to every division is impossible, and what we have now is a pretty good way to divide them.

Not sure where the most relevant place to post this is but I have to say, I've been really impressed by the new UGC 6s admins. In the past I think a lot of the issues with UGC admins have to do with a lack of visibility and transparency, the only times people heard from admins was after something went wrong or there was an unpopular decision made. I'm really happy to see admins like TerryCrews and Smobo who have an active presence in the community (not that the other admins don't, obviously helping a volunteer league takes a lot of work) and make their mindset known on a regular basis. It's also great that the new admins seem to see UGC in the context of the comp scene as a whole instead of just focusing on UGC in isolation. Keep doing God's work.