This should end well

Wait is that just the normal pugchamp website, the name made me think it was made specifically for people who wanted to host their own pugs with a website.

I'm not sure why people are saying there are no servers on MixChamp when there's one on both NA and EU right now. I realize that it's not ideal to have only one, but that's the situation right now with the number of donated servers dropping to an all-time low. If there are other problems besides that which are making it difficult to play on PugChamp or MixChamp right now, please reach out to one of our admins or me as erynn is currently unavailable.

As for Freak Pugs, it is based on the PugChamp code as linked above. The reason why the code repository named "pugchamp-legacy" is because we consider it legacy code that has problems which make it rather difficult to effectively scale to the level which PugChamp and MixChamp as a whole have reached over the past year (and is the reason why we are effectively rewriting the new PugChamp system from scratch).

Freak Pugs is a bit of a difficult issue as the intent of making the code publicly viewable was to allow others to help us maintain and improve it and not to be used for other sites (as evidenced by the code not having a license attached), but at the same time it's clear there's a demand for features they have that we can't really effectively provide right now at our scale (e.g. our old rating system).

I am the Head Admin / Owner of FreakPugs. I don't know what makes you think what you think but you should definitely try one of our pugs to see how it's really like, even multiple invite players were willing to try out freakpugs. Also, I did not make the Pug Site for Freakpugs, full credit goes to Minicircle for using PugChamp's open source code. And on the other hand, Mixchamp was not being played because of the number of donated servers that are dropping to an all time low, as said by tsc, which is why we recommend donating to them to help them out. We are also thinking about possibly donating our Dallas server to MixChamp if it is that big of a problem to the TF2 Pugging community. We prefer to keep freakpugs more like an in-house pug group than something bigger like PugChamp. As the whole purpose of freakpugs is to have fun in a competitive game mode, as freakpugs gives you more of an in-house pug feel to it.

So as ThorEatsWorms said, we do not and did not intend to compete with PugChamp, we really don't need another PugChamp and we have not advertised our own pugs except for recommending it to close friends on steam. However the reason why people think we are competing is because of the player base that has just recently blown up, which I believe came from our players telling their friends to join, who then asked their friends to join, and so on. As well as FreakPugs being mentioned in Newbie Mixes, which gave us more players.

I feel you. I am a kinda old player from Brazil (played from 2011 to 2016 there) and I used to play in the highest division there for the last 3 years. I moved to France last September, here I just wanted to play some decent pugs from time to time and remove all the rusty, but not having all the time and motivation I had years ago, grinding up the popularity here to get picked up in pugchamp is annoying, and both TF2Center and Faceit pugs are really bad, so I end up just not playing :(

That's quite the resumé you have there. Have you tried looking for a team in ETF2L? I'm sure somebody who has the experience you have could find a decent team. I don't know your circumstances or whether or not you have the time/will to commit to a team but honestly that is the best way of building up a reputation and getting actual practice.

Failing that though all I can say is keep playing your best in the pugs you do get picked in. Try playing later at night where there is less competition. You may only get one game but it's better than none and you may leave a lasting impression on one of the regular captains on the site.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck but I think you'll get out of this rut eventually :)

Good ridance

I don't care what website dies or thrieves as I'll play the game any way.

Now that my opinion is out of the way, who are the players who 'want better pugs' and what exactly do they want?

You're not high players, because most of them are happy with the pugchamp captain system as a way to filter 'bad players' out of their game.
You're not prem players, because most of them either play private pugs, or are happy with pugchamp captain system (they are good therefore they get picked most of the time).

So you guys are either regular average players, either beginners. Let's say people here aren't beginners.

What can you do then?
If you want to join the pugchamp community you'll have to invest quite some time (or play med all the time) in order to a) get known among the players and b)get better to blend in with the players.

Else, you'll need a way to play games with other regular average players. But to preserve the quality of games ("tf2center is aids") you'd like to play without beginners, right? At least that's what I understand by "tf2center games are bad and end up in rolls most of the time".
So you're complaining that you're excluded from the higher circle (pugchamp) but are yourselves willing to exclude players lower than you(beginners). What kind of aids mentality is that?

I say, lobby websites, being tf2lobby (rip) or tf2center, are only as "aids" as their players, and all of you already have ways to solve your initial problem :
a)stop being dicks to beginners and either coach them or direct them to playcomp.tf
b)clone pugchamp code and make your own pug website restricted to mid and open players only
c)join or host mumble lobbies only

Why did pickup die? Where did all the mid players go lol

I would probably fall into the "played for a while and still slightly below average" category but let me clarify. I'm not saying I don't want to play with beginners, the issue I personally have is I'm a medic main who wants to improve. TF2Center is the worst place for me to improve as a medic player because frankly, there is no organisation, there is no strategy and there is no cohesion hence why I described it as aids, probably not the most diplomatic of descriptions but that's what I used to convey a point. Pugchamps also suffer from this occasionally as well but all the players there at least have an idea of what the meta is and (mostly) attempt to conform to this.

I actually have been playing quite often on TF2C lately even though I described it as aids because I don't always care about winning or losing. Sometimes I just want to chill out in a casual TF2 semi-competitive clusterfuck environment and sometimes I want to take things more seriously in which case I play pugchamp. However this really is besides the point and my original post was not about what I want, it's about what we need as a community and as a competitive scene.

Trust me I'm well aware that I'm not good enough to qualify for having an elitist mentality and lately I have been getting picked more on pugchamp but this is about where can someone who is interested in the game go to practice/learn the meta and get enough attention to get into more competitive environments. Trying to improve your gamesense on any class is hard to do when you can't rely on your team to do their jobs and this is the problem with sites like TF2Center. That's not to say TF2C doesn't have a place in the community but its scope doesn't cater to the whole scene and right now there is a gap between those who want to take things more casually on center and those who want an open but more serious place to practice but aren't good enough or well known enough to get picked in Captain systems.

Also to respond to your last points.
a) I'm never (knowingly) rude to beginners but honestly every time I suggest something I get ignored, mocked or brushed off by 90% of players on that site and I can't imagine I'm the only one. There is definitely a mentality on the site that what you want to do and what you ought to do are not always the same thing. Again nothing inherently wrong with that unless you're using the site to improve your gamesense.

b) Cloning pugchamp code has already been done but it's not exactly upstanding behaviour and it further fragments the competitive scene into individual groups which then makes it even more of an obstacle for new players to enter the scene as this takes players who would otherwise notice them away from more public forums. (again this isn't about what I or any other individual wants it's about the community).

c) I do get invited to mixes but this doesn't solve the problem of being known about in the first place and again, it fragments the community.

I understand the struggle. If that can somewhat help you, especially for medic, even if you managed to reach "pugchamp popularity" does not mean you'll actually be able to improve.
It's a very good place to practice your mechanical skills and test your in game decisions vs good players, but teamplay wise it's not really better than mumble lobbies. Some players don't listen, some other don't talk, nobody tells you what they want you to do (pop? don't pop? get out?), just like in lobbies. Most eu high players are just dm lords anyway.

Truth is, if you want to improve your gamesense but can't play on a team, you should study stvs of prem teams. Focus on one player, pause the game everytime you disagree with a decision and think about it. Don't expect to get good medic practice / feedback on pugs/lobbies, and use every pug/lobby system to test new ideas/playstyles that you came up with or saw in a stv.
If it works in lobbies test it in pugs(if possible), and build up your "gamesense book" this way. You'll ultimately end up with a book of things containing viable things and trash things(the only perk of playing pugs vs lobbies is that the trash things list will be slightly shorter), and the only way to get rid of trash things is proper 6s team play.

Why doesn't mixchamp have users, it seems like a fine way to pug at a lower level.

people want captains

openchamp would probably bring more players to play pugs tbh

add up to mixchamp, shits super dead even though it's just been brought back up