maybe we all (me included) need to stop coping and realize this is possibly just the passage of time and the waning interest in competitive tf2, but on the other hand i do feel like there's plenty of lower level players to play the game.
i think the problem is that pugs are too cumbersome in NA. i have more fun playing tf2pickup.eu as a burger and getting shit on and playing with 120 ping than really any other form of pugs because you can actually play on demand without the threat of being fatkidded every pug like RGL pugs do to anyone whos not part of the in-crowd on that site already.
even other avenues like TF2CC discord pugs, its too much work. what if im hanging out with my friends in another discord, i now have to go and add up to another discord channel just to wait for everybody to add up? and then you get the knock-on effect because of that where people dont add up until theres only a few people left needed to pug, and it just makes things take too long. and ESPECIALLY after all that, what if you were the first person added up and it takes half an hour or even longer to finally get 12 in the VC queue channel, you're so excited to finally practice scout and then you get random rolled onto medic, play a shit pug, and then pugs die. its just not worth it
RGL open pugs seem like the perfect solution, because it's like tf2pickup.eu but i think explicitly because captain pugs are offered as an alternative, a big chunk of people who are already too nestled into that system and prefer it for whatever reason would rather stay there, which creates a herd mentality "oh all the best players are playing those pugs, i need to go add up there since the other one is dead anyway." in an ideal world we'd get all the lower level players playing RGL open pick pugs, but i think people just give up hope when they see all the people added to captain pugs and see 0/12 on the open section
also the elo system is a terroism super plague on pugs, even for the captain pugs. people care about that gay little number too much and it creates this insulated ecosystem where everyone is trying to pick the best pug possible so they can gain elo when in reality i think a lot of invite players need to seriously wake up to the fact that this game (comparatively to most games that exist) is like, STARVING for players. we already had a thread from an invite player complaining about how there's no medics, but then all the replies were about how insufferable it is to play with invite players as a medic player if you're not meeting their expectations and how the tryhard elo-desiring environment creates this atmosphere that makes you never wanna add up for medic again. invite players need to take a note out of the FGCs book. pick new players! who cares if you lose the pug, get some random on scout and teach them to play! allow them to fail, let them learn. it'd be easier to do this if there were no elo