This is not how we get new players into the scene.
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RGL has been, to be honest, stagnating in terms of player growth over the past couple of years. After the boost from covid, we have seen the “number of teams” for both HL and 6s consistently drop after each season. HL for instance, reached the lowest point for HL last season that has been seen in 4 years. For 6s, the past 3 seasons have seen player numbers akin to when RGL first launched 6s in 2019. I care a lot about this community and the growth behind it, even though there has been a lot of setbacks I feel like genuinely with enough effort we can grow this community into something bigger than what we have ever seen before. While I may be insane for thinking that, I at least want to try and bring some awareness to the issue. Case in point, the current mishandling of what could be the biggest boost in player/team numbers for RGL that the league has ever seen. For those who do not want to read a 1000-word essay, my point is this: RGL is mishandling the most recent cup that has the biggest potential to bring in new players, and as a community, we should push for RGL to correct these mistakes so they do not happen in the future. There is still time to at least salvage the cup, and I want my voice to be heard.
For those who are unaware, RGL is currently teaming up with YouTubers to try and promote competitive tf2. Those youtuber’s subscriber counts combined are equal to a little under 1 million people, which is very impressive. It seems that this is a huge opportunity to benefit us a lot as a community, right?
I have absolutely 0 clue on why we decided to use NR6s as the format to get new players into the scene. I understand the whole “valve comp” argument, but using a dead format within RGL that has been proven to be the least enjoyable out of any of the formats in terms of its staying power within RGL. Even during the second season of NR6s, invite did not exist due to teams just not wanting to play the format. I also want to mention that those who do happen to enjoy the NR6s cup, particularly casual players who are not interested in normal comp formats, including those who want to be able to run whatever they want for fun, for example running 2 heavies, will find themselves to be disappointed that the format is not being run in regular seasons. Also, the choice to run NR6s in the cup seems motivated to pander to the kinds of people up in arms in Reddit threads about comp and “unfair” weapon bans, not people who would actually be interested in joining our community anyway.
Second off, the planning for this cup seems very shoddy from an outside perspective to put it lightly. For example, you can’t even find the cup on the front page of RGL.
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t seem to see any cup there, just highlander and 6s.
What happened during the planning of this cup that actually accessing the cup was overlooked? I shouldn’t even have to explain why that’s bad. On top of that, there are now only less than 2 weeks left for new team registration, but there has been 0 social “plugs” or promotion from any of the YouTubers mentioned that I have seen as of posting this “essay”. For a cup that is supposed to be a direct tie in with these Youtubers to boost numbers and appeal to their communities, there is a lack of anything on their end to suggest so. Looking at the current numbers, there are only 33 teams that have been made, and of these 33 teams, approximately 5 of them are made up of players that could be considered new or inexperienced, and another 10 of these registered “teams” have 2 or less players (although it is still possible to fill before the cup, but that is 4-5 slots to be filled in 2 weeks), leaving the majority of teams to be already established by active players in the scene. To give an example of why that is bad, the NR6s first season (not during covid btw) was mainly promoted by b4nny + the funny Uncle Dane appearance on Froyo which amounted to 84 teams. The number of teams now is over 50 less teams than what happened back during the first season of NR6s, and while I do know that comparing a cup to a season is a little bit of a reach, in my opinion cups are easier to commit to than an entire season AND it’s 50 less teams for what is meant to be a “bigger and better” cup.I have rambled on for a while so the final point I wanted to say was how we could possibly correct the mistakes that have happened with the cup to still try and have it work. In my opinion, if we can delay the cup we turn it into 2 cups, one for HL and one for 6s, having the YouTubers split and be a part of both cups, which would be running at the same time or back-to-back in terms of weekends. If we do not delay the cup, we need the content creators to actually tell people that the cup is happening, and for RGL to at least make the cup accessible through the main page, with more streamlined ways for newer players to participate in the cup.
Thank you for reading if you have gotten to this point, have a great day
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BBL wake up babe new bbl rgl forum post
fr doe agreed. coulda been advertised sm better, shits a bust.
the best thing for rgl publicity again is lan boxing matches.
also fishonastickgaming has the worst tf2 takes oat
#hlprizepools
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NO MORE NO RESTRICTION 6S PLEASE (good post btw)
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Great read.
NO MORE NO RESTRICTION SIXES!
Real shit though, stop spending resources on the gamemode no one takes seriously as a competitive format.
Promote both Highlander especially if you want to get newer players in! It’s the gamemode that allows all classes to play all the time.
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Good post. As well, NR 6s is absolutely not a good gamemode to introduce people to competitive, as it is not a good representation of what competitive TF2 actually is. I understand them wanting it to be “accessible” to new players, but this is not how you do it.
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make this the most liked post on this website. not even saying that as a friend of his, get people to read his points and his suggestion at the end
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I may not be the most reputable person but,
Overall, the competitive scene is dwindling, I’m aware I am at times no help, however the NR6s Stunt is showing none of the community what this league is about, its about our core formats, and the most well known, if people viewing this cup interpret this Cup as a core format, since you of course wanna try and put your best foot forward with this kind of move, however, this may do more harm than good, this move is putting, literally showcasing the worst format this league had to offer. I’m not comprehending why the uppers viewed this as ‘the move’ however it needs to be reviewed, as I stated this may do more harm than good.
but hey what do I know. -
So I’d like to hop in on this and say that NR6s was a novelty that outlived its stay by the 3rd week. Season 2 of NR6s was by far the worst experience I’ve ever had playing this game and it was entirely due to the gamemode, i know the tippy top(and i dont mean RGL) of the community has been pushing this for a long time now but i think we’re way past the point of putting it down and just labeling it as the disaster it is
BBL is goated for this post and did not post a single lie in here, there needs to be more of a push to actually promote the only two gamemodes that exist anymore in RGL consistently and get them healthy enough to where you can step back and decide to focus on things like NR6s or even Prolander(remember that?) The idea of splitting the cups into HL and 6s is also an idea i can get behind
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Just speaking as a player here and not as staff, everything BBL said here is right. NR6s as a format doesn’t make sense to run as a promotion to get new players, when A ) It’s not an enjoyable format (there’s a reason valve comp is totally dead) and B ) We don’t run the format anymore, even as pugs.
We 100% need to do more outreach to continue to grow the scene, Arcadia’s new Latin America thing is a good step, this cup seems like it will turn people away.
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louder for those in the back!
make more bigger prize pool! more money attracts more players. more longevity in comp scene.
Ps if u cannot cough up league fees then where did u even get the money for a computer??? maybe try comp fortnite mobile on ur moms ipad
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> make more bigger prize pool! more money attracts more players.
I’ll weigh in on the overall thread later, but I wanted to jump in on this comment because I think it’s a common misconception.
A bigger Prize pool != more players are going to play in a cup or league.
The prize pool only affects those who receive a reward. So if you say everyone who plays in this could earn a key, people might come in and play. If you say the #1 team wins 5k more dollars, that isn’t making new players play and it’s not enough money to really move the needle in terms of impact on a top-level player’s life. No one is going pro off of that difference.
This isn’t to say if a million-dollar prize pool was put in place for TF2, it wouldn’t change things, but speaking in realistic numbers, a few thousand dollars weighted towards the top is not making more lower-level players play.
We can look at the history of this in TF2. Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize pools in Sixes, the majority of players still chose to play Highlander during the peak competitive years of tf2.
Money does do some things:
- Money does create a sense of legitimacy for a format
- Money can allow for LANs to happen
But… just because a format has money, doesn’t mean players are going to flock to it.
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the idea for nr6s was a questionable one to say the least and a “???” tier at rock bottom. This format is sorta a snoozefest and the cup as a whole sorta looks more like a content grab with RGL’s name on it atm, rather than an actual collab between RGL and these youtubers. This has potential to both provide more content and publicity for the youtubers and the comp scene, it just needs to be done right and this isn’t the way
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Most free post to upvote inconclusion RGL is losing an opportunity to grow it’s community. We need NR6!!! They must happen If not were gonna have problems For future seasons. Playing last season was very empty with the huge amount of players that vanished for S14. NR will bring back the sixes and HL community. BBL’s Post is extremely accurate and deservers some high attention from RGL
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RGL Newcomer season 10: https://rgl.gg/Public/LeagueTable.aspx?g=767&s=129&r=40
RGL Newcomer season 11: https://rgl.gg/Public/LeagueTable.aspx?g=814&s=133&r=40
You know what happened in between these seasons? TF2 Coaching Central did a Newbie Cup to actually introduce new players to competitive 6s, and it got quite a bit of traction because of a Steam community post. Shoutout by the way to the event staff that put it together and the 20+ experienced players who stepped up to coach and teach those newbies not only how to play 6s but how to sign up for and play in RGL once the cup was over.
The training period for another TF2CC Newbie Cup is happening right now. The timing is a bit tricky because when we were planning out the schedule we could only guess at when season 12 new team registration was going to open, so I don’t know how many of those players and teams will end up playing in season 12.
RGL has the resources and infrastructure to run events like this, but the last time they did one was in 2020. I feel like there’s not enough recognition on the fact that a third party organization is the biggest pipeline from Valve casual to RGL 6s.
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So true!
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BBL Figured i’d weigh in with my take on the cup and everything since I think growth for RGL is quite an issue rn. Simply put, competitive TF2 will flourish if we use what works (HL and 6s) and focus on promoting it and polishing what we already have, I feel like RGL needs to stop putting energy into weird formats like NR6s and PL when literally NO ONE cares about them, I mean of course I’ll still play the cups cause fun, but i think these things should be much more of little side project “for fun” cups instead of WHAT WE ARE USING TO PROMOTE THE LEAGUE.
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shelz0r There may be a similar opportunity for new players to tryout comp in the form 6s/HL pugs when RGL Pugs launch and can hopefully be used smoothly. At the very least, this can create a space for current open players to que together, which there appears to be a lack of in open-level HL because 18 players and 2 of every class is a lot and I believe HL pug groups on discord are dead or just don’t run anymore.
At best, RGL pugs can even be used for casual players to tryout HL with the help of a TF2CC-style support community (map/class lectures, newbie pugs, cup, etc) because there’s a lack of resources and help for casual players looking to get into HL. Maybe there could be HL TF2CC and it wouldn’t need to pug through RGL, it could use discord just like they do with 6s right now but ideally RGL Pugs can encompass every skill level and a pipeline for casual>NC/AM is created for HL as well.
How is a casual player supposed to learn HL currently? Especially scout, soldier, demo, medic? Sure, starting with either pick class (sniper/spy) may be an easy transition from casual play and pyro/heavy/engy only needs to learn a few specific things to get started. But how do you play as a team? Maybe there are some good demo reviews for their class on youtube but I’m not sure how helpful these would be to a completely new HL player. They would basically have to get a mentor to teach them the essentials of their class and HL gameplay itself.
Maybe the gameplay transition from casual to NC HL isn’t as bad as I think it is although they would still need someone organizing the team, scrims, registration, finding players and these are still things where they could massively benefit from a TF2CC-type support group.
TL:DR: TF2CC for HL would be super poggers my dude
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i did not suffer through head admining nr6s season 2 so that we would continue to run that format in any capacity. shoutout bbl for (almost) always spitting facts in forum essays