yeah maybe have a button on ETF2L that says "PUGS HERE" or something

I'm pretty sure 90% of mid/high/prem players know about pug site. Maybe open/low players have no idea or just don't care.

if ur open/low you can't play pugs since you're never going to get picked up and even if you do you'll get harrassed and trash talked all game. you should know the first part wonder since you always pick captain so you don't get fatkidded

i'm not low/open and I dont pick captain oO

but I agree low/open players won't get picked so they don't add up

This is the mentality that kills the scene for good by the way. There needs to be systems or platforms in place that accommodates PUGs at all levels of skill for a smaller playerbase, not to just "accept that the game is dying". As a very washed up middie at best, finding regular ways of playing but still getting a proper 6s experience is something I have wanted for years now. I understand and agree that pugging at the top level is tough nowadays, but the Fresh-Mid experience is all but non-existent outside of in-houses, and its that level of play that needs support as a strong and vibrant community at that level will trickle upwards to provide a more robust community at the top flight.

Unless you know where mixes are happening, its really hard to regularly play non-league 6s, and as someone who does not really have the time to commit to a season anymore it makes it difficult to try and play this game as often as I'd like.

it sucks how difficult it is to play a game of sixes when you want to. Overwatch, Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Apex, Valorant. all of these games put you in a match never longer than 3 minutes after you press play, and the experience you get is no different from the experience the pros get. the only difference is the players, which thanks to MMR are attempted to be matched to your skill level as closely as possible. compare this to TF2 where, if you decide out of the blue one day that you want to play a game of sixes on your favourite class of soldier, you have maybe 3 options. join a tf2center (could take upwards of an hour depending on the time of day, and tends to be a subpar missmatched experience), merc for a team in a scrim (requires you to only play during a time period of 7-9pm, if you even find a team that needs a player), or add up to a double mix (you have to know someone to invite you to the server and the server owners have to let you in, requires you to wait for 11 other people to also decide to mix). the alternative is pugging, but the pugs are dead. so you decide not to play tf2 competitively. repeat for 1000 other players and this is why the league is dead.

6v6 Tf2center is active 24/7. I play it everyday and it's fun, you can meet here every kind of players, open, low and d1/prem. Only top level pugs are dead.

You compare new games with 100x bigger player base and professional esport scenes to old grandpa tf2.

cause and effect wonder, do you think these games would have 100x the playerbase if the matchmaking experience was the same as tf2s?

ofc not, but tf2 got released in 2007 and there were no things like matchmaking back then in any game, even old cs had no matchmaking. Valve said many times they're not planning to make tf2 an esport game. Tf2 isn't serious comp game but it's fun to play and it's most important. I don't have problem with this until I have fun.