infinite-Seagull,
Otherwise competition will eventually exhibit the "living dead syndrome" where there are mostly older, highly skilled veterans playing and very little new players getting into the game.
There are tons of new players getting into both leagues and game types. Every game gets this "LDS" when the game stops selling copies. The game mode isn't discouraging new players, its the game engine and the graphics. If you offered someone a copy of CS:GO or CS1.6, which would they chose?
infinite-Let's say, hypothetically, TF2 was released in it's current 2012 state back in 2007. All the current weapons/items were in the game at the point of release. Be honest.. do you think ESEA/ETF2L (6s) would come up with the same exact ban lists? Probably not.. I am sure some of the major things 6s players don't like would carry over but I believe many of the weapons would be allowed and accepted as "part of the game". What does this say about the banlists today?
Even if you made the pyro have the DPS of two sentry guns with her flame thrower, no one would use her because pyro is slow as fuck. 6s isn't about firepower, its about mobility and dynamic gameplay. If DPS was the deciding factor, we'd have 2 heavies, 2 engies, 1 demo, and 1 medic instead. 6s is fun because of how its fast-paced, but takes a bit more thought than an arena shooter. Worst part of highlander though is you can't offclass. 6s turns into highlander at last points, but apart from last points, mobility is greater than defensive or offensive capabilities. 6s is actually more permitting of weird strats because you can run 2 of many of the classes, and at least one of all the others. Don't cry -inf, but highlander is more restrictive than 6s in terms of what you can play.
infinite-Lastly, I see a lot of criticism for our league but why are people not asking the same tough questions about ESEA? Even with all of eXtv's great work promoting the game and i46 you've seen a 38% drop in the number of teams this season. Why is that? Is it just some unique season 12 drop which will pop back up again in season 13 or is there a larger trend going on?
hur hurr theory crafting about league size.
For competitive to thrive, you don't need players. You need SPECTATORS. Would you call kickball a better sport than baseball because it is played more often? Professional baseball is more reliant on skill than kickball is, and one professional game has infinitely more spectators than a kickball game, 0 versus 10s of thousands for an UNPOPULAR team. Even the popular teams in HL don't get more viewers than the unpopular invite games. 6s is more fun to watch, at least in the eyes of everyone I've talked to, and no, none of them play 6s. Highlander has 4 players who are 24/7 going for picks, and its not fun to watch live because you can't see all the important things at once. In 6s you can spectate the spy 100% of the time because there is usually only one pick offclass run at a time. It would be like watching baseball where there are 4 pitchers and 4 batters. It would be so fucking confusing.