I have been feeling a sense of apathy of the NA HL TF2 competitive community toward RGL that has been growing for years, and accelerating in the last few months. It has gotten to that point that while I have been a highlander player for 10 years, and still love to participate, I have had no interest in signing up, knowing what I would be supporting.

I have been burnt out over the league’s decisions of how to handle the ever-present issues of team deaths, sandbagging, toxicity, and the appeals system. I have responded to league surveys for years with specific issues that have never been addressed. While I had my suspicions that other players felt largely the same, I wanted to get their thoughts directly. That is why I spent last week surveying players, both current and retired, across all divisions, veterans to newcomers, including team leaders, and some former members of RGL staff: “what are your thoughts on the current state of RGL?” In doing so, I have gained what I think is a reasonable consensus of the problems facing RGL HL.

For those who have quit, most have cited stagnation of their progression due to sandbagging and questionable last-minute division placements, along with increasing toxicity. There is a feeling that the top division’s interests being catered to comes at the cost of their limited competitive space. In addition, there is a certain malaise that comes from RGL being “committed to sportsmanship,” yet finding profiles with 5+ previous bans for toxic behaviors. With an ever-smaller pool of people that were fun to play with and against, retiring was an easy decision.

For those still playing in the lower to middle divisions, there is a sense of an impending end, with the recent losses of IM and advanced 2, followed by the moving of teams upward to fill decaying divisions. There is a question of what progression would be possible if they were to continue. Some felt it would be their last season of HL, unless they could immediately jump to a competing league. The more recent addition of signup fees for main and eliminating IM means that there will soon be some teams paying for 7 weeks of being rolled by advanced/invite sandbaggers when they are forced to move up from AM.

Among the highest-level players, there is a feeling of disorganization, and concerns about the clique nature of some of the top level, with the ability to force administration to make or block changes by refusing to play otherwise. Those I asked largely feel like the competitive integrity is intact, at least.

There were also several comments across the divisions regarding the strength and competence of the current administration. Many team leaders have had personal experiences with admins waffling in their decision-making, shuffling play-offs, haphazardly moving teams, and being slow to ban for very serious proven allegations. While there is an outward sentiment of wanting to support new players, there is a pervasive feeling RGL has no plans for maintaining the current player-base, let alone planning for the future of competitive HL.

I spoke with former admins who felt the bureaucratic nature of RGL led to nothing ever changing. Many experienced harassment from bad actors in the community that they were unable to remove long-term because “they will just alt.” Interestingly, I have learned that the last-minute team placements and other scheduling concerns are a newer problem that previous administrations did not suffer from. Some of the former staff have tried to rejoin the team to help steer things in a better direction, but most are not optimistic that anything will ever improve.

What was most notable immediately was that no one said RGL is doing well. The most common positive sentiment received was, “it feels like they are trying to do good things, but…” I heard the state of the league described as “tumultuous,” “disorganized,” “apathetic,” “inconsistent,” and “suicidal.”

RGL has spent years being lax despite hemorrhaging players, especially in the mid-level divisions. They claim to want to support the growth of competitive TF2, but provide no meaningful solutions to issues that cause people to quit. At this point, they have created massive survivorship bias, ignoring the community they have lost by their prior poor decision-making.

I recently joined in a discussion about the state of the league in the RGL discord. While I had a polite exchange with one of their moderators over some of these concerns, it ultimately left no lasting impression. I am hoping to gain a bit more attention this time, but with RGL forums gone, there seems to be no good place to open a dialog with the administration.

If any highlander players are viewing this around the time of posting, I encourage you to join the RGL discord league-discussions channel tonight and share your own thoughts on the state of the league, whether you agree or disagree. I have planned to open discussion with some of the players I have talked to over the last week.