A big reason we never considered a traditional sixes tf2 league was that there was no reason for it. ESEA had the paid side, UGC had the free side. With the collapse of ESEA, it's definitely something that we're strongly considering.

Just because I don't care for sixes myself, doesn't mean we can't have someone run it who does. Honestly, I'm pretty indifferent on HL nowadays, and so that's a league I don't run. It's mostly run with a passionate staff on its own and does exceptionally well for itself. I've already been contacted by some very eager players who have already tossed their hat into the ring. Definitely keep your eye out for us in this coming fall.

The stats in both of those images are purely the starters, so six for sixes and nine for Highlander, seven for Prolander.

I was giving context. Prolander was historically a smaller league, up until this season where it's closer to the size of ESEA/UGC sixes. Showing that just because registration is in the middle of another season didn't stop it from having success. If I left out the size, you might just go "oh well that doesn't count because it's so small/fringe." Same with the sixes league we run. Pointing out that it's larger than ESEA, and again.. had the same constraints that this person was saying was a reason why people weren't signing up. And it didn't have any issues.

The context is to show that despite being on the same constraints as the person was complaining about. These leagues all did well.

Except that's not true. I've never denied that our prize pools in Invite did draw in teams who otherwise might not have played. But the majority in of our divisions have no to very small prize pools. Historically we haven't had a prize pool in Prolander outside of Div-1/Invite, yet we see the most growth in the divisions without the prizes.

So no, the majority of players who are getting involved in our leagues have little to no incentive other than to try it out / they enjoy the format they're playing.

Because that shouldn't be required. For Highlander we're hosting our second experimental map cup. Our first experimental cup in Winter of 2018, which had no prize pool whatsoever, was very successful. The exp map cup that is starting up this weekend will have about half of the HL of the league playing it.

These cups shouldn't be about money, it's about doing something good for your comp community. About wanting to support your community map makers and also possibly bring change to your league and/or feedback to the map makers about what they can improve so it could potentially be adopted.

I'd say having 5,000 people sign up for a pug service, with it almost beating out csgo/dota2 on the same system, in the first month is pretty fucking successful for a brand new system. Even if there were small glitches, that didn't stop the numbers from being very good.

Also here's the tweet I was thinking of: link

But I'll remove that part of my post. Since people are latching on to the least important part of what I mentioned.

I could see that definitely affecting some teams. However, we also had Prolander which had it's signups during the HL and sixes season and we didn't struggle to get teams. We actually ended up growing 40-50% over last season. We also had the No Restriction Sixes league which is larger than ESEA. And that had signups during the season and played during playoffs.

It's possible that the signups timeline could of affected some, but it is definitely not a factor stopping our other leagues from obtaining a player base.

I don't think that explains why this sixes map league only had 2 fully rostered teams days before the start.

That was after the league removed the league fee for open. So you only needed ESEA subscription to be able to play in the open league. I believe that season also had a crazy high turn over, about 20-30% of the open teams disbanded during the season.

Unfortunately, that bump didn't last, as only two seasons later the league lost about 40% of the player base from that peak and returned to its normal levels of ~60 teams total, which is where it's been for the last two seasons.

So while UGC definitely does take away some of the market who'd go into ESEA, because it's free, that wasn't the main issue in the drop off here. Since the players trying it out, were probably mostly players who were playing for free as well. Nor did these players jump ship to UGC. As UGC lost about 40% of its sixes player base over the last 4 seasons (same time frame.)

I think the question is, why didn't the players who could play for free in ESEA stay? Why did it only take two seasons to go back to where it started? -- Is it the format? Is it the league structure? Is it just that CSGO players don't have an interest in sixes? etc...

Except for the fact it was the largest format in NA for 4.5 years straight, during the peek of tf2.

UGC is pretty much dead in terms of HL. In the fall '18 season they had about 25 teams, but for some reason instead of breaking up the teams into multiple divisions. They stuck to having one giant league using the swiss format. Meaning that if your team won against another steel level team, you'd be popped up to play against Plat level teams. And then have to suffer losing against teams much better than you, until you could play teams around your skill level again.

Unsurprisingly the following season saw a stark drop in teams. Only about 10 signed up and again one div despite the disparity in skill. To my knowledge, about half of those teams dropped out pretty early on in the season.

RGL.gg was a 7v7 Prolander league only until the fall of 2018. Where we brought on HL and the majority of the player base jumped ship to play in RGL. While money might have played a factor for Invite, all other divisions had no prize pool. Meaning those people came over because of the league, not the money. If you're curious, here's the player counts from the main leagues in NA from spring.

If you want to play some Highlander, the next season starts on May 27th. Registration for Season 3 should be opening up soon. In the meantime, there is an experimental maps cup starting this weekend. You can join that at http://Exp.RGL.gg.

Teams created != full teams

There were 17 teams created, but the other day when Lucrative and I looked at it. There were only about 2-3 teams who had fully set up rosters. Looks like we have a few more today, but the only division that could possibly partially be run is Open. As our placement div only has 2 teams readied up in it and the Invite division had none.

Which is what prompted the cancellation.

For anyone who is interested in trying out some new maps, the RGL-HL team is hosting an experimental map cup. It starts next week. You can check it out at http://exp.rgl.gg/ Our winter 2018 had 400+ starting players in it, though I don't think this one will be quite as big. It's fun and some good warm up prior to season 3 of HL this May.

Because I didn't, I listen to a bit of the start. And skimmed to see if there were any format changes in the slides. As I've been playing comp since 2011, so I was really just focusing on the years before me.

And again, the point I'm raising isn't a question of did the inner-meta of the format shift over time. As I acknowledge in basically every post above that it did. It'd be idiotic to try and claim that sixes meta now = sixes meta 10 years ago. Fortunately, that's not my question.

My question is, what about the format (Class restrictions, weapon bans, map types) has changed in the last ten years. And I list my findings above, which you're not really refuting you're just talking about something else entirely. And I'm not trying to say I know everything, I don't. So I'm wondering if I'm wrong on this and if so where. So I can be better informed.

I wholeheartedly agree that there have been shifts in roles of the classes, the inner-meta of the sixes game. The strategy of the game is very different than it was 10 years ago, even if the actual format is very almost identical with very little changes to it.

So from this, it sounds like, many things were tried back in 2007 and by 2008/2009 the base idea is pretty well established.

Which is my point, the base format essentially started at 2-2-1-1, on 5cp maps with heavy weapon restrictions.

It's correct to say that the inner-meta of sixes has evolved, clearly it has. Just as it has in any format over the course of 10 years. It's confusing to me to say something was "sculpted" over 10 years, when really it was decided 10 years ago and this past 10 years has been mostly just trying to keep the format as it always has been, 2-2-1-1, basically 5cp only, with a decent amount of weapons banned.

Again not bad or good. If something is good, why change it.

I'd love to get some history behind this, as I've learned a bit about competitive in NA.

To my understanding, sixes was not sculpted over time, but was created almost in full about 9-10 years ago and then was slowly detailed as the years went on.

For instance, back in Season 13 of ozfortress, they had almost every single weapon banned. Which is only 4 years ago.

Or ESEA, in season 14, had about 50% of weapons banned.

More importantly, the class limits and map types were set a long time ago. Looking back at the start of ESEA, in the first season, it was almost exclusively 5cp maps. And clicking through several seasons, it's basically the same. One koth map gets added in. Didn't see any payload being played.

In class limits, it was CL2, except for medic in 2008 in EU and already by later in the year in fall in 2008 demo was restricted to 1. Effectively given us our current class limits.

The only "sculpting" I can tell that happened is:

- The number of weapon bans has been reduced, though it doesn't matter much. As the handful of weapons that could help make flex classes more impactful are not allowed.

- Class restrictions became more restrictive, despite the class meta being fairly static over time

- Maps types being played, stuck with 5cp from the start and is almost exclusively the only map type being played now.

Two of the major things that make up the format, is the class limits, weapons and maps (as these can shape the meta.) And from what I can tell, basically from the start, nothing really changed. No real sculpting has been done. Basically what the last 10 years as done is just polished the already complete work of art that is restrictive sixes.

Which is fine, this isn't a knock at sixes over other formats. Highlander is basically in the same boat. The inner meta of the format has changed. The whitelist continues to be very open, as it always was and the class diversity is the same as it always was... existing. But no one would say highlander has been "sculpted" over the last 10 years, because like sixes, it's essentially the same game it was at the start. With only minor changes to the maps and weapons banned.

Maybe I'm missing something, and feel free to illuminate where sixes has drastically changed in terms of format (outside of the first year or two of existence.) Because from what I can tell, it's basically the same as it ever was. Very strict class meta 2-2-1-1, and 5cp maps. And anytime a meta was shaping that wasn't 2-2-1-1, either weapons were banned or restrictions were taken down to CL1, to keep the meta to continue as 2-2-1-1.

Anyone who wants to watch the match, here's the vod : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEbf2geIV6I

Yes, all RGL servers automatically upload the STV's both to demos.tf and sizzlingstats.

If you to the league table click on the team you're interested in. Click on a player and then click on a link to one of the pages above. Then all you have to do is find it.

e.g. here's probably the closest game we had in Invite last week

Also, that wasn't one half streamed, that was a full match. The ruleset we're using for 5cp is first to 3 with no timelimit.

Tonight we'll be playing a full Bo3 on Upward.

There was a bug in the registration page that I just fixed, so you should be able to register now.

If there are any future website issues, please let me know either on here or through discord.

Also for anyone who's playing in our No Restriction Sixes league. This /will not/ conflict with your regular season games. The Tuesday matches do not start until the regular season is over. So this would only be an issue if your team is a top 4 team, and as always, you can reschedule your matches for other dates.

We had a really awesome HL Experimental Maps Cup in December where we had 40 teams involved in that. Would love to see the sixes community be able to match that.