The Team Scene

I was in a skype call with some friends, and @5ive_Head , @gamren ,@YouAreBestBae, and myself started brainstorming ideas. One of the thoughts that we brought up was related to the team scene and considering why it has started to die.

There are some things I have noticed on the team scene as of recent. More and more teams are becoming inactive, and unable to get players for matches. There are a few reasons for this: only 6 out of 17 official teams have 20+ players, and most official teams have some inactive players in them, some full of inactive players. Of course, the reason that this happens is mostly because of family and loyalty. I know plenty of people are sticking to their team just due to the fact that they have become a family there and they don't want to leave because of that. This leads to the fact that more teams have inactive people and also become inactive themselves.

Another thing I have noticed is the increase of PPM's and the people that apply to them. I don't think PPM's started because of inactivity of teams, it just allows for a quick match with people, but I have noticed the people that sign up. I see the same group of people singing up for PPM's, and they are the active players of CTF (with exceptions of course). But as I noticed that the active people playing in these ppm's are from many different teams, some of which are inactive or very close to becoming inactive it made me think about the team scene.

I think one of the main reasons the team scene is dying is because people in teams are becoming inactive, and are not being kicked and newer people added. I know very recently Genetic just went through a purge of their inactive members. I think a personal quick solution for each team is to take care of inactive players and try finding newer players, bring in some, testing them out, etc. Of course another, harder solution would be to enforce the inactive policy for teams a bit harsher. Currently it takes 4 months for an active team to be disbanded, and so far I've only seen this once with Majestic. I know there are a few active people on majestic because I got them onto my new team and they are often talking and able to do a match. Having it so that teams that are inactive should be force disbanded in 2 months or something, to allow more active members on those teams and make them join another team.

(TL;DR) Overall, I think teams taking more initiative in managing inactive players and gathering players. Also, making it so that inactive teams are force disbanded in a shorter amount of time so some active players from that team to be in other active teams.

 

Of course we can't control what other teams do, but teams should realize that being inactive and having inactive players is pointless. Why bother make an official team, where the point is to have matches, where you will be inactive and have inactive players because "you want to keep it for the fun of chatting". This doesn't make sense to me personally, and it also is something that is killing the team scene. If you want to "keep a team for the fun of chatting", make a new chat with those people and disband the team or make it active. I know last Fall, the team Lunar Eclipse disbanded, but the chat was and is still there and is being used. I'm fine with talking and chatting with friends, and I do the same thing, but teams should realize that official teams are there to make friends as well as playing matches. That's the point of having a team, not so you could only chat, but also have fun playing matches. Of course, I can't monitor teams and I don't think I should, since it's their team and their responsibility, but I think more teams should try to become more active, since that is the point of teams.