Originally I posted a squad roster increase in Captain's Lounge for only Whoa which basically Sov veto'd because it was unfair in his opinion.

So I rethought the whole idea and believe I've come to a pretty decent idea/compromise:

<b>Increase S17 Roster Limit to 18 Players with these restrictions to prevent abuse:

1) Squads may only recruit players that were not on an active squad as of 2/14/2019 unless A) There current roster has 13 or less players. or B) They have permission from the USL Admin.

2) Any roster moves to circumvent the nature of this rule may be punished as seem fit by the USL Admin. The nature of this rule is to encourage squads to recruit new players or recruit players who were not planning on playing this season, rather than to reduce competitiveness of any of the current squads by encouraging squad hopping to stack.


Now- I'm personally for the roster increase regardless of if any restrictions are made just for the pure chance of captains doing the right thing, but I do think the restrictions stop any negative effects and are the better way to go. </b>


This Season is a bit unique in that it's the first season where we are in a pretty big up turn in quite awhile when it comes to activity and new players / returning players logging on. This is largely due to the mass email campaign Jovan has put on as well as somewhat due to zone development. (Thank you Hellspawn!)

Players are logging on throughout the day, decent games are getting started as early as 4-5 PM EST, we have TPT going on, and we just recently hit 70+ on a weekday without official league matches. It's steadily growing and looking healthy, especially with this season having had some great squads form and it looks to be the most competitive season in quite some time.

Things are looking up for Infantry and I want to make sure we as a community, and especially those involved in USL do everything we can to ensure we stay on a positive trend. It's no secret that USL has been a huge factor in Infantry being still alive today. However, the learning curve and kind of exclusive nature of most the squads that anywhere active can definitely be off putting to any potential new players.

They download Infantry for first time in 10 years only to log on to two squads SBing and they are locked in spec or can unspec to red vs blue where noone else is playing. Or a Cazzo player enjoying a 15 man co-op game or 25 player royale game all of sudden has all the zone population go to a USL arena for a SB which they aren't allowed to participate and don't even understand the draw of it. Getting these non-USL players involved greatly helps curb these types of things. In fact, with a high enough roster limit I plan to literally recruit every single person that will agree to trying out USL, regardless of skill or activity. Right now I already have my squad full with at least 3-4 that I would like to recruit this very second. I hate that I'm unable to really fully approach anyone else about joining USL since I don't have anymore spots to give out.

Getting players involved in an active and competitive USL squad helps make players more active themselves (how many people can attest to coming on just because they got a squad text or discord ping?) and it also increases the length of time they will try Infantry again for - and especially the chance that they will stay around for good and not just one season. I sincerely hope that many of the players I recruit become hooked into USL and will be on some of the "regular" squads that pop up next season.

Captain's reaching out how to old friends that haven't played in a few seasons can also have great recruitment effects for our population. I am more than willing to help find active new players interested in USL if any current USL squad captains would like to take some on.

The whole goal is that the players occupying the 15th to 18th spots on all these rosters would be players that we would not otherwise have participating! This would be huge for the health of Infantry. Every squad would be able to even more active and SB throughout the season every night, etc etc.

oops

What about "Daddy Sov said no" dont you underthtand

The problem is you have people like beavis aka r who have played the game since beta and are still worse than MikeC skill wise and just want to bench on good squads. i think you should make like a starter zone people like him and other 40 rated players can play on to improve strafe and aim and stuff and he is not allowed to leave the zone until he can successfully dodge a few bullets. is it possible? round up the shitters

cazzo is the shitter zone. But noone wants to play by themselves when the USL crowd leaves

If it's relatively new players or people new to the league for the most part, I'll sign off on it. Old vets get gud again like slob. Just be aggressive on people abusing the system or creating some loophole. Force them to play cazzo as punishment.

Oct i'ma have to disagree with you on 1 thing. Increasing roster would not make players more active, In fact it will likely make people inactive. Why would someone log on to SB when he sees in discord there are already 10 players in there, OR why would the 10th person in the squad really care about logging on when he already knows there are already 9 or 8 players who are active and SB all the time, and they are on the starting team. Decreasing the roster to 8 players will actually rely on players to log on, to not let down their teammates in wanting to SB. Plus you would actually have more squads in the season.

IDK man. If this shit was up to me. I would lock roaster at 8 people.

I don’t mind upping limits but I think the roster movement needs addressing. I had mentioned before that we should change how players are deemed eligible. Use the system SL had with lesser wait times to reflect the current population size. This would take some work from Champ to do though and I could understand him not wanting to put the time in for it.

Proposal:

Players must serve wait times prior to joining a squad or the free agent list.

In the off-season there is no penalty for leaving/ being removed from a squad until 1 week prior to start. This keeps players from impacting 1st week games.

Players that have yet to join a squad for the season have no initial wait timer.

Players leaving a squad must serve a 15 day wait prior to being able to join a new squad.

Players being kicked must serve an 8 day wait.

Players wait times are on the front end. After said wait they are eligible to join a new squad and be immediately eligible as a roster player.

This wait would also need to be served prior to being eligible to join the free agent list meaning they would not be eligible to “NT” and again impact a match as the rules currently state a player must be on the FA list to NT.

Just a thought. I understand the current system is what it is and is designed to work the same but think this would make the refs lives easier, and help deter players moving squads.

You guys shoukd have handled proposed rule changes in the Rules Changes thread weeks ago while this season was being tweaked. Waiting until the last couple of days to rush a rule chamge reeks of the dark time of Eric and DP admins. (Lol)

To be fair I don’t expect this to be done for this season. Or expect it at all for that matter. Merely a suggestion.

As for upping rosters. I’m indifferent on it. Rosters are usually dictated by number of squads and number of players still searching to find one.

@Sov

Already stated this privately but I'm completely fine with that clause as that is my main focus anyways , reaching out to new players and getting them into USL so we don't lose them. The only downside to that is it is harder to declare who is considered a new player rather than using what I outlined as the criteria. However, I completely trust Emperor's judgement regarding making decisions on who is eligible and not for "new player" status.

@Daddy

8 Player Squads mean heavy reliance on NTs as most people have somewhat of lives and can't log on every night, and even less likelihood of bringing anyone new to into a squad as each roster slot is heavily weighted. Regarding a bigger roster limit causing more inactivity, all new roster additions would be people not otherwise playing so that doesn't really translate. And I'm unsure of if you are referring to SBs as actual weekday squad battles or official USL matches as I've seen you interchange the term before.

@Riley
My suggestions is a this season only proposal btw. Next season we look into a better method to get new players involved. We can definitely discuss roster movement changes but your proposal is very loosely related to getting new players involved in USL which is what the OP about. As well it would take too much work to implement and discuss before this season starts, I'd table the idea and bring it up start of next off season. Really don't want it to distract from the issue at hand.

Still throwing out Jabs

Had to deepee. Rushing rules in the last 48 hours resulted in loopholes and shenanagins in the past. <3

Soon you'll realize things happened like that because of said people bitching. Use this thread as an example of someone waiting 3 days before matches start.