Squads have issues showing enough to a match as is. Especially your lower tier squads by implementing smaller rosters you are making that worse. Yes salary cap is not a perfect system by any means, and it does not prevent stacking completely but it gives a restriction if even minimal to deter it. FFA will do nothing but push more players out because the matches are that much more unbalanced compared to what the can be now. There will always be outliers in top players deciding to go against the grain and not stack but in my experience since returning that's a very minimal pool. Those of you wanting to complain about stacking and the player base and do nothing to change it in terms of squad selections can blame yourself. Much kudos to Tactical and Lana last season for sticking it out with Allegiance. More than the majority of "top players" even think about doing because they are worried about a fucking rating. All it takes is a few players to change the complexion of a squad but most of you dense fucks can't seem to grasp that and continue down the same moronic paths, then bitch about the fact there are stacked squads and low tier squads.

The only way to completely eliminate stacking is to do randomly drafted teams. That's it. But that would be stupid. I don't understand the stacking complaint. Do you really think people are going to stop playing with the people they've been playing with for years? It's not going to happen. If it happens to be that these groups are better than other groups then so fucking what? Any squad is capable of beating another squad on any given day. BH/Rejects and Glitter/NH for example. And before that the squads made up of the SE/BB/PG guys were always average at best but they managed to win. No matter what ideas are proposed, they will be shot down. Why? Because look at who plays this game. The same people who have played it for years. There isn't a single NEW player. The "new" players we get are people returning from the SOE days. If this game had a growing playerbase and plenty of people to choose from then things could change. But right now the cliques will remain and the squads will stay the same.

You used to play, I don't know why it's any surprise. Seldom is a squad that is so stacked that 0 others have a chance to win. There is always going to be a top 2-3 squads that have a chance and maybe 1-2 other middle of the road squads that have potential.. the rest are like sheep going to slaughter. It's been that way ever since the formation of this league. I remember watching games where it was Akzel & stacked team vs PartySTL and a bunch of other randoms that didn't know how to strafe losing by over 100+ kills. Look at every winner of every season, chances are they were in the top 3-4. I'm willing to bet that most players on stacked squads would rather just not play than be forced onto the worst squad in the league. It's sad, but probably true. Instead of trying to force people onto squads they don't want, people should be focusing on other options to benefit the league.

Forcing people on squads they don't have fun on is indeed a terrible idea. There's so many other games out there with so much more to offer, most of us stay here to play with the "friends." As soon as you start forcing people to play outside your clique is when they start quitting (look at most of the sfo guys)

Can't really punish people for playing with friends either. You can talk about wanting to keep things competitive all you want but just remember this is a novelty game from 18 years ago that we play more for the chat than we do the gameplay.

The other option exterior of Drafting is the one Apollo mentioned recently and one I've brought up in the past: Shrink the teams (5v5/6v6) and the talent's forced to spread providing more teams and thereafter more competition. That 1 "stacked" squad might turn into 2 stacked squads but at least you're more likely to find someone your equal. Might be able to offer 10 teams instead of 6. Shrug. Draft is the only balanced option but it's never going to be approved.

Seems like it'd have to happen at some point, if we keep losing players.

wow dave, I hope your squad fades before season starts.

5v5! more teams!

The idea of smaller rosters/team sizes is pretty interesting but we would need smaller maps. And I'm not talking about the RvB or GvY shit either.

5v5 with a roster cap of what 8? :o

Something in that vicinity, sure - and yeah, maps would be ideal. I think I heard Apollo or Ernie mention you could even use EC and just delete the north section or something which would be a decent size for 5v5. Make edits to existing maps.

If anyone still has it I believe LZ assault might be a decent map for 5v5, might have to tweak it a bit

We can edit current maps quickly. Use the same maps but condense them. http://imgur.com/a/d4rsv

make it happen ~_~

Wouldn't take a whole lot editing either. Just do what they did on KR to block out access to 86 and stuff with the barbed wire/barricades.

this thread got to 10 pages, nice

Lava station! Ruthias map! Shit even hardcorps jungle map without trees and more rock formations could work. Oh nml too.

Just make more pub maps

Can we get orange and silver and pink and purple on some of the maps? Green v yellow is so boring