There is an epidemic which has started to run rampant here among TF2 Div. Over the years, there have been times when it has been worse and times when its been practically nonexistent. Recently, however, it has come to my attention that its starting to become a pretty serious issue again.
I am just as guilty as anyone else of hopping on a server, looking to see who else is on and subsequently joining the winning team. Why? Usually because my friends are on that particular team. Its not my most frequent method of joining a team, mind you. Most of the time I just select random and go with it. The question which arises here partially stems from this issue. What is the right thing to do? Not, what is going to benefit me the most?
We all love to play with friends. We all like to win. We all like to be able to look at our GameME stats and see that over time we are improving. Ok, maybe not that last one for everybody... but some of us are pretty obsessed about that. I look after every gaming session. >_> Is there anything wrong with these things? No! Of course not!
The issue which is becoming more and more common place is people team stacking. Since there may be a couple of people who don't necessarily know exactly what that is, here's a general definition. Basically, team stacking is when a number of good players purposely stay on the same team for an extended period of time and just destroy the other team over and over again. Frequently the most obvious team stacks occur right after an auto-balance, where 1-2 people from the winning team get put on the other team and they purposely switch back to the winning team so they can simply continue winning with no threat of a challenge.
Now... I understand, there are times when a player is simply that good. Some people can join a team and give that team a guaranteed advantage. This is not what I am referring to. I'm talking about multiple people always playing on the same team, or almost always playing on the same team, and never switching it up to give the server more balanced matches.
"Why does this matter? Isn't this just about having fun?" Yes, yes it is about having fun. Its about EVERYONE having fun, not just a select few players having fun because they win every time or almost every time. Over the past 2 months of play time I have seen and heard countless accusations of eGO players stacking teams (again, I'm occasionally guilty of it... working on that) and how things just aren't fun when there's no balance. You know what the most frequent replies I see are? Its certainly not eGO members spreading out to balance things. More often than not the eGO members either laugh about it in Vent while saying the "whiners are just sad because they suck" or, in more extreme cases, actually say something on the servers about how the players getting rolled basically need to suck it up. There is nothing right about this.
Other issues which arise with team stacking... frequently when one team becomes stacked, there will be 1 eGO member on the non-stacked team who chooses not to help with the stacking. Then what happens? That 1 eGO member and his (using him, his, he as a generic here) team get destroyed over and over again. He says something about it and his peers tell him he is just complaining or that of he's sad he should switch teams. He doesn't switch teams, knowing it would just add to the problem... but because he's having no fun, he quits. Now, in addition to causing one of our own people to quit due to lack of enjoyment, we also have a PR issues where all the pubs on the server may very well have seen this discussion... and now eGO looks like a bunch of jerks, even when dealing with each other.
I personally have lost two recruits who would have joined eGO if they didn't see team stacking on a frequent basis. Both of them very literally told me they wouldn't join eGO because, while they like our servers SOMETIMES, eGO members appear to encourage team stacking. This is another part of what makes this such a serious issue... people, good people, are choosing not to join eGO because we are making ourselves look bad.
Here's the thing. I'm not preaching at anyone. However, we need to fix this issue and we need to fix it now before it becomes a serious issue. I see people joke about and all I can think is "how is this funny in the least?" If you joined a server that was stacked and stayed stacked the whole time, chances are... you wouldn't stay for long, I don't care who you are. Very few people are that masochistic and seriously hate themselves that much. So... another thing which this brings up... the more team stacking we have, the less people want to play our servers... which has a strong potential to make our server rankings drop like a rock. That's the logistical side of things. The humanistic side of things is this: eGO is all about being respectful to others, having fun and meeting new people. On our servers, the only way we can encourage fun and respect is by LEADING BY EXAMPLE. If teams are stacked, less people have fun... this leads to name calling, cussing and general disrespect for others as people get more and more frustrated. Then we have to kick someone who is cussing or... whatever not because they're a genuine jerk, but because our actions caused them to get so frustrated that they may have accidentally broken a rule. I know IRL I cuss when I'm upset. Some people don't have my self control and channel that in game.
We are literally causing more issues for ourselves by allowing the stacking to continue. More paperwork, less new recruits, more dissent amongst our own members. This. Needs. To. Stop.
I don't care if you just want to pad your stats, I don't care if you want to play with your friends... do those things! But don't do it at the expense of other people. We are eGO. We represent what, to me, is the finest gaming organization in the world. We are the face of this clan. Set the example! I'm going to do my best to practice what I'm saying here... I expect you all to do the same. I know you are capable and I know you're good people. Let's show that to everyone.
I am just as guilty as anyone else of hopping on a server, looking to see who else is on and subsequently joining the winning team. Why? Usually because my friends are on that particular team. Its not my most frequent method of joining a team, mind you. Most of the time I just select random and go with it. The question which arises here partially stems from this issue. What is the right thing to do? Not, what is going to benefit me the most?
We all love to play with friends. We all like to win. We all like to be able to look at our GameME stats and see that over time we are improving. Ok, maybe not that last one for everybody... but some of us are pretty obsessed about that. I look after every gaming session. >_> Is there anything wrong with these things? No! Of course not!
The issue which is becoming more and more common place is people team stacking. Since there may be a couple of people who don't necessarily know exactly what that is, here's a general definition. Basically, team stacking is when a number of good players purposely stay on the same team for an extended period of time and just destroy the other team over and over again. Frequently the most obvious team stacks occur right after an auto-balance, where 1-2 people from the winning team get put on the other team and they purposely switch back to the winning team so they can simply continue winning with no threat of a challenge.
Now... I understand, there are times when a player is simply that good. Some people can join a team and give that team a guaranteed advantage. This is not what I am referring to. I'm talking about multiple people always playing on the same team, or almost always playing on the same team, and never switching it up to give the server more balanced matches.
"Why does this matter? Isn't this just about having fun?" Yes, yes it is about having fun. Its about EVERYONE having fun, not just a select few players having fun because they win every time or almost every time. Over the past 2 months of play time I have seen and heard countless accusations of eGO players stacking teams (again, I'm occasionally guilty of it... working on that) and how things just aren't fun when there's no balance. You know what the most frequent replies I see are? Its certainly not eGO members spreading out to balance things. More often than not the eGO members either laugh about it in Vent while saying the "whiners are just sad because they suck" or, in more extreme cases, actually say something on the servers about how the players getting rolled basically need to suck it up. There is nothing right about this.
Other issues which arise with team stacking... frequently when one team becomes stacked, there will be 1 eGO member on the non-stacked team who chooses not to help with the stacking. Then what happens? That 1 eGO member and his (using him, his, he as a generic here) team get destroyed over and over again. He says something about it and his peers tell him he is just complaining or that of he's sad he should switch teams. He doesn't switch teams, knowing it would just add to the problem... but because he's having no fun, he quits. Now, in addition to causing one of our own people to quit due to lack of enjoyment, we also have a PR issues where all the pubs on the server may very well have seen this discussion... and now eGO looks like a bunch of jerks, even when dealing with each other.
I personally have lost two recruits who would have joined eGO if they didn't see team stacking on a frequent basis. Both of them very literally told me they wouldn't join eGO because, while they like our servers SOMETIMES, eGO members appear to encourage team stacking. This is another part of what makes this such a serious issue... people, good people, are choosing not to join eGO because we are making ourselves look bad.
Here's the thing. I'm not preaching at anyone. However, we need to fix this issue and we need to fix it now before it becomes a serious issue. I see people joke about and all I can think is "how is this funny in the least?" If you joined a server that was stacked and stayed stacked the whole time, chances are... you wouldn't stay for long, I don't care who you are. Very few people are that masochistic and seriously hate themselves that much. So... another thing which this brings up... the more team stacking we have, the less people want to play our servers... which has a strong potential to make our server rankings drop like a rock. That's the logistical side of things. The humanistic side of things is this: eGO is all about being respectful to others, having fun and meeting new people. On our servers, the only way we can encourage fun and respect is by LEADING BY EXAMPLE. If teams are stacked, less people have fun... this leads to name calling, cussing and general disrespect for others as people get more and more frustrated. Then we have to kick someone who is cussing or... whatever not because they're a genuine jerk, but because our actions caused them to get so frustrated that they may have accidentally broken a rule. I know IRL I cuss when I'm upset. Some people don't have my self control and channel that in game.
We are literally causing more issues for ourselves by allowing the stacking to continue. More paperwork, less new recruits, more dissent amongst our own members. This. Needs. To. Stop.
I don't care if you just want to pad your stats, I don't care if you want to play with your friends... do those things! But don't do it at the expense of other people. We are eGO. We represent what, to me, is the finest gaming organization in the world. We are the face of this clan. Set the example! I'm going to do my best to practice what I'm saying here... I expect you all to do the same. I know you are capable and I know you're good people. Let's show that to everyone.
