New Changing Payload Servers to 40 player is a mistake

[Sam Alt-Man]

I searched the forum but don't see discussion on the recent change. Changing the PL server to allow up to 40 players (plus VIP if any) is a mistake. The rounds already feel different. Areas of the map that were already prone to being unbalanced toward RED or BLU now feel unplayable at times. 32 was already a stretch beyond how the game was designed, but usually works. This takes it way beyond what these maps can handle. I'd vote we change it back.

 

[bowwow]

btw since you fucked up the US server so bad, all the remaining american refugees come to the EU payload server which clogs it up and makes the queue problem even worse at peak times

it also makes hitreg worse since they have 100-200 ping

 

[lucas4647]

I’m not a fan of 40-person servers either, but I think they’re the lesser evil here. People want to play with their friends, and with Skial cutting back on vanilla servers, the choice is either increasing Payload to 40 players or seeing players leave—possibly quitting TF2 altogether.

I used to play on LA Goldrush Fast, a server that died because regulars left. One of the biggest reasons? At peak times, it filled up too fast, making it hard for regulars to join, while off-peak hours left it dead. If the server had bumped to 40 players back in 2015, it might have lasted longer (though, sure, some players just moved on with life).

The point is: this isn’t just about arguing against 40-player servers—it’s about preventing servers (and maybe Skial itself) from dying out. Skial doesn’t have YouTuber promotions or a big marketing budget like some competitors. When servers die here, they stay dead.

This community is already shrinking. We’re all just maintaining what’s left. If we don’t support foundational changes to keep it alive, it’ll fall apart faster than people realize.

 

[flange_the_eternal]

32 Player Server was never dying and never in need of 'saving'. All of the excuses presented by the staff team build an argument as strong as a wet paper towel. What does make people look for alternative options, however, is gross mismanagement. Case in point; the mass exodus of Americans that populated the US Payload server and went to make their own resulting in 1 out of 2 payload servers practically desolate.

 

[lucas4647]

32 Player Server was never dying and never in need of 'saving'. All of the excuses presented by the staff team build an argument as strong as a wet paper towel. What does make people look for alternative options, however, is gross mismanagement. Case in point; the mass exodus of Americans that populated the US Payload server and went to make their own resulting in 1 out of 2 payload servers practically desolate.

I’ve been around since 2014, and what you’re saying is a massive oversimplification. I love Skial and TF2, and I have no ties to the mods; other than RM Sniper, whom I haven’t spoken to in nearly five years.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of why Skial’s servers are struggling:

- Competition: Uncletopia siphoned players who dislike random crits and has several big name content creators supporting the servers.
- Moderation Differences: Servers like Oprah tolerate hate speech, while Skial’s strict anti-cheat and anti-toxicity policies alienate parts of TF2’s younger male audience.
- Toxic Players: Individuals like [TCA] ENGY (you know who you are) and others (e.g., Burn Victim, Beavis) exploited the edges of Skial’s moderation. Disclaimer I have personal friendships with these players.
- TF2’s Changes: quickplay no longer directs players to community servers, and the contract system shifted focus.
- Community Factors: General burnout, lack of promotion by content creators, and even active criticism from big names like Muselk.
- Server Mechanics:Auto-balance/kick policies often target newer non-donors, leaving a bad impression.
- Cheating Waves: Skial was heavily targeted by cheaters from 2018–2024.

None of this points to mismanagement. It’d be easy to blame leadership, but the reality is more nuanced. I’d love to see a resurgence of players on Skial, but that’ll require support from content creators and high-profile traders to draw fresh interest.

 

[Oprah Of Flamey Goodness]

I’ve been around since 2014, and what you’re saying is a massive oversimplification. I love Skial and TF2, and I have no ties to the mods; other than RM Sniper, whom I haven’t spoken to in nearly five years.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of why Skial’s servers are struggling:

- Competition: Uncletopia siphoned players who dislike random crits and has several big name content creators supporting the servers.
- Moderation Differences: Servers like Oprah tolerate hate speech, while Skial’s strict anti-cheat and anti-toxicity policies alienate parts of TF2’s younger male audience.
- Toxic Players: Individuals like [TCA] ENGY (you know who you are) and others (e.g., Burn Victim, Beavis) exploited the edges of Skial’s moderation. Disclaimer I have personal friendships with these players.
- TF2’s Changes: quickplay no longer directs players to community servers, and the contract system shifted focus.
- Community Factors: General burnout, lack of promotion by content creators, and even active criticism from big names like Muselk.
- Server Mechanics:Auto-balance/kick policies often target newer non-donors, leaving a bad impression.
- Cheating Waves: Skial was heavily targeted by cheaters from 2018–2024.

None of this points to mismanagement. It’d be easy to blame leadership, but the reality is more nuanced. I’d love to see a resurgence of players on Skial, but that’ll require support from content creators and high-profile traders to draw fresh interest.

Say what you wish about Skial and its management, but please don't spread misinformation about my servers. We have not, do not and will never tolerate hate speech. We have a gag/mute list a mile long to prove that and do our best to stay on top of bad actors that come through, including the use of a chat filter that auto-blocks all slurs.

 

[lucas4647]

Say what you wish about Skial and its management, but please don't spread misinformation about my servers. We have not, do not and will never tolerate hate speech. We have a gag/mute list a mile long to prove that and do our best to stay on top of bad actors that come through, including the use of a chat filter that auto-blocks all slurs.

Most of the US player base that left Skial due to its more strict moderation have moved to Oprah, as any active moderators there don’t appear to enforce chat rules consistently. Many of the toxic players I’ve mentioned; all of whom I’m still friends with, are among the most active on Oprah. In fact they are on Oprah right now. A decent amount of them have long mutes in Skial and don’t wish to return.

I understand if that upsets you, but I stand by my observations. As a 2L law student who’s open about my IRL identity, I don’t have the luxury of anonymity to lie behind. And I say this with full accountability.

And I will say something else. I think skial’s chat moderation especially for voice chat should be more like Oprah. If we don’t have the manpower to talk to people face to face before mutes then we shouldn’t police legal speech outside of extreme cases.

 

[Oprah Of Flamey Goodness]

You have never connected to our servers, so your statements about our moderation appear to be completely based on hearsay at best, or at worst, are assumptions with no facts behind them.
Looking at the list of players who are on my currently full server, I am familiar with almost all of the names and there are only two that have had any history of misbehavior with us.
Strict moderation is not why people have left Skial. The administration not listening to the desires of its player base is. Your assumptions are woefully inaccurate.
I wish you the best with your law degree.

 

[lucas4647]

You have never connected to our servers, so your statements about our moderation appear to be completely based on hearsay at best, or at worst, are assumptions with no facts behind them.
Looking at the list of players who are on my currently full server, I am familiar with almost all of the names and there are only two that have had any history of misbehavior with us.
Strict moderation is not why people have left Skial. The administration not listening to the desires of its player base is. Your assumptions are woefully inaccurate.
I wish you the best with your law degree.

Your SQL must be bad then I don’t know what to tell you. I was on Oprah once with an friend and listened to a child explain the entire process of reporting an undocumented person to ICE. As a law student whose wife has gone through the immigration defense clinic at our school and defends deportations I can say it was extremely accurate.

I’m okay with almost all speech even most hate speech. But my father came here undocumented so that struck a cord for me personally and I dipped.

 

[Oprah Of Flamey Goodness]

Your SQL must be bad then I don’t know what to tell you. I was on Oprah once with an friend and listened to a child explain the entire process of reporting an undocumented person to ICE. As a law student whose wife has gone through the immigration defense clinic at our school and defends deportations I can say it was extremely accurate.

I’m okay with almost all speech even most hate speech. But my father came here undocumented so that struck a cord for me personally and I dipped.

I can assure you our SQL database is accurate. We have over 60k unique id's and yours is not one of them unless you connected before 2020. So you are either misremembering which server you were on or were on a different account. That being said, if you did hear that sort of conversation, you could and should have reported it and it would have been handled.

 

[Jeffel]

Most of the US player base that left Skial due to its more strict moderation have moved to Oprah, as any active moderators there don’t appear to enforce chat rules consistently. Many of the toxic players I’ve mentioned; all of whom I’m still friends with, are among the most active on Oprah. In fact they are on Oprah right now. A decent amount of them have long mutes in Skial and don’t wish to return.

As someone in the latest batch of folks to leave, I would just like to clarify I most certainly didn't leave because of excess moderation on Skial. If you read the rest of this thread, I don't think that was being communicated at all based on the 40-player change. I have consistently heard that the 40 player change (the main topic of this thread) hurt more than helped the established community. We strongly advocated for other change here as a counterpoint to the 40 player change since the reason for the change was that there was a downturn in players.

I understand if that upsets you, but I stand by my observations. As a 2L law student who’s open about my IRL identity, I don’t have the luxury of anonymity to lie behind. And I say this with full accountability.

The other server's moderation keeps those "toxic players" in check from what I've seen. The rules are clear and consistent as far as I've seen. Just because they're toxic in one place does not mean they're banned or automatically punished for their actions in another if they adhere to the terms given. There might be an environmental problem if they're known to be toxic in one place, but mind themselves in another. A shame hearing from someone saying they're working to be a lawyer that they believe in complete recidivism, that toxic friends will be toxic anywhere. Sometimes, folks are just there to game, and that's excellent.

And I will say something else. I think skial’s chat moderation especially for voice chat should be more like Oprah. If we don’t have the manpower to talk to people face to face before mutes then we shouldn’t police legal speech outside of extreme cases.

What you're saying here seems very confused. If it's saying that it's nice to give warnings and have an active moderation team, I agree. I think that could definitely be done anywhere to encourage the kind of environment that players are drawn to and create community. I don't think a lack of consistent moderation is the key to success, in this case.

 

[flange_the_eternal]

I’ve been around since 2014, and what you’re saying is a massive oversimplification. I love Skial and TF2, and I have no ties to the mods; other than RM Sniper, whom I haven’t spoken to in nearly five years.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of why Skial’s servers are struggling:

- Competition: Uncletopia siphoned players who dislike random crits and has several big name content creators supporting the servers.
- Moderation Differences: Servers like Oprah tolerate hate speech, while Skial’s strict anti-cheat and anti-toxicity policies alienate parts of TF2’s younger male audience.
- Toxic Players: Individuals like [TCA] ENGY (you know who you are) and others (e.g., Burn Victim, Beavis) exploited the edges of Skial’s moderation. Disclaimer I have personal friendships with these players.
- TF2’s Changes: quickplay no longer directs players to community servers, and the contract system shifted focus.
- Community Factors: General burnout, lack of promotion by content creators, and even active criticism from big names like Muselk.
- Server Mechanics:Auto-balance/kick policies often target newer non-donors, leaving a bad impression.
- Cheating Waves: Skial was heavily targeted by cheaters from 2018–2024.

None of this points to mismanagement. It’d be easy to blame leadership, but the reality is more nuanced. I’d love to see a resurgence of players on Skial, but that’ll require support from content creators and high-profile traders to draw fresh interest.

Barely any of this list is at all relevant to the original thread topic that was prefaced around two specific Skial servers, US/EU Payload and the mismanagement of them over the past few months since the original post was made.

And even if the points were relevant, I don't see how dividing your existing playerbase with a controversial change (a change that people have been very vocal about), and forcing away a non-insignificant proportion of your playerbase away to other servers at all helps try and counter any of the points you've mentioned.

 

[hug sports]

Anyways this will be my last post here because I've stopped playing and donating to Skial following the server changes, despite being a consistent player and donator for over 4 years.

The reason US pl+ was so popular was not because of anything Skial did, but because we were a group of people that formed over the love of playing 32 player no-crit payload. This group of players is server agnostic, and we're happy to go elsewhere as long as we get to play 32 players. Now that these conditions no longer exist, we all left and donate to a different server that actually listens to us.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed my time playing on skial while it lasted. I'm very disappointed in how things turned out.

 

[Paolitux]

Plz do something 20 vs 20 is really not good !

 

[MDuka]

I think you should keep it as 40 because the community literally made a 32 player server that runs better and most complainers refuse to play for some reason

 

[w_r]

Late to the conversation but bumping this thread to share my thoughts on this topic. I took a hiatus for the best part of a year, so when I returned this summer I was surprised to see that payload EU is now 40 players. It's crazy how less playable 40 players is compared to 32. I won't bother repeating the many arguments made against this change, as other users have explained it quite succinctly, however, many months and several valid points of criticism later and there is not even a conversation about returning to 32 players. I have several hundred hours in skial servers since 2013, and I do genuinely love the EU payload community, but I can't wrap my head around this decision.

 

[hug sports]

Thanks for killing the US pl server btw

 

[Jermaphobe]

Thanks for killing the US pl server btw

Anyways this will be my last post here because I've stopped playing and donating to Skial following the server changes, despite being a consistent player and donator for over 4 years.

The reason US pl+ was so popular was not because of anything Skial did, but because we were a group of people that formed over the love of playing 32 player no-crit payload. This group of players is server agnostic, and we're happy to go elsewhere as long as we get to play 32 players. Now that these conditions no longer exist, we all left and donate to a different server that actually listens to us.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed my time playing on skial while it lasted. I'm very disappointed in how things turned out.

I get it, I saw it coming a mile away, I still didn't like it - It's out of my control so I don't let it bother me. You should do the same

 

[Bottiger]

The server was already dying when we changed it, it could have been that the change kept the server alive for longer than it should have been.

Payload EU is filled until 8 pm est because the US players just join that instead of seeding US in the morning.

 

[PoomBa]

The server was already dying when we changed it, it could have been that the change kept the server alive for longer than it should have been.

Payload EU is filled until 8 pm est because the US players just join that instead of seeding US in the morning.

Lie, Lie....