Care to explain me something?

[Doogum7X]

when we(oNe) search for a match, we will immediately search for the highest skill clan we can find to play against. most of the time there are no good clans to play against. so, we will go from searching for a match vs LC/MyS/w00p to a match vs mid skill clans, and then when all of them are scared to play against us, we have to resort to going onto pubs/irc and asking people to play us. more often than not, they are also scared. some clans resort to aliasing, but we'll usually just round people up who never play clan matches and just play inters(90% of AC players) and just play against them for practice.
we have no need to "prove" ourselves, our reputation seems to scare most clans into not playing us. this is counter-productive.

a big problem in AC is the lack of clans willing to play clan matches, even clans that played matches in the past at a good level(TyD, DES im looking at you). this decreases the average skill level in AC, to the point where people are completely content with not advancing their skill at all and just shotgunning on pubs.

a statement: if your clan does not play matches, and you want to play matches, round up people with a similar skill level to you and who want to play matches often, give your previous clan the finger, and make your own clan. there is no point in pestering your "clanmates" who don't even want to play the game.

Right, you go down the ladder to find favorable clans to play. I get that. But there is a point where playing an intra clan with whoever is available is more beneficial than aliasing and playing an inferior clan. That point is clear cut and in black and white to me. Also, the behavior displayed and the intentional dishonesty that represents the series of actions from when matches are being turned down to switching to aliases to 'successfully' play a match goes back to what I said prior. It's bad form.

I agree that the average level of skill has declined, but I attribute it broadly to development and weapon scaling, not a lack of clans playing matches. Believe me, I want all the shotgunning noobs removed just as quickly as you do. I think there are different attitudes and a big problem is the attitude taken by the uber competitive. Specifically them not being cognizant of the different AC personalities and skill levels and respecting those needs. I'm not saying being uber competitive is a bad thing at all, it helps to create progress and growth. I for one believe the challenge of playing higher skilled players is the way to improve yourself. But not everyone thinks the same way, and that's the way it is.

imagine if every time you wanted to play a shitty shotgun infested pub game, you weren't able to because there isn't enough people on AC. if you cared enough, you would go to the effort of getting people to play a game, even if they don't really want to. most of the time, and especially during the australian timezone, there isn't enough people on for a 3vs3 or even 2vs2 match. i'm completely fine with people declining my match requests, but its really a problem when you can't find anyone to play, and you really want to play a game of (good) AC. even if we're playing against noobs, it really is better than nothing, and we improve our teamplay and cohesion from practicing against moving targets. the other team can learn ALOT from the match if they analyze what they're doing wrong and what the other team is doing right, rather than losing their shit. this is also assuming that the other team actually wants to improve in AC, if they don't then they probably won't improve anyway. i recall beating the crap out of dyH months ago, and they started showing signs of great improvement weeks later, in terms of aim and teamplay. however since then they've kind of stagnated and lost the motivation to play matches, and would rather play inters, pubs, etc.

on to your point about clans, i explained it before but ill go through it again.
i understand that people join clans for the "community" and "the power of friendship", but you can accomplish this without the need to put a tag on IRC. the only function for a clan really is to play matches together. all the other things that are associated with clans such as playing pubs and inters together, making friends, sharing admin passwords(haha) can be done without needing to have the same tag. ironically, there are many clans in AC that simply exist as glue for friendships between players, and these clans seemingly outnumber the clans that actually play the game.

I'm sorry, I understand your example, but its an outlying example of AC gameplay. You make a good case point but that just isn't the case for the majority (more like 1 Std) of AC. When you are scrounging for players during a timezone when no one is on, I agree it gets tiresome and much easier to just alias and get your play in. If there are only enough people for a 3v3 between all of the servers, then its essentially a pub 3v3 or an inter and like I said I don't care what you call yourself during that. However I feel like what you are talking about is tangential to the OP's post. You're citing a specific example that, while valid and arguable, is different from his.

I also have to disagree slightly from your view on the value of clans. More so expand I guess. Clans are formed for many reasons as you talked about, and I agree much of the activity of clans is playing matches. But the bigger picture of a clan should be to improve the game. Camaraderie, connections, and networking all play a part in doing so. Playing matches falls under that umbrella obviously, but isn't the only thing under it. It's to surround yourself with like-minded players to improve the game, whether it be through competitive gameplay, mapping, etc.

Maybe we just need to redefine what an 'official' clan entails, because you are right about the over-saturation of clans that exist but don't bring anything to the table.