You know, up till now I was against any sort of restriction on New Recruits.
However, I'm reading several threads where people are asking for separate scoreboards because it is allegedly easier to win points playing team games with a doubles partner. See
Doubles games and their affect on rankings and
Seperate rankings for individual and team
I think there is in fact a bias. Everyone has the same chance of being helped or screwed by a deadbeat in a
standard game. When someone deadbeats in a
team game the "buddies teams" always benefit and the "pickup teams" always lose.
Think about it - two established partners start a public doubles game. Would you join spot #3? There is a large chance that you'll get screwed if you do. Even our moderators have suggested not to join, rather "play with friends or join a clan".
I did some analysis and discovered that 80% of auto-kicks in team games were players with a ranking today of New Recruit (73% if I include all types of games). So if we blocked New Recruits from team games it would solve most of the team deadbeat problem, even reducing the need for two scoreboards. If we simply hide team games from the join page, New Recruits won't be hassled with error messages and such.
In the Suggestions Box "No Points For New Recruit Deadbeats" is listed as to-do. But that's more work, doesn't address the nuisance of having to play the game with a deadbeat teammate, and is perhaps overkill on standard and terminator games.
So, now I'm leaning towards implementing this suggestion in the next update...