Current and Future leagues

[Tembest]

Apparently I don't have much time to contribute now either but I'll give you the idea... I don't think I would be capable of offering more anyway.

I had this idea about a league that could be played either 6vs6 or 12vs12. The point is that each squad would play in one sector.
I've told this idea before but here it comes again.

So, each team would play in their own sector, so basically you would have A + B vs C + D for example. (If it was 6vs6)
The teams playing together would be chosen so that the highest ranked team plays with the lowest ranked team each weekend. If we had 12vs12,
they would be playing 1 + 4 + 5 + 8 vs 2 + 3 + 6 + 7 for example. Each squad would be rewarded with 1 point for winning their own sector, and 1
extra point if they won the entire match. This would encourage the best team to also help to worse teams in their sectors. It's a game where the
skill gap is reduced a lot as the better teams would carry the worse ones.

Another benefit is that all teams would not have to show up with 4 or 3 players. The squad with only 2 players would naturally play west. The
problem with this system is that it is of course a bit complicated and what do we do if a squad does not show up with at least 2 players or no squad
shows up with 4? Will be play north 3vs3? or what? It's a possibility of course.

I'd like to hear some feedback on it. It could be that's impossible to implement or that none of you even like it but... that's something that has been
on my mind for long.

[Tembest]

On another note, about 6 vs 6 league. What will we do when squads show up with 4 players each? Or 3 and 6?
Forfeit losses have killed quite many leagues for us and the mood for people. How will we still play the match?

[jim the chin]

Apparently I don't have much time to contribute now either but I'll give you the idea... I don't think I would be capable of offering more anyway.

I had this idea about a league that could be played either 6vs6 or 12vs12. The point is that each squad would play in one sector.
I've told this idea before but here it comes again.

So, each team would play in their own sector, so basically you would have A + B vs C + D for example. (If it was 6vs6)
The teams playing together would be chosen so that the highest ranked team plays with the lowest ranked team each weekend. If we had 12vs12,
they would be playing 1 + 4 + 5 + 8 vs 2 + 3 + 6 + 7 for example. Each squad would be rewarded with 1 point for winning their own sector, and 1
extra point if they won the entire match. This would encourage the best team to also help to worse teams in their sectors. It's a game where the
skill gap is reduced a lot as the better teams would carry the worse ones.

Another benefit is that all teams would not have to show up with 4 or 3 players. The squad with only 2 players would naturally play west. The
problem with this system is that it is of course a bit complicated and what do we do if a squad does not show up with at least 2 players or no squad
shows up with 4? Will be play north 3vs3? or what? It's a possibility of course.

I'd like to hear some feedback on it. It could be that's impossible to implement or that none of you even like it but... that's something that has been
on my mind for long.

You could change the scoring system so instead of 1 point for winning the sector, you reward each player with:

sector flag average + sector kills/(normalising factor)

The normalising factor determines the weighting of kills compared to flags. So lets take North-sector for an example.

Code: Select all

Normalising factor = 0.1
Squad / Player / Flag Average / Kills / Total Points
Crusaders / Tembest / 18.2 / 41 / 38.4 points scored for Crusaders
Crusaders / SeVeR   / 18.2 / 46 / 38.4 points scored for Crusaders
Crusaders / Kemi    / 18.2 / 67 / 38.4 points scored for Crusaders
Everglaze / Matioso / 18.2 / 48 / 38.4 points scored for Everglaze

This way people score points for their squad but they can play with whoever. Although we would try to get all players from a squad in one sector if possible. Also sector kills is used because otherwise empers would be robbed.

[Tembest]

That doesn't make much difference. I mean I like the scoring system but you cannot really give them more points depending how many players each team has.

If you're all teams to show up with 3, it's not as good either in my opinion.

On another note, I am in a squad and choose players in my squad based on who I want to play with. I won't participate in a league where I might have to play
with whoever.

[jim the chin]

That doesn't make much difference. I mean I like the scoring system but you cannot really give them more points depending how many players each team has.

You could set a limit of 4 people per squad. So you're expected to bring 4, but if you don't you can still play with 1 and score about 1/4 of the points. The thing about 12v12, is you can potentially play it 16v16 with 4v4 in each sector, although I doubt that would ever happen.

On another note, I am in a squad and choose players in my squad based on who I want to play with. I won't participate in a league where I might have to play
with whoever.

If you're the only person who shows up on your squad, you can choose to play with whoever, or choose to leave. At least you've given a chance to play! If 2 of you show up, there's a very good chance you'll get either West, LN, RN or lower south. If 3 show up then it's either south, east, or 3v3West. If 4 show up, then north most likely, or maybe south/east 4v4.

I don't think there'd ever be an instance where you have to partner someone in lower south, RN, LN or east who is not on your squad. A squad that shows up with 1 player would be offered upper south. If two squads show up with one player, they are partnered together, ez.

[Tembest]

You could set a limit of 4 people per squad. So you're expected to bring 4, but if you don't you can still play with 1 and score about 1/4 of the points. The thing about 12v12, is you can potentially play it 16v16 with 4v4 in each sector, although I doubt that would ever happen.

Except that we will never have 8 squads that would be capable of showing up with 4. So this is totally out of question. The point in my suggestion was that squads
could be different size, as they always will be. The scoring needs to something that does not relate to how many people you showed up with.

Also now that I thought of your scoring method, how each individual scores points is a bit complicated also because certain sectors will reward you with far more
points than other ones. Would it be totally out of question that only flags count? You could make it flags held throughout the game of course, not just ding if we want
to. I kind of still like it would only be a win/lose and nothing else. Then just extra point(s) if you win the game as well. This way your squad would play in one sector
but would also like to help other sectors to win the match. I'm not a specialist with the scoring systems. So, anyone with any better ideas, please shoot. I just would
want it to be so that it wouldn't matter where you really play or whether you have 2 or 4 players.

[If you're the only person who shows up on your squad, you can choose to play with whoever, or choose to leave. At least you've given a chance to play! If 2 of you show up, there's a very good chance you'll get either West, LN, RN or lower south. If 3 show up then it's either south, east, or 3v3West. If 4 show up, then north most likely, or maybe south/east 4v4.

I don't think there'd ever be an instance where you have to partner someone in lower south, RN, LN or east who is not on your squad. A squad that shows up with 1 player would be offered upper south. If two squads show up with one player, they are partnered together, ez.

Sounds alright I guess. However, who gets to decide who plays where? Only half decent solution I can think of is the currently highest ranked squad's captain.
Of course that is only for which sector each squad play in. The squad should decide amongst themselves who plays upper/lower etc.

[Nubby]

No idea why I keep getting sucked in to reply but what the heck.

Typed up a long essay but figured it was pointless and didn't want to upset the more sensitive people reading. Anyways,

Way to hit the nail on the head by saying your team is small. Its not small it consists of 2 people - BH & Eridu. Before starting anything I would prolly ?message kemi / ?message matioso & maybe ?message Detector asking what they are interested in, considering the pulling power they have / I mean I know for a fact that my core NF will do whatever league I pull them into, and I'm sure if Mati or Kemi wanted their friends to take part in whatever league, they can sell it to them easily.

Is the same as being a shop owner and listening to a customer who spends $100 or someone who just window shops, not saying the window shoppers opinions are not right/wrong, just pointing out whose opinions should matter more weather you like it or not.

Also, I wanted to see where Tempest was going with his idea before posting but imho, DSB needs to stop complicating so much shit. The reason why BABL worked and why Dodgeball worked was cause it was simple. 12v12 or 6v6 is complicated enough/harder to make for close-exciting games / newbie unfriendly games which is why no one ever stays to play another league. Compare 6v6 to BABL or Dodgeball, majority of my NF guys would be interested in DB and semi interested in BABL but after last years 6v6 no one wants to play it anymore. You usually end up with 2 really good teams lead by Mati and Kemi who have fun and the rest of the league doesn't like losing by 23563285 points thus the amount of forfeits.

Also while I do agree with Tempest that having a combined squad league will narrow the skill gap, I could see so many ways of abuse and so many problems which outweigh the benefit that I personally think going the way of developing something along the lines of BABL might be a better direction.

~ The amount of coding you would need to do would be quite a lot of work. A lot based on how complex the scoring system is.
~ The ability for squads to throw games. Eg: Team A sends their pilots to Team B sector to ensure Team C loses. Unless the the squads playing in the sectors can't attach to one another which will still result in lob-sided sector games and defeats the purpose.
~ People might not want to play with other people, reason why we create squads and play with the people we want too as opposed to a WvW, agree with Temp on this.
~ DSB doesnt have enough people to support 8 squads for a 12v12, what happens when one team combined shows 12 (say we have NF + EG team up) and the other shows 8. Also, do I just let EG play their 6 since they will obviously win us the match as opposed to our 6 etc?
And all these problems are just off the top of my head.

Honestly, I would rather play another BABL/DB league or something along the likes of that, simple game with a purpose or heck even 4v4.
Don't get me wrong. its not a bad idea, its just realistically not feasible.

I already pitched a couple of ideas to BH & Eridu on my opinion which I wanted to discuss about during the chat session but only Mati & Eri showed so I guess I'll list them here briefly. The idea in general was to encourage more squads to participate.

Idea 1 was to do a combined zone league with Deva/HZ-Euro/DSB. You'd have 4 active DSB Squads, 4 active HZ-Euro ones and 2 active Deva ones, a 10 team squad league over 3 zones would be more fun than a 4 or 5 team league. I already have clearance to set it up in HZ and Deva so that wouldn't be too too much an issue but obviously a lot of stuff would need to be discussed/fine-tuned should you guys like the option. (If you are one of those guys who would rather not-play anything than try other zones, just note people from other zones are also trying out DSB so its not like its a 1 way street)

Idea 2 was just to do an automated league like the ones EG/HZ/TW has. The problem is 4v4 still sucks and no one is interested in playing this. I wouldn't mind a BABL Automated league and I know a couple of my TW friends who I snaked onto NF to play BABL land DB liked the game idea/concept and might bring their own squads over so that's another plus. Have a minimum amount of games needed to play in the week to encourage squad activity and allow for captains to schedule games amongst themselves should they choose to do so.

Sidenote 1: Coding is not really an issue for both ideas.

Sidenote 2: If you really want a 12v12 league, set it up thru either TW or EG and a league in either of those zones could possibly still happen, if not the idea is deader than dead and we need to stop bringing it up as optimistic as some of you are.

PS: Jim you're doing it wrong. You're meant to go:
I don't always agree with Delic, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis.

[jim the chin]

You could set a limit of 4 people per squad. So you're expected to bring 4, but if you don't you can still play with 1 and score about 1/4 of the points. The thing about 12v12, is you can potentially play it 16v16 with 4v4 in each sector, although I doubt that would ever happen.

Except that we will never have 8 squads that would be capable of showing up with 4. So this is totally out of question. The point in my suggestion was that squads
could be different size, as they always will be. The scoring needs to something that does not relate to how many people you showed up with.

I already said I doubt 8 squads would ever show up with 4. You need 24 people to play a 12v12, not 32. Even then you can switch to a 6v6 game or play 9v9 (without south). The whole point of rewarding show-ups is to encourage squads to recruit and get their people to play... it's what this zone needs. The limit of 4 people per squad per match is not a difficult limit to reach either.

Also now that I thought of your scoring method, how each individual scores points is a bit complicated also because certain sectors will reward you with far more
points than other ones. Would it be totally out of question that only flags count? You could make it flags held throughout the game of course, not just ding if we want
to. I kind of still like it would only be a win/lose and nothing else. Then just extra point(s) if you win the game as well. This way your squad would play in one sector
but would also like to help other sectors to win the match. I'm not a specialist with the scoring systems. So, anyone with any better ideas, please shoot. I just would
want it to be so that it wouldn't matter where you really play or whether you have 2 or 4 players.

I already thought of that. The normalisation factor would be different in the 4 sectors so that they are worth the same.

Also, east would be ruined if it was just flags that count. Would get tube-huggers the whole time.

[If you're the only person who shows up on your squad, you can choose to play with whoever, or choose to leave. At least you've given a chance to play! If 2 of you show up, there's a very good chance you'll get either West, LN, RN or lower south. If 3 show up then it's either south, east, or 3v3West. If 4 show up, then north most likely, or maybe south/east 4v4.

I don't think there'd ever be an instance where you have to partner someone in lower south, RN, LN or east who is not on your squad. A squad that shows up with 1 player would be offered upper south. If two squads show up with one player, they are partnered together, ez.

Sounds alright I guess. However, who gets to decide who plays where? Only half decent solution I can think of is the currently highest ranked squad's captain.
Of course that is only for which sector each squad play in. The squad should decide amongst themselves who plays upper/lower etc.

Squad with highest show goes first I think.

[Pater Punishment]

Quick comments/opinions, then below is my suggestion for DSBL15 format.

1. Most importantly, we should go for a league with the original DSB League format in mind, ASAP.

2. 4vs4 and other league ideas should be moved to be played after DSBL (from the beginning of March 2013). It seems like there is not enough interest right now. If there are more than 4 serious squads, you could still do it.. but original format should take priority and should start soon.

3. Original DSB League format should be implemented in some way that allows single sectors being played at one time. That way the minimum show needed would be 3-4. I see there is discussion here how to do it - but I don't think we should stretch the format to allow 2 player shows to affect which sectors are played at game time.

My suggestion for DSB League 15 format: Scheduled sector league (SSL).

Overview of league and gameplay. In one league round, squads are set to play each other twice, on scheduled matches on Sundays. At the start of the first game squads agree, which TWO sectors are played on that game day. Format is regular "prac" style play using the maps in DSB prac arena, 10 minute halves. So, one match day would contain two 10+10 min "pracs", for total gameplay of 40 minutes. Second game day, for example one week later, or whenever scheduled, the remaining two sectors would be played. We could also force sectors to be played North+West first game, South+East 2nd.

In-game scoring. The flag and kill rewards should be balanced in every sector so that one kill reward roughly equals one flag held at bell -reward. Furthermore, the overall scores could vary from sector to another, so that the points gained from each sector would be balanced. The points are used for tie breaking.

Regular season scoring. We could either count sector wins with 1 point, or add scores from every sector to decide full games. I suggest we count sector wins towards league points. Example: squad A beats squad B in east, north and west, but loses south. Squad A gets 3 points towards standings, squad B gets 1 point.

Forfeit wins get 1 point/area, forfeit loss gets 0 points. Squad needs X-1 players to play a match, where X is the typical player number of the sector (N=4, S=3, E=3, W=2), or forfeit occurs. This doesn't count temporary disconnects - the amount of players is judged at beginning of match and half time.

Regular season standings and playoff seedings will be decided based on points (number of sector wins over whole league). In the case of a tie, the higher sector win score from the squads' mutual matches decides higher seed. In case of a tie in mutual sector wins, the match scores from each mutual match are added up to decide higher seed.

Amount of games / calendar plan. I think there should be 2 regular season full rounds. So each squad meets each other in 2 full matches of 2 separate game times = 4 separate times, where two sectors are played at each time. With an expected attendance of 6 squads, this would mean 15 x 2 x 2 = 60 games in total. Four games per Sunday (start 17 gmt, end 21 gmt) would put the league length at 15 weeks. No pre-season. Start would be 7th of Oct. Before holiday season, 11 weeks out of 15 would have been played. Break weeks 51-52, regular season continues 6th Jan 2013, ends Jan 27th. Start playoffs 3th of Feb with Wildcard matches. Semifinals are played on 10th and 17th of February. Finals are played on the 24th of February and 3rd of March (League end). Three more weekends (10th, 17th, 24th March) are reserved in case the playoffs game format for wildcards and finals are too heavy (see below).

Playoff format: seeding and games. Top 2 squads go to semifinals straight. Seeds 3 and 4 are decided by wildcard, where regular season #3 meets #6 and #4 meets #5. Wildcards are a single match of all 4 sectors played during single day (80mins), where sector wins decide. If there is a tie in playoff matches, for example 2-2 in wildcard matches, win/loss points from all 4 sector games are counted and win goes to the squad with more points. Semifinals are also a single game (4 sectors), but are played over two weekends, so that one day showup doesnt totally affect the outcome. Finals consist of two full matches (8 sector games), which are played 4 each (80mins per day) for two consecutive Sundays. In case one squad reaches the needed amount of sector wins to ensure a game win (3 for wildcards and semis, 5 for playoffs), the series is discontinued and winner proclaimed. For all playoff matches, the sequence in which sectors are played is randomized for every full match individually - in other words, during finals the sequence is reset and re-randomized after first weekend.

Roster of 12 players max / squad. No ineligibility to join a squad for the first time. One week ineligibility to switch squads. Switching squads is prohibited after 5th of January. Joining the league and a squad as a new player is prohibited after 2nd of February.

Summary (Tldr). This would be something to the lines of a sector league, but with scheduled matches on Sundays. League would start 7th Oct and end 3rd of March. It would be easy to implement, the idea is simple, and it's easily customizable. It allows for the old style DSB gameplay to come back, although without the full star viewpoint. This format works with 2-4 player shows. Man-down play is penalized, but the games are bite-sized anyway, so long games without any meaning will not happen.

I believe this is the best compromise to bring back an interesting full league to DSB. I promise you that it will bring us many competitive and fun matches for weekends, while also allowing new players to get to know the different areas of the DS and the flag game system. I hope the DSB staff decides to start this league according to the detailed plan and rules system above, but I claim no ownership to this system, so tweak it if you want.

Most important is that it's announced and started soon. What are we waiting for? Let's do it.

-Px

[Tembest]

The idea in general is good Pater but it's not that simple.

First of all, you created a roster dilemma. All squads would have to be capable of showing up with 4 players.
However, when they show up with 4, all of those 4 will be allowed to play only 1/4 times. Basically you're not encouraging any of the worse players to show up.
In other words, you encourage useless show ups, and thus, we will have less squads and a smaller amount of players actually playing. Everything is bad about it.

In-game scoring. The flag and kill rewards should be balanced in every sector so that one kill reward roughly equals one flag held at bell -reward. Furthermore, the overall scores could vary from sector to another, so that the points gained from each sector would be balanced. The points are used for tie breaking.

Ummm... Double that and I'm in. Kills would matter zero if 1 kill = flag bell. In east 1 flag = 10 points (30 for team), 1 kill 30 points (1/5 of its current value 150). No thanks.
Kill = 2 flags is twice as good.