DSB Sector Brawl

[Beer Hunter]

Hello DSB!

The new, the improved, something spicy and interesting is about to begin. I hereby announce the registration for DSB Sector Brawl open! The league will begin on 14th October. The registration is up: ?go dsb and pm the bot with !help to figure out the commands. In other words, the previous 4vs4 league signups work for this league now.

I'm quoting pater's post here for reference on what kind of league to expect, I will edit a few spots and get the final version up in a few days. Basically fine tuning a few rough edges, especially with the timeframe.

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.


-Px

Note that the changes I will do are based on what can be done/simplicity and not to mention the scoring system/bot system is not very great considering we just need to go with what we got, without possibility to edit/change anything. But the bottom line here is, registration is open and this thing will be starting in 3 weeks so, get registered and lets do this! If succesful this could boost our league population up a bit for DSBL 15.

PS. Many thanks to Pater Punishment and everybody else involved in creating this format.

-Beer Hunter

[Pater Punishment]

Thanks staff. Now very important is that you (and everyone) get as many players+squads as possible to join this league. How about mass posting your email list again. Might get someone back to play.

I'm a little disappointed you didn't call it DSBL. That name alone with fanfares along the lines of "DSBL returns" (or DSBL rises ) could get larger attention from currently inactive players. But this should do..

Let's all work on getting more players to the league. That's more important than the rest of the league details.

-Px

[kemi]

Remember to filter Falconeer out

[jim the chin]

Woot! Should be a fun league! I'm back and will join Crusaders if it's there (none of this "new squadname for every league" biz please!). I miss the rivalry and tradition of subspace leagues.

[Tembest]

We just wanted some name that isn't an already old DSB squad, and is actually owned by one of kemi, mag or I. If you come up with
any good one, we'll choose that one and never change it. It's silly to play as Crusaders as none of the current members has ever been a Crus, except for Mag of course. Mean isn't owned by us and nor is Inducers.

[jim the chin]

I really like Crusaders, it's a great name. I was actually on Crus with the name "Pirate", but only joined because of loomit, thorn, unison, nomad and them lot. I never got into playing DSB back then. Some guy called Sakro recruited me.

You can use Seraphim if you want, it's better than Triumvir at least.

[Beer Hunter]

Spam post can be done, I did one few months ago, the results were thin. 822 e-mails, roughly 120 of those were deleted so about 700 players got the e-mail. Results? 10-15 people checked in, either by downloading continuum and visiting DSB or by replying to the e-mail. All of them had the same message: I've got a life, nice to see this place is alive but I have no time to come back, might check in every few months/years to see if you still alive. In that sense, realistically I believe we need to start dragging people from other zones to the current squads and build new squads.

We're down to 4 squads now, after Nub Factor pulled out today. That means we're really, honestly, in deep shit with the squad situation.

I do not have a simple solution for this lack of squads/captains, nobody does I believe. But everybody please, try your best to get new squads up and try to spread some talent around too if possible. This league decides the faith of the DSBL, especially format wise (6vs6 vs 3vs3 or so). We will keep eye on the activity to see where we're at, I try to have some optimism even if it looks miserable atm.

[Tembest]

I really like Crusaders, it's a great name. I was actually on Crus with the name "Pirate", but only joined because of loomit, thorn, unison, nomad and them lot. I never got into playing DSB back then. Some guy called Sakro recruited me.

You can use Seraphim if you want, it's better than Triumvir at least.

Well, just join the squad if you want to. We'll discuss the name issue when league is about to begin and some people are actually
online.
It's just a !renamesquad xxx anyway.

[Tembest]

We decided to stick to Crusaders anyway.

[jim the chin]

woot