New League Season Idea

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lep
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New League Season Idea

Post by lep »

Hi Everyone,

With the help of some others, and to revisit a somewhat similar idea that we've had in the past, I wanted to present to everyone the idea of a LeaguesUnited Season that would involve creating four new teams made up of all current players, and having the teams match over a certain season length until we have a playoff and a winning team. The reasoning behind this is to re-emphasize official matches and teams, since (to me) it seems the league is frozen in a place where teams and matches are mostly irrelevant, and FMs are the main focus.

For simplicity, I've attached a document below. The document contains a mock draft (I literally just assigned players most alphabetically) as well as a sample scoresheet that would be updated by admins after scores are reported. Please leave your thoughts, questions, or suggestions below so that we can collect responses and I can move forward with a proposal of this format.

Thanks all,

nabbo leppo (thanks, nov)
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novembre
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by novembre »

I like the idea of a seasonal event, and it is definitely worth a try. It could revive interest in team official matches, but also in LU maps other than ducati and hix: teams could have to play at least a match on each map, as a requirement to get to the last part of the cup, for example - and this would also balance them somehow, and make them more challenging.
I also think that players' activity should be an essential part of the draft; maybe a form where players can sign in to participate could help, both to understand how many would be interested in this and, possibly, to draft the initial teams.

Edit: I remembered I had read something similar to your idea, but I couldn't find it:
viewtopic.php?p=170341#p170341

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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by Shuist »

This idea is not unheard of. I believe there are multiple suggestions for something similar to this idea. Having a quick look here were some other threads with what I believe are similarities.

viewtopic.php?f=114&t=19009
viewtopic.php?f=114&t=19203

Even this one (warning: long):
viewtopic.php?f=114&t=19469

Personally, I am all for this idea. There are too many teams for the number of players that are even a tiny bit active.
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by kierra »

While we're discussing Season ideas for LU, it reminded me of Ducati League's Seasons:
The idea was to encourage actual league team activity: Team Officials!

Initial discussion was on Duc site and then poll results posted here: viewtopic.php?f=90&t=9870
End result of discussion:
Ducati seasons ran for 6 wks with a 2 wk break: Season 1 Jan 1- Feb 15. 2 wk break. Season 2: Mar 1st - Apr 15, 2 wk break. Season 3 May 1st... etc etc
Aside from the elo points for the officials, Seasons had a point system aside from that and had its own menu tab on the site. A win was allotted 3points, a tie 2 points and a loss 1 point.
With this system (in it's heyday, many officials were played and often a lower ranked team that matched A LOT would garner 1st place at the end of 6wks.
Winners were announced on News page: 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners displayed.

Here is a screenie from Ducati League Seasons page:
duc season.png
(45.41 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Scroll down to team Full Metal Jacket (FMJ). FMJ was a last place team per elo but garnered 1st place that season having played 86 officials in the 6wk period! When was the last time you saw 86 officials played by one team in a 6wk period? :)

As it stands now, Bzion is not set up for this and would require some coding. I don't know if that coding is useful from the duc site or if blast still has those logs. Osta coded it originally. Again, I don't presume that allejo has the time, but perhaps this is something to consider in the future as this season's focus is league team official activity.
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by Soraya »

Personally, I'm just here for the FMs. I don't care to be on a team and I don't care about elos and scores. I realize this is a "league" so teams and matches are implied but tbh if there was a dedicated duc or pb server where people were active and playing without doing matches, that's where I'd be.
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by indy »

I'm always down for having more officials so I'm fine with changing teams so I will be for this.

Another idea is Official April so ALL matches are counted as official if played on an LU server. Be fun to see how all those stats would track in my opinion. I don't think it hurts anything as this is all for fun!

-Indy
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by lep »

novembre wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:38 am I like the idea of a seasonal event, and it is definitely worth a try. It could revive interest in team official matches, but also in LU maps other than ducati and hix
nove I think this would be a cool idea to incorporate other maps. i feel like ducati and hix would remain prominent, so maybe evolving the idea to include other maps after a trial season would be worth it?
Shuist wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:22 pm This idea is not unheard of. I believe there are multiple suggestions for something similar to this idea
shui, you're right thanks for sharing this link! kierra reminded me it is similar to the Tank Battles event that took place a few times. my attempt isn't to come up with something new, just to present something that pushes variety compared to what is currently happening!
kierra wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:59 pm While we're discussing Season ideas for LU, it reminded me of Ducati League's Seasons:
kierra, thanks for digging this up! i think it'd be great to incorporate a poll to find out about season length. i imagine preference will differ a tad now, but this helps! I also like the idea of the points for a loss, unlike soccer/football, because it encourages teams to play!
Soraya wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:57 pm Personally, I'm just here for the FMs.
Sor, nothing wrong with this, of course! FMs i'm sure would still take place (maybe still more than offis), so playing in a season match won't be necessary for you at all, and i'm sure you'd still get the chance for FMs. FMs are irreplaceable :wink:
indy wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:24 pm nother idea is Official April so ALL matches are counted as official if played on an LU server. Be fun to see how all those stats would track in my opinion

A cool idea! Maybe we can incorporate a time frame between seasons where teams aren't necessary, and this idea is put into affect. for those of you who know Major League Baseball or NBA Basketball, similar to an "all star weekend" event.

Thanks for replying, everyone! Looking forward to more comments.
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by Samson1 »

Hmm. It's certainly an interesting idea. I'm up for seeing how it all comes together! :)
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by lep »

Hi All,

We are moving forward with our LeaguesUnited Season 1. The season will run from April 1st to June 15th. Teams can match at any time on an LU server using the /offi command, and teams/players participating must be aligned with the teams that were selected by our four captains. The more matches you play the better! Please read the following to documents below. You'll want to bookmark them so you can read through the rules and have quick access to the team list.
  • Season 1 Overiew/Rules: This document contains all the rules you need to know about how the Season will work. Please read it through and PM me here or on Discord if you have a question we can add to the FAQ.
  • Season 1 Rosters & Table: This document contains the team rosters and the table of scores, points, and map percentages.
Season Overview/Rules: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bbb ... sp=sharing
Season Rosters/Table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Thanks all, we look forward to seeing the matches played throughout the next 1.5 months!

lep
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by quantum dot »

Thank you all for putting this together. It will add some salt and pepper to the games. And thank you for considering me and adding my name to one of the teams, specially one plagued with nice people I really love to play with.
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by w339 »

I'd love the idea, but teams will need a reshuffle unless someone from my team (team Moroni) wakes up real soon from winter hibernation :x :D
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by lep »

Season 1 has come to a close! Congratulations to Team plop for finishing with a season-best 90 points! There were a total of 45 matches played (not bad for a trial season) and spread across all 7 map styles!

Please use this forum thread to leave feedback, potential ideas, and thoughts on doing a second Season. I've provided some questions to help guide thought.
  • What aspects of the Season layout did you enjoy?
  • What aspects of the Season were a turnoff to you?
  • Was it easy for you to find matches? What hindered you from playing?
  • What are your thoughts on how the scoring system turned out? (1x for HIX/Duc, 2x for less popular maps)
  • What were your thoughts on the map requirement?
Share what you can and what would encourage you to play if we did a second Season. The goal is to agree on a format that players want, not what I want, whether that means changing things and doing a second season or maybe just forgetting the idea.

Thanks for your participation in the first Season!
ll
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by indy »

I thought it was really great, especially the first month.

If there is ANY way we can easily identify players for what team they are on that would be awesome.

I know players won't change their coveted callsigns to include something, but maybe a Second Additional Team name? I don't know what is possible.

-Indy
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by novembre »

First of all, thanks leppo for organizing this, it was very fun.

I liked the format, both for the scoring system and maps involvement, though, in my opinion, it would be interesting for a second season to try the same format with actual, existing teams, as it was done in the past, as far as I know.

Personally, I believe official matches are different from fms - and better perhaps, exactly because I get to play every time with the same mates, and I've to know them to improve my teamplay, which is crucial. This is much harder with drafted teams.
An event of the sort would definitely encourage teams to play offis and players to join active teams.

Once again, thanks for organizing!
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by lep »

Thank you for your feedback, both of you @Indy @nov
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Re: New League Season Idea

Post by ducatiwannabe »

lep wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:32 pm
  • What aspects of the Season layout did you enjoy?
  • What aspects of the Season were a turnoff to you?
  • Was it easy for you to find matches? What hindered you from playing?
  • What are your thoughts on how the scoring system turned out? (1x for HIX/Duc, 2x for less popular maps)
  • What were your thoughts on the map requirement?
Share what you can and what would encourage you to play if we did a second Season. The goal is to agree on a format that players want, not what I want, whether that means changing things and doing a second season or maybe just forgetting the idea.
Thanks for organizing this! I really like the idea of seasons because I think it makes it easier for people to get in on competitive league play even if one of their regular teammates is not able to log in and match with them regularly! It also is a fun way to build comradery with the players on your season team, engage in friendly smacktalk and banter, and interact with a wider variety of players on a wider variety of maps. 8)

I think the only aspects I didn't like as much were keeping season teams balanced, but I am not sure how that could be done any better than it was? To me, team Plop and Gaboot seemed to have a lot of active players and team Moroni seemed to have several players that did not know there was a season, did not fully understand it or want to be a part of the season, or just were not super active. I do not remember if we ever had more than 2 players in our matches, or if we had more than a couple of 3s or 4s match the whole time? It did not always feel like we could keep pace with other teams because of that, but player activity would be hard to predict. I thought about if the season only included players from active teams (at least 0.01 team activity) to be drafted for future seasons? But then there would be a lot of great active players who are teamless who would end up being excluded unless they teamed up. I don't like the idea of leaving people out, but it could also encourage people to team up and increase activity too? :idea-alt:

It was a little hard to remember who was on what team, so I tried to keep the page with lists of everyone's team bookmarked where I could just pull it up and check really quickly. I do not know if there would be a way to add that to the "motto line" for a season team name in addition to the regular team name, but that would be great! :book:

Lastly, it seems like there are a good amount of players who just really prefer playing HiX as the map, and that is cool if that is what they enjoy! But I am a little disappointed there was not more love for other maps during the season, particularly maps that don't get as much traffic like Pillbox. If there is another way to encourage that without players feeling like they are penalized with their score, that would be cool. Maybe just a quota of one match on at least 3-4 maps over the course of the season? Haha, that might be asking too much. :lol-old:
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