15 Minute matches

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Admirarch
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15 Minute matches

Post by Admirarch »

Following some thought and brief discussion on #bz-inc:

Proposition: There should be the option of playing matches which last for 15 minutes instead of the usual 30.

For:
Fewer matches will be called of because people don't have enough time.
More matches can be played!
In matches with highly uneven teams the matches will be less frustrating for both the teams winning and losing heavily.
At least in my experience, matches are often fairly evenly fought until one team takes a significant advantage in the second half as concentration slips, 15 minute matches could well lead to more competitive matches.

Against:
This is bound to cause confusion and even conflict when players favour different match lengths.
It makes match scores meaningless.
Possibly some argument about ratings which don't really strike me as significant could be applied.

I'm not actually sure whether I'm in favour of the idea since the first point against strikes me as particularly strong. Anyway, please discuss.
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Post by SportChick »

I'm posting this on behalf of Zongo (for the original conversation, check the May 25 #dub logs):

What I fear is that if the point system is adopted then the teams will only play 15 min matches and try to match as much as possible. Unless the suggestion to weight wins with respect to length of the game is adopted. But imo, to have a good league, it's important to have simple rules. It's nice to have flexible time, but it might be confusing. Anyways the solution of 10 flags might help to solve this problem as well. I wouldnt allow 15 min matches, but stick either to 20 or 30 min (i prefer 20). Maybe one could give a try to the 20/30 min option. But remember, the more rules u have the more difficulties u'll encounter.
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Post by Xell »

Zongo wrote:What I fear is that if the point system is adopted then the teams will only play 15 min matches and try to match as much as possible.
Hehe, that is funny. Would it really be a bad thing if the teams match very often, especially if you see the current activity in the league? I think we should try to get the league as active as possible, and not worry about 'too much' activity at the moment. Or did i get this wrong?
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Post by mistake »

It is not the aim to just have cosmetically the number of matches look better, with more activity is ment that players actually spend more time on match servers. Two 15min matches of the same teams doesn't mean more activity than one 30min match.
So if a good team is clever, it rather matches one weaker team two times 15min than one time 30min to have more points at the end. I think that is what Zongo was trying to control.
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Post by The Red Baron »

which is why I proposed 20 min matches.
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Post by mistake »

If you mean to have just one fixed match length, not an option, i agree 100%. The actual length i don't really care, 20 minutes sound very good imho
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Post by Xell »

mistake wrote:If you mean to have just one fixed match length, not an option, i agree 100%. The actual length i don't really care, 20 minutes sound very good imho
But why no options? It wouldn't really make the score meaningless, if a team is better over 20 minutes, it will propably also be better over 30 minutes and vice versa. And i don't think there will be long discussions about the match length, i know a league where it actually works. Most players are willing to find quickly a solution for the question of the match length.
With multiple possible match lengths, the players could set the time according to the time they actually have or want to spent for a match, thus it could make a match more attactive.
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Post by mistake »

if a team is better over 20 minutes, it will propably also be better over 30 minutes
so why have an option then? why not just 20 minutes? Everybody that can play a 30 minute match can for sure play a 20 minute match.
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Post by The Red Baron »

everybody likes options.
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Post by mistake »

Yes, especially the option not to match.
I am not against options in general, I like it for example to have options when going to restaurants.
But for a league I would like modalities that enforces the character of a league and not only the community feeling.I think we already have to much community and not enough league.

And about options:

One reason of many why the ducati was what it was is because there wasn't an option to play other leagues. Now there is. You have a big palette of leagues you can join and play in. Its like restaurants now, some like asian food, others prefer the small hole in the wall pizza place. Those options we have now in bz leagues. You don't like one league, you sign up at another league, plenty of options, no lack of options really. Sometimes ofcourse you are forced to change a league. You get banned at one place, you play in another league.
So to make ducati special again, you will have to go further than copying other leagues like the pillbox league or the openleague (which before where copies of the ducati league). You would have to make the ducati league unique again to make it what it used to be, not make it even more equal and arbitrary like the other new leagues.
The only thing that the ducati still has is the community, but elas I don't do IRC.
Last edited by mistake on Fri May 26, 2006 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by birdie »

Yes, especially the option not to match


we had 30min for a long time, and only 30min

so why doing so difficult about giving it a try to have several options? every one can play the time he or she wants to(15 20 30)
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Post by Xell »

mistake wrote: So to make ducati special again, you will have to go further than copying other leagues like the pillbox league or the openleague (which before where copies of the ducati league). You would have to make the ducati league unique again to make it what it used to be, not make it even more equal and arbitrary like the other new leagues.
Don't call it copying, call it improving. Is it really bad to adopt popular systems from another league? Remember that all leagues are pretty equal: bzflag, two teams, ctf, same league system. So why blocking some new interesting aspects.
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Post by mistake »

Ok, i don't call it an improvement, because:
I don't have any objections to different match times other than 30 min. For all I care is we could even have 10 minute matches. But I do feel the concept of a league watered down by adding an option for several match length.
I would rather see we settle on one match time, be it 10, 15 or 20 minutes (with a cap limit).
One criteria for match length should not be what gives you the best chance to win. If a match length is to short for a comeback, you could simply have a rematch.

Different match length will have an effect on the activity rating of a team, a higher activity rating does not necessarely mean that a team is more avtive.
So different match times gives confusion with how the matches should be rated. This is was noted already in a nother post.
Exampe: If we will have DMP's idea of an activity rating factor in team rating, arbitrary match length can give a distorted ladder which may be fixed by adding even more complicated rating schemata. For the seasonal ladder this is quite the same, though solutions for considering different match length is easier there, but still more complications than there should be.
Remember that all leagues are pretty equal: bzflag, two teams, ctf, same league system. So why blocking some new interesting aspects.

I agree that improving the ducati league is vital for it's survival. I think there is hardly anybody doubting that, or at least I hope there isn't anybody. Also, I am not blocking any new interesting idea, or at least I hope you didn't have that impression after all the posts i posted with new suggestions. I just don't like different match length, and gave reasons why I don't like different match length. That doesn't mean we won't have different match length, there will be when the council starts counting the votes.
But I'll remind you again, the topic said:
Please discuss
and that is what I am doing. Now what is the problem with that?
Last edited by mistake on Fri May 26, 2006 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Xell »

mistake wrote: But I'll remind you again, the topic said:
Please discuss
and that is what I am doing. Now what is the problem with that?
Did i say there is a proplem with that? Weare actually discussing, aren't we? :)
But i think we reached the end, 'cause i finally understood your motivation and i hope you understood what i tried to express in rudimental english
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Post by SportChick »

Stay on topic please - no flames.
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Post by tokimi »

I fail to see why the idea of variable match times is so far fetched. I did voice
reservations with the idea of 15 minute matches, but there has been some very
good arguments for the idea. Including the fact that a friend of mine, who would
be active, cannot play unless shorter matches are alowed.

There were arguments against this idea because of activity and or team point
exploitations. I really do not see this as a problem because it would be very easy
to make 15 minute matches just worth a scaled amount less than a full 30 minute
match. I would assume that it would be decided that a 15 minute match would be
worth half that of a full 30. So there would be no benefit to playing 2 15 back to back
verses playing 1 thirty minute match. But think about it, if you can let go of the
"set in stone," "thats the way its ALWAYS been so we can not change now" ideas,
then we could have some of the busier players matching with us again!

As for my arguments against this idea, namely match outcome and the nullification
of match scores, I believe that they have been fully ansered by every body else.

It was commented on that matching often with 15 minute matches is just an illusion
of activity, and should be avoided, I beg to differ. Coming back to the argument that
there are people who would match if they had time, we could gain more members
this way. That seems to be important in my opinion, gaining activity in members
that ordinarily would be inactive.

As for copying other leagues, I would say to the ducati league: "Just because some
one else thought of it, why ignore a good idea." The idea of a 15 minute
is not a terribly new one, and ducati was just slow in implimenting the idea before
those other leagues did.

Any way, those are my opinions on the subject.
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Post by goblin »

tokimi wrote:I fail to see why the idea of variable match times is so far fetched.
It may be far fetched, it may be of no or little importance, or it may hit the right spot.

I think a bigger problem is that we do not know that, and generally we do not know which changes will attract players and which changes will push players away.

In these forums only the preferences of the active players and posters are shown. Do these opinions also reflect the preferences of silent players and future players? We can only hope so.

Forum polls can be a good help to see what actions will improve the league for current players, but the polls are one-dimensional. When surveys are conducted, an importance-dimension is often included eg:
Do you prefer to keep match times at 30 minutes as the only option? (Yes/No)
How important is this to your continued participation in the league? (0-5, 0=not important, 5=very important)
If we interpret too much importance into a topic, we run the risk of wasting a lot of effort correcting things that are not a big issue to most players, only to maybe 2-4 players who generate a lot of discussion about the topic.

If it is possible to add an importance-dimension to forum polls, I think it would be a good idea in order to prevent hijacking of poll results (by "hijacking" I don't mean anything negative, just that people who feel strongly about a topic will dominate what actions are taking afterwards).
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