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Proposal

scarth

Senior Squid
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
74
Splatoon's competitive scene currently has a number of major issues. This post seeks to describe these issues and offer a solution that maintains the core idea of tournament gameplay while making it significantly more enjoyable and accessible to teams of all skill levels or flexibility of playtime. I apologize in advance as my writing is definitely influenced by playing 2 tournaments this weekend just past, which probably wasn't the best decision
Currently, there are tournaments every weekend. This past weekend had 2 one-day tournaments which while organised, is too many. Being obligated to play in a ~5 hour tournament every week is stressful and eventually simply not enjoyable, for both high level and low level teams, due to the power gap. I made the mistake of being too keen to play in both of them, but that's my fault, however I can imagine for teams of 4 or 5 that it's hard work for them. Very often rounds that I play end in 10-15 minutes then we're left to sit around for the next 35-40 minutes waiting for the next round. It's noones fault, just that there's a difference in skill that lets us win quickly and makes the opposing team feel bad and us feeling unfulfilled, I personally feel a bit bad about denying these other teams a chance for fun and fair competition.
For example, in the Nintendome 10k tournament, my team was matched against a team who failed to fully show up and ended up fielding only 3 players. After the first game we found these players were about B+ or A- average, and because of that we were easily able to beat them. I'm sure they had no fun being cannon fodder and we didn't enjoy ourselves playing against them.

What I propose:
A number of other shooter games use a league system such as TF2 and CSGO. This system stretches out tournaments so that instead of funneling 8 hours worth of games into one day, the rounds are spread over a period of time and can be played at the discretion of both teams. This has a wealth of benefits which I'm sure are obvious, but to list a few it helps people who have work on the weekend, who attend church on Sundays or have other commitments that mean they can't play. It also helps alot with time zone differences, for example my team is mostly European meaning they often stay up until the early morning, while I wake up at 5-6am for tournaments.
Another feature of leagues is the use of divisions. As I said before there's a big power gap between the top teams and those below them, further, group stages often feel like a chore, with top teams bullying out lower skilled teams and scaring them off from tournament play. Having divisions in place is just more fun for everyone, and encourages more entry level or experimental teams to have a go at the game they love. Divisions could be constructed from taking a team's average rank, or their past tournament performance.
At the end of the 'season' whether that's a month or 6 weeks or something, a finals day could be held that pits the top scoring teams from each division into a single or double elimination tournament. This would create a nice climax to the league and makes it feel alot more special than having tournaments every weekend and would get more eyes on streams, which I know you all want.

tl;dr
Oversaturation of tournaments makes playing them less enjoyable for everyone when lower skilled teams are forced to play against higher skilled teams if they want to compete
Proposed solution: League system that stretches out a tournament over a couple of weeks allowing people to play games at a time that suits both teams. Skill divisions. Finals day that has the top scoring 1 or 2 teams from each division play in a single or double elimination format.

Thanks to Lem
 
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LockeExile

Pro Squid
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
114
NNID
Locke64
I definitely agree with the problem. Our squad has attempted to mitigate this by being fairly selective about which tournaments we enter based not only on the notability of the tournaments themselves but also on how many tournaments we'd participated in recently. Lately we've gotten large enough that we can enter more tournaments while not forcing individual players to do so, but as you said this isn't possible with 4-5-member squads.

A league is an intriguing thought that I know several people including myself have entertained. The obvious problem with leaving scheduling up to the teams was demonstrated by IoS, but I'm sure we can come up with some way of reliably enforcing a time limit/window (beyond "you're both disqualified" as that's not fair if it's only one team that's not being cooperative).

Regarding your specific proposal, I don't think including top teams from each division in a final tournament is fair to lower teams in higher divisions. As an alternative, I think it would be interesting to use divisional tournaments as a means of "promotion". That way teams that aren't the best of the best can have a hope of actually winning some tournaments.
 

DaBoss

Pro Squid
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
105
Location
Toronto, ON
I feel the same sentiment of feeling burnt out from weekly tournaments and is the reason I didn't participate in the 2 tournaments in the past weekend [and the team I'm on only participating in one of them].

I don't know how a league system would work, but it sounds interesting, but could be hard to organize. I would like to join one and try it out, and it could be a refreshing experience instead of just 1-day tournaments.

I definitely think divisions based on skill or something like that should be a thing and be in place for tournaments (and anything else) and could be formed with the help of the Monthly Rankings by BestTeaMaker. TOs could limit what teams could enter by divisions so other teams have a chance to shine instead of being the same-y top teams.
EDIT: Or the tournament have separate brackets for different skill divisions (would be hard for TOs).
 
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Agosta44

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Dec 11, 2007
Messages
610
Location
New Jersey
NNID
Agosta
I feel the same sentiment of feeling burnt out from weekly tournaments and is the reason I didn't participate in the 2 tournaments in the past weekend [and the team I'm on only participating in one of them].

I don't know how a league system would work, but it sounds interesting, but could be hard to organize. I would like to join one and try it out, and it could be a refreshing experience instead of just 1-day tournaments.

I definitely think divisions based on skill or something like that should be a thing and be in place for tournaments (and anything else) and could be formed with the help of the Monthly Rankings by BestTeaMaker. TOs could limit what teams could enter by divisions so other teams have a chance to shine instead of being the same-y top teams.
EDIT: Or the tournament have separate brackets for different skill divisions (would be hard for TOs).
Check MKBoards.com. We've been running a league structure similar for ~8 years.
 

applepie

Inkling
Joined
Oct 30, 2015
Messages
6
NNID
smith0330
As much as I agree with the majority of this post, you left out a big issue... being this community's image... people like you
@scarth
who think it's acceptable in any from of human nature to publicly tell someone to go kill themselve, let alone on your own twitch stream chat. You should work on some kind of image and credibility before trying to change the community. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Keep in mind this person whom @scarth told to "f off and go kill himself" is a really nice guy who is active in almost all of the Splatoon streams and was simply wishing MCU good luck in a match. Tournaments need to have some from of "image" clause.

This may be acceptable to you when you're posting anonymously, but on here and twitch you have a name and an image.
 
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Ultramus

Pro Squid
Joined
May 29, 2015
Messages
103
This isn't really an issue right now because well, we aren't really an Esport at the moment. Tournaments have nothing on the line other than bragging rights at the moment, and any with money on the line should be completely open to all participants, with teams being seeded based on past results and the monthly ranking, or however TOs decide.

A league is a great idea, however in my opinion the time frame should be very strict, as to keep things moving along and also to increase viewership, which is what we desperately need in our scene right now. Setting up a round robin league and doing 2-3 matches on a Saturday or Sunday would be ideal, it would give some time for hype to build for anticipated matchups and allow an easier time with coordinating casting/pre/post game commentary. I agree that we must be more selective in the quantity of content we produce, and try and increase the quality of production for tournaments and the scene in general if we expect to have any legitimacy.

A good idea is maybe having a league with two divisions, and running a lower division and upper division match each on Saturday and Sunday, or maybe just Saturday, the idea is that we want to consolidate viewership and interest, and especially foster interest and awareness for the lesser known and (no offense) lower skilled teams.

The tournament onslaught is not necessarily a bad thing, as it shows an active scene and gives teams plenty of opportunity to get some experience in, we just need to have tournaments that aren't just single elimination or double elimination or group stages where low tier teams just get bullied out early and don't get to experience the victory and tension that will keep them participating.

It would likely behoove all of us if TOs started to collaborate and had some overarching continuity that would allow us to universally improve our scene or at least give some direction to it.

Not having spectator mode is a huge bummer but we may just have to be more creative with restreams and delayed casting.
 
D

Deleted Member

Guest
Even with the new proposals in mind, we still need a Spectator Mode and LAN Mode for the eSports scene to truly take off.
 

Power

Inkling Commander
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
440
Location
America
Imo I feel we should focus on getting exposure, keeping the competitive scene relevant and accessible to people just starting.

Edit: Divisions seem like a reasonable way to ensure that. Maybe more tips and tricks from the top players could help.
 
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LockeExile

Pro Squid
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
114
NNID
Locke64
More variety could help too. Instead of every tournament being bo5 4v4 SZ/TC/RM, have some 2v2 RM tournaments, turf wars, or even bumper brushes. Yeah they're not necessarily "competitive" but they'd be a nice break from the norm and newer/weaker teams have a bit more of a chance to succeed.

(unfortunately bumper brushes and the like wouldn't be enforceable in a tournament setting)
 

Vitezen

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Oct 4, 2015
Messages
254
As much as I agree with the majority of this post, you left out a big issue... being this community's image... people like you
@scarth
who think it's acceptable in any from of human nature to publicly tell someone to go kill themselve, let alone on your own twitch stream chat. You should work on some kind of image and credibility before trying to change the community. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Keep in mind this person whom @scarth told to "f off and go kill himself" is a really nice guy who is active in almost all of the Splatoon streams and was simply wishing MCU good luck in a match. Tournaments need to have some from of "image" clause.

This may be acceptable to you when you're posting anonymously, but on here and twitch you have a name and an image.
This does nothing to address the proposal and is solely an attack on the poster's character. Half a sentence saying "I like your idea" and the rest is character assassination.
 

KeyKeyy

Inkling
Joined
Jul 12, 2015
Messages
8
NNID
KeyKeyy
As much as I agree with the majority of this post, you left out a big issue... being this community's image... people like you
@scarth
who think it's acceptable in any from of human nature to publicly tell someone to go kill themselve, let alone on your own twitch stream chat. You should work on some kind of image and credibility before trying to change the community. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Keep in mind this person whom @scarth told to "f off and go kill himself" is a really nice guy who is active in almost all of the Splatoon streams and was simply wishing MCU good luck in a match. Tournaments need to have some from of "image" clause.

This may be acceptable to you when you're posting anonymously, but on here and twitch you have a name and an image.

Sooo did he kill himself?
 

Typhlosion09

Pro Squid
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
122
Location
Not where you are
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Typhlosion09
Okay so I've been thinking a league idea would be spectacular, but hard to start up. If we were to do this how do we decide how many leagues there are, how many teams are in a league, how do teams change between leagues, etc. I'd love to start working on one but I'd need help. If perhaps we can get a group of people to work on this idea (TO's I'm looking at you)this league idea could become fun, effective, and hopefully better than 2+ looooong tourneys every weekend.
 

Power

Inkling Commander
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
440
Location
America
maybe we should start at 2-3 leagues, seeing as there isn't such a large pool of teams to take from. (although I am unsure how many teams should be in a league)
 

Typhlosion09

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Not where you are
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Typhlosion09
Perhaps make a signup page? Then teams can sign up and join at the end of every season. Teams in a league would be harder. I think we should look at the skill gap between the signed up teams and try to find large gaps. Not every league has to be the same number.
 

LockeExile

Pro Squid
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Aug 31, 2015
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114
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Locke64
Hold an inaugural tournament and use the results to seed the divisions. Or just use the monthly rankings. Top 25% in S, next 25% in A, etc. (only counting those who sign up)
 

Ultramus

Pro Squid
Joined
May 29, 2015
Messages
103
Probably 2 divisions of 8-10 teams each, each weekend a team plays 2 matches, done in 4-6 weeks, then aa tournament where the bottom half of upper faces the top half of lower, and the top half of that tournament plays the top half of upper division to determine the grand champion of the league. The results of that tournament determine the upper and lower divisions for the next season. Bottom half of lower division should have to play against new teams to keep their spot or be booted from lower division.
 

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