Proposal

[LockeExile]

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.

That sounds good, except I think we should use percentages rather than numbers, and avoid booting teams from the league. If divisions become too big we can add more divisions.

 

[Ultramus]

That sounds good, except I think we should use percentages rather than numbers, and avoid booting teams from the league. If divisions become too big we can add more divisions.

I'm all for nicety, but booting the lowest ranking teams, or forcing them to compete with newer teams that want in, means that we are increasing the overall quality of matches in both divisions. A rising tide raises all ships. There is no point in running a division where the match quality is akin to normal matchmaking. It will also, take this as you will, consolidate better players from lower skilled teams to group together or move to More competitive squads.


Limiting it to 10 teams per division, 20 teams total, gives the league a fair bit of prestige to simply play in it, gives those 20 teams exposure, and again, limits the number of matches that are played in order for ease of casting and analysis and scheduling. It also allows people to pick a team and rally behind them, easier when there is only 10 teams per division instead of 50.

The whole issue we are having is teams in the top 20 or top 10 completely dominating anyone below them, we want to avoid matches like that, and the threat of losing your spot will make both divisions more competitive, when you could be demoted out of upper or leave the league altogether, you are heavily incentivised to stay at the top of your game, and elimination matches will in turn have a lot of gravitas to assist in hype building and tension.

We have to move away from this candyland idea that everyone can be competitive, if you aren't willing to risk anything or actually try and be a winner, you aren't really adding anything to the team. Just more nameless cannon fodder for the teams on the monthly ranking, and I doubt anyone cares to watch Cyberbullies vs random pickup team of the week and see a 3-0, it isn't fun or enjoyable for any party involved.

 

[Ink dweller]

Yeah . You're right tournaments should be organized over weeks. But you have to schedule which rounds will be played on a certain week. That makes sure that teams don't keep on postponing tourneys. Also, I feel like in order for something like that to happen, A lot of teams need to join a tournament...I mean A LOT!! Tournament organizers like @Aweshucks , @BestTeaMaker , @Calamari Cup , and @Fightersword have to sorta approve of this idea because they are the most influential, and biggest TOs at the moment, and the most likely to send this idea forward.
In my eyes, this idea seems good, but you would need to direct people from miiverse over to squidboards. I know miiverse is a crazy idea, but if you want casual (and maybe a few competitive players who want to participate in tournaments but don't know how) players to join the tournament scene, that's where they all are.

EDIT: You can make divisions based on rank.

 

[Fightersword]

yeah, main problem with stretching tournaments over time, and this is why I have avoided doing such things here because I have in the past (semi-succesfully), is it can become a sort of uncoordinated mess if you're not careful. It's up entirely to the teams to coordinate with each other to set a time. Generally teams are also much, much more likely to go AWOL when given a period of time to play a round and then another period later, etc due to forgetting or things coming up or what have you. The TOs must also be ever present and able to work as a middleman between rounds, something that can be hard especially if some rounds are supposed to be worked in on weekdays, when said TOs may have real life issues to pay attention to.

It's not that the system is bad of course. It works great for many types of tournaments, especially extremely large ones. Reason SCL hasn't done it is because we've been specializing in running short, quick tournaments over the course of a few hours, which has its own pros and cons as you've described. some others have hit a middle place where they decide to host X rounds on day 1 and Y rounds on day 2, which allows them to have large tournaments in a weekend, though it still takes a while. That is also what large yugioh tournaments do.

As for divisions, it comes to a player pool problem. We don't have nearly as many players as other established games. Nor do we have as many offerings. putting up dividing lines, especially ones not well enough thought out (though I can reaosnably expect they'd be well thought out at this point), will likely just end up making tournaments die out due to not having enough signups. It's invitational syndrome: if you need a 16 team tournament, and you only invite 16 teams, you're not going to get 16. Similarly, if you draw lines in the sand, and divy it up hoping to get X teams on average for X rank tournaments, you're likely to hit the smaller number. It also introduces another level of administration.

burn out definitely is a major problem, but one that I'm not all that surprised at. Part of it is because the community isn't as big as many others, so you see the same teams jumping into the same tournaments over and over. What's happening in other tournaments where, if someone or a team isn't feeling it, like in say smash, if someone doesn't feel it for a week or a month or whatever, he feels like he can just drop off and do some other stuff and then come back. That mindset doesn't seem to be happening as much in splatoon, at least until now when teams are really feeling burn out. If you don't show up, your 'spot' will not be filled like it would for smash or other big games.

Overall it's a great idea to make offerings like that, the more lax ones, where teams can kind of play as they need to within reason. Just be aware of the issues with it and a league if you institute such tournaments, or try to set up leagues. Leagues haven't really evolved for splatoon all that well as of yet: we have some ranking stuff, but no real leagues have sprung up yet. There's SCL, which was at first intended as a league, but the ranking system and general attempt at a league went south (due to no small part as a result of people within it leaving, general lack of success in most areas, and just lack of pushing it, really), and only the tournaments have really worked out well. Of course, I'm always open to help out with anything so long as I have time.

Yeah . You're right tournaments should be organized over weeks. But you have to schedule which rounds will be played on a certain week. That makes sure that teams don't keep on postponing tourneys. Also, I feel like in order for something like that to happen, A lot of teams need to join a tournament...I mean A LOT!! Tournament organizers like @Aweshucks , @BestTeaMaker , @Calamari Cup , and @Fightersword have to sorta approve of this idea because they are the most influential, and biggest TOs at the moment, and the most likely to send this idea forward.
In my eyes, this idea seems good, but you would need to direct people from miiverse over to squidboards. I know miiverse is a crazy idea, but if you want casual (and maybe a few competitive players who want to participate in tournaments but don't know how) players to join the tournament scene, that's where they all are.

EDIT: You can make divisions based on rank.

awwww, well aren't you sweet :P We don't have to approve of his ideas: if he wants to give it a go it's up to him, his other TOs, and a little bit of luck to make it a success. Of course if he makes it and I like it, I'd happily recommend it to anyone looking for a tournament. But for long tournaments like his to be successful a lot of teams is probably better, like you said, because of course why run a tournament over a week or longer if only like 16 teams give it a go?

 

[Typhlosion09]

http://squidboards.com/threads/intr...e-to-the-endless-stream-of-tournaments.15585/
Hopefully this works