Why Luti should be held more often

[Mr Sark]

Luti is the backbone of the competitive Splatoon scene in the west, being the largest non Nintendo tournament with over 600 teams signing up to commit too at least 5 weeks of competition.

The idea of being on a team playing pointless weeklies or being a casual deciding they want a bit more of stronger experience to then going to a system that in theory defines your skill among other people that are also participating in this skill placing tournament is in essence very exciting, and it's no wonder why there's all of a sudden a fresh feeling of life in the community when a Luti season is announced.

Most competitive players define themselves with Luti divisions, using it as a gage for where they sit in the scene in terms of skill. Some tournaments even use Luti divs in their rules even though there's long breaks between seasons!

The importance of Luti to comp Splatoon is obvious, and shouldn't be downplayed(I hate it when to's or anyone downplays Luti divs saying it's strictly only relevant during the season)....
....Which is why Luti should be held more often.

If the breaks between Luti seasons were shorter then there'd be more overall consistent excitement within the comp community, and the Luti divs which are going to be used anyway as a gage of skill across the community would be more accurate since Luti results and recent tournament results between seasons would be used to better place people into more accurate divisions.

 

[.jpg_]

luti is difficult to run. unless you wanna put your money where your mouth is and staff it

 

[Comodo_]

luti is difficult to run. unless you wanna put your money where your mouth is and staff it

It would be really nice if there was a way for the community to donate tbh, I'd be more than willing to chip in

 

[Mr Sark]

luti is difficult to run. unless you wanna put your money where your mouth is and staff it

I wouldn't know how to staff it/run it since I have no experience in that kind of thing. Idk who even runs Luti, but it seems like there could potentially be people that step up and help run seasons more often if maybe there was an announcement/invitation by the people that run Luti? This is evidenced by ipl, paddling, and any other tourney that's been around that people have a passion for the game/scene and will TO tourneys.

I've been playing comp for years and have seen all the discussion about growing and improving the scene. With everything we've seen, I think Luti is the best way to do that

 

[Kamakira]

TOing a large league can be an absolute nightmare that takes weeks, if not months, of prep time, organization, and resources. When you have something like LUTI that oftentimes has hundreds of teams competing across 10+ divisions there is an unreal amount of work that happens behind the scenes to create a smooth experience for all the players. Most TOs are unpaid volunteers who are putting on tournaments and leagues out of their own love for the game. While LUTI is one of the core events of competitive Splatoon, it wouldn't be fair to the staff to make them work twice as hard when many of them have other commitments, whether it be to their own teams, other tournament orgs, or IRL work/school.

 

[The Knee]

I don’t have much to say but I do think that the main reason it’s held so infrequently is because it takes a really long time to set up a splatoon league that lasts that long and is the size it is so to do that more often would probably be a lot of pressure on TOs.

 

[quilxinm]

LUTI is incredibly difficult to staff and run especially in a community built on volunteer work. While I won’t deny that ideally LUTI would be more frequent, it just takes a lot of manpower.
I do believe also tho we should as a community kinda have a more concrete div estimate system based on tournament results and such, that way div estimates are more accurate

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I love what LUTI is but hate how it works. Atm it’s only once a year, and there are hundreds of other tournaments through the year. As well as, there are plenty of tournaments happening during the time it takes LUTI to complete. imo LUTI is simply too slow for the current state of splatoon; doesn’t help that the community puts Div’s on a pedestal.

In an ideal world, LUTI would be twice a year. So think the first quarter of the year and then in the third one. This might be pushing it, but imagine if there then was then another event to run alongside it in the other quarters.

But in all honesty, it might even be worth considering a new system entirely. Outside of LUTI, your best bet is either winning capped tournaments or getting banned from capped events to get an understanding of “where you are.” And fwiw Bans are TO based choices that can sometimes be questionable

 

[antyytna]

if anything, I think LUTI should just be relied on less, rather than force the staff to go through the trouble several times a year

it's really hard to run, but my only real issue with that is that there is no other way to truly measure divisions, I think a more frequent seed (not by LUTI staff necessarily, and not with a tournament necessarily; just a sign up with results) should exist with LUTI's appeal being its playoffs/season structure

 

[Hitzel]

If everyone is playing in weeklies there is enough data to seed teams and players. Luti isn't the only reliable way to do that.

That being said, every Luti season gives me an excuse to run another Speed Ladder so I don't mind it haha.

 

[CoBalt The Ramen King]

more or less LUTI seasons, I just want more ways to watch it.

 

[falco]

As others pointed out, it is a daunting tournament to TO. You are managing 2000+ players over the course of two months without any “off” days.

This is probably a stretch but if we did have the staff for it, I would fear that if it were held more frequently, then teams would be more prone to dropping using the logic of “well we can just sign up for the next one in a few months”. When teams drop from LUTI it makes the experience less fun for everyone else

 

[gentlemads]

Besides the amount of work required to put it on, LUTI being annual-ish makes a lot of sense to me in the context of many other sports. I can't think of any pro sport leagues that have more than one season per year, but those also have longer seasons. And the NFL, for instance, has a ton of money invested in it.

I would much rather have a sustainable league that occurs every year-ish, with TOs who get down time and can have lives outside of Splatoon, than more frequent LUTI with the threat of burnout and oversaturation. I don't mind the "scarcity", per se. It makes me really value when it is happening.

I would also be willing to chip in towards a LUTI patreon/ko-fi/etc.

What makes a weekly pointless? Maybe it is just because I am low level, but I feel any tournament is 1) a service to our community by the TOs and 2) an opportunity to play and learn.

 

[Popgun]

Last season had 618 teams at the time of seeding, lasted 4 months from registration to playoffs, has a helpdesk that needs to be manned 24/7, and is run entirely by volunteers. A good chunk of those TOs also have hands in other tourneys for various orgs as well, so they are some of the most experienced folks we have in the scene.

LUTI is the most difficult online event to run in comp splatoon and it’s not even close. I’m genuinely surprised it runs as often as it does already.

Donating money to TOs is cool, but the amount of money it would take to convince someone to run 4 more months of another LUTI I’d imagine would be more than what people would be willing to give up for it. InkTV’s league last season was the most viewed online event of the year for 2 months straight and gave 100% of the revenue and donations to the staff. The total was enough to have a pizza party for staff who went to LTC. Which was cool but if you thinking you can get a tourney going by throwing money at it, you might be underestimating the dollar amount it would take.

TLDR: LUTI is insanely difficult to run.

 

[Davfernape]

As others pointed out, it is a daunting tournament to TO. You are managing 2000+ players over the course of two months without any “off” days.

This is probably a stretch but if we did have the staff for it, I would fear that if it were held more frequently, then teams would be more prone to dropping using the logic of “well we can just sign up for the next one in a few months”. When teams drop from LUTI it makes the experience less fun for everyone else

While having more TOs to help with luti is needed, and I think the the break between seasons is rlyyyy long, I agree with u that the weight and value of luti would dimish if it was held too often. Ur totally right about the dropping thing. People would literally lose week 1 then drop

 

[Roundabout]

Maybe LUTI should run for 8 months instead.
- Less time between seasons
- You get to play EVERY team in your div
- Truly tests who can go that long without disbanding
- only 1 reschedule though
- why spend hours seeding 600+ teams if it only lasts for a few months

 

[falco]

Maybe LUTI should run for 8 months instead.
- Less time between seasons
- You get to play EVERY team in your div
- Truly tests who can go that long without disbanding
- only 1 reschedule though
- why spend hours seeding 600+ teams if it only lasts for a few months

do you know how impractical this is

 

[falco]

do you know how impractical this is

oh wait this was Roundy. Disregard

 

[Kamakira]

Maybe LUTI should run for 8 months instead.
- Less time between seasons
- You get to play EVERY team in your div
- Truly tests who can go that long without disbanding
- only 1 reschedule though
- why spend hours seeding 600+ teams if it only lasts for a few months

honestly still too short. should be 12 imo

 

[DoubleDrewski]

I'm no expert, but it seems like what is desired (and seemingly way, way more practical here) is a better method of quickly evaluating team skill, rather than revamping the tournament itself. Divisions are great but when the only way of updating that is an annual tournament, it can be frustrating for teams that feel like their assigned div isn't representative of their skill.

Have there ever been discussions to expand Divisions beyond LUTI (as strange as that sounds)? Like, an automated process that takes results from trusted tournaments to "rank" teams, and divide them into desired sizes of divs from there? Maybe I'm just roundaboutedly describing sendou q but I personally like the idea for the sake of easing the human involvement.