2016: Pre season discussion

[mepmuff]

I've talked to some of you already about next year and I would like to hear from more of you about your experience this year and what you would like next season. I've heard people who want to continue with their current team, people who'd like to start over with all 1M teams this time and people who'd like two leagues. So, let me know!

[Dave]

I'm on two lines of thougth on this

1) I like to start in a (relatively) rookie-league (TV<1100) .. that's what I like about this season .. building a team in a very different enviroment as compared to the open league
2) I would love to be able to continue with the current team ..

a combination of the two would be nice ..

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

I will start my comment be saying that I liked this whole 'Scheduled League' thing, and I'm happy to see that it 'works'; people are playing their matches (mostly) on time, people who were only rare visits during previous seasons are now playing more than once a month, everyone seems to be enyoying it, and there is an 'intensity' to every match that you just don't have in an Open League. So, in addition to keeping the open league, which has some advantages of it's own, I'm all for continuing this kind of league!

Now, for next season, I prefer, as I have said to various people, to have two Scheduled Leagues, in addition to the Open League.

One of these Scheduled Leagues would be a rookie league; starting teams, with 0 matches played yet.

This would keep the playing field level, as opposed to current season, where (in no small part due to me, I fully admit), certain teams (including mine) had a starting advantage over others.

The other Scheduled League would be a higher TV league.

The starting TV cap can be decided in varous ways; equal to the TV of this seasons winner, or this seasons highest TV at the end, or as decided by the winner of this season, or in some other way independent of the current Scheduled League; the point is to allow players to bring in developed teams either from the current season or from their stable of teams, as they see fit; as such I think this TV cap should be somewhere between 1500 and 1800.

To have two leagues seems like a lot of 'mandatory games', and if all 12 players of the current league (or more) would want to play in both leagues, then it is a lot, certainly for two Leaguenights a month.

But on the other hand, if everyone wants to play in both leagues, perhaps we could expand the number of Leaguenights (aside from the already used option for 'Dinner Table Bowl').

However, I suspect that not every one will want to play in both leagues, and that we would end up with two leagues of 6-9 teams each, which would make it much more managable.

I further think that these two leagues, while starting and ending at the same time (january and december 2016, respectively), do not need to be otherwise 'paired'; they don't need the same number of teams, or the same time for each round, or anything else to make them 'equal', because given the starting TV differences, they will not ever get 'equal' anyhow.

I don't think they should even have a 'best of one league vs best of the other one' final (though it could easily be arranged when both leagues are done in december), because, as pointed out above, it is unlikely that we would get finalists with even remotely equal TV's, and inducements can only do so much.

Anyway, this post has become far longer than I intended, but I think my point is clear: two Scheduled Leagues, one rookie and one mid-high TV, and an Open League, that is what I would want to see for 2016!

[Vinz_D]

I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of a full-year fixed league and would prefer seeing this continue. It's easy to follow (definitely in regard to the ranking), scheduling is tricky, but the deadlines are set well in advance, and it gives you the chance to properly build a team, instead of switching around with teams more times then you wear socks in a week.

So, yeah, for me you can keep the fixed league going.

As for the setup, I would love to be able to continue playing my Underworld team, now that it is reaching its optimal build at around TV1500. (I mean, Grace O'Malley is giving Snowblazer a run for its money, catching up quite rapidly these last few rounds...). However, keeping teams at that level would mean that a new influx with rookie teams will have an incredibly uninviting disadvantage.
David has been advocating the multi-league universe ( ) since this summer, but my problem with that is that few people are able and/ or willing to play several games per month. The people that are actively playing twice per month for the Utrecht league can be counted on one hand. (and I know for a fact that I am not, nor will be, one of them)

Is it a good idea? Sure, but as long as it doesn't mean you have a proper league dwindle down to two (too) small leagues.

[the_Sage]

I like the concept, though obviously I need to show a bit more commitment. Having played a whole year with rookie chaos that are finally starting to take shape means I'm more in the camp of "let's keep going with these teams".

I don't mind having two parallel leagues; one for the higher and one for the lower TVs. Ideally, fitting with the fixed system, you would limit restriction to the high TV to those built in the low TV one.

If this results in two groups that are considerably smaller, we could simply adjust the duration of a season to N-1 months.

If we really want to keep it as one big league but enable rookie coaches to catch up, we could also have a smaller 'rookie pre-season' running in parallel with the 2515 playoffs. To accelerate their progress, you could evengive new teams 1100 gold to start with, and/or give 2 MVPs per game.

[mepmuff]

Ik ben een heel groot voorstander van nieuwe teams, en dan allemaal opnieuw beginnen. Ik ben van mening dat het "voorwerk" van sommigen wat jammer is geweest voor de huidige league, en zou daarom voorstellen om allemaal op 0 te beginnen. Ik snap dat het ontwikkelen van een team een belangrijk onderdeel is van league-play, en dat sommige spelers daarom geen voorstander zijn. Zou ik ook niet zijn, als we als gehele league voor dit seizoen op gelijke voet waren begonnen. Mijn voorstel zou dan ook zijn om helemaal opnieuw te beginnen, en vanaf dat seizoen af aan door te spelen met de ontwikkelde teams. Ik kan me voorstellen dat we dan een seizoen lang ons buigen over de vraag hoe we het aantrekkelijker kunnen maken voor "rookie" teams om later in te stappen.

[SirSebstar]

It is well known that I will play everything, so it hardly matters what i tell here.
There seems to me to be a strong desire to continue playing with existing teams, AND there is a strong desire for a level playing field(read TV 100 teams)
I'd play both.

[Bjorgrim]

Hi guys,

So as for last year I am in general in favor to start from scratch (TV 100) any fixed league. The current developed teams could be either sent to Open League or indeed dedicated to another fixed league with max TV TBD.

Two fixed leagues is a very attractive idea, but I am not sure to be able to make it personally and that would anyway require many outside league night games.

So two leagues is what I prefer, but if not possible a start from scratch seems fairest approach.

One point for the schedule generator: we can keep the same way, but to avoid that Dave plays always the opponent after me, we can also shuffle the days

[Duke Jan]

I agree with Jelmer. I would like to add that I really enjoyed playing 11 different coaches and that for this reason I would like to see a single fixed league.

[mepmuff]

Current thoughts are to start two leagues. One with only brand new teams and one with developed teams. For the deveopled teams there will be a TV cap in place, which will be the TV of the winner of the current season. Teams that are in the current season will be exempted.