RPS Blood Bowl League - The many, many Divisions of Death!

[potatoedoughnut]

On a giant challenge league:

As Gorm pointed out I think challenge leagues don't let you admin games (either if one needs to be defaulted, or if one needs to be reset and un-defaulted).

Also, currently the division winner gets a small purse (like 40k?) for winning the division, that would go away in a challenge league (this is mostly helpful for new teams rising through the divisions).

It should make admin easier, so it's in their hands, but I think it will just change the headaches, not eliminate them.


Finally - I like ntw's suggestion for this season.

[potatoedoughnut]

Damnit, sorry forgot i had to post in here, I must have just subscribed and forgot.

I don't mind waiting till next season though if necessary.

The more important thing is re-appling in game to your new division. Posting here helps if you can't make the deadline (out of town or whatever). That said since there is still a fair amount of shuffling to do you may still get in this season, but that up to the admins.

And it seems like it's been a while since we've had this many drop outs/no-shows at the end of a season. The past few seem to have gone smoothly (or maybe that's just my non-admin ignorance talking).

[Zoraster]

Challenge league is a big no no since the last patch. The vast increase in desyncs combined with the lack of reset option just makes things frustrating. Before the last patch I was all for trying it and did indeed test it with my league to get around the winnings bug. Tests proved coaches can't be trusted to alt-F4 out when they should to 'reset' games blighted by an early discon or crash.

The other thing to consider is changing leagues each season actually makes things easier for the admins and players. People will still drop out without having the courtesy to say anything or mark the SS but we won’t have the the early warning system the absent applications provide. All that will change is these absences will impact on the season rather than off-season.

[Vexing Vision]

I very much prefer the current system. It's a hassle every three or four seasons, but I think it's very much worth it.

Also, both disconnects and admin-draws are happening quite frequently, so the ability to administer individual matches seems quite necessary.

[Screwie]

Okay then, to confirm - this is the plan we're going with this season?

Anyways, my suggestion is that we break up Div6 -

• Nullkigan and AgP go up to Div4
• Kapouille goes up to Div5
• Prester John goes down to Div 8

It's not the simplest or fairest solution, but it is *somewhat* simple and *somewhat* fair. Obviously come the end of the season we'll bear in mind which teams have been promoted/demoted and try to balance next season accordingly.

(With apologies to Prester John.)

[President Weasel]

I'm against the challenge league as you can't amend the results. Seems fairer to make the game results match the spreadsheet - even if you give someone a 2-0 on the spreadsheet, they won't get the SPP and money for it unless they play the match or get the admin result.

The bigger the league gets the more hassle it's becoming for the admins to get people into their divisions every three matches - should we consider going to 6-team leagues? That way we get 5 matches before Groovy needs to shuffle everything up and we need to wait for the slow joiners.
There would still be a noticeable difference between the Divisions and the Open, there would still be relatively short seasons, and we'd still get plenty of promotions and demotions: although there would still be two people playing each other from season to season, that's just one match out of five.

[Kajo]

although there would still be two people playing each other from season to season, that's just one match out of five.

That's bearable, trust me :p

[potatoedoughnut]

I like the 4 team divisions and quick turnovers. Also that the league changes frequently.

[DWZippy]

Failing that, you could just make each team play twice, like a home and away game? Same amount of people in leagues, so it's not a gigantic shake up - and that's six matches per league switchover.

[Vexing Vision]

I find four matches ideal, because it means that every single match counts. I have yet to find myself in any division where the last match didn't at least decide about something regarding promotion.

This makes every game very exciting for a meta-game. Increasing the amount of matches per season will introduce something that I personally dislike: "Empty games", games where you gain nothing by either winning or losing. Those games have the potential to become highly frustrating (especially once your players die in a match that didn't net you anything), and therefor less fun than the current excellency that are the Divisions.

[Jiiiiim]

This is one potential to sort out our fiddling. USING ALL MY SKILLS OF GRAPHIC DESIGN

leagues.jpg

Still 4-team leagues, but the difference is that one gets promoted and two get relegated, like the championship is now. Two reasons that it might be better:
* The path to the championship is half as long so it won't take the year it would currently take to join the divisions new and win.
* The cascade effect of someone higher-up dropping out is less pronounced. At the moment if someone falls off the championship then you have to move 8 people to shore it up. In this one you'd only have to move 3 or 4.

Personally I'd like that there'd be even more movement between years, but others might not.

[Jolima]

I like it. Maybe with a few more cross-overs so the two halves aren't completely isolated. (Edit: I think my image actually fails to do this, so some better graph or even one that switches between seasons.)

E.g.: leagues.jpg

But that's not gonna happen this season. So for the current situation... I'll refrain from making any other suggestions and say that we should just go with ntw's plan. No suggestion would be entirely fair, so groovy will just have to try boosting Prester back up by two-three divisions next season.

To limit our stalling, let's say that if any admin besides me and ntw posts support for this (i.e. drawlien, darkfenix or ChainsawHands) OR no one objects by 6pm UK time today, everyone should start doing the switch over.

[Screwie]

Nice work Jiiiim! I like it.

Having distinctly seperate halves to each gives it an east coast/west coast feel, but I wouldn't mind what Jolima is suggesting either.

Either way, another way to allow crossover is to randomise promotion placements from the feeder leagues, so anyone demoted to the bottom will have a different route back up.

[Jiiiiim]

Yeah go with ntw's plan this season but it's something to muse on for next.

[ChainsawHands]

To limit our stalling, let's say that if any admin besides me and ntw posts support for this (i.e. drawlien, darkfenix or ChainsawHands) OR no one objects by 6pm UK time today, everyone should start doing the switch over.

I say we go with ntw's plan.

For later seasons, I'd like to keep the 4-match seasons, for the same reasons as VV.

I'd also be happy to go with the eldritch non-euclidean league geometry proposed by Jolima, just so long as someone other than me is working out who goes where...

[Prester John]

k applied for div 8....

Need to get my first game in before Thursday when i go on hols.

[Vexing Vision]

Jolima's idea is excellent, but we need some sideways-shifting between the seasons too. Otherwise people will end up playing the same people over and over again, and one of the benefits of the small divisions is that each season, there's new challenges.

[Jolima]

If you're looking for eldritch geometry...

I made an alternate scheme based on Jiiiim's diagram for where everyone would end up after a season. Promotions still work the same as in his original diagram while demotions go for maximum spread. Every 2nd-placer above the feeder divs wins the benefit of not having to move to another division.

DIV: <1st place destination>, <2nd place>, <3rd place>, <4th place>

Champ: Champ, Champ, Alpha, Beta
Alpha: Champ, Alpha, A, C
Beta: Champ, Beta, B, D
A: Alpha, A, 4, 5
B: Alpha, B, 6, 7
C: Beta, C, 8, 1
D: Beta, D, 2, 3
1: A, 1, 4, F?
2: A, 2, 7, F?
3: B, 3, 2, F?
4: B, 4, 5, F?
5: C, 5, 8, F?
6: C, 6, 3, F?
7: D, 7, 6, F?
8: D, 8, 1, F?
Feeder leagues: 1-8, 1-8, F, F

Any last placer in the number divs would risk getting demoted to the feeder divs, but if there aren't enough of those some will be shuffled to some random other numbered division instead together with the first and second placers from the feeder divs.

If there are more than 19 divs, some feeder divs would only get to promote 1 team and if there ever becomes 23 divs we would need to revise it again.

I'll leave the fitting of drop-outs into this as an exercise for the reader. :-)

(Still nothing more than an idea mind.)

[Vexing Vision]

The only problem I see is that this system does not scale very well downwards. The Feeder Div can be a single division with everyone in there, and the top eight get into the numbered Division. That's fine.

But the system breaks if there are less than 60 teams participating, as that means we're unable to fill Divisions 1 to 8. Either we would increase the amount of filler-teams, or generally introduce a three-person division (with one automated draw for everyone) to keep things fluid.


Otherwise, the new system looks stellar, and I really want to see what ntw does with the Magic Spreadsheet to accommodate that.

[Screwie]

I figured if there aren't enough teams to fill out 1-8 then we don't have a 1-8 and the feeder divisions (I don't imagine this is one big block, but enough 4 man divisions to cover the numbers?) feed into A-D?