SEASON 3 - Ideas, suggestions, wishes

[Jamo]

Please let us know if you have ideas for the next season. The more we know what brings back your guys' activity, the better we can adjust the league to it

Best,
Jamo

[MudMan]

hi @jamo

can you make a fresh team list and early sign ups for season 3? maybe it can get something going

[Jamo]

I am confident that we can start sign-ups soon, yes.

[BoretkPanda]

what about: people can sign in solo and all solo players get teamed to an fix team

[Jamo]

what about: people can sign in solo and all solo players get teamed to an fix team

I think last seasons it worked good to have a "looking for team" thread. Then also Mods have an overview of who wants to play but has no team yet and can try putting them together as a team. I think that basically covers your idea and goes a bit further, or?

[KiwiLeKiller]

Here are some results coming from the survey I elaborated after the very first season of LTL, which was clearly a success. I received 19 responses in total.

> Most people (84,2%) thought the length of the season (11 weeks) was fine and some people (15,8%) thought it was too long.

> 78,9% of the respondents believed the pace of the season (1 match per week) was fine and 21,1% said it was not enough.

> For the perfect amount of match per week, people said:

1 match per week (73,7%)
2 match per week (21,1%)
3 match per week (5,3%)

> For the season calendar, 68,4% of the people thought it was best to stay with the weekly calendar, where teams have to play a certain match on an imposed week (it was the calendar we used for season 1).
***I honestly think this is where we fucked up, we didn't stick to this type of calendar for reasons I will elaborate later in this post***

> For the playoffs, it was almost 50/50 as to the advantage the teams with most points should receive a bigger advantage. 52,6% thought they should not receive such an advantage (be it choosing the team they will face in the first round, to already qualify for 2nd round, or whatever) and 47,4% thought the best teams should get a greater advantage for the playoffs.

###

For the match scheduling system, this is where something had to be done. People believed it was a "nightmare" and it represented "a serious problem" for the LTL. It was hard to communicate with other captains and to schedule a proper time. It was also hard to actually play games because of time zones and because some teams didn't show up from times to times. Also people said that some captains were not very responsive regarding their availability until the end of the week.

> People thought we (mods) should be more strict with teams regarding the scheduling part and some people thought we made it too complicated, that captains should get more autonomy...

> Also a lot of people asked for harder penalties, yet most people answered that they were not very inclined to ask mods for help...

> 78,9% of people thought having a co-captain could be helpful.

> Most people thought the make-up week was very useful, but that it was used a little too much.

> One major problem people had about match scheduling was teams not showing up.

We got a suggestion that was kinda repeating within the answers to improve the match scheduling system: Have more players per team and a set date and time. If you don't show up within a 15 minute time window with 4 players then you !ff the game.

So, to conclude, I do think if you stick to this suggestion, which many people did, the next LTL season will be as, if not more, successful as the first one.

[Jamo]

Thanks Kiwi, those results are really helpful.
I think I already recognized some of the problems and things coming out of the survey. I will answer some points with what I have in mind how I wanna change it.

> Most people (84,2%) thought the length of the season (11 weeks) was fine and some people (15,8%) thought it was too long.

Honestly, big relief for me. Because I was thinking if more people feel like it is just too long. But it is simply not possible to make it much shorter and LIHL season has same length. So I hope that when ppl sign up for a season, they know there will be frequent games for round about 3 months.
My current idea:
No matter how many teams sign up, Pre-season will always be 8 games, which with the new system will be 9 weeks (maybe including one semi-make up week). Followed by 3 weeks of Playoffs. Although in the end will be fewer teams to play ofc.

> 78,9% of the respondents believed the pace of the season (1 match per week) was fine and 21,1% said it was not enough.

> For the perfect amount of match per week, people said:

1 match per week (73,7%)
2 match per week (21,1%)
3 match per week (5,3%)

In total, it will still be 1 game per week.

> For the season calendar, 68,4% of the people thought it was best to stay with the weekly calendar, where teams have to play a certain match on an imposed week (it was the calendar we used for season 1).
***I honestly think this is where we fucked up, we didn't stick to this type of calendar for reasons I will elaborate later in this post***

Agreed
I think I have a good idea for the new season calendar. My plan is to have 2 weeks time to schedule each match, but with one week overlap with the next match. So in total, will be 1 match per week. But if not possible to schedule it in the first week, 2nd week is also fine, where 2 games can be played then.
Additionally, matches can freely be scheduled earlier than the schedule, but by no means later. I honestly think postponing matches should not be possible due to various reasons.

> For the playoffs, it was almost 50/50 as to the advantage the teams with most points should receive a bigger advantage. 52,6% thought they should not receive such an advantage (be it choosing the team they will face in the first round, to already qualify for 2nd round, or whatever) and 47,4% thought the best teams should get a greater advantage for the playoffs.

Well, currently I am not planning on doing something super fancy for the playoffs to be honest. Imo this is stuff that can be fine tuned in Season 4, when we see Season 3 was a success again.
My plan here so far would be really easy: Teams ranked 1-4 will play vs teams ranked 5-8 in a bo5 KO round. Left 4 teams play a semi-final and then final and 3rd playce game. That's it. No other bonus points, no double KO. Latter one only makes the season unnecessary long and imo should be used in a tournament, not in a league where already Pre-season and Playoff is involved. So each team should try to get a high rank in the pre-season to i) get in the playoffs at all and ii) get an easy opponent for the semi-final game.

For the match scheduling system, this is where something had to be done. People believed it was a "nightmare" and it represented "a serious problem" for the LTL. It was hard to communicate with other captains and to schedule a proper time. [...] Also people said that some captains were not very responsive regarding their availability until the end of the week.

Well, this certainly is the biggest deal and it will remain in the responsibility of the captain/co-captain to communicate with opponents to schedule a game. I think going to fixed dates and times is not possible in a 3 months long league where people do this for fun, have real lives and come from all over the world. However, there will be penalties if captains/co-captains do not respond, not show up etc. Game will have to be palyed strictly, otherwise the team loses points.
Especially on thos point I am open for suggestions, but I don't see how this can be drastically improved by us. Signed up teams have to understand their responsibilities as well!

It was also hard to actually play games because of time zones...

Really nothing we can do about that

... and because some teams didn't show up from times to times.

Yep, that's a NoGo. not showing up will be equal to !ff, meaning the other team wins 2-0.

> People thought we (mods) should be more strict with teams regarding the scheduling part and some people thought we made it too complicated, that captains should get more autonomy...

Nice, I think that is exactly what I am trying to achieve with points I explained above.

> Also a lot of people asked for harder penalties, yet most people answered that they were not very inclined to ask mods for help...

Yep, see above.

> 78,9% of people thought having a co-captain could be helpful.

There will be co-captains 100%!

> Most people thought the make-up week was very useful, but that it was used a little too much.

Yea, I am currently really against it, as mentioned above already. Make-up week was really abused. i thought of limiting it to 1 match per team, but then other problems occur. Like, what happens if two teams play where one team can still postpone a match but the other can't. That's kinda unfair if they can't find a proper date. So, i really think this should just not be possible anymore, or?

> One major problem people had about match scheduling was teams not showing up.

See above.

We got a suggestion that was kinda repeating within the answers to improve the match scheduling system: Have more players per team...

I would be really curious for more input here. Because I honestly think teams should not be bigger than 6 players. With more people, someone always will have to sit and in a 4-player game it literally makes no sense to me to have teams so big they could simply play against themselves. imo if you commit to signing up to LTL it should be possible to schedule games with 6 people. And honestly, even if it does not work out once and you have to take the penalty, you will not be out of LTL... the world will not end...
But like I said, I am open fo input and if still most people want bigger teams, so be it...

...and a set date and time.

See above, not gonna do that. Timezones and private life imo do not really allow to do so. What do others think here?

If you don't show up within a 15 minute time window with 4 players then you !ff the game.

Yup, certainly this will be the case! Prolly 20 minutes, but yea.

*Jamo

[MudMan]

here are my thoughts on what was mentioned above:
-Captains should only be captains in game, so their captain title shouldnt really be a factor in scheduling and dealing outside of the game itself, meaning every single player of a team is equally responsible for showing up etc
-In terms of time-zones: after the sign-ups and team formations are done, a poll should be held to see when the majority of the players prefer the day/time of the matches to be fixed and when (if a certain threshold is passed, say 80%+, then we can safely assume that the plan will work)
-in terms of penalty of missing a match, its fair for it to be considered a forfeit, its kinda hard to think of a different/more severe penalty?

anyway, not everything can be addressed right now, but once the season starts.. we will definitely:

[Vendeta]

Title named "captain" is made for game scheduling. That was its purpose. Making a "game captain" is apsurd, since this is called "Legion TEAM league", i dont think i need to explain what that means, everyone who played season 1 knows what im talking about. Ao it should rly stay how it is, + co-captain is a great add when captain is unavailable.

Also, making a poll when games should be scheduled is also apsurd, we played a lot of games in many different times, and u cant just stick to it, there are different reasons for changing times.etc. So that should stay between captains.

For penalty's, there should be penalty's ofc, but not strictly in every case, like we did before, sometimes we can make agreements between teams.

This was supposed to be friendly league, with froendly teams, so lets just keep it that way, that is why most of people loved season 1 so much, and it shouldnt rly change.

[MudMan]

Title named "captain" is made for game scheduling. That was its purpose. Making a "game captain" is apsurd, since this is called "Legion TEAM league", i dont think i need to explain what that means, everyone who played season 1 knows what im talking about. Ao it should rly stay how it is, + co-captain is a great add when captain is unavailable.

Also, making a poll when games should be scheduled is also apsurd, we played a lot of games in many different times, and u cant just stick to it, there are different reasons for changing times.etc. So that should stay between captains.

For penalty's, there should be penalty's ofc, but not strictly in every case, like we did before, sometimes we can make agreements between teams.

This was supposed to be friendly league, with froendly teams, so lets just keep it that way, that is why most of people loved season 1 so much, and it shouldnt rly change.

making a poll is actually the complete opposite of absurd, if the majority want something then its the right thing to do, just like lihl new map new season and this is why its back online.. but u are entitled to your opinion anyway

[Jabba41]

if we make a poll and it turns out a time 15 players just can't attend we loose 15 players barely anyone would get up at night or cancel work to play this on a mandatory base. to be flexible is a must as we play in a many different timezones.

[Jamo]

I appreciate your input mudman, thanks for bringing thoughts into LTL! Unfortunately, I am 100% on Vende's side here. Just one more thing to addd because I think a poll is bad: Polls take time, we easy lose another 5 days or a week until many people voted, I am pretty sure. In lihl everyone wanted the new map, but until the voting for it had significant votes... took ages. And, what do you do i) with the 20% that are not the majority? kick them out? sounds pretty much like a dictatorship to me. and ii) if it's something like 50/50? Then you win nothing. I think scheduling gametime and day should be in the hand of the teams, since LTL will never be anyones number 1 priority (hopefully).

[nicolai123]

I think LTL mods should do scheduling like season 1

[Anda]

Not sure if this is a thing or not since ive never seen any of the matchmaking myself, but sometimes in our team it was that 3 people can guarantee they are available on a date and 2-3 (myself included shitty worktime )couldnt, So we couldnt make a date although it turned out 5 people are there on the disscused time in the long run.
Ive seen this with other teams aswell, a certain amount of core-players that are reliable on time and some others not so much
Is it possible to say we can guarantee you a 3s on date xxx and if we get 8 players we make it a 4s ? I find it sometimes hard to get the 4 mandatory people to show up for a date.
Greetings with broken engulish

[Vendeta]

Well, in season 1 it all worked (almost).

Change that i like now is that every team has a co-captain. So, if 2 captains cant get along, and cant get a time between themselves, we have co-captains to step in if something is wrong.

In season 1 we had different problems, some captains wanted to play all games so they didnt want to schedule time when they couldnt play, for example.

But, definitely, match-scheduling should be like it was in season 1, between captains, and matches arranged, every week u know against whom u play, and with who u talk to schedule. Like we had that calendar of matches.

I would only add exceptions maybe. Like, if some teams can agree to play extra game some week, they should be allowed to do so, but ofc, with informing moderators exact time/date when they play it, so mods can cross it off from calendar.

Also, there should be something like disqualification for afk teams. In season 1 there was a problem with some teams having no games played. Which affects on other teams ranking. If u have a team for LTL, then u should know that u have to play at least 1 game per week. Why would u sign up, if u cant play ? In the end, in season 1, a team got in playoffs who didnt deserve it at all, just because of fixing points from afk teams.
So idk, maybe if it passes like 3 weeks, and u cant schedulle 1 match, they get disqualificated, or maybe even get another team in their place, something like that.

Those afk team really created trouble when it came to playoffs in season 1, so there should be something, some rule for it, so we just dont get (mods especially) caught up, if it happens this season aswell.

Also, i think it would be better to name it "Season 2" instead of 3, it feels like skipping a season

GOGO LTL <3

P.S. Games with thornmail get !draw !!!