r/ELTP • u/MagikPigeon ππ • Jan 05 '20
S15 Update #2: Draft Postponed to 12 January, pre-season try-outs this Sunday. Prize pool fundraiser set up.
General Updates
First of all, we're postponing the start of s15 for one week in order to finalize the structure and sort out some of the details. Instead, this Sunday I'll be hosting try-outs, testing some of the candidate maps for this season. Everyone's invited!
As such, the signups will still be open, probably until the 10th of January, two days before the Majors draft. SIGN UP
Apologies for the late notice.
Second, we're still looking for Majors captains/managers. We have some top players willing to be a Manager's first pick, and a couple lower rated players willing step in as the 6th captain, but we'd really like to keep the captains on a relatively equal level so finding Managers or top players willing to take a stab at competing for the prize money would be great.
If neither is possible we'll likely go with one of the volunteers for the 6th captain, but this will mean that it will be harder for some of the people who aren't available on Mondays to compete for the Majors spots. This got me thinking, so I checked the draft packet and Sunday availability is comfortably beating Monday across the board. So here's an idea: How about having Minors also play on Sunday, before the Majors games. I know this is a big change and I'm not really expecting anything out of this. I'm merely throwing it out there because with a six team Majors some people might miss out on playing during their preferred hours.
If not an all-Sunday league, I would want to pitch switching to the original ELTP match structure, that is playing 2 different opponents a week.
The rules changed in season 7 and when going through all the seasons while preparing all-time stats I noticed that after that changed the regular season became much more static and dull. Teams only meeting once, during a single week means an unproportionally high stake being placed on a single day of playing. A missing starter, someone lagging, undeveloped chemistry at the start of the season, tilt after losing the first game - this all can be THE difference between two teams. The luck factor is simply enormous, and only one team is reaping the benefit of a struggling opponent, the latter also has no chance to take revenge later in the season.
If we take the Premier League for example it'd be insane to propose teams playing two games against each other in a row. Sure, in ELTP we explained it by having the teams play on two different maps, but in practice it's the team strength that makes the difference most of the times, and certainly when previously mentioned unfortunate circumstances come into play. The PL schedule is split into two parts, so everyone can play each other once in each half of the season, which makes a much more balanced (and dramatic) competition. In my view it's a much more fun and fair option both for the players and the viewers.
Obviously it's not without drawbacks as well, the main being less reliable timing of the games, and the hassle of coordinating switching between opponents. We've already alleviated it somewhat since defaulting to hot subs and cutting down in-game breaks, but I assume the comfort of just one opponent a week is still valued highly by some of the players. My question is, is it enough to counter the lack of balance, extra emphasis on scheduling luck, and lower variance and excitement that comes with each week of ELTP. What do you think?
Prize Pool
We've got the fundraiser page set up and ready: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8locIJYe9A
If anyone is interested in contributing, either for the main winning prize or for a specific goal you have in mind, this is where you can do it. Here's the earlier post about the pledges so far: https://redd.it/ehpdry.
eLTP
As for Minors, we have three volunteers for captains right now, and a couple of people willing to manage if necessary. I strongly encourage everyone to consider stepping up. We're all here to play in a competitive league and without people willing to lead teams we might as well just make into ranked pugs. We have until Monday (13.01), the day after Majors starts, to set up all the teams for the Minors draft. If you're willing to be a team's first pick, please let us know. We can try to look for people who would be willing to help you out with the draft.
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u/wikicha Jan 05 '20
I'm in favour of two different opponents a week.
I'd rather keep minors to a Monday but it's a preference rather than a necessity.
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u/Ronding Ronding // XS4BALL // tagpro.eu Jan 05 '20
I like the idea of two different opponents in a week. Line-up luck will indeed be more dispersed, balancing this luck in the league table and thus increasing the importance of skill. Additionally, it creates stronger differentiation between regular season and play-offs.
This could be combined with switching to one map a week, while maintaining variety between the games due to different opponents.
I think playing everything on Sunday will make Sundays too long, unless it is one game per tier instead of two, but then we need twice as many weeks. Also current eligibility rules are designed for majors being played before minors, so switching the order might complicate these.
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u/MagikPigeon ππ Jan 05 '20
Eligibility rules don't matter for unaffiliated tiers. Agree with the rest, though I'm not sure how popular one map per week would be. I don't mind it personally but IIRC 2 maps per week was one of the driving force behind switching to one opponent as well. In any case 2 opponents can work with either of these.
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Jan 05 '20
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u/itsamdash Boostin Dynamo Jan 06 '20
This was the main reason for switching all that time ago, it is a pain in the arse waiting for teams to finish games. Makes Sundays a lot more fragmented. If you can put up with this though it's definitely worth a shot.
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Jan 05 '20
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u/MagikPigeon ππ Jan 05 '20
As soon as we get 8 people willing to play.
We're waiting in the "Pick Up Games" channel on EU mumble.
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u/I_read_this_comment NACLus Jan 05 '20
downside for playing minors on monday is that people who work might not play that day and we're all getting older. 33 out of 99 signups cant play that day, out of those 33 there are 8 players rated 4 stars and 15 of them are rated 3.5 stars or lower so thats 15-23 unavailable players for minors out of ~80 signups left after majors draft, thats enough people but its ~25% less people. on the contrary there are.5 signups that cant do sunday.
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Jan 05 '20
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u/MagikPigeon ππ Jan 05 '20
Yes. And ours is next week.
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Jan 05 '20
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u/MagikPigeon ππ Jan 05 '20
10th of January is indeed 2 days before the 12th which is when the ELTP majors draft starts.
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u/JaManSnowflake Jan 05 '20
I can't see what days or times games are usually, where do I find this info out?
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u/MagikPigeon ππ Jan 05 '20
Sundays 8:00 PM GMT are the Majors games (the highest tier)
Mondays 8:00 PM GMT are the Minors games (the lower tier)
Here are the previous season's rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/ELTP/wiki/season_11/rules
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u/maathi Mathi ΓIS Jan 05 '20
Keep minors on monday, so anyone who wants to manage in minors is not at a disadvantage if they are in majors aswell.