TWDT and TSL Schedule Going Forward

[ogron]

This is kind of what I envision for the league and the zone:

Basically, we run 4 TSLs a year, 2 months on, 1 month off, and work on setting up a Website and automate everything.

We continue running two TWDTs a year avoiding the Summer.

TSL helps keep activity up, train and improve players in multiple ships, and preps them for TWDT.

I have some good ideas on improving basing matchmaking in TSL as well, as it is the most problematic of the three leagues, along with a few other minor improvements.

I'm going to start talking to Qan about automating everything and shifting the load to a Website for TSL, because I have no intention of running the league manually over and over.

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In terms of the now, we have the final four game days of TSL coming up (Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), with the TSL Season 1 Finals next Sunday (August 6th).

TWDT typically does signups in September and runs October/November, ending before American Thanksgiving. Maybe a late September start.

That basically leaves a 2 month gap between TSL Season 1 and TWDT Season 15, which is too long in my opinion.

I think we should start TSL Season 2 on September 3rd, start TWDT signups, then begin TWDT with the draft on September 24th:


July 30 -- TSL Week 7
August 6 -- TSL Finals
August 13 --
August 20 --
August 27 --
September 3 -- TSL Week 1
September 10 -- TSL Week 2
September 17 -- TSL Week 3
September 24 -- TWDT Draft/TSL Week 4
October 1 -- TWDT Week 1/TSL Week 5
October 8 -- TWDT Week 2/TSL Week 6
October 15 -- TWDT Week 3/TSL Week 7
October 22 -- TSL Finals
October 29 -- TWDT Week 4
November 5 -- TWDT Week 5
November 12 -- TWDT Semi-Finals
November 19 -- TWDT Finals

[Rab]

Like

Request that games start at 3pm more often. These days are by far the best, games are better quality and more bonus games are played, and it's not stupidly late for euros.

Having struggled with getting enough games as multi-ship, if the schedule stays the same, there's no way I'd attempt multi-ship again. Playing ss at 1am just results in bad scores, so there's not really any point.

Some guys have 3x the GP I have, but there's no way I could have showed up any more than I did. Feels like a big disadvantage.

I'm a nolife loser and would happily play games on a friday or saturday.

[Jessup]

Summer league in October and December ??? Change the name of it perhaps........ also I don't think we should give up on TWD/squads all together either. I'd like to see TWL happen somewhere in here and just start it without quali's. Announce a date and give a bit of time for squads to form and do it. This all seems a bit repetitive too and too jammed packed together. Burnout is a real issue. We need to keep some variety in the zone I think.

[Rab]

TWD is still there, but there's not the population to have enough squads to play against. TWL wouldn't be worth anything.

That's why we ended up with TWDT and TSL in the first place. These are formats that can work given the population we have.

Agree about it being a very full schedule. Don't mind though.

[Trasher]

I don't think we should give up on TWD/squads all together either. I'd like to see TWL happen somewhere in here and just start it without quali's

TWD is almost completely dead, even though it only requires 3vs3 (with borrows). If people want it they should start logging on and sending chals. TSL fills the void quite nicely.

TWL would be a sad imitation of what it should be, and thus should be put on hold indefinitely. If the Steam relaunch or some other miracle brings in more population, it can be revived, but as it is, there is no point.

TWDT is the logical replacement for TWL, even though it had quite a few forfeits last season (not to mention only 6 teams).

Just run TSL during weekdays with TWDT on Sundays. Maybe some squads will form and people will play even outside of that, but it doesn't look good.
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With all this cynicism out of the way, I guess we should take into account that it is the summer, and people might get (slightly) more active soon.

[ogron]

Request that games start at 3pm more often. These days are by far the best, games are better quality and more bonus games are played, and it's not stupidly late for euros.

I think maybe doing Euro/West Coast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and East Coast on Wednesdays, would be a solid change. The bonus games from the Euro times hit the EST players as they come home anyway.

Adding a Friday or Saturday slot could also be a decent option, although the more you add, the more you risk people burning out on the league.

TWD is almost completely dead, even though it only requires 3vs3 (with borrows). If people want it they should start logging on and sending chals. TSL fills the void quite nicely.

Yeah, I don't think the heyday of TWD is coming back. There was no TSL the first 6 months of 2017 and TWD was dead, so the notion that TSL kills it seems silly.

TWL would be a sad imitation of what it should be, and thus should be put on hold indefinitely. If the Steam relaunch or some other miracle brings in more population, it can be revived, but as it is, there is no point.

Agreed. TWL is dead unfortunately, and barring a Steam miracle, there isn't enough talent to justify running it. I don't know of any top players who support reviving TWL.

TWDT is the logical replacement for TWL, even though it had quite a few forfeits last season (not to mention only 6 teams).

TWDT has been the standard-bearer for awhile now, and suits the population limit better. I miss the 8-team format, but 6-teams ensures deep rosters and quality matches.

I also think adding a Slot to all three leagues bears serious consideration, especially for base. The last I spoke with Beasty, we'd talked about changing TWDT to a 1-100 Ratings, with:

TWDT-B:

0-65 slot
0-75 slot
0-75 slot
0-85 slot


TWDT-D/TWDT-J:

0-65 slot
0-75 slot
0-85 slot

I not as confident in the TWDT-D and TWDT-J third slots... I think you can make a strong argument for keeping 3 max slots given there's probably enough talent to sustain it, but adding a 0-85 slot in base makes sense to me.

I'm also a big fan of returning to teams making playoffs Overall, and not Per League. I don't think that change worked last season.

Just run TSL during weekdays with TWDT on Sundays.

That is the plan. We can also run bonus TSL rounds after the TWDT games finish on Sundays.

With all this cynicism out of the way, I guess we should take into account that it is the summer, and people might get (slightly) more active soon.

Summer has always been bad for TW, and it always picks up in the fall. I expect a 25-30% boost and for returning TWL and TWDT players to sign up for TWDT and discover TSL and get back into the game.

[ogron]

As TSL Season 1 comes to a close this Sunday, keep these dates in mind, as TSL Season 2 and TWDT are coming your way over the next two months!

[Ricko]

We definitely need some more euro times/days added for TSL - admittedly I was never going to play much this season as I've been too busy/had a holiday but it was a stretch me ever hitting enough games anyway.

The only day outside of sunday that is really viable for euros this season was Wednesdays (which I couldn't make anyway), other mid week days arent realistic unless us Euros stay up until 1-2am to play. Unless you're Trasher you're probably going to be too tired to play even if you didn't care about getting up for work in the morning.

Also limiting TSL game times to predominantly Eastern Times means that all bonus matches are played WAY too late for Euros to increase their games played outside of the set Wednesday/Sunday game time. I think the only Euro who actually did this was Attacks, and he was up playing until 2-3am a number of times (and seems to have had a breakdown at work? Could be related...).

Not sure what the way around this is - thought about suggesting automated matches in TSL on the hour every hour between 2pm EST and 8pm EST, but then that's essentially turning it into TWD?

[kentaro]

Just add another euro time slot. Pretty much Wednesdays are nonstop from 3pm - 11/12 due to bonus games.

We definitely need some more euro times/days added for TSL - admittedly I was never going to play much this season as I've been too busy/had a holiday but it was a stretch me ever hitting enough games anyway.

The only day outside of sunday that is really viable for euros this season was Wednesdays (which I couldn't make anyway), other mid week days arent realistic unless us Euros stay up until 1-2am to play. Unless you're Trasher you're probably going to be too tired to play even if you didn't care about getting up for work in the morning.

Also limiting TSL game times to predominantly Eastern Times means that all bonus matches are played WAY too late for Euros to increase their games played outside of the set Wednesday/Sunday game time. I think the only Euro who actually did this was Attacks, and he was up playing until 2-3am a number of times (and seems to have had a breakdown at work? Could be related...).

Not sure what the way around this is - thought about suggesting automated matches in TSL on the hour every hour between 2pm EST and 8pm EST, but then that's essentially turning it into TWD?

[Tiny]

Make twdt squads TWD squads like I said before.

[Omega Red]

This seems fine, offering more times for Euros could help.

Can Euros maintain activity enough for us to accommodate them though? I don't know if they could or not.

[Major Crisis]

This seems fine, offering more times for Euros could help.

Can Euros maintain activity enough for us to accommodate them though? I don't know if they could or not.

I believe the best weekdays with games was always the wednesday.. But I would suggest to do wb-jav-wb-jav-base-base on those days to start. Base at 4 pm est is too early.

[ogron]

A solution could be starting TSL earlier on Sundays since they tend to fizzle out much earlier than other days due to people getting ready for Mondays and big shows like Game of Thrones and other premiere network TV shows come on around 9pm.

That way it starts at 3pm in Europe and in the morning for Westerners who probably won't log on 'til much later in the day. What the Euros would consider bonus games would then be the first matches of the day for North Americans. It would also give Euros a leg up one day of the week during TWDT, where we wake up for TWDT, and Euros have already played a few hours of TSL that we missed. They would then play a round or two of TSL bonus games after TWDT, then go watch TV or go to bed.

Another solution is turning Tuesdays and Thursdays into 3pm/9pm slots, and Wednesday into 6pm slot -- just invert them. The 9pm tag is meaningless -- the games always run from 3pm to then anyway and just bleed into each other.