TWDT Hot or Not -- Finals Edition

[Attacks]

What im trying to say is lets not dress up twdt and say its inclusive when its not. If summer league works out perhaps that is the inclusive league.

[zidane]

As a cap I can definitely say I feel it's the 8* spot that gets hurt the most, theyre the ones usually fighting for a spot to start. They are usually more active than ur low stars and youll have more on your team since you drafted at least 3+ (wb/jav) in each league to ensure you aren't ever playing some low * in that spot.

I think the current format is fine but maybe put some more time in making the ratings this year... probably best thing to do would be to lower the quantity of 8* by a bit but you'll end up having a few more broken 7s. There's honestly no perfect solution but I definitely like the concept of having to play low stars so I wouldnt scrap that ever. Another option would be to change the basing requirements to match WB/JAV, so in base you would only need one 7 and one 6, instead of two 7s. I feel like it was the 8* basers who got screwed over the most

[ogron]

There is no perfect solution. I cannot reiterate this enough.

The key is to continually change players ratings (especially bubble players like Rab and Major Crisis who border being either a 7 or an 8) depending on how much playtime they had and how successful they were.

Season 13: Major Crisis 7-Star wins TWDT-B as a starter and does very well >>> changed to 8
Season 14: Major Crisis 8-Star gets benched in TWDT-B and complains >>> changed to 7
Season 15: See how Major does again as a 7-Star

Also, changing the formatting to target different player groups sometimes helps get more people involved. But it's impossible to please everyone all the time.

You can also be perfectly rated, and would be a starter on most teams, but the particular team your on has a glut of players who play the same position at the same star level.

The issue is that the ratings were done without any understanding or knowledge of how those players seasons went last year.

I think Henry Saari is being a huge whiner, considering that he was an 8-Star starter on a TWDT-B Finals team in 2015 (Power), then a starter again on a TWDT-B Finals team in 2016 (Terrorist). That is way luckier than most players and playing half the season on a stacked Power team in 2017 and getting to play a whole round of the Semi-Finals (50% of his team's playoff games) is pretty good.

I benched all of 2012 being too high star rating in all three leagues, I understand it's a bummer, but it's a delicate balance.

I'm not sure there is enough activity and population to go back to 8 Teams, and I know for a fact there aren't enough good caps for 8 teams -- because I couldn't find 8 good caps even 4 years ago messaging 72 different veterans asking them to cap. IMO the best season of TWDT was 2016 (Fall) with 6 teams and 6 really good caps (Dreamwin, Zidane, Commodo, Tiny, Attacks, Pressure), all fighting for the playoffs even into the final week.

I also think making playoffs per league was a bad idea, and it 100% needs to return to making it through overall wins to better incentivize spreading talent.

I've spoken at length with beasty about low-star spots, and we thought that changing it to a centigrade system (rating players 1-100) might be interesting to try. The low-star slots would be:

6-Team Format

WB/Jav:

0-65
0-74

Base:

0-65
0-74
0-83

The 0-83 slot would be really nice for guys like Henry Saari, Rab, Major Crisis, Ra, etc. who are not 7s, but not really 8s either, they tend to be in the 76-79 range which whole numbers can't account for, and are a legitimate step down from guys like M_M God, Trasher, Dreamwin, Cripple, etc.

8-Team Format

WB/Jav:

0-65
0-74
0-83

Base:

0-65
0-74
0-74
0-83


The danger is always that we're punishing talent too harshly and that it is the veterans who are the most active and highest showing players who keep the zone alive.

[kess]

I also think making playoffs per league was a bad idea, and it 100% needs to return to making it through overall wins to better incentivize spreading talent.

I think this should be the main change for the next(?) TWDT season. The other one would be ratings that are done by 5/6 ppl instead of 1, really how hard is that?

[ogron]

I think this should be the main change for the next(?) TWDT season. The other one would be ratings that are done by 5/6 ppl instead of 1, really how hard is that?

Those were the 2 changes the new TWDT Ops made (Henry made making playoffs per league, and Vys did the ratings) :laugh:

Basically you're saying let's go back to what we were doing the seasons prior, which I agree with. There seems to be a misconception I did the ratings by myself. When I say "I did the ratings" I mean I took the final say, but I always consulted 5-6 people across various leagues. I've never determined a single jav rating in my life. I've consulted players like Mythril, Zidane, Stayon, Ease, etc. and looked at prior results in TWDT, TWL, and TWD to try to do the best job possible.

I wasn't playing TW or involved until late in the process for this season, but I plan to be more involved earlier on. I'm still not interested in being TWDT Op, I think Henry is a good fit for the job and should do it solo next season, but when it comes to planning/structuring/rating and doing all the stuff before the season starts, I will take an active role.

Given the dearth of Captains, it may be for the best, as I could fill that role again. I'm retiring Baratheon, and if I cap I will start fresh with Lannister (Mean Gene already capped as Stark, and Cres was Targaryen) and try to be more ambitious in winning all three leagues (although it is still extremely difficult to do so as a 1-league captain with the worst pick every year).

We need to vet captains and do a better job getting qualified applicants. I rejected delectable as an applicant when I was TWDT Op, and was disappointed to see him granted a Captaincy, as he is a complete moron. Good captains are so, so important.

The people who should be targeted as TWDT Captains are:

Successful Former TWDT Captains:

Zidane
Dreamwin
Attacks
Ogron
Commodo
Tiny
Stayon
Pressure

Prime Candidates Who Haven't Capped:

Markmrw
Ricko
Kess
Mythril
Omega Red
Trasher
Turban
24
Porkjet
Mcvicar

The best captains tend to be basers, as it is the hardest league to plan and pick for (it's pretty hard to screw up picking wbs and javs) and I see way too many non-basers invest heavily into TWDT-B and get rocked, then find themselves thin in TWDT-D and TWDT-J.

It's not like I havent asked all these people to cap before -- almost everyone says no. There are amazing caps like Ease and Hulk who I 100% know will not cap, too.

Not a lot of people want to step up and cap, and capping is the most important issue. It's more important than star ratings and how you make playoffs. They determine the fate of 30 players' seasons and whether it's a great experience, or complete shit.

Honestly, if you can get 6 of those 18 people I named, I would be fucking amazed. If you can get 8, run an 8-team league. Otherwise, stick to 6, and get 6 good caps.

[Weak]

There's always going to be borderline issues when it comes to ratings but I do agree that we need to have a qualified group of people doing them as a consensus.

Personally - I was rated an 8 in jav (which is a stretch imo since I rarely get to play it and when it came to dtj I didn't get to play one round due to having other 8s. I know with whatever system we choose to use..we won't appease everyone. Due to knowing that I wasn't going to get playing time in Jav/Base - I'd typically log off after wb. I wanted to play..just like everyone else but I knew with this system, that it just wasn't in the cards

[Fork]

Unless they introduced a 7.5 rating in it and increased it to 6 vs 6 in draft jav and warbird. (Rank: 4-6, 7, 7.5, 8, 9, 10- 6 players) and if a team has no rank 10, they can use 2 rank 9s. This is just a suggestion only, np if noone likes the idea but it really does mean more players are likely to play which I know is what many people want.

[Steep]

I have wondered why the ratings don't start from 1? Would it be possible to make an overall star limit of lineup, so you could choose to play 4 star players and 1 complete rookie, if you so choose? Or 5 good, not star, players, if no rookies show up. How about adding 6th player into wb/jav games, if getting playtime for good players is an issue? Would it be possible to change a player's rating if they appear to be clearly underrated, like some EG'rs seem to be?

[Zeebu]

i like adding the idea of a much larger range for ratings and enforcing a sort of total team cap rule.

[kess]

Those were the 2 changes the new TWDT Ops made (Henry made making playoffs per league, and Vys did the ratings) :laugh:

I have no issue with the playoff per league thing being tried. It was something new worth being tested, imo its worse than the previous system. OP(s) should look at it again and decide whats best to the next TWDT.

The ratings part however, was a disaster from the start and everyone could see that. i have no idea how vys thought he could do it solo when he isnt even an active player, takes breaks for months and doesnt know much about basing. i appreciate the effort, but it was awful.

Regarding me being a captain, i considered it for this season, but due to me not being sure about being able to be around every sunday for atleast 3/4 hours, i decided not to do it. I ended up having to miss alot of the wb periods and even some jav games. What i ask of veterans like me who for whatever reason prefer not to be a captain, is to try and help your captain with drafting/FA, covering for potencial days the captain cant show, talking with other players making sure they understand their role and helping with w/e they need, etc. This also goes a long way for making sure a team is ran well, as relying on one person only is a recipe for disaster.

I think in general captains did a great job this season, as Delectable was the only clear failure. I didnt expect much of Jessup's team and it seemed like they were going to implode, but they turned around nicely and ended up being a strong wb team, even with lots of no shows. Kudos to you Jess.

[Attacks]

My season went down hill as soon as we became favourites for something, someone said we were going to win TWTDB and we crashed out before playoffs, Someone said we had a powerhouse jav line ready to win, we crashed out in semis, Lastly Ogron predicted we would win finals in TWDTD, you guessed it Car Crash! Please say my team is a load of utter shite next season plz

[ogron]

I have wondered why the ratings don't start from 1?

Here's a secret: they do start from 1.

Players rated 6 are technically 1-6. It's a safety measure designed to protect the league. I'll give you a real example using myself:

In 2011, TWDT teams had an overall star cap. You had 55 stars to spend on players, and they were rated 1-10. Someone rates little heard of player named "Ogron" a 2 or 3 in base. Well, it turns out this Ogron is actually pretty good at base. Oops! Ogron isn't actually a 2 or 3, he's a 7 or 8.

Now having Ogron in your basing line and only costing 2 stars means you can play Cape + Zidane/Cig Smoke + Megaman89/Kess/NL>Trigger/SquallFF8/Ogron, and your 2 star Ogron is putting up 140-69 in spider in the Finals and you're outkilling the enemy by 150 because your team is getting 5-6 extra stars value.

The rating is 5-6 stars off. Think about how much people cried about Zizzo being 1 star off. Now imagine being 6 stars off. That's fucking insane.

Talented, unknown players can go from being a 1 to a 7 in the span of a TWDT season. There is an exponential learning curve the higher you go (going from 7 to 8 to 9 to 10), but early on you can definitely blow through star ratings quickly. Rating everyone bad or new or unknown as a 5-6 means that, at worst, the star rating is only 1-2 off for anyone that explodes onto the scene. It's a safety valve.

Someone who is misrated can hurt the league being 1 rating off, but being 5-6 off just turns it to complete shit.

Regarding me being a captain, i considered it for this season, but due to me not being sure about being able to be around every sunday for atleast 3/4 hours

I think there is a misconception that you need to be able to show 100% and always be there. Commodo and Attacks have missed lots of time, used assistants and surrogates, etc. and been excellent caps who provided a great environment for their team to succeed. It's better to have you captain and not always being able to be there than having delectable draft an awful team and make terrible decisions and trades.

If we had 6 other caps who were excellent caps AND showed 100%, then yes, you should be left out of consideration, but that isn't the case and hasn't been for a long time.

[Attacks]

I knew I wouldn't be able to make every third sunday, So I recruited Commodo and Pressure with this in mind, but even if I hadn't I knew I could trust Iron Survivor for wb, and a trusted veteran in each league whoever it might be, honestly anyone can pick line while your away, if your that worried you can even leave your lineup with a trusted player, its the trading, getting people to show and stroking peoples egos which is mostly done during the week which is more difficult. Honestly don't let that put you off Kess you would make a great captain long as you pick a good Deputy or make sure the people you pick are loyal to you.

[kess]

I knew I wouldn't be able to make every third sunday, So I recruited Commodo and Pressure with this in mind, but even if I hadn't I knew I could trust Iron Survivor for wb, and a trusted veteran in each league whoever it might be, honestly anyone can pick line while your away, if your that worried you can even leave your lineup with a trusted player, its the trading, getting people to show and stroking peoples egos which is mostly done during the week which is more difficult. Honestly don't let that put you off Kess you would make a great captain long as you pick a good Deputy or make sure the people you pick are loyal to you.

I really like how u drafted ur team, not only due to the talent, but the type of ppl u took first. having players like thix and commodo are essential to a successful season.

I think that players are mostly put off by the managing the team thingy, drafting and trading is the easy part

[ogron]

Attacks has been a great cap the last two seasons. He could have easily won two or three titles last season as Curse if Ease had been able to show in the Semi-Finals vs. Terrorist, and I was really surprised he didn't win at least one title this year with such an excellent, well-rounded team in all three leagues as Brexit.

But honestly, the best season I ever ran was the 2016 (Fall) season... which was only 8 months ago, and the reason is that we had 6 great caps. I think that should be our goal for October. You can check out all the details on that season in the final Hot or Not here and see for yourself.

If that's too much effort, just look at the standings from last season:

It was extremely competitive. I remember Zid being worried we could potentially miss the playoffs in the final week of the regular season, and no one even knew who made the playoffs between Silence and Curse until an hour after the games concluded (Silence had a winning tiebreak with Curse but fell 1 win short.)

The "worst" team was Tiny's, who had just reached two finals and won a title, and by the looks of it you'd think "oh they were trash in base", except they weren't... they lost games 15-11, 15-13, 15-14, 15-11 and a bunch of close jav and wb games.

They had 24, Shadowmere, Geio, Tiny, Porkjet, Mikkiz, Hellkite, Solace, pavement, Weaver, Henry Saari, etc.

It was a solid team that just fell a bit short.

Power was like the 5th best basing team that season, and we were pretty decent. It was just a really great year with excellent capping.