What's after TWDT?

[Mythril]

The game is alive. TWDT has restored hope in the minds of hundreds of crusty veterans who are logging on to battle for space supremacy in the year 2019. There have been 5v5 twds and 30 player elims every single day in the calendar month. LaSenza just won 17 elims in a row while refusing to blink or eat a single calorie during that stretch of time. RaCka just inspired the youth by going 21-6 in TWDT-D, decreasing shots taken from r4 by 83% since his earth shattering performance. Escalate has just signed up for TWD to unify the forgotten era of the 2000s with the 2010s. The echoes of blood and banzi stacking the fuck out of Siege have made their full orbital rotation and are being translated by the brightest minds on our dev team. The cobwebs in ?go base have been replaced with sweaty armpits and spams of 'faggot' and 'ez'. The sweet sounds of Trench Wars. I missed them dearly.

We can't stop here. There's too much momentum. We can't let the scene die off again once TWDT is over. We need other leagues, and we have to start thinking about them now. TWL, TWDT - Pro League, TWDT - Amateur League. More casual TWD league? TWEL on the side? Basing Cup?

We can do pretty much anything we wanna do at this point. But we just have to do something. The majority opinion seems to be eventually separating wb/jav leagues from base leagues. The elite players all want higher quality matches. And the amateurs who are currently benching all want to experience the pressure cooker of a real league match. A lack of imagination is the only reason we wouldn't be able to accomplish both.

TWDT - Pro League for 8-10* players with potentially no limits at all or something like a 45* cap in wb/jav would be really fun. And we could simultaneously run a TWDT - Amateur league for the rookies to prove themselves. Or is it time we dust off the biggest trophy in the zone with another TWL? Maybe host a shorter TWLD and TWLJ season followed by a TWLB season after?

TWDT over and over and over again isn't the answer. We can think of a better one. If you have any ideas, please share them here so the zone can think this through together.

[Rab]

I think we need to try and get more squads so that TWD is viable. I think there's quite a few players like me who've given up on it due to boredom of playing the same opponent every day.
If that works, then TWD could lead into TWL, sure.

My main requirement is just being able to log in every evening (EU TZ) and have something to play, ideally base, but some javduel is cool too. Quite often it gets to midnight and then things start happening, but it's just too late.

[STRIP3S]

Get excited people, silence will only make everything stale

[MHz]

I agree. This momentum is great. We should have a TWL or TWDT straight after this one. Repetition is fine, I think.

[kentaro]

Not sure if we have enough players for a TWL (TWLB for sure not)... does the zone even have 20-30 active TWL wb's/javs from the past 5 seasons?? TWDT - pro league might be a viable alternative for now

[Wirah]

This is a great time to start thinking about this. That was our problem last time - we let the excitement die and had nothing in the works so people returned to the shadows, Envy vanished, TWD turned stale, Elim was empty 24/7 and nobody had anything to look forward to.
Apple doesn't start planning the next iPhone the day after they announce their latest. "So, what now?". It's all pre-planned well in advance.
We should definitely get thinking right now so we can ride the TWDT wave and transition into the next big thing.

It seems Trench Wars isn't the only zone seeing some positive activity. There are some interesting developments happening in EG right now too. Over the past few weeks they have been experimenting with their automated baseduel bot, a team based dueling game where 2-10 players (1v1 - 5v5 depending on how many people !p) battle to reach their opponents base. It's especially fun when you have 2 or 3 spiders rushing, bullets flying everywhere, and a safe base anchor acting as a quick attach point for the spids to get back into the action (you die a LOT). It's intense and a completely different feeling to anything we have in TW. The point is... it's been seeing a few games every evening over in EG so I'm just letting everyone know that things are happening elsewhere and we should keep it in mind. I expect as things develop they will hold a baseduel league at some point that closely resembles TSL, and I really believe TW folks can get addicted to baseduel like I have recently. We can all probably work together and keep activity up in the game if we schedule things correctly so both zones can help each other. Something to keep in mind.

I agree that we can't just host TWDT back-to-back. Feels wrong and if we do that it loses its prestige as the special league. Two per year feels right.

TWL is tricky. I feel like we can get a pretty decent TWLD and TWLJ off the ground, but I'm not sure about TWLB. Right now I only see Spastic and Thunder basing. I agree with Rab that we need more squads.

TWEL 1v1 or TWDL 2v2 is always a good option too either as a league separator between seasons, or alongside (since duels aren't limited to weekends). Personally I'd love to see a giant 1v1 tournament at some point (as a spectator) but I imagine most people will prefer a 2v2 as players.

Basing Cup works too. The past seasons were fine. It takes up the entire Sunday though, just like TWDT, so the warbirds & javs would have to sit tight or get involved. No space to host another league alongside Basing Cup unless its TWEL/TWDL.

TSL needs a longer break and something new before anything happens there.

Elim S8 is active but I don't feel like people are playing to win the season (if they even know it's active). They're playing just because the arena is active, and to win that particular round with no thoughts of the season itself. (Am I right or wrong?). Ogron's Elim League idea sounded appealing to me when I read it. I can't remember the details but I do remember thinking it was interesting and could work. There's a post about it somewhere. I'll try and find it but it's lost in the depths of some TSL brainstorming thread I think. Hopefully Ogron sees and refreshes our memory.

I'm like Rab. I login every evening hoping that one of the following things is actively going on to either watch or spectate:
Javduel - It's quite casual and fun and exciting with a full arena.
TWD - I prefer warbird so this is where I try to focus and go for a decent rec.
Base - Not much fun for me as a player, but I like to watch.
EG Baseduel - I find myself typing ?go extremegames a few times a day to check if BD is active.
Pub - Not the most exciting thing but I like to protect LTs and see how high the bounty can get if there's nothing else going on.

If we can keep the main things busy on week nights with a "big league" on Sunday we'll stay healthy.

As for the dev side. I'm open to creating new sites for whatever leagues we need. There's a good enough foundation with the TWDT site that can be repurposed to suit whatever we need.
We also have AngelGirl on the dev team now with an Elim project coming very soon that does some cool things with the game data we've collected throughout each Elim season.
The bigger picture is to overhaul (and simplify) the whole TW website and give everything a long overdue clean-up. Delete 95% of the frontend crap that's built up over 20 years and now sits unused.
When the TW site is running modern framework we'll really be able to do some interesting things with our leagues. Think 1v1/2v2 duel timeslot scheduling for players to make TWEL/TWDL games easier to coordinate. News & announcements module that people actually look at. Section for these recorded match videos. Stats calculated automatically.
Good times ahead so lets keep going. I can feel the excitement. 68+ people showing up in ?to TWDT to watch the FA draft last night. Someone reminded us that its more than every other arena of every other zone combined. Amazing work so far bringing us to this point with TWDT!

[kentaro]

maybe limit the TWL to a "TWL-CUP" with twd being the qualifier and only the top 4 teams make it.

[Rab]

Elim S8 is active but I don't feel like people are playing to win the season (if they even know it's active). They're playing just because the arena is active, and to win that particular round with no thoughts of the season itself. (Am I right or wrong?).

You're right, elim is just something convenient to do, it's not a serious competition.

[Heaven]

steam launch round 14?

[Flew]

For parity purposes and keeping the newbies interested, we should do another twdt right after. TWL separate the elite from the new and it'll have a negative effect on zone population and activity closer to the end of the season I think.

[RaCka]

In terms of having a higher competition based league I think a 2v2 or 3v3 (if we chose 3v3 we would have to create a diff arena imo, something between a TWDD map and the ?Go duel boxes) tournament would work really well for warbirds and javs with the games current population. Similar to how we had TWEL brackets previously with a winners bracket and losers bracket (double elimination). We could remove the star system for that and then also figure something out to have running simultaneously or begin right after.

Another league I've been wanting to start up for a little while is a 1v1 buy-in tournament for those interested. We have enough elite duelers back on the game to play it at this point for warbird and jav (and spider if enough interest). Ideal situation in my eyes would be the buy-in is $20 or $50, everybody buys in prior to the season starting to somebody who is willing to be the escrow and then the escrow pays out players accordingly to their placements. Prior TWEL seasons have started off strong and then the hype dies out slowly towards the end of the season, I think the money will keep players interests peaked for the entire duration.

Just a few ideas but we should keep this conversation going until we agree on something as a collective for the future.

[Grasps]

My vote is something TWD based. TWL is lucrative to me as it

1.) keeps zone active for extended periods of time
2.) doesn't exclude players no matter what someone rated them/doesn't separate community ie. Pro-league/Pubtrash-league
3.) matches can be played at all hours on any day to climb the ladder to qualify
4.) matches themselves can be quite intense since it's always best of 3 to win unlike TWDT's single match standoffs until finals.

Someone should just pull the trigger and announce that TWL is coming back. Then over the coming weeks we can fine-tune and adjust the league to be successful in 2019. We just need to give people something right now, today, to look forward to after TWDT.

Hopefully all vets who got them' medals back in the good days of TWL can relax a little and allow TWL to comeback. I think that's really the only big hangup, the notion that TWL can't be touched until "x, y, z are met" to uphold integrity of seasons past and those who have medals now. Maybe instead of running with S23 or w/e it would be now, we could re brand it entirely, like "Era 1" or "Chapter 1", hell maybe even change the pixel medal for TWL 2019 a little too to clearly make it different from old ones. This keeps TWL of old separate from TWL of new and maybe we can get more support from vets of old for the notion/resurgence of TWL of new. Cheers.

[Kim]

Either a 2v2 or 3v3 dueling league would sound good. If its a 2v2 system, I would like to see a ladder system where teams are grouped into tiers consisting of three or four teams, where each team plays two matches, best two out of three games. Top teams advance and bottom teams drop down on the ladder, which allows teams to play at their own level.

We could have a recreational and a competitive setting, where the recreational league requires something akin to the TWDT star system so that a top player has to pair with a lower skilled player.

[Heaven]

With the successful amount of FA signups it's causing an issue where pros are being benched due to the star cap. The star cap is still a good idea but sucks all these people didnt sign up a week earlier and draft could have been 7 or even 8 teams. There are multiple teams with 6+ 9*/10* who are most likely going to end up benched due to the star cap therefore leading them to quit soon enough when they realize they wont get play time. I think there's only 2 options going forward that will include all pros to have play time...

TWL with roster cap (done previously)
1 league = 8 man roster cap & base could be at 12.
2 league = 11 man roster cap (twld + twlj) or 14 (twld/twlj + base)
3 league = 16 man roster cap

most of the vets can play minimum 2 leagues anyway

or

TWDT with no roster cap and best lines play
if announced early enough people will know its coming up and agree to signup now rather than just in FA that way caps can draft the best team possible (however the issue with this is going to be finding the captains...there was an issue just finding 6 caps for this twdt and some of the current captains may be burned out to cap again immediately after)

[Jessup]

I'm for a TWL season myself. Invite ALL squads to participate who meet a game cap requirement (something like 15-20 games)..and accept and allow flex times for matches until playoffs which would be held Sundays as TWDT would be. We could do a TWLB of 6 squads and allow double squadding for that division at the same time. I see no need to qualify beyond a game cap requirement to show the squad is serious and active enough to participate. This allows players who would normally get benched to make squads and at least participate and play. They would have a chance at making playoffs too but obviously would be huge underdogs unless the typical stackers decide to break the cycle and make it more interesting. This way it won't exclude as many people and not only cater to elite players. This IMO is VERY important to keep interest for all. A huge number of signups this twdt are not being able to play which is causing frustrations for many who may find themselves in this predicament. I'd love to see 10 plus squads in it. Options to lowering to 4 vs 4 in DD and JD could be an option too.