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If we don't start coming up with ideas for the next league that we will lose zone activity as summer ends and people go back to work.
I'm about to just throw out some random thoughts, so bear with my lack of organization and scattered ideas. I personally cannot host the league, but happy to be involved in minor ways.
Hybrid TWL/TWDT: Perhaps each team can be built around a core of 5-8 players or a foundation of three captains: one warbird dueling captain, one basing captain, one javelin captain (or three basing captains, or three dueling captains; basically, whatever variation the "trio" decides). Maybe there can be a star cap for each "squad core"/"trio", putting a limit on "how good" each core could be according to star ratings.
No star caps: just squad cores/trios drafting the best teams they can to build around them. If there is a concern for losing the inclusivity of TWDT, perhaps there can be a mandate for particular * players to be added to every game (for example, requiring teams to add at least one 6-7* in dueling and at least one 6-7* in basing + at least one 7-8*).
More teams + smaller rosters: 12-16 teams, 12-20 players per roster, which is definitely feasible without star caps.
Weekday games: maybe 1 game for each league for 3 games on both Tuesday and Thursday nights (6 games per week); or maybe a "quota" of having to play 3-6 games in each league per week, which can be played them at your team's discretion. So for example, if two teams have enough to play, they can choose to play one of their required "quota" games.
Games scheduled by captains: there used to be an option on the TWL site where captains can suggest a time for a game and the opponent captain had an option to accept or reject that time offering for their scheduled game. Perhaps captains can use the website to choose to schedule their games by coordinating with the other captain for times that would be preferred for their players. Maybe manual scheduling would only be required for the qualifying league/regular season, and the more serious/competitive playoff/tournament could have standardized scheduling by the league operators.
Automated games: another idea is to have a TWD-style automated setup where teams can play each other as many times as they want throughout the week, but the automated/sporadic games would count for less toward standings. For example, two Tuesday night wins are equivalent to one Saturday afternoon win. The Tuesday and Thursday night games can be played on a rolling basis, whereas the Saturday games will be scheduled and more "serious" (and hence "worth" more per win). One downside of this would be that it would hurt inactive teams, as they would play less and accumulate less "wins", but again some sort of quota can be put in place so that teams are incentivized to play throughout the week (eg, must play at minimum 6 weekday aka "less important" games per week). Since the weekdays would be less important, borrows could be considered. Although perhaps borrowed games would not count toward standings. Another idea is to allow for automated games, but captains can choose whether a game is "ranked" or "unranked". Alternatively, we can keep things simple and just run another standard TWDT, but have TWDT rosters recognizable by TWD bots so that teams can play and practice with each other and against one another throughout the week with greater ease.
Reinstate TWD as a qualifying league for some sort of tournament: run TWD for 1-2 months, lock rosters after 1 month, teams with the best records on standings after 2 months qualify to participate in the tournament. For a league like this, I'm all for increasing the number of unimportant weekly games/decreasing the number of important regular season games to promote activity and to allow worse players a chance at playing (captains may be more inclined to give newbies playing time if the games are universally considered less important and/or count for less). Then, at the end of 1-2 months of weekly games, there is a playoff (with or without qualifications) and/or a bracket-based tournament to decide the champion.
Take-home proposals:
I'm about to just throw out some random thoughts, so bear with my lack of organization and scattered ideas. I personally cannot host the league, but happy to be involved in minor ways.
Hybrid TWL/TWDT: Perhaps each team can be built around a core of 5-8 players or a foundation of three captains: one warbird dueling captain, one basing captain, one javelin captain (or three basing captains, or three dueling captains; basically, whatever variation the "trio" decides). Maybe there can be a star cap for each "squad core"/"trio", putting a limit on "how good" each core could be according to star ratings.
No star caps: just squad cores/trios drafting the best teams they can to build around them. If there is a concern for losing the inclusivity of TWDT, perhaps there can be a mandate for particular * players to be added to every game (for example, requiring teams to add at least one 6-7* in dueling and at least one 6-7* in basing + at least one 7-8*).
More teams + smaller rosters: 12-16 teams, 12-20 players per roster, which is definitely feasible without star caps.
Weekday games: maybe 1 game for each league for 3 games on both Tuesday and Thursday nights (6 games per week); or maybe a "quota" of having to play 3-6 games in each league per week, which can be played them at your team's discretion. So for example, if two teams have enough to play, they can choose to play one of their required "quota" games.
Games scheduled by captains: there used to be an option on the TWL site where captains can suggest a time for a game and the opponent captain had an option to accept or reject that time offering for their scheduled game. Perhaps captains can use the website to choose to schedule their games by coordinating with the other captain for times that would be preferred for their players. Maybe manual scheduling would only be required for the qualifying league/regular season, and the more serious/competitive playoff/tournament could have standardized scheduling by the league operators.
Automated games: another idea is to have a TWD-style automated setup where teams can play each other as many times as they want throughout the week, but the automated/sporadic games would count for less toward standings. For example, two Tuesday night wins are equivalent to one Saturday afternoon win. The Tuesday and Thursday night games can be played on a rolling basis, whereas the Saturday games will be scheduled and more "serious" (and hence "worth" more per win). One downside of this would be that it would hurt inactive teams, as they would play less and accumulate less "wins", but again some sort of quota can be put in place so that teams are incentivized to play throughout the week (eg, must play at minimum 6 weekday aka "less important" games per week). Since the weekdays would be less important, borrows could be considered. Although perhaps borrowed games would not count toward standings. Another idea is to allow for automated games, but captains can choose whether a game is "ranked" or "unranked". Alternatively, we can keep things simple and just run another standard TWDT, but have TWDT rosters recognizable by TWD bots so that teams can play and practice with each other and against one another throughout the week with greater ease.
Reinstate TWD as a qualifying league for some sort of tournament: run TWD for 1-2 months, lock rosters after 1 month, teams with the best records on standings after 2 months qualify to participate in the tournament. For a league like this, I'm all for increasing the number of unimportant weekly games/decreasing the number of important regular season games to promote activity and to allow worse players a chance at playing (captains may be more inclined to give newbies playing time if the games are universally considered less important and/or count for less). Then, at the end of 1-2 months of weekly games, there is a playoff (with or without qualifications) and/or a bracket-based tournament to decide the champion.
Take-home proposals:
- Hybrid TWL/TWDT with squad cores of 5-8 players or trios of three players acting as a unified captain, who then draft a full team
- Possibility for a mild star cap for the "squad core" or "trio" to limit abusive stacking
- Possibility for removal of star caps to increase possible number of teams (12-16, smaller rosters), activity, and competitiveness of the league
- Possibility for requiring teams to add lower * players (for example, teams required to add at least one 6-7* per dueling game).
- Possibility for games to be scheduled by captains on a week-by-week basis
- Possibility for regular season games to be played on a rolling basis (similar to TWD, with automated games when both teams have enough players)
- Possibility for automated weekday games or scrimmages
- Possibility for borrowing in "less important" games
- Possibility for a playoff (with or without qualifications) and/or a bracket-based tournament to decide the champion
- Possibility for differential value of wins (less valuable wins during the week, more valuable wins on the weekend)
- Possibility of a qualifying league to promote activity
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