TWD Cup Details

[Henry Saari]

As the TWD2 season has entered it's 2nd half, it is time to share the TWD Cup details.

Format: Double elimination tourney.

Lose 2 games and you are out of the competition. Matches are played 5v5, no borrows, consist of rounds - 1st squad to win 2 rounds is the winner of the match.

Divisions: TWDD & TWJD

TOP 5 squads from the regular season ladder will be invited to the TWD Cup. If a squad refuses an invitation, the next squad in the respective ladder will take their place.

Schedule:

All times EST
1st - ladder 1st place, 5th - ladder 5th place, etc.
D1, J1 - game identifiers

May 6th

2PM - (D1)TWDD 4th vs 5th; (D2)TWDD 2nd vs 3rd
3PM - (J1)TWJD 4th vs 5th; (J2) TWJD 2nd vs 3rd
4PM - (D3)TWDD 1st vs winner of D1; (D4) Losers of D1 vs Loser of D2
5PM - (J3)TWJD 1st vs winner of J1; (J4) Losers of J1 vs Loser of J2

May 13th

2PM - (D5) Loser of D3 vs Winner of D4; (D6) Winner of D2 vs Winner of D3
3PM - (J5) Loser of J3 vs Winner of J4; (J6) Winner of J2 vs Winner of J3
4PM - (D7) Winner of D5 vs Loser of D6
5PM - (J7) Winner of J5 vs Loser of J6


May 20th

3PM - WB Finals Winner of D6 vs Winner D7
4PM - JAV Finals Winner of J6 vs Winner J7

Competition tree:



ATTN: Don't put off joining a TWD squad!

As per TWD rules - to be eligible for TWD Cup participation and medals a player has to be rostered on the squad atleast 10 full days before Regular Season close.

[Major Crisis]

Why the fuck would u put the bottow 3-4 squads out of the cup? I mean with the retarded +5 reward of winning u promoted activity way too much already.
A squad with a score 47P, 12W, 35L is #3.... Even the #1 in wb has more losses than wins. Paladen has also retardly many points in twjd cuz they played more than the people under top 3. While lets be fair, a squad like Ill has more to offer in a TWD cup than Paladen...

Just let everyone in and set a schedule. Its not like TWL has been different than this the last couple seaons. Everyone did qualify back then... And now Henry "Zone killer" Saari wants to exclude people from competition in an almost dead zone... Great thinking!

[Rab]

a squad like Ill has more to offer in a TWD cup than Paladen...

If they're good enough they'll get themselves into a qualifying spot.

exclude people from competition in an almost dead zone...

It's not competition if everyone qualifies.

[Geio]

I read this and laughed. So you want to make this competitive like TWL by leaving a few squads out of the TWDCup. But yet reward people with TWD points for losing. Either yall are dumb or stupid or both. Can we please put somebody in charge of this TWD thing to an actual player that played before 2017. I'm really for one time in my life trying to refrain from being a dickhead.....but holy duck. This zone is going down fast....especially when people running things have no fucking clue what it is to be competitive. We need changes fast......holy fuck I miss pure_luck. I strongly advise yall to sit back and put heads together since none of you wanted to listen to me months ago.

[zidane]

1. kill TSL
2. bring back Ogron (we miss u bud)

[IxaDor]

This game has turned into a circus and is not worth investing time into anymore. For some reason, everyone kisses Jessup's ass and allows the guy to parade around doing whatever he wants with little to no disregard for the zone or other players. Several important staffers are cheating, yet whistleblowing proves fruitless because either those who can fix it are either MIA or completely lost interest in this game or they are cheating themselves.

What a joke.

TSL is incredibly stupid by all means, though I suppose it was meant to be. This TWD cup is awful. The fact that a squad can be in first place on the ladders with more losses than wins, simply because they play more than others is the worst idea ever, one that Jessup fought for just so his shitty squad could succeed for the first time since 1999 and higher ups just bowed down and locked lips on that ass of his.

Had I known the state of decay this game would slip into from the likes of Jessup and Henry, I would of quit much earlier on. They ran off the people who legit cared about this game and actually made it worthwhile to play, taking control for themselves and did nothing but make everything fun about this game into a pile of steamy garbage. Like so many already who left, I am joining them because at this time and most likely the rest of time, this game is not worth playing.

It saddens me how far this game has plunged recently at the hands of a select few, but at the same time, I am relieved I no longer have to waste my time on the nonsense this game has become any longer. I'll happily start playing once again if Beasty and the like took corrupt staff seriously and fired those who abuse their powers to gain advantage over others and fix this shit show that is TWD/TSL, though honestly, I am very doubtful of this happening. Anyways, just thought I'd chime in since I was one of the most active players in the zone for the last two years straight. Cheers.

-IxaDor

[Geio]

This game has turned into a circus and is not worth investing time into anymore. For some reason, everyone kisses Jessup's ass and allows the guy to parade around doing whatever he wants with little to no disregard for the zone or other players. Several important staffers are cheating, yet whistleblowing proves fruitless because either those who can fix it are either MIA or completely lost interest in this game or they are cheating themselves.

What a joke.

TSL is incredibly stupid by all means, though I suppose it was meant to be. This TWD cup is awful. The fact that a squad can be in first place on the ladders with more losses than wins, simply because they play more than others is the worst idea ever, one that Jessup fought for just so his shitty squad could succeed for the first time since 1999 and higher ups just bowed down and locked lips on that ass of his.

Had I known the state of decay this game would slip into from the likes of Jessup and Henry, I would of quit much earlier on. They ran off the people who legit cared about this game and actually made it worthwhile to play, taking control for themselves and did nothing but make everything fun about this game into a pile of steamy garbage. Like so many already who left, I am joining them because at this time and most likely the rest of time, this game is not worth playing.

It saddens me how far this game has plunged recently at the hands of a select few, but at the same time, I am relieved I no longer have to waste my time on the nonsense this game has become any longer. I'll happily start playing once again if Beasty and the like took corrupt staff seriously and fired those who abuse their powers to gain advantage over others and fix this shit show that is TWD/TSL, though honestly, I am very doubtful of this happening. Anyways, just thought I'd chime in since I was one of the most active players in the zone for the last two years straight. Cheers.

-IxaDor

Great post

[Dreamwin]

Yeah seriously, are you fking high letting top 5 qualify in 2018 with these joke settings that allow 1:3 w:l ratio squad to be at 1600 points.

There is absolutely 0 logic behind this. I would call this a production of Jessup logic.

You can do better than this, seriously..

[Rab]

It might help if you whiny fuckers could say what you actually want instead.

[mtine]

It might help if you whiny fuckers could say what you actually want instead.

They did?

[qan]

I read this and laughed. So you want to make this competitive like TWL by leaving a few squads out of the TWDCup. But yet reward people with TWD points for losing. Either yall are dumb or stupid or both. Can we please put somebody in charge of this TWD thing to an actual player that played before 2017. I'm really for one time in my life trying to refrain from being a dickhead.....but holy duck. This zone is going down fast....especially when people running things have no fucking clue what it is to be competitive. We need changes fast......holy fuck I miss pure_luck. I strongly advise yall to sit back and put heads together since none of you wanted to listen to me months ago.

As you remember, a few months ago, Geio, you were hired as TWD SMod (along with Doughnut). You had to go inactive for personal reasons. And that's totally understandable. But it left the zone in a difficult spot. Heaven, the previous Head of Leagues, also ghosted after the new year. This left everyone scrambling. Losing both leagues head and having the TWD project fizzle meant long delays and a loss of much-needed momentum. It's only by a near miracle that we've been able to get where we are now.

People are living adult lives, and the spaceship game can't be a priority for most. If only the game were crawling with hard-working NEETs! But most people just don't have the time.

Before this was put together, TWD was on its last gasp. From the first day of TSL last summer, the average number of games dropped from over 20 a day to around 6-7. But without having run TSL that summer, Ogron knew there wouldn't even be a TWD 3 months later. Summer is a notoriously difficult time for organized leagues due to vacations, weekend plans, etc., and without some organized league such as TWDT, TWEL, or TWL running, vets run out of reasons to log in. It was a calculated move: there was very little else to be done. TW would not have survived Summer 2017 otherwise. But the toll was harsh. By August, TWBD had all but stopped. And TWD activity never picked up between seasons of TSL/TWDT. Keeping regular scheduled leagues going meant that people could simply show up when scheduled, and no longer needed to put effort into organizing and building a squad. And to be fair, few people had time to play anymore, much less manage a squad. It suited the reality of the situation. But TWD was a quiet whisper.

Enter the plan to bring it back. While controversial, it's incontrovertibly increased TWD activity, even while TSL's running. With activity comes the possibility of increasing competition later on, carrying forward momentum, and making changes to improve things with each iteration, fixing what's broken progressively. And we're seeing new squads created, new blood enter into competitive play ... a path that's long been closed off, with league players having long ago retreated to snobbish elitism, refusing to play elim/pub or interact with anyone who hasn't been playing for 10+ years. We're seeing games getting played. It's difficult to have finals feel very meaningful if a losing squad makes them, it's true. Yet it's even harder without players.

It'd be wonderful if all those who used to play would simply stop having lives and come back. But, generally speaking, they just aren't. And most are not able or willing to put in the time to keep a squad going, or even idle in hope of a game. We can lay all manner of fault at any number of doors. But bottom line, nobody has a perfect solution. You sure don't, Geio. Listening to you is not the solution, as you just aren't saying much. You're fast to point out what's wrong, but not provide a solution. "Just do what we did before" hasn't worked. That's how we are where we are now.

So as Rab said, it's time to chime in. Either here or on the WhatsApp group you're part of that cleared this before the post was made.

[Ricko]

The TWD cup itself is a great idea, and I'm happy with the format over a couple of weeks.

My HUGE issue is what I said the other day on another thread - the TWD points system is completely flawed at the moment by squads being granted pts for losing..Sulake and Paladen in the traditional pts system would be right at the bottom of the ladder.

As a member of a squad like Pure Luck, what are the chances of us even pushing for top 5 in these leagues? We can probably throw together 10-15 or so matches in each league due to busy lives, but that probably wont be nearly enough to actually push up the ladder and get a top 5 place to qualify for this cup - if we win 10 of 15 we'd probably end up accumulating 200 odd points, but paladen can go and lose 30 matches in that time, get 150 pts and still be miles ahead of us on the ladder, keeping us out of twdcup even though most people would agree we'd be more welcome in the cup from a competitive aspect.

Any league that has Paladen sitting a top of it with a negative W:L clearly has something wrong with its structure.

[Rab]

I did a quick spreadsheet to see how many points squads have gained from losses, to see if removing those points would change the ladder.

tl/dr: Changing $5 to $0 would make fuck all difference. We'd have to revert back to losing points based on rating to change anything.

Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Ricko]

I did a quick spreadsheet to see how many points squads have gained from losses, to see if removing those points would change the ladder.

tl/dr: Changing $5 to $0 would make fuck all difference. We'd have to revert back to losing points based on rating to change anything.

Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Yeah I did the maths mentally too - reducing a loss from 5 to 0 points doesn't make much difference. I'd say reverting to losing points for a loss is a better solution - if losing will cost you points and ladder positions then that's only a positive in terms of making twd competitive. Why we even changed the pts system is beyond me (this isn't coming from someone who dislikes change, but dislikes pointless decisions that don't better the zone in any way).

[skyforger]

I'll just add that for the purposes of TWD Cup, it does not really matter much in what place you finish in regular season, as long as it is TOP5.

"Deserving a spot" is a can of worms for a philosophical discussion. Certainly a squad that has grinded the whole season and is pushing 100 games like Paladen could be argued have shown more dedication for the spot than a squad that has just been created around roster softlock and has played say 2 games total, wouldn't it?

That said the race for the Cup spots is still very much open even for late squads! Like right now a squad with 5 games total per season would qualify if the regular season would end now in DD. That is rather relaxed as the TWD Cup is meant as playoff for the TWD squads afterall.

That said, seeing as some vet squads don't have the time for a daily or even sunday grind, perhaps it is time to introduce a 3rd league in addition to TSL and TWD. One with primarily the legacy players in mind and only scheduled games, say, could auto invite any squads that have a minimum of 5 ex-TWL players on their roster. That's just brainstorming but there are solutions if we build up instead of trying to tear down!