my suggestions for a future season

[Turban]

SEPARATION OF BASING AND DUELING LEAGUES

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, but quality of basing games in draft leagues has been abysmal for far too long. Usually you only have two teams that have a realistic chance of winning, and more often than not it is because they are abusing high value low-cost players. To solve this, I would like to propose separation of basing and dueling leagues. Yes, this would mean more work for league operators as you would be essentially running two leagues at the same time, but in return we would see an increase in quality of games as teams would not be adding players who do not even want to play in basing or dueling matches. As an added benefit it would be much easier to balance around two separate leagues as you could easily adjust the numbers of teams depending on the available player pool.

Currently teams are relatively competitive when it comes to dueling leagues, but basing talent is spread far too thin to have good basing matches.



CHANGING UP DRAFT FORMAT

Currently you can get such a massive advantage by having an early pick while also being a high-rated captain. This suggestion is inspired by the format they use in SVS and I feel it could be a perfect fit for our leagues.

Essentially my second suggestion in conjunction with the first one would be the removal of snake draft format and replacing it with a system where lowest value team gets to pick first every round. Captains have to pick themselves in the first round. In case there is a team with identical value, you would randomize to decide who gets to pick first. With the separation of basing and dueling leagues, it would be fairly easy to artificially balance this type of draft format by adding a star limit which teams can not exceed in the first couple rounds of draft. As an example you could not exceed over 43-stars of value in your first 5 picks in a dueling league.



NO STAR CAPS FOR LINEUPS

This would allow more flexibility for captains while allowing the lifeline of this zone, which tend to be players rated between 7.5 and 9.0 stars, to play more frequently in competitive games. As a downside you would likely see less lower star players starting in matches unless we are adding more teams to the mix, but I would like to believe that captains still give some a fair share of play time for these players to impress. Regular season also generally does not matter as much, especially should we go with a format where most if not all teams reach playoffs, which should allow more players in theory to play some games with the added flexibility.

I believe that teams should be fairly balanced in playoffs with there being a hard limit limit of how many high-cost players you can draft in early rounds preventing stacks from happening.



ERADICATING FREE AGENCY DRAFT

Free agency serves no beneficial purpose, all it does is ruin the balance of a draft tournament. I feel far too many players try to game the system signing up late. If you want to play, sign up early so we can properly balance the league.



SHORTER SEASONS

This might be more controversial opinion, but I feel most leagues would benefit from having a much shorter season. You can at most run one long season per calendar year which could be more friendly for low-cost players, but we also need some shorter and competitive seasons.

[Turban]

and yes, this would no longer be TWDT as we know it and should be treated as a separate league. sort of a middle ground option between cup league and standard draft tournament.

[Rab]

I agree on split leagues. My personal take is that I like base primarily but it's valuable to also be able to jav, but I can't wb at all because of res limit and that's a big disadvantage when being drafted. So I kinda want to be drafted for base and jav but not for wb.
Easy suggestion: stop doing wb entirely. TWDT is just jav and base... $$$$ suggestion of the year yw.

It's hard to imagine how the alternative to snake draft would pan out (an example would help). Sounds like picking low stars first results in more picks (so I'm taking all the 6*s first?), but then you're removing the star cap so that incentivises high picks (so I'm taking all the 10*s first?), maybe the compromise is value picks but then it's critical that people are accurately rated (and I think we've proven we can't do this well).

Agree about binning FA, easy decision. Shorter seasons I have no complaints with.

[JacKie>]

SEPARATION OF BASING AND DUELING LEAGUES

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, but quality of basing games in draft leagues has been abysmal for far too long. Usually you only have two teams that have a realistic chance of winning, and more often than not it is because they are abusing high value low-cost players. To solve this, I would like to propose separation of basing and dueling leagues. Yes, this would mean more work for league operators as you would be essentially running two leagues at the same time, but in return we would see an increase in quality of games as teams would not be adding players who do not even want to play in basing or dueling matches. As an added benefit it would be much easier to balance around two separate leagues as you could easily adjust the numbers of teams depending on the available player pool.

Currently teams are relatively competitive when it comes to dueling leagues, but basing talent is spread far too thin to have good basing matches.

There are always about 2 teams that can't get their shit together and don't do well but overall I think the competition is pretty balanced. Slitting the leagues would be more work (how is this addressed? More volunteers? - Where do they step up? I might be able to play a JR role in helping with the basing side of things but I can't put in the time to support all three sub-leagues on Sundays as that's too long - about 4 hours?)

CHANGING UP DRAFT FORMAT

Currently you can get such a massive advantage by having an early pick while also being a high-rated captain. This suggestion is inspired by the format they use in SVS and I feel it could be a perfect fit for our leagues.

Essentially my second suggestion in conjunction with the first one would be the removal of snake draft format and replacing it with a system where lowest value team gets to pick first every round. Captains have to pick themselves in the first round. In case there is a team with identical value, you would randomize to decide who gets to pick first. With the separation of basing and dueling leagues, it would be fairly easy to artificially balance this type of draft format by adding a star limit which teams can not exceed in the first couple rounds of draft. As an example you could not exceed over 43-stars of value in your first 5 picks in a dueling league.

This seems like a major change, and I suppose the same issue might exist in people grabbing the undervalued players first tilting their true strength which might determine how well a team does.

I think at least instead of just randomizing everyone it should go in order of lowest star cap to highest. If caps are the same level then randomize those caps.

NO STAR CAPS FOR LINEUPS

This would allow more flexibility for captains while allowing the lifeline of this zone, which tend to be players rated between 7.5 and 9.0 stars, to play more frequently in competitive games. As a downside you would likely see less lower star players starting in matches unless we are adding more teams to the mix, but I would like to believe that captains still give some a fair share of play time for these players to impress. Regular season also generally does not matter as much, especially should we go with a format where most if not all teams reach playoffs, which should allow more players in theory to play some games with the added flexibility.

I believe that teams should be fairly balanced in playoffs with there being a hard limit limit of how many high-cost players you can draft in early rounds preventing stacks from happening.

This is a shit idea. One of the main ideas of TWDT is to give some players who wouldn't normally play in leagues the opportunity to play. This would just shift things more towards playing the better players. The CUP format already does this so we don't need this change to TWDT.

I'm a 7.5* in basing and was picked for a basing cup team but never played as they thought they had better options than me. Even though I was on the TWDTB winning team the last two seasons I sat in the CUP format. Let the CUPs be this with higher rated players mostly playing and let TWDT be the way it is where you get a mix of player skill levels.

If some rodents have a problem with low star players being very bad then they should train them somehow to help them imporve and not just yell at them. Be part of the fucking solution for once and not just a game recker. We need new people each season to keep the game going as we lose some players each season too.

As an aside, I know how this works sometimes as in my first TWDTB I was an under spider and my cap told me to be the camping under spider, and let the other under spider be the pusher. A rodent on my team saw me camping under and lost their shit and starting yelling at me and the cap to sub me out even though I was doing as I was told by the cap. The rodent bitched and moaned so much the weak ass cap actually gave in to them and I was subbed and never played again the rest of the seaon.

This was shit and continues to be shit how low star and first time TWDT players are treated. IMHO there should be a low star player training camp for all of them on draft day or shortly before the first week where they get some pointers. I actually volunteer to run this. In my case the rodent could have given tips to me in-game or ask questions why I was camping under and then he would have found out I was doing as told. Then the rodent could have yelled at the cap for a strategy change and tell me to push under too.

ERADICATING FREE AGENCY DRAFT

Free agency serves no beneficial purpose, all it does is ruin the balance of a draft tournament. I feel far too many players try to game the system signing up late. If you want to play, sign up early so we can properly balance the league.

It does when there are enough players for each team to get 1-2 players.

SHORTER SEASONS

This might be more controversial opinion, but I feel most leagues would benefit from having a much shorter season. You can at most run one long season per calendar year which could be more friendly for low-cost players, but we also need some shorter and competitive seasons.

Wasn't the last CUP short? Some people complained a lot the last short season because when key players couldn't show one week they did not make playoffs because they automtically lost 2 of 5 regular season games. This might be mitigated some if there is only one match per week. This would cut the time of the league play on Sundays in half which might be a good thing for most people.

OR six teams; everyone plays each team once; two games for the first two weeks and one game on week three; everyone makes playoffs; top two teams get a bye the first week of quarterfinals; playoffs take three weeks; total league time is six weeks.

OR six teams; everyone plays each team once; two games for the first two weeks and one game on week three; everyone makes playoffs; do the playoffs in one day; quarter finals and semi finals are only one game; finals is best 2 of 3. Season is only four weeks! BOOM!

[zidane]

short seasons are more exciting when it starts but it's way too hard to get the required signups/interest nowadays, seasons need to be long to milk the boons (zone activity)

[Zeebu]

why does there need to be a middle ground between twdt and cup? this is just the same rehashed argument: bitching about being forced to add/play with/play against anyone under 8 stars that isnt horribly underrated.

i guess you could just turn cup into twdt but keep the twdt name. youll get good signups based on name and history alone until everyone under 8 stars realizes that they arent going to be added unless its absolutely necessary or they were underrated.

imo, keep twdt all inclusive or just abolish it altogether. middle ground is silly and unnecessary. it just sounds like a lot of extra work to eliminate the need to play low rated players. the powers that be have been trying to figure out a way to eliminate the need to play low stars for years. either keep it all inclusive or just rip the bandaid off and put the final nail in the twdt coffin.

ps. if someone suggests a separate league that is geared towards only low stars, youre an idiot. no.

[Dreamwin]

I think we have a pretty good setup with TW Cup/TWDT/TWL. I wouldnt necessarily change much.

Alternate between TW Cup/TWDT and have a short TWL once in a year with even stricter roster limits.

TW needs competitive games and more inclusive league to keep everyone happy.

Im all for shorter seasons and dont see the problem with the signups. Moreso, I would argue it provides additional incentive to signup as you have to commit for 1 month instead of 3. However, it adds workload to the volunteers which is not optimal. Ultimately, the volunteers should have the final say on this.

[MousE]

sounds like Jackie just wants a free space in a lineup without the skills and make it. Ya I remember that u sat under and shit walls... pro good use if the thing between ur ears. Anyway I have said this before there should be game at the same time as the other games for the newer players. Watching wome fresh player shoot a wall under is frustrating for a good player and also getting ownee by a 10* is frustrating for a new player.

There needs to be an easier intro to leagues IMO jackie love u mb

[Tiny]

I’m down for a little change but for the most part I agree with Dreamwin for the majority. Twdt is fun and inclusive, and is not meant to be the highest competitive league. I think cup bridges the gap for those two, but I am not opposed to splitting base from dueling but again that is Cup and removes the low stars from competing in basing.

yes we have some shitty low stars competing in basing, me being one of them, but with the talent field we have, we need to cultivate some low stars to be playing in cup and twl imo.

for god sales do not run a twdt and twl at the same time again for 32 weeks long. FML

[Tiny]

If we remove low stars from twdt format, how can I draft mouse and make him mad? Love me some Mouse.

[Jessup]

Want to be inclusive and create excitement for others without pushing away lower tiered players by taking away star caps? Then I strongly suggest doing this.

How about do a no star cap lineup season but change the game format to doing 2 games at once for each squad. I know that creates a lot more bot management but imo this system would be more inclusive. Make both games count equally towards a team's ladder placement. Meaning you still need to choose your teams wisely because you will also be selecting low star players who will actually play for your team record and ladder placement.

You could make the low tier games 4 vs 4 too if rosters struggled to have enough to do 5's. If not, you could do a 6-team format doing 5 vs 5 Pro and Jr. games. Thinking about it, a 6 team format would possibly be an even better structure because then you would still have a decent roster pool to pull from and create more competitive games.

[Jessup]

I just realized I didn't think about how this system could work with basing in mind so reposting an idea for that. How about just have a mandatory playtime allotted in for lower tier players. Say like 1 or 2 low tier players are put in at the start of every game and get like 5 minutes each game to play. After that they would be eligible for a sub out by ANY higher rated player(s).

Also, in TWDTD and TWDTJ, I suppose Jr. League line would be 7.5 and lower. And Pro League lines would be 7.5 and higher.