Since you all seem mired in disfunction I'll solve your problems for you

[Nethervoid]

To answer your first question (But Nethervoid, why would I listen to your newbie ass?) answer:Because years ago I helped GS structures a lot of things urrounding pro league, I've also helped with proball league design and I've written about half of your league rules when crome made the changes.


First: basic rule changes
#1:Moderator, Super Moderator, and Sysop nicks are no longer allowed for use during league play.
(But Nethervoid that doesn't make sense, I like the refs why shouldn't they be able to use their nicks?)
answer: refs nicks have certain advantages, anything from allowing energy view to sysops not being specced for lag spikes, this is an unfair advantage and should be removed from all league play. It has been in most other leagues it should be so here. Not to say I don't trust the refs but it removes any and all possibility of corruption.

#2:No more than 1 nick is permitted per season for every player, that includes TWD. (But Nethervoid I like my nicknames, why can't I use more than 1?)
answer:Allowing multiple names just allows double squadding to occur more frequently, since the new bots don't show any signs of being done soon, we have to do the best we can. Also, double squadding shal result in a 1 month ban from the zone, and a one year ban from any and all leagues, if you want to double squad you must pay the price when you get caught.

Second, league format.

#1: A 6 week twd period should take place in order to determine league admission. Only the top 4 teams from the playoffs last season will receive an auto-bye into the league. (WTF Nether, my squad has been in league for 3 years, why should we have to qualify?)
answer: If your squad cannot maintain an activity level high enough to qualify in twd, you have no business being in league. In fact you're probably taking the spot of a team that works harder and will do better. Activity promotes more practice, which will in turn pay dividends in the overall skill level of the league, the talent disparity lowers and the games become closer, more fun is had by all.

#2: League structure will be as follows: 2 conferences (Alpha and Omega) with 2 divisions each (pick 2 random names) These divisions will be filled with balanced teams (teams ranked by twd ranking and general skill level, you can appoint a small commitee to oversee this. Each team plays every squad in his division twice, and each team in his conference once. There should be a 2-3 week set of interconfernece games in order to promote interest in the league. What determines who you play out of conference can be done in a couple of ways, if this idea is actually given enough consideration to merit me explaining it, contact me and I will.

Playoffs can be done in a few different ways.
#1:Round Robin tournament, your regular season record including tie breakers will place in you in a set of 3 or 5 teams, similar to what they use in the World Cup. You play each person in your set once, the top 1 or 2 teams in each set advances to a single elimination tourney.

#2 Single elimination tourney, this is rather self explanitory. The top team from each division gets a bye, the rest of the teams (determined by whatever % of the squads you want in the post seaso) get seeded accordingly)

#3 Double elimination tourny, you guys have done this before so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

All playoff rounds will be best of 3 for wb and jav, best of 5 for semi finals and finals matches. Basing will be best of 1, and best of 3 for semi finals and finals matches.


The amount of teams you want in twl is determined by whatever # of teams you think the league can handle, the actual # isn't as important as imposing a roster lock after the first set of divisional games is included, if don't know if u want to be on a squad after 4-5 games with them tough, you're stuck there. This should help in a limited capacity to reduce squad fluctuations.


I'm open to defend my system to any and all *intelligent* crtiticism, all posts of "OMG WHAT A NEWBIE LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL" will be summarily ignored.



Just my 2 cents, let me know what you think.


-Nethervoid

[Randedl]

i think alpha and omega are stupid names.

[Epinephrine]

To answer your first question (But Nethervoid, why would I listen to your newbie ass?) answer:Because years ago I helped GS structures a lot of things urrounding pro league, I've also helped with proball league design and I've written about half of your league rules when crome made the changes.

Actually the 'changes' that you spoke of were mostly thrown out when I completely revamped the rules with THE PUSHER at the beginning last season and fixed almost all the holes that we could.

First: basic rule changes
#1:Moderator, Super Moderator, and Sysop nicks are no longer allowed for use during league play.
(But Nethervoid that doesn't make sense, I like the refs why shouldn't they be able to use their nicks?)
answer: refs nicks have certain advantages, anything from allowing energy view to sysops not being specced for lag spikes, this is an unfair advantage and should be removed from all league play. It has been in most other leagues it should be so here. Not to say I don't trust the refs but it removes any and all possibility of corruption.

The extra powers that mods and smods get during games don't really help in leagues. None of our sysops play league, thus their energy view isn't a problem. As well, all commands are logged, and actively scrutinized by the upper staff. If there is anything inappropriate happening we will know, and that staff member is fired.

Why defend allowing people to use staff names? I wanted to not allow this as well, but the fact is Trench Wars Staff is not a specific league staff. There is no extra TWL Ref chat, because ref chat is staff chat. ALL members of staff are expected to host games if necessary. Although TWL does have a special chat for their most dedicated refs, TWL is NOT ALLOWED to create a seperate reffing staff by order of the sysops. This will NOT change and it isn't up to TWL. Since most staff wouldn't want to join another chat just to ref, if they don't use their names in games then they will have no idea if they are needed to ref. Ideally, you'd want people to actually play TWL (have TWL experience) to ref, instead of a staff member who only plays pub and has never played a single league match or even bothered to watch one before. That said, because of the sheer volume of games happening (5 each timeslot) it is often the case that extra refs need to be found immediately, and as such having 1/2 the staff being on other names for league and being too lazy to switch back (yes, let's be realistic, people are lazy) we will have problems finding refs.

Similarily SMODs may be called upon at any time to do various smod things and thus need to be contacted. True, they can just log on without their smod pw, but who would really know, and what would that give them (besides lack of *trace, *info and *zone), and some greater banning powers?

As well, the upper staff policy is that the entire staff must be trusted at all times. Forcing them to play with their normal names (even if this means not using their ER names) shows we can't trust them and so on. Don't ask me about this one, but I originally had them not using ER names but that got changed back because of that, and because they also had trouble finding ERs come TWL weekends.

Finally, Trench Wars is NOT a league only zone like the other ones you mentioned. It's a normal zone with a huge number of needs, and having more or less 1/2 of staff dissapear under another nick (and likely too lazy to switch back, esp if they have a few games that day) on weekends is hard to swallow and hard to administer the zone. Because of all of that, the monitoring and logging practices are employed to make sure no staff abuses their powers (grounds for immediate suspension from staff and forfeit of game) during TWL.

Last season not a single complaint or incidence of ref abuse was ever recorded. I have faith that it won't happen again, and if it does we'll catch them.

#2:No more than 1 nick is permitted per season for every player, that includes TWD. (But Nethervoid I like my nicknames, why can't I use more than 1?)
answer:Allowing multiple names just allows double squadding to occur more frequently, since the new bots don't show any signs of being done soon, we have to do the best we can. Also, double squadding shal result in a 1 month ban from the zone, and a one year ban from any and all leagues, if you want to double squad you must pay the price when you get caught.

This is fine and all, but previously we had no system to check whether people would just leave a squad and join as a mysterious 'new' player under their new name. The only control was the roster lock. Unless Cpt Guano has developed a new tracking system this rule would be unenforcable.

As for double squadding, TWL is not tied to TW. You can't be banned for double squadding, TW policy is not TWL policy (again out of control of TWL). Last season anyone who was found double squadding was banned FROM TWL for 5 weeks, and captains were notified.

Second, league format.

#1: A 6 week twd period should take place in order to determine league admission. Only the top 4 teams from the playoffs last season will receive an auto-bye into the league. (WTF Nether, my squad has been in league for 3 years, why should we have to qualify?)
answer: If your squad cannot maintain an activity level high enough to qualify in twd, you have no business being in league. In fact you're probably taking the spot of a team that works harder and will do better. Activity promotes more practice, which will in turn pay dividends in the overall skill level of the league, the talent disparity lowers and the games become closer, more fun is had by all.

TW has a history of extremely high turnover rates of 'new supersquads' that come in. I don't think this would work very well kicking out half of your stable squads just to let some new squad that would likely break up over a few weeks into TWL.

#2: League structure will be as follows: 2 conferences (Alpha and Omega) with 2 divisions each (pick 2 random names) These divisions will be filled with balanced teams (teams ranked by twd ranking and general skill level, you can appoint a small commitee to oversee this. Each team plays every squad in his division twice, and each team in his conference once. There should be a 2-3 week set of interconfernece games in order to promote interest in the league. What determines who you play out of conference can be done in a couple of ways, if this idea is actually given enough consideration to merit me explaining it, contact me and I will.

This was one of the many formats discussed last season before the season began. It was decided that this system would unfairly place the emphasis on divisions too much. Since there would only be 16 teams in each TWL sub league (as we could only support that many), having a 4-man division would make a schedule of 3+3+4 games plus 2-3 interconference making 13 games. No TWL has ever been that long, and judging from Pro League, any pro league over 11 games usually degenerated as squads dropped out. Now imagine the major amplification effects of having a squad drop out in the division system. Because you play each team twice, if a good but unstable team drops out, it can seriously affect your standings compared to other teams in your division who may not have had to play that team so much. As well, no matter how hard you try, creating divisions that are equal are imperfect at best. While conferences aren't exactly perfect either, they are much bigger and thus much more indicative of relative skill, and can be much more fair. Finally there was absolutely no good way to really create interconference games which would work out well under this system without seriously imbalancing the squads. Just take a close look at it, and create the system yourself completely and fully, and then see what happens when one of the top 4 drop out (like how Shriek did last season) and how amazingly screwed up the schedule then becomes.

The system last season of 8 teams per conference and 3 interconference games set after a very very very lenghty process between PUSHER and I where we mapped out every single system that possibly exists in the world and ran it thinking about season length, squad drop outs and fairness and thus was decided. If you can fully map out something better and prove it's better, it's worth trying. If it's more or less equivalent to the system last season, why change something that already works and is easy to understand?

Playoffs can be done in a few different ways.
#1:Round Robin tournament, your regular season record including tie breakers will place in you in a set of 3 or 5 teams, similar to what they use in the World Cup. You play each person in your set once, the top 1 or 2 teams in each set advances to a single elimination tourney.

#2 Single elimination tourney, this is rather self explanitory. The top team from each division gets a bye, the rest of the teams (determined by whatever % of the squads you want in the post seaso) get seeded accordingly)

#3 Double elimination tourny, you guys have done this before so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

What exactly are you suggesting here? Last season #2 was used. How does this help the TWL staff which according to you is 'mired in disfunction' by presenting an idea already used?

(continued...)

[Epinephrine]

All playoff rounds will be best of 3 for wb and jav, best of 5 for semi finals and finals matches. Basing will be best of 1, and best of 3 for semi finals and finals matches.

Was heavily considered and declined after private discussions with captains right before the playoffs started. No one wanted a situation where they would have two best of 5 games in a weekend + best of 3 TWLB. It would also be quite hard to schedule as you'd need 3 hour blocks (each TWLD/J is theoretically 30 mins. 5x30 mins + 30 mins + 10 mins to originally send in lineups and 5 mins inbetween each round = exactly 3 hours) for each game and so there would be a lot of conflicts of scheduling since the best squads usually make it into semis for multiple playoffs.

The amount of teams you want in twl is determined by whatever # of teams you think the league can handle, the actual # isn't as important as imposing a roster lock after the first set of divisional games is included, if don't know if u want to be on a squad after 4-5 games with them tough, you're stuck there. This should help in a limited capacity to reduce squad fluctuations.

Overall, as TWL rules coordinator, I appreciate suggestions, but I don't think that yours will help TWL much as it currently is and why change something that already works to something vaguely the same as some of your suggestions are? As for the other suggestions I hope I explained reasons why it doesn't happen more accurately.

-Epi
Rules Coordinator, TWL

[genes]

I agree with Nethervoid about the twd aliases and staff names, but i didnt care to read all about how the schedule for twd and twl works...simply just get the best squads in there to play. Period (.).

by the way...my thread about merge was a joke started while lting with sum newbie levis (no names, sky, so plz dont ask). Some people didnt get it though...probably because they dont know Awesome hates me for sum reason. oh well stick to the thread...good points nether

-genes

[Force of Nature]

The extra powers that mods and smods get during games don't really help in leagues. None of our sysops play league, thus their energy view isn't a problem. As well, all commands are logged, and actively scrutinized by the upper staff. If there is anything inappropriate happening we will know, and that staff member is fired.

Talking about SMODS

Bots = Sysop.
Temporarily take away powers when playing and give it back after when done the game.

I dont know if a sysop can demote a sysop tho

[Fit of Rage]

Bots = Sysop.
I dont know if a sysop can demote a sysop tho

I believe the answer is yes. The only problem is (I don't know precisely how the bots work) but when the non-partisan referee is using the bot for the game, is it possible that any staff members playing in the game are barred from accessing it?

[Verthanthi]

What about, I dunno, unspeccable mods?

[Nickname]

What about when staff is going to ban anybody for using help or cheater (not even spaming those, but just using it once) to say a smod is cheating during a TWL playoff game? What about the facts that all staff completly ignored the obvious? What about the fact that no matter what 100+ people saw blatant cheating of a staffer and to this day - nothing has been done.

P.S. Bring back best of 3 rounds.

[Jason]

Oh for PriitK's sake, just say 2dragons.

[Legionair]

P.S. Bring back best of 3 rounds.

I would actually like to see 3 rounds again. I think league games are too short, leagues have changed so much...

-Legionair

[Epinephrine]

What about when staff is going to ban anybody for using help or cheater (not even spaming those, but just using it once) to say a smod is cheating during a TWL playoff game? What about the facts that all staff completly ignored the obvious? What about the fact that no matter what 100+ people saw blatant cheating of a staffer and to this day - nothing has been done.

What are you talking about? All you do is ramble.

-Epi

[Cig Smoke]

What are you talking about? All you do is ramble.

-Epi

I think what he means is when a smod is playing and still has his powers he can see a cheater call come in on him, if he is cheating he can stop cheating. Or something along those lines, and when lets say me for example Reports a smod for cheating in TWLB, the smod warns me for abusing help bc its against him. It doesnt sound rite but im sure it has been done.

Im also for the 3 round thing, atleast keep it in playoffs. Having the 1 round during the season gives alot of squads an opertunity to make an upset.

[Jason]

What are you talking about? All you do is ramble.

-Epi

Oh for PriitK's sake, just say 2dragons.

He's talking about 2dragons in the infamous Light TWLB championship. SMod powers allowed him to stay in the game when he quite obviously should have been specced for lag. An arena of 100+ spectators virtually ALL agreed it was abuse.

[Da1andonly]

It was fucking abuse and nothing else. But no, nothing happened. Hooray.

And yes, bring back the best of 3 system.

EDIT: about 2dragons, I was on staff (and therefore on staff chat) during that match, and if I remember correctly some highup staffer (can't remember who) TOLD 2dragons to spec, but 2dragons refused. Fucking homo. Nothing was done anyway.