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Note: This thread is outdated. The newest TWLB proposal doesn't involve a draft, here's the TL
R version:
Official TWLB Draft Proposal
Just had a meeting with Turban and M_M God, hashing out details and discussing an actionable plan to save TWLB. We'll be zoning this thread and having an emergency meeting Sunday, August 23rd, @ 3:00pm EDT.
We will be talking with basers in-game, in this thread, and finally during the meeting Sunday. It's important to get feedback from everyone and working something out together, and make changes accordingly.
The current proposal is to separate TWLB from the other two leagues. TWLD/TWLJ will remain unchanged. If you play TWLD on Fierce or TWLJ on Juans, that won't change. What would change, is you could continue to play for your squad in both those leagues AND play for one of the TWLB squads (e.g., Ease is on Juans, but would base for a different squad and captain.)
TWLB would consist of 6 basing teams, with players being drafted by 6 captains (or cores of 2-3 players -- something we would like feedback on. Turban prefers 1 captain, due to balancing issues.)
The 4:00pm EDT and 4:30pm EDT timeslots would be used exclusively by TWLB to avoid scheduling conflicts for players who also play TWLD and/or TWLJ.
We would also possibly round out the 5 draft squads with 3 other squads (possibly newbie/undrafted players) who want TWL experience, and to ensure every team plays two LB games per week. That part of the plan is fuzzier and less well developed.
This would be the tentative TWLB draft list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
We would possibly limit each team to drafting one of the likely starting terrs in the first four rounds, and two of the likely starting sharks in the first four rounds, to ensure each team has a good foundation in specials due to scarcity at the position. You are not required to draft any of those players. Any of those 12 sharks or 6 terrs who goes undrafted in the first four rounds can be picked up by any team starting in round 5.
This is to prevent, for example, a terrier captain with the #6 and #7 picks from taking two terrs who can spider and draining the league pool (something done multiple times in TWDT over the years), or someone taking four starting sharks in the first four rounds.
Note: Anyone can be drafted, that google sheets list is just a draft aid with my personal ratings, listing each basers activity, what ships they play, where they played in the last TWL and TWDT, and my perceived value of them. Think of it more as a Yahoo suggested ADP in a Fantasy Football draft, it's not meant to accurate rate players 1-100, it's just a general guideline.
We need 5 top-tier players who people would want to play for -- that is absolutely essential. Some names brought up during the meeting: Stayon, Trasher, Commodo, Zidane, JAMAL, Ease, Dreamwin, Cape, Zizzo, Hulk, a2m.
Turban has stated in it's current state TWLB is not worth doing. The league is in bad shape and requires some drastic changes. So far everyone I've talked to has been supportive of separating TWLB and doing a draft, which surprised me since I've proposed similar plans in the past and met with hostile resistance. I think everyone recognizes some serious changes need to occur to save the league.
We need to act swiftly, as TWL is starting soon, and there is a good chunk of bot and website work to do, as well as setup and hold a draft, on top of finding good captains, should we decide to move TWLB in this direction.
Post your thoughts/suggestions/feedback here, pm Turban or me (Ogron) in-game, and come to the emergency basing meeting on Sunday to help us save TWLB and ensure an intense and competitive season!
================================================== ============
My response to some of the opening salvos:
TWL isn't for newbies, it's for the best players in their respective leagues. TWDT is the pro-am where newbies are featured and gain competitive experience. In fact, I've been one of the biggest proponents for new players over the years, and I doubled the amount of new and TWD players required in TWDT (and tripled it in base.)
TWDT is not analogous to this at all, it's an argument people on stacked squads make to cling to maximizing their % of getting an 8 pixel .gif of a medal on a website in a noncompetitive league.
TWDT-B has 3 of the 8 starter spots reserved for newer players, for starters, many TWL players don't play it, the talent is spread too thinly across 8 teams, and many of those 8 teams' captains aren't basers, don't know who to draft, and aren't even focused on that league and are instead trying to win TWDT-J or TWDT-D.
The majority of the competitive sports leagues in the world operate on a draft, with a salary cap on top. Moreover, they have 30 teams. We're talking about 5 competitive teams and a partial draft where you start with a core of 1-3 players.
As we've said, the 6-7-8 team spots would likely be for 2 squads like Vikings or Attack or w/e, you could have a tourny (or use the TWD ladder) for those final two spots and gain some TWL experience, but you're not the focus of the league, the veterans are.
The primary focus of TWLB is on high-level competitive teams. So as TWL ops our focus is on competitiveness of top-level basing squads. When I run TWDT my focus is on the newbies.
TWLB History
Over the past few years the competition has declined severely. We went from Season 12, with 8 top-tier championship caliber teams, to Season 16, with only several real contenders.
Dice broke up Season 17, and their core seeded the rest of the league and we had 8 good teams again. The problem was that Pandora was in full tryhard stack mode and the final result was never really in doubt.
Season 18 was the least competitive season in history at that point, with Dice, Pandora, and Enemy (Penetrate core) as the big 3, with Value/Fierce/Revenge/Dudgeon fielding solid lines but unable to compete with the powerhouses.
Last season, Season 19, saw a slight improvement in terms of championship contenders, with Dudgeon (Dice core), Thunder (Pandora core), Enemy, and Royal as the big 4, but Royal struggled all season to get people to show and 1/3 of their team almost left. Cape/a2m/Cripple tried to help the league balance by creating Royal but it was a huge struggle without top-tier active talent. Beyond those four the league was pretty bad, Sweet/Cobra/Paladen/Lego was not competitive enough to challenge those stacked squads.
We're now currently at Season 20. Over the last 10 seasons, there have been 4 cores of players that have reached the Finals. Dice, Pandora, Penetrate, and Revenge (glavitik/squallFF8/menelvagor/hellkite) -- with Sagers mixed in. And there's been tons of crossover between players (Solace won on Penetrate and Pandora, Mattey/Shayde have played for Dice and Pandora, etc.) Almost everyone has played with everyone at some point at the highest level.
The notion Tiny brings up that it affects TWL history is nonsense, or that people can't play together. "Gosh, what about the legacy of Dice vs Pandora, they're mortal enemies who only play against each other, never with."
Except Dreamwin and Spezza both beat Dice S18 with Pandora, then joined Dice to beat Pandora S19. And Mattey has started for both Dice and Pandora. And Shayde. And Mcvicar. And Renzi. And Zidane. The list goes on and on and on.
But in those ten seasons, there's only been about 80 players to meaningfully contribute to those Finals' runs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
There's about 50 of those players who are still around, and 25 of them who are actively basing.
If you don't have a significant share of the 25 active players on that list, you're not able to be competitive.
So what's the difference between this season and the last two season with 3-4 powerhouse squads and the rest of the league a dumpster fire?
The difference is the the majority of the Penetrate, Pandora, and Revenge/Sage cores don't play this game anymore, and Dice/Dudgeon has 41% of the top-tier talent in the league. There aren't 3-4 powerhouse squads -- there's one. At this point why have a season, just give them their 8 pixel medals.
You can see why the only top-tier basers opposed at the moment are all on Dudgeon.
And that's not an endorsement for S17 or S18 -- This is the third time I submit this proposal. I've said it many times over the years to break up the big banks and have a healthier league with more competition. But AT LEAST there were multiple teams with chances at the title, unlike this year.
That's not the only problem. The other issue is confidence in Captains.
If TWLB was held two weeks ago, LEGO would be champions. They had the best roster in basing by a mile. If it was held today, it would be a very different story. Veteran basers don't have the confidence in df/joemama/Tj Hazuki to lead a Championship caliber team to the Finals. The roster had talent at every position, nice people, a good atmosphere, and all their caps are sociable and likeable.
Even multiple-time TWLB winners like a2m struggled, and 1/3 of Royal left after losing a game or two last year. Without those Penetrate/Pandora/Revenge cores with bankable captains, human nature takes over and people flee, sit on benches of comfy stacked squads, go where they know there will be likely success. It's not a criticism, it's just a fact. It's good survival instincts.
We have all collectively proven that we are not capable of self-regulation. All the comments saying things will fix themselves sound like those idiot republicans trying to destroy the Dodd-Franks act or the EPA or the IRS, arguing the free market will self-correct and rules and oversight are killing jobs/the economy.
There is enough talent to field 6 competitive squads able to vie for a title that actually means something.
In five years, this game will be completely dead. Would you rather have fun, and close competitive basing games every week RIGHT NOW and earn a title, or would you rather play in a dumpster fire of a league where your % odds of winning are higher so you can look at a screenshot of your name in your Pictures folder in 2020 with a red medal next to you that no one cares about?
The game is dying, this league is dying, it needs change, and we need to pool all the available basing talent into the maximum number of squads possible to have multiple squads able of competing at the highest level.
Please, I implore you, do it for yourself and for your leaguemates. Give this a chance for one season. If you hate it I'll resign from Staff and you can go back to the old TWLB and I'll never write a single forum post on the subject again.
================================================== ============
Several people also suggested this:
Another possibility in lieu of a draft would be simply manually creating 5 well-stocked teams along traditional lines of players who've played together over the years and tweaking them with input from captains, ops, and basers, then letting 3 outside teams fight for several those 3 spots to get TWLB experience.
================================================== ============
Addendum:
After talking with Spezza, Turban, and several other players, they cited depth issues with 6 teams, as well as there being strong interest from several newbie squads with interest in TWL, the proposal is therefore reducing the number of pro teams to 5, with 3 slots open for TWD squads to fight for.
R version:Official TWLB Draft Proposal
Just had a meeting with Turban and M_M God, hashing out details and discussing an actionable plan to save TWLB. We'll be zoning this thread and having an emergency meeting Sunday, August 23rd, @ 3:00pm EDT.
We will be talking with basers in-game, in this thread, and finally during the meeting Sunday. It's important to get feedback from everyone and working something out together, and make changes accordingly.
The current proposal is to separate TWLB from the other two leagues. TWLD/TWLJ will remain unchanged. If you play TWLD on Fierce or TWLJ on Juans, that won't change. What would change, is you could continue to play for your squad in both those leagues AND play for one of the TWLB squads (e.g., Ease is on Juans, but would base for a different squad and captain.)
TWLB would consist of 6 basing teams, with players being drafted by 6 captains (or cores of 2-3 players -- something we would like feedback on. Turban prefers 1 captain, due to balancing issues.)
The 4:00pm EDT and 4:30pm EDT timeslots would be used exclusively by TWLB to avoid scheduling conflicts for players who also play TWLD and/or TWLJ.
We would also possibly round out the 5 draft squads with 3 other squads (possibly newbie/undrafted players) who want TWL experience, and to ensure every team plays two LB games per week. That part of the plan is fuzzier and less well developed.
This would be the tentative TWLB draft list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
We would possibly limit each team to drafting one of the likely starting terrs in the first four rounds, and two of the likely starting sharks in the first four rounds, to ensure each team has a good foundation in specials due to scarcity at the position. You are not required to draft any of those players. Any of those 12 sharks or 6 terrs who goes undrafted in the first four rounds can be picked up by any team starting in round 5.
This is to prevent, for example, a terrier captain with the #6 and #7 picks from taking two terrs who can spider and draining the league pool (something done multiple times in TWDT over the years), or someone taking four starting sharks in the first four rounds.
Note: Anyone can be drafted, that google sheets list is just a draft aid with my personal ratings, listing each basers activity, what ships they play, where they played in the last TWL and TWDT, and my perceived value of them. Think of it more as a Yahoo suggested ADP in a Fantasy Football draft, it's not meant to accurate rate players 1-100, it's just a general guideline.
We need 5 top-tier players who people would want to play for -- that is absolutely essential. Some names brought up during the meeting: Stayon, Trasher, Commodo, Zidane, JAMAL, Ease, Dreamwin, Cape, Zizzo, Hulk, a2m.
Turban has stated in it's current state TWLB is not worth doing. The league is in bad shape and requires some drastic changes. So far everyone I've talked to has been supportive of separating TWLB and doing a draft, which surprised me since I've proposed similar plans in the past and met with hostile resistance. I think everyone recognizes some serious changes need to occur to save the league.
We need to act swiftly, as TWL is starting soon, and there is a good chunk of bot and website work to do, as well as setup and hold a draft, on top of finding good captains, should we decide to move TWLB in this direction.
Post your thoughts/suggestions/feedback here, pm Turban or me (Ogron) in-game, and come to the emergency basing meeting on Sunday to help us save TWLB and ensure an intense and competitive season!
================================================== ============
My response to some of the opening salvos:
TWL isn't for newbies, it's for the best players in their respective leagues. TWDT is the pro-am where newbies are featured and gain competitive experience. In fact, I've been one of the biggest proponents for new players over the years, and I doubled the amount of new and TWD players required in TWDT (and tripled it in base.)
TWDT is not analogous to this at all, it's an argument people on stacked squads make to cling to maximizing their % of getting an 8 pixel .gif of a medal on a website in a noncompetitive league.
TWDT-B has 3 of the 8 starter spots reserved for newer players, for starters, many TWL players don't play it, the talent is spread too thinly across 8 teams, and many of those 8 teams' captains aren't basers, don't know who to draft, and aren't even focused on that league and are instead trying to win TWDT-J or TWDT-D.
The majority of the competitive sports leagues in the world operate on a draft, with a salary cap on top. Moreover, they have 30 teams. We're talking about 5 competitive teams and a partial draft where you start with a core of 1-3 players.
As we've said, the 6-7-8 team spots would likely be for 2 squads like Vikings or Attack or w/e, you could have a tourny (or use the TWD ladder) for those final two spots and gain some TWL experience, but you're not the focus of the league, the veterans are.
The primary focus of TWLB is on high-level competitive teams. So as TWL ops our focus is on competitiveness of top-level basing squads. When I run TWDT my focus is on the newbies.
TWLB History
Over the past few years the competition has declined severely. We went from Season 12, with 8 top-tier championship caliber teams, to Season 16, with only several real contenders.
Dice broke up Season 17, and their core seeded the rest of the league and we had 8 good teams again. The problem was that Pandora was in full tryhard stack mode and the final result was never really in doubt.
Season 18 was the least competitive season in history at that point, with Dice, Pandora, and Enemy (Penetrate core) as the big 3, with Value/Fierce/Revenge/Dudgeon fielding solid lines but unable to compete with the powerhouses.
Last season, Season 19, saw a slight improvement in terms of championship contenders, with Dudgeon (Dice core), Thunder (Pandora core), Enemy, and Royal as the big 4, but Royal struggled all season to get people to show and 1/3 of their team almost left. Cape/a2m/Cripple tried to help the league balance by creating Royal but it was a huge struggle without top-tier active talent. Beyond those four the league was pretty bad, Sweet/Cobra/Paladen/Lego was not competitive enough to challenge those stacked squads.
We're now currently at Season 20. Over the last 10 seasons, there have been 4 cores of players that have reached the Finals. Dice, Pandora, Penetrate, and Revenge (glavitik/squallFF8/menelvagor/hellkite) -- with Sagers mixed in. And there's been tons of crossover between players (Solace won on Penetrate and Pandora, Mattey/Shayde have played for Dice and Pandora, etc.) Almost everyone has played with everyone at some point at the highest level.
The notion Tiny brings up that it affects TWL history is nonsense, or that people can't play together. "Gosh, what about the legacy of Dice vs Pandora, they're mortal enemies who only play against each other, never with."
Except Dreamwin and Spezza both beat Dice S18 with Pandora, then joined Dice to beat Pandora S19. And Mattey has started for both Dice and Pandora. And Shayde. And Mcvicar. And Renzi. And Zidane. The list goes on and on and on.
But in those ten seasons, there's only been about 80 players to meaningfully contribute to those Finals' runs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
There's about 50 of those players who are still around, and 25 of them who are actively basing.
If you don't have a significant share of the 25 active players on that list, you're not able to be competitive.
So what's the difference between this season and the last two season with 3-4 powerhouse squads and the rest of the league a dumpster fire?
The difference is the the majority of the Penetrate, Pandora, and Revenge/Sage cores don't play this game anymore, and Dice/Dudgeon has 41% of the top-tier talent in the league. There aren't 3-4 powerhouse squads -- there's one. At this point why have a season, just give them their 8 pixel medals.
You can see why the only top-tier basers opposed at the moment are all on Dudgeon.
And that's not an endorsement for S17 or S18 -- This is the third time I submit this proposal. I've said it many times over the years to break up the big banks and have a healthier league with more competition. But AT LEAST there were multiple teams with chances at the title, unlike this year.
That's not the only problem. The other issue is confidence in Captains.
If TWLB was held two weeks ago, LEGO would be champions. They had the best roster in basing by a mile. If it was held today, it would be a very different story. Veteran basers don't have the confidence in df/joemama/Tj Hazuki to lead a Championship caliber team to the Finals. The roster had talent at every position, nice people, a good atmosphere, and all their caps are sociable and likeable.
Even multiple-time TWLB winners like a2m struggled, and 1/3 of Royal left after losing a game or two last year. Without those Penetrate/Pandora/Revenge cores with bankable captains, human nature takes over and people flee, sit on benches of comfy stacked squads, go where they know there will be likely success. It's not a criticism, it's just a fact. It's good survival instincts.
We have all collectively proven that we are not capable of self-regulation. All the comments saying things will fix themselves sound like those idiot republicans trying to destroy the Dodd-Franks act or the EPA or the IRS, arguing the free market will self-correct and rules and oversight are killing jobs/the economy.
There is enough talent to field 6 competitive squads able to vie for a title that actually means something.
In five years, this game will be completely dead. Would you rather have fun, and close competitive basing games every week RIGHT NOW and earn a title, or would you rather play in a dumpster fire of a league where your % odds of winning are higher so you can look at a screenshot of your name in your Pictures folder in 2020 with a red medal next to you that no one cares about?
The game is dying, this league is dying, it needs change, and we need to pool all the available basing talent into the maximum number of squads possible to have multiple squads able of competing at the highest level.
Please, I implore you, do it for yourself and for your leaguemates. Give this a chance for one season. If you hate it I'll resign from Staff and you can go back to the old TWLB and I'll never write a single forum post on the subject again.
================================================== ============
Several people also suggested this:
Another possibility in lieu of a draft would be simply manually creating 5 well-stocked teams along traditional lines of players who've played together over the years and tweaking them with input from captains, ops, and basers, then letting 3 outside teams fight for several those 3 spots to get TWLB experience.
================================================== ============
Addendum:
After talking with Spezza, Turban, and several other players, they cited depth issues with 6 teams, as well as there being strong interest from several newbie squads with interest in TWL, the proposal is therefore reducing the number of pro teams to 5, with 3 slots open for TWD squads to fight for.
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