Proposed Future Schedule and Format for Leagues

[ogron]

Assuming TWDT 2016 Fall goes well, I think the schedule and format of leagues needs to be better thought out, more compact, and simple.

I don't think the game is healthy enough to support summer leagues, and poor scheduling not accounting for holidays cause delays which kill momentum and cause people to disappear. The seasons also need to be shorter and in quicker bursts, and not drag on interminably for months and months on end with a slew of meaningless games with everyone making the playoffs.

This is my proposal for leagues going forward:




There is a short, ideal gap between the Superbowl ending and summer starting with room for two short bursts of league-action before the summer hits. The last TWDT during this period was very healthy and successful earlier this year.

We could play during this winter and spring period, take the summer off and go outside, and then come back in the fall and see what state the game is in and go forward from there.

I don't think I'm forgetting any major holidays or events for those periods?

[Ricko]

seems smart to me, although let's see if staff do anything to re-invigorate activity through TWD etc over the coming months, and if TWDT brings players back, and assess whether we do need to drop to 6 squads (this season suggests so, but it was also over the summer which affected A LOT of players/teams)

[Markmrw]

Thanks for posting this Ogron, let me add some thoughts to this so we can start up a conversation with the rest of the community.

Assuming TWDT 2016 Fall goes well, I think the schedule and format of leagues needs to be better thought out, more compact, and simple.

I don't think the game is healthy enough to support summer leagues, and poor scheduling not accounting for holidays cause delays which kill momentum and cause people to disappear. The seasons also need to be shorter and in quicker bursts, and not drag on interminably for months and months on end with a slew of meaningless games with everyone making the playoffs.

Yes absolutely agree. I would be very interested in hearing ideas to increase TWD activity during TWL periods. I really don't understand how TWL kills TWD. Is it the restrictive TWL roster limits? Is it that we don't want our rivals to get any practice?

This is my proposal for leagues going forward:

Thanks for doing this Ogron, you've saved me a bunch of time looking for American holidays that i know nothing about and the "super bowl" (which i assume is some kind of smoking utensil or fruit receptacle). I will soon be publishing some options regarding the next TWL for scheduling and team sizes etc., this is a very good looking schedule and will be used as one of the options.
Agree with 6 team probably being the better option, this would probably allow a higher roster limit.
TWLB I am toying with the idea of separating from TWLD and J Squads. so you could be on a TWLD/J squad and a TWLB squad. This does require some bot &website dev so is only an idea atm (and requires me to actually talk to the devs about how realistic this proposal is), but I am interested in the community's opinions.

This season TWLB had the most forfeits and saw 3 squads removed (goddamn mall-cop TWL OP) due to repeated no shows. What do people think about 6/5/4 squads only in TWLB, do we have enough active basers to make 6 squads competitive, or would 5/4 be more appropriate.

We could play during this winter and spring period, take the summer off and go outside, and then come back in the fall and see what state the game is in and go forward from there.

Don't tell them about the "outside", i'll lose my job as TWL op....

As i have said before, this is a community game, so lets run it as a community. This is your chance to be heard tell us what you believe will make TWL 22 the best goddamn league it can be.


TL;DR
- 7 Week schedule = Much better
- 6 teams better
Opinions on :-
- How to make TWD more active during TWL
- TWLB seperation from TWLD/J
- TWLB number of squads
- Stay inside and play TW

Many Loves,
MarkMRWMRWMRWMRWM

P.S Opinions are like assholes apparently..... let's have a look at yours.

[ogron]

Yeah I think getting borrowing or whatever into TWD is a gamechanger that this zone badly needs, especially during leagues.

seems smart to me, although let's see if staff do anything to re-invigorate activity through TWD etc over the coming months, and if TWDT brings players back, and assess whether we do need to drop to 6 squads (this season suggests so, but it was also over the summer which affected A LOT of players/teams)

I believe the fall schedule and appeal of TWDT will be a good litmus test to see how healthy the game is, as the TWDT 2016 Winter season was very successful with 8 teams and 280 players (post-Free Agency).

My gut says there will be a big swell of Free Agent signups because the standard draft signups are probably going to top out at 180, while last TWDT it was 230. I would be surprised if we actually lost 25% of the population in the zone in only 6 months time.

There are a little over 3 weeks of signup time left for FA, and I suspect as the summer winds die down and the leaves turn autumn gold, gently caressing the browning grass below as the seasons serenade us with a cacophony of ochre, the crisp footsteps of bipedal anthropoids above them will signal the progressive march back to their computers as they rejoin us in the trenches.

I will soon be publishing some options regarding the next TWL

Hey Mark, thanks again for your efforts this season. Are you confirmed running TWL already for next season (assuming there is one?)

I would have some interest in possibly running it, but if I did, I wouldn't run the adjoining TWDT season (although I would help set it up if my aid was wanted) -- perhaps we could switch leagues if you're interested.

I keep saying every TWDT is my last season, and then I end up getting sucked back in lol

The 2011 and 2013 TWDTs were some of the most fun I've had just being a player, and I'd like to go back to that (is there an emoticon for wistful longing?)

[Crescent Seal]

I agree that the TWL season needs to be shorter. I don't really like the idea of forcing a squad limit of 6 because it forces people to not diversify and get valuable twl experience in other leagues due to depth chart issues. We need mediocre and newbie teams for people who want to just get experience and don't really care if they make it far.

TWD seems to be doing great on its own as of now. But here are a few suggestions to consider:

1. Implement a 'games played' requirement in order to be eligible to participate in TWL. Basically something like needing 50 TWDD games played in order to be eligible for TWLD (for individual not team).

2. Also I mentioned this 50000x but it would be great to reward players who dominate TWD in terms of kills or games played etc. If Jebass leads twdd in kills...give the man a ribbon lol.

3. Allow DSing...the pros outweigh the cons and has been mentioned and supported by the community

4. Find a way that incorporates the TWD ladder system into TWL. Players should want to be competitive and stay at the top of the ladders.

5. suk me

[Markmrw]

Yeah I think getting borrowing or whatever into TWD is a gamechanger that this zone badly needs, especially during leagues.

Qan is actually working on this and has already done most of the leg work, so should be fairly simple to implement, soon if all goes to plan

Hey Mark, thanks again for your efforts this season. Are you confirmed running TWL already for next season (assuming there is one?)

I would have some interest in possibly running it, but if I did, I wouldn't run the adjoining TWDT season (although I would help set it up if my aid was wanted) -- perhaps we could switch leagues if you're interested.

There is a bit of a shake up going on in staff atm, meaning that my role has changed so any offers of help will be greatly appreciated.
I am willing to run the league, but would also be willing to take step back to act as your assistant as you have far more league experience than I do.

TWDT next season, I would be willing to run but would need some assistance from a dedicated op and from someone like you who has experience running TWDT, as it is more manual than TWL as my new role does seem to eat up quite a lot of time.

It is my intention to train up a number of staff members to the point where they can all cover for the league ops, so that the burden is taken off of the one person taking the lead. Running the league can be quite hard work and stressful especially on Sunday night, when you just wanna chill out and play. So the more people there are that we can lean on to help the better it will be for our sanity and the health of the league.

I keep saying every TWDT is my last season, and then I end up getting sucked back in lol

That's because you love it really, all the pain that you go through is worth once the finals have all been played

If anyone out there is interested in helping out with the leagues in any way, hosting, staffing, scheduling, content creation, reviews, cheerleader, coffee boy please contact me and we will get you set up

[Markmrw]

I agree that the TWL season needs to be shorter. I don't really like the idea of forcing a squad limit of 6 because it forces people to not diversify and get valuable twl experience in other leagues due to depth chart issues. We need mediocre and newbie teams for people who want to just get experience and don't really care if they make it far.

This is a good counter point and should be considered to try to entice newbie squads into competitive games

1. Implement a 'games played' requirement in order to be eligible to participate in TWL. Basically something like needing 50 TWDD games played in order to be eligible for TWLD (for individual not team).

That is a good idea, could be better than requiring squads to play 50 games or whatever.
I suppose it could go one of two ways, it will either; make people play TWD more in order to qualify, or it could mean that a large number of less regular players just don't qualify and TWL is forced into having less squads due to lack of players.

2. Also I mentioned this 50000x but it would be great to reward players who dominate TWD in terms of kills or games played etc. If Jebass leads twdd in kills...give the man a ribbon lol.

Great idea! This is actually very easy to implement on the TWD, but requires someone to add the ribbon manually and check the scores. I'll have a chat about that with Shadowmere and see what the best way to do something like that would be, then i suppose trial it

3. Allow DSing...the pros outweigh the cons and has been mentioned and supported by the community

This is a difficult one, i see both sides of the argument here, but i am still on the side of not allowing double squadding. I believe that once the player borrowing is working in TWD there will be no need for double squadding.
If i'm wrong on that though allowing double squadding will be next on the list of things to trial I'm sure.

4. Find a way that incorporates the TWD ladder system into TWL. Players should want to be competitive and stay at the top of the ladders.

What do you mean by that, would you like to see on the TWL site something like teams that have currently qualified for TWL based on thier TWD ranking, or have i missed the point?

5. suk me

I wanted to see your asshole not your pen15!


Thanks for the feedback Cres it is appreciated