Yay discussion! Wall of text incoming (this is why I switched to the numbered rules format. I am far too wordy)
Substitutions1. The concept of substitutions in e-sports probably originates with the idea of substitutions in IRL sports. However, unlike like IRL sports where you need subs because people have physical limitations and get injured etc, e-sports is mental, hardware, and attendance driven. You need subs in case there is an emergency, someone has hardware/connection problems, or you just have someone disappear.
In IRL sports, each team having a limited pool of substitutes makes fatigue an actual game strategy. You can design plays around wearing down the other team specifically so you can make a late-game play to win.
In e-sports, each team having a limited pool of substitutes makes being prepared important.
And it sucks.
However.
2. Without substitution rules, and given that there will (surely) be prizes for winners, players would want to enter in as many teams as possible to try to maximize their chances of being on a winning team. Who needs to rely on double elimination when you have multiple teams?
Now I know this is not something that has been seen. But without a framework to prevent it, and if the game/event were to see a sudden growth in popularity, then it would probably become a problem.
3. Muse classically awards prizes to 12 members of the winning team. That means the 13th player gets screwed over. If you have a solid 8 main core, and have regular random substitutes, how are you going to determine who gets those 4 extra prizes? I know this is something clans usually handle on their own with no problem, but again if this grows without the proper supporting framework then it could become a problem.
4. I am structuring the rules and the change log in such a way that additions are pretty easy to make. If we move forward without too much of a framework we can always petition to add it later on if it becomes a problem.
Probably the best balance for the time being would be that each team must have 8-12 core players listed, and all other players could act as substitutes for any team. Teams must bring at least 4 core players to each match. A team must have at least one of their pilots be a core player. For non-core players, there is no limit on how many teams they can sub for (even in the same week) during the regular season. A non-core player, if they are to substitute as a pilot for any team, may not act as a substitute for any other team that week. During the post-season, a player is locked to whatever team they substitute for for the duration of the post-season (cannot sub for multiple teams within the same playoff, or between playoffs).
^This would allow flexibility, prevent too much abuse in switching out pilots, and lock up the playoffs. Admittedly the playoffs are the most taxing part of the league, but they determine the outcome, so I feel higher restrictions are natural.
CastingI want each game to be recorded/streamed. That's it. Would it be nice if the game was cast? Sure. But recording is the first step.
The structure is designed around the idea that each team knows exactly when they start. Every week this should be a 40 minute event for each team. The only people who would have it longer would be casters, recorders, and refs. This puts more pressure on those individuals to be orderly, but I don't think it is too much.
I like the concept of each division having its own stream. If we were to have 20 teams, there would be 3 divisions: 7, 7, and 6. We would need 3 streams. 2 streams would run 3 games total (2 hours), while the third stream would run 4 games (2 hours, 40 minutes). This would include the high probability of extended breaks midway through the streams where the casters could put on music and do something else for a bit. Because if a match finishes early, the next one still won't start until its scheduled time.
The central pivots of the structure design are that teams aren't dedicating hours upon hours to each day, not knowing how much they will actually be playing, each team plays every week, and the games are streamed in such a way that teams are easy to follow week to week for outside viewers, creating the possibility of an actual outside fan-base.
Tournaments are fun, but if I only care about one team, they suck to watch because I don't know when I need to start watching and whether I will get to watch more than 1 game.
That being said, and depending on who hosts, I sort of like the idea of several streams linked with graphics where casters can hop on and cast a game or 2, then get back to their team. If we don't have enough dedicated casters to handle every stream, then the dedicated casters we do have could be moved from stream to stream to follow the highlight games, while the fill-in casters would join where available and cast the other games. I really don't know how difficult some of this would be, and if anyone would like to jump in and slap me for being an idiot, feel free to do so, but this seems pretty interesting.
Late joinsThomas, I can't quite tell if your comment was serious or is just dripping in sarcasm.
Either way, my answer would be that team cannot join mid-season. With the goal of heavy structure here, losing a team is hard enough. Adding a team would possibly necessitate the addition of a new division, new stream, more casters, completely new schedule, etc.
HOWEVER
I am considering a rule that could possibly allow it.
Let the sign-ups remain open past the deadline. Any team can still sign up after the deadline, but will not be included in the initial schedule. If any other team were to drop out/be ejected, then in order of sign-up, teams would be approached between Sunday and Wednesday to replace the dropped team. The late joining team adopt the dropping team's record with half of the dropping team's wins (rounded up) converted to losses. Alternatively, the dropping team's record would disappear and the joining team would just be given losses for each of those games.
This would help prevent having to restructure the league for someone dropping and it would give an opportunity (though not a guaranteed one) to late joiners.
A team being given losses would require me to reword/alter rule 3.7.2. <- more of just a note to myself in case I forget.
