As you might be able to tell, this a discussion about GoIO leagues. Why the discussion? I feel it would be beneficial to the community to come up with an ideal league system. So far we've only had a few attempts at it, and I think they're both missing that special something.
Hephaestus was easily the best League and community event we've had, it's the golden standard. However, I think it did have it's own unique set of problems. The biggest issues was the length and stress of the event. There was also issues of mismatched teams, but with the round-robin-ish system, it worked out overall.
One of the difficulties with leagues is the length of time they take. Hephaestus was incredibly long, and incredibly stressful on a lot of players and teams. A lot of players ended up dropping the game, clans and teams disbanded, it was pretty intense. Near the end of the season, it was feeling more like work than fun. Having to practice and play just about every weekend. A more successful league might have a shorter duration or be more flexible with teams.
The other league we've had is the GoIO League. This was a smaller league for a shorter time, and worked out pretty well. I'm not too keen on their point system personally, but that's a minor issue. Their goal is also to split the teams into different tiers, which should help keep the season short and allow for relatively equally skilled teams to compete against each other. One problem I see with this is that we don't quite have enough teams for a good split between 2 or more divisions. The length felt incredibly short, although each team did manage to get in 7 matches or so over the season. I also don't believe there was an end of season tournament, and it just stopped with the 'playoff' portion. Not necessarily a bad thing.
My concept of an ideal league would include some elements from both leagues. First the length. While the Hephaestus was long and stressful, I think the length wasn't all that bad (although the stress was). So the ideal league would be around a season (2-3 months) but be a lot more flexible, allowing teams to drop in, drop out, and take breaks during the season.
I liked concept of a tiered system such as the GoIO League, but that's splitting the teams up too small. For the ideal league, I would include a lot more 'gray area' between the divisions. Still allowing for relatively equally skilled teams to compete, but having more teams available to play against instead of just the 4 or so in your division.
How this would come about is changing the point system. Instead of getting 1 point for a win and 0 for a loss, teams start with a fixed amount of points, and win and lose points from each other. Kind of like the MMR system. The greater the discrepancy between teams, the more/less points can be lost/won (depending on who wins or loses). This would reward teams for winning against high ranked teams, or allow them to be punished less for losing.
Using the points, we can also allow new teams in by giving them an average amount of points (remove the top 2 teams and the bottom 2 teams, average the rest) and putting them into the fray while letting the system sort out their actual place. Or we could potentially have a day to 'test' new teams entering the league by having them face off a few teams that are already ranked, and giving them a starting point value depending upon the results of these matches.
This also allows the system a little more flexibility, allowing teams to take a weekend off every so often. Having points 'decay' if they take too many days off to keep them competitive, but still allow them to take breaks without losing everything (or lose nothing if they only take a weekend off every so often).
Based upon teams point values, the organizers will schedule matches for teams based upon their current score to face off against teams with a relatively close score. This will be done in such a way to prevent teams from facing the same opponents over and over, as well as to try and keep matches between the highest and lowest ranked teams from occurring often. Requiring each team to have 2-3 matches each weekend against different teams.
The difficulty with this system is that it's quite flexible and requires a lot of effort from the organizers each and every week. A potential problem that can occur is an unequal number of matches between teams (ie: A team took a long break and didn't have as many opportunities to earn points as a team that didn't take any breaks). This can be resolved by requiring certain teams to take breaks or giving the teams that just came back from a break more matches. Teams that start late in the season are assumed to have played an average number of matches.
At then end of the season, teams can be seeded into a bracket based upon their rank. Without W/L, the divisions between teams are likely to be clearer. There can be a cut off of needing a certain rank, or simply allow everyone to participate.
There would have to be a lot of rules about when teams are allowed to join late or notify the refs of taking a weekend off. As well as the usual rules about time limits, map rolls, subs, etc.
Overall it's a more dynamic system, but is harder on those organizing it. Thoughts?
