Flies' questions re: what happened to the finals?

[core.Flies]

Hey,

i just finished reading the new rules.
I see no mentioning of the finals.

What happened to the finals ?
If they are gone - then why ?

Best regards
| ! |  Flies

P.S. I will post my questions in separate threads, in the hope to avoid chaotic discussions

[*DAMN Mauti]

No actually we reduced the rules from 26 pages to 16 pages although using a bigger font and more space consuming layout.

Yes, the finals are gone, because due the reduced season length and further to push the main season again. Although the SuperFinals worked out great, the required effort was too much.  Instead we are planning to have tournaments or other special events quarterly.

At all the tournament rules are the SuperFinal rules from the last rule version.

Bye,

Mauti

[core.Flies]

Aww

 

A season-length shortened down to 6 weeks
( thats 6 weekends, and thats 6 chances for us to get a cb versus usa-clans) is in itself stressing - and making the outcome of a season too much dependent on CB-negotiations rather than gaming skills,

Last season our clan - amongst others - was unable to get fair cb-deals done, and thus suffered from what could almost be called "mobbing" out of the ladder.  Our only chance was to win the few cbs we were able to get deals on, and just hope we thereby could secure ourselves a seat in the Finals.

Now you remove the Finals
 

It was the best event of the whole season, no matter if a clan was participating or not.
Remember those numbers on GR ?
The whole number of logged-ins on Gameranger heavily increased when the finals were played. It was great fun for everyone to follow. And the participating clans simply loved it.

Requirements ?    2 admins online + Mauti for one evening.

As for the competition:

A combination of dropping the finals and reducing season to 6 weeks, will simply make the season into a kind of a ratrace in between the better clans, to simply get the cb-deals - or excluding other clans from getting them.

With this the whole focus of the season switches from gaming to politics.

As speaking, I see no changes here, that will secure real competition between top-clans.
On the contrary.

dammit... I had so much hope...

| ! |  Flies

[BFG]

Argh.

if your clan can only clan battle during weekends there is very little we can do about it, we can meet absolutely everyones needs, just the vast majority.

the Super Finals as you will read have simply been moved to a separate event - which you can still take part in and will be happening throughout the year, possibly more so than before given the shorter season lengths.

shorter season, well it  means greater input to play, rather than playing a few at the start of the season and then sitting back after securing a spot in the super finals....

[core.Flies]

We would gladly CB any usa-clans during the week.
i dont know how my words can give you the idea we will only cb weekends.
But in the real world euro-US CB´s are 99% played in the weekends, BFG.

This goes for every clan in the DBL - not limited to any "special stuff" for our our clan.
Please...

As I recall, the discussions that lead us to a fixed number of season each year ( 3 ),
and to evolve the finals into something more, were pretty serious.

I therefore take it, the discussions for removing suddenly the finals ( and make it public 3 days before season start) may have been at least equally heavy.

What i am curious about is what perspective on fair gaming that made the admin-team remove the Finals.
Or rather :

I am SO disappointed that this little "Surprise" is not even mentioend in the forums up front, but more or less sneaked into the rules, and made public 3 days before seasonstart.

Furthermore - there has been no feed-back on the ideas of trying to give the cb-dealing a boost, so more cbs would be played ( mentioned elsewhere in the forum).

My logic is geting hurt here. I cant see any real and fair reason to why the Finals have been dropped.
And you have to admit its not just a "minor point".


| ! |  Flies

[BFG]

We would gladly CB any usa-clans during the week.
i dont know how my words can give you the idea we will only cb weekends.

apologies, i must have miss read part of your post.

I therefore take it, the discussions for removing suddenly the finals ( and make it public 3 days before season start) may have been at least equally heavy.
What i am curious about is what perspective on fair gaming that made the admin-team remove the Finals.
Or rather :
I am SO disappointed that this little "Surprise" is not even mentioend in the forums up front, but more or less sneaked into the rules, and made public 3 days before seasonstart.

Well the finals have moved on to something more serious... they are their own entity in the form of the tournaments now. Regarding how its fair or not re the finals, it is not deemed fair that 8 weeks (or however long the seasons were) (now six) worth of cb's should be made almost irrelevant by the actions of a handful of cb's played on two weekends. The presence of the previous super finals were removing the importance of the main season, and thus having a negative effect on the quantity of cb's being played.

As for being sneaked into the rules... we ordered some big flashing neon lights, but they just didn't get here on time. its not much warning because people have wanted the season to start ASAP, and because we cant go through step by step every single change that has been made for this season, there are simply to many.

So again, the finals have not been removed, they have simply been separated from the main season and renamed... people can still (and i hope will still) compete on them.

[*DAMN Mauti]

Before it was 8 weeks and I see it as advantage, because we have more seasons so new clans can try out more and even risk something, because they know after a short break the next season will already start where they can stress their luck from new, instead of playing 8 weeks , wait 2 weeks until the SuperFinals are over, and then wait the normal break = usually 6 weeks between seasons.

Further I hope with the 3 - 1 - 0 system(on the advanced ladders) we can shift the focus even more from "fear to lose" to just playing.

About your argument it's just a weekend: with the old setup we would have 3-4 seasons = 6-8 SuperFinalWeekends per year, which is 6-8 weekends out of 52 weeks per year the admins and I have to sacrify for the community, but that's not the reason. With the shorter seasons the Finals would consume a lot of time compared to the season length - which would stay in  no relation to the main season. So the main idea is to hold eventually tournaments quarterly and also only for the games where we see big interest.

With shorter seasons, as BFG just posted, we want to avoid that a clan can sit down and relax - actually we would like to see what you call a ratrace: one clan chasing the other, so you always have to play to keep in front.

The tournament bracket will consider previous rankings in the case starting spots are getting rare.

At all I would say wait until the season starts before you already shout that no one will play you and that you have to do more politics than gaming. In the end may it is such an attitude that prevent things to change.

*Addition - I just saw you posted again*: to remove the finals may be a surprise for you however it's something that has been decided already a few months ago, going hand in hand with our new season setup as posted above. In we traded them in favour of more tournaments as we have held in the past.

[cO.Vickedson]

Flies, how bout letting the season get started and having your clan participate in full?  If things are not working out I'm sure everyone will know it and things can be changed for Season 12. 

Yes there are a lot of changes going on but I think there has been enough thought put into it by many to warrent giving it a try at least.

Whadduya say?

[core.Flies]

Hmm...changes....

Considering this discussion about removal of finals, I will have to say its a giant step BACK, and AWAY from the changes we tried to imply not more than just 3/4 of a year ago.

You may notice that this is plain and simple going back to the old hatred system we had before.

Considering the Advanced Ladder ...I was so curious about it - I was really looking forward to hear some interesting changes here. As I have posted elsewhere.

But I am sorry to say, I still havent figured out what the big deal really is.
At first I thought there was more to it. That you were going to invent a ladder that would secure more fair cb-ing, by for example making a ladder where the clans HAD to cb each other 2 times, and therefore you needed the 3-0-1 point-system.

The way i see it now, you have just invented one more ladder to test a new way of measuring points.

But hey...I dont want to end up looking like a pissed lonestander here.

The rules have been uploaded - I have expressed my surprise (and disappointment) - of course you admins have to back up the rules, so the discussion is pretty fruitless.

And if I am the only one around here, that is disappointed with the Finals being removed, it certainly is a waste of bits and bytes to keep this discussion going.

I wish you good luck with your season.

Best regards
| ! |  Flies

[z][t-Magnetic]

Oh so serious...why oh why...it’s not life or death...it’s a computergame inside a computer.

[core.Flies]

I think my mission would be the same, no matter if it was waterpolo, paragliding, strippoker...or in this case...CB´ing with my clanmates:

I try to secure that the TIME we spend together is spend on doing the funny stuff, and not the boring stuff.

In this case : I exactly try to make it a matter of fun and computergaming.

( We dont like trying and trying for hours to get a cb, but due to ladder-system and the way its being used, we cant get any fighting going. Does that sound familiar ? )

The more this ladder is heading towards actual tournaments with preset of who-should-play-who,
the happier I would be.

Everyone has his or hers pros and cons when it comes to fixed CB-ing though, so I just try to give my own humble opinion, and hope for a solution somewhere in between.

Best regards
| ! | Flies

[BFG]

The more this ladder is heading towards actual tournaments with preset of who-should-play-who,
the happier I would be.

the thing is... that is exactly what everybody else seems to want to avoid - they want to play who they like, when they like, and most inportantly, they want to play!

[core.Flies]

I already told you, that with a ladder-system like the one we get now, I fear that the clan I represent will once again experience more of the lonely evenings, asking for CB´s over and over, but never getting them.

And thats very far from a situation where we get the chance to cb who we like, when we like.
And I can tell you ( again - sigh ).... WE WANT TO PLAY.

Although I cant speak for "everybody", I do however know a few clans and clanmembers out there,
that would appreciate a ladder-system with a more fair focus on the gaming- than on the negotiating-
part of the CB-ing.

[BFG]

Yes you have told me, yes I'm aware its an issue, and one that all clans have - i know only to well what it is like to want to cb in an evening and be unable to find a clan willing, with enough people at the right time etc... however my point is i don't think the suggested fixing of schedules etc is going to fix that problem without seriously damaging peoples enjoyment and flexibility of doing what is most important - playing.

- what i meant was they want as few obstacles, regulations, rules, settings or whatever that stipulates when they can and can't play. I know its far from easy sometimes to find a cb, but the overwhelming response in the past was that people felt it would be even harder to sort out games etc, if they could only play certain people, at certain times etc etc.

Nobody gets to play who they want, exactly when they want, but by regulating it we are not going to be achieving that - or certainly there has been no idea put forward that we have ever been able to see as logistically a sound plan for implementing such a system.

- i quite agree that playing it like a sports league etc would be much more accurate in terms of finding the best clan etc... however when it comes to flexibility for playing, people hold that in higher standing.

As i understand it, in your view such a system would resolve the issues of trying to find games etc, as you would have set times against set clans.

My response is that in my experience as a player, and from what i have heard as an admin over the years, there are several problems to this, firstly everybody has different lives, and gaming has to fit around them - so they need as much flexibility as they can. Secondly, some clans can only play once or twice a week, others are keen to be very very active - by introducing the scheduling system you are removing this flexability from them, and as i said, in my experience i don't think this is a popular move.

Of course, if the majority of the clans all turn round and say "hey actually this is what we want" they of course we would re-address it, the league is after-all set up as close to what people have asked for as possible, and if it isn't how people like it, they won't play and the league won't work.

Im afraid I can't say much more than that.

[core.Flies]

The finals.....you know, the ones that have just been removed, and the ones that are at stake in this thread...:

* Extremely popular.

* took the politics a bit out of the negotiating, by giving 4 ( or in ghr 8 ) top-clans the chance to compete
  on fair grounds.


I saw the solution with the finals as something just in between what I really wanted, and what others claimed they really wanted.



Situation could be described "graphically " hehe - let me try :


RUN FOR IT                               OPEN S. + FINALS                     FULL SEASON SCHEDULED           


Ratrace, Priority is                     Combination of Mass                   all clans get to fight each other.
"mass" and dodging                        and " Class"                         Scheduling makes it tight though.
clans above you

    X--------------------------------------X----------------------------------------X




In my point of view there are lots of possibilities in between these 3 stages of making a ladder.
I am just curious why you ( so it seems ) dont have any interest in testing them.

The DBL has been done according to the outmost left of this graphical system for years.
Then the DBL invented the finals. Thats going as far as to the middle i would say.
And now the DBL is jumping back into the dark world of the extreme left again, if you ask me.

Over the years I amongst others have suggested many scenarioes in between the middle and the extreme right of this graphical ruler. But lately these ideas are geting completely ignored.

Latest one I could find was this one, where Monoman and I try to give an idea as to how you could help geting more CB´s going :

http://www.damnr6.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=9168.0

and further, there is a specific suggestion in the thread " Season XI rule changes "

http://www.damnr6.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=9049.0

Both ideas would give you a picture of what could have been discussed.
But both ideas were never even replied by any admin.


So - im surprised by this stubbornness and sharp responding when i am talking about changes.

You only tried two scenarioes
- why are you going back the path you already stepped, instead of trying to move into new grounds.

Best regards
| ! | Flies

[BFG]

You make it sound like i have some personal vendetta against you, as if it were my and only my choice as to what happens to the league.

I am only saying what my experience has been, i've said it before, and i clearly need to say it again, that if the community as a majority wanted to make these kind of changes, then i would see no reason why they would not be addressed. Haven't you noticed how not a single other person has expressed any views against these changes?

[core.Flies]

I have noticed that I have expressed my point of view.

And so far I havent noticed any real "factual" argument as to why new paths shouldnt be tried
( except for the answer from Mauti, that the given setup with a given implementation with finals would demand too much online time for him ).

The community as a majority as you call it - I have learned never to talk as if i knew what they wanted.

But it is true... I could give up and say ...why the bother.  Lets find another ladder.
My only problem here is, that we  / I   am kinda cosy with this ladder, and we havent been able to find anything around - except for AA - that would suit us in terms of clangaming.

I am a bit surprised that no other person stands up and back up the wish for a more fun ladder to compete on ( considering the feed-back I get on GR ) - thats true. But hey, I also take it as...either they dont bother read all this stuff, or they are simply too afraid of getting involved or too busy preparing a new season.

Tomorrow is officially Core-clan´s "Decision-Day"
- and we have to decide wether or not we should go on competing like this.

* We are an old-farts club.

* We got very limited time for doing all this - so when online we aim for the kills not the talks.

* We know a few clans out there, that we would have dreamed of challenging on fair grounds.

* We see a lot of GhR players turning towars Raven Sheld, and would have loved to play them.

* We dont have that much to prove to ourselves - so the Quest for us would be to have some fun evenings.



Best regards
| ! |  Flies

[BFG]

I have noticed that I have expressed my point of view.
And so far I havent noticed any real "factual" argument as to why new paths shouldnt be tried
( except for the answer from Mauti, that the given setup with a given implementation with finals would demand too much online time for him ).

Yes, your absolutely right. I think you've expressed your point of view, and done so very clearly. And i totally agree, from what you have described of the |!| Clan, having a set tournament where times and clans were pre-arranged would suit you (presumably as long as all set games against US clans were at a decent time of day, or preferably at the weekend?)

And so far I havent noticed any real "factual" argument as to why new paths shouldnt be tried

Im sorry but your twisting what i have said, again. I've already said there is no reason why new paths should not be tried, although (and i hate to shock you here) its actually the majority of the community that we have to take into account, not individual clans. In case you hadn't actually noticed, this is a new path we are trying something new. I do wonder why you won't try it out though - it might suprise you.
So forgive me if i don't roll over and wag my tail.


Well let me give you some other reasons why we have moved away from the last set up:

One of the key reasons was to reaffirm the importance of the main seasons. We found increasingly that the main cb season was becoming irrelevant as the super finals held all the weight. Clans started to play less, and as the number of active clans decreased so the chances of being in the finals increased, and thus the need to play more clans was removed. It seems unfair for clans that have been active for 8 or more weeks, playing and competing, should have everything come down to a weekend where they might not be about, or may simply have a bad day. people want a fair level playing ground where people can enjoy playing but also compete in what they feel is a balanced set up. It was felt that we could make this set up fairer, by balancing out the importance of the super finals and the main season, and, as i'll come to now, also separate these finals into the tournaments that have been very popular, but require different work and a lot of time
Like Mauti has said, it is actually a lot of time and work to sort out the super-finals, it might not seem that way for a lot of people, but believe me it is.

The community as a majority as you call it - I have learned never to talk as if i knew what they wanted.

Congratulations. Personally though if i feel that if i don't tell the community what i think they are saying/wanting then i can't be sure that I'm not misinterpreting and misrepresenting them. I havn't said i know what they want, but i do think that over the years as a player, and an admin that i have built up a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't and the community is pretty good at telling us what they like and don't like.
The difference between how we're talking right now, is it seems that im trying to address this in the interest of the community as a whole, and your addressing it in the interests of your clan.

I am a bit surprised that no other person stands up and back up the wish for a more fun ladder to compete on ( considering the feed-back I get on GR ) - thats true. But hey, I also take it as...either they dont bother read all this stuff, or they are simply too afraid of getting involved or too busy preparing a new season.

I do love your wording here. Perhaps they don't quite agree with you that it would be more 'fun'. Perhaps it might just be conceivable that people actually are pretty happy with the set up, having the tournaments separate from the main seasons, and having the main seasons really matter in terms of the final season winners.
And if they are not... well we need to know, unfortunately we can set this up exactly how a individual clan wants, but if the majority of clans really want a change, like i have said, again and again, then we are going to address that.

Alright, im sorry time up. hopefully you will actually try this new system out, but i haven't got any more time to spare to keep trying to defend why we have made changes to the set up that might not totally fit in with what you want

All the best,
BFG

[core.Flies]

And the best to you too.
A lot of words - but mb quite ok to get them said.

The season has just started - good luck.

Best regards
| ! |  Flies