I gave the King of the Hill idea some more thought. Here’s how I’d envision it:
Legendary Level League [LLL]
Players sign up and get placed on the ladder / a level according to their latest ranking.
They get paired up through the (active) ladder, 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 etc., so will play others on a
likely comparable skill level.
Winner of the top level match is the “leader of the tournament / king of the hill” until next round.
Ladder gets re-arranged according to results (winners go up slightly (except #1), losers go down slightly (except last)). Players sign up for the next round -
… if previous ones choose not to, no problem: they won’t be considered in pairings, but lose at least one position on the ladder (to encourage staying active even high up or as leader).
… if new ones join, they will be placed on the ladder according to their relative ranking with a slight malus (to encourage joining early)
After that, back to step 2 and repeat indefinitely. I’m thinking of one round happening every two months.
It would be an endless casual tournament with players never having to sign up for more than one match, but lots of interesting matches on all skill levels, with the top being particularly competitive and the lower end being a good place to gain experience and raise the level / staying engaged due to not facing impossible opponents, but similar ones instead.
Let me know if you guys have any suggestions for changes or any other inputs on this! I’d probably set up a thread to sign up for this tournament at the beginning of the new year. A lot of its appeal will depend on the level of interest, but I hope the “opt-in” approach makes it more accessible for everyone who’s interested.
Maybe a NP2 league that umbrellas a few conferences.
Set up a regular season where about 60-75% scheduled play is within the conference for post season rankings.
Post season should include all conference regular season champions and a few wildcards.
Victories count for primary scoring in the league.
Secondary scoring should be ironed out.
Games should reach minimal tick duration before scoring secondary factors in the league.
Understanding how tournaments take a long time for NP2… League games should get about 2.5-3 week limit so everybody can stay on schedule parity.
The few league games ending early can count as a minor schedule bye.
Each game should strive to surpass a certain tick amount and then be called if the real time limit marks it time for the next league game to start.
Ideally, there should no game time overlap for league scheduled game slots.
Allow 1 - 2 reschedule weeks for league games not started.
Games rescheduled should be marked as league draws for both sides - and then later designated win or loss upon the results of the reschedule weeks.
I like the ideas you have @eplazaguest! Different conferences could account for time zone differences by setting up an American, Eur-African and Asian one.
In my opinion there’s two major issues though:
Time limit
It is true that some contested 1v1 games take way longer than that. There’s not a truly great way to tiebreak 1v1 games that I can think of, and combined with a short time limit this may incentivise a very defensive or slow play from some players.
Players dropping
Players need to commit for a few months for this format to work undisturbed - a commitment that is hardly enforcable in an online game. What happens in case some drop? How will games be handled that haven’t happened or have happened with their participation at that point?
Also, secondary scoring in NP2 is difficult as we don’t want to force players to keep grinding a game that they are sure to lose.
@Trucriot@HULK As you know I can track the “wait time” of each player. It is not minute perfect, but with time limit like 30days each, it will not matter too much. That would make it absolutely sure that the games will not continue more than 2 months per round. Propably a lot less because the timebanks reduce for both players when neather has submitted. I think 15 days would be good also so the round will go maximum of 1 month.
It’s like speed chess, if you run out of time - you loose, no matter if you have 200 stars more. That would put some more pressure on early turns to have more time later on. Early turns are many times very speedy to do for first day or two after the first big “setup turn”. It would also put pressure to attack when timebank is rolling low and you gotta catch the win etc…
Other thing that was discussed somewhere is that the rules could be changed for different rounds. I would really love to see this in LLL, normal tournaments and king of the hill. That would bring a new level of strategy to the games with different setups. Have range 5 to start in some games. LVL 7 scan to start game in another one. Give 1000 credits or 2500 in some. Just keep the EXP at zero, but vary other parameters slightly, maybe just one per round.
I have some concerns about this idea. When you play speed chess, both players are playing at the same time. But while playing NP, both player have a life to attend to.
Also depending of timezone, one player might always lose more time than another.
And more importantly, first thing I would try, is it possible/easier to win because you manage to force a timout on the opponent? By always responding fast but not too fast, or finding out when he’s working/sleeping.
I do share your concerns, but if we will not try we can not get better. Maybe everyone could set 12hours of day when the timebank does not decrease and half the time bank available. Maybe start counting only after the last submit was 2 hours ago or something… I would suggest try, fail, learn, get perfect.
Good brainstorming … the “speed chess” idea is interesting … but yea, how to prevent that from being abused … plus I’m also sensitive to people who have stuff to do in RL - I was just out of town for most of the last week myself!
Ditto what others said that it’s hard to tiebreak 1v1’s.
But with 15day timebank and 12 hour window each day when the clock doesn’t run, gives you pretty many free weekends. I’ve also been very slow in my games lately, so the December one will take some more time… Heck I’m still playing the earlier 2CC tournament. Is the one tournament earlier still running too?
There is really no way to make it faster unless we set some limits. Question is do we want tournaments to run for months or even a year or do we want to make them run like a clock with definite end date in worst case scenario or something between. Let me know what u guys wanna setup and I’ll try to make it work.
Edit: My punchline was supposed to be (before I forgot it), that I propably would have squeezed few rounds faster if there was the timebank. But timebank or not I will never let me again in the situation when there is 3 1vs1’s running simultaneously. Definite ending dates of tournaments / tournament rounds would help in that regard a lot.
No great ideas here … and I hear 'ya that it’s a challenge to be involved in multiple 1v1 games, especially if they are intense!
The December 1v1 tournament started with 27 players … and we are down to 5 … so my guess is the 22 that have been eliminated may be interested in playing another.
Absolutely! And I’d like to join it too, but no idea how long the 2CC and December are going to take. But I’m fine just running the tournament system too. It is 85% ready for you to create tournaments without my database tweeks. ;D Will try to get it forward today.
I’ve also been very slow in my games lately, so the December one will take some more time… Heck I’m still playing the earlier 2CC tournament. Is the one tournament earlier still running too?