@ Push
I must compliment you on your good work and effort placed in the administration of P/R league.

OK I'am back in full working order now that summer has ended(work reduced by 75%). and I have some time for warlight. :)
I apologize for not taking my turns faster this season, but I was very busy and did not want to rush commit as usual.

I committed all my games now, waiting for others.(long wait which I deserve :P)


About your problem pushy, these problems were there before you started administering the P/R league so it is not your fault, they were just less apparent with fewer players.


More players means more chances of players stalling the tournament for some reason or other.


It has too many players, which means a lot of work for you to administer it.
Administering it must be a huge pain.

So thanks a lot for all your hard work and dedication.

As I have suggested before, I see only few solutions that would effectively help your problem.

More games need to be played at once, but at the same time you cannot increase the games per player.

I see no better option rather then:

--reduce the group size to 6
--split the league in 2 or more

All other options previously discussed will never work as effectively.

Let me explain how this works.

Less group size has these advantages:

--reduces the games being played per group = Faster league
--easier to administer(its easier to create and faster to start the tournament)= Faster league
--reduce chances of stallers/vacations = Faster league
--if stallers happen they can finish their games faster since there are fewer games. = Faster league

Less group size has these disadvantages:
-players will be playing only 5 opponents instead of 6 per group
-promotion/relegation process has to cater for such number efficiently.

The other part is of having the same number of groups but in a different leagues, thus if a group is slow it won't effect all the players in the league but only half of them.(or less depending on how many leagues there are which depends on number of players)

So payers who cannot handle more then 2 games at once can play in just 1 of them while others can play in both in case of dropouts(reduce super promotions= reduce administrative work)

The positive of this is that the pool of which players playing in groups is doubled without effecting the league.
Instead of having 2 groups in C which doubles the chances of stallers you would have 2 groups of C in different Leagues.
Thus One league can still progress and probably even start the next season even though one group is stalling 1 of the leagues.

This makes P/R league more flexible.

(the suggested proposal)
PR League xx Alpha:

Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F

PR League xx Omega

Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F

This means that promotions can come from both groups and allow one of the leagues to progress to next season if some conditions are met.

Final:
Group A winner Alpha vs Group A winner Omega.
Will decide the map or something.

(the names are up to pushy though)

Now of course this is a draft and a lot of conditions can be placed like for example:
-Stalling group decisions for next season effected by the other leagues outcome too.
(thus reduce the responsibility from pushy shoulder of making the hard calls)


Also something needs to be said about the transitioning from 1 huge bulky league to a multiple fast leagues= how will groups be assigned.

I'd suggest odd groups go to Alpha and even to Omega.

So current group A goes to Alpha group A while current group B group to Omega Group A after promotions of this season are assigned.

I am open to ideas on improvements of this since it is just a draft but I think I outlined the concept quite clearly.

Also one must point out that even though they are 2(or more) leagues with their own P/R they are still 1 huge league that has only 1 winner.
The amount of work to do them is either the same or less if that was the reason for the idea to be dismissed the first time.

What do you guys think?

Edited 11/1/2016 02:52:39

Thanks Metatron. The faster you can complete your games the faster we can move on to the next season.

Smaller group size is a non starter. I have too many players in the league, and I will not add more tiers. The number of players in the league pressures me to make groups larger, not smaller. This is why the tier system was tried out this season (and I think it's a great success).

Practically, I'm only interested in administering one league, and I'm sure the other players agree: there should only be one top group and there should only be one champion. It makes more sense that, if there's a demand, someone else administers a differnt league with different rules if desired.

So basically something has got to give. I can't keep everyone happy. I have no choice but to alienate someone.

Of all the options, there are two I like best, in some combination:

* The first option is having 3 concurrent games and increasing the boot limit to 4.
* The second option is having a league-wide deadline with additional rules to help govern what happens in outstanding games. (with lots of email warnings in the meantime) That is, if it's obvious who we are waiting on, we just give up those games and move on. If it's not obvious we do nothing. And no action is taken until we are ready to start the next season. (All of this as discussed above)

I want to implement at least one of these. Those of you paying attention to this thread, which would you prefer?

Edited 11/1/2016 06:33:09

Also I'd like to update status of the remaining groups, as we've recently seen some progress!

GROUP C2
smileyleg (6-0) - WINNER, Promotes to B
Pushover (4-2)
Metatron (3-1)
Hades (3-2)
Don [ Ω ] (1-4) - Relegates to D
Master Atom ◆Elite◆ (1-5) - Removed for inactivity (surrendering without playing)
Ollie (1-5) - Removed for inactivity (boots)

smileyleg has a come from behind victory against Metatron to take the group with an undefeated record! Metatron needs to beat Hades to secure second place. If Hades beats Metatron, and Metatron beats Don, there will be a three way tie for second place. Metatron's final games vs Hades and Don are distributing and in turn 4, respectively.

I'm going to be blunt here: it's very very likely that in the interest of time I just give the 3rd group B promotion to 2nd place in group C1, almosttricky.

GROUP D2
Dom365 (5-1) - WINNER, Promotes to C
Arkanton (4-2) - Promotes to C
Master Jz (4-2) - Promotes to C
Maréchal Lannes, duc de Montebello (3-3)
PhucilliJerry (2-3)
Platinum (2-3)
MightySpeck (a Koala) (0-6) - Relegates to E

Still waiting on PhucilliJerry vs. Platinum. Good news, a turn has advanced! Bad news, we're waiting for a vacation to expire on the 2nd. This game is in turn 12.

GROUP F1
AWOL Gls AJ (4-0) - WINNER, Promotes to E
Math Wolf (4-2, 1-1) - Promotes to E
Pink (4-2, 1-1) - Promotes to E
Hunta (4-2, 1-1) - Promotes to E
bobbob000 (1-4)
BADA (1-4)
[wolf]japan77 (0-4)

AJ beats Pink to take the group win! Hunta beats Math Wolf to secure a 3 way tie for second place between Math Wolf, Pink, and Hunta. Breaking the tie doesn't matter, as all 4 will promote. And so the battle is now for relegation. There are three remaining games, AJ vs BADA (turn 5), AJ vs japan77 (turn 15), and japan77 vs bobbob000 (turn 4). japan77 must beat bob to have a chance at preventing relegation.

I want to implement at least one of these. Those of you paying attention to this thread, which would you prefer?

The second option for me. League wide deadline FTW!

I second MotD for the second option

I wouldn't have a problem with No. 1, but my vote goes to No. 2.

I'm not in this league, but as I said earlier, I think there's a lot of value for option #2.

Welcome, I will try to finish all the games.

"Smaller group size is a non starter. I have too many players in the league,"
It seems to me that you did not do the math here.
The more groups you have the less games you are playing, the more different players you can accommodate.
Smaller group size increases the number of groups and decreases the number of games in total.

"and I will not add more tiers."
Yes you would need to add tiers (groups).
That is the only way to have more games playing at once without increasing the 2 games per player limit.

"The number of players in the league pressures me to make groups larger, not smaller."
I think this is personal bias, if you do the math, its less time consuming if you have more small groups then less groups but bigger.
Easier to administer then a larger group, the only extra work may come from P/R of those groups but that can be solved by having separate leagues(separate P/R)

You need to consider the slowest of players:(i.e. the ones on vacation)
They will finish 5 games much faster then 6 games.


"This is why the tier system was tried out this season (and I think it's a great success)."
It was a success in accommodating all those players in the league because you increased the groups rather then increased the group size, which was something we agreed on eventually.

You mean it solved the stallers problem which was your main problem from start?
Then why are we debating this?

It was a failure with regards to the 3 month per league, as I see it. It changed nothing, if not make it worse since its more likely now to have stallers then before.

Option 2 makes no sens to me since if you are putting a limit, then why are you putting vacations?
Since anyone on vacation will most likely exceed that time limit.

I don't know who said the 60 days limit was OK?
Seriously?
groups of 7 = 6 games each player= 10 days for each game to finish, taking an average of a day to commit turns.
You are actually saying that each game has to end in 10 turns?
seriously?
What about vacations of 10 days?
He will only play 5 games and then he must forfeit the other one?


I think the problem lies that people are naive to the actual time people take to finish a good long game. A 20 turn game can easily accede the 2 weeks on multi day, thus you have to assume the worst case when making time limit, and not use the average game time.

Else you would remove the fun out of the league which is the last thing you want to do.

Some of my best games are over 20 turns and that is what makes them fun and challenging.

Push please reconsider making more groups since it was such a success in accommodating more players, you should use it to reduce the group size and speed up the league a lot.

Also you can ask for help in administering some tiers/leagues.

Edited 11/1/2016 16:02:56

groups of 7 = 6 games each player= 10 days for each game to finish, taking an average of a day to commit turns.

Since it's 2 games at a time, it's actually 20 days per game.

You are right Beren, Thanks.

Doesn't change the point I raised, each game can easily take more then 10 turns on worse acceptable game.
Playing 2 at a time does not change the fact that you will definatly exceed the 60 day limit without using a vacation.

My average on multi days is about a bit less then 2 days and so it is for some people so if you redo the math.
I was too generous when I took the average game time of a day, if you take 2 days it becomes the same.

Taking average of worst acceptable case= 2 days each turn.
Taking 2 games at a time = length of 3 games instead of 6 each player.

60 days / 3(length of game time) = 20 days to finish each game. 20 days /2 days for each turn = 10 turns each game anyway.

Edited 11/1/2016 16:38:05

Making more groups/tiers would still mean more time needed to promote to higher tiers and that's exactly why groups were changed last time around.

You can't say "finish this after 60 days and we're good", because, as Pushover and Metatron examined in their posts, there are many different stories that make it impossible to work. Throwing out players would lower competitiveness and we don't want it. It's not like they stall on purpose of delaying everything.

Please don't change anything.


By the way, I changed my mind and wish to stay in the League.

Edited 11/1/2016 16:49:49

I'd rather have the 2 option.

@ Min34
There aren't only 2 options where you need to choose the the bad or the worst.
If you disagree with both say so.

I am proposing not a different league, the same league but with 2 or more separate P/R systems in it.

Thus it speeds us the league just like the tier system does with the difference of not having the drawback of a single group holding the P/R of the entire league but just of half of it or less.
It can also cater for a tier system in it but it might not be even needed.

@ Onoma94
Thus making the P/R league more flexible in general and also allowing more groups without the "time needed to promote to higher tiers" problem.
Also allowing pushy to assign the administration of an entire P/R system to someone else without making it too confusing for co-ordination.

Edited 11/1/2016 19:37:01

Metatron from what i've heard you clearly stalled the progress in your group and now you claim it's unfair to get rid of overly slow players? Maybe better play faster or at least be aware you might get kicked from the league next season.

"60 days / 3(length of game time) = 20 days to finish each game. 20 days /2 days for each turn = 10 turns each game anyway"

And there's the obvious problem i see. Speed shouldn't average on 2 days! You are allowed to take up to 2d23hours, but in fact this should only happen if you are busy the other days, and not as standard.

Edit: i don't see pushover kicking someone after 60 days just because he had 6 games with 20+ turns, as long as he plays on a reasonable speed. What i hope we get rid off, are the abusive players who play every turn extremely slow

Edited 11/1/2016 19:40:03

"Metatron from what i've heard you clearly stalled the progress in your group and now you claim it's unfair to get rid of overly slow players?"
That is a weird way to interpret what i said.
i said:
"Taking average of worst acceptable case= 2 days each turn."
That does not fall under "overly slow players" in my opinion.
It is the usual multiday 3 day boot speed of those players who play multi day and have a busy life.

About me taking 2 days 23 hrs, that is true, but it only happened because i did not want to take a 15 day vacation and slow down the tournament even more.
The tournament took too long to start and RL work dropped on me this summer.

I consider this a very likely scenario that will happen again the more players participate, and unlike me, they won't risk boot but will take vacations.

I am trying to help solving this issue for everyone.

"Maybe better play faster or at least be aware you might get kicked from the league next season."
So you are saying that if a guy takes 2 days to play his turns he should not join the league?

Why not make it 2 day boot then or remove vacations with your same reasoning?

"And there's the obvious problem i see. Speed shouldn't average on 2 days!"
It does not average on 2 days in normal circumstances but you are not taking normal circumstances, we are talking about a tournament that takes months and within this long time period people will be busy with one thing or another.

With few players this wasn't a big issue because the league used to end in less then a month, but with increasing players this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.

"You are allowed to take up to 2d23hours, but in fact this should only happen if you are busy the other days, and not as standard."
Is not my standard, but I had a 15 day period where i should have taken a vacation and I did not.
So I kept delaying my turn till I had an hr to spend for WR to do a proper turn, unfortunately for me that didn't happen all the turns.

Edited 11/1/2016 19:58:49

I know that I'm just joining this season. But in general I would rather play more games at a time than have the specter of a forced finish or other time limit looming over everything. I would prefer that if I need a vacation, I can go on a vacation. If I need to play slowly for whatever reason, then I play slowly.

Intentionally stalling games is of course obnoxious. Please don't do that.

There aren't only 2 options where you need to choose the the bad or the worst.
If you disagree with both say so.

I am proposing not a different league, the same league but with 2 or more separate P/R systems in it.

I don't really care tbh. If it stays like it is right now I'm ok with it. If it needs to change I'll also be ok with it. However, if there is going to be a chance I would rather have option 2

( The second option is having a league-wide deadline with additional rules to help govern what happens in outstanding games. (with lots of email warnings in the meantime) That is, if it's obvious who we are waiting on, we just give up those games and move on. If it's not obvious we do nothing. And no action is taken until we are ready to start the next season.)

I think this is the best option there is and the one that will involve the least change to a very good league. For most players nothing will change.

Edited 11/1/2016 22:39:00

Jesus.. i haven't even played one game in this league and its already so much drama xD

in my opinion its simple, really.

obviously there is discontent about the speed/duration of this league.

3 options

1. leave settings as they are
2. increase game count
3. decrease boot time/vacations

now its up to the creators of this league ta make a decision, and all of us will life with that decision or simply quit the league and let the rest of us play in peace.

(if pushover doesnt wanna take this decision on his own, he could make a public poll with google docs or survey-monkey or whatever)

Let me be clear about how I would imagine option 2 would work, assuming 60 day deadline. Note that for next season, with Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays coming up, I'll probably make it 75 days to start.

* League officially begins at the join deadline, even if some tournaments begin before then
* A blurb is pasted into each group's comments explaining the new rule
* At 30 days before the deadline, all groups are analyzed. Anyone who looks like they could run afoul of the rule will get a private message warning. Say, fewer than 3 games completed.
* At 14 days before the deadline, a warning will go out to all players with any outstanding games.
* At 7 days before the deadline, another warning will go out to all players with any outstanding games.
* At the deadline, the league is analyzed. If a group F1 situation arises, then the deadline is extended until the group is resolved to where slow players can individually be identified. All players with outstanding games are notified with progress.
* No one will be removed from the league for slow play, rather, the delaying player will be given losses and the non delaying player will be given wins.
* If a player speeds up their play but their *opponent* slows down their play in hopes to get a default judgement, well, that's pretty much grounds for being kicked out. Screw that.
* If players who play each other both delay, they are both given losses.
* This rule will only be used to help decide promotions and relegations - things that prevent the next season from starting.

Using this season as an example:

* At Oct 8 update, we use the 30 day guideline, and the following players are given warnings: Metatron, AJ, Math Wolf, Hunta, japan77
* (Skipping the 14 days left guideline since I didn't have enough updates)
* At 7 days left (using my Oct 25 update), the following players are given warnings: Metatron (only player with outstanding games), PhucilliJerry & Platinum (game delayed by vacations), all players in group F1
* At 0 days left (Oct 31 update), we analyze the groups....
* In group F1, AJ and japan77 are determined to be holding up the league. AJ is given 2 losses (he promotes), japan77 is given 2 losses (he relegates), and both BADA and bob are given an extra win each, and they stay in tier F.
* In group D2, both PhucilliJerry and Platinum are given losses from their head to head. This doesn't break the relegation contest, clearly. Since we don't actually have a result between them, I'm forced to use average turn speed in their game. Yuck. (As it turns out though, just waiting for Phucilli's vacation to end was good enough, and Platinum gets the real win.)
* In group C2, Metatron is given 2 additional losses, and stays in tier C. Pushover gets the promotion playoff. Eww, an admin makes a decision that benefits himself.

It's my *hope* that given a threat of this sort of action, players will make a point to take two turns each 3 days, and I'll never *have* to actually take such action. But bleh. Can't we just do 3 games at a time?

@Metatron

"With few players this wasn't a big issue because the league used to end in less then a month"

Sorry but I have to cry B.S. here. Prior seasons were delayed just as much as they are now. The reason why I am bringing up this issue isn't so much because of season length, but because of how long it takes for a talented new player to rise to the top group: literally a year or two. It's the tier navigation that has been negatively affected by how large this league has gotten, not season duration. I'm hoping that slightly shortening season duration should help with the tier navigation issue.

So if it seems that I'm bringing up an issue that was never an issue, well, you're not wrong.

"So you are saying that if a guy takes 2 days to play his turns he should not join the league?"

You are in the minority. Even the slower players in group F1 take 2 turns each 3 days, for an average of 36 hours per turn or less. As i said before, I feel like to run this league the best way I can, I have to piss some people off. I piss off fewer people with the "season boot" rule than 3 games at a time.

That said, maybe I should piss off more people. 8 player groups and 3 games at a time makes so many things easier: everyone is allocated 3 games at start of season, I can be more liberal with promotions and relegations, and there are fewer tiers to navigate to the top. Maybe I shouldn't be afraid to lose players this way.

"Why not make it 2 day boot then or remove vacations with your same reasoning?"

Because of flexibility. Most the players in the league will play quickly, take a vacation, then play quickly again. Or, they want to think about a move for a couple days, or are busy one weekend and resume when they get back. The idea behind the season boot rule is that I *want* you to take up to 3 days per turn when you need it, and I *want* you to take a vacation when you need it, but I *also* want you to finish 6 games in 60 days.

"Is not my standard, but I had a 15 day period where i should have taken a vacation and I did not."

This period of time covers 6 turns, but the data does not back this up. In your game against me you played 11 straight turns at 2 days 14 hours or more. That is a full month.

"Sorry but I have to cry B.S. here. Prior seasons were delayed just as much as they are now."

No they were not, I remember when this league had ABCDE as groups and it was quick, it did end in a month. Definitely never 3 months in the beginning.
Then groups started to increase with F etc.. and more players per group, and we started to see more then a month time periods.

"You are in the minority."
No I' am not, I did not even take a vacation.
Those who take vacations will stall more then I did, especially if you have 2 vacations in the same group.
You are miscalculating your worse acceptable case which I did not even fall under.


"but because of how long it takes for a talented new player to rise to the top group"
I don't know how you cannot see the relation.
It takes a year because every season takes months to finish.
That is the main issue.
If there are 6 groups, a person at the bottom needs 5 seasons to get to top minimum, unless super promoted.
5 seasons x 3 months(including administration time) = 1 year+ time.

"It's the tier navigation that has been negatively affected by how large this league has gotten, not season duration."
Even season duration, every season it takes longer because it has more players.= more chances for people to go on vacation and stall the league.

"Because of flexibility. Most the players in the league will play quickly, take a vacation, then play quickly again."
You are being naive if you think that vacations won't screw this flawed concept of yours.
You cannot play fast if you were on vacation, you would still have to wait on the availability of the others in the group.
If I took a vacation with you and another player we would still be playing right now and there would be nothing you would say to me except that I took a vacation. Then if someone on our group takes a vacation after my vacation, we will be in the same situation where you cannot blame anybody for it.
The only solution to this are either 3 games per player, separate P/R or lower group size to reduce the chance of vacations in the same group.
EDIT:
OR find some way for players to be able to start all their games in the RR when they want.

"The idea behind the season boot rule is that I *want* you to take up to 3 days per turn when you need it, and I *want* you to take a vacation when you need it, but I *also* want you to finish 6 games in 60 days."
Yea we all want many things but we cannot get all we want can we?

I thought we were debating an issue and how to solve it but it seems I was wrong.

It is my opinion that there are situations when 6 games cannot be finished in 60 days with vacations for the reasons I mentioned, which you did not address.

Your opinion seems that it can work and you seem committed to it enough to not consider any other options, so you should try it and see how it goes.

More players = more chances of vacation in the same group which in turn slows down the league which in turn slows down promotions of skilled players.
Unfortunately this problem is not being addressed well.

I think I gave my contribution to help with the issue.

"This period of time covers 6 turns, but the data does not back this up. In your game against me you played 11 straight turns at 2 days 14 hours or more. That is a full month."
I said 15 days of vacation were needed but I had busy work all summer.

Just so you know my position:

I have no problem with 3 games at a time now and neither any problem with the 60 day limit for me personally, I can handle that.

I am sure some people won't eventually because in 60 days anything can happen, like what happened to me, that is why I think it is a horrible idea.

Edited 11/2/2016 10:47:08