Clan League Suggestion Box - Better? ; )

[The Voice]

Don't start phase 2 on easter weekend?

I would think everyone would have plenty of time to make their games!

Cheme will issue medals and such soon. It is Easter weekend.

...

Easter weekend...

This is Monday and I am just now getting KOA games list finished. Our original contact switched clans and I had to take his place and absolutely am not up to speed on this. So don't feed us the "plenty of time" crap.

jefjef and Leehar if you cannot handle timelines set down by the people who do all the work i suggest you find someone who can out of your 50 members. chemefreak is trying to make this run smooth and avoid the pissing and moaning, so give the organizers and clan mods a break and follow the rules and timelines please.

But this is a complaint box...what else would go here?

[Bones2484]

I'll just go with a generic "Our Division was run so poorly in Phase 1 that we had no idea what the hell was going on half the time. The rules kept changing and the rules were sporadically enforced at what seemed was the whim of the organizer. This lead G1 to completely stop caring about the event and will likely hold us out of all future Clan Leagues and Cups and focus only one 1v1 wars."

[TheMissionary]

In phase 1 I feel MM was prejudiced against in one of our batches. We had our games sent and posted in the forum before all but 1 other clan for round 5. I got the reply that "Games were supposed to be done by today."
However every other clan got to use their home games. The rules simply stated that games had to be sent and posted in the forum for your opponents.

If you review the thread, ours were not the last posted, but we were the only ones on random maps (other than the clan that requested random). To me that blatantly shows prejudice.

I think MM will also be avoiding future clan leagues of this format.

[alt1978]

I'm digging the complaint box...and several of these issues being brought up are good to address in Clan League 5.

I wanted to weigh in on the complexity of what the league is trying to accomplish. First of all...with the shear number of clans participating...it is an organizational nightmare to try and manage. If you look at CC Cup...undisputedly a well oiled machine that produces some of the best cc action on the site...with 32 clans playing there are only 31 match ups (maybe a couple more with play-ins). In the league...in round 1 alone for a 6 team there were 15 match ups to manage. Add that up and multiply it out and you get a whole shit-ton of match-ups to manage.

Has clan league 4 been run without a hitch?
Probably not. To say there is no room for improvement is nieve at best...but I just ask that folks consider the degree of difficulty of what is trying to be taken on.

Also...I wanted to lump a set of complaints into one category and look at them from another light. There was the decision to award a clan a division spot in favor of another without games being played. There were uneven divisions in terms of numbers of teams distributed in each (there were no play-in games like in cc cup). The schedule has been really tight and unforgiving.

These three things stand out as the strongest complaints about cl4. I would say that all three of these issues come down to one central theme...and that is that there isn't enough time. It's easy to say now...let's slow down...another week doesn't matter. However, in the conception and planning of CL4...there were two main concerns for moving the league forward.

A) Make the league more inclusive
B) Make the league not take so long

(There was also C)...nuke spoils...but that is a topic for another thread and another day)

I would say this league has flaws...areas of improvement etc. in its form. If the organizers were given the sense by the community that the community at large in the future was comfortable with a more sprawling time table for the league...I think a lot of these issues would be resolved. However I feel the league has been wildly successful in its function...which is getting unique groupings of clans together...and letting them duke it out. I don't think there is really any argument that clans in the top tier aren't worthy...and I don't think there is any shame at all in being in tier two or any of the subsequent tiers.

For this...I say Hats Off to dj and rj.

Again...the degree of difficulty for what is trying to be pulled off here is ridiculous...so I just urge that folks give everyone a chance to learn along the way and be patient as details are ironed out. The criticism has certainly been helpful...so let's keep the ideas coming and hopefully we can turn those into an even more polished piece of work next time around.

Thank you dj and rj for all of your hard work...and thanks to the other organizers for the time you all have given this.

[Crazyirishman]

The schedule has been really tight and unforgiving

This is the only issue I had with the format, mainly because (no surprise) it affected my clan significantly. The time it takes is also not the best as there can be games that mess-up the whole thing, for example:

Game 10618023

If one of our other games hadn't taken a swing and it was 6-5 LoW our division would still be up in the air, and we still wouldn't have the top two divisions decided at this point. A way to fix this could simply be having round limits implemented into league games. I am not complaining about where we ended up, AoC played well and deserved that top spot, but this shows how the league can be put to a halt because of one game.

[lordnex]

I feel that my clan (Empire) was unfairly prejudiced in that the 'equalizing possibilities vis a vis qualification with clans from larger divisions' with adding of only 1 point and 6 wins + losses, severely diminished our win percentage. Our win percentage of 77% was the best across all clans involved in Phase 1, but we were granted a draw against our mythical 6th clan, while other divisions had the opportunity to benefit with a victory from a lesser seed.

While we managed to only suffer being given 3rd place overall despite our superior record, doubtless myriad other clans were forced into lower divisions despite their better results.

There is not really a good way to solve that problem, as far as I am aware. Granting you your average result against the other clans in your division also doesn't capture the "weakest clan doesn't exist". And granting the average result of the clan with the same ranking in other divisions against the lowest ranked clan in that division is a solution that's so complicated it becomes unfeasible.

Yes, there is a good way. You simply disregard results against 6th placed team in 6-team groups. I'd agree with Leehar, biggest problem was this unfair rule that gave advantage to teams in 6-team groups.

[IcePack]

Didn't everyone know the rules prior to sign up / start up regarding 6 team groups though?

[Swifte]

Didn't everyone know the rules prior to sign up / start up regarding 6 team groups though?

They should have, but sometimes it's hard to determine how the rules will impact the outcome untill you actually play the games and see the actual impact... that's what feedback is for.

[IcePack]

Ok - I understand. Just making sure I knew the situation clearly.

[eddie2]

alt can i give you a list off problems i have seen so far.(there is not that many.)

1)sign up rules need to be followed i seen 2 clans that had not completed 1 war in the phase 1. so either sign ups are open to all or they follow the guidelines they set out in the thread.

2)on the start of each phrase each clan rep needs to be pmed telling them it has started. i don't know about other divisions but group 4 has had 2 clans miss the first deadline because we did not know it started.

3) there needs to be at least a 2 week period from the announcement of the tables to the start of game creation. and if this time period is during a public holiday it needs to be extended the amount of time needed. this is to allow time to sort out what maps you want for what week games.

4) callouts for all leagues or cups wanting clans to join should be in the clan war callout section until sign ups close. not in clan general discussion pages.

5) in the opening phase there needs to be a rule added for clans who have qualified in 1 of the top 2 spots and are obviously throwing games.(this was something seen but no rule to enforce against it..and was in the past so9 not gonna comment any further about who what or where.)

[alt1978]

Thanks Eddie...

Those are well thought out criticisms that I think will help. I know from working with RJ behind the scenes that he is passionate about doing this thing right and he cares very much about putting out a top notch product. There are going to be hiccups with an undertaking of this size.

To address the complaints about the 6 versus 5 team groupings...that is certainly something that will be looked at very closely for next year's league. Just to reiterate where that decision was coming from...the league was trying to be inclusive and let as many clans have a shot at a variety of match-ups as possible. I'm not saying that the decision was right or fair...but i'm saying that given the criteria that were given to rj to start the league...the uneven groups with slightly less balanced scoring outweighed cutting some clans out...or forcing clans to perform some kind of "play-in".

Thanks again to everyone's input.

[WPBRJ]

Didn't everyone know the rules prior to sign up / start up regarding 6 team groups though?

They should have, but sometimes it's hard to determine how the rules will impact the outcome untill you actually play the games and see the actual impact... that's what feedback is for.

this is probably the most true statement i have seen any were about the rules for that matter. i have to say in conversations with DJ we never expected certain things to turn out the way they did and there are for sure corrections to made for next year.

[DJ Teflon]

The already tight Easter deadline could have been somewhat alleviated by announcing the schedules at the same time as the division placements. The schedules should have already been set up with generic names that could have been filled as soon as the selections were announced. For example:

• Round 1: 8 April
  
  • Team 4 - Team 1
    
  • Team 5 - Team 2
    
  • Team 6 - Team 3
  • Team 7 - Team 8
• Round 2: 15 April
  
  • Team 2 - Team 4
    
  • Team 3 - Team 1
  • Team 8 - Team 5
  • Team 7 - Team 6
• Week 3 = Divisional Knock-Out Tournaments - First Round: 22 April
  
  
• Round 3: 29 April
  
  • Team 4 - Team 3
    
  • Team 2 - Team 8
  • Team 1 - Team 7
  • Team 5 - Team 6
• Round 4 - 6 May
  
  • Team 8 - Team 4
    
  • Team 7 - Team 3
  • Team 6 - Team 2
  • Team 5 - Team 1
• Round 5 - 13 May
  
  • Team 4 - Team 7
    
  • Team 8 - Team 6
  • Team 3 - Team 5
  • Team 2 - Team 1
• Round 6 - 20 May
  
  • Team 6 - Team 4
    
  • Team 5 - Team 7
  • Team 1 - Team 8
  • Team 2 - Team 3
• Round 7 - 27 May
  
  • Team 4 - Team 5
    
  • Team 6 - Team 1
  • Team 7 - Team 2
  • Team 8 - Team 3

Where:
Team 1 = TOFU
Team 2 = IA
Team 3 = EMP
Team 4 = PACK
Team 5 = AOC
Team 6 = AFOS
Team 7 = TSM
Team 8 = KORT

Creating the schedule while we were waiting for the Phase 1 games to finish up would have allowed clans an extra day or two to prepare for their matchups this week.

Feel free top send any good ideas in advance to event organisers

[MudPuppy]

Feel free top send any good ideas in advance to event organisers

My foresight isn't nearly as good as my hindsight, though.

[eddie2]

show: before wpbrj interuption.

then things were sorted without him

show: everything sorted

then i think his feeling were hurt so he stirred shit up again. so like he wants to say i was the guilty party let his small mind think this. but in all effect he was baiting me into responses after it had been fixed.and i really could not be arsed with a inexperianced abnoxious sod who has never run a tourney giving people he did not want in it crap. he is on a power rush and thinks he has the backing of everyone also thinking he is higher than the moderators who watch this section to make sure they are run correct.