I think Edge idea is the best we can do. Do not make any changes and decide whether or not a player is allowed to keep playing.

Only downside, you might get Clan League levels of complainment about your decisions :p

I thought about it. That could really be the only problem, but on the other hand i expect a ban to happen if there is totally clear that a player is stalling. So i don't see many people, expect the guy himself and maybe his clanmates be angry about the decision. I do think everything else will be handed properly and decided on a good basis from Pushover. Especially if there weren't different former decision, like it was in CL. Different persons made different decisions and set different bars, so that lead to misunderstanding in a part of the community. Here u have 1 guy who can make his own decisions and set his own bars. I think that won't lead to much complains.

Pretty sad that game inventor didn't put possibility in tournaments to have banked time. Thus each player will have starting 3 days and after that 1-2 days per turn, and if someone takes vacation, other player will benefit having more time to spend. However, banked time should not increase 20% per turn in tournaments and should last for limited turn span.

Other possibility is that overall time for game is limited to, say, for example but not limited to, 10 days per player (again with some banking time), so players should really be aware of that and if the game looks dim, one will be forced to do moves faster and try to force better one to be booted, depending on strategy.

The last proposal is to set time for ENTIRE tournament (when RR is used), so quicker players in early games will have more time to finish in later games, and vice versa.

But, for this, either some scripts should be added to game creation or Fizzer should involve himself in changing the game mechanism.

Edited 10/28/2016 12:14:42

I'm actually trying my best to play somewhat quicker in the League whenever I can (but you know, work...)

sorry i am taking so long with my turns :/

Helooo :)

Is it possible for me to participate next season?

if yeah, then sign me up! :)

First thing I will note: Metatron in particular is not at fault here. I believe he has legitimate reasons for being slow. He was also unlucky in that he had two long duration games at once that held up all his other games. If anti-stall rules were put in place at the beginning of the season I would assume Metatron would make sure he is in compliance, even if he doesn't play as well.

To group F1 players, I don't blame you guys either. That group was kind of a perfect storm of delays.

I'm just noticing a weakness in the league format and am trying to brainstorm solutions.

@Edge: this is an interesting idea. At the beginning of the season, make the deadline clear, and after the deadline make a judgement call. The purpose would be to exclude slower players from the league if we think they are holding everyone up.

Under this system, Metatron would be tossed out from C1, *both* PhucilliJerry and Platinum would be tossed out from D2, and F1 would be allowed to continue to completion. Tossed players would be removed for inactivity/stalling. If this is too harsh, I could just apply a loss for each outstanding game. When two players stall together, both players get losses.

Of course, given F1 is still continuing, I could wait to toss anyone until we are ready to start the next season.

I feel somewhat uncomfortable with this solution. It means I have to make a judgement call. And then one has to wonder about a decision that also results in a positive result for me. Metatron being tossed means I have a promotion chance when I didn't have one previously. On this surface, this sort of decision is sketchy! On the other hand, fewer players are affected than other changes like 3 games at once.

__________

Aaaand one last thing. I'm going with 5 newbie groups next season, which will bump up 7 players from waitlist to participants. But no more for season 21!

Edited 10/30/2016 23:14:08

I don't feel u need to make a judgement call. At least not during the season. If the deadline is over, than u can let the guys finish their games. Of course that could result in even more stalling, until the elimination but if that's the case the opponent can explain it and just surrender the game. Then u still can take a look at it and receive him/her a win for that, if it's obvious that the guy would have won.

Afterwards u take a look on the players gameplay and tell them if they get any sort of punishment or if they weren't responsible for holding exceeding the deadline.

I wouldn't also toss someone out of his group. Just if someone was an obvious staller and gets banned, but otherwise i would prefer these guys to stay in their group. I do think, that this will take some drama out of the decision, because some other players, maybe yourself would benefit from tossing players out of their current groups.

This idea is basically like a tournament boot time. There is the obvious 3-day boot for each individual game, but I don't think it's a bad idea to implement a time frame for each season.

Any player who is taking a long time could receive a warning at the expiry of the season allotted time (say you give them 10 days to complete their remaining games), and this could be followed by an auto-relegation (not as harsh as kicking someone out of the league) if they fail to complete.

Now obviously, the player in a winning position would want to get the game finished and so speed up their play. I think you could check on the game during that final 10 days and get a pretty good idea if one particular player is stalling.

if im looking at group F1 right, i have won, even if i lose the next two games, as i have beaten the other players with both 2 looses

@ 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