An idea for a league structure...

Funky

So with the community slowly growing I thought I'd post up an idea for a team league structure I've been thinking about for a while and would like to set up once there's enough players around.

Basically it's something along the lines of the format of what the proleague uses for BW or WC3L. There doesn't really need to be a limit to the amount of teams in the league, but 16 would be the ideal eventual aim.

Each team would consist of at least 3 players, in a perfect world I'd like it to be more but since 16 teams of three would be 48 people I figured that's aiming pretty high already(48 is just the goal, it wouldn't be necessary. In fact it might work even better with 24 since the season would take half the time to get through). It would be 1 division where each team plays each other once with 1 match a week, so the times would be flexible enough that there shouldn't really be any issue with people not being able to find a time where the players are all free. You could even split up the separate games of the match over a few days if needs be.

The format of each gameweek would be:

1. 1v1 on map a
2. 1v1 on map b
3. 1v1 on map c
4. 2v2 on map d

All of these are bo1 and count toward 1 point to the score of the team match. Originally I thought of having an uneven number of matches but found it difficult to do with 3 players and thought it might be nice to have draws also be possible. The players for each map are nominated blindly to the admin before finding out who you're up against. So essentially you can choose to put races with their strong maps, or try predict what players the other team are going to put on what map and match your own against them etc. The map pool would change every week, well most probably have a few groups and cycle through them.

Like most leagues it'd be 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw.

An example of how a gameweek's winner/loser might be decided would go like this:
Team A wins 2 of the 1v1's and the 2v2, Team B just win one 1v1. The match score would be 3-1 so Team A would get 3 points in the league and a +2 win/loss difference.

The season goes on until all teams have played each other and the final league positions become the seeds for a playoff. Which would be a single elimination tournament bracket of the same structure, except each game of the match would now be bo3. I'm not too sure how the playoffs should work exactly since draws would still be possible, so maybe the map win/loss difference would be factored in or something.

So what I wanted was some feedback like:

Would you play?
Would you change the structure?
Is it a problem that it would essentially run over a few month period? Is that too long?
How do you think the playoffs should work?
Any other feedback anyone would like to give!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I'll play, but i'm not going to give any feedback because that sounds like it would involve thinking on my part.

The_Keeper

Sounds pretty good, I would play. I like the level of thought you've put in.

Would the teams be selected by the players, or would they be pre-assigned based on skill level? The skill level on boards ranges from bronze to diamond, so blindly nominating players for maps might not work so well, you would end up with a lot of one-sided matches.

What if the highest ranked players from each team plays each other, then the 2nd highest ranked players from each team play, and so on...?

I would have no problem with it taking a few months to complete.

What if everyone threw in a few quid to make it a bit more interesting?

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Xios

I'll play, €5 each to spice it up? nice prize pool there for first place team and runner ups. €240 split, so first place gets €180, so €60 per player and second gets €60, so €20 per player

Funky

I had prearranged teams in mind but I wouldn't mind if the majority preferred to mix things up. If the skill levels are really diverse we could split the playoffs into two tiers so the top fight it out for first while the bottom half have a cup they could all have a chance of winning too. Even with a large mix of skill levels you might only have two or three weeks a season where you'd have absolutely no hope in even getting a draw.

I wouldn't like to make an entry cost mandatory for all players cause we'd initially get much less people interested in playing really. But if people wanted to donate for a prize purse that'd be nice to spice things up. Maybe if it took off and was popular a couple of seasons in we could introduce something like an entry charge but we'd have to see how it goes. The main focus of this would just be to get more and more people interested in playing and incentive for people to improve their skill other than the kind of vague ladder system.

TheDoc

Sounds fantastic Funky.

I'll say straight off the bat as someone with experience organising and running things like, forget talking about prizes and money. It makes things way to awkward and complicated and adds unnecassary pressure.

Get your first couple of seasons up and running. Your first 2-3 runs are going to be incubated, weeding out the bad ideas and fixing issues you run into.

Sounds a quality idea and I really like it. I'd probably push for completely randomly drawn teams.

No offence to anyone here and its not me being bigheaded but as I'm sure Dustaz could also point out, I could very easily grab myself two friends of Diamond level and trounce my way to top 3 minimum.

Throwing it all random and in the mix makes it interesting. It also puts more fun and emphasis into the fact that there are three matches and every match counts.

Really good idea, really good plan. You and Kharn should knock heads and flesh out ideas since you both seem to be organising or thinking of organising leagues/ladder, so that we have one we can focus all the attention too.

As always if you need a hand holla my way, my Vent is yours for the using of course

koHd

TheDoc wrote: »

Sounds fantastic Funky.

I'll say straight off the bat as someone with experience organising and running things like, forget talking about prizes and money. It makes things way to awkward and complicated and adds unnecassary pressure.

Get your first couple of seasons up and running. Your first 2-3 runs are going to be incubated, weeding out the bad ideas and fixing issues you run into.

Sounds a quality idea and I really like it. I'd probably push for completely randomly drawn teams.

No offence to anyone here and its not me being bigheaded but as I'm sure Dustaz could also point out, I could very easily grab myself two friends of Diamond level and trounce my way to top 3 minimum.

Throwing it all random and in the mix makes it interesting. It also puts more fun and emphasis into the fact that there are three matches and every match counts.

Really good idea, really good plan. You and Kharn should knock heads and flesh out ideas since you both seem to be organising or thinking of organising leagues/ladder, so that we have one we can focus all the attention too.

As always if you need a hand holla my way, my Vent is yours for the using of course

I definitely like the sound of random teams and each team player having a 1v1. Will really make things interesting.

Now, all I need to do is play some more and get good.

I'd also like to throw my hand up and offer help if it's needed.

I have made some quite detailed ladders and game stats spreadsheets for my own tournaments in the past and could possibly help out there if needed. Probably not the best looking spreadsheets you'll ever see, but they're more about funcionality

Also, doing it this way rather than using some downloaded ladder software, will give more room for implementing changes people think of as it goes on.

nesf

Xios wrote: »

I'll play, €5 each to spice it up? nice prize pool there for first place team and runner ups. €240 split, so first place gets €180, so €60 per player and second gets €60, so €20 per player

The Diamond level players can chip in. The rest of us get a free ride since we'll just get our assess handed to us anyway.

koHd

Also, if there is any money donated for a prize, how about something like a specially designed starcraft hoodie with the leagues logo and the players gamertag for the winner?

I was planning on doing something like that for some of my own tournaments.

I like the idea of winning something tangible like a cup/medal/hoodie etc.

Anybody else think something tangible to have that says you're the winner would be a decent prize?

In most other skill based competition this is what you play for. Something that signifies you're the **** at this particular game.

Nicely designed specialty hoodies for the winning team would be around €90 (€30 per hoodie).

Anybody have any other cool custom prize ideas that wouldn't cost too much?