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Great job as always Billy! It was a pleasure reading your well-thought-of analysis of the possible division systems. Personally I find it impossible to run another tournament in time without implementing a division system. This, however, depends of course on how long it takes to make the necessary improvements on the site, including the possible division system. In any case we'll do our best to start the next tournament as soon as possible. Please continue to share your thoughts on the matter!

better call Ashton on this one

Hi nerds! Now that the first ECL tournament is behind us, it may be time to think hard about what to do next. I am of course talking about the DIVISION SYSTEM. Now I am not going to describe the system I came up with since I already did and no one cared. Instead I will present some leads as to how to approach these divisions, along with pros and cons I can see. I think it’s going to be a pretty long read, guys… *** Introduction: Why do we want divisions? (Skip this part if you already know why you want divisions) As you know, many teams want to play ECL, like 45+ clubs and at the start of ECL season 1 there were like 60 teams that signed up. This is too many teams to make one big league so we have to segment this lot into smaller parts, and there are 2 ways to go about it: · Groups: Skill evenly distributed between every group so good teams will face bad teams, common playoffs for everyone. · Divisions: Divisions regroup teams of equal skill so good teams will never face bad teams, playoffs for each division The main thing people have complained about in the past was lopsided, 9-0 type of games, because no one likes to take a massive beating, and even on the winning side the game tends to be less than interesting so everyone is left wondering “why did I play this?” and a division system addresses that point. It also adds benefits to the weaker teams that have no hope for common playoffs since they can have their own playoffs, and from there you can build promotion/relegation mechanics to give more people a taste of the real thrill of ECL. Now divisions are not the best thing ever, mainly because the impact of ranking teams (which you have to do for both groups and divisions, mind you) has a lot more impact than in a group based tournament. There may be a lot of butt hurt people complaining about how they belong in division 1 when they’ve been placed in division 2. If you’re an asshole you may even complain about how you’re in division 1, just missed the playoffs, and there are division 2 teams playing more ECL than you even though they’re worse than you. My take on the matter is that if you’re going to complain about those things you’re a baby. I think a division system is what most people would rather have. The only thing is how to define those divisions? As previously said, how you rank teams has an enormous impact in a division system. The mechanism by which clubs are placed into groups is of crucial importance. Without further ado, let’s look at some leads for this division mechanism and what they stand for. *** 1 – People choose their division. This is the easiest to implement. Basically the staff defines the number of divisions and then teams choose what division to register into. Pros are that there is no butt hurt as people play in the division they want. Cons are that there is the risk everyone may want to play in the same division and you can’t control the sizes of the divisions, or a bad team can’t be forced out of division 1 which sort of defeats the purpose of divisions. Also, no promotion/relegation and all that stuff. I think this only works if people are responsible individuals and not babies, so I think it is terribly impractical for this community. 2 – Team-oriented automatic system Teams are placed in divisions according to their results in the previous season. Pros are that it is based on previous merits, and it promotes long lasting teams. Cons are that in promoting long lasting teams it doesn’t account for new teams, like if you made a new team with the best player from every division 1 team, you don’t really know what to do with it or by default you put it in the bottom division where they will smash everyone and they’ll have the worst time playing ECL. Basically it probably can’t work on its own and you’ll have to compromise it with features from another type of system to account for real life. 3 – Individual-oriented automatic system This time teams are placed into divisions based on the average skill level of its players. Pros are that it makes for the most accurate placing of teams into divisions since the goal is to have equally skilled teams in the same divisions. Cons are that it relies on putting values on individual players and that can be VERY touchy (and ridiculous, cf. the “fantasy overalls” discussion in FINSeRe’s last interview article) and it does nothing to protect teams. Basically it is only as viable as the mechanism to define player values (skill or achievement etc.) so like the team-oriented system it needs something more to actually work. 4 – Hybrid automatic system(s) Let’s face it, options 2 and 3 kind of suck on their own. But if you mix them up you may end up with something that works well. For instance you can use system 3 and use a team-oriented method to assign player values. Or you can use system 2 and when the system faces its limits you implement features from system 3. I can’t really talk about these hybrid systems without going into boring details but the system I had come up with is a hybrid more or less described HERE and the guys in charge didn't exactly like it for various (WRONG! Probably...) reasons. 5 – Placing by committee A committee of people from this community is appointed (elected?) and after registrations for ECL are over they are in charge of placing teams in divisions. I straight up HATE this. I hate giving a bunch of people with all their biases all that power of decision. It is however something that can be done and I guess you can mix it up with system 1 so that if things go South when people decide for themselves the committee will decide for them. Appointing that committee will be a pain in the ass and no matter what I can already see people complaining all day about their decisions, questioning their integrity or knowledge of this player or that team etc. *** So these are some of the division mechanisms that can be used for the next ECL tournaments. Should emphasis be on players’ choice? Team performance? Player performance? Or should the guys in charge handle the division making and you don’t care what criteria are used? Are there other leads as to how to make divisions that do not fit any of the cases I presented? Is anyone of the more brainy nerds out there willing to propose a division system for us to evaluate?

Theres no point to try play ower 2 tournaments in Year/or but divisions. It will lose the willing on winning for sure and winners will be forgotten faster or how i should sayit, but i think you will understand it. 1or2 tournaments in year is totally fine. it will give you the best what game can give you and your team. I hope ADMINS dont chanse this thing to much, because newcomers want it different and we have useto play like we have and its totally fine in that way. If you ask "topteams" im pretty sure they want to play ECL like it has been past years (ehl) and some one sayed "itS frustrating to play against lower teams & win 7-0" well i dont think so. i think its just a good experience to "lower" teams to play against good opponents in tournament . i think better teams need lower teams and lower betters its only make it better. But i dont totally say that division idea is bad, but im pretty sure it will be hard maybe if you but elite & div it maybe would work. ps. this i kind of answer to "beeoo" and all in community Peace!

Ok, so I will give 2 examples of a mix between team and individual considerations. The first example is what I had originally come up with. It starts with giving players on a team a common score at the end of the previous tournament according to their team achievements, and let’s call that the final score of a player/team. Then at the beginning of the next ECL when teams are formed you can calculate the average of the final scores of its members and let’s call this new team score the initial score of the new team. Now you can order the teams by initial score, cut that ordered list into equal parts and you have your divisions. So it is individual-based in the sense that teams are ranked according to the players in them, but the player scoring is team-oriented since players are only scored as well as their teams. That’s a system 3 with a bit of 2. The second example is a twist on the previous example based on the various reservations Kenu and the boyzzz had about it. The scoring is the same, but this time a team’s initial score is its previous final score. If new teams are formed or there is too big a roster turnover in an old team you can resort to the individual scoring thing to determine where this team should go between all your already ranked old teams. By the way the “too big a roster turnover” definition is TBD but what they talked about was either when too few players are the same as the old team or when the player scores give an average that is too far from the old team final score, either way there’s a threshold to set and then maths. By the way that’s a system 2 with a bit of 3… with another bif of 2. Math nerds may notice that if no player changes clubs and if the same teams compete from season to season the 2 systems are exactly equal. The real difference between the 2 examples shows itself when real life happens where the second one puts a stronger focus on teams, and for in principle it eases some processes such as good teams adding one good player from a bad team without fearing to be bumped down a division because of it. It is however an even heavier system than the first example which is already quite complex, and I personally I am not sold on the fact that those issues they saw at the limits of the first system can happen in real life. And I should add that the guys in charge, they were not too fond of the heavy mathematical nature of these systems so there’s that... Also, I’m only describing the core mechanics here, but there needs to be a few small features added to those things, like how to handle brand new players, how to handle people/teams taking a break from tournaments etc. For now I think we should focus on the big picture.

Thanks for the real talk. The truth is no one will talk about this matter during tournaments. It is never a good time to talk about it. As a result divisions will probably never happen, which I guess is well deserved for this community. But on the bright side, if no time is a good time... Then it means now is as good a time as any to talk about divisions! Yay! Also, even if next ECL is group-based it doesn't force you to retain your thoughts on divisions until next ECL actually begins, does it? By the way, I predict next ECL will not start before mid-April regardless of the format of the tournament. So much for "ASAP"... Anyway, you may as well post your thoughts on divisions in this thread now, which I opened because someone asked me. On an unrelated note... To the guys who liked the "simple puck drop to ice and play" comment by @debi_85 let me ask you this: If you really only need what basically amounts to the definition of EASHL or even drop in games, why do you play tournaments to begin with?

Or maybe we just simple drop puck to ice and play like we usedto? Why you have to try to be "something"?