MartindalexC

December 15, 2015

I'm not sure where this should go but I guess here will do.

Basically I'm a bit concerned about the playoff structure. I assume right now the idea is that the top 4 from each group go forward into the playoffs and it follows a structure that is seen in the NHL playoffs, the main difference for me however is that they have 30 teams, we have 52... so I think it's a little unfair to use the same structure as seen in real life.

If we're actually wanting to be vaguely fair we should try to match the real life % of teams making the playoffs (53.3%), comparatively if we were to follow the same model only 30.7% would make it in this league.

My proposal is that the top 6 from each division are 'locked in' while there are also two wild card spots open for each two groups (1 & 2 / 3 & 4). Meaning group 1 could send 8, however group 2 could only send 6 as all the wild card spots for those two groups would have been taken.

This would send 28 out of 52 teams to the playoffs, giving us a participation % of 53.8, *slightly* more lenient than the rl NHL model but a hell of a lot more fairer than the one I assume will be used at this point.

One major issue with this however is that it assumes that all teams currently signed up will still be here at the end of the season, otherwise the participation rate gets skewed. That said however, I highly doubt 22 teams will drop out so even then this model would be more applicable than what is currently in use.

An example of the model in action: (Note: these are not predictions of how the season for these groups will finish, but merely just an example)

There is a bit of scheduling problem as the fourth placed team in each group would have no one to play from within their own group but that can easily be fixed by pairing them up with the fourth placed team from the other group. After however one team would have to have a bye week (ie: round off almost) in order to get the scheduling back to an even number of series. The team taking this would be a middle ranked team above but there's no real reason it couldn't be the top ranked team for instance.

The model also tries to favour inter-group matchups above all else, hence why B2 does not play A6 in the second round, but instead plays B3, whilst A3 plays A6 instead of B3.

At the end the winner of this side of the tournament will play the winner from the other two groups (noted as C / D in the model).

It must be said that the table above does show it in a bit of a convoluted way, nevertheless the idea was to make a model that would be much more fair than what is in place atm, which imo it has accomplished.

Any queries about certain matchups please feel free to ask, like I said it looks convoluted so I understand if anyone doesn't pick it up immediately.

November 23, 2015

Just now, MovaaN said:

I think at this point we are mainly waiting @Kenu getting league side to work up and running to the website He's been super busy with work and school so it is understandable why it has delayed too

But is it? Look, I'm not trying to be aggressive or purposefully awkward but come on. This site has been in his mind for atleast a year and we're still waiting? To me that's just plain silly and the 'lag' is getting used as a scapegoat when it is completely down to the site not even being complete.

Don't mistake this for me just bitching, it's along the lines of looking at this situation critically more than anything else.

November 23, 2015

On 18/11/2015, 21:54:28, Kenu said:

At what point do we actually just stuff it and soldier one without EA's help?

I think the whole idea if EA allowing people to send in 'forms' is laughable, never has there been a more useless form of communication than the fabled questionnaire. (Okay, maybe this is a bit far but how would this help EA at all in fixing the problem? "Oh, we now know people have crippling lag that is generally associated with home games, who knew?").

First off, that questionnaire is completely NA based. There is not a single option for 'other' when picking your ISP (unless they changed it since the last time I look at it) so immediately it signals that they are too incompetent to even realise that Europeans play the game.

Secondly, with the first point in mind, do you guys honestly think that EA will 'fix' the lag, now with the word 'fix' I mean really fix, not doing a cop out and reducing the amount of lag from 1s to .5s . For instance remember when the hip checking was ridiculously OP in the NHL 12 (?) release? Remember how they 'fixed' it? They removed the hip checking from the game effectively and it took them months to do anything with it.

Waiting around for the magical EA to fix anything is borderline insane and a huge misstep. Imo we should play asap because waiting will only reduce the amount of people interested (as their willingness to play fades as the year progresses), although that could be a blessing one could argue given the ridiculous amount of teams that have signed up.

November 16, 2015

Name: Northern Ascendancy

Wants: Defensively minded players that will be playing defence more often than not

Other info: We have 6 players at the moment (with room to move players around I'll add) but we're always on the lookout for more to add security to the team for game days. The team is mostly Swedish with a few Germans and one Brit (myself), but any nationality / language is more than welcome but please be able to communicate in English fairly proficiently.

Contact info: I'm available both here and on PSN (MartindalexC) so I don't mind which contact method you use

November 6, 2015

EASHL CLUB CHALLENGES
Select the Club Challenge dressing room and search for the team you wish to challenge. When both teams are ready to play, send the challenge and start your game. The game will only count towards your Pro's Player Badges progression and personal stats.

EASHL AI GOALIES
AI goalie attributes will be lowered in the situation where a player controlled goalie drops from game to be fair to the other team.

GAMEPLAY TUNER DOWNLOAD UPDATE
When a new Gameplay Tuner is available to download it will show up in the NHL'16 main menu.

GAMEPLAY
- Increased the chance of a trip when spamming pokecheck from behind the puck carrier.
- Added ability for players to lose speed the more they spam pokecheck
- Tuned down ability for players to perform defensive deflections behind them.
- Pokechecks will now only connect with strength on the way out, not on the sticks return back to the player.
- Addressed issue where AI player would be able to get a full powered pass without powering up first after a user called for pass.
- The AI will no longer auto pass when a player does a manual windup for a shot outside the offensive zone.
- Increased the effect of the pass reception slider in gameplay settings.
- Addressed issue where goalie butterfly slides weren't overriding precision motion.
- Addressed issue where some players would be stuck in goalie control after making a pass as a goalie.
- Added butterfly slides out of both VH and Hug Post to make it easier to slide across out of those positions.
- Used controlled goalie will now face the puck earlier as it is carried towards them.
- Goalies now recieve the puck more cleanly with their stick from a standing position.
- Addressed issue where a goalie would sometimes get stuck sliding in butterfly.
- Puck can no longer be chopped if the stick goes through the goalie first so that they have the same as pokechecks.
- Fixed issues where AI players wouldn't avoid their own net properly with the puck.
- Fixed issue where User players would sometimes be stuck on the bench while an AI player played for them after situations where they served a penalty.
- Added more conditions in goalie interference logic to increase accuracy to the calls for both allowed and disallowed goals.
- Fixed button callout for accepting fights when using hybrid controls.
- Added ability to precision skating to trigger at lower speeds.
- Fixed issues with the True Broadcast camera pan direction in shootouts.
- Weakside AI defender won't look to hit the puck carrier when they are outside the slot.
- AI will look for hits during in-zone defense even if they don't have a great angle. This will allow AI players to bump a player off the puck even when the puck carrier has their back to them.
- Fixed issue where shot accuracy was too high on hardcore gamestyle when spinning around before taking a slapshot.
- Fixed issue where in some cases, the AI goalie wouldn't track the shooting position properly when a player was rolling the puck back before shooting in a shootout scenario.

BE A PRO
- Increased likelihood of being drafted if the user starts in the CHL.
- Enabled the user to switch between Classic and Authentic styles after entering the mode.
- Decreased the likelihood of the game switching between classic and authentic automatically.
- Players will not get penalized for long shifts until 10 seconds after they are called to the bench.

COACH FEEDBACK AND ON-ICE TRAINER
- On-ice trainer visualizations will now show up for both teams if there are local users on both the home and away teams.
- Feeback hints can now be shown when control hints are disabled.
- Coaching feedback - Classic BAP players will not lose excessive endurance experience for long shifts.
- Coaching feedback - Fix for some coaching instructions not clearing quickly enough.
- Coaching feedback - Defensive letter grades now accumulate correctly in EASHL.
- Coaching feedback - Tie-ups and stick lifts from faceoff grip positions were not counting as using that grip in coaching feedback.
- Coaching feedback - Deflections no longer awarded to defensive players blocking shots.
- Coaching feedback - Blocked shots that hit sticks no longer count as blocked passes if there was a recent pass.
- Coaching feedback - Shot blocks now count if they hit your stick.

BE A GM
- Decreased the amount of team and player meetings that occur during a season
- Decreased the amount of points in average defensemen gets during a sim.
- Added a setting to disable team and player meetings.
- Decreased the impact of team chemistry on the sim engine.

PRESENTATION
- Added the Moncton Wildcats 3rd jersey
- Added the Frolunda Indians home and away jerseys
- Added the Providence Bruins 3rd jersey
- Added the Nashville Predators golden alternate jersey
- Added the New York Islanders 3rd jersey
- Added the Hersey Bears 3rd jersey
- Added the Texas Stars home and away jerseys
- Added the Wilkes-Barre Penguins 3rd jersey
- Improvements for Gran Rapids home and away name plate bar fix.
- Improvements for Kamloops Blazers home and away number color fixes, "C/A" placement fix.
- Fix for Montreal Canadiens home jersey eyelet and collar lace.
- Updated various centre ice designs for authenticity
- Updated various goal horns and goal song timing for authenticity.
- Added 15 female heads to create player selection.
- Equipment - Added Brian's Sub Zero 3 goalie pads, blocker and trapper
- Equipment - Added Vaughn Vintage Goalie pads, blocker and trapper
- Equipment - Added Vaughn ventus LT98 goalie pads, blocker and trapper.
- Equipment - Added added CCM 4-roll Pro III Glove.

October 30, 2015

So... we're... uh... back

Team Name: Northern Ascendancy
Team Abbreviation: NOR
Team Captains (up to 3): MartindalexC, Poliskontroll
Team Roster (at least 8 players):
- MartindalexC
- Poliskontroll
- Windblad
- Mordaren13
- Minikangaroo
- x27ScottieN27x
- Crono578x
- Vilperi

October 25, 2015

So it appears as though I'm a free agent. :ph34r:

Anyway, I can play LW / RD and I'm semi-partial towards being a goalie.

October 21, 2015

@MartindalexC : No no no. It is inescapably objective but also inherently inaccurate. "Inaccurate" is the word you were looking for all along. Also you don't know what system I can come up with since I never exposed it completely. Your real NHL analogy is invalid because of that and it also has nothing to do with the inaccuracy my system, which imo is very very much overestimated by you.
I talked with the ghost of @kooffein (who by the way finds my ideas to be "a pretty awesome solution to the seeding issues we have faced in the past" and "brilliant", come at me bros *mic drop*) and I came up with an almost complete model so here it is and hopefully those of you who know how to count will understand it.
***
First, some numbers
P = total number of teams playing ECL.
A = number of divisions
N = P / A = number of teams per division
X = the biggest power of 2 that is lower than N = number of teams that make the playoffs for each division
Y = number of teams in promotion/relegation stage (should be a power of 2 as well, and probably best to keep it at 2 or 4)
Z = number of auto-relegated teams (I think it should be kept at 1)
(If you have followed up to now, you get that the numbers the admins have to choose are A, Y and Z. The others are automatically given by the number of teams registering P, and this is the end of any subjectivity anyone who knows what the word means might perceive)
What happens for Division 1:
The first X teams make the playoffs.
The bottom Z teams are relegated.
The Y teams above them are in "1/2" promotion/relegation stage.
What happens for divisions 2 to A-1 (say, Division T):
The first X teams make the playoffs of their division. The top Z teams at the end of playoffs are promoted.
From the remaining teams the top Y teams according to regular season rankings are in "T-1/T" promotion/relegation stage.
The bottom Z teams are relegated.
The Y teams above them are in "T/T+1" promotion/relegation stage.
What happens in Division A (the last one):
The first X teams make the playoffs of their division. The top Z teams at the end of playoffs are promoted.
From the remaining teams the top Y teams according to regular season rankings are in "A-1/A" promotion/relegation stage.
The bottom Y+Z teams are relegated... although I guess it's more like they're stuck. Anyway...
How promotion/relegation stage works:
Simple, it's a mini-playoffs between 2*Y teams, which is conveniently a power of 2 so that checks out. The top Y teams are promoted or stay in their previous upper division, the other Y are relegated or stay in their previous lower division.
After ALL the tournament games are played:
Teams are given a ranking value that is between -1 and A.
The calculation begins with each team having their value at A - the number of the division they played the tournament in. So Division 1 teams start at A-1 and teams from the bottom division start at 0.
The top Y teams from the Division 1 playoffs and the top Z regular season teams after them get +1 added to their value.
Promoted teams get a +1 added to their value.
Relegated teams get a -1 added to their value... which is actually a substraction...
(Note: If for instance Division T team wins their T/T+1 promotion/relegation stage they don't count as promoted, Duh!)
The bottom Y+Z teams from the bottom division get -1.
At that moment, each player from each team that has played the tournament till the end carries the value of the team they finished the tournament with. THIS IS NOT A PLAYER RANKING, THIS IS JUST A CALCULATION.
Players who quit midway through the tournament get a -1 value, which is the minimum value any player can have. This is designed to prevent people from quitting.
Now on to next tournament:
Shuffle team members however you like (in real life it will barely happen at all but let's say it does happen for ***** and giggles).
If there are brand new players, their value is 0.
The value of a team entering the tournament is the aggregate value of its members.
Now you can order teams by team value and automatically assign them all to their divisions, even if the numbers P, A, Y, Z of your tournament changes.
At the beginning of the new tournament, all the tournament players have their value erased and all teams have their value erased. Players who take a break keep their player value until they play in a tournament. In the event that those players have values from a tournament with A divisions and missed a tournament with B divisions, a simple-ish proportional calculation can give their adjusted value.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
***
This system at the very least works and is robust... as long as it is initiated. The trick now is to start it after the first tournament which we all seem to agree is NOT a division-based format. It can probably be worked out easily enough after the incoming tournament format is defined.
Also the system seems like a ton to handle but it is actually quite flexible and requires the least amount of handling since it's all automatic after you define the rules of the game. If you didn't see the flexibility shine through my big-ass explanation... Well just take my word for it.
It's a little unfortunate that I went through all this because now if it is not retained I'm gonna be bummed out that I put in this work for nothing. Damnit.

Okay fair enough, I can see why the word inaccurate would fit, for me however subjective fits better because of the fact that in the model you outlined, the final result would be very up to interpretation due to the nature of it. The model would be used to allocate teams based on skill, so rating them (Eg: giving them a number) based as a team and giving them all equal numbers (effectively skill points) is by definition, subjective.

Overall you are rating teams, but indirectly you are rating the players making up said teams which my point.

Btw, one person's anecdotal evidence doesn't make anything good, anyway, to the model detailed in the post above.

My point still stands.

Lemme throw a hypothetical your way:

Say that a team in division 1 has a complete dumpster fire of a roster but has one guy who is literally Gretzky in disguise. Now this guy puts up an absolutely ridiculous amount of points in the regular season but because his team is complete garbage they get relegated. In your system, you indirectly will rank players because players play in a team. As such in your system they will share the same score (0, as they were all demoted from div 1 to div 2, so they started at +1, then were deducted 1 point so they will be at a score 0.). Personally that's not fair as a team could pick up this player due to the fact he's clearly good, only to be potentially moved into a lower bracket because the system thinks the player is bad. Now I see that at the end of every season a player's rank is erased, which to me brings up the question, why was it needed anyway? You may as well just rank teams and teams only, not allocating a label / number to the players involved.

Effectively my point is that your system will work as a club prestige kinda thing fine, but do not involve players in the same system concurrently as it in no way attempts to show player skill, nor will it. There's no need to involve rating a team as the sum of it's parts ("The value of a team entering the tournament is the aggregate value of its members. ") when it's parts are completely disregarded as being all equal. I cannot stress this enough, just 'casually' rating all players within a team as the same score is exceptionally flawed. (You may not be attempting to rate players but by rating teams based on the aggregate of the players, you are indirectly rating players)

October 21, 2015

Welcome to the ECL, kSL et al!

October 21, 2015

I keep telling you "subjective" is not the correct word...

In theory, yes it is not subjective as its based on actual numerical quantitative figures, don't worry, I get where you are coming from in saying I'm using the wrong word. However in practice it will very much be a subjective model, no team is created equal, each and every team will always have something that makes them different from some else that will predispose them to do better against certain people and teams, which is why I think trying to dumb down such a complex range of factors based entirely on season position is ultimately subjective.

I mean, look at the standings for the NHL last season, by your system / logic the best teams would be the Rangers, Montreal and Anaheim by default, due to having a score of +2, whereas the team that won the cup would only have a score of +1. This is where the subjectivity comes in for me as you can't just lump multiple teams into one category and expect it to be fine without any criticisms.

Basically at face value it's not subjective as it deals in numbers, which is what I imagine you are focusing on. Whereas further down, in terms of detail, it is far from being the objective model you claim it to be, which is the aspect of which I'm focussing on.

October 20, 2015

...
@MartindalexC: If your point is that my system is not completely accurate I already conceded it while questioning the need for more accuracy. If your point is that there needs to be a better way to assign players' values in my system, that's cazy talk. Advanced stats? Come on now... And in the absence of such things your point would bring what you mistakenly complained about in my system: subjectivity.

100%, I suppose my point being that in both systems they need to be completely carried out with a clear idea and result in mind. Half assing a job which will rate / rank teams and players will be subjective unless it's fully detailed.

In the case of my idea of rating individual players, yea it's a pipe dream at the moment and it very well may stay like that , however as with anything it's always worth exploring ideas before setting the concrete stuff down.

Collecting advanced stats in the sense of their real life counterparts (Eg: corsi and fenwick) would be exceptionally difficult and would have to be collected by players from each team, possibly leading to discrepancies within the data as it becomes more and more inaccurate, however a dumbed down version may be possible, we'd need to just think of what that version would entail first

October 20, 2015

See the goal of my system is NOT to rank players. It is to put teams in divisions. "Subjective" does not describe my very much objective (as in, everyone would come to the same conclusions based on the definition of my point attribution) system. However you can definitely say it is not an accurate representation of player skills, which it was never meant to be in the first place. But do we really need an accurate metric for individual skill? I don't think so. My system includes a little bit of individual, a little bit of team achievement, and most importantly it is not fully accurate but fully objective.
Not saying that's the direction the tournament should take in the future. For all I know, the community might agree with the Synergy guys more and put all the emphasis on long lasting active clubs, or something completely different that no one has written yet.

Ah my bad, I thought you were talking about a player specific model and not a team specific model. Regardless my point still stands, a team is the sum of it's parts sure, but if one part is a diamond encrusted piston then the team should be judged with that in mind and not lumped in with everyone else.

Thats why I want division 1 to have a smaller amount of teams, so even div 2 will have good teams in it to, if you only have like 8 teams in div1, im sure there is more then 8 teams that plays very well which will compete for promotion to div 1 which they wont "smash". And we should adjust the league for the big teams then?Just beacuse you are a "big team" you shouldnt cut the line, thats my opinion anyhow. I think there is a charm in that smaller team have something to fight for, even if its the promotion to div 3.
And if you are taking a break for one season, prove you belong to div 1. If you take more breaks, why even attend the League in the first place? Talking about taking break is abit weird if you ask me.

But by having a smaller amount of teams you're basically signalling for a smaller set of games to be played, if so it means that teams could actually get demoted based on luck rather than actual skill. (Something which is a big no no in my book)

I never said we should adjust the league for big teams, my point was that parity will always be an issue with those currently involved and as such trying to achieve said parity will have a very tough job. As such, it would basically spit in the face of the struggle if you allowed a good team (I'm talking about a team who has come close to winning the 'div 1 trophy', something which will be a very very select group imho, although I ofc hope I'm completely wrong here) to take a break and have to work their way back up. And I'm sorry but such a team would 'smash' the opposition in the lower divisions.

Yeah, everyone loves a good underdog story but the reality is that if you made the top division even more 'premier' (Something you are proposing by lowering the amount of teams in such a division to 8) only to have one of the teams to leave for a season, that team really would cause havok in lower divisions based on the fact that, a.) They are clearly a 'premier' team and b.) they've been practising against the very best each and every game day, raising their skill further.

The whole idea of taking a break is strange to me as well but it's still a topic that needs to be discussed and properly thought out.

....
I don't think it would be fair to start the ECL by placing teams in different divisions without giving everyone the chance to show us what they've got. Thus I think we should be using a more traditional approach for the first league and perhaps using the data we can collect from there to place teams into divisions for the next leagues (if that's what we agree is the best thing to do).

Personally I'm not too fussed about how the promotion / relegation is handled if we truly do go the division route, I will say one thing though is that by having a playoff series between each divisions from p/r you will get the highest parity as those who are the best will stay up which is what we want imo.

But anyway the main thing for me is that last sentence with the main word being 'data'. If we really go in depth with the stats and objectively measure how good players / teams actually are, it will help a great deal in making the league (/divisions potentially) much more balanced and competitive, it also gives people something to study when going up against them. Seeing in writing (albeit numbers) who's each team's best player would give every team the opportunity to properly prepare for each game, something I would welcome with open arms. How we make such a system would be especially difficult as I outlined in an earlier post, however I do feel we could do something with it if enough effort is expended into researching it. (I'd be more than willing to volunteer if need be)

October 20, 2015

Do not underestimate me. I can make an objective system with my ideas and I'll prove it to you with an example. The numbers I use are only based on ease of calculation.
Imagine a 2-division, 10 teams per division, system. Also disregard trades or player movement during the tournament, just to make it easier.
At the end of group stage/regular season:
-The players from the bottom 3 teams in div-2 get a -1 value
- The players on the top 3 teams in div-2 get a +1.
- The rest of div-2 gets 0
- The players from the bottom 3 teams in div-1 get 0
- The players from the top 3 teams of div-1 get +2
- The rest of div-1 gets +1
Now on to the new season. The value of a team is the average value of its players. If no player movement happens between tournaments, the top 3 teams from div-2 are promoted to div-1 and the bottom 3 teams from div-1 are relegated. If players move around, make new clubs and stuff, you can just calculate team values and the top 10 teams by this metric are in div-1. The values of players are reset at rhe beginning of every season.
Where is the subjectivity?
Now I'm not saying it is perfect, but then again I just thought of it. For instance, how to deal with teams taking a season-long break and in the meantime the tournament goes fom 2 to 3 divisions? More maths are needed but there's no point putting in the work when we're just brainstorming. I am not even saying it is a good concept, just it is not subjective.

The subjectivity for me comes because not all players are equal, lumping multiple players into one value is very slap-dash method of determining who's better than who. For instance take the last EHL tournament on Xbox. In that season Russian Rockets finished in 6th place, so each of their players would sit at +1 based off your model. Which is fine, shows the team as a whole is atleast 'decent', on the other hand it doesn't show any variance within the team, instead it suggests that all players are at the same skill level. A player who got 70pts in 26 games would have the same rating as one who 18pts in the same time span, how is that not a flawed model if you're trying to rank how good players are?

Say you were to adjust it to take into account points, goals and assists. How would you then differentiate play styles (For instance, one player who got 50pts could be a blue liner who gets a lot of breakaways, while one player plays the same position and plays a much more rounded defensively orientated game)? With the two contrasting play styles mentioned I personally would go with the latter player being more 'skilled', however then we get into who he's playing with amongst a whole host of other confounding variables.

There's a reason advanced stats are used by actual NHL franchises to judge a players worth, without that independent eye you're just seeing if a player passes an 'eye test' whether they are good are not, which is extremely unreliable. (Due to many many biases)

Now don't get me wrong, it is certainly possible, that said it would have to be so complex to take everything into account and hence would be very subjective unless fully planned with every variable accounted for. I'm talking time with puck average, average number of puck touches, average number of dekes, average shots for, average shots against... et cetera et cetera

It is possible I'm thinking way too much into it but unless you really go in depth, any form of a player ranking system would be at the base of it, unreliable and subjective.

October 20, 2015

If NOS takes a break and when they come back you have them play in lower divisions, your format is wrong imo.
We are talking about detailed tournament specs right now but I would like to submit a general concept once more. I think divisions are cool but I would like there to be in parallel or for the last tournament or whenever, a big Cup open to everyone with many small groups and then a big-ass playoff tree. I think different formats will keep things fresher for everyone and I think it's good for the lower teams to have a chance to meet the top teams in a competitive format somewhere. Kind of like league and cup format in football.
I have also wondered about the possibibilities of doing a Finland-Sweden superseries or some kind of all-star game but I am not sure this community is mature enough to handle that, and also bu definition it is not for everyone so...

I'd be down for a GB vs anyone else series but I don't think we'd be able to get a team together :ph34r: , that said I do share your conviction that the community may not be mature enough for it, undoubtedly there are more than a few who would be more than mature enough for it, however those who are not will bring it down.

October 20, 2015

- What will happen if a Division 1 team (or whichever level really) wants to take a break and not play for one season? Can skip one season? Will be dropped one division? Have to start over from the lowest division?
They loose their spot, the best team in the div 2 will get the position, its their choice to take a break. For each break you take, you get demoted one division.

(Insert Billy's example here)

But if NOS (Or anything team that is clearly good enough to be in Div 1, not just NOS) do decide to leave for a season, they should be put in division 2 to absolutely smash teams? Now don't mistake what I'm saying as though I'm defending teams 'taking breaks', far from it infact, however being so firm with the rules in this case will do more harm than good imo.

October 20, 2015

For promotions maybe offer teams eligible for promotion a veto possibility. For example you can veto your first promotion chance if you don't feel confident/comfortable to go to higher division. And every team has 1 veto per division so some people don't misuse it endlessly. Like you play in div3 and end up on 3rd place. You can veto your promosion and play another season in Div3. But after that you don't have veto for Div3.
And after relegation you get possibly lost veto back. Team plays div3, 3rd place --> veto --> new season in div3 3rd place -->promotion, next season on div2, second to last and relegation (if not enough vetoes used in div3) --> next season in Div3 + you have another veto to use in Div3
Any thoughts on this?

Problem with your idea is that it completely undermines the whole idea of a promotion/relegation system, atleast in my opinion. Divisions are made to evenly distribute the skill level of many teams so that the skill range is maintained in each subsequent division. If each team has a 'veto' it means that the 3rd placed team could decide that rather than to challenge themselves in a higher division, they could sit back and dominate those in their division atm. However by veto'ing the promotion for their team the next team must be able to get promoted, this just opens the door for a large skill range to develop not only in the division above but in the current division. (Which is something people should be opposed against, a larger skill gap means more landslide games)

Additionally think about this hypothetical, if every team from the 3rd placed team all the way to the 20th placed team all used their veto in one season, based on the idea that they don't want to advance only to get dominated in the division above, what stops the 21st team from advancing because the teams who all finished higher in the season don't want to take the opportunity to move up? This hypothetical 21st overall team would get beyond smashed in the higher division, leading to lower parity in the division (Especially so if one team is the proverbial whipping boy)

If you play well enough to finish in a promotion spot in a division, you should get promoted regardless of whether you feel you are 'up to it' or not, purely from a parity point of view.

Furthermore your reasoning for why one team wouldn't want to get promoted is another perfect example of why divisions are inherently flawed for online gaming like this. There is nothing stopping teams from disbanding if they get promoted and don't want to lose more than they win, then reforming a new team to default to the old division (This is where an individual player rating system would help immensely, kind of what Billy mentioned earlier however such a system would be extremely subjective and unreliable imo).

Finally, in regards to parity I think we will never reach a full blown equal league. With teams like Northern Stars, Sjukstugan, Synergy Hockey etc, they may be a bit of ambiguity about who at the end will win the league, but ultimately it will always involve the same few teams (Deviation will obviously occur but for the most part you could have a very good guess about who the final will be made up of). So trying to make a league, where only a select few can / will win, attractive to those who are just not skilled enough is a very tall order.

October 20, 2015

As Billy has eluded to, drawing up divisions is good in theory but when carried out it's very difficult to actually maintain.

There is no real 'correct' way to structure it as there will always be positives and negatives, that said imo the biggest hurdle with divisions is creating an incentive to keep teams together and in the system. For instance if say you have a pre-tournament in order to try and categorise teams into divisions, those that are on the borders of each supposed division and get put in the lower categories will undoubtedly lose motivation to play. Now that isn't speaking about every single player as there will always be individual differences that make certain people unique, however it's a necessary generalisation if you want to think long term.

The same can be said if there isn't any divisions, for instance the more teams you have, the higher the likelihood that the skill range will broaden, leading to more and more lopsided games, which also result in a lack of motivation from the players involved (Again, a wild generalisation but for the most part it is true. If you put up a poll of which type of game players prefer "Close or a blow out", I would predict with quite a bit of confidence that 'most' would go with the close game option).

I'm kind of rattling off into tangents but since I'm an undergrad in psychology, this kind of stuff (social psych) is interesting for me. Anyway, my main point is that going forward any decision made should be made with quite a bit of research (Eg: Who to assign as 'commissioner' (Billy hates 'TGMA' :ph34r: ) is a pretty big deal as he'll / she'll be the figure head of the league and as such should be very approachable amongst other things) and not on a whim, however a certain air of authority is needed otherwise people start pushing the boundaries / challenging said authority.

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