Billy44205

I have a question: What do you guys think is a good duration for a tournament group stage? I say 1.5 months so 6 to 7 weeks. You can't choose this duration, games frequency and number of teams per group or division all at the same time but you have to choose 2 of the 3 to make a tournament. I say we should choose the first 2 and let group size come from that.

This is probably what is gonna happen. I am 80% sure the upcoming tournament will look something like what tokFan described, which is one league, 2 random groups/conferences, winner and loser playoffs. Why will it be like this? Because: - @Kenu said he doesn't want to seed teams for the first tournament - Most people want divisions in the future There is one other way, which is what @AndreasNo described. Implement divisions but let teams decide what div they wanna play in. I do not think it is better because I do not believe everyone is mature enough to place themselves in the division where they belong, which is why I think the 1st scenario is more likely to happen. As I write this I notice that I guess you can also combine those 2 ideas like, offer 2 divisions, and when 70% of people join the 1st division you can separate that in random groups/conferences. So... let's say I'm 70% sure option 1 will happen now.

You are not trashing my design, only challenging it. It's not like other systems don't have flaws of their own too. Anyway, if every best player from every division 2 team made a club I say it's not crazy to have them prove they are for real by beating the next division 2 tournament. But yeah in my system that new team goes in div2. At least it's all set in stone, coz if you're gonna judge where that team plays, div 1 or 2, how do you justify their inclusion in div1, probably at the expense of another team that was supposed to play in div1 before that new club was created? Now you're mistaken about not being able to pick up a good player from a lower division because basically the guy's weight in the new team value would pull it down from, say, 1 to 0.85 which is still above lower division team values that are around 0. 0.85 and 1 are essentially the same result because it doesn't matter if your team is 1st or 12th in a 12-team division, they will both go to the same division. This is the very reason it doesn't matter that the values players carry doesn't have to very accurately reflect their skill and you shouldn't interpret them as such like Connor keeps doing. That, of course, is unless there is an enormous amount of player movement which will not happen anyway, and if there are many many divisions which also will not happen anyway. Feel free to challenge my creation again and again. I reckon the more you challenge it, the more you'll realize it's the best

@MartindalexC and I talked about our points of disagreement on Skype yesterday. We actually agree up to the team value part. After that Connor would rather a committee of people judged what the impact of player movements on teams, basically giving those guys a power to directly judge who goes to what division. Is that better than an automatic system without any human bias? I'll let you all decide. And by all I mean whoever still bothers to read all this nerdy stuff... FYI, about that example of Gretzky on the worst team Connor used... I did the maths and as long as there are not too many divisions (keep in mind that it is likely that there will be less than 4 divisions) and not too many player movements (we're talking about most players on every team moving around, realistically it ain't happening) adding any one player has no impact on whether teams stay in their division or go higher or lower. So a division 1 team can safely hire that Gretzky guy and not fear getting moved to division 2 because of that. My system is even more robust that I thought.

@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 mean 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.

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

An 8-team tournament is a bit small if you ask me @Dexrion. If you're gonna go with a promotion/relegation system you have to have 12+ teams per division: 8 teams make the playoffs coz that has to be a power of 2 and 16 is a lot. 2 teams don't make the playoffs but don't get relegated 2 teams get relegated But we're getting ahead of ouselves I think, drowning in details again. I think we should agree on the really important things first, the core principles behind the tournaments. Who knows, maybe the simplest "2 leagues, choose where you wanna play" formula is the most appropriate and all this talk was unnecessary. I think that's how it worked in the previous multiple division tourneys on PS3. @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.

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.

I think teams quitting midway through a tournament and teams not taking part at all are 2 different things. And to be honest I do not believe that teams quitting midway through a tournament is THAT big of an issue, especially if you mitigate this already with divisions, loser playoffs, promotion playoffs etc. This is one of my more contoversial opinions but I have been thinking about it, I mean I had been thinking about it years ago with Kooffein and Mordarelefanten, and yes they disagreed with me but meh... If a team quits, just void all their games. Make the rules clear, no one can complain. I found all the whining about that ridiculous back then too.

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.

You're basically forcing people to play. It's not a good idea, man.

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...

Also STOP USING THE TERM TGMA, PLEASE! It makes no sense whatsoever to call the people running a tournament "The General Managers Association". I have always hated that acronym. Please.

There is more to divisions than what you guys describe. You can do divisions with a promotion system, and the condition to make it work is long lasting clubs, which some people believe is a very important thing. Or, you can have divisions where teams are placed based on the previous achievements of their players as I described in a previous post of mine, which may more accurately place teams according to their level, but then there is no incentive to keeping clubs together and there is no way to include promotion/relegation playoffs or things like that which could be exciting.

Guys if you really worry that much about good players making new teams to win lower division championships (what kind of lame person would do that?!? omg) you can always assign values to individual players based on the results of their previous teams in previous tournaments, and then calculate the average value of teams based on their players. It does remove the incentive to keep clubs for the long term though, if you think that's a valuable thing. I dunno I'm just brainstorming. With that said I think time is running out for brainstorming. The point I want to make is that many people will play this tournament and it's impossible to consult everyone to build the structure of the tourney, unless you're ok playing it in 5 months. I think the most efficient way right now is for the team running the tournament to present their concept and if people agree with it they will participate. I mean, those guys have a good enough feel for what the community wants that they won't offer a bad product. It was obvious that there would not be divisions for the first tournament, and for the most part I think the guys in charge already knew what everyone has been saying. Anyway, good luck with the tournament. At this point I don't even know if I'll be able to take part in it since I don't have a club but you know I support your cause.

Are you going to challenge the evil EHL empire by hosting your own tournaments on this website? I reckon you'd receive support from a bunch of your friends Kenu, and you could assemble a team to run a tournament in a matter of minutes. But it does require a lot of additional features on the website imo. Then again maybe you've already built them but we just don't have access to them...?

Another enormous omission (or I'm dumb) is that on nhlgamer.com main page there is no obvious link to the forum. I tried clicking on the "community" word but it does not link here.

Is there a members list somewhere, or something like a database with GT's and PSN ID's of people on the website? I didn't find it but it would be nice to have imo.