Number of games in Lite

[ahonaattorii]

Hola Amigos! I would like to raise some conversation about the number of games being played in Lite. What number of games do you think is good? What changes should be done Lite?

Don`t take this wrong, you guys here are doing a great work and i get that you have to do the things that you do. And your service must be focused for the best players in the community but i am writing here from Lite teams GM POV. What do Lite players get from this community? 14-18 game days / year + playoffs if you are doing fine.  I am sorry but that is really not that much. Better players have double the number of games in ECL + eSM + Summer CUP. Yeah i know every noob can participate in eSM or SummerCup, but really its not that fun to play against elite or half elite teams with hands of wood. Lower level players are now going to play own tournaments like Magic Cup(thanks to @skebazu) or and play with NHL Gamer nemeses like OEHL or stuff like that   I guess that is something you don`t want. Ok, just remembered that there is RCL and GCL also  ... but nothing for noob Finns 

Any ways... my point in short is that i`m sure that many Lite teams want more games! Lite teams often need to have bigger roster because teams are new and players are new to competitive scene or even 6vs6 änäri. And this means that you most likely have players who will lose their interest or who are not good enough to learn some stuff...  So you need to have backup in your roster to be sure you can finish the tournament. And because of that, you need to do some rotation in you roster.... And i must say, its not easy to rotate if you play just 7 days.

What could be done? Does increasing number of games in Lite lead to too much work for league admin? Would it help if game log would not be so precise in Lite? Or if you could somehow give responsibility of correct reporting to players? = no game reporting issues for admins. This could quite easily be done by giving captains rights(fe. if both captains agree) to delete reported stats. That way they can log stats again if they are wrong.

Bigger regular season and smaller play-offs would be great. 64 team play-offs are not good.. About 16 team groups and 32 team play-offs would sound good. 

A bit side of the topic: Should Summer Cup be cut in half for lower and higher level players? Fe. Pro+Elite / others. This would create more games against about same level opponents for Lite level players.

Or should Finns and Swedes also have its own league? There is RCL and GCL... Why not FHL (sry if this is trade mark violation @Eisenhugel).

Edited December 18, 2018 by ahonaattori

[Pracu]

Less groups but more teams per group. Preferably no situations like last season that every team makes play-offs. Maybe make a fourth tier if enough teams come up?

[ahonaattorii]

Yeah bigger groups is a must have. Is the reason of keeping number of games low in Lite, that it means too much work for league admins? Ton of teams + lot of games = shiiiiiitload of reporting errors? Would it help if we would not use game log in Lite? I mean logging what time every goal, pass and penalty is taken and by who. I think that is not necessary in Lite.

[Kenu]

Thanks for the feedback and good write-up @ahonaattori! I do agree that we could go a little higher in game amounts and we'll take that into account once we know the amount of teams that sign up for ECL 8. 

The reason behind the low amount of games has nothing to do with the amount of work for our staff (while it is a valid point, that there is a ton of games as it is) and I am strongly against tracking any less stats. There are two major reasons behind the decision in the past to have roughly 10 teams per Lite group:

1. The Lite playoffs take a bit longer than in the other divisions and in order to keep the seasons between the divisions roughly in the same ballpark we could not have the regular season go on for much longer. 
2. The amount of teams that quit during the season has traditionally been the largest on the Lite level. With the shorter regular season, we've wanted to make sure the regular season doesn't feel like too daunting of a task even for new teams that might have trouble winning any games. Teams quitting during the season not only causes extra work for our staff, but is very unfortunate for the teams that may have their efforts nullified by a deleted team.

 

That being said, perhaps we can get a roughly 24 game regular season instead of the current 18 for Lite. The final size of the groups depends on how many participants we have.

 

The amount of playoff teams is another question we have to tackle every season. There was some criticism above towards almost all (64/75) Lite teams making the playoffs last season - which is understandable. Then again, 32 would - in my opinion - be way too little, considering the amount of teams and the whole ideology behind the Lite division. You could of course have some sort of compromise in between, but it does in fact take the same amount of time to finish the playoffs nevertheless. Ideas are welcome in this category, of course.

[ahonaattorii]

Thx for the reply @Kenu! I agree, that its not optimal, if something like 40 Lite teams don`t get to have playoff experience.  I also have a feeling, that because of timing of next season, there is  going to be few teams less in Lite than last season. And that will solve the number of playoff teams "problem" by it self.

What i don`t agree, is that % of teams that quit the tournament in Lite  would be higher when regular season is longer. I think other wise. When you start a tournament with a new team and after first 3-5 game days few of your players realize that the club or ECL concept is not for them...is probably the biggest reason why teams quit during regular season. After this, from the POV of GM it looks veeery hard to find those new players when you have only 1 week left before transfer deadline. If there would be double the time (about 2 week) more teams would find new players and continue their season.

But this is just my guess. Would be fun and beneficial to hear more Lite players and GM`s of their opinion on this case.

E: Shjjjjjt i have to write more because  looks like i didn`t read you post well... Daam you glögi  

You wrote about those few teams that have hard time to get even that first win in ECL. Sure they often have hard time to finish their seasons, but i am not sure is there any medicine for it. Shorter regular season don`t seem to work. If there would be bigger groups, would it be more likely that there is other or few of these beginner teams in every group? And that way everyone would have some more of those games against easier opponents too? But of course there would be more tougher teams too... it looks like there is no way around this. If this is considered as a big problem maybe there should be some kind of tournament for the new clubs? Where all new teams would have to play against each other and it they can`t finish their games... they would not get Lite license  Heh, maybe that is stupid idea...

Edited December 24, 2018 by ahonaattori

[Strumpan87]

2 hours ago, ahonaattori said:

Thx for the reply @Kenu! I agree, that its not optimal, if something like 40 Lite teams don`t get to have playoff experience.  I also have a feeling, that because of timing of next season, there is  going to be few teams less in Lite than last season. And that will solve the number of playoff teams "problem" by it self.

What i don`t agree, is that % of teams that quit the tournament in Lite  would be higher when regular season is longer. I think other wise. When you start a tournament with a new team and after first 3-5 game days few of your players realize that the club or ECL concept is not for them...is probably the biggest reason why teams quit during regular season. After this, from the POV of GM it looks veeery hard to find those new players when you have only 1 week left before transfer deadline. If there would be double the time (about 2 week) more teams would find new players and continue their season.

But this is just my guess. Would be fun and beneficial to hear more Lite players and GM`s of their opinion on this case.

E: Shjjjjjt i have to write more because  looks like i didn`t read you post well... Daam you glögi  

You wrote about those few teams that have hard time to get even that first win in ECL. Sure they often have hard time to finish their seasons, but i am not sure is there any medicine for it. Shorter regular season don`t seem to work. If there would be bigger groups, would it be more likely that there is other or few of these beginner teams in every group? And that way everyone would have some more of those games against easier opponents too? But of course there would be more tougher teams too... it looks like there is no way around this. If this is considered as a big problem maybe there should be some kind of tournament for the new clubs? Where all new teams would have to play against each other and it they can`t finish their games... they would not get Lite license  Heh, maybe that is stupid idea...

How many games do you want??. I think 18 to 30 games is great beaqause then you have time to do other stuff. Some of us have families and work to take care of but we still wants to play ecl.

[ahonaattorii]

1 tunti sitten, Drunkendefender kirjoitti:

How many games do you want??. I think 18 to 30 games is great beaqause then you have time to do other stuff. Some of us have families and work to take care of but we still wants to play ecl.

Yeah, its great that people got other stuff to do as well. I dont know what kind of contract have you signed with your team, but usually anyone dont have to play all games. Roster rotation comes handy when have to spend time with family etc...

30 Would be great! And that 24 that @Kenu mentioned would be ok too! At least it is way better than 16 that we had last season... Specially if you want to rotate your roster its very hard with 8 gamedays.

[KepakkoFIN]

I don’t have any good ideas how to solve this ”problem” but i can share my opinion about Lite division.

I have played In Lite two seasons. At season 4 we had 30 games regular season and i really loved it. Sure that time there was only 31 team in Lite but i really felt like Lite division was competitive. At season 6 we were relegated from Pro to Lite. I got to admit that i didn’t have any interest to play in Lite because i felt that regular season wasn’t competitive enough. Regular season didn’t mean almost anything and there was too much playoffs games. Let’s crunch some numbers. If you play every regular season game and playoffs games to game sevens: You’ll play 18 regular season games and 42 playoffs games.  Something has to be done to these numbers in my opinion.

I know that there is alot Lite teams which want to play really competitive games and wants to get to Pro division. But there is also teams who doesn’t want to be promoted to Pro but doesn’t want to play only normal club games. 

 

Just an wild idea: Lite should be NHLGamers third competitive division. Cut the number of teams to ~30 and make one lower division to teams who wants to play only for fun. Lites bottom 8 will play relegation games against ”casual division” top-8 and boom. Lites regular season has meaning again and you have more games. This is just an idea so don’t judge me

[MysterMistery]

4 hours ago, KepakkoFIN said:

I don’t have any good ideas how to solve this ”problem” but i can share my opinion about Lite division.

I have played In Lite two seasons. At season 4 we had 30 games regular season and i really loved it. Sure that time there was only 31 team in Lite but i really felt like Lite division was competitive. At season 6 we were relegated from Pro to Lite. I got to admit that i didn’t have any interest to play in Lite because i felt that regular season wasn’t competitive enough. Regular season didn’t mean almost anything and there was too much playoffs games. Let’s crunch some numbers. If you play every regular season game and playoffs games to game sevens: You’ll play 18 regular season games and 42 playoffs games.  Something has to be done to these numbers in my opinion.

I know that there is alot Lite teams which want to play really competitive games and wants to get to Pro division. But there is also teams who doesn’t want to be promoted to Pro but doesn’t want to play only normal club games. 

 

Just an wild idea: Lite should be NHLGamers third competitive division. Cut the number of teams to ~30 and make one lower division to teams who wants to play only for fun. Lites bottom 8 will play relegation games against ”casual division” top-8 and boom. Lites regular season has meaning again and you have more games. This is just an idea so don’t judge me

I liked this message (and also agree with OP), but I don't really agree with the last idea .

Yes, regular season in Lite should have more games in it (if or when it has the most teams playing, after all). 26 or 30 games in regular season is good I think. Then just cut down the number of teams getting into playoffs if you have to, or create some fancy creative qualifier rounds for playffos for those teams that are in the bubble (to make games more meaningful for them).

Furthermore, regular season success within your own division should matter more (and this is where my own opinion/experience comes more to live, since my team somewhat suffered from this in ECL7). If you end up in a division that is very competitive in regular season (just look at the point percentages per game, not anything else), you don't get good seedings in the playoffs. And yes, I understand that you have to be able to win any team to win it all, but still as we are now, regular season in Lite doesn't matter much at all.

Personally, I loved the last season of ECL Lite because the division in regular season that our team played, was in my opinion the most competitive/fair in a long time in Lite. The level of skill for most teams against were roughly the same, so you had to earn every goal, win and point in the standings. But the chance to end up into that kind of division in the next ECL is probably pretty slim.

And that is all I'm after in EASHL (&ECL's): Meaningful and hard-fought tight 6-vs-6 games, not blowout losses or easy wins.

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by MysterMistery

[PSchibra]

11 hours ago, KepakkoFIN said:

Just an wild idea: Lite should be NHLGamers third competitive division. Cut the number of teams to ~30 and make one lower division to teams who wants to play only for fun. Lites bottom 8 will play relegation games against ”casual division” top-8 and boom. Lites regular season has meaning again and you have more games. This is just an idea so don’t judge me 

It's not a terrible idea, but I think that if there were 4 divisions, it would suck if you were a really good team and had to start in the ''wood'' division, but then you would have to wait until the next NHL game if you want to get to Pro division. + I'm not an expert, but, from what I've seen, the number of teams that "don't want to be promoted to pro" is really little. ECL should always be competitive and a 4th division would be kinda pointless imo. If people want to play competitive and casual at the same time, there should be a different tournament taking place parallel to ECL (like the Magic cup).

 

7 hours ago, MysterMistery said:

The level of skill for most teams against were roughly the same, so you had to earn every goal, win and point in the standings. But the chance to end up into that kind of division in the next ECL is probably pretty slim.

And that is all I'm after in EASHL (&ECL's): Meaningful and hard-fought tight 6-vs-6 games, not blowout losses or easy wins.

Also, this level of competitiveness and equality among teams, I think, is almost impossible to achieve for Lite, because every season you get a few teams in Lite that don't know how to skate/shoot/pass and some that could even play with the big boys up in Elite.

 

20 hours ago, Kenu said:

The amount of playoff teams is another question we have to tackle every season. There was some criticism above towards almost all (64/75) Lite teams making the playoffs last season - which is understandable. Then again, 32 would - in my opinion - be way too little, considering the amount of teams and the whole ideology behind the Lite division

Right now ECL Lite is kind of in the middle between being a lower-level, yet competitive or just a plain, casual league. I think the tournament organizers should decide which one they want it to be and fully go for that. I'm all for lowering the number of teams that make the playoffs to 32, because, as everyone has asked for, that gives the teams more meaning to their games and also one less playoff round (6 was a bit too much). And yeah, I get that there will be more teams that quit mid-way during the season, but if a team has the mentality of quitting, then that team isn't what this league needed anyway.

Edited December 25, 2018 by PSchibra

[ahonaattorii]

Thanks for good posts and ideas... Discussion is what helps admins create better, more suitable product for all parties.  

On 25.12.2018 at 01.05, KepakkoFIN kirjoitti:

I don’t have any good ideas how to solve this ”problem” but i can share my opinion about Lite division.

I have played In Lite two seasons. At season 4 we had 30 games regular season and i really loved it. Sure that time there was only 31 team in Lite but i really felt like Lite division was competitive. At season 6 we were relegated from Pro to Lite. I got to admit that i didn’t have any interest to play in Lite because i felt that regular season wasn’t competitive enough. Regular season didn’t mean almost anything and there was too much playoffs games. Let’s crunch some numbers. If you play every regular season game and playoffs games to game sevens: You’ll play 18 regular season games and 42 playoffs games.  Something has to be done to these numbers in my opinion.

I know that there is alot Lite teams which want to play really competitive games and wants to get to Pro division. But there is also teams who doesn’t want to be promoted to Pro but doesn’t want to play only normal club games. 

 

Just an wild idea: Lite should be NHLGamers third competitive division. Cut the number of teams to ~30 and make one lower division to teams who wants to play only for fun. Lites bottom 8 will play relegation games against ”casual division” top-8 and boom. Lites regular season has meaning again and you have more games. This is just an idea so don’t judge me

I think this is a great idea and a i have also been thinking about it. Honestly, i was first going to write a post something like "What would your perfect ECL be like". And big part of that post would have been creating a new division under Lite and restrict number of Lite teams to fe. 32 teams. But then i thought it is a thing that we cant change before ECL8 and i wanted to focus discussion to number of games being played in Lite. 

 

On 25.12.2018 at 05.39, MysterMistery kirjoitti:

I liked this message (and also agree with OP), but I don't really agree with the last idea .

Yes, regular season in Lite should have more games in it (if or when it has the most teams playing, after all). 26 or 30 games in regular season is good I think. Then just cut down the number of teams getting into playoffs if you have to, or create some fancy creative qualifier rounds for playffos for those teams that are in the bubble (to make games more meaningful for them).

Furthermore, regular season success within your own division should matter more (and this is where my own opinion/experience comes more to live, since my team somewhat suffered from this in ECL7). If you end up in a division that is very competitive in regular season (just look at the point percentages per game, not anything else), you don't get good seedings in the playoffs. And yes, I understand that you have to be able to win any team to win it all, but still as we are now, regular season in Lite doesn't matter much at all.

Personally, I loved the last season of ECL Lite because the division in regular season that our team played, was in my opinion the most competitive/fair in a long time in Lite. The level of skill for most teams against were roughly the same, so you had to earn every goal, win and point in the standings. But the chance to end up into that kind of division in the next ECL is probably pretty slim.

And that is all I'm after in EASHL (&ECL's): Meaningful and hard-fought tight 6-vs-6 games, not blowout losses or easy wins.

 

Yeah agree, it was a fun regular season! Super tight group! I think, that if some of the teams would have played in different group, there may have been one or few teams in a top 4... But now, The Black Jacks murdered 3 of our groups teams...

On 25.12.2018 at 12.54, PSchibra kirjoitti:

It's not a terrible idea, but I think that if there were 4 divisions, it would suck if you were a really good team and had to start in the ''wood'' division, but then you would have to wait until the next NHL game if you want to get to Pro division. + I'm not an expert, but, from what I've seen, the number of teams that "don't want to be promoted to pro" is really little. ECL should always be competitive and a 4th division would be kinda pointless imo. If people want to play competitive and casual at the same time, there should be a different tournament taking place parallel to ECL (like the Magic cup).

 

Also, this level of competitiveness and equality among teams, I think, is almost impossible to achieve for Lite, because every season you get a few teams in Lite that don't know how to skate/shoot/pass and some that could even play with the big boys up in Elite.

 

I think that league admins have every season raised some new team(s) straight to PRO by just looking at their roster. I think that it has not really been a big problem and with 4 division system it would be even less... because now league admins would have 2 options of which division to place a new team... Or even if all new teams would have to start in Lite, the division would be way tougher than what it is now. But yeah of course it would be too easy for Elite level teams... probably they should just be promoted straight to PRO. But even if not...  at least it would raise the value of Elite and PRO divisions... Maybe we would see even less of teams falling apart in those two great divisions and i think it would raise brand value of ECL.

Yeah sure equality is hard to achieve in Leagues with 30+ teams... It is hard to achieve even in Elite where is 16 teams. I think is there is a huge difference between bottom4 and top4 teams in Elite as well.

Edited December 31, 2018 by ahonaattori

[Kenu]

Thanks for all the input.

42 minutes ago, ahonaattori said:

I think that league admins have every season raised some new team(s) straight to PRO by just looking at their roster.

I would like to point out that the top 8 in Lite have been prioritised over any new teams, no matter what the roster of new teams.

My personal belief is that these picks have been quite successful in the past seasons, but please feel free to provide your feedback on this as well.

I would also like to know how many feel like there is a need for a 4th division and how many would volunteer in playing in that division.

[Dercie]

I believe in a 4th division since there are so many teams in Lite. Many games are not even and is a grind to the playoffs. Many promoted Lite teams does it well in Pro and it is very hard to get demoted from Pro.

Implementing a new division for new teams would make sense

[ahonaattorii]

11 minuuttia sitten, Kenu kirjoitti:

Thanks for all the input.

I would like to point out that the top 8 in Lite have been prioritised over any new teams, no matter what the roster of new teams.

My personal belief is that these picks have been quite successful in the past seasons, but please feel free to provide your feedback on this as well.

I would also like to know how many feel like there is a need for a 4th division and how many would volunteer in playing in that division.

Ok. I think you have done good job in promoting teams... no complaints by me. Thanks for the interesting info, i was not aware of that. I thought that you look at the big picture when replacing teams in PRO. So fe. if some of Northern Ascendacy and Radical players would start a new club, you would rather fill empty spot in PRO with 8th ranking Lite team than the club of these experienced Elite players? Thats ok, sounds kind of fair  and sure its not a common situation.

I am not sure how you should split Lite to new Lite and lower level league at the first time... or how should teams be promoted between leagues. I am sure you or we could figure out some kind of system for it. Me and my team could start in lowest division if it looks that we should... maybe that would be a hit for some teams to get dropped to lower level, but most of the teams would be ok with it. They would get to have more games(maybe?) and more of them against about same level opponents.. Its nothing but win win to everything else except EGO  

I think that at the end we would have more valuable Elite(longer to climb up on divisions) and more really competitive league games from improved Lite(maybe a big punch of those bench warmers in PRO would be willing to play in Lite).

[Kenu]

7 minutes ago, ahonaattori said:

So fe. if some of Northern Ascendacy and Radical players would start a new club, you would rather fill empty spot in PRO with 8th ranking Lite team than the club of these experienced Elite players? Thats ok, sounds kind of fair  and sure its not a common situation.

Yeah, that's the way we've done it so far. So to explain this in more detail:

• the top 2 have got promoted automatically
• the semifinal losers have played for a promotion against the bottom Pro-teams
• the remaining 4 quarter final losers have stood first in line for a promotion for any open Pro spots
• after the above, we look at the remaining teams with a Pro application (such as your example above) and decide who would be the best fit for any remaining Pro spots.

 

7 minutes ago, ahonaattori said:

They would get to have more games(maybe?) and more of them against about same level opponents.. Its nothing but win win to everything else except EGO  

Exactly - it's all about knowing your own level and where you enjoy playing. I mean the funny thing is that when we were drafting up the three division system, people were saying nobody would want to play in Lite. Well, I think we can all agree that's not the case. So I agree it's possible, but again it has to be supported by the teams actually wanting to play at such a level.

14 minutes ago, ahonaattori said:

I think that at the end we would have more valuable Elite(longer to climb up on divisions) and more really competitive league games from improved Lite(maybe a big punch of those bench warmers in PRO would be willing to play in Lite).

True, however for a super talented squad I don't believe they should have to play from LOW-LITE -> LITE -> PRO -> ELITE, because let's say hypothetically that you started in LOW-LITE (come up with a better name, please haha) in ECL 9 (NHL 20), that'd mean you could play in Elite in ECL 12 - second season in NHL 21. That growth sort of story makes sense for teams and players that actually develop from being beginners to true champs and it would be amazing to see. However in today's community it doesn't make sense for players that are already Elite level and it doesn't make you want to put in the time and work. We'll continue looking at this approach as the community, leagues and tournaments grow and develop. Feedback is always welcome.

Since it came up with my above reply, In regards to ECL 9 being played on NHL 20, I guess it's good to mention that we are looking at other alternatives for playing NHL 19 after the ECL 8 season. Playing for the European Championship more than once a year per game (ECL 8 = 2019 champion in NHL 19) would lessen the value of the championship in my opinion, so we're looking at other things for players to play outside of the two ECL seasons we're able to provide during the NHL 19 lifespan. 

[Malcowich]

Kenu. You have said that you want teams that stay and build up their rep.

Not allowing new teams to pro regardless of their roster is the way to do it. This would force elite and pro players to suck it up in lite or find a existing team on level of their liking. Or to actually stay on their teams. 

And yes, I have vested interest on the matter, as trying to build team in pro sucks ass, as top talents just gather new team and start over season after season. 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Malcowich
Typo

[Dercie]

13 minutes ago, Malcowich said:

this would force elite and pro players to suck it up in lite or find a existing team on level of their liking. Or to actually stay on their teams. 

This

[ahonaattorii]

2 tuntia sitten, Kenu kirjoitti:

Since it came up with my above reply, In regards to ECL 9 being played on NHL 20, I guess it's good to mention that we are looking at other alternatives for playing NHL 19 after the ECL 8 season. Playing for the European Championship more than once a year per game (ECL 8 = 2019 champion in NHL 19) would lessen the value of the championship in my opinion, so we're looking at other things for players to play outside of the two ECL seasons we're able to provide during the NHL 19 lifespan. 

Heh, i didn`t even realize that it has been 1 ECL season / NHL / YEAR  And good to know you are looking for new ways to keep us entertained 🤜

I think that easiest way would be simply making next ECL season longer. Fe. double the regular season. But i don`t know is it smart to do with so short notice... or what would be common opinion of the community in this case. But what ever you do, it would be nice if tournament could be played with these Lite teams, so it would create more continuity.  Or maybe you could make a longer summer cup and split it to fe. PRO+ELITE players to one group and rest of the players to another. 

[djadidai]

How about extending regular season matches for Lite, keep many playoff teams but shorten playoff to best of 3 until the finale which would be best of 7? That would lower playoff matches and extend regular season. 

[Pracu]

If you make one extra division after lite then you should have four ECL Tournaments per game IMO.