Thread about what happens after ECL 8

[Jesus]

Creating a thread where people can share ideas for what NHLgamer should do in the coming months after ECL 8. Share ideas and visions. I also wanna raise the question about the fact that ECL currently runs two major tournaments every year. What do you think about that?

I do believe that two major ECL tournaments is to few, especially since we have 3 divisions. A new lite team that is formed today will at best be able to play in the elite division in the first season of NHL 2021. With the 3 division system I do believe that more ECL:s is crucial for the european scene. Then again, I'm not the one that has the organize all this so it's easy to complain.

Anyways. Share your opinions

 

[J-Foppa]

I think 2 ECL tournaments is a fair amount. It doesnt prohibit us from creating tournaments outside the ECL-system. Perhaps we can arrange a swedish championship league for the spring?

[vSilenttio]

ECL8 ends officially on 2nd of March 2019. If NHLGamer has decided to go the old way, the next ECL starts on mid-October so there would be about 225 days between ECL8 and ECL9. Pretty sure it's not like that this year but if it is, not smart. I understand two major tournaments in a year if the game is been played by hundred thousands of people. This scene is not there yet where you can just sit back and wait for the certain month to come, only because that's how it's been done before. But during NHL19, NHLGamer has taken some big steps so I'm waiting only positive stuff for this change too.

I'd say it's possible to organize something smarter than one Summer Cup in that time period. Which has to be updated somehow by the way.

Edited February 23, 2019 by vSilenttio

[Kenu]

While the Summer Cup isn't our next thing, please feel free to discuss how you would like to see that develop.

Also, for those of you who didn't read my reply in the NACL news comments - this is what sparked the discussion:

Quote

4 hours ago, Acedi said:

Do we get ecl9 before summer?

In my opinion, the ECL with it's promotions and relegations needs a breather to stay fresh and interesting for the audience. I understand the will to hit the ECL ice over and over again, but rushing these things isn't a good idea in my opinion. Due to making the schedule work there was practically no down-time between ECL 7 and ECL 8 and we're not even done with the 8th season yet. In order for the ECL to be able to grow, we need the time to do that properly.

That being said, there will be plenty of club action before the Summer Cup, where you can join with your ECL team and we'll talk about that more a bit later.

I know some of you would like to play season after season after season of ECL non-stop and rest assured your feedback is being taken into consideration. Feel free to send me your thoughts and ideas, but let's keep this comment section about welcoming the guys and gals from North America.

 

 

Thanks for opening this discussion @Jesus.

[Lilja]

This is just an idea for a small tournament that would last maybe 3-4 weeks. but over on LG they have something called CanAm (Canadians vs Americans).
they play a Best of 25 series. 30 players in each roster (5G 10D 15FW) 
Maybe something we can do but Sweden vs Finland instead.
2-3 team captains for each country & they select the team rosters through trials etc. 

Edited February 23, 2019 by SauceTheNoose

[Bjono]

Yeah we need a Cup before summer. Why we dont have one is so strange tbh.

But with regular teams imo

[Yoloberg]

I think some World Championship with as many different countries as possible would be nice. Not sure how many teams we could get but still.

[Malcowich]

ECL Autum, ECL Winter and ecl Spring.

Giving shorter autum and winter tournaments the role of "warmup" and division sorting out before the main event at Spring tournament. 

No new teams could go straight to pro nor Elite after Autum tournament regardless of their roster. Giving Lite and Pro more weight as open slots from disposed teams to be filled only with ones that have paricipated and ranked in earlier tournamet. 

So only Spring tournament would have the championship status per year. 

Summer cup as the fourth non official ecl tournament. 

Or fill the calendar with tournamet after tournament as many as peoble want, year after year. Just make the desission what way this concept is heading. Many tournaments with the same value, or one main event for every nhl version.

I don't have strong opinion, just been reading how different thing's people want. And some kind of desission should be done. 

 

[Jesus]

1 hour ago, Egyptologen said:

I think 2 ECL tournaments is a fair amount. It doesnt prohibit us from creating tournaments outside the ECL-system. Perhaps we can arrange a swedish championship league for the spring?

The swedish community needs more national 6v6 tournaments for sure. There is huge potential here and I do believe NHLGAMER can find good partners to team up with. But the answer to the void for our community as a whole during spring cannot be a swedish tournament for a select few.

49 minutes ago, Kenu said:

While the Summer Cup isn't our next thing, please feel free to discuss how you would like to see that develop.

Also, for those of you who didn't read my reply in the NACL news comments - this is what sparked the discussion:

 

Thanks for opening this discussion @Jesus.

No thank your for reaching out to the community about the future.

This topic is definitely something that people are talking a lot about. I'm sure you have something brilliant coming up and I do believe that you should go with your own vision and not listen too much on the community. However, I do not agree with your argument about ECL needing a breathing period to feel fresh from a audience perspective. Summer is the breather period, rest of the year should try to be full on hectic competetive gameplay. The peak of ECL should be late spring if posible. The interest in hockey is at it's peak and players are at their peak at this time. f you only want two sessions of ECL every year then it's much better to have a longer winter brake and fill those months with other tournament formats. Important to end the season with a bang IMO.

 

[Tehh]

No more ECL, en jaksa 😑

[PSchibra]

An English football's ''FA cup'' type tournament could be interesting. Put all participating teams in a home-away 2-game series knockout bracket and last one standing wins. Potential for some crazy upsets and storylines. 

[Saviinainen]

Yeah, there have to come some kind of official tournament with current ecl rosters. On summer people are starting to stop playing nhl so much so now we have right time to have some competitive tournaments after ecl 8! so lets see what happen! 

[Jesus]

19 minutes ago, PSchibra said:

An English football's ''FA cup'' type tournament could be interesting. Put all participating teams in a home-away 2-game series knockout bracket and last one standing wins. Potential for some crazy upsets and storylines. 

Like that idea. Could also go with groups of 16 if we want to extend the fun a little bit. One elite team in each group, two pro teams and fill the rest with lite and new teams. Will probably be 16 groups with around six teams in every group. Top two in every group goes to the round of 32.

Might not be that much fun for Elite teams in the begining lol. But oh well. It's a good expierence for most at least.

Edited February 23, 2019 by Jesus

[Kenu]

9 hours ago, Malcowich said:

I don't have strong opinion, just been reading how different thing's people want. And some kind of desission should be done. 

 

9 hours ago, Jesus said:

However, I do not agree with your argument about ECL needing a breathing period to feel fresh from a audience perspective. Summer is the breather period, rest of the year should try to be full on hectic competetive gameplay. The peak of ECL should be late spring if posible. The interest in hockey is at it's peak and players are at their peak at this time. f you only want two sessions of ECL every year then it's much better to have a longer winter brake and fill those months with other tournament formats. Important to end the season with a bang IMO.

 

 

Ah, yes, wise words. I'll open up my thought process a little to hopefully explain things a bit better (while still vague enough to frustrate some of you 😅)

• When I say needs a breather and talk about future plans in this case, I'm speaking short term. What in my opinion is the right decision right now. Some criteria that I have to take into account:
  • We've been playing ECL pretty much 5 months straight. I completely agree with what you say about how the pauses should be. The pause before season 8 was much shorter than ideal due to the big steps we were able to take with partnerships and to be able to make the live final.
  • While ECL is our baby and will continue to be the most important of our franchises (along with the NACL that we just announced), we also want to consider other avenues that make the NHLGamer experience fresh and speak to an audience that we're not fully talking to yet.
  • We have to consider our staff's availability and energy levels when making decisions.
    • We have a lot of people listed as ECL staff, but in reality there are a few diamonds that take care of most of the work while a lot of the people are contributing a little or none (which is totally fine as long as the communication is solid).
    • It's hard to explain how much work there really is to make this thing work as well as it is (even with all of its flaws). And in the end I'm the only one working on this full time (currently for free) and it often comes down to me if nobody else is available. 14h+ days are no stranger to me.
      • Not to make things about me, but this then comes down to having to measure my own energy levels. It's no use to the community if I drive myself into a hole and don't have the energy to continue.
        • An example of my esports related projects since the release of NHL 19:
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 6vs6 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • IS Cup 3: FIFA 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Seinäjoki 
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Local qualifiers in Helsinki + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • ECL 7
          • FIFA 19 Finnish Championship -tournament for Palloliitto - Online qualifiers + Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • FIFA 19 Nordics Invitational -tournament for Palloliitto - Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • ECL 8 - Online + Live finals in Tampere 1st of March 2019
          • NACL
          • GCL 3, RCL 3 & RCL 4 (these guys do a very solid job and I don't have to help them too much outside of start of season and playoffs)
          • All of these projects and others not mentioned demand planning, meetings and and preparing before the actual seasons take place. On top of these, time is needed to plan ahead and look at the big picture and develop future plans and partnerships. Not all of our concepts make it to the public eye.
  • We need to think about what the high-end players want vs what the lower end players want vs what the audience wants vs what the partners want vs what a sponsor might want and make a decision that makes the most sense from all points of view. Sometimes one of these groups might get a bigger weight than at others, but it's important to understand that if we want to grow and succeed, we need to take all of these into account and sometimes that might feel like an odd decision if you're only considering your own position as a team or player.
     
• What is the right decision today might not be the right one tomorrow, and vice versa. So just because we have done something in one way in the past doesn't mean we can't add or remove from the experience in the future.
   
• One thing that some people might find annoying is the lack of information about things well ahead of time. Some thoughts on that:
  • Yes, first off, we want to communicate things as early as possible and are aware that we can do a better job. However, here's some thoughts on why we do things the way we do:
    • I don't like to promise things that I can't keep. Plans change and we need to adapt quickly. But I'd rather have that be internal than announcing something on a time-period that was previously announced as a safe time to take a vacation etc. 
    • In some cases, like for example ahead of ECL 8, some of the info wasn't available and wasn't allowed to be released until it would be communicated by us and our partners.
      • Point being: I'd rather communicate something with the correct information from the start than to for example have people expect a higher prize pool and then have to go back on that. Let's say, hypothetically, that I said previously that the ECL 8 prize pool will probably be 10k and then it turned out to be 5k or 7,5k. It would still have been a great thing and an improvement to the past, but it would have been a disappointment as we set the expectations higher ourselves.
         
• Just because we don't comment on something or say something, doesn't mean we're not thinking it or not doing it. 😊

 

I hope that explains a bit better what our/my process of thinking is. We love your feedback and ideas, so keep them coming.

 

[J-Foppa]

1 hour ago, Jesus said:

The swedish community needs more national 6v6 tournaments for sure. There is huge potential here and I do believe NHLGAMER can find good partners to team up with. But the answer to the void for our community as a whole during spring cannot be a swedish tournament for a select few.

Yeah but having a Swedish league does not mean the other nationalities can’t have their leagues. You already have a german league and a russian league, I think? Im sure Finland can come up with a league too. That leaves Connor and Billy, but Im sure they could play in one of the national leagues  Or some other type of league like an international like suggested in this thread.

My point is that there is no restriction to how many tournaments one can participate in...but the question should rather be how many tournaments are mandatory to play in order to keep your ECL-spot?

[ProMinx24]

3 hours ago, PSchibra said:

An English football's ''FA cup'' type tournament could be interesting. Put all participating teams in a home-away 2-game series knockout bracket and last one standing wins. Potential for some crazy upsets and storylines. 

English Cups don't do "home-away 2-game series" unless it's semis', in FA Cup you also do if you draw but that doesn't matter. I guess if you do consider some sort of a knockout bracket in NHL scene, a some sort of a system of byes should be involved that will ensure clubs of Pro and Elite enter the competition at later stages which also means that there won't be no seeding, the match-ups in each round would be determined by a random draw. Not too sure about how exactly the match-ups could be played out. Could be a simple BO3... there is no such thing as BO2 unless you want to introduce aggregate like in CHL which will allow draws. 😆

Bit nutty but not a bad concept imo.

[PSchibra]

8 hours ago, Kenu said:

 

 

Ah, yes, wise words. I'll open up my thought process a little to hopefully explain things a bit better (while still vague enough to frustrate some of you 😅)

• When I say needs a breather and talk about future plans in this case, I'm speaking short term. What in my opinion is the right decision right now. Some criteria that I have to take into account:
  • We've been playing ECL pretty much 5 months straight. I completely agree with what you say about how the pauses should be. The pause before season 8 was much shorter than ideal due to the big steps we were able to take with partnerships and to be able to make the live final.
  • While ECL is our baby and will continue to be the most important of our franchises (along with the NACL that we just announced), we also want to consider other avenues that make the NHLGamer experience fresh and speak to an audience that we're not fully talking to yet.
  • We have to consider our staff's availability and energy levels when making decisions.
    • We have a lot of people listed as ECL staff, but in reality there are a few diamonds that take care of most of the work while a lot of the people are contributing a little or none (which is totally fine as long as the communication is solid).
    • It's hard to explain how much work there really is to make this thing work as well as it is (even with all of its flaws). And in the end I'm the only one working on this full time (currently for free) and it often comes down to me if nobody else is available. 14h+ days are no stranger to me.
      • Not to make things about me, but this then comes down to having to measure my own energy levels. It's no use to the community if I drive myself into a hole and don't have the energy to continue.
        • An example of my esports related projects since the release of NHL 19:
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 6vs6 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • IS Cup 3: FIFA 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Seinäjoki 
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Local qualifiers in Helsinki + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • ECL 7
          • FIFA 19 Finnish Championship -tournament for Palloliitto - Online qualifiers + Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • FIFA 19 Nordics Invitational -tournament for Palloliitto - Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • ECL 8 - Online + Live finals in Tampere 1st of March 2019
          • NACL
          • GCL 3, RCL 3 & RCL 4 (these guys do a very solid job and I don't have to help them too much outside of start of season and playoffs)
          • All of these projects and others not mentioned demand planning, meetings and and preparing before the actual seasons take place. On top of these, time is needed to plan ahead and look at the big picture and develop future plans and partnerships. Not all of our concepts make it to the public eye.
  • We need to think about what the high-end players want vs what the lower end players want vs what the audience wants vs what the partners want vs what a sponsor might want and make a decision that makes the most sense from all points of view. Sometimes one of these groups might get a bigger weight than at others, but it's important to understand that if we want to grow and succeed, we need to take all of these into account and sometimes that might feel like an odd decision if you're only considering your own position as a team or player.
     
• What is the right decision today might not be the right one tomorrow, and vice versa. So just because we have done something in one way in the past doesn't mean we can't add or remove from the experience in the future.
   
• One thing that some people might find annoying is the lack of information about things well ahead of time. Some thoughts on that:
  • Yes, first off, we want to communicate things as early as possible and are aware that we can do a better job. However, here's some thoughts on why we do things the way we do:
    • I don't like to promise things that I can't keep. Plans change and we need to adapt quickly. But I'd rather have that be internal than announcing something on a time-period that was previously announced as a safe time to take a vacation etc. 
    • In some cases, like for example ahead of ECL 8, some of the info wasn't available and wasn't allowed to be released until it would be communicated by us and our partners.
      • Point being: I'd rather communicate something with the correct information from the start than to for example have people expect a higher prize pool and then have to go back on that. Let's say, hypothetically, that I said previously that the ECL 8 prize pool will probably be 10k and then it turned out to be 5k or 7,5k. It would still have been a great thing and an improvement to the past, but it would have been a disappointment as we set the expectations higher ourselves.
         
• Just because we don't comment on something or say something, doesn't mean we're not thinking it or not doing it. 😊

 

I hope that explains a bit better what our/my process of thinking is. We love your feedback and ideas, so keep them coming.

 

Kenu the beast 😎

[Jesus]

20 hours ago, Kenu said:

 

 

Ah, yes, wise words. I'll open up my thought process a little to hopefully explain things a bit better (while still vague enough to frustrate some of you 😅)

• When I say needs a breather and talk about future plans in this case, I'm speaking short term. What in my opinion is the right decision right now. Some criteria that I have to take into account:
  • We've been playing ECL pretty much 5 months straight. I completely agree with what you say about how the pauses should be. The pause before season 8 was much shorter than ideal due to the big steps we were able to take with partnerships and to be able to make the live final.
  • While ECL is our baby and will continue to be the most important of our franchises (along with the NACL that we just announced), we also want to consider other avenues that make the NHLGamer experience fresh and speak to an audience that we're not fully talking to yet.
  • We have to consider our staff's availability and energy levels when making decisions.
    • We have a lot of people listed as ECL staff, but in reality there are a few diamonds that take care of most of the work while a lot of the people are contributing a little or none (which is totally fine as long as the communication is solid).
    • It's hard to explain how much work there really is to make this thing work as well as it is (even with all of its flaws). And in the end I'm the only one working on this full time (currently for free) and it often comes down to me if nobody else is available. 14h+ days are no stranger to me.
      • Not to make things about me, but this then comes down to having to measure my own energy levels. It's no use to the community if I drive myself into a hole and don't have the energy to continue.
        • An example of my esports related projects since the release of NHL 19:
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 6vs6 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • IS Cup 3: FIFA 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Live finals in Seinäjoki 
          • IS Cup 3: NHL 19 1vs1 eSM 2018 - Online qualifiers + Local qualifiers in Helsinki + Live finals in Helsinki 
          • ECL 7
          • FIFA 19 Finnish Championship -tournament for Palloliitto - Online qualifiers + Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • FIFA 19 Nordics Invitational -tournament for Palloliitto - Head Admin for finals in Helsinki
          • ECL 8 - Online + Live finals in Tampere 1st of March 2019
          • NACL
          • GCL 3, RCL 3 & RCL 4 (these guys do a very solid job and I don't have to help them too much outside of start of season and playoffs)
          • All of these projects and others not mentioned demand planning, meetings and and preparing before the actual seasons take place. On top of these, time is needed to plan ahead and look at the big picture and develop future plans and partnerships. Not all of our concepts make it to the public eye.
  • We need to think about what the high-end players want vs what the lower end players want vs what the audience wants vs what the partners want vs what a sponsor might want and make a decision that makes the most sense from all points of view. Sometimes one of these groups might get a bigger weight than at others, but it's important to understand that if we want to grow and succeed, we need to take all of these into account and sometimes that might feel like an odd decision if you're only considering your own position as a team or player.
     
• What is the right decision today might not be the right one tomorrow, and vice versa. So just because we have done something in one way in the past doesn't mean we can't add or remove from the experience in the future.
   
• One thing that some people might find annoying is the lack of information about things well ahead of time. Some thoughts on that:
  • Yes, first off, we want to communicate things as early as possible and are aware that we can do a better job. However, here's some thoughts on why we do things the way we do:
    • I don't like to promise things that I can't keep. Plans change and we need to adapt quickly. But I'd rather have that be internal than announcing something on a time-period that was previously announced as a safe time to take a vacation etc. 
    • In some cases, like for example ahead of ECL 8, some of the info wasn't available and wasn't allowed to be released until it would be communicated by us and our partners.
      • Point being: I'd rather communicate something with the correct information from the start than to for example have people expect a higher prize pool and then have to go back on that. Let's say, hypothetically, that I said previously that the ECL 8 prize pool will probably be 10k and then it turned out to be 5k or 7,5k. It would still have been a great thing and an improvement to the past, but it would have been a disappointment as we set the expectations higher ourselves.
         
• Just because we don't comment on something or say something, doesn't mean we're not thinking it or not doing it. 😊

 

I hope that explains a bit better what our/my process of thinking is. We love your feedback and ideas, so keep them coming.

 

I appreciate the transparency

When it comes to the management of the site it does sound like it's time to delegate responsbility. It is of course unsustainable that a few should work in all fields of development and do most of the workload. If you can find specific responsibilities for your ECL staff then hopefully you can save a lot of time. Have a seperate team that runs the ECL tournaments for example. Have one or two that takes care of rulings etc. It does sound like you have to step back from certain things for your own well being. Focus on what's most important.

I don't think lack of information is a problem. Generally I would say the staff is really good at answering question and reaching out to the community in time.  It would of course help if people knew the framework for how the season is planned out. But in general I don't think most people have a problem with taking on new challanges with relatively short notice. The problem seem to be the lack of challanges.

It's good that we agree on the ECL timeline. I also agree that it was right decision to make with the live final in Tempere in mind.

5 months of ECL is nothing for the community.The community wants 8 months of ECL. I do understand that it's a lot for the staff tho.

Anyways. Thank you Kenu. Clearly you have made the right decisions so far.

 

 

 

 

 

[l-Furyan-l]

22 hours ago, Jesus said:

Like that idea. Could also go with groups of 16 if we want to extend the fun a little bit. One elite team in each group, two pro teams and fill the rest with lite and new teams. Will probably be 16 groups with around six teams in every group. Top two in every group goes to the round of 32.

Might not be that much fun for Elite teams in the begining lol. But oh well. It's a good expierence for most at least.

This is a great fuckin' idea for an ECL Cup, IMO.

16 separate groups anchored by 1 Elite team and 2 Pro teams per group. Rest is open registration. If we end up with 96ish teams, then its 6 teams per group. Say its 112 teams, that makes 7 teams per group. Top-2 makes the playoffs or - if you want to add the chance for the third team to make it - have the group winner make the playoffs directly and have seed #2 and #3 play each other in a quick BO3 "play-in".

Heck, if you want to make the season longer for everyone, add like a "lower bracket playoff" where seeds #3 and #4 get a chance to win the "B Cup playoffs".

Tweak the format however much is needed, throw some sparkle on it and we're good to go 🤠 Good idea, @Jesus.

[Jesus]

21 hours ago, Egyptologen said:

Yeah but having a Swedish league does not mean the other nationalities can’t have their leagues. You already have a german league and a russian league, I think? Im sure Finland can come up with a league too. That leaves Connor and Billy, but Im sure they could play in one of the national leagues  Or some other type of league like an international like suggested in this thread.

My point is that there is no restriction to how many tournaments one can participate in...but the question should rather be how many tournaments are mandatory to play in order to keep your ECL-spot?

Yes, I agree. A swedish league would be refreshing. Finland already have ECL lol. I don't think the nationals should end the season tho.

 

[Kenu]

1 hour ago, Jesus said:

When it comes to the management of the site it does sound like it's time to delegate responsbility. It is of course unsustainable that a few should work in all fields of development and do most of the workload. If you can find specific responsibilities for your ECL staff then hopefully you can save a lot of time. Have a seperate team that runs the ECL tournaments for example. Have one or two that takes care of rulings etc. It does sound like you have to step back from certain things for your own well being. Focus on what's most important.

Yes, delegating is the key. Finding trustworthy people that provide you with high quality work for free and don't let you down is the challenge. Heck, it's not a given even when paying people salary. I'm blessed to have had (and to still have) the honor to work with such talented people that have and continue to contribute to this project, but sadly it's not always easy as just deciding to delegate.

This is why the financial side of things is important in the future, as it will not only provide noodles on the table, but help bring stability into the operation.

 

That being said there's definitely room for improvement in my routines and delegating tasks - so you're not wrong. It's just not usually as easy as 1-2-3.

And thanks for the kind words!

 

[Hair]

If u are intrested Nearbird Fighters are rdy to play more tournaments

[iSvamp]

 

[tbnantti]

22 minutes ago, iSvamp said:

 

All teams from all nations = EU and NA teams? In that case no. In other cases, yeah.

[iSvamp]

Just now, tbnantti said:

All teams from all nations = EU and NA teams? In that case no. In other cases, yeah.

I forgot that we had them on this site now. My bad!