Altitude ProLeague Official Rules

[andy]

1. Introduction

Altitude Professional League was formed to create the first competitive scene for Altitude, the game. It provides an organized arena in a just environment to make the best of the game and team work. Before teams can register, the respective captains must read and understand all rules of Altitude Professional League. These rules provide an unprecedented foundation to elevate competition to a new level of skill and professionalism.

2. General Information

Registration
Team registration is only valid if done by the specified date and following the correct format, also registration is only valid if the roster is posted in the official registration thread.

Game Time
Unless otherwise specified games will start at 2PM EST on every Sunday from when the league starts.

Game Format
5v5 TBD

Map pool
- Every round there will be a smaller map pool to chose maps from.
- Available maps: Asteroids, cave, core, mayhem, grotto, focus, middleground, lostcity, woods, justice, scrapyard, heights, fallout, underpark, bowserscastle.

Veto system
For Bo3 maps there will be 5 maps and for Bo5 there will be 7 maps.
Veto in ABBA order for Bo3, ABBAAB order for Bo5 and ABBAABBA for Bo7.
A is the highest seed.

Tournament Format
Regular season and playoffs, Top 8 teams go to playoffs unless less than 9 teams signed up.

3. Team Information

Rosters
All team rosters are established during the registration period prior to the start of the event. Changes to team rosters may take place during the registration period and during the weekly roster unlock periods.
Max roster size is 20, and minimum is SEVEN.

Roster Substitutions
Teams are allowed 2 substitutions each week, all the substitutions must be posted in the registration thread before the game time to be considered valid.

4. Match Information

Time
The game has to be played at the scheduled time unless BOTH captains agree to a reschedule, maximum wait time is 15 minutes after the scheduled time.
- Losing team has 5 minutes after a game ends to pick a map after that the winning team can pick the map.
- After the map is picked teams have 5 minutes to pick a lineup
- Teams must declare who the substitute is BEFORE the game.

Game substitution rules
The tournament can be started 6v6 to allow teams to have a substitute player, the substitute player can be exchanged in for any of the original starters and for any reason, however once you have substituted the player in you cannot make another substitution.
- The original substitute must be spectating once the map changes.
- You may not substitute back in a player who has been substituted back out.
- If someone disconnect after you have used your substitution then you will have to play 4v5.
- When you make the substitution it is important that you substitute a player OUT before the other player goes IN.

Having a substitute is a PRIVILEGE so any abuse will be punished, if you break the rules you will not be able to use subs in future games and your current game might be compromised.

Forfeit
- You must show up with at least 4 players to play a game, the other team can then decide if they want to play 5v4 or 4v4.
- If you show up with less than 4 players and the other team isnt willing to reschedule they will automatically win the match with the best score possible.

5. Player Information

Team Switching
A player can't teamswitch for that season after he has played an official APL game with a team, however if he hasnt played a game he will be able to change team. A player also can not play on two teams during APL (including on smurfs).

Bannable offences
1.Racism/Bigotry.
2.General immaturity.
3.Contradicting an admin.
4.Anything that dirsupts the game.


6. Spectator rules
- All-chatting during a game is a bannable offence.
- 1st time kick.
- 2nd time two day ban.
- 3rd time two week ban.
- Voting during a game or in the lobby while not in any of the teams is a bannable offence.
- 1st time kick.
- 2nd time two day ban.
- 3rd time two week ban.

7. Server rules
- First two games will be played on a US server, the third game will be played in EU if either team suggests it. The team picking the server is liable for any server crash.
- Teams can mutually agree to play on another server.
- Max ping 300.

[andy]

Pro League Admins:

Head Admins
- Andy
- Mikesol

Admins
- Sunshineduck
- Darknietzsche
- Ribilla
- AkiTensai
- Wok3n - Inactive
- Evilarsenal - Inactive

[andy]

Sky League Admins:

Head Admins
- Andy
- CCN - Inactive

Admins
- Dougie
- Ribilla
- Darknietzsche
- AkiTensai

[andy]

Originally Posted by trendy11one

yeah, i have some questions and suggestions

1.so 5 minutes to build lineup. What would happen, if 5 minutes passed, but one team a)doesnt have enough players b)have more than 6(which is more likely)

You can take a forfeit win for that map, you will have to provide screenshots with the time when you start organizing the game and when the other team has not yet started. Agreeing on a break doesnt give you the chance to claim the map.

2.no server switch i suppose?

Yes read carefully

3.Can we lower team roster from 20 to 16 or 18? Currently we have 7 teams - fLb, Sammich, qq, FRO, IL, KLF and pewpew. Which means even with 2 cutted players from each team we may have another one.

Currently the only team with more than 16 players is FRO and the 4 extra players they have are very inactive, this wouldnt bring a new team for sure.

4.what happen, if nobo comes and switch map in middle of match?

Admins are personally selected by me and mike, i dont see this happening. On a sidenote nobo isnt an admin but i doubt he would abuse the power anyway.

5.about veto rules. For bo3 we have 5 maps. what if first 2 vetoed maps could not be played at all. So teams actually can "veto" maps, not just decide which map first to play.

That would totally defeat the point, the last team losing wouldnt be able to chose a map and would just have to play the remaining one.

Posted in both threads for future reference.

[Wyrd]

First of all thanks for organising another Sky League and putting a clear link to the rules in the Sky League registration thread.

I'll assume all relevant numbers regarding teams and such for ball are +1.
So 6 v 6, need 5 at least to play, etc.
This one, not so sure: "minimum is SEVEN" for a roster, maybe 8 for sky league?

Onwards to the main questions!
"First two games will be played on a US server, after that the losing team can pick an EU or US server. The team picking the server is liable for any server crash."

Why the first two? I get that it's handy to have a predetermined server for the first game, so you don't start off with a cluster**** trying to assemble the teams, but what wrong with having the loser pick the next server? It seemed to work alright last SL. Why do we need to have the first two games in a US server?

"3.Contradicting an admin."
This seems very strict and totalitarian. What if an admin is wrong or you disagree in a reasonable manner?

[trendy11one]

Originally Posted by Wyrd

First of all thanks for organising another Sky League and putting a clear link to the rules in the Sky League registration thread.

I'll assume all relevant numbers regarding teams and such for ball are +1.
So 6 v 6, need 5 at least to play, etc.
This one, not so sure: "minimum is SEVEN" for a roster, maybe 8 for sky league?

Onwards to the main questions!
"First two games will be played on a US server, after that the losing team can pick an EU or US server. The team picking the server is liable for any server crash."

Why the first two? I get that it's handy to have a predetermined server for the first game, so you don't start off with a cluster**** trying to assemble the teams, but what wrong with having the loser pick the next server? It seemed to work alright last SL. Why do we need to have the first two games in a US server?
I think I can answer on this one. If you lose your first game on US, and then you pick EU, and win there, enemy decide to move back to US. So you have to play US 2 times no matter what.

"3.Contradicting an admin."
This seems very strict and totalitarian. What if an admin is wrong or you disagree in a reasonable manner?

What if both teams agree on EU server? I think this rule can be updated.

[Wyrd]

Originally Posted by trendy11one

I think I can answer on this one. If you lose your first game on US, and then you pick EU, and win there, enemy decide to move back to US. So you have to play US 2 times no matter what.

What if both teams agree on EU server? I think this rule can be updated.

Yeah, but (supposing that lag is the gamebreaker) it's nicer to win game 2 because you get to play on EU and then lose game 3, than losing the first 2 games and no game 3 is played. If lag isn't a gamebreaker, it becomes even more important as losing/winning a game can be very (de)motivating and affect the outcome of game 3.

I agree that updating seems in order. That ruling was in the previous sky league.

[beefheart]

I agree with wyrd on this.

[andy]

It doesnt really need to be said explicitly that if two teams MUTUALLY agree to have the games on another server/another time and stuff like that it is always fine. This is me saying it officially
As for what wyrd asked about the servers its basically what trendy said and also to speed things up because switching 2 times in a bo3 means that you can switch up to 4 times for a bo5 extending the wait time between games. If you think this is unfair i see nothing against starting some games on EU servers and some on US servers. As long as there is only one server switch per match its fine for me.

[beefheart]

I think lower ranked team should have advantage in server.

Like how it is now we play good US teams and lose both games without ever playing on an EU server. First, that is so depressing.

But more important, even if we play the same team against we lost 2 games on US server in the playoffs, the US team can win another 2 games on US server in the playoffs. The the US team wins, playing 4 games in US servers, while the EU team played 0 in EU servers, even though they are ranked lower!!

SO IN THE END EU TEAMS ARE TOO MUCH DISADVANTAGED BY CURRENT SERVER RULES imo


Proposed change:

1. Let lower ranked team have server advantage.

2. The first 2 games are played in lower ranked team home server and 3rd game is ALWAYS PLAYED in the higher ranked team's server of choice.

[Trix]

Originally Posted by beefheart

Proposed change:

1. Let lower ranked team have server advantage.

2. The first 2 games are played in lower ranked team home server and 3rd game is ALWAYS PLAYED in the higher ranked team's server of choice.

That is a very sensible and fair proposition. Admins should definitely consider this!

[wolf'j'max]

What happened today showed the opposite though.

Arr beat us in the first game, we came back winning the second. That Sole win made arr able to swith servers and give us 3 250+ ping players leaving us at a huge disadvantage and unable to win, in any map situation or anything related.

What should be taken in consideration is the most fair server choice, if you play on a server where you have 1 team full of 30's and 1 full of 120-150 it's fine. But if you have a team with 16 pings vs 250, you have to switch to a more balanced server. The problem is though that a lot of US players have 250+ pings in the AIR servers whereas the EU players (including myself) have 120 ping in the US servers. Which is fairly reasonable.

[beefheart]

Definately not the opposite. The point you make is valid though we as bbq have an average of 180 on us seevers. Making ur point less important.

I just think the overall fairness gains, by my proposed change.

[Slender]

How are 6 stable 180 pings worse than more than 3 250+ pings?

Makes no sense.

[Strzy]

It seems to me that we are having this issue with the servers every single season, it would be nice to discuss this once for real, so please don't bring the "schedule hour issue" back, we know some of you need to go to church, we already know, trust me.

This just brings prior posts into my mind:

http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5788
http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5750

There are very nice suggestions in those posts like some systems previously tested, as Home - Away (EABL, WABL).

Also I want to say that this season we knew the rules before the league was started, so if we signed up, we also agreed with the rules, so I'm just sending feedback for next seasons.

Last but not least, I want to point that SL5 system wasn't that bad, for loser team to choose server, but I do agree with Andy, that it made things go really slow.

@Wolf'j'...: There is nothing fair lag related, while you think is fair for your whole team to play with 50ms against a 130ms - 180ms team, I don't. Neither I feel is fair to play a whole 50ms (140ms -.- for me -.-') with three 250ms, but that's why there are rules, and we were on our right to change server.

[beefheart]

Not saying that. Also, i am talking averags here. One of our players (teambella aka dick van dyke) couldnt even play because he was getting pingkicked.

[wolf'j'max]

@strzy i wasn't blaming arr for anything, you took your chance of gettig the advantage, we would've done the same. Nor was i stating that 50 ms vs 150 is fair, but it is more reasonable than 30 vs 250 because the latency difference will be the problem.
The problem i had in the first game (as an explodet player) was that my mines and/or missiles wouldn't affect you in the way i was planning to, because of the difference.

This is totally off-topic though and i think you made a great point by bringing up the systems usdd in WABL.

[beefheart]

Originally Posted by beefheart

I think lower ranked team should have advantage in server.

Like how it is now we play good US teams and lose both games without ever playing on an EU server. First, that is so depressing.

But more important, even if we play the same team against we lost 2 games on US server in the playoffs, the US team can win another 2 games on US server in the playoffs. The the US team wins, playing 4 games in US servers, while the EU team played 0 in EU servers, even though they are ranked lower!!

SO IN THE END EU TEAMS ARE TOO MUCH DISADVANTAGED BY CURRENT SERVER RULES imo


Proposed change:

1. Let lower ranked team have server advantage.

2. The first 2 games are played in lower ranked team home server and 3rd game is ALWAYS PLAYED in the higher ranked team's server of choice.

Any admin feedback? I really believe the change in rules i am proposing is most fair.

[Dougie]

Originally Posted by beefheart

I think lower ranked team should have advantage in server.

Like how it is now we play good US teams and lose both games without ever playing on an EU server. First, that is so depressing.

But more important, even if we play the same team against we lost 2 games on US server in the playoffs, the US team can win another 2 games on US server in the playoffs. The the US team wins, playing 4 games in US servers, while the EU team played 0 in EU servers, even though they are ranked lower!!

SO IN THE END EU TEAMS ARE TOO MUCH DISADVANTAGED BY CURRENT SERVER RULES imo


Proposed change:

1. Let lower ranked team have server advantage.

2. The first 2 games are played in lower ranked team home server and 3rd game is ALWAYS PLAYED in the higher ranked team's server of choice.

Hi Beef,

I agree with you about the disadvantage to EU teams based on current rules, and I still think we need a fairer system for the future. The major problem at the moment is a lack of APL servers in europe. Yes, we do have private some private clan servers which can be used, but SL admins do not have any control on these servers, which makes it difficult to administer.

However, lets say for the next major ball tournament, we have both US and EU servers which all tourny admins have full rights on.

Your proposal is flawed: How do you determine at the beginning of the season or if two teams are even on points who is the lowest ranked team? Alphabetical order? Because Sky League doesn't take further details, i.e. goal difference into consideration, then it makes it very difficult to judge which team should be lower ranked.

I personally don't see the current rules changing, certainly not during the regular season of SL6. Perhaps there might be time to set something up for the playoffs though?

[andy]

Originally Posted by beefheart

I think lower ranked team should have advantage in server.

Like how it is now we play good US teams and lose both games without ever playing on an EU server. First, that is so depressing.

But more important, even if we play the same team against we lost 2 games on US server in the playoffs, the US team can win another 2 games on US server in the playoffs. The the US team wins, playing 4 games in US servers, while the EU team played 0 in EU servers, even though they are ranked lower!!

SO IN THE END EU TEAMS ARE TOO MUCH DISADVANTAGED BY CURRENT SERVER RULES imo


Proposed change:

1. Let lower ranked team have server advantage.

2. The first 2 games are played in lower ranked team home server and 3rd game is ALWAYS PLAYED in the higher ranked team's server of choice.

Originally Posted by Dougie

Hi Beef,

I agree with you about the disadvantage to EU teams based on current rules, and I still think we need a fairer system for the future. The major problem at the moment is a lack of APL servers in europe. Yes, we do have private some private clan servers which can be used, but SL admins do not have any control on these servers, which makes it difficult to administer.

However, lets say for the next major ball tournament, we have both US and EU servers which all tourny admins have full rights on.

Your proposal is flawed: How do you determine at the beginning of the season or if two teams are even on points who is the lowest ranked team? Alphabetical order? Because Sky League doesn't take further details, i.e. goal difference into consideration, then it makes it very difficult to judge which team should be lower ranked.

I personally don't see the current rules changing, certainly not during the regular season of SL6. Perhaps there might be time to set something up for the playoffs though?

First of all the proposed rules you proposed would be unfair towards those teams you call 'higher ranked' considering it should be an advantage to have the best seed I dont see why the lowest one should get a server advantage. Secondly your proposal is just basically to switch the current rule from 2 US games - 1 EU game to 2 EU games - 1 US game, I dont really see how that is fair.
Everything else dougie said is also true.

[beefheart]

I am not proposing to change it to 2 EU games and 1 US game. My goal is to balance the obvious current inequality a bit, by sometimes having a 2 EU 1 US game instead of always having a 1 EU 2 US game.

I do see the server problems though and I assumed APL 5 and 6 were still in existence, but I do not see that is brought up as an argument, as according to current rules we can play one game in an EU server already. Also I do not think it is necessary to have admin powers in all servers used, as all teams have proved to be able to run perfectly fair games themselves.

I also understand now, that basing the server advantage on ranking, might be problematic in the beginning of the league.I am just trying to come up with a solution.

Guess most fair would be to randomly determine the server advantage at the beginning of the match or to make a system in which each team challenges the other twice (home and away).

[landyowner]

Originally Posted by beefheart

Guess most fair would be to randomly determine the server advantage at the beginning of the match or to make a system in which each team challenges the other twice (home and away).

This would only work if we did not have play offs at the end of the season surely? Otherwise it would take twice as long as it does now.

[beefheart]

Originally Posted by landyowner

This would only work if we did not have play offs at the end of the season surely? Otherwise it would take twice as long as it does now.

Yeah season would be longer, or this could possibly be overcome by making different poules, like they have in the champions league.

[Dougie]

Originally Posted by beefheart

I do see the server problems though and I assumed APL 5 and 6 were still in existence, but I do not see that is brought up as an argument, as according to current rules we can play one game in an EU server already. Also I do not think it is necessary to have admin powers in all servers used, as all teams have proved to be able to run perfectly fair games themselves.

On external servers, the SL admins cannot administer kicks and bans to players who are deliberately disrupting a game, which can be a major problem in the current setup and environment. This is a rare occurrence, but can happen.

Originally Posted by beefheart

Guess most fair would be to randomly determine the server advantage at the beginning of the match or to make a system in which each team challenges the other twice (home and away).

With 13 teams playing in the league, each team would be playing 24 games each! With 3 games a week, that's 8 weeks for the regular season alone!

Another option would be to have each match during the regular season as 4 games, 2 at one teams server and 2 at the other teams, allowing for the possibility of a draw. But again this is adding extra games onto an already tight schedule.

Teams would have to be grouped if you wanted to apply either of these two strategies, and that's where the "fair" factor is lost!

[TwistedCookie]

We should figure out a solution instead of just saying why these ideas are bad.
This way the we will never find a solution to this server issue.

[trendy11one]

Maybe I miss something, but havent seen this suggestion, so I repeat mine from SL3 or 4.
According to previous standings of SL we split teams of groups. This was already made at WABL, dont see why its bad. This is how we split em.

-TOP 4 teams go separate group. 3 of them goes to playoff. They fight only for standings. Last team drop down to next group after last week.
-Rest form their group. According to amount of teams, there could be 2 groups.1-2 top teams of each group goes to play off. Team from first group will play games with less points team to get to playoff.
-All new teams. Form last group. 3 new teams goes to playoffs.

In every group teams fight each other 2 times. Home and Away.
This will give us
1. Good show - watching top4 teams fight each other every weekend
2. Close games - there is no "free" weeks, where one team just destroy another new comer 6-0 6-0 or 6-1.
3. Force everyone to fight even harder to get higher spots, even fight for 3rd place in playoffs.
4. Even if top4 team become really bad or lost power, they will have to prove their stands at this season, not only based on previous.

How much new teams we have? 5? For 13 teams it will be 4+4+5.Everyone will have 6 games at least.Newcomers group 8 games.Loser of group A and 2nd winner of group B - 2 More games. 3 finalists from A, 2 from A+B, and 3 from C. 8 teams goes to playoffs after 4 weeks(2 games each only). And these 8 teams will fill groups in next SL.

[beefheart]

Originally Posted by Dougie

On external servers, the SL admins cannot administer kicks and bans to players who are deliberately disrupting a game, which can be a major problem in the current setup and environment. This is a rare occurrence, but can happen.

Like I said, teams have been proven perfectly capable to cope with any disturbance and I never witnessed any big dispute during scrims or league matches.

Option 1: With 13 teams playing in the league, each team would be playing 24 games each! With 3 games a week, that's 8 weeks for the regular season alone!

Option 2: would be to have each match during the regular season as 4 games, 2 at one teams server and 2 at the other teams, allowing for the possibility of a draw. But again this is adding extra games onto an already tight schedule.


Teams would have to be grouped if you wanted to apply either of these two strategies, and that's where the "fair" factor is lost!

I do not understand why a longer season is a problem. But choosing for the possibility to have a draw sounds most attractive to me. Schedule 2 rounds per week of matches that always take 4 games (2 on US and 2 on EU). Teams get points only for the number of individual games won. This means that with the current teams it would take 7 weeks to complete regular season. I think this is currently the most "fair" solution proposed.

The only question is then how to arrange the playoffs.

I agree with cookie lets look further in the possibilities (see my comments under dougies quotes).

[darknietzsche]

The way I see things right now. You guys are totally correct that the server rules are biased to US teams. There are only 4 primarily US based teams (ball, Fat, SBDHFBS, and t3c) correct me if I am incorrect here, so I definitely see the point of changing up the server rules. I don't think the worst team should have an advantage though (kind of makes no sense), but during the regular season I also believe that no team should really have an advantage over the competition. It is hard to achieve this in any way but a home away system in which a team must deal with US and EU servers distributed in an equal fashion. Any other system would be biased towards teams who may or may not be better than their opponents. The playoffs are totally different story, those who come out of a grueling regular season on top deserve their advantage in the playoffs.

But here are definitely some obstacles that must be looked at for this to even be a possible change in the future of SL's as changing midseason right now is kind of ridiculous to ask as (some teams may have beaten previous teams under a new rule which is not fair).

1) Lack of Euro servers- apl/SL admins have to have admin rights in these servers and for everyone's knowledge APL 5 and 6 which were hosted by twistedduck had to be taken down due to inability to support. It has seemed very hard to get people to allow others to be admins of their servers in the past. (we will probably need 3 servers to be safe under a new change)

2) How do we make the regular season?- If we have 12,13,etc teams. how do we make the season not be excrutiatingly long (summer SL's are in less trouble then the ones that occur during school years/winter because less people are on vacation and busy during this time), and 8-10 weeks for regular seasons with 3 games a week is sort of harsh. If we group teams into groups how do we do that. Trendy gave a suggestion but what happens if we cant follow that everytime?

Just things to think about that people really have not suggested solutions to.

[andy]

3) How do you place new teams inside those groups? This time we have SBGHSGDSBSGDDASF last time we had t3c both top tier teams entering SL for the first time, it doesnt really look fair to introduce them as a 4th seed in a 4 teams group because it will highly unbalance the group stage.

[beefheart]

Originally Posted by darknietzsche

2) How do we make the regular season?- If we have 12,13,etc teams. how do we make the season not be excrutiatingly long (summer SL's are in less trouble then the ones that occur during school years/winter because less people are on vacation and busy during this time), and 8-10 weeks for regular seasons with 3 games a week is sort of harsh.

Just things to think about that people really have not suggested solutions to.

Have u looked into the possibility raised by dougie? Instead of bo3, matches consist out of 4 games (2 on EU server and 2 on US server) and you allow the possibility for a draw. This should take shorter than two bo3 games (home and away), since it is not necessary for teams to meet twice and they will always last only 4 games instead of 4 up to 6 games.

[TwistedCookie]

Originally Posted by andy

3) How do you place new teams inside those groups? This time we have SBGHSGDSBSGDDASF last time we had t3c both top tier teams entering SL for the first time, it doesnt really look fair to introduce them as a 4th seed in a 4 teams group because it will highly unbalance the group stage.

We can have the admins or a group of few exprienced players to evaluate the new teams by their members.
Ofc its not 100% accurate but it could be a good tool for situations like these.

[landyowner]

Originally Posted by Dougie

Another option would be to have each match during the regular season as 4 games, 2 at one teams server and 2 at the other teams, allowing for the possibility of a draw. But again this is adding extra games onto an already tight schedule.

Honestly, this seems like the best idea so far, it provides the home and away matches while keeping the season to a manageable length of time. The fact that it can result in a draw should not have a big effect in the regular season anyways.

[Aki1024]

Originally Posted by TwistedCookie

We can have the admins or a group of few exprienced players to evaluate the new teams by their members.
Ofc its not 100% accurate but it could be a good tool for situations like these.

There people calling bias on the system itself. You want to give them the option to call bias on the admins/enemy teams? Sounds wonderful.

If a Home/Away system is needed, changologe's rr table puts people in home/away positions by putting them higher/lower in the shown bracket.

[VipMattMan]

IMO the old system of "loser chooses server" in a BO3 would still be faster than adding what amounts to a BO5 to regular season, even with the occasional two switch session.

It's true that the team whose server you played on first is at somewhat of an advantage in this system, but you could encourage parity from season to season through that advantage. In the regular season let the worse seeded team from the previous skyleague pick the server first (the seeds of the teams who didn't play in the previous skyleague would be randomized at the bottom).

In the playoffs the team with the better seed (as determined by regular season standings), gets to choose the server first. Assuming a full five games are played out of a BO5, first 2 games are played "home", next 2 away, and the 5th back to the home server.

Edit- After re-reading I see that what dougie suggested wouldn't quite be a BO5, since there would be a draw after the 4th game. Still dunno if that would be faster than the old system, and I'm not sure I'm big on the draw idea. There are certain situations where teams getting a draw/loss could screw them both over in the standings. If you were to award each team a .5 win to compensate for that, there are other situations where it might be in both team's interest to force a draw.

[Dougie]

Originally Posted by darknietzsche

The way I see things right now. You guys are totally correct that the server rules are biased to US teams. There are only 4 primarily US based teams (ball, Fat, SBDHFBS, and t3c) correct me if I am incorrect here, so I definitely see the point of changing up the server rules. I don't think the worst team should have an advantage though (kind of makes no sense), but during the regular season I also believe that no team should really have an advantage over the competition. It is hard to achieve this in any way but a home away system in which a team must deal with US and EU servers distributed in an equal fashion. Any other system would be biased towards teams who may or may not be better than their opponents. The playoffs are totally different story, those who come out of a grueling regular season on top deserve their advantage in the playoffs.

But here are definitely some obstacles that must be looked at for this to even be a possible change in the future of SL's as changing midseason right now is kind of ridiculous to ask as (some teams may have beaten previous teams under a new rule which is not fair).

1) Lack of Euro servers- apl/SL admins have to have admin rights in these servers and for everyone's knowledge APL 5 and 6 which were hosted by twistedduck had to be taken down due to inability to support. It has seemed very hard to get people to allow others to be admins of their servers in the past. (we will probably need 3 servers to be safe under a new change)

2) How do we make the regular season?- If we have 12,13,etc teams. how do we make the season not be excrutiatingly long (summer SL's are in less trouble then the ones that occur during school years/winter because less people are on vacation and busy during this time), and 8-10 weeks for regular seasons with 3 games a week is sort of harsh. If we group teams into groups how do we do that. Trendy gave a suggestion but what happens if we cant follow that everytime?

Just things to think about that people really have not suggested solutions to.

1)I can try and get some EU based servers available by the playoffs that all SL admins can administer, as I currently have a test VPS available. I could use some teams testing it out during the regular season to test for ping reliability beforehand. If this proves stable enough, we could use it for the playoffs, allowing the team ranked higher at the end of the regular season to choose the server.

2)Anything longer than 5 weeks for the regular season is too long imho. The playoffs should be 2-3 weeks, making 8 weeks overall, which is still quite long for a tourny, but is about the same length as some of the previous Sky Leagues.

Originally Posted by andy

3) How do you place new teams inside those groups? This time we have SBGHSGDSBSGDDASF last time we had t3c both top tier teams entering SL for the first time, it doesnt really look fair to introduce them as a 4th seed in a 4 teams group because it will highly unbalance the group stage.

Grouping teams, as I briefly mentioned in my previous post, is the tricky part. Yes you can seed based on previous sky league performances, which seems the most appropriate method, but as has been stipulated, how do you distinguish between the new teams? Taking the average player ball ladder rank? I'm really not certain how to deal with that though. I attempted something similar in WABL, and ended up with a "group of death" which included {arr}, AH and BBQ because the latter team were new to the ball scene at that stage!

[sunshineduck]

ok, here's my proposal for a new SL format

the top 3 teams from the previous skyleague that sign up pick their opponents for a round-robin group stage. for examples sake, let's say {ball}, arr, and BBQ are the top 3 teams in this final.

they then do a serpentine draft of the remaining teams (let's say this is after our obligatory preseason, when we find out who's gonna show up and who isn't). {ball} picks t3c first, arr picks SMILE, BBQ picks asep, then it goes backwards with BBQ picking H2O, arr picking F-117, and {ball} picking F-16. then ball picks first again, and you do the whole shebang until all 12 slots in the group stage are filled. the order of the picks is the seeding of each group, shown below.

Group A:
1. {ball}
2. t3c
3. F-16
4. example

Group B:
1. arr
2. F-117
3. SMILE
4. example

Group C:
1. BBQ
2. asep
3. H2O
4. example

the first official week is round robin week, each team plays every other team in their group in a bo3. results are determined normally, tiebreakers would be head-to-head results, goals allowed, and coinflip by arbitrator in that order. the top two teams in each group make the playoffs. the bottom two teams as well as the remaining undrafted teams that weren't picked for the group stage play a one-week randomly seeded single elimination tournament where the 2 teams in the finals advance to the playoffs as wild cards.

playoffs format would be a three-week double elimination with a bo7 finals on its own third week. playoff seeding is determined by total wins in group, with tiebreakers being total goals allowed, previous skyleague results (a team that placed anywhere in SL is seeded higher than a new team), and coinflip in that order. top 3 seeds are the group winners, 4th seed is wildcard winner, 5th-7th are group runnerups, and 8th seed is wildcard runnerup.

most important thing is that the higher seeded team picks the server for the first 2 maps, lower seeded team picks server in the event of a game 3 throughout the tournament. for a bo7 servers can go home/home/away/away/home/away/home similar to the nba. any server that is to be used during skyleague has to be pre-approved by the admins before the week you plan on using it, and it would be infinitely easier to get a server approved if it added the SL admins as admins and removed non-essential personnel from the admin list (if only for the duration of the tournament)

[sunshineduck]

guess my idea sucks

[andy]

Actually it is the best idea which has been brought up. I dont know if it is really necessary but its still the only one that i would consider both fair and feasible.
Id substitute the coin flip with a Bo1 to avoid confusion.
While i like the nba format it is really a waste of time to change server more than once per match.
Who thinks we need a change in the format?

[ragnorak727]

thing is, probably the easiest way to work out the best team is to play everyone bo3 home and away. so just standard league format with a team playing each of their opponents twice, once at home and also away.

home team chooses server. end of the league the best team has won.

i know that there is an argument to be made regarding length but most of us would like to scrim regularly and if we kept the standard time but also allowed teams to complete there games by arrangement at any time over the weekend.

just like in football league you could have the last round of matches had to played at the standard sunday time. just seems the simplest way

[sunshineduck]

that's boring