You could bonus point them by how they did in the previous season, but still randomize the groupings. Your reordering doesn't mix up the groups well enough as you don't take promotions into account. They should get mixed up too. And why should the losers get choice spots in the league below them. They are losers after all.

KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid!

@Draug: Because presumably, everyone in the Premier league is better than everyone in the A league.

Or they got lucky and road somebody else's coattails. Its an invalid presumption because the best player on the site could have just started and be lower on the list than the lesser players who managed to squeak into Premier.

Any ranking system has to start from a presumption of accuracy...

But you don't startvat the bottom and find yourself restricted to one promotion at a time on a ranking system. This isn't a ranking system as a result. A proper ranking system only looks at the last x number of games and seeds one accordingly, then you can play a round Robin tournament to weed out the outliers. The leagues do neither of these in their present or your proposed versions.

"Premier League, A1, A2, B1, B2, B3, and B4. Each league has 14 players. At the end of each season, the top 4 players from A1 and A2 would feed into the Premier league, and the bottom four in Premier league would be demoted to *level* A. The same would happen for A and B. Top four in B1 and B2 would feed into A1. The top four in B3 and B4 would feed into A2. The bottom four in A1 and A2 would be demoted to *level* B."

That's 7*14 participants, 14 more than the highest number we've had, 28 more than this last season. But hopefully we can gain some players back. In any case, the B level has to be a flexible number of boards as the number of participants will vary from season to season.

So in your suggestion the premier of 14 people has 4 go down and 10 stay. That seems like a low number of demotions. Or did you mean 8 go down and only 6 stay? That seems more reasonable.

Right now the promotions/demotions are as follows:
Premier: 7 players - 4 stay, 3 demoted
A: 7 players - 3 promoted, 3 demoted, 1 stays
B1/B2: 14 players - 3 promoted, 6 demoted, 5 stay
C1/C2/C3: 21 players - 6 promoted, 9 demoted, 6 stay
D1-?: 21-35 players or so - 9 promoted, 12-26 stay

But keep in mind that with players dropping out from one season to the next affects how many are demoted and promoted.

"So in your suggestion the premier of 14 people has 4 go down and 10 stay. That seems like a low number of demotions. Or did you mean 8 go down and only 6 stay? That seems more reasonable."

That would be fine by me. I played around with the numbers a bit, but I'm not really familiar with the leagues, although I'll likely join, assuming they see some reform. The details are really not my strong suit - but I think a pyramid tiered system with cross pollination would work very well.

well, it seems there is one fundamental question that needs an answer... what and how is the role of meta-leaguing (cross-gaming) going to be controlled, and what is the expectation. I will tell you this - in the Primiere league with some of the best and most honest players on this site, each of whom I respect tremendously, there was more meta-gaming than I've ever seen... and I've engaged in more meta-gaming than I ever ever ever ever want to engage in again.

if the point is for the meta-gaming to be so blatant and account to such a high degree for the results, then I (personally) will bow out and allow those who enjoy this element of the league to have their fill.


as for anon vs non, there seems to be a widespread consensus on this point. so I think this debate seems to be over.


the other remaining suggestion was to REDUCE the number of leagues to a few big leagues... moving from 7 to 14 players is not a big change. but moving to TWO major leagues of 28 each with however many minor leagues of 7 is a significant change offered up. the point being that it IS more difficult to meta-game with 27 other players and that also allows for the demotion of a full third of the league without causing everyone else to meta-game so blatantly just because they are afraid of demotions...


Aldarian - I don't know how you are going to make decisions... putting things to a vote seems like it will have too many flaws, but being dictatorial might not be your thing either... so let us know what process you are thinking of using to decide on changes. in the end, you are the TD, and we will make our decisions to join or not join the leagues based on the final result of how its set up, not on how the decision was reached.

I think i've shared my thoughts, many others whose thoughts and concerns are similar to mine have also shared theirs, and Draugnar has been a vocal and repetitive proponent of some of his ideas that are diametrically opposed to mine. I'm going to leave this thread alone now and wait until a final decision is made regarding the future structure of the leagues... thanks for hearing me out and I look forward to reading about the decision.

14/21/28?

21 and 28 may be better from a meta-point of view.

but i think more games might be useful to give a chance to get to know people...
that said i'd think i'd favour 14 players in P and sticking with 4 games per season.

14 in P and 14 in A, along with 14 in B, with the rest in C (divided into groups of 14)

is 33% promotions enough? i assume the point of larger groups below means only the first place performer would earn promotion. Which has some merit... it means the top players in any division are all at each other's throats fighting for promotion.

I think i've been vocal enough. Any decision rests with the TD, who i trust will make what he thinks is the best call. I intend to try playing in the next season no matter what format it takes. Though i am unsure about dedicating my life to diplomacy for 6 games, 4 is a big enough commitment.

The concern I have with 28 is that with 4 games, I'll be playing at most 24 of the 27 other players and likely won't play with more than a few players twice. For myself at least, and I believe as others have mentioned on this thread, getting to know the other players is a large part of the fun of the League. 21 isn't much better.

At 14 with 4 games, you'll play most of the other players twice at least.