Increasing Championship League participation

[justaburd]

This was originally going to be a poll, but a poll doesn't really do what I would like it to do.

Spoiler for spoiler alert:

Next league will very likely feature the ability to join both leagues at once. Of course, you'll only get one prize based on your highest placement.

There are some ideas that have been discussed, some of them being:

• Pushing people into joining CL based on score
• Joining 2 leagues at once
• More prizes

I will say now that I don't intend to be pushing people into CL based on score. Score is not a very strong indicator of player skill or ability to join one league or another. The two most important things in CL are upgraded cards and the knowledge of how to build good decks. Score doesn't necessarily mean electrum wealth, nor does it point to being knowledgeable. I'm sure most people choose to go with prebuilt decks like PDials or Swallow or something else to grind for elec, and at the same time, score.

More prizes has been a sort of controversial topic, to say the least. everyone wants more prizes, but since Jenk championed removing some from CL, we see a steady decline in participation, but there's no way for us LOs to know what the causes of that is. Also, the community would have to convince Higurashi to give us more mark codes if that's what the community wants.

I'm not sure how well 2 leagues would work but I'm willing to give it a try. Perhaps it's exactly what is needed, perhaps not. We'll see

All of that said, questions? Comments? Thoughts? Arguments? Pie?

[Vangelios]

 Well, just an observation
 When I say score, I mean if the upgraded cards, never ELECTRON
is clear that skill is greater than upgraded, but in CL have very skilled players too who have many upped cards, and are skilled and experienced  vs another player without having upped cards will be in BIG disadvantage.
here we won several games with 1 HP, imagine a skilled opponent full upped!! is terrible

100.00 score, was suggested by Odii also know that it is important for quality not quantity , indeed going to encourage players to farm more if really want to participate in CL.

[Ungaros]

My suggestion: Combine CL and BL into one league with more prizes for top 8. Default would be unupped like BL, but players could agree to use upgraded cards on a match-by-match basis. Players could even choose to allow X upgraded cards like many tournaments do, in addition to the current option for restricted card pools or bans as agreed upon by by opponents.

[bripod]

My suggestion: Combine CL and BL into one league with more prizes for top 8. Default would be unupped like BL, but players could agree to use upgraded cards on a match-by-match basis. Players could even choose to allow X upgraded cards like many tournaments do, in addition to the current option for restricted card pools or bans as agreed upon by by opponents.

Would there be any "weighting" for CL type matches? If not, then someone could win with never having played a CL type match...

[Ungaros]

If weighting is necessary then I'd say just go the route of letting people participate in both leagues.

[dragonsdemesne]

Bigger prizes would quite possibly convince me to play CL next season, but I don't like the idea of giving larger prizes to one league, when they are separated not by skill level, but by number of upgraded cards owned.  If players were allowed to play in both leagues at once, I would definitely join both.  I also don't like the idea of using score to determine things, because score is not equal to skill, and because one can manipulate score by just spamming losses, anyway.

I don't really like Ungaros' idea; I think it would lead to too much negotiation (and possibly arguments/drama) before matches.  People asking for bans (particularly on shards) has already caused some drama this season, and I think this would be similar, only worse.  It could also lead to players winning without having played a CL match. (or a BL match, to take it the other way)

I would actually like to see the prizes increased for both leagues, if possible.  (by the same amount in each one)  It's always seemed strange to me that you can play an entire season of league and get one or two marks, but you can win (or even get 2nd) in a single tourney and get the same reward.  I think I remember that CL used to have 3 marks/2 marks/1 mark as the top 3 prizes (and BL was 2/1/0 for top 3) but that they were divided more evenly later on.

One could argue that my suggestion devalues reward codes to a degree, by suggesting that more should be available.  However, I don't see that as a problem.  There are few enough opportunities to get reward codes that luck plays too much of a factor in getting them.  I am of the opinion that there should be enough rewarded events that all of the top skilled players are able to earn marks/nymphs, not just the top skilled players that also have a certain degree of luck, as well as more patience/time to participate in all the tourneys/leagues.  I'm not saying that lesser activity should be rewarded, but I am saying that top skilled players shouldn't be punished for a lack of events to participate in.  We don't want codes handed out like rares in a t50 farm, but we don't want them being little more than oracle spin crapshoots, either. 

[Vangelios]

I would actually like to see the prizes increased for both leagues, if possible.  (by the same amount in each one)  It's always seemed strange to me that you can play an entire season of league and get one or two marks, but you can win (or even get 2nd) in a single tourney and get the same reward.  I think I remember that CL used to have 3 marks/2 marks/1 mark as the top 3 prizes (and BL was 2/1/0 for top 3) but that they were divided more evenly later on.

I find strange, I gained 6 codes for second place in tournaments (actually 4 because 2 are pending) and summing all leagues that I participate received only 4 codes, but it is a unanimous opnion that leagues should be worth more codes, the problem is the  codes in missing, has a specific lot limited of codes? someone could say how this work? I remember that even T-Star once complained that he had not received codes.

[Odii Odsen]

Joining two leagues at once:
Actually I am not a big fan of this idea. Maybe because I am too "traditional" in this case, I just think everybody should join only one league. I think there must be other ways to make CL more attractive. Higher prizes than in BL is also not the right solution. Some people don't join a league in general because they dislike the shard-game. The first step to make a league more attractive, especially for CL, is to make the rules more comfortable. We already discussed it in chat and didn't find a way to make this possible. What I want: Rules because of shards that are equally weighted: If you wanna play with shards or shardless. From rules:

1. Both players have 5 minutes to agree on a ban list. If both players can't agree on a specific ban list, the match proceeds in unrestricted play.

In my opinion it should be like: If both can not agree, the game is canceled. -> this belongs ONLY to the shard-rule. (I think this should be clarified in a separated rule.) Other rules like: Minimum/maximum deck size / Specific card bans / Specific element bans/ Only trio decks/ etc. should follow the current rule:

1. Both players have 5 minutes to agree on a ban list. If both players can't agree on a specific ban list, the match proceeds in unrestricted play.

One of the goals or maybe the biggest goal for every participant is being in Top 6. I'm not sure if everybody knows this current situation, but it's much easier to be on top 6 in CL than in BL.
The next argument of BLers is, BL has more participants = more matches. This is true, because the most people think they have not enough ups or they like the unupped meta more. So I was thinking, too, but this changed after my first season in CL. The last time CL had more matches than BL was in the season 3/2012 btw.

I don't think it's the best solution to join two leagues at once, but better than doing nothing. Justaburd said, he will give it a try. I like. I hope people who never joined CL and will do it next season will give some feedback about CL. Why they are positive surprised / Why they like BL more/ Would they join CL again/ etc.

Higher score for CL needed:
It happened in the past that new player or new community member with a "low" score joined CL. Some CLer played them and gained "easy points".
I never say that somebody with a score of 20k has not enough skill to join CL. But usually people with a 20k score has not enough ups to be a worthy opponent in the CL/upgraded meta.

It would also avoid "fake accounts" for CL and to be honest I think that happened in the past.

[Calambar]

My suggestion is as follow:

Allow users to join two leagues at once, but if a player goes to Top 6 in both leagues, he or she gets reward only for CL. No matter if that player is 6th in CL, and 1st in BL, once he reaches top 6 in CL, he is out of BL after the end of season. This would increase a chance for noob in BL to get reward and prevent monopolizing the top 6 in both leagues by veterans. That is my modified suggestion from chat, where there was an opinion that player could win only in one league, but he is allowed to choose from which league he wants the reward.

[Fippe94]

If that were the case, I would certainly not join both leagues. Or, if I do and get in that situation, I would just lose on purpose in Cl.

[Submachine]

About CL, it's a lot different story than BL. Cards are more splashable, more able to run off-mark, and shards become more powerful than in BL. That's why I think we should limit shard usage in CL, if not banned entirely. In BL, shards are okay, as they have a reasonable cost.

I think there should be a rule that says:
1. All bans that were stated by a lower-rank player MUST be accepted by the higher-rank player in either League, unless they make gameplay highly restricted or impossible.

This way there shouldn't be a problem with bans. And a secondary rule along with the first should say:
2. If the lower-rank player disagrees on the bans of the higher-rank player, the match proceeds with only the bans of the lower-rank player, otherwise unrestricted.

I have no problem with joining both leagues as long as 1 player can only claim 1 prize. The claimed prize should be the one that benefits more.
I just repeated here what the OP said.

Combining my first and second point, there is an option that if anyone wants to ban 1 or more shards (mostly in CL), be it the lower or the higher-rank player, it must be accepted no matter what. This rule would overwrite everything previously stated.

After the first month, people in BL gets their own standings based on rank. Those who are in the lower half tend to become "suddenly and mysteriously inactive". There are also the ones who are in top ranks, but avoid duelling to keep score. To avoid being a douchebag, I don't press anyone to play with me and neither do others in BL who just play for fun. But this way, against those who exploit rules and/or human emotions/feelings, I suggest the following rule:
3. For every 4-day-intervals, in which a player didn't play a single match, his rank or score drops down automatically.

The interval length and the drop in score/rank may vary based on LO opinion.

I also had an idea that rewards activity. In KotH, winners got 3 points and losers got 1. How about making the losers in Leagues get minor points too? Or would that make the gameplay much different?

A minimum-score limit should be added to CL, just like Odii said. I have seen a lot of newbies who think that upgraded beats all, therefore they either instantly upgrade or sell all their cards. There are a lot of newbies out there who have only 2-3 decks, but all upgraded. I want to exclude these kind of players from CL.


That's all for now. I hope it helped.

[Fippe94]

1. All bans that were stated by a lower-rank player MUST be accepted by the higher-rank player in either League, unless they make gameplay highly restricted or impossible.

Vague rules like this is will always be a problem for all involved. What makes the gameplay "highly restrictive" is subjective, and must be clearly defined. I don't really like the rule either.

Those who are in the lower half tend to become "suddenly and mysteriously inactive".

I know this is irrelevant to your argument, but I just want to point out that there is nothing odd or even bad about people losing interest after losing a lot.