Elements PvP League - Suggestions and Feedback

[TStar]

The problem with awarding essentially free points is that it is heavily weighted towards players with higher ranks.  With ELO, the higher your rank and the greater the points gap is the less points each win is worth.  Using myself for example, wins against a 1500 rank player are worth 2 points for me at the end.  Giving me a 10 point "participation bonus" is like giving me 5 free wins.  Now a player down around 1400 who gets that bonus is basically getting less than 1 win worth of points since their win over a 1500 player is worth more than 10 points.  Can you see how getting free points is a huge advantage now?

As for the rest of your post, all you've done is explain the weakness of an ELO system.  This isn't something specific only to Elements, but it's a universal problem with ELO.  I have no idea how to fix that, nor do I think it can be.  That's just a fundamental part of how the system operates.  We will explore some options of tweaking the rules to try and make it harder to refuse matches, but that's really the best that can be done without abandoning the entire system and starting all over.  We've explored using a KRACH system that would eliminate this issue since score would be constantly updated based on how your past opponents score changed meaning when you play a player isn't important but rather where that players rank ends up.  Unfortunately the technology doesn't exist on a freeware basis to institute something this complex.  Googledocs simply can't handle the amount of complex and complicated calculations required to do this.  That means to change the system would require that all scoring be done offline by a LO, and there are some rather obvious problems that arise with something like that.  While ELO isn't perfect, it's the best option we've found to-date under the current technology available to us.  We can and will explore options to address your #2 point, but I'm open to suggestions on how you can fix #1.

[bucky1andonly]

-25 points per week if you do not play at least 5 games
OR
-25 points per week if at any time there are 3 consecutive days without a game played

[atomiton]

How about a prize just for playing? Seem like a lot of work and time to do these leagues with no spins and little to no chance of anything good in the outcome.

[pikachufan2164]

How about a prize just for playing? Seem like a lot of work and time to do these leagues with no spins and little to no chance of anything good in the outcome.

If you're approaching Leagues with this kind of attitude, then you're not making it an enjoyable experience for yourself and everybody else :\

League is primarily a place for players to gain experience and hone their PvP, deckbuilding, and psychological (i.e. reading the opponent and prediction) skills in a relatively unrestricted environment (as opposed to tournaments and PvP Events, which often have deckbuilding restrictions).

Giving out participation prizes is not practical because Zanz has to create all the reward codes himself, and making 100+ reward codes would take a lot of time to do (which also cuts into his spare time for Elements development).

Also, when someone had suggested a "participation prize" for tournaments, it got shot down immediately because of that reasoning.

I would actually be annoyed if I got a code for 50 electrum.
It would be like the TOs saying, "Hey Root. You completely failed in this tourney. Here's a code for something you could grind in 30 seconds. Hope you enjoy it!"

Now replace 50 with another arbitrary amount, TOs with LOs, and tourney with league. You get the idea

Really, they're called "reward codes" for a reason -- they're a reward, and you have to work hard for them (by doing well enough in Tournaments and Leagues, for example).

TL;DR version: It's too much work for Zanz, and it's just rather ridiculous.

[atomiton]

If you're approaching Leagues with this kind of attitude, then you're not making it an enjoyable experience for yourself and everybody else :\

Yeah, yeah. It just seems to me that the whole process of these leagues is a little convoluted and a time waster. If it was more stream lined than maybe. The back and forth between the chat and the PVP and the waiting.

I guess why have a league. If its just about honing a deck you can do PVP without having a league. Besides there is a reward for first and second place so the desire to win is already there.

[Pineapple]

If its just about honing a deck you can do PVP without having a league.

League is primarily a place for players to gain experience and hone their PvP, deckbuilding, and psychological (i.e. reading the opponent and prediction) skills in a relatively unrestricted environment (as opposed to tournaments and PvP Events, which often have deckbuilding restrictions).

You can't hone your speed-building, metagame-crushing skills--nor can you develop "psychological" skills--while playing a series of individuals one time each.

[Onizuka]

Bull.
Speedbuilding between rounds based on your opponent, to make a specific deck for a specific opponent.
BL has a metagame. Definitely does.
There's 10 possible games. I've manipulated a person to play a specific type of deck against me last BL through previous games. Totally possible.

[CCCombobreaker]

BL was full of meta-gaming.  Most people keep track of their matches and what their opponents play.  So you may only play someone once every couple weeks, but you still get to 'prepare' for each match.  And if you play the same deck all the time, word will get out and you'll start seeing hard counters from people you haven't even played. 

BL was my first pvp experience and I found it both enjoyable and helpful toward improving my game skills.  I didn't need a participation prize.  All I wanted was the new season to start so I can play more matches against TStar, see more of WVM's deck prototypes, talk strategy with MatrimKK, and yell DRAGON PUNCH!!!

May RNG smile upon us all.

[Gorthos]

30 matches is way too high.  Look at BL 2011 season 2 - about 70 out of 90 players did NOT play 30 matches, so I guess they all got banned from season 3.
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=24688.0 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=24688.0)
If a match takes 30 minutes on average, that's 15 hours of play, plus the time needed to find opponents + set up decks.  Seems like a big commitment.

Why even have a minimum at all?  If people don't play many matches then they probably won't win anyway.  Having a minimum just discourages people (like me) from joining in the first place.

[CCCombobreaker]

15 hours of play would be a big commitment if it weren't spread out over three months, which dilutes it down to 10 minutes a day or more reasonably about 2 matches a week.  That is pretty close to what other PvP events require, but the league places no requirement on finding a time to meet a certain opponent or having smaller time windows in which each match must take place.

For a lot of other events, there are requirements placed on who can join, which adds to the credibility of the event.  The BL has no such requirement.  Anyone can join, so it is often a first step into organized PvP and the community.  The minimum is to let people know that it is a credible and sanctioned event.  It needs some structure to balance out the non-existent entry barrier.  It let's people know that there are consequences for signing up (playing your first match) for events and then abandoning the event.  Ideally the organizers and players want everyone to make the minimum, it adds more possible matchups and variety to the league.  Most people who drop out aren't people who really want to play next season... they are either new people who decide it isn't what they thought/wanted or some veterans who prioritize their involvement and decide other events are more important to them.  There are only a few cases of people who didn't meet the minimum and then even cared enough to seek exemption from the rule.

If you personally are worried about the minimum, you have options, but the deciding question is: do you expect to be able to meet the minimum in future seasons (especially next season)?

If you don't think you can make the minimum this season or next season, then just go for it.  Play in the league matches you can.  Get the experience.  If you haven't made 30 matches in 3 months from now... you skip next season.  You can still hang out in chat, you can still request pvp1 duels with people, or even "practice BL" matches with people in the league.  If you don't expect to win... then there is little difference other than not appearing in the standings.

If you think you'll have more time in the future to make enough matches, sit out this season... but you can still do the things I pointed out above this season.

You shouldn't look at the minimum as a barrier to entry unless next season is more important to you than this one.  If it isn't any more important, you have nothing to lose.  Don't be discouraged, just start playing and hopefully you get there.

[Gorthos]

It doesn't matter if it's spread out or all at once, 15 hours is still 15 hours.  Nobody's going to do 10 minutes a day every single day.

Remember the fact that approx 70/90 from the previous BL season failed to play 30 matches.  That's about 75% of everybody who played.  For a lot of them, they played a bunch of matches, just not 30.

The minimum is to let people know that it is a credible and sanctioned event.  It needs some structure to balance out the non-existent entry barrier.

So the event is not "credible" unless it bans people who don't want to spend a ton of time on it?  Why make it exclusionary for no reason?  Having more players benefits everyone in the event - easier to find matches.

If you don't think you can make the minimum this season or next season, then just go for it.  Play in the league matches you can.  Get the experience.  If you haven't made 30 matches in 3 months from now... you skip next season.

If it's a rule that you are banned from the next event if you don't play 30 matches, that's really sending a message "If you think you might not play 30 matches, we don't want you to play at all."  Which means you don't want 75% of the people who play in this event.  You shouldn't make a rule that bans people who break it, but then say "oh it's okay to break that rule, just take the ban."

Honestly I don't know if I would play 30 matches or not if I started this.  But this rule is telling me "unless you're sure you'll do the full 30, we don't want you to play."  I'm sure a lot of other people reading the rules would get the same impression.

[CCCombobreaker]

I don't expect 10 minutes every day, which is why I quantified it 'more reasonably' as about 2 matches a week.

If it's a rule that you are banned from the next event if you don't play 30 matches, that's really sending a message "If you think you might not play 30 matches, we don't want you to play at all."

This just isn't the case.  We encourage anyone to play BL matches, of course we hope they all get to 30 matches, but no one is upset at all the people that didn't make it, and most people who don't make it aren't upset about getting banned (most of them disappear well before the end of the season).  You are really over thinking this... Yeah 75% didn't make it, and some of them did play 20 games (it may be important to note not all people under 30 got banned, when the season was extended they let more people join and those new comers only had to complete 10 matches before the season ended).

We want as many people to play in BL as possible, but if people decide it is too big a commitment, then they don't get to try again for a while... And because the community is constantly expanding there is rarely a shortage of new people to replace the ones who get banned, it's part of the ebb and flow of the player base.

And to point it out again, if you have NO intent of winning the league, then just hang in chat and ask for pvp1 duels or BL practice matches.  You can even keep your own stats to compare yourself with the actual league.

So the event is not "credible" unless it bans people who don't want to spend a ton of time on it? 

And yes, for an event to be credible it needs some sort of prize for those who succeed greatly at it and some punishment for those who disregard the event (by abandoning it before it ends) or its rules.  We have pvp parasite system for other events, and the league has its own banlist.  Rules are inherently arbitrary, but having some and enforcing them is what separates league play from just playing.

Apologies for the many edits, it is hard to post detailed replies in the basic mobile version of the site.