Warrior General Games

Issues with prior plateau league structure:
1. Too many leagues (such that all non-WL leagues had multiple CPU teams).

2. 4 Natty Pro into 1 WL structure was a large skill jump so teams often dominated Natty Pro then got wiped into WL. Agents don't enjoy this environment and have no real time or chance to learn and improve.

3. No one wants to play CPU's, so why do so many CPU teams have to exist in human leagues, making everyone unhappy?

4.The prior league structure was STATIC, so aside from it being manually changed every 40 seasons, it was incapable of perfectly fitting the teams that exist.

5. All playoff teams had no advantage (since homefield and bye weeks don't exist) so with a crazy 67% of teams making the playoffs, the difference between the #1 seed and the #8 seed did not matter. This meant less regular season tryhards for a lot of teams, since there was no advantage, making the game less engaging besides the playoffs.


===========HOW WE CAN SOLVE THIS============

1. Label all teams as Human or if having less than 40 human dots, CPU/INC. The CPU/INC teams are sorted to the bottom tiers on a 2nd d44 sort. We can also throw out adjusted stats and make only team and player stats vs human teams count/be recorded anywhere. Suggestion Link to the CPU/INC thing specifically for stats: https://glb.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=5330237&page=1#50105926

2. Only have the # of plateau leagues needed + up to 11 total CPU/INC plateau teams to fill out the leagues. Holding teams with zero human dots get demoted to rookie on the d44 sort.

3. Make 1 single-file league ladder which will support up to 9 tiers, so 9*12 = 108 teams. If we ever have 109+ teams (seems unlikely) that same ladder can become 2-wide (so 2 leagues in each of 5 tiers, supporting up to 120 teams, and expanding from there)

4. Make regular season and playoff results MATTER by having many outcomes based on your performance.

Visualized promotion/demotion structure https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eg_ar5WTsOwGxS3OeLW60LdPDtlfekKwd1K3xFyg4bU/edit?usp=sharing

-If only 6 teams make the playoffs, the top 2 seeds can get a bye week which is a huge advantage people will want

With the exception of WL where 6/12 teams stay:
-If you finish 1st or 2nd in a lower league, you can promote 2 tiers (T4 to T2).
-If you finish 3rd or 4th you promote 1 tier (T4 to T3)
-If you finish 5th to 8th you stay in your current league (top 2 non-playoff teams and bottom 2 playoff teams).
-If you finish 9th or 10th you demote 1 tier (T4 to T5)
-If you finish 11th or 12th you demote 2 tiers (T4 to T6)


==========

The above would successfully:
1. Weed out cpu/incomplete human teams to the bottom tier so at most 1 league has to play them.
2. Would make regular season finishes matter for EVERYONE.
3. Would populate top competitive leagues based on MERIT/SUCCESS.
4. Would allow top teams to advance the long ladder faster with double-jumps.
5. Generally avoid huge skill jumps between seasons when teams are advancing tiers
6. A structure able to expand and contract as needed with the userbase, instead of a structure only correct for 1 moment in time.

===========
What still needs ironing out...
1. Exactly how to integrate the new plateau teams to the tier ladder each season (would need a sorting algorithm based on merit, but ideally new teams get placed close to the middle tiers, NOT at the bottom). Though it'd be nice if a non-plateau team's success/failure can influence where a team gets sorted to in their first plateau season.

2. What to name the tiers: Tier 1 can be "Moon League (T1)" or "World League (T1)" or something, but not sure how to properly structure names for up to 9 tiers.

3. Do we need an incentive for 1st place in lower tiers compared to 2nd place, or is bragging rights for gold enough? If so, what is a good advantage that makes sense? Perhaps a team cash bonus, or a reward point bonus to the Owner/Coordinators?

4. We really need a longer than 5 season plateau for a ladder journey system to be viable. Really need 7 season or 8 season plateau imho. Otherwise with 5 season plateau you spend maybe 3-4 seasons journey'ing up and can only spend 1-2 seasons in WL max, which would be a huge dis-advantage to non-farm teams and would give network farm teams (who can re-load a top team without promoting) an insurmountable advantage.

==============================

Thoughts welcome. Thank you for joining my TEDx Talk!

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tl;dr: fix GLB plateau by murdering CPU's, making a single file ladder, making 6/12 teams make playoffs, get rid of "adjusted stats", making team finish spot (#1 to #12) matter.

Open sheet to everyone with link can view

I applaud your effort wise, good job.

Originally posted by RyanCane26
Open sheet to everyone with link can view

Oops, fixed!

Originally posted by Kenshinzen
I applaud your effort wise, good job.

GLB is like a long lost first love that always has a special place in my heart. I can't help but try to help her get back on her feet!

Btw just for nostalgia, around s20 I had a league structure suggestion to condense the # of leagues which got a lot of +1's from the (now mostly dead) users.
https://glb.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=4542784&page=34#41268331

My suggestion basically happened WAY later around s48, with the major difference being a contraction from 32 team leagues to 12 team leagues. Thus proving, I have had good idea's before. So I fully expect the OP to be implemented around s128!

Originally posted by Kenshinzen
I applaud your effort wise, good job.

+1

Anyone have a reason why re-sorting cpu's on d44 out of leagues, and having a 1-wide ladder isn't ideal?

Originally posted by WiSeIVIaN
Anyone have a reason why re-sorting cpu's on d44 out of leagues, and having a 1-wide ladder isn't ideal?

Yes as long as lower leagues dont earn playoff revenue

Originally posted by WiSeIVIaN
Anyone have a reason why re-sorting cpu's on d44 out of leagues, and having a 1-wide ladder isn't ideal?
The double sort thing is a good idea.

as for the long 1-wide ladder...
The only reason I have is the same one I always have.

The top tiers are for coordinators. Everyone else does nothing, except maybe watch replays. Plateau is boring AF.

Without a system that kicks the teams themselves out of the top tier (by team ID or whatever), all the promotion stuff is a complete waste of time. Top Tier teams will just cut old dots, sign young ones, and stay top tier.

Not to mention, the longer plateau is, the less incentive there is to start a new team building up. If dots only age out every 7 seasons, then you only need a new team every 7 seasons to replace the dots. If we're not building as many teams, then we're also not building as many dots.

+++

What I'm dreaming about is a game where there's a draft. There's a building game. Then there's a coordinator game.

Players would be built for the draft, and then stay "plateau age" until they start to decline and age out, or forcibly retire early.

Every "plateau" team would get a chance to draft top prospects, but would also be forced to take on lesser dots, from unknown agents, and have to make choices about whether to hold on to an aging vet, or draft a late round rookie. If teams stay at 55 dots, maybe have 9 round drafts, and make plateau be 6 seasons? There would have to be "free agent" signings of some kind like UDFAs or aging vets that get cut.

Ideally, all builds would be closed (although there would always be work arounds like screen shots emailed, outside of the game). Maybe get the LOLbar system an upgrade and have game stats and performance metrics like a combine grades in different events or something. Like.... Instead of seeing Strength 155, there would be a baseline number of bench press reps modified by a little RNG, to get a score in that event.

It seems like there should be some kind of system (like tweaking VAs maybe?) that would allow players to improve over the "plateau" phase of their career...



You'd want to continually be building dots every season, to get drafted, because every team would have "needs" and "wants" every season.

Maybe top "college team" (the 4 years build cycle) coordinators could become eligible to get a "pro" (plateau) team?

I am still hoping for no WL but a world tournament with a decent reward for winning, like 5 years free team ownership. the pros became meaningless once all anyone cared about was WL. surely i am not the only one that realizes that "ph, its only a pro championship, or MVP" sounds rather silly when its the 2nd highest level. how many teams got to pro then disbanded because they were deemed not WL-quality? those teams could have kept the pros competitive. 4 pro leagues was 2 too many for years. i agree that cpu at the highest levels should be non existent. but i see way too many teams lose to cpu teams short of reg pro. we dont usually see 255-0 blowouts until reg pro, then boom cpu teams become useless. lets face it, cpu teams are always going to be necessary so lets make every level competitive. its absentee owners that do more harm than good since cpu teams at least put players in the right slots whereas human teams often have qb or dt punting and kicking. cutting teams down to 40 players would make a lot of sense. let offensive linemen play the entire game like reality since we dont have injuries. make backups play ST instead of having a bunch of stops.

I like the WL goal and for those who don't, OK. To have a top league to shoot for, is a big part of why this game has lasted 15 years! The structure of the league system was very successful. Why change what has been a bell weather feature?

For changes, fewer NattyPro leagues, say 2 or 3 as opposed to 4 might be warranted depending on how things play out the next few seasons. Wholesale changes like the ones being tossed around, could be experimented with in GLB2. Then those who preferred that style, could go there and play to their hearts content; Kind of how Casual and Pee Wee have their followings now.

without WL this game would get super boring, super quick

Originally posted by reddogrw
without WL this game would get super boring, super quick

Yup.

Originally posted by TJ Spikes

The double sort thing is a good idea.


Thanks, Agreed!


Originally posted by TJ Spikes

as for the long 1-wide ladder...
The only reason I have is the same one I always have.

The top tiers are for coordinators. Everyone else does nothing, except maybe watch replays. Plateau is boring AF.

Without a system that kicks the teams themselves out of the top tier (by team ID or whatever), all the promotion stuff is a complete waste of time. Top Tier teams will just cut old dots, sign young ones, and stay top tier.

Not to mention, the longer plateau is, the less incentive there is to start a new team building up. If dots only age out every 7 seasons, then you only need a new team every 7 seasons to replace the dots. If we're not building as many teams, then we're also not building as many dots.

+++

What I'm dreaming about is a game where there's a draft. There's a building game. Then there's a coordinator game.

Players would be built for the draft, and then stay "plateau age" until they start to decline and age out, or forcibly retire early.

Every "plateau" team would get a chance to draft top prospects, but would also be forced to take on lesser dots, from unknown agents, and have to make choices about whether to hold on to an aging vet, or draft a late round rookie. If teams stay at 55 dots, maybe have 9 round drafts, and make plateau be 6 seasons? There would have to be "free agent" signings of some kind like UDFAs or aging vets that get cut.

Ideally, all builds would be closed (although there would always be work arounds like screen shots emailed, outside of the game). Maybe get the LOLbar system an upgrade and have game stats and performance metrics like a combine grades in different events or something. Like.... Instead of seeing Strength 155, there would be a baseline number of bench press reps modified by a little RNG, to get a score in that event.

It seems like there should be some kind of system (like tweaking VAs maybe?) that would allow players to improve over the "plateau" phase of their career...



You'd want to continually be building dots every season, to get drafted, because every team would have "needs" and "wants" every season.

Maybe top "college team" (the 4 years build cycle) coordinators could become eligible to get a "pro" (plateau) team?





I appreciate the perspective and response, but I would also say that most agents (who still play this game) don't have your distain for plateau.

For the rest of your post, imo it's a combination of NGTH from Bort's perspective (since it'd completely rework the game), and things that wouldn't increase interest in GLB (would actually kill it). People don't want to have no control over where their dots go in plateau, since the competency of teams and coordinators varies VERY wildly.

Imho a functional meritocracy is the best we can hope for (which is what the 1-wide ladder is). But forcing dots to random teams because the owner was willing to spend $5 a season to let a bunch of dots rot after a draft is not a practical or effective solution.