Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Theo Wizzago
So we would need at least... say... 5 different leagues to do this?


# of leagues doesn't really matter. If you only have a 1-wide ladder and you throw CPU/INC team's at the bottom, you'll have the best outcome possible (largest number of competitive human leagues possible) for whatever size the userbase is at any point in time. Any other option is more flawed with more issues.

Before the Thanos snap, we had around 35 legit human plateau teams. If we change from the old 5/12 plateau (42% of living dots were in plateau) to a hopeful new 7/11 plateau (64% of living dots in plateau), if the same number of dots exist, that raises the # of human plateau teams to 53 which populates 4.5 leagues, fwiw.

I also posted this on the Discord:

There is a bit of a problem in just removing the unfilled teams when the season changes in that some of them might still fill up during preseason, and then they are stuck in the "empty teams" league (or certain people might do that just to get a free trophy). Also, by necessity there will have to be some CPU teams to fill out leagues to be an even 12, and people go inactive randomly, so playing CPUs is kinda unavoidable. So the real question is what is the solution with the least problematic outcome?

Once we reach the point where there's relegation/promotion tiers (plateau) it's a lot less of an issue, but for this first season I really just want to keep it as simple as possible if we can.

Thank you for trying to find a solution and listen to player base. Please if that possible try to sort leagues with early boosters in one league and let non boosters in another. Is not fun playing against dots 5 levels higher and will get worse as dots grow older.

Originally posted by TJ Spikes
I don't disagree with this, but what if instead of an entire league it was the WL tournament, or if teams could be in 2 leagues? That's how GLB2 does it. Ladder games I think they're called.

Maybe do Natty games on odd days, and WL games on even days.

The lower tiers have to be as good as possible so that different teams will have a chance to be forged in failure, to get good.

Eventually you world leaguers are going to get sick of playing with yourselves every season and having multiple teams with the same coordinators. Then the game is going to die anyway.



Originally posted by Guppy, Inc
my question is why is a 12 team league more important than a 24ish team tournament of all the top teams? wl is 6 teams cemented in place, 6 team slots that in all reality, barely change, with 4 teams usually bouncing right back in the next season after demoting, and 2 teams that are one and done..


Sorry, but I think GLB2 sucks and don't play it for that and other reasons. I also don't like tourney formats as if you noticed all the years I have played my WL teams hardly ever entered the Pro tourney. I prefer a WL then a Pro tier below them that have to earn their way into the WL. However, the # of CPU teams at the Pro level needs to be fixed as before it was just way to many and to make the PO's in Pro was a joke to say the least. You guys do as you want, but if I think GLB Classic goes sideways and is no longer fun to Coordinate and feels like a 2nd job then I will find a better way of spending what time I have left.

Originally posted by Guppy, Inc
my question is why is a 12 team league more important than a 24ish team tournament of all the top teams? wl is 6 teams cemented in place, 6 team slots that in all reality, barely change, with 4 teams usually bouncing right back in the next season after demoting, and 2 teams that are one and done..

because every game is tough and you have to gameplan

all 16 regular season games, unless a team makes WL that is in over their head

Originally posted by Kenshinzen
Thank you for trying to find a solution and listen to player base. Please if that possible try to sort leagues with early boosters in one league and let non boosters in another. Is not fun playing against dots 5 levels higher and will get worse as dots grow older.

thought you only cared about maximizing end build?

Originally posted by Bort
I also posted this on the Discord:

There is a bit of a problem in just removing the unfilled teams when the season changes in that some of them might still fill up during preseason, and then they are stuck in the "empty teams" league (or certain people might do that just to get a free trophy). Also, by necessity there will have to be some CPU teams to fill out leagues to be an even 12, and people go inactive randomly, so playing CPUs is kinda unavoidable. So the real question is what is the solution with the least problematic outcome?

Once we reach the point where there's relegation/promotion tiers (plateau) it's a lot less of an issue, but for this first season I really just want to keep it as simple as possible if we can.


boost CPU dots atts so they aren't a pinata?

Originally posted by PLAYMAKERS
thought you only cared about maximizing end build?

true but must find something to do else will die from boredom next three seasons.

Originally posted by PLAYMAKERS
boost CPU dots atts so they aren't a pinata?

hey man, there are teams out there that already lose to CPU teams lol

Bort, I want to start by saying I appreciate the response and feedback! I will answer the concerns below:

Originally posted by Bort

There is a bit of a problem in just removing the unfilled teams when the season changes in that some of them might still fill up during preseason, and then they are stuck in the "empty teams" league (or certain people might do that just to get a free trophy).


This is only a realistic "problem" for rookie leagues where they may fill-out in the pre-season. Any non-rookie league always fills by d44 or doesn't get filled. Further if you communicate the expectations to the userbase, such a scenario is on them if they don't sign their players in time. Modern GLB is very much a "build full team together cradle to the grave" besides network team movement (and networks are on top of their stuff), so this is a <1% concern at plateau honestly. In my 100 seasons playing GLB I've never seen a plateau team fill their roster in the pre-season, even when recruiting/free agency was at it's peak, since recruiting/free agency actually starts around d20 or so, and d42 was always just signing day.

This isn't a good reason not to do a d44 re-sort though, since historically (only plateau structure) 90% of the userbase is in bad/shitty leagues with CPU's, and this concern is that 1% of teams will end up in that scenario. Perfection shouldn't get in the way of progress.

As far trophy hunters, I can't emphasize enough how much regional pro trophies don't matter to anyone. If someone wants to make it their prerogative to be in a league with CPU teams and crush them, I say let them have at it. If you go with my 1-wide ladder idea, tiers (T7 for example) should be somewhere in the league name, so the trophy will show it was from a low level league.

I'd be fine making a rule that trophies are only awarded to player/agent/league pages if the league on d40 has >50% full human teams (defined as >40 human players) if we care about eliminating those low level trophies vs CPU's (which VERY few people actually care about regardless, either way).


Originally posted by Bort

Also, by necessity there will have to be some CPU teams to fill out leagues to be an even 12, and people go inactive randomly, so playing CPUs is kinda unavoidable. So the real question is what is the solution with the least problematic outcome?


The CPU cross-over being unavoidable is fine. Keep in mind if you do a re-sort on d44 (and 1-wide ladder like in the OP), there will only at most be 1 plateau league that has a combination of CPU/Incomplete teams, and actual human teams. 50% of the time it'll be half-human, and sometimes it'll be more or less. Only 1 team every 12 seasons (on average) will have to deal with playing in an all-11 CPU/Inc team opponents, and that will be a team that by all accounts demoted into that hell.

Having only 1 human included league be in CPU hell is a HUGE improvement compared to pre-snap GLB that left every non-WL plateau league in CPU hell.

Originally posted by Bort

Once we reach the point where there's relegation/promotion tiers (plateau) it's a lot less of an issue, but for this first season I really just want to keep it as simple as possible if we can.


To be clear, my OP suggestion was based around plateau leagues only. Though I do think it could still be implemented for s2, s3, s4 dots with better results then the current scenario of many leagues having CPU's. As you stated this really isn't meant for rookie dots, as they actively WILL fill in the preseason especially with the new changes of preseason rookie dots getting the same TP/boosts.

And just noting, I am talking about fixing league structure in GLB long term, these aren't really suggestions specific to s101.

Originally posted by Kenshinzen
Thank you for trying to find a solution and listen to player base. Please if that possible try to sort leagues with early boosters in one league and let non boosters in another. Is not fun playing against dots 5 levels higher and will get worse as dots grow older.

While this suggestion is based around plateau dots, in theory a 1-wide ladder could be created for each age group (d40, d80, d120) dots which would promote/demote tiers based on performance. This would naturally knock non-boosting dots into the lower leagues.

Yes knock them into the zero revenue and fame league

Originally posted by Mauler
There will always need to be a WL or most of the Top Coordinators in this game would probably leave and I think that would be the end of the Game TBH. I know Wise and others in the WL have basically said as much. However, I personally like how the WL last was and see no real need to restructure that just because we can. Will that really make it better than it was? I personally don't think so, but that is just my opinion. However, I do agree with the rest of the OP as nobody I know likes/wants to play CPU teams where the real Season doesn't start until the Playoffs. However, any League restructuring has to be dynamic and not static so it can be adjustable to what is going on in the Leagues themselves at that time. That is the only way this will be fixed in the long term.

For clarity, the OP doesn't suggest getting rid of WL or the "TOP" league. The OP is about fixing the shit-fest that was everything below WL - Tier 1 in the suggestion can easily be called World League (T1).

So it sounds like I have the Mauler 100% behind the OP.

Thanks for the reply Rob!

Originally posted by robponce
Wise, curious if you've thought about some of the unintended consequences of the double jumps. A double jump up from T5 (Team A - Possibly an all lvl 40-50's team) into T3 will be met with the double jump down from T1 former WL teams. Regardless of how good that team is, there's a good possibility that Team A drops down to T4 when the next season is finished and is now super high-leveled for T4. They might be able to jump back to T2 next, but it might have been easier to say T5 -> T4 -> T3, which is likely where they'll end up anyway.


Keep in mind this ladder and the OP is Plateau Only. Any age brackets must only be in leagues with the same age bracket, obviously.

The goal is to create mobility so that the structure itself "goal-seeks" to equality. Keep in mind any teams hitting plateau after s104 can't really be placed above the middle of the ladder, but we need to have a way for them to journey upwards. It's extremely possible that a new plateau team in their 2nd year can compete with a bottom 2 WL team from the season prior.

T3 in this situation is the 25th through 36th best teams in GLB, not a cake league. It's the equivalent of having a team demote from WL into the 2nd best Natty Pro league.


Originally posted by robponce

Just thinking with the accelerated builds it's possible there are some wildly different swings in levels and your system is really designed for if all players/teams are the same level and we're only grouping based on results. (Plus I don't think you can convince me in a competitive season that the team that finishes 11th in T1 is REALLY supposed to be in the grouping of teams between #25-36 for the next season)


Keep in mind this ladder and the OP is Plateau Only. Any age brackets must only be in leagues with the same age bracket, obviously. Non-boosted teams (if they actually exist) will naturally journey down the ladder as they get destroyed.

I think you must have missed historically the number of teams that promote to WL then go like 1-15 or 0-16. Those teams will be competitive against top36 teams.

Historically WL has had this shitty thing where if you win the 5th strongest league (could be T5 from my example) you promote all the way to WL and then get super destroyed from the nonsensical 4 into 1 structure. With an actual ranking of the 1st through 5th leagues, you promote parity and competitiveness in each league.


Originally posted by robponce

I would be much more in favor of the proposal if there were slightly less 'big-jumps' and more teams moving up and down steadily. At the very least towards the top, where we now have an expanded plateau. No need to mix those teams in with the under-leveled.

Personally I've always been in favor of a promotion tree type of model where each level has 2 levels below it:
-------WL-------
---NP---NP----
RP-RP-RP-RP

But either way, I'm in favor of the playoff byes and the slimming of the top tiers, whatever that looks like.


I've though experimented this a ton, it doesn't work.

#1 we can't guarantee GLB will have exactly 7x12 = 84 quality human teams to actually fill it out. It will be rare for the structure to correctly fit

#2 its unlikely that the two NP will be of equal skill level. The gap between the #13 team and the #36 team is going to be large any way you slice it.

#3 it's impossible for the #37 team through the #84 team to even dream of being near each other skill-wise.

#4 Four league = 48 teams is way too wide of a stage to have to back-fill CPU's in to fill this leagues. This means you're guaranteeing all these leagues will be CPU-shitfests even if you fix the top3 in your pyramid to not have CPU's.

#5 The goal should be to have only 1 league overlap between humans and CPU/Incomplete teams, and that is mathematically possible with a 1-wide ladder while impossible with a static pyramid with 2 leagues below each 1 league.

I understand the "2 into 1" league structure seems cool, and it was GLB's original structure before WL, but it doesn't actually work with dynamic numbers of teams and dynamic numbers of skill levels.

You need to throw each team with the closest 11 other teams that you can, and let them earn their way up. If the structure does that, and is dynamic to support expansion/contraction, we have a solution that actually works longer than 1 point in time...

I also want to note in your proposed pyramid structure you will still be demoting teams from WL into the 3rd strongest league in GLB (you just don't know which of the two NP leagues is stronger/weaker) so that is not a real criticism of the ladder.

Just to stress on double jumps:

Having cascading impacts from the regular season results is important (demote down 1 tier, demote down 2 tiers, bye week) since it'll make people try hard regardless of how their season is going.

And being able to promote 2 tiers is important to be able to move up the ladder in a reasonable timeframe via merit. This also makes sense since OFTEN the top 1-2 teams in a league are much better than the rest of the league, so having say all 6 playoff teams promote into the same league together doesn't actually fix that inequality at all.

And old league structure put at least 1 WL demotee in a league with the 60th best team. In the proposed ladder the worst team a WL demotee (last place, double jum down) has to play is the 36th best team.