05-17-2014, 06:06 AM
gold teeth, I like your proposition, although it extends season length dramatically (currently teams play each other once each regardless). Are you aware that a 12 team competition under your structure would amount to approximately 16 rounds? (currently it's 11 rounds) I'm sure you can remember the backlash on the 22-round structure Season 33 employed!
I do see it as viable but feel that the structure of the second half of the fixture would need to be made on the spot midseason, as opposed to being based on the finishing positions from the previous season. There are a number of Ins & Outs of teams each season. If you look at EGO now, Backarrow last season, which pool would they have been placed in? No, the decision would have to be made mid-season based on early performance.
More specifically, a fixture would be :
1) everyone play each other (11 rounds for a 12 team league, 9 rounds for a 10-team league), then
2) at the end of that half-season, those standings be used to split the teams into Pro and AML for another meeting each (4 or 5 more matches). At this point all slots on the ladder are still available to all teams: in a 12-team comp squads occupying positions 6 and 7 would play in different pools but have the opportunity to swap places come Play-offs.
7th, 6 & 6 in two separate divisions (Pro and AML) does sound like a good idea (7 and 7 would be where it would start to feel the most promising imo). I guess the concerns stem from :
1) teams should all be made aware of this more than one season prior, so that they know that prior season exactly what they are fighting for (division dependent on previous season),
2) Where do you put new teams? Should they have to fight from the ground up (start in AML) or be seeded based on such a thing as your challenge idea, and
3) does the concept continue to have merit when the tendency of teams to drop out is revisited during the season. Every one of the past three seasons has seen a net loss of one squad. This adulterates the benefit of the tier which ends up with 5 teams (a BYE every 5 weeks) and also throws the middle tier out of balance - if a top 6 team dropped out (it has happened), does Team #7 now have a case for being re-aligned with Pro division?
There's been 10 to 12 teams each of the last 3 seasons. I think it is in some way a people-power response to the fright when an eight-team league became 6 teams through dropouts, and was then followed by another six-team league the season after! That six-team season was the only one in I-don't-know-how-long where there weren't teams withdrawing midseason.
While not subspace-related, I have assisted leagues based on my own game for 17 seasons since 2001, including expanding upon inbuilt auto-fixturing coding. I have also been an historian for a 160-year old sport across all levels local to premier, including examining many different finals (play-offs) systems, and I can conclude one thing. None are perfect. Depending on what happens during, there is always a frailty enabling someone to get an easy ride or a fixture from hell. The only exception is the utterly boring (and dangerous for lowly attended competitions) concept of no-play-offs-at-all.
The tl;dr version is: Yeah it's a tough one, isn't it? It's my birthday so get to go as far off on a tangent as I want.
I do see it as viable but feel that the structure of the second half of the fixture would need to be made on the spot midseason, as opposed to being based on the finishing positions from the previous season. There are a number of Ins & Outs of teams each season. If you look at EGO now, Backarrow last season, which pool would they have been placed in? No, the decision would have to be made mid-season based on early performance.
More specifically, a fixture would be :
1) everyone play each other (11 rounds for a 12 team league, 9 rounds for a 10-team league), then
2) at the end of that half-season, those standings be used to split the teams into Pro and AML for another meeting each (4 or 5 more matches). At this point all slots on the ladder are still available to all teams: in a 12-team comp squads occupying positions 6 and 7 would play in different pools but have the opportunity to swap places come Play-offs.
7th, 6 & 6 in two separate divisions (Pro and AML) does sound like a good idea (7 and 7 would be where it would start to feel the most promising imo). I guess the concerns stem from :
1) teams should all be made aware of this more than one season prior, so that they know that prior season exactly what they are fighting for (division dependent on previous season),
2) Where do you put new teams? Should they have to fight from the ground up (start in AML) or be seeded based on such a thing as your challenge idea, and
3) does the concept continue to have merit when the tendency of teams to drop out is revisited during the season. Every one of the past three seasons has seen a net loss of one squad. This adulterates the benefit of the tier which ends up with 5 teams (a BYE every 5 weeks) and also throws the middle tier out of balance - if a top 6 team dropped out (it has happened), does Team #7 now have a case for being re-aligned with Pro division?
There's been 10 to 12 teams each of the last 3 seasons. I think it is in some way a people-power response to the fright when an eight-team league became 6 teams through dropouts, and was then followed by another six-team league the season after! That six-team season was the only one in I-don't-know-how-long where there weren't teams withdrawing midseason.
While not subspace-related, I have assisted leagues based on my own game for 17 seasons since 2001, including expanding upon inbuilt auto-fixturing coding. I have also been an historian for a 160-year old sport across all levels local to premier, including examining many different finals (play-offs) systems, and I can conclude one thing. None are perfect. Depending on what happens during, there is always a frailty enabling someone to get an easy ride or a fixture from hell. The only exception is the utterly boring (and dangerous for lowly attended competitions) concept of no-play-offs-at-all.
The tl;dr version is: Yeah it's a tough one, isn't it? It's my birthday so get to go as far off on a tangent as I want.
One of the three most dangerous people in Subspace.