Division 2 playoffs will be nerve wrecking! So many equally skilled teams and a few underdogs! I bet a lot of those games will need 5 maps to decide a winner.

Again for 2 months we have been asking teams for a game and got a response like "no, we play you last". Well guess what, we won't be able to play every game last. Clearly this system doesn't work. EQL needs a strict weekly schedule and after that games go automatically wo.

I kinda agrees with blAze on this. It's really frustrating asking the same teams several times during the season, and to always get a "no" in return and no initiative what-so-ever back. Strict schedule with 1-2 game(s)/week, with a day or two to report each game so you actually got some extra time to play the game as well if needed. After this day, just WO the highest seeded or the team actually reported to admins they've shown interest to play the game.

Or maybe, if say the season is 8 weeks then you must have specified matches played by week 4 and then the rest by week 8. If those matches are not played then its WO. Having too strict a schedule (like a specified match a week) would be too much of a problem. Some weeks a team might not be able to get their 4 together. So at least breaking it into two might be more flexible but also making sure that not all games are left until last week of the season.


Edited by pleuraXeraphim on 11 Nov 10 @ 10:48CET

Sounds like a good idea pleura

Yep, it's not a bad idea.

We never understand why some teams avoid confrontation: it the end they will have to face even tvs. How much of a TP routine can you gain delaying games? (I assume the delays are supposed to serve well teams who intend to prac more, right?). We DC played avery strong clan apart QKlan (bu they had been inactive for long) and now have only 4 games to play assuming that a2k and indoors are out of the competition.
Still, one week to catch up would serve everyone well I guess?

I never got this excuse "no, we first need to prac more". If you sign-up to a tournament, you already signed-up to compete with the skill you have in that moment. You are supposed to prac BEFORE the tournament, not during the tournament. Why should a tournament give you some extra time to practice more? This is just plain silly. I'd immediately request a WO if someone refuses to play me even if they are ready, but want to prac instead. I am here, I am ready to play with the skill I have right now. You are not? Your fault.

What pleura said would work just fine. It's weird when I open EQL pages in the middle of the season and like 66% of games are not played, tables are half-empty etc. That happens like every season.

Obviously, noone will say this straight to your face. For for some newly-formed clans this may be the reason to delay games, right?

I have been delaying games in past seasons to get better lineup but for the past 4-5 seasons I have tried to use the guys who are online or even send SMS to ask ppl to come and play asap if some clan ask us. Cant remember the last time I turned down an EQL game to go prac instead.

This season we, CSN, used whoever was online and let anyone who wanted play at least 1 map every game. Turns out it went ok 7 wins and 2 losses. Perhaps division 1 is more serious than division 2 though

You will experience this Hooraytio in the next season in div 1 :EE

Originally we were going to play all the unbeatable clans first and then continue to more equal teams. For some reason this was forgotten or dismissed after tVS game.

In terms of scene activity, the (sad?) reality is that most clans start to wake up when the season starts. That's why it's the best time to get more prac in. Many clans have changed lineups, even after the season starts and need to hone their tp once again. If FU had played all comers during the first weeks, we might have no wins under our belt, even against teams we managed to beat later on.

I don't like the fact that the season ends earlier than reported previously. Oh well, we still have this week to catch up, dunno if we really have any chances to get into playoffs though :E

Pleura: Could work.

Another thing that might be nice would be some kind of system whereby you can actively challenge another team to a game and they are subject to some sort of restriction until they accept that challenge (maybe not being able to report games against any other clans or something like that). You would only be allowed to have one active challenge at any given time. Obviously it would need a lot of thought to avoid unnecessary blockages i.e. clans issuing challenges and then being unable to play themselves and thus hampering activity in the division. This is just some general concept I have that would need fleshing out a lot.

I think the system needs a proper reevaluation too.

Saw someone mentioning quakeklan, and yeah we've been pretty inactive, but obviously not on purpose. We just lost striker early and several of us were busy with real life.. We have SD and tVS booked for sunday night starting from 20.00CET. We need more games, perhaps tomorrow afternoon/evening and on sunday. Feel free to contact us :-)

It will always be hard to get clans to play on set dates and times. The players just arent comitted enough and we will only see loads of WOs and kicked clans if we try to use a too strict sched.

In my eyes one of the problems is how to challenge another team. Clans are just .qwing "any div2 clan eql now?!" Then mayby 2 clans (A and B) answers to your call, you chat with them and when you're about to start with clan A they say that one of their player is missing, you talk to clan B and they don't answer because they're playing with another clan.

One solution could be that you report your clan "ready for action" in EQL website or in irc. You would see all the other clans that are "ready for action" and you would be able to challenge them, but as HangTime said just one at the time. Refusing would cause WO.

I don't think refusing should cause a walkover because you never know what could happen, a player could have connection problems, important personal matter or whatever. I'm thinking more along the lines of preventing them from playing vs other teams until you have met their challenge. But it still has some issues that needs ironing out because for example vs a rival clan you probably want to play with your best lineup - yet you might be happy to play some weaker (or vastly stronger) opponent with a weakened lineup. So you'd be scared to declare yourself ready to play with anything other than top team, even though you might actually be willing to play vs some teams with the 4 players you have online.

Perhaps EQL should force you to play 1 game per week, and randomly suggesting a team you haven't played yet as scheduled game. If you don't play a eql game that team gets a wo, but you can play an eql game vs any team during the week and you won't leave wo to your scheduled opponent.
So basically you are forced to play atleast one eql game every week (which isn't hard to do really) and you can choose whatever opponent.
This doesn't really help clans like tVS tho where teams can still refuse to play them.

Another thought would be to have clans getting grouped together and forced to play all the clans in that group untill you can play anybody else, perhaps under a 2 week span. Or you could be allowed to play vs other teams aswell but if you haven't made an effort to play vs another team in your group when the 2 weeks are up you are forced to leave wo. (should be rather easy to decide who has made effort to play the game or not.)
For example randomly decided that tvs, ewmc, dc, sr are in same "group" and they have to play vs eachother before the 2 weeks are up or team with no effort to try and play a game will be forced to leave wo.
Perhaps in this "group" you are also forced to schedule your games to dates within these 2 weeks, to make it easier to get the games going, and if for example only tvs have 4 ready on scheduled game vs DC they can choose to get wo or to reschedule, up to them to decide.

Smaller groups with 2-3 weeks to play their games should make it easier to have these games played since they have so much time to schedule their games vs one and other.
Really no excuses to be made if you can't play a clan at all during 2-3 weeks.

And yet another thing I have been thinking about is that the eql site should have some clan chat where cl's of clans can talk to other clans on the site about scheduling games etc (only the cl's talking and admins can see what is written there).
This way admins would be able to see what is said about scheduling games, and makes it easier for them to make a decision if they have to give out wo.
Also if one team is just constantly refusing to play a specific clan but is playing other eql games admins would be able to see it and maybe intervene "okay you have untill xx day to play vs blablabla otherwise wo".

Perhaps won't be anything admins will do but I'm just saying IF something were to happen with clans refusing to play or didnt show on scheduled date then they can see everything on the eql site that is said.

Nice monologue rkd :E

10x

I personally like the idea what Pleura had. Since it would probably be a smoother landing for strict schedules. Anyways, EQLro will kind of test the strict schedule system atleast for Div1 top clans (which i personally don't think are the issue but anyways). In other games played in CB or other similar big site tournaments you always have to schedule the game or it's forced on sunday or some other day later in the week. This could be added but I don't believe it would work right away since very many clans are used to flexible schedules. But fixed week opponents could be a solution for it all but as I said I believe it needs to be done somewhat close to what Pleura suggested.

Dates considering the end of the season are updated on EQL site. Go read it!