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Subject: C Leagues
Easy ride?
Can you read?
All the proposed ideas are not about a free ride to the B league but about enjoying the season in the C leagues.
Some here are saying that our idea will make it to difficult to advance some like you that it will be too easy. You guys are confusing me and I do not know sometimes what to answer. I guess the reason for it is that you do not really understand what we propose.
So please read WITH UNDERSTANDING what we suggested.
I will make one more comment to clarify what we propose:
1. Increase the number of real users in the C leagues for example by reducing from 64 to 32 leagues. It will be more entartaining to play more human users and learning curve will be steeper.
2. TWO teams from every league will have a chance to qualify (either automatically or in a playoff game).
How is that a free ride? One will have to beat more human users to be first or second?
It will not be much more difficult to advance than before either cause if there is one VERY strong team in your league you will still have a chance to be second. Also Teams will be losong more so the whole C leagues will become more inteteresting.
There are cases now where there are only two human teams in a C league and they are quite good. The season is boring cause one beats the bots 10:0 and one waits for two gmes only. Only of these teams will have a chance to qualify.
Now there might be another C league with only two human users and they are both average. The season for them is still boring, they play one interesing game (they beat all the bots lets say5:0). One wins and has a chance to advance...
Now if our idea is implemented these four teams could be in one league. There would be 6 interesting games per team (increase of 200%) and two best teams could advance...
Rookies would still have a bunch of bots to beat to feel happy and some other real users who have just joined would be on a similar level.
So it would be more fair cause really better teams would take part in the qualification games but
MOST OF ALL the season in a C league would be MORE INTERESTING!
is it more clear now what we are suggesting???
Can you read?
All the proposed ideas are not about a free ride to the B league but about enjoying the season in the C leagues.
Some here are saying that our idea will make it to difficult to advance some like you that it will be too easy. You guys are confusing me and I do not know sometimes what to answer. I guess the reason for it is that you do not really understand what we propose.
So please read WITH UNDERSTANDING what we suggested.
I will make one more comment to clarify what we propose:
1. Increase the number of real users in the C leagues for example by reducing from 64 to 32 leagues. It will be more entartaining to play more human users and learning curve will be steeper.
2. TWO teams from every league will have a chance to qualify (either automatically or in a playoff game).
How is that a free ride? One will have to beat more human users to be first or second?
It will not be much more difficult to advance than before either cause if there is one VERY strong team in your league you will still have a chance to be second. Also Teams will be losong more so the whole C leagues will become more inteteresting.
There are cases now where there are only two human teams in a C league and they are quite good. The season is boring cause one beats the bots 10:0 and one waits for two gmes only. Only of these teams will have a chance to qualify.
Now there might be another C league with only two human users and they are both average. The season for them is still boring, they play one interesing game (they beat all the bots lets say5:0). One wins and has a chance to advance...
Now if our idea is implemented these four teams could be in one league. There would be 6 interesting games per team (increase of 200%) and two best teams could advance...
Rookies would still have a bunch of bots to beat to feel happy and some other real users who have just joined would be on a similar level.
So it would be more fair cause really better teams would take part in the qualification games but
MOST OF ALL the season in a C league would be MORE INTERESTING!
is it more clear now what we are suggesting???
understanding... ugh... i get what you are suggesting... and moreover, i'm amused that you kleep saying we aren't listening... your entire arguement is based on newbies having more fun by playing humans... i understand. we understand. we understand your point.
Now... "WITH UNDERSTANDING"...
Your plan will make it more difficult to promote. I understand that two players will now be available for promotion... however, what will happen if only one of those teams promotes(as is the average)... then, next season, the league will have the same 2nd place team (that, theoretically should still be stronger... and i'll be glad to argue that point with you in sk mail so we can stay on topic here) and a team that just relegated is for all intensive purposes just as strong as the team that left...
i guess my question is: with your plan, a plan that adds more humans, and therefore, difficulty to the introduction of newbs to sokker, how does that difficulty and losing equal more entertainment? i loved that when i first joined i was competing for my league title every year... i worried about goal differential and trying to size up the one(and then 2) other humans in my league to beat them... how does getting their head kicked in for the first season or two "entertain" a new player?... thats the part i dont' get...
oh, and whoever said "Also Teams will be losing[sic] more so the whole C leagues will become more inteteresting," is crazy...
Now... "WITH UNDERSTANDING"...
Your plan will make it more difficult to promote. I understand that two players will now be available for promotion... however, what will happen if only one of those teams promotes(as is the average)... then, next season, the league will have the same 2nd place team (that, theoretically should still be stronger... and i'll be glad to argue that point with you in sk mail so we can stay on topic here) and a team that just relegated is for all intensive purposes just as strong as the team that left...
i guess my question is: with your plan, a plan that adds more humans, and therefore, difficulty to the introduction of newbs to sokker, how does that difficulty and losing equal more entertainment? i loved that when i first joined i was competing for my league title every year... i worried about goal differential and trying to size up the one(and then 2) other humans in my league to beat them... how does getting their head kicked in for the first season or two "entertain" a new player?... thats the part i dont' get...
oh, and whoever said "Also Teams will be losing[sic] more so the whole C leagues will become more inteteresting," is crazy...
I´ve just been reading the posts and agree that changes need to be made to the C league. There are 3 humans in my league, all three of us are at the top. We frequently beat the bots by a huge margin, our only challenge is when we play the other human user.
This is my first season and I have spent my time learning how to play, buying players, etc.
I don´t want an easy ride out of C, you have a better chance of beating bots than people. If the number of human users was increased, there would be more interest in all the games instead of a couple.
In fact let me say this, if I don´t advance, no problem, I want to play against other human users, no matter the league. If the C league is full of human users and more difficult and it takes me 3-4 years to advance, great.
This is my first season and I have spent my time learning how to play, buying players, etc.
I don´t want an easy ride out of C, you have a better chance of beating bots than people. If the number of human users was increased, there would be more interest in all the games instead of a couple.
In fact let me say this, if I don´t advance, no problem, I want to play against other human users, no matter the league. If the C league is full of human users and more difficult and it takes me 3-4 years to advance, great.
can you explain your reason for it making it more difficult to promote? seems to me the same number of teams fighting for the same number of spots (2 teams fighting for 1 spot vs 4 teams fighting for 2) is just like a conservation of human manager mass problem
yes ull have a tougher game schedule with more matches vs humans, but its balanced out with the 2nd place spot promoting as well so you dont have to just do well in the ONLY 2 games in a 16 week span against the other human manager. and it seems that that way is more entertaining, which is krepa's point
(edited)
yes ull have a tougher game schedule with more matches vs humans, but its balanced out with the 2nd place spot promoting as well so you dont have to just do well in the ONLY 2 games in a 16 week span against the other human manager. and it seems that that way is more entertaining, which is krepa's point
(edited)
>>completely bogus. I have quite a few great talent, young players, with good skills, that I was able to afford this season in C LEAGUE!! I guess it depends on what you think is a great talent at a bargain price.
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I think of great talent as someone who could develop into the world class player. I too have some very good players that I developed, that have quite a better stats than those you mentioned. Still they are never gonna have a couple of 14's and 15's.
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I think of great talent as someone who could develop into the world class player. I too have some very good players that I developed, that have quite a better stats than those you mentioned. Still they are never gonna have a couple of 14's and 15's.
>>but discobolo you are proving my point exactly. If you are having so much trouble getting B league to work, this thread is suggesting that C league be that difficult-and thats ridiculous.
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I don't know how am I proving your point? Now you're trying to be some ultra wise guy that is better manager than me. As I told you, I got promotion in my first season. But then I really had no chance in B league. I finished second to last. If my best player was 150k and I had two more guys over 100k, and other guys have 5 players of 400-500k and 5 of 200k-300k, you can see how much better their teams were. Now I'll get promotion again and my team is better, but still far from having a chance to fight to get into A league. I'll fight to stay in B. You can' get a team here and win 3 promotions in 3 years, you need like 7 seasons for 3 promotions.
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I don't know how am I proving your point? Now you're trying to be some ultra wise guy that is better manager than me. As I told you, I got promotion in my first season. But then I really had no chance in B league. I finished second to last. If my best player was 150k and I had two more guys over 100k, and other guys have 5 players of 400-500k and 5 of 200k-300k, you can see how much better their teams were. Now I'll get promotion again and my team is better, but still far from having a chance to fight to get into A league. I'll fight to stay in B. You can' get a team here and win 3 promotions in 3 years, you need like 7 seasons for 3 promotions.
I think your post explains your position extremely well, and hope for the sake of all of you C-league guys that they cut the number of leagues back to 32. Playing all season waiting for two important games would definitely suck.
I don't see the downside to making it harder to promote out of C-League anyway. Most teams that promote out of C will be relegated right back down there, and then will have to work through C again to earn another promotion. It's going to take 2 or 3 seasons to improve your squad enough to compete in B, so why not do that in C against real teams that you can compete with?
At any rate, I've seen several new faces in this thread, which I hope will get you guys to stay more active on the forum and help keep your interest level up, even when playing a string of bots.
I don't see the downside to making it harder to promote out of C-League anyway. Most teams that promote out of C will be relegated right back down there, and then will have to work through C again to earn another promotion. It's going to take 2 or 3 seasons to improve your squad enough to compete in B, so why not do that in C against real teams that you can compete with?
At any rate, I've seen several new faces in this thread, which I hope will get you guys to stay more active on the forum and help keep your interest level up, even when playing a string of bots.
can anyone answer my question on why they think itl be harder with only 32 leagues? read above for why i dont think it actually does anything
If you have 64 leagues, then 64 teams auto-promote. With 32 leagues only 32 auto-promote, and 32 play a relegation match, which most of them will not win.
one wonders about your training plan, since you mention how great your talent is but complain about how you can't get good players.
Two problems with your post:
PROMOTION DIFFICULTY
Why do you keep claiming that it will be more difficult to promote with the new plan? We are not going to miraculously increase the number of players. The number of players stays the same, the number of promotion spots stays the same. That means on the average your chance of promotion stays the same.
There are nuances though. Some players will gain, some will loose. For instance, if you have only one crappy human opponent and only one qualifying spot, you'll easily get it. However, if you combine your league with another and you have two additional teams, and one more promotion spot, your chances will be lower. On the other hand, if you now have one very good human opponent and one promotion spot, then it is very difficult for you to promote. If you add two more teams and one more qualifying spot, then even if you don't finish first, you can still finish second and earn the promotion spot, i.e. your chances increased. As I said, some win, some loose but on the average the promotion probability is the same. Btw. by promotion I mean here a spot in the promotion table, i.e. a place in the qualifying game. How you do in this game is another problem.
Another aspect is the importance of a stumble in one game. With only one human opponent only two games in the season matter. If for whatever reason (your mistake, game engine mistake or pure bad luck) you do poorly in one game there is no chance to recover. The season is practically over. Your opponent will not loose to a bot. But if you have several teams, you may still hope the the player you lost to will in turn loose or tie another game. You are still in play. That's partially what we mean by the game being more interesting.
One thing that will happen with promotions under the new system is that better teams will advance. Right now you can easily have a situation where there is one league with two very good teams and another league with two poor human teams. Since only one per league promotes, the result is one very good and one poor team earning the promotion spots. But if you combine them into one league with four teams (two good, two poor) and two promotion spots. Then the two better teams will earn those spots.
NEW PLAYERS BEING MASSACRED IN THEIR FIRST GAMES
You wrongly assume that when a newbie joins a league all human players he 'll meet there will be very experienced and very good. What I would expect rather is a staggered level of experience. Some indeed will have spent 2-3 years in C building their teams and would be very good and ready for promotion. Others would be average players that joined a season or half a season earlier and are still relatively inexperienced. That means the newbie will be beaten by some, but will be competitive against others. From my experience: I am not a particularly brilliant manager. After all I just failed to win my C league, but the season before, when I joined with three games to play I won all three, including two against my human opponents, one of which advanced to B. So it is not that difficult for an average newbie to be competitive right away at least in some games. And don't forget there will always be some bots.
I guess what you are trying to do is to gear the system to the weakest newbie, protect him from being hammered and discouraged, but at the expense of all other players in C for whom the game gets more boring. What I suggest is geared more towards an average newbie, who from the start will be competitive against some humans already there. I agree that this will make life more difficult for a very weak newbie, but it benefits average players. It may be a judgment call: what is more important. I personally prefer rules that benefit the most players, not the rules that make it the easiest for the weakest. It's not that I am cruel to newbies :-), after all I am one. To me it's just a simple cost-benefit analysis.
Besides, from islander's comments early in this thread: the US used to have 32 C-leagues. Only when the number of players hit 350 and they expected more, they doubled the leagues. Since then the number of players actually went down and is stagnant. Now, that may be accidental, but it may also be an evidence that it wasn't such a good move.
PROMOTION DIFFICULTY
Why do you keep claiming that it will be more difficult to promote with the new plan? We are not going to miraculously increase the number of players. The number of players stays the same, the number of promotion spots stays the same. That means on the average your chance of promotion stays the same.
There are nuances though. Some players will gain, some will loose. For instance, if you have only one crappy human opponent and only one qualifying spot, you'll easily get it. However, if you combine your league with another and you have two additional teams, and one more promotion spot, your chances will be lower. On the other hand, if you now have one very good human opponent and one promotion spot, then it is very difficult for you to promote. If you add two more teams and one more qualifying spot, then even if you don't finish first, you can still finish second and earn the promotion spot, i.e. your chances increased. As I said, some win, some loose but on the average the promotion probability is the same. Btw. by promotion I mean here a spot in the promotion table, i.e. a place in the qualifying game. How you do in this game is another problem.
Another aspect is the importance of a stumble in one game. With only one human opponent only two games in the season matter. If for whatever reason (your mistake, game engine mistake or pure bad luck) you do poorly in one game there is no chance to recover. The season is practically over. Your opponent will not loose to a bot. But if you have several teams, you may still hope the the player you lost to will in turn loose or tie another game. You are still in play. That's partially what we mean by the game being more interesting.
One thing that will happen with promotions under the new system is that better teams will advance. Right now you can easily have a situation where there is one league with two very good teams and another league with two poor human teams. Since only one per league promotes, the result is one very good and one poor team earning the promotion spots. But if you combine them into one league with four teams (two good, two poor) and two promotion spots. Then the two better teams will earn those spots.
NEW PLAYERS BEING MASSACRED IN THEIR FIRST GAMES
You wrongly assume that when a newbie joins a league all human players he 'll meet there will be very experienced and very good. What I would expect rather is a staggered level of experience. Some indeed will have spent 2-3 years in C building their teams and would be very good and ready for promotion. Others would be average players that joined a season or half a season earlier and are still relatively inexperienced. That means the newbie will be beaten by some, but will be competitive against others. From my experience: I am not a particularly brilliant manager. After all I just failed to win my C league, but the season before, when I joined with three games to play I won all three, including two against my human opponents, one of which advanced to B. So it is not that difficult for an average newbie to be competitive right away at least in some games. And don't forget there will always be some bots.
I guess what you are trying to do is to gear the system to the weakest newbie, protect him from being hammered and discouraged, but at the expense of all other players in C for whom the game gets more boring. What I suggest is geared more towards an average newbie, who from the start will be competitive against some humans already there. I agree that this will make life more difficult for a very weak newbie, but it benefits average players. It may be a judgment call: what is more important. I personally prefer rules that benefit the most players, not the rules that make it the easiest for the weakest. It's not that I am cruel to newbies :-), after all I am one. To me it's just a simple cost-benefit analysis.
Besides, from islander's comments early in this thread: the US used to have 32 C-leagues. Only when the number of players hit 350 and they expected more, they doubled the leagues. Since then the number of players actually went down and is stagnant. Now, that may be accidental, but it may also be an evidence that it wasn't such a good move.
Coach Mark, you amaze me :-)
First you state that you'll not trade for anything the lessons you've learned in C from playing opponents that tried to outmanage you (I hope I understood that well ;-)) and then you oppose our proposal to combine the leagues to increase the number of games we play against such players and decrease the number of bots. That is something I indeed do not understand.
Now you say "...the solution is not to shorten the number of leagues, but strengthen the bot teams in them.." and you oppose the proposal to replace these bots by human-managed teams, that will obviously make them stronger. I don't get that either.
First you state that you'll not trade for anything the lessons you've learned in C from playing opponents that tried to outmanage you (I hope I understood that well ;-)) and then you oppose our proposal to combine the leagues to increase the number of games we play against such players and decrease the number of bots. That is something I indeed do not understand.
Now you say "...the solution is not to shorten the number of leagues, but strengthen the bot teams in them.." and you oppose the proposal to replace these bots by human-managed teams, that will obviously make them stronger. I don't get that either.
exactly, that is what i meant also (maybe not in such a neat way:) ) in one of my previous posts
i was referring to the long post that apacan wrote to ivysafety