Subject: [Idea] combining smaller country leagues

I propose that leagues are combined for small countries within a similar are of the world, but that the national cups stay separate.

For my region this would include New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore. This would allow the league part of the season to be much more competitive, but still keep in place, a cup where we only face off against our own countrymen.

It would take some planning, and maybe should only be used on those countries with less than say 50 users (as realistically, maybe only a quarter play), and combine until there are say 160-200 users (which going on the quarter rule, would mean that A-League and all div 2 leagues are full of actually competitive humans)

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An extended version of this could be that all leagues are combined but separated so that you only play your country until you are at the top. So if you think of what a massive knockout draw would look like (and this isn't a knockout draw), and every league of every county takes a position. Then Poland would have approx one half of the draw. So they would only ever play other Poland users until becoming very good and taking on the best from the other half. On the other half, you may have some big countries such as Romania taking up until approx the quarter/or semis, and smaller countries really only fill one of the 1st or 2nd round spots, so would be playing other small countries pretty soon.

What this would allow is for everyone to find a competitive level, favouring playing those of similar competitiveness from your country first, from your region 2nd and finally against anyone else.

Might take too much coding, especially with relegation as you would have to relegate in such a way that you head back towards your original country and not just based on who best you.

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UPDATE FROM A LATTER POST - HERE ARE THE NUMBERS USING THE FIRST IDEA

This is long, but mathematically shows why this needs to occur.

I was working on some quick combining and came up with this (using less than 30 users as a cut-off)

AFC/Oceania = 15 countries = 95 users. Div 1 and 2 full + 3-4 users in each div 3. --> if combined with Indonesia, would be 5-6 teams in each div 3 (total teams 128) , and if with China as well, almost full div 3 which would mean more likely to have say half active users in div 3 (as total teams 160). Would leave one nation from RL AFC out (Viet Nam), but if added them, only brings total to 247, so would be ideal for having 3 full divisions, with inactives going to div 4.

Africa = 9 countries = combined 57 users = Div 1 and 2 full + a few extras in div 3.

North/Central America teams = 9 countries = 89 teams. Full Div 1 and 2 + about 3-4 in each div 3. -> only countries missing are Mexico (42 users), USA (45 users) and Cuba (81 users). If these were combined in, would make total of 257 teams (Full div 1, 2 and 3. Would leave 1-2 users in each div 4 depeding if they made div 4 32 or 64 leagues. If making 16 leagues would be 4 users in each div 4)

South America = 3 countries = 67 users. Full Div 1 and 2. 3 users in each div 3. Most other South american countries (6 in total) are 80+ users except Venezuala at 67, which could be added to make div 4 a nicer place to be.

Europe = 19 countries = 215 users. Div 1, 2 and 3 full, with a healthy 47 users left over for div 4. Could also add in Hayastan (31 users), Letzbuerg (36 users), Norge (41 users), Ostereich (43 users) to make the div 4 much more healthy/or leave as separate.

So without the added ones I have put in after the "->", we could combine a total of 55 countries, in to 5 leagues, comprising of just 523 teams total, so that these countries have more to play more, more human people to talk too, and more active players to test their skill against.

It would also massively reduce the number of bot games currently played by the ME (assuming all have a full div 3 full of bots, that is 6912 matches, 140,000 player updates etc. per week, processed by the servers that do nothing but waste money and server load). This is equivalent to over 2x the load put on the server by Polish users in wasted resources. It the div 6 leagues in poland were also halved in size (which still leaves poland massively over supplied), it would save over 10,000 teams worth of matches per week, which is the equivalent of the entire sokker community, so effectively halves the server load -> Saves $$$$

To put in comparison, these combined leagues would use just 14% of the processing power of the above.

Of course, all these individual countries would need to retain their nation they are playing for, or else people (including myself) wouldn't be for it.

AND having a national cup for only those of your nation ID number would need to stay, to give everyone a chance to battle only their own nation at some time in the season

(edited)

+1

-1

interesting

My text from another topic:

I think small countries can grow if opponents are more interesting.

So when countries are too small to have their own divisions, put countries together in divisions based on continent, football assosiation or regions (as regions are smaller, but sometimes too small to get enough teams to create a region-division)

The moment a country can have an active league with at least first and sevond division completely filled with human controlled teams, a national league can be started. EXTRA: a new division structure is needed!

All these different teams from different countries could have a shared division forum, but also have their own country forum.


This is the topic:

http://sokker.org/forum_topic/ID_forum/63355/ID_topic/3438798/pg/0#new

-1

I think it's a nice idea, as it would make the game more exciting for the many users who find themselves 2-10 people in an entire country.

+1

The interesting thing would be to join leagues so that they have at least 50 active users (even if it needed to unite 10 countries).
I would take into account the continent and / or the language spoken.

It must be frustrating for a new user in these leagues to have no one to talk to, or to get oriented and not even someone to compete at a high level with you.

It is definitely frustrating, and something I have experienced in this game and other manager games. Don't get me wrong, I love winning a bunch at the start, but any more than the one season of that, and it gets boring

Well that is a pretty spot on comment, will definitely check it out.

I didn't think of language but it is a very good point.

In India, I'll have to play atleast 3 seasons against bots before I get to play against actual real users. So I definitely like this idea.

Thank you. Yes the struggle is real in smaller countries.
This would also still preserve the country you represent, you are just in a mixed league.

And then having the Cup for your country only having your countrymen, it allows you to still compete for the best representative of your country

I agree with the idea of the international leagues by regions for small countries and keeping the domestic cup like it is now.

What is the maximal number of users in the country to merge its league with others?

It should be flexible, if some country gets many new users, it should split and have its own league again .. but that can be complicated and unpredictable.

Yeah for sure. There would have to be some behind the scene kind of rules in place like (and this is an example, numbers are not gospel);

If country has 50 managers for 2+ consecutive seasons, form new country league.

Once the new league is formed, it would have to be the top 8 ranked/rated from that country start in league 1 etc. otherwise it will have too big a sponsorship issue, but if it can be programmed in, I think it would work well.

Chances are though, unless there is a big influx of new managers, then once countries are joined, they probably won't become unjoined. Which is fine.

+1
good idea to make only first div as international one for all this countries.
(edited)

Honestly I'd be open to any change just to make the league more even and competitive at the same time.

I'm currently "lucky" with my league, that there are 3 or 4 very even teams, but there is also one way out ahead, and a few way behind/basically botsm

Would be much better to be playing with more than just the 3 active users in my league, even if it meant competing against other small countries