IFL Conclusion/Future

[Dragon]

So with the third season ending after many yes and no on the final's game. LPN took the victory in 4 games, congratulations!
I feel IFL is going smooth even with the sometimes hard to schedule games and that things actually happen. It's after all a league that's actually finishing and working out on Zandronum and that must count for something, right?

However, there's always room for improvement, so I'd like to throw out a few questions:

• What was good/bad about the season?
• Should I add something to the league?
• Should I open the league up for sign-ups or keep it invitational?
• Should we go for three seasons a year?

Some questions do cater towards those who participate in the league but I'd still like everyone's perspective, inside as outside of the league.

[Galactus]

Overall season was good, finals took a bit too long to get played but that's the only complaint I have.
I think you should make the league have sign-ups instead of it being strictly invitational, we want as many people as possible and by having it invitational that will be hard to accomplish.
I really like the league as a whole so three seasons a year is a big yes from me.

[Samurai]

Didn't have time to watch any of this but it should defiantly be considered a success. 3 seasons in a year is impressive, especially if you look at the lack of active players we have now compared to many years previous. I think the only downside was the fact that the final was dragged out a bit, but it is understandable considering the circumstances. Aside from that I thinking ran smoothly which is testament to what a stellar job you have done with IFL.

A minor thing I think would improve it is more updates for the forum. I think Ten mentioned something about it too, and I know it's up on the website but for those of us who only really access the forum, being able to read about the games that have been played would be nice.

I also agree that I think you should try having sign ups instead of invitational (not that I think it would make a huge amount of difference to be honest). It could give an opportunity to newer players who could be benefited by tournament experience.

I'd also switch to 2 tournaments per year, summer and winter (like the IDL used to). Having 3 per year seems a bit rushed, and I think maybe the quality of players signing up would be better with only 2 seasons per year.

Overall nice job Dragon, another successful season for IFL.

[Tenchu]

Yes to sign-ups. A good idea might be to start hosting IFL-sponsored priv games in which players who sign up for the IFL will automatically be able to play on a rotating basis or something, as opposed to the traditional priv format where captains pick whomever they want. This would be good because it would allow the newer players to start getting real competitive experience a lot quicker and improve their skills to joining an IFL team level, which would start increasing the amount of players in the league.

Considering the 7-week length of the leagues (assuming the format doesn't change), I think three seasons per year is acceptable. It allows for just enough frequency to keep interest in the league fresh, and the seasons are short enough to dispel stalling for the most part.

The biggest and most important thing, though; please please PLEASE make it the norm to start posting predictions and results in weekly threads. I think that will be the biggest help in increasing interest and visibility into the league. As Swift said, not everyone is able to be on IRC or in-game all the time to understand the standings of the league, and having comprehensive and up-to-date information on the latest games and events on the forums for everyone to see easily would be a tremendous help.

[HumanBones]

First of all thank you for inviting me to play! My team was awesome and I got to meet some people that I otherwise probably never would have met before, and we had quite a few laughs. All the games were tough and the finals were a lot of fun.

Speaking from experience, it all starts with captains. If you don't have a dedicated and reliable group of captains you will get nowhere. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to know exactly how things will unfold once the season starts, but you have a pretty good read on the people in the community so I think moving forward you will be fine on that front.

Map selection was great, perhaps consider having the same playoff format for the finals - with teams splitting homefields. This particular match I did not mind 4 games of map08, but more than that probably wouldn't have been much fun. Gives both teams a chance to catch the other off kilter with split maps as well.

Ten made a great point - getting the community more involved can never hurt. I loved the old IDL forums where each week had a page and a half of predictions and maybe some playful shit talking. Additionally, streams of the game (even if its just a group of people spectating while also on teamspeak) can be a lot of fun as well. Reaching out to people who are interested in doing stuff like that can make things a little more interactive. Otherwise, I think you're on a really great track here. Just gotta weed out the people that don't care as much!

[Ru5tK1ng]

What was good/bad about the season?

I always forgot the league ever existed because it was never talked about anywhere outside of the irc channel. No significant chatter on the forums, there's no external site with all the info and news, no streams and zero hype. Part of it can't be helped since it's a Euro league and the rest of us miss out on the games. (Yes, before anyone says anything, the IFL is a Euro league as the IDL was an American league despite both being marketed as 'international'.

Taking forever to play a final makes the league look amateurish and it's not nice to advertise a prize and then decide to take it away. On the plus side, the league finished unlike what happened in season 2. Don't let Mobius cap.

Should I add something to the league?

A site with demos, stats, news and maybe links to streams. People can't masturbate their ego if stats don't exist. However, doing a decent site has proven to be somewhat difficult.

Should I open the league up for sign-ups or keep it invitational?

Learn from the past and do what the IDL did. It started out as an invitational league, but then it moved over to open sign ups which proved to be a success. WDL also uses open sign ups. Find a way to open up the servers. Take off the passwords so the league won't seem so closed and separated from the rest of the community. Granted no one outside of the competitive scene really gives a shit about competition, but at least the league won't be seen as pretentious or elitist. Just change the join password every week and hand them out to captains only.

Should we go for three seasons a year?

Hell no. People are going to get burned out no matter how optimistic they are about playing. Just keep it at 2 seasons per year with enough breathing room in between. The break in between can be used to make changes or improvements.

A good idea might be to start hosting IFL-sponsored priv games in which players who sign up for the IFL will automatically be able to play on a rotating basis or something, as opposed to the traditional priv format where captains pick whomever they want. This would be good because it would allow the newer players to start getting real competitive experience a lot quicker and improve their skills to joining an IFL team level, which would start increasing the amount of players in the league.

That sounds like a good idea that's going to last for about 2 weeks before falling apart. I've lost count of how many times in the past people have tried to think up ways to bring in new players and expose them to the environment of a league. Every idea either flopped or never went anywhere beyond forum chatter. Priv is not going to work as a training ground and nothing is going to get players to flock to sign ups other than their own ambition or competitive streak. Not worth the time or effort.

[Catastrophe]

Imo, I feel that since you keep it invitational, it helps keep unreliable players out. Keep it that way.

Also if you want some sort of stats program for ur stuff feel free to contact me.

[Dranzer]

more america plz

[Razgriz]

Imo, I feel that since you keep it invitational, it helps keep unreliable players out. Keep it that way.

There have been quite a few people who turned out to be unreliable and thus hurting some teams. Moti dipped out of a season, Mobius disappeared frequently(worst manager ever), Otacon was barely around, JZ dipped out as well. Opening up signups would be the best choice because it's up to the Captains (who signed up for the task), to decide who will and wont be on their team. Part of being a smart captain is seeing who will be reliable and who wont be, you draft shitty unreliable players that's what you get.

[Zakken]

A North American sister league would be neat to have! Understandably it'd take you about twice the effort to run that too (and if you can't, I'd advise you not to anyway, unless you have reliable people to help you host it), but you could easily draw in the interest of more players in general that way.

[-_-]

Damn mobius should've get me on his team because i can win this league by not playing matches at all (look season 2)

Should I open the league up for sign-ups or keep it invitational?

It should be open sign-ups. There for sure will be much more low skilled players because of that and thats why you also should make a 2 separate leagues : 1 for mid-tier teams (lets call it tier b) and 1 for top tier teams (tier a) like i did here (and everyone who participated in this enjoyed it). I think it'll make competitive scene much more interesting for new players and make a league much more balanced overall.
And also the "trade" thing should be removed at all or be very limited (like only 1 player can be traded during a league and only if this player confirmed inactive), because as i heard on this season one team just traded the player because the other player in this team raged after losing a match (traded player wasnt even playin this match). I think its unfair that captains can change almost the whole roster during a tourney, because it can make teams totally different compared to what they were from start. Like you can lose 2 games and after that trade all players for much more high-skilled players and win everyone after that. And whats the whole point of the tourney if you can change players from team to team? Almost in all big tourneys if roster of the team changes, this team gets a DQ from a current tourney because its no more a team that signed-up for this tourney, its completely other players. And captains pick their players, its not a random pick so if you picked this players, play with them. If you dont like them cuz of their skill or behaviour why you picked them? Play 1v3 then. Well thats my IMHO

What was good/bad about the season?

No significant chatter on the forums, there's no external site with all the info and news, no streams and zero hype.

^
This is a big problem too. Atleast live-streams and youtube recordings can be easily provided by some people in this community, so why not doing that?

Anyway GL in your future tourneys, i know how hard to organize all that so you're doing great work. Keep it up!

[Ru5tK1ng]

1 for mid-tier teams (lets call it tier b) and 1 for top tier teams (tier a)

That only works for small duel and other 1v1 tournaments. Remember the shitfest when capo released his 'tier list'? Imagine that times 10 because you're trying to subjectively rank players and make them play in each tier accordingly. Plus there's not enough quality players to fill out a 2 tiered league unless you have like 3 teams in each tier at best.

trade stuff

There just needs to be some more rules added regarding trading to avoid stupid shit from happening. The IDL took a while to iron out trading and even by the end, it was only near fool proof. I don't know what the wdl's rules on trading are since the rule page doesn't work, but I'm sure it should not be too hard to make trading improvements.

[-_-]

1 for mid-tier teams (lets call it tier b) and 1 for top tier teams (tier a)

Remember the shitfest when capo released his 'tier list'? Imagine that times 10 because you're trying to subjectively rank players and make them play in each tier accordingly.

To avoid that, the formed teams should play qualifications matches. It can be simple group stage, if for example theres a 8 teams that signed up, they should play vs each other a bo1 matches. 4 teams that will have more wins than other 4 will be playing in tier A league and the rest in the tier B league. However the problem with lack of players is still here and i'm not sure what to do about that.

And for the trade stuff i have a simple solution. If player didnt play any single match he can be traded. If he played atleast 1 round for his team he cant be traded.

[Moti]

Imo, I feel that since you keep it invitational, it helps keep unreliable players out. Keep it that way.

There have been quite a few people who turned out to be unreliable and thus hurting some teams. Moti dipped out of a season, Mobius disappeared frequently(worst manager ever), Otacon was barely around, JZ dipped out as well. Opening up signups would be the best choice because it's up to the Captains (who signed up for the task), to decide who will and wont be on their team. Part of being a smart captain is seeing who will be reliable and who wont be, you draft shitty unreliable players that's what you get.

Last season was bad for me because of several things, and I had plenty of reasons why I quit.
IIRC it was mainly Ide being a bad captain and having Dranzer on my team derailing everyone ended up completely emptying my motivation, and also the fact that two people didn't use any form of communication in-game (TS, Discord, etc) also lead us to losing a lot.
That time was also super rough for me in terms of work schedule and I only showed up to like one game, mainly because I couldn't.

This season I played every single match except one and won the IFL, so if I'm unreliable then go ahead and not draft me :P

I do agree that captains should be very carefully picked. We've seen several cases of bad captains not doing captain stuff, myself included in Season 1 IIRC.
Opening up the registration to the public could be an interesting idea, but I don't see a lot of "new names" appearing. It could just be the same people signing up in a different format, mainly due to what Rustking said - Only competitive players give a shit about the competitive scene. We've tried several times to bring new faces to this community and it almost never worked out. As much as I wish to see new faces, I fail to see how it will actually operate.

Overall, this was the best season of IFL in terms of arrangement and managing barring the delayed finals, but that was due to unforeseen circumstances and it wasn't that bad, so all is well.

Thanks for picking me into LPN, Dragon, I had a great time playing with you and Ros and I'm glad we managed to win in the end. At first I really thought I'd get carried but I did prove to be of use to the team, which makes me feel better about my playstyle.

See you next season!

[Samurai]

Something about season 2

I take responsibility for season 2. IDE was a good captain for me, contrary to popular opinion. I felt I let him down because I wasn't able to use teamspeak whilst keeping a stable connection, and thus had a negative impact on the rest of our team. IDE didn't really do much that merited him to take the blame for our shitty season. The reason we lost most of our games is because we played against teams that had practice, and a form of communication... we had neither so was at a massive disadvantage from the onset. Ide would try to organise practice if I recall but it was usually me or Dranzer screwing around.

Anyway, sorry to derail.

[Samurai]

Oh and Dranzer asking to be traded every 5 mins didn't help.

[Razgriz]

This season I played every single match except one and won the IFL, so if I'm unreliable then go ahead and not draft me :P

Yeah you're unreliable from season to season, previous season you didn't like your team and this season you liked your team, a player only driven by whether he likes his team or not is not reliable to the league. You have to be there from start to finish whether you like your team or not, otherwise you're just sabotaging a bunch of players who might actually want to try to win or do well. I would rather have someone average on my team who had a history of sticking to their team regardless of if they didn't like who they ended up with, than someone who is really good but finicky with who they play with because they end up hurting the team dynamic more instead of helping.

Regardless I would probably advise future captain to scope out players better, aka you should ask prospective players important questions that need to be asked instead of assuming that everyone you draft will show up every time. I let many people know not to draft me because I would be way too unreliable and busy, and only managed to sit in about 2 games in the regular season by luck.

[Moti]

This season I played every single match except one and won the IFL, so if I'm unreliable then go ahead and not draft me :P

Yeah you're unreliable from season to season, previous season you didn't like your team and this season you liked your team, a player only driven by whether he likes his team or not is not reliable to the league. You have to be there from start to finish whether you like your team or not, otherwise you're just sabotaging a bunch of players who might actually want to try to win or do well. I would rather have someone average on my team who had a history of sticking to their team regardless of if they didn't like who they ended up with, than someone who is really good but finicky with who they play with because they end up hurting the team dynamic more instead of helping.

Season 1 was a mess because of bad administration and it was killed off before being finished.
I had no real issues with my actual team and I actually managed to get a bit of practice going between games, but most of the time I'd just be a lousy captain in terms of getting prac started so I told Dragon I don't want to cap in future seasons.

Season 2, as I said, wasn't all because of my team. I really did have a busy work schedule that I didn't foresee happen and I had to sit out most of the games.
When Week 3 came and I realized that I'll only be able to play that week, I told everyone I couldn't keep going and had to call quits. The team issues were stated earlier and moreover by Samurai, but in my eyes only the thing with Dranzer being a total ass had to do with my resignation in terms of the team, the rest of that was just real life issues that came up back then.

This seasons I gave it my all and played all practice rounds and matches because I actually had time for IFL.
Even if I were drafted to any other team, I'd still prove myself and give everything I can so my team will win, regardless to where I'd have been drafted.

I'll hopefully prove to you I can be reliable in future seasons as well, regardless to who I have in my team.

[Dragon]

I always forgot the league ever existed because it was never talked about anywhere outside of the irc channel. No significant chatter on the forums, there's no external site with all the info and news, no streams and zero hype. Part of it can't be helped since it's a Euro league and the rest of us miss out on the games. (Yes, before anyone says anything, the IFL is a Euro league as the IDL was an American league despite both being marketed as 'international'.
Taking forever to play a final makes the league look amateurish and it's not nice to advertise a prize and then decide to take it away. On the plus side, the league finished unlike what happened in season 2. Don't let Mobius cap.

Ok first of all there is an external site that I have advertised and told people about. https://ifl.mazternet.ru/ - currently in maintenance! But the site has stats, forums and everything except demos, but the demos can always be found in the "Standings/Demo Archive"-part of IFL forums here on Zand.
Secondly, while a finals shouldn't take a month to finish, I agree, there was simply nothing I could do and I'd rather play the finals one month "delayed" than having it killed at the finals. To be fair, I think killing it at the finals would seem more amateurish than finishing it 1 month after supposed timeline.

Learn from the past and do what the IDL did. It started out as an invitational league, but then it moved over to open sign ups which proved to be a success. WDL also uses open sign ups. Find a way to open up the servers. Take off the passwords so the league won't seem so closed and separated from the rest of the community. Granted no one outside of the competitive scene really gives a shit about competition, but at least the league won't be seen as pretentious or elitist. Just change the join password every week and hand them out to captains only.

Yeah I guess that makes sense, I mean I feared making it open the first seasons but since it has been established enough in my opinion, I think I could try one season with sign-ups. Exactly what you mean with opening up the server, I don't get, I could maybe just host a pub IFL server?

Should we go for three seasons a year?
Hell no. People are going to get burned out no matter how optimistic they are about playing. Just keep it at 2 seasons per year with enough breathing room in between. The break in between can be used to make changes or improvements.

There are mixed opinions about this it seems, some want, some don't.. I'm currently not getting too much out of it, hehe.

Season 1 was a mess because of bad administration and it was killed off before being finished.
I had no real issues with my actual team and I actually managed to get a bit of practice going between games, but most of the time I'd just be a lousy captain in terms of getting prac started so I told Dragon I don't want to cap in future seasons.

Season 2, as I said, wasn't all because of my team. I really did have a busy work schedule that I didn't foresee happen and I had to sit out most of the games.
When Week 3 came and I realized that I'll only be able to play that week, I told everyone I couldn't keep going and had to call quits. The team issues were stated earlier and moreover by Samurai, but in my eyes only the thing with Dranzer being a total ass had to do with my resignation in terms of the team, the rest of that was just real life issues that came up back then.

You seem to forget that season 1 finished, it was a bit messy but it finished.
Season 2 try 1 was the season to be killed, later to be tried again and succeeding.

Ten made a great point - getting the community more involved can never hurt. I loved the old IDL forums where each week had a page and a half of predictions and maybe some playful shit talking. Additionally, streams of the game (even if its just a group of people spectating while also on teamspeak) can be a lot of fun as well. Reaching out to people who are interested in doing stuff like that can make things a little more interactive. Otherwise, I think you're on a really great track here.

If there's anyone actually interested in streaming the games let alone doing commentary, please do.. The thing I can do really is post results(screenshots) for each week, unless someone else does it. As for predictions and such, I don't know what I can do myself to make other people post. I posted my predictions I think every week but one, I feel there's nothing more I can do. If people are lazy and don't post predictions, that's on them.

[Moti]

Season 1 was a mess because of bad administration and it was killed off before being finished.
I had no real issues with my actual team and I actually managed to get a bit of practice going between games, but most of the time I'd just be a lousy captain in terms of getting prac started so I told Dragon I don't want to cap in future seasons.

Season 2, as I said, wasn't all because of my team. I really did have a busy work schedule that I didn't foresee happen and I had to sit out most of the games.
When Week 3 came and I realized that I'll only be able to play that week, I told everyone I couldn't keep going and had to call quits. The team issues were stated earlier and moreover by Samurai, but in my eyes only the thing with Dranzer being a total ass had to do with my resignation in terms of the team, the rest of that was just real life issues that came up back then.

You seem to forget that season 1 finished, it was a bit messy but it finished.
Season 2 try 1 was the season to be killed, later to be tried again and succeeding.

Oh, you're right. I don't think I've even played Season 1 to begin with. My bad :)
Yeah, it was Season 2 Try 1 that I was talking about that was messy and unfinished.