My initial 2 items are (a) a lifetime ranking clause and (b) changes around fighters contacting each other and eliminating forfeits that come up from lack of said contact. Here are my thoughts in more detail.
IFL Lifetime Ranking
To be read as supplemental to the existing ranking rules.
Fighters with a long career in IFL may qualify for a higher rank (never lower) based on the following:
* Fighters with 2+ wins in an IFL career will be ranked no lower than Fly Weight.
* Fighters with 20+ IFL duels, or who have won the KWB, and a lifetime PDPB between -2.00 and 0.00 will be ranked no lower than Middle Weight.
* Fighters with 20+ IFL duels, or who have won the KWB, and a lifetime PDPB greater than 0.00 will be ranked no lower than Heavy Weight.
That's the gist of it. We thought that the winner of the KWB should have special treatment here (and note that this was discussed long before I had a character win it!) and that 20 fights seemed like a good cut off for "life time" achievement.
Player Contact Rules
This is still kinda rough, but for reference it would replace this clause in the rules:
We've twice had to rule forfeits based on that no contact clause and it just seems a less than optimal way to go. It also seems a to me that Friday is terribly late in the week to wait for first contact.The Rules wrote: A fighter may also be reported as a no-show if he or she has not contacted his or her opponent by Friday of the scheduled week, or within 48 hours of their last correspondence, whichever comes later.
What I'd like to do is say that fighters should be in touch with each other by no later than Wed. evening. But also that if this does not happen that their captain should step in and if there's still nothing done by Sunday night the league office will arrange a sub and fight time.
The no contact clause would be removed from the no-show policy and instead we would add a new "Scheduling" section to the rules to be displayed directly after the "Matchups" section. It would read something like this:
Bout Scheduling
As mentioned in the "Weekly Schedule" section, fighters will need to schedule their own bout times without regard to the listed default (though naturally it would be great if the two coincided). We sincerely hope that fighters can be proactive and cooperative in scheduling with each other and this has historically been the case the vast majority of the time. These guidelines are to cover the edge cases.
Fighters are expected to be in touch with their opponents by no later than the evening of the 3rd day of the dueling week (Wednesday) and to respond to any emails within 48 hours. If by day 5 (Friday) of the dueling week they have not resolved a specific day and time to meet captains should step in and, if necessary, assign the bout to the team substitute. If by day 7 (Sunday) of the dueling week a bout time has still not been arranged, then one of the fighters or captains should loop in the league office. League administration should be informed of all prior contact and the availability of fighters and subs and will thereafter take over the scheduling process. The league administration will do its best to be fair in the resolution, giving preference to those who have made the most obvious attempts to communicate and cooperate with the process. Ultimately, however, the interest of the league is in getting the duel fought. As such, free-agents or substitues may be used at the league's discretion along with the statements of availability.
In a nutshell - work together and get it sorted or, if you can't, the league will take it over in a way you may or may not like, but which won't result in a forfeit unless somebody fails to show up.
Speaking of failure to show up... there is a 3rd change I just remembered wanting to make having to do with the case of an actual no show.
I must have been particularly bitter about no shows at the time I wrote this and feel it should probably be lightened up some. Specifically, if the sub is there and ready to fight, then the fight should go forward. It's one thing to want to level a penalty against a person consistantly no-showing, but if the captain and sub have done their job to make sure someone is present, then the team should probably not have to pay the price with a forfeit.The Rules wrote:If a second no-show occurs, but the substitute is there (or the originally scheduled fighter, if the captain elected to have the sub take over this duel), the opposing fighter may agree to fight the present duelist rather than take the forfeit, but is not obligated to.
Ok, that's more than enough to read for now. As I said at the start, I welcome opinions and commentary on the above as well as anything else folks might want to propose for the future.
~Kal
