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Sylus Kurgen
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Post by Sylus Kurgen »

As the topic slightly branched away from why IFL is taking a hiatus, I'm starting a discussion thread here to continue the conversation on league event saturation and player burn out.

In the other thread, I brought up the idea of discussing with other league coordinators sort of rotation schedule so that players do not feel obligated to participate in long-term tournament after long-term tournament. Hydra lasts roughly 8-10 weeks, IFL longer than that, and last year, Ragnarok ran before both of those events. 3 big events back-to-back-to-back. On top of those, there are still challenges, WLTs, AMTs, ARTs, Talons, PCs, DQs, etc.

As an event coordinator, I think about the community and what social climate is running through the it leading up to each Hydra season. I also have to ask of myself, what can I do to accommodate the community?...and what can the community do to accommodate itself?

This is a competitive community, and it's been brought up before...last person was Rakeesh I believe, that when faced with a ton of events, some players feel obligated to go all out and compete in everything. Hydra, IFL, Madness, other official tournaments. If it's coming up, they're putting a character into it. Kalamere mentioned people discussing not wanting to participate in Hydra or IFL back-to-back because of different reasons. This in itself is a recurring discussion.

The discussion of player choice.

Players should never feel obligated to enter an event if they don't actually want to. Ever. I want people to engage in Hydra and have a blast, not slaughter themselves. Just their opponents.

Hydra, Iron Fist League, Madness, Ragnarok, and every other event are up to each player how many they want to enter every time they crop up.

Player burnout isn't on the shoulders of event coordinators. Players have to know themselves and their own limitations on what they can handle.

The power is yours.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

There is no choice though. The spark of this whole debate was that IFL will not be coming back this year and instead will be taking a break. There may also be a chance that Ragnarok will not be coming back as well. There's no choice currently, only the illusion of one. Right now there is only the choice of "Join Hydra or don't join a league this year". Which confuses me why this is being brought up by the coordinator of a league that's about to start in a month or so, since it alienates those who may have the opposite opinion and could be wavering on joining or not.

Some players will feel obligated no matter what anyone else says. It's the idea that helping the community thrive is paramount. The opinion that players should look after their own self interest can be easily turned onto league-coordinators as well. "What is best for the community", "I want to run an event but there are other events going to happen in the near future, this may result players picking and choosing. If player burn-out is a real thing**, then perhaps it would be best for me not to run my event." Which looks to be the reason for IFL not returing this year. And this takes away choice from the players, too. Who no longer have events to choose between and are left with Hydra and nothing.

**Citation please. Not to say it doesn't exist, but not at the extent it's being used in arguments.

It's not a bad thing to suffer from burn-out. Some players need time to cool down, and that isn't a negative. No one should feel obligated to come around every month and put a few numbers of duels in -- all to make sure everything looks fine on paper.

It's like this. You've run in a marathon, does that mean you will go back to the track the day after? No, you'll want to cooldown for a while. But when you feel like coming back, you'll come back.

As for Madness. Madness shouldn't even be in the mix. Half of those who sign up to madness will be out in Week 1. I can't fathom how Madness burnout can be a thing, because only the winners continue on.
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Post by Lirssa Sarengrave »

Since we're talking about leagues in general, self preservation, best for the community and all the permutations thereof, let me ask this:

What is there for actual new duelists when all these leagues happen? Anecdotal evidence is all I have, but I'd go with 90% of teams are built with veterans. That means for Hydra and IFL, new duelists are met with regulation dueling of very few people -- if any. I appreciate that league is fun, having participated in two of the events last year. But we all know (callers even mention it in the rooms) that league activity curtails regulation dueling. It just does.

What's best for the community? I guess that depends on if you're talking short term or long term. From what I see, if league play continues at the level it does, we will perpetually exclude actual new duelers for roughly five months out of a year. Five months. I'd like that to be taken in consideration as well.

How many actual new duelers are there? I've no clue. Would there be more maybe if they were not left out of what was going on every few weeks? Don't know that either.

I'm not saying don't have all the leagues you want, but I'd like some thought put in to what is left to the rest of the community during those times. Just want new duelists to be part of the conversation.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Lirssa Sarengrave wrote:What is there for actual new duelists when all these leagues happen? Anecdotal evidence is all I have, but I'd go with 90% of teams are built with veterans. That means for Hydra and IFL, new duelists are met with regulation dueling of very few people -- if any. I appreciate that league is fun, having participated in two of the events last year. But we all know (callers even mention it in the rooms) that league activity curtails regulation dueling. It just does.
The decision to host dueling nights in the IFL room was made for this reason. It meant no one had to choose to split their time between two rooms and could possibly duel if they like. Duels happened off and on, not much, but the option for players (new players included) to come to the IFL setting and ask for a duel was there.

Hydra is a regulation duel league, though not what it used to be. Back in the first two seasons you could duel *anyone* for points, which meant you could barter with low rank and new players to fight at their level for the possibility of points. Now it's using an IFL-lite sort of rule set and now only between player vs player during a team vs team matchup. These fights still take place in regulation rooms though, which means newer players and others not involved in the league can come in and still ask for duels.

I would not call this excluding when measures were taken to see that duelists could use a heavily populated room to try and gain a match. It instead becomes an argument less about the coordinators and staff and more to the players themselves, as to why they aren't willing to duel in regulation while it's being held in the same room as IFL/Hydra. But if that happens, it goes back to the argument of "I can spectate and not duel if I want to", which happens throughout the regulation year even when leagues are not ongoing.

Edited to add: Also at the beginning of the leagues there is usually a thread for new players to speak up if they are interested in joining a team. PUG's have been formed in the past because of this. If I recall correctly, that is how Rock Hards was formed.
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Post by Lirssa Sarengrave »

Excellent point. I'd like to press this point a bit further though. Yes, everyone has their choices to make, but those choices become heavily influenced by in-character choices, too. When people who are part of a team duel regulation they are then considered "not supporting their team" by not spectating. Which means, whether in the same room or not, people are rarely regulation dueling because they are there to support their team. So, yes, there is a choice, and the choice currently available may be the best one.

On another note, I don't think Kal was making a choice for a one year hiatus of IFL due to worry of player burnout. From my understanding, hiatus was going to happen no matter what. The only reason for the early announcement was for those who were debating which league to participate in -- not that everyone was, not that the debate influenced the hiatus, that it influenced the timing of the announcement.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Lirssa Sarengrave wrote:Excellent point. I'd like to press this point a bit further though. Yes, everyone has their choices to make, but those choices become heavily influenced by in-character choices, too. When people who are part of a team duel regulation they are then considered "not supporting their team" by not spectating. Which means, whether in the same room or not, people are rarely regulation dueling because they are there to support their team. So, yes, there is a choice, and the choice currently available may be the best one.
and that's not the fault of league coordinators. More leagues, lack of leagues, won't really solve issues like that. As it's an issue that happened before the leagues returned. It's player-driven issues, where they choose to rather cheer instead of possibly dueling a new character/player. League-coordinators are providing a service, players may choose to involve themselves in this service either by joining in, supporting their friends, etc. At the end of the day it isn't the league organizers who are telling someone to make a decision to duel a new player or cheer for their friend.

We can spin this from leagues and say the same thing about challenges or tournament nights. Challenges/Tournaments usually see less duels since more or less the players who may come out to watch are there to cheer. Do we penalize challenges and tournaments for this? No, of course not. It's the choice of a player to do what they will at the end of the day. No one is making this any less of a welcoming place to new players by running league events.

As for the decision about IFL, burnout was brought up as one - of multiple reasons - that brought about a conclusion.
It felt to me though that towards the end of the last IFL season folks were getting burned out. Between IFL, Hydra, Ragnarok, Madness, we had a constant schedule of these long / large events over the last couple years and it was just a little too much.
All I can really say is that in the last year or two, things have felt off in some way. Maybe it's just the normal cycle of things, maybe it's that so many players I enjoyed interacting with have moved on, maybe it's the heavy event stream going all the way back to Hydra 2013 and the burnout that ensued. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it's been a growing sense.
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Post by Sabine »

Is it the leagues fault? No. It's not really ANYONE's fault or anything's fault, it's just how it goes.

But the point still remains that it DOES happen and these are valid concerns to address. Either way, they need to be heard.

I know at these team events especially I feel a certain responsibility to be there and cheer for my team. I have very limited rp and dueling time since I started to work last April, hence my decline in being able to duel. So when there are this many league things going on, I do feel torn between dueling, cheering, RPing on RDI, etc.

Of course I don't HAVE to do them all and this year I won't because I did feel burnt out this past year doing Madness, Hydra, IFL, Madness all on my very limited schedule which was much worse and changes every 6 months or so and trying to make sure I stayed active in regulation and "earned" my titles by being present and being a duel supporter.

Now the leagues also do bring out the oldies, the irregulars, and new players which is great to see. On our IFL team we had all relatively new players and we had a blast. I know Jewel's team had newer persons and irregulars, as did a few others. It was awesome to see these folks coming out and going head to head and giving some of the oldies a run for their money.

At the same time, I know some of these people feel like they'll never make headway in these events or even on the regular duels and they can end up feeling discouraged and burnt out before they even get started.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of a rotation of these long term events, popular opinion or not, it's mine. Then again, I can always just sit out and hope the duels are not totally dried up during these events.

I wouldn't mind seeing MORE small events that draw out new players and newer duelists or irregular duelists.

Maybe this deserves it's own thread but I also know some new duelists don't even bother with certain tournaments because they figure "why bother, so and so top duelist will just show up on a low level alt and beat me." So I want to find out what can be done about that? Aside from asking people to use an honor system and not join if they have any alts ranked above a certain level.

Back to the original point of this thread?

This is an important topic and we need to hear from the community as a whole not just a handful of voices. I do hope some of our newer, irregular, and hopeful duelists will chime in.

EDIT TO ADD:

I also would like to see more inclusion of newer/lesser known duelists in team events with established teams. Maybe a rule of "your team MUST include a new duelist/lower rank duelist" OR a list where people without teams (which we did have) an apply and they MUST be added to a team.

There is nothing worst than feeling like the last kid picked for the game or being left out entirely when you want to be on a team.

I don't know HOW to make that happen though since the amount of players to a team is limited and we can't ask people to out themselves. But it's food for thought.
Last edited by Sabine on Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Luna Eva »

Sylus Kurgen wrote:As an event coordinator, I think about the community and what social climate is running through the it leading up to each Hydra season. I also have to ask of myself, what can I do to accommodate the community?...and what can the community do to accommodate itself?
Could you please elaborate on this with respect to this year in particular? What did you think of the social climate in the community? What in the community needed accommodating? What did you do (or plan to do) to accommodate it? What are your expectations about how the community is supposed to accommodate itself?
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Sabine wrote:Of course I don't HAVE to do them all and this year I won't because I did feel burnt out this past year doing Madness, Hydra, IFL, Madness all on my very limited schedule which was much worse and changes every 6 months or so and trying to make sure I stayed active in regulation and "earned" my titles by being present and being a duel supporter.
But that isn't the choices this year. We have Hydra and Hydra alone. Madness is over and done. The only choice is to choose to do Hydra or not to do Hydra, there is no bigger picture beyond that.
Sabine wrote:I also would like to see more inclusion of newer/lesser known duelists in team events with established teams. Maybe a rule of "your team MUST include a new duelist/lower rank duelist" OR a list where people without teams (which we did have) an apply and they MUST be added to a team.
I'm confused. If it's about player choice, then why should teams be forced to include a new/lower rank duelist? This is basically putting a sticker on someone and marking them the team mascot that might never be used in highly competitive teams. I for one wouldn't want to sit there and be the token guy put into a team just because there's a quota for them to join the league.
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Post by Sabine »

Hey, it's a discussion, I can toss ideas out there. Maybe it'll go nowhere but it creates open and honest dialog and helps us learn about inclusion and how to continue to grow and thrive.


The bigger picture beyond Hydra is...

SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY.

What OTHER things can we do between the end of Hydra and the beginning of Madness (IF Ragnarok doesn't happen) that can add new dimensions to the sports and keep the community thriving?

Why not take the downtime to test out new ideas? It doesn't mean those things will become a yearly thing or added to the tournament roster but it's be a great chance to try things out since we could all have time to breathe without leagues going on.

We have a lot of people who are newer to dueling this year, I'd love to hear more from them and what they'd like to see and what kinds of things would retain them and cause them to continue dueling.

As for your confusion, again, it's an idea being tossed out there and something to think about. I don't know HOW it would work, other than, it's an idea and it could bring about some change to encourage newer duelists. I know there was at least 1 (maybe more?) people who didn't have a team for IFL and were left out. That sucks. Maybe that's life and maybe YOU (general) don't want to have your perfect team spoiled by some newb... but where is the community in that? I feel like we (I'm including myself since I've dueled a year now and held titles) have a duty to reach out and embrace other duelists.

How can we do that? This was just one suggestion. It doesn't mean it has to happen.

But really, we can't be flexible enough to welcome in someone for a few weeks who would otherwise be left out? Really? That few weeks of inclusion may encourage them to become regular duelists and thus we wouldn't all be fighting the same 3-6 people every flipping week at the duels.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Sabine wrote:but where is the community in that?
There is no free choice in that idea though. My IFL team, Dirty Black, had some players who 1: Did not duel in fists often enough to ever have rank, 2: Only had a hand full of duels and was completely new. It was my choice to include them and we made it to the very finals. I did not choose them because they were new, I chose them because they wanted to join my team / roleplay. A team should not be forced to choose off a list of new players, because at the end of that someone will always - always be last or not chosen at all. There will always be sore feelings, and it might not be the best feeling to have others look on you like you're simply on the team for being a "newbie". I'm confused since I don't see the community in that.

As for other events, they have been happening even while IFL / Ragnarok / Hydra were going on. Harris's diamond days, tournaments for Overlord grants, squireship tournaments, these things happen and promote activity with or without leagues being there. They have been supporting the community, as well as leagues, in their own different ways. New ideas are being tested out all the time.

These problems are not new problems. The whole same 3-6 people dueling each week are people who want to come out and duel and I cannot fault them for coming around, nor can I fault anyone for choosing to not come around. This is a text-based matrix game, an argument can be made that the changes of time and interest dictate more to the loss of activity, because subjects like these come up all the time. "What can we do to bring new people and include them". Events spark up from it, and then the subject goes dormant for a few months or a year only to be popped up again.
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Post by Sabine »

So maybe that's not exactly how it would go. It's an IDEA. The purpose of this thread. The idea is out there and now it can take on new life forms and give the event creators things to ponder. You know, like Sylus asked.

And instead of looking at someone like the gum on your shoe, you (General) could you know build them up, be excited, extend a helping hand to make them feel super welcome and then they WOULDN'T feel like the token newb. They'd feel super awesome that one of the best duelists has taken an interest in them. Or I would. I DID!

I know you (not general) can do that because you did it for me when I was new to the duels.

But when we do have these conversations, how many people do chime in? How many people beyond you are being heard? Whoever screams the loudest is heard. Is that how we want things to go?

If you keep saying " no no no no no no" ... that doesn't open up the dialog and then these newer people don't bother getting involved in the discussions or go silent because they either think their opinion doesn't matter or they are too intimidated by a pillar of the dueling community to keep contributing. And then NOTHING changes.

We MUST keep this conversation and others like this open and welcoming, whether or not we all agree with what is posted. That is not an attack against you but an observation that all of us who have such a deep connection and so much time invested in dueling must be careful of.

This isn'y MY sandbox. Or yours. Or G's. Or Kal's. We have to make sure we keep it a community sandbox and no one is pissing on other people's toys.

If the problems as you mention are not NEW... then why does it continue to happen? What if anything can we do to change that? It doesn't hurt to revisit these questions.

I remember how badly the duels died before you, Hope, Claire, and Melanie came along. It was great seeing them thriving again. I want to see more of that!

We have had some great new things coming up and as Kal mentioned in his original thread, we've seen an uptick in dueling activity. Awesomesauce! How can we keep that momentum?

Does it hurt to remove IFL for ONE year to see if a break has any affect on dueling activity? I don't think so. I LOVED IFL. I will miss it. But it'll be back and in the mean time, I can find other fun things to do.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Sabine wrote:If you keep saying " no no no no no no" ... that doesn't open up the dialog and then these newer people don't bother getting involved in the discussions or go silent because they either think their opinion doesn't matter or they are too intimidated by a pillar of the dueling community to keep contributing. And then NOTHING changes. .
I'm not saying no. Ideas are meant to be looked at from the other direction and having the weight of pros and cons. At the end of the day it is the decision of league or event coordinators to choose what they will do. But having one way discussions of just throwing out ideas and where none are questioned does not seem productive. You hammer out issues, rebuild an idea, and present it again with the changes.

These threads are sadly going to be always, always about a vocal minority. They always are, because not everyone is going to come in and let their opinions be heard. Some are less confrontational than others. When I was a new player, I lurked -- because the idea of lurking more and getting the lay of the land was the best idea for me.

Edit: posted on the wrong name but I'm looking up dueling trends currently so meh.
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Post by Sabine »

DUEL Apple wrote:
Sabine wrote:If you keep saying " no no no no no no" ... that doesn't open up the dialog and then these newer people don't bother getting involved in the discussions or go silent because they either think their opinion doesn't matter or they are too intimidated by a pillar of the dueling community to keep contributing. And then NOTHING changes. .
I'm not saying no. Ideas are meant to be looked at from the other direction and having the weight of pros and cons. At the end of the day it is the decision of league or event coordinators to choose what they will do. But having one way discussions of just throwing out ideas and where none are questioned does not seem productive. You hammer out issues, rebuild an idea, and present it again with the changes.

These threads are sadly going to be always, always about a vocal minority. They always are, because not everyone is going to come in and let their opinions be heard. Some are less confrontational than others. When I was a new player, I lurked -- because the idea of lurking more and getting the lay of the land was the best idea for me.

Edit: posted on the wrong name but I'm looking up dueling trends currently so meh.
LOL. I was like DON'T MAKE ME BREAK OUT MY DUEL NAME! :P

Seriously though, I can appreciate you bringing the flip side to the coin. I agree, we need that too to flesh out the ideas. I just want to be careful that it doesn't come across in a way that discourages others from commenting or makes them feel like they are "wrong," because this is JUST a discussion. There isn't a right or wrong.

I'm the same. I hardly ever get involved in these conversations because I thought, "What can I add? I haven't been around long enough. I don't know enough. I don't understand the mechanics as well." ... but me being silent doesn't benefit the community either because maybe something I am "brave" enough to say is something that someone else wants to say.

Like it or not, people look up to you and what you say carries a lot of weight because of your experience and what you have given to this community. You lay down the hammer and it's going to feel different than someone else saying it.

So we know IFL is out this year, no amount of stomping is going to bring it back. So we have to focus on some other ideas to fill the time.

You know one thing I think would be cool would to be some kind of Mentor +Mentee face off tournament. I have NOTHING beyond that lol, but it'd be a tournament where any top ranked duelist (or previous) could mentor (unofficially or officially) a lower rank or new duelist and there is some kind of tournament around that. Something to encourage the working together of old and new.
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Post by Andrea Anderson »

Sabine wrote:You know one thing I think would be cool would to be some kind of Mentor +Mentee face off tournament. I have NOTHING beyond that lol, but it'd be a tournament where any top ranked duelist (or previous) could mentor (unofficially or officially) a lower rank or new duelist and there is some kind of tournament around that. Something to encourage the working together of old and new.
It's been done in DoF. Tag-team tournaments saw that Mentor-Mentee teams gained an extra mod benefit, and it was actually beneficial to pair up as a mentor-mentee and sign up for the tournament. These same tournaments said emeralds could not team with one another, but instead would have to choose someone of a lower rank. Harris's Diamond Days had an event much like that, though if emeralds teamed up they could only max at 6 mods, if an emerald and a no rank join they max at 6 mods. If a no rank and no rank match up, they had zero mods. Whoever had the highest rank, that is the mod the tag-team used. You and I participated in that and we fought as Ruby (3 Mods), since I was 0 rank on Ashley and you were Ruby at the time.

Players have been actively using these ideas to help promote new and old players. That is why I'm confused when the question comes up about what we can do to help new / low rank players, because things are being done and have been done.

Though if you're interested in possibly making a tournament to promote something like this, I'd totally offer my help in private discussions.
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