Team System Discussion and Ideas

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

That is a cool idea Sabi, but in reality it is probably rare that one event will get an entry from every single team, and even more rare that there will be 2! So I'd say most events would be stuck at 1 entry per team, max 2. It might work if the teams were more balanced in numbers already (so maybe if there is a draft/cap) but right now the larger teams would have most of their members not even being allowed to participate at all for the week and maybe the whole WAR, which isn't very fun for them. Plus again there's an issue of how to choose who gets to participate if more than x number want to. If it was something known from the beginning, it would probably encourage people to make/join small teams, which could be good.

Considering we actually do want as much participation as possible, it seems a bit counteractive to limit participation.

A random draft sounds pretty interesting... Probably not something that I would join in because I only really find fun being with my friends, but I guess it would deal with a lot of issues.

Since Elysia asked, I'd like to mention that the staff's motivation when discussing this WAR was purely to create an event with maximum participation and focus on fun and friends, not winning. We aimed to get new members involved, which is pretty much why Trainer and Prism were created. :) It seems it has turned into a bit more of a competitive thing than the just-for-fun game I hoped it to be, so we will have to take that into account for next year.

[Saraibre Ryu]

Slight problem with difference balancing:

Assume you have two members from Trainer and Phoenix Battalion, and three from Awesome and Prism. What happens when a Yoga Bear wants to enter?

Basically the idea is to get at least one member from each team in a Weekly competition before number piled high. Other team's would not be able to get past 2 unless a team specifically stated that they had no one that wanted to participate in that week. So numbers wise, get at least one member from every team before getting oo many members of the same team in one section. If Awesome and Prism wanted to get past 2, another Team would have someone join in on the fun or they'd let that particular section know. If responses are delayed then the Judge of that section could allow more people to join, as a week may seem like awhile but time can fly super fast. This way people are invited into friendly competition with a 'hey we need more peeps, wanna join us for this week?' rather than being shut out, and it's a way that people can sort of 'manipulate' the cap so to speak. If the person who signs up is unable to do anything for that week for whatever reason, someone from that same team can take their spot if it ends up being 1 member from each team across the board for a particular section. The number doesn't have to be 1, it could be another number entirely.

As I said before, I don't think this would work great for the RP section, because that's run differently than other sections and is a bit weird. This is a rather beta suggestion that works with multiple ideas people had that can hopefully make everyone happy. I know ratios were a big concern. Keeping it friendly between teams is super important too!

[HKim]

Maybe we could create two team designations.

Competitive teams would be required to have the same number of members as each other. The general idea is that these teams are in it to win it and anyone who wants to be part of a winning team should join one of these teams.

Relaxed teams would be for members who just want to participate here and there and have fun. These teams might win (but probably won't) and won't be capped by member limits. There will be no expectation of performance or victory and, thus, no stress or pressure on the members.

[Neo Emolga]

Honestly, I think we need to focus discussion and possible solutions for this year's WAR rather than next year's WAR, mainly because by the time next year rolls around, we would have forgotten pretty much everything that was said here a year ago. However, in light of this, last year's WAR didn't start until July 7th, so if we really wanted to implement a whole new system and start it at a time that worked for last year, we could totally pull it off given it's still May and pushing the starting date back is actually still a possibility. We'd need to work quickly though. Having all of June to work out a new system is possible.

Frankly, part of me feels like crumpling up everything and trying to go with something totally fresh and new that we haven't tried before.

We've never tried a system where we had both a pre-team draft PLUS a member draft (we've only had it where it was one or the other, so I think that's a big point). The pre-team draft would be a system where anyone who aspires to lead a team could post their profile and credentials in a team leader sign up thread and the team idea they have in mind, which would be the team they would create if they were voted to be a Team Leader and would be the stuff everyone else would be looking at when deciding how to vote. These submissions go on for about a week and then people decide and vote on which six teams they'd like to see become official WAR Teams. This would ensure most people are generally happy with the six teams that are being created, which would be an important precursor to making sure they are happy with the six teams they're being drafted into later. The chances of a person being drafted into a team they don't really like are minimized considering whatever team they're called into was voted for by the people because they liked it (big important detail there, because people being drafted into teams they don't like is the thing we'd like to nip in the bud).

Once those six teams are created, the team leaders then draft members one at a time from a member pool of those that want to participate in the WAR. Latecomers to the WAR can still take part, but they'd need to wait until the end of the week to be drafted in subsequent drafts (draft order of the teams would continue from where it left off).

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On a side note, I'm not really a fan of messing around with the scoring system (seems like it would get awfully complicated) or how people can submit (I agree with Sarah, a limited number of submissions forces only the best of the best to participate, which isn't good because we want new people to get in on everything they can as well). It also doesn't work for certain sections like RP and competitive battling areas that have ongoing participation. Plus, I think balancing the teams is the main concern.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

I like that idea Harry! And I think we kind of already did that without meaning to! But if a relaxed team got 20 members and the competitive teams only had 10, would the competitive teams not like that/think it was unfair?

Or does it depend on the member distribution? Like if most experienced members were on competitive teams, would the competitive teams not mind large relaxed teams full of people just wanting to join in and have fun?

I do really like the idea of having a 'relaxed'/just for fun option if we do go with some of the more competitive ideas for drafts etc. :) Many people find serious competition/drafts/etc. intimidating and not really enjoyable, so it would be nice to be able to serve both groups somehow.

[Caite-chan]

We all need to quit making this seem harder than it needs to be. Forget how big a team is because no matter how many people a team has there will always be that handful of people who just totally forget about the WAR or who just joined for the fun of being on a team. If Team Trainer has 20 people not ALL 20 people are going to participate. It could be more like say 13-15 people. You should worry less about how many people a team has and more about how much fun you will have. You are free to join whatever team you'd like so don't let that stop you. I know I joined Neo's team when it was just posted and it was only the 3rd team to join the WAR. Team Trainer posted a day or so after that if I remember correctly and POOF everyone and their mother was joining Trainer. Team Trainer has been apart of the WAR since it first started. I joined Trainer last year only to mow the lawn and be sent to the hospital and have a pacemaker put in. (I was born with a heart problem. Why do you think I'm so evil.) I know another year I joined Neo's team only to leave for a smaller team and he was totally cool with that. I think I'm one of those people who's never really been on the same team more than once or twice if I remember right.

The point is you should join the team you want and not worry about the numbers. This is our summer fun and that's what it should be about. This is fun competition and nothing more. Because after this is over with we'll just go back to being bored out of our minds with not much to do. xD

[Saraibre Ryu]

As a WAR leader who made a huge effort for the focus to shift from competitive to fun, I'm sad to see that the focus still hasn't shifted much at all. Though since Harry ninja posted an idea I had, I'm going to just post the idea here regardless.

We can have Teams stay rather the same but instead have Casual and Competitive areas for members in that team. Team members would state if they are joining a team for Casual or Competitive play, but could remain on the same team and still work together regardless of who is playing for what area. You would just need to keep track of who's doing what. This would require sections to have twice as many ideas for challenges per week, and two RP's going on at the same time.

Anyway as Caite said, the focus is for fun. All the numbers talk and focus on being fair to win makes it all about the competition, which can suck the fun out for everyone else. Not everyone on a team may participate, especially on big ones where I've seen that the bigger the team is, the more relaxed people are and some may have just joined for the fancy perks.

[Felly]

Regarding limiting team scoring... what about if only Awesome and Prism enter art? Each team submits 3 fantastic pieces, 30/30. Trainer enters and submits 1 crappy piece (5/30). But that piece is guaranteed at least 3rd because only 3 teams entered... That seems a bit strange and might encourage teams to enter 'spam' entries to pick up the guaranteed points.

I just feel like its a bit artificial. I guess I would prefer to score points because my entry was really good, not just because all the great artists were on the same team and therefore couldn't compete.

I see where your concern is there with the huge gap between 30/30 and 5/30. I think if there's a reasonable standard for deciding it, it'd be okay. I'll post an example below.

Say we have 5 people from Trainer, 3 from Magma, and 2 from JMC and Yoga Bears in a drawn art competition. We get to the judging, and we see the following scores:

Trainer #1 - 30/30
Trainer #2 - 28/30
Trainer #3 - 13/30
Trainer #4 - 5/30
Trainer #5 - 15/30
Magma #1 - 28/30
Magma #2 - 12/30
Magma #3 - 6/30
JMC #1 - 24/30
JMC #2 - 15/30
Yoga Bears #1 - 20/30
Yoga Bears #2 - 19/30

In the above example, the top scores are 30/30 from Trainer #1, 28/30 from both Trainer #2 and Magma #1, and 24/30 from JMC #1. Trainer #1 would get first place since they got the highest score. For second place, that would normally be split between Trainer #2 and Magma #1 due to a tie, however, under this proposed rule, there would be no split in points and all of them would go to Magma #1. Third would go to JMC #1. This would be okay since all of the numbers are close together; there's a two point difference between first and second, and a 5 point difference between 2nd and 3rd.

I'll post another example of what I personally wouldn't consider okay.

Trainer #1 - 30/30
Trainer #2 - 28/30
JMC #1 - 13/30
Magma #1 - 6/30

Say we see these results on a drawn art competition. You have two from Trainer and one each from JMC and Magma. Under the proposed rule, points would go to Trainer, JMC, and Magma. However, I, and possibly others as well, feel that a jump from 30 to 13 is a lot, a 17 point difference between first and second, and there's a 7 point difference between second and third. In a case like this, it would be appropriate to award the two Trainer members first and second and give JMC third. If there's a 6+ difference in points, then this example would apply, but if there's 1-5 difference in points, then the first example would apply.

In both scenarios, it's still better to have as many from your team to submit stuff if they can because you boost your odds of getting one of the top three spots, but at the same time, we're also not excluding smaller teams by doing this. Hopefully this all makes sense. :3

Might be back to reply to more things later after I sleep. xD

[SassySnivy]

You could always make it so that if multiple people from one team place in a place in which they can obtain points, only the member from that team that scored the most points will be added to the point total. Then whoever was scored in fourth place can be bumped up to third and etc.

So like. Say that someone from Team Trainer scored a 29/30. Another person from Trainer scored 28/30. Someone from Magma scores a 26/30, someone from Yoga scored 24/30, and someone from Prism scored 22/30.

Since the two people from Trainer scored the highest number of points, only the one that scored the highest will count toward the team point tally. So that means that the Magma member will get points equal to if they were to have gotten second place, and then third place for the person on Yoga.

[HKim]

So anyway, to expand on my Two-Category Team System.

Essentially, teams would apply to be Competitive or Casual (Felly suggested it as a better name than relaxed).


Competitive Teams would be restricted to a certain team size. This may be a soft cap or hard cap. I do not know which would be better.

Casual Teams could have any number of members.


Generally, people who join Competitive Teams understand that there is a certain expectation for the team to try and win. That's the main "goal".

For members of Casual Teams, the goal is to participate, relax, and have fun. Winning isn't that important.


Competitive Teams will be given a bonus of five points at the end of each War week. This is due to their Competitive status. This helps ensure that Competitive Teams are really competing against each other while Casual Teams are just in it for the adventure.