Team System Discussion and Ideas

[Suicune's Fire]

Why can't we all just get along? ;~;


The only one I can agree with is the cap, so that more people are distributed evenly. But even then it seems like we're forcing it. Like people have said, I think last year's war was a testament to how the largest team won't always be the winning team.

I think a casual team/competitive team thing doesn't make sense. Why else apply for the war if you're not gonna try your hardest for your team (with fun involved, of course)?

[HKim]

I think a casual team/competitive team thing doesn't make sense. Why else apply for the war if you're not gonna try your hardest for your team (with fun involved, of course)?

Because some people just want to create large teams with a bunch of random people with only the idea of participating and having fun regardless if they win any points or not.

And some people really, really want to win.

[Suicune's Fire]

Because some people just want to create large teams with a bunch of random people with only the idea of participating and having fun regardless if they win any points or not.

And some people really, really want to win.

Okay, I'm just not convinced that many teams would be like that. xD

Well now it seems like there's only two ends of the spectrum! I'd rather be in the middle. If you win, you win, and if you don't, you don't. Still try hard and try to win, but don't bust your nut or chuck a hissy fit if you lose. XD


Did any drama like this happen in PE2K's wars?

[HKim]

Did any drama like this happen in PE2K's wars?

Yes. One time I merged Team Trainer with Team Tri-Blade to win the War over Team Nox. It really pissed Neo off.

To be fair, he was probably right.

[Ace Trainer Liam]

I like the idea of a randomizer choosing people, but what if we mixed that idea with another one some people had: picking a few teams from the beginning and being chosen onto one. People pick a few teams they'd want to be on, then the randomizer puts those people randomly on those teams with an even distribution.

I also like the idea of soft caps that can be tightened to an extent; if you truly wanted to participate in WAR then there's probably a couple teams you wouldn't mind joining, if someone turns away from WAR simply because they didn't get on a team they really wanted to, would they have participated at all? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But then again my idea of a soft cap was more of saying "around this number" (say 15) with -2/+1 wiggle room, but then when added another cap add to the original 15?

I also like the idea of split teams, having some for competitive and others for fun.

[Lord Celebi]

I like the idea of a randomizer choosing people, but what if we mixed that idea with another one some people had: picking a few teams from the beginning and being chosen onto one. People pick a few teams they'd want to be on, then the randomizer puts those people randomly on those teams with an even distribution.

We've done this before and they have been some decidedly low energy WARs (WAR VI comes to mind). I recall a lot people being very unhappy with drafting decisions and basically all-but-quitting if they didn't get onto the team they wanted.

I also like the idea of soft caps that can be tightened to an extent; if you truly wanted to participate in WAR then there's probably a couple teams you wouldn't mind joining, if someone turns away from WAR simply because they didn't get on a team they really wanted to, would they have participated at all? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But then again my idea of a soft cap was more of saying "around this number" (say 15) with -2/+1 wiggle room, but then when added another cap add to the original 15?

This is definitely the most workable of the solutions. However, my concern with this is two-fold: 1) If a team is temporarily "full," people will just wait for the cap to be raised. 2) The raising of the cap would rely on other teams being popular enough to get members. "Joke" teams wouldn't work in this environment. We would either have to ban joke teams or we'd have to wait for them to fill up.

[Neo Emolga]

Yes. One time I merged Team Trainer with Team Tri-Blade to win the War over Team Nox. It really pissed Neo off.

To be fair, he was probably right.

I think that happened during Season 2, and I was only a newbie back then who didn't know his foot from his face when it came to WAR stuff. But yeah, it brought up a lot of controversy with some other people.

But that's all past tense. I don't keep grudges and it's really just a game. Definitely need to let bygones be bygones.

[Homura]

Did any drama like this happen in PE2K's wars?

"Every year" is your answer.

In any case, empirically speaking ceiling has had been the most successful of the methods to deal with the issue of "large teams". If a person wants to wait for a team to open up, then they can wait. If they want to join in on the war and their preferred team isn't open, they can join a different team. What you have to understand is that there will never be a system to which everybody will be happy, so just stick this utilization method here and be done with it.

[purple umbreon]

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.

Eh...? I actually thought it was strange things were going to start in June. I mean, a lot of students have exams then, don't they? I know I do. I always thought June was bad to start this thing but I didn't say it because I can find time to participate, even during my exams.

But to the topic, from all those things that are discussed I think soft cap or only giving the points to one member of each team will work out the best. Of course it has to be within reason and I think for soft caps you don't have to wait until each team has reached the soft cap but more to the difference between the team with the most members and the team with the least members. I feel it would be a bit more flexible that way. Of course that would be more difficult to implement and control.
I really don't like the idea of giving the teams with the least members extra points. It could happen that there are more of them joining a section then those of another team.

[bronislav84]

One member winning points per category per team sounds reasonable to me, though it could lead to teams entering something crappy just to get the third place points if nobody else enters. This is a possible abuse of the system and need to be not indulged. If an entry is particularly bad and there's only three entries, the judge should be allowed to not give out all the points and reserve them for actual good entries.

Ken and Harry remember the old days to too.

Draft and voting Wars "worked" in the sense that people didn't object too much, but they were very definitely low energy Wars and there just wasn't a lot of activity. People were not compelled to compete for a team that they just ended up on without familiarity even with preferences and a certain number of refusals, or a team they didn't vote for. The voting season was actually more active than the draft season IIRC, but it was still very much a popularity contest. The teams that were trending were IIRC run by high profile members where it became entirely a contest of Team Leaders instead of actual good team ideas. I merged my votes with Tamer and we were going to run a team together, but he disappeared around that time. These systems overall didn't work. If they worked, we would still be using them right?

Team ceilings AKA soft caps were the only method people didn't hate back when they were tried. A capping ensures balance, but making it soft and raising it when all teams are at the cap is what worked. A War like this definitely needs to exclude joke teams, teams who only care about one or two sections that give bonuses for War competition (Pure battling teams for example), or teams formed from the get go as not in it to reasonably try at a win. These teams would suck up members due to the soft cap rule just to fill up their ranks, but not be fun to be on for the vast majority who can't get on the more defined and refined teams. This was the downfall of the soft cap system and that's why it was only used a couple of times. If restriction on what kind of teams are created is put in place, soft caps could work very well and become a staple.

This brings me to my last point. I'm not convinced on having teams labeled as non competitive teams. The War event is by definition a competitive event meant to spur forum activity. I'm not saying it's wrong to join a team then not compete, but everyone who joins the War commits to at least as much participation as they can reasonably handle. Forcing people to compete or overextend themselves is wrong, but so is making teams just to get points and not actually have a use for them. The non competitive War sounds like it would make more sense as a Parody War or an entirely separate event. Just running two concurrent War RPs would be a nightmare, even if the backstory was the same. If we do end up doing that, there should be separate judges.

And these are my thoughts.