RAGL Season 2 - Discussion, Feedback, Development

Season 3 is on the horizon!

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SoScared
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RAGL Season 2 - Discussion, Feedback, Development

Post by SoScared »

[align=center]RAGL Season 2 - Discussion, Feedback, Development


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This thread could have gone up a lot sooner but regardless, better late than never. The start date of Season 3 is coming up fast (March 6th) but if there's some comments, suggestions as to how the format should run there's still ample time to adjust if need be. The Rulebook for Season 3 will be posted no later than February 19th but won't be set in stone until after registration closes February 28th. Registrations will open next Monday (February 13th) with its own thread.

Shoot.

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Smitty
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Post by Smitty »

Player retention

My recruit division had five players drop out before the end of the season. Recruit beta had six. I was done by week 8 because 4 of my last five opponents quit. Most of the dropouts in alpha happened after the halfway point. Instead of being energized by the off week, players just wanted the thing to be over. This is a bit American of me, but my proposal would be to split divisions into two groups of six or eight, have them play and then finish it with a seeded tournament. This gives players who are down early the motivation to keep in it for the finale and try for a better seed.

Ditch Email, use Discord

Contacting people via email was a hassle, especially when it came time to play and one party is late. When it comes to organizing an event like this, Discord has it all. Private messaging, chat rooms, voice chat and direct calls. It would be great not only for the players but for organizers to get announcements out and receive results.

Decide ties on the battlefield

Deciding ties by any other way than having the players play a series against each other is a terrible way to crown a champion. Currently the tie breaker for two players with even points goes to the player with more guest game wins. That would be like if the Premier League decided a championship by goal differential. (Google’s Premier League tie breakers .... Oh god they really do that).
Well over here in ‘MURICA we have a saying: ‘ Let the players decide it on the field.’

MAPS, MAPS, MAPS

The map pool is the most important thing to address in my opinion. My thoughts on the matter: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... 82&t=19923

Final Thoughts:

- Make every tie breaker and playoff a best of five.

- Remove Faster game speed as an option.

- Don’t wait for the next release for better balanced games. Have games played on maps with 600/800/800 Allied static. (I’ll do the work on that one, just say the words)


Critique aside, RAGL Season 2 was a heckuva a lot of fun. Here's to a bigger and better Season 3!

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Wippie
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Post by Wippie »

Smitty wrote: Player retention

My recruit division had five players drop out before the end of the season. Recruit beta had six. I was done by week 8 because 4 of my last five opponents quit. Most of the dropouts in alpha happened after the halfway point. Instead of being energized by the off week, players just wanted the thing to be over. This is a bit American of me, but my proposal would be to split divisions into two groups of six or eight, have them play and then finish it with a seeded tournament. This gives players who are down early the motivation to keep in it for the finale and try for a better seed.
More and more football (or for you Americans "Soccer"). competitions are being revised to a new format at te moment, to make it as interesting as possible for both spectators and players.

The basic idea is : You want to have as many matches where something is on at stake as possible. One idea is to go for smaller groups + first/second group stage (like top 4 and bottom 4).

One other idea is based on the American NBA. Have the regular season played as a seeding competition. After that nr 1 plays nr 8, nr 2 plays nr 7 in a best of 5 playoffs.

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jaZz_KCS
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Post by jaZz_KCS »

Pre-hype-mode for Season Three: Activated.
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RAGL -->Replay Archive<--

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Blackened
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Post by Blackened »

I've been meaning to post this for awhile but I gathered some statistics that I think are interesting.

Firstly, there was a total of (including games already played by those who forfeited) 289 RAGL games played during the season!

86 games in Master
73 games in Minions
61 games in Recruit A
67 games in Recruit B


Secondly, here is a list of the popularity of maps from the map pool:

Orelord-66
Dual Cold Front-43
Warwind-37
Sidestep-29
Behind the Veil-24
Keep off the Grass 2-23
Desert Rats-17
Singles-13
Winter Storm-14
Northwest Passage-11
Crossfire-7
Tournament Island-4

Orelord was far above the the most popular being somewhat carried by Master and Minions division with 22 times played each, even despite its imbalance.
Recruit A really liked KOTG2 playing it the second most only behind Orelord, while Recruit B played Dual Cold Front the most (Orelord still came in third.)
Tournament Island was only played once by Minions and 3 times by Recruit A.

I would say the bottom six maps should definitely take an exit allowing at least 6 new maps to come into play. Remove Orelord or ideally re-balance it.


Also I do like the idea of having a "regular season" so to speak being concluded with a playoff tournament at the end but that is even more time consuming and it may be difficult to get everyone on the same page.

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jaZz_KCS
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Post by jaZz_KCS »

Very nice statistics! Will make sure to attach them to the replays on the server.

It is time again to report in soldiers. This is your chance to sign up.

http://sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopi ... 82&t=19961

Pre-hype mode for Season 3: Activated.
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RAGL -->Replay Archive<--

lucassss
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Post by lucassss »

- Please do not ditch email
- Please with 600/800/800 costs for allied defs (and preferrably with mcv40 as well)

OMnom
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Post by OMnom »

I agree with the prior posts with the playoff format. Could you perhaps split the divisions by region rather than by skill level? There are a lot of perks of having it divided by skill, but I'm on the verge of not participating due to scheduling problems.

Theoretically, we create a ELO system where all players from a certain region have to play against each other. After a certain period of time, we combine the top 6 players from each region into the "Master's" playoff/pools bracket. We do the same with the top 7-12 players from each region and put them together in the "Minion's" bracket. We can use soccer/Olympic style pools, or an American playoff bracket system.

This way, players would only have to worry about time zone conflicts for 1-2 weeks rather than the course of months.

Also, the hype factor will definitely go up if you do it this way.

klaas
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Post by klaas »

I don't have much time to play, however, I managed to schedule all my RAGL matches in the past two seasons. Sometimes it took a few weeks, and some effort, but it can work.

I also think playing with the nerfed Allied base defence is a must, either on the new release or on a set of modefied maps.

I think the whole master division should play random as faction. I think the winner of RAGL should be good with any faction, not just being able to find and exploit a single balance issue.

noobmapmaker
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Post by noobmapmaker »

@Klaas: but that would create randomness. Mirrormatches could solve this however?
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SirCake
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Post by SirCake »

* Do not ditch email communication! Its the smallest common everyone has.

* Make the time frame for matches at the end of the season more strict so there is no game played two or more weeks after the season finished officialy. I really didn't like that the Season bled out rather than end with a final BANG. :)

* Jazz: make folders for all weeks and the finals right away pls. More than once I played matches in andvance and could not upload my replays.

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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday »

noobmapmaker wrote: @Klaas: but that would create randomness. Mirrormatches could solve this however?
Bleh mirror matches for every game would sound annoying. Personally I don't see anything wrong with current system where player can choose his faction at the start of the season. Anjew was one of my favourite players to watch because of his Ukraine pick. If all players choose England as an example, we will get a hint where game balance should be going towards.

Another note: I don't really understand why masters division has explored map off. It gives unnecessary additional disadvantge for new masters division players.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
-Sun Tzu

Lorrydriver
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Master's Division

Post by Lorrydriver »

Hey, we we're rather lucky last season to have exciting matches left to decide the top 4 in the master's division. I'd suggest having something like playoffs for the master's division. Just imagine what it would have looked like last season, it would have been FiveAces, MT, Gatekeeper and Barf battling it out in a small tournament. Could be Bo3s or Bo5s, but since it would be only 3 matches anyway I'd recommend going for Bo5s. So the semifinals would be 1st vs 4th and 2nd vs 3rd. This would also be great content for the SoS stream, in case he doesn't make the finals.

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

Great with some proper feedback! As for Season 3 there'll be minimal alteration to the format. More extensive overhauls could be routed to Season 4 or later.

As for use of emails I need them for record keeping and documentation purposes. Often issues are resolved weeks after they appear with the help of archived and sorted email conversations and players themselves forwarding complicated email conversations in cases of doubt. This, mass communication, privacy issues and PayPal transactions is what has made email contacts preferable. If there's a better, easier way I'd jump aboard in a second but the case would have to be made.

The experience in the Recruit division Season 1 and 2 was a bit hazardous I'm sure. Perhaps as a consolation, hard working, persistent players are rewarded with a more stable pool of opponents by progressing through the league. Looking ahead the Recruit Division will likely experience this almost by default as long as registrations are fully open to the public. As with real life military recruits, every season will have big drop-offs.

Tie breakers - I agree guest points aren't the most exciting way to decide a future champion however at this time there's not enough resources to guarantee additional post-seasonal matches beyond what was done in season 2. In order for that to happen, a chunk of the league management (probably ranking and record keeping) would have to be automated, something to hope for with future seasons. As I see it that would also be a prerequisite for implementing a more complicated league structure with stages, play-offs, etc. The current tie breakers ensures additional matches are held to a minimum.

On to the actual (likely) changes:

The map pool ought to be altered extensively compared to Season 1->2. Also the map pool will be shipped as RAGL tagged modded maps, including a selection of the more basic, foundational balance changes merged with the development branch. For Season 3 this would likely mean the changes to the defensive structures, structures HP of Barracks and A.Tech Center and the custom build time of the MCV.

The map pool is far from decided - there's a big selection out there and people are more than welcome to bring in their suggestion on this. Currently the maps that looks to be making it from Season 2 are Dual Cold Front (altered), Warwind, Sidestep and Behind the Veil (altered) and we sort of have Orelord, Winter Storm, Desert Rats (altered) and Northwest Passage in pergutory for various reasons. We're lucky to have a map contest running, giving us a chance to add more options to the table. The map pool will have no more than 12, preferably 10 maps.

Faction picks for the Masters' will stay the same, however the players will have the opportunity to switch faction during the first break week.

Masters' Division 'explored map' vs shroud: I was a bit torn but in the end its hard to justify keeping shroud on in the Masters'. It definitely makes the division harder but practically it just diverts attention away from strategy and planning when having to calculate distances and areas by brain-mapping. Also, casting these top tier matches is easier with 'explored map'. 'Explored map' will be enabled in the Masters' for Season 3.

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Wippie
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Post by Wippie »

SoScared wrote: As for use of emails I need them for record keeping and documentation purposes. Often issues are resolved weeks after they appear with the help of archived and sorted email conversations and players themselves forwarding complicated email conversations in cases of doubt. This, mass communication, privacy issues and PayPal transactions is what has made email contacts preferable. If there's a better, easier way I'd jump aboard in a second but the case would have to be made.
Having a busy life and a full time job, I would prefer a quicker communication method as Whatsapp for match scheduling purposes. If not everyone is willing to share their cell number, I completely understand. It is possible to send the Whatsapp-chatlog in case of disputes.

Is there any possibility, one of the server can be dedicated for practicing purposes or even simultaneous replay checking in some way?

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