RAGL Season 4 Post Season Discussion

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Blackened
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RAGL Season 4 Post Season Discussion

Post by Blackened »

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Hello everyone, RAGL season 4 officially came to an end a week ago. With season 5 just around the corner now is the perfect time to open up discussion and for people to review or ask for some changes. But first things first. What happened to the Omnom vs Happy playoff series?
The games never got played. After much deliberation between officials we decided to drop Omnom from the league. We felt there was plenty of time to get the playoff series completed and showing up for LorryDriver's tournament was enough evidence to prove it could have been done. Omnom is welcome to sign up again this next season, but will start over as a recruit. Happy was around the majority of the time and so we felt he deserved the minions first place and the prize money with it. Since there was no second place that money will get absorbed and added to season 5.
Additionally, this will open up another spot in masters. As we did last year we will go through those in minions who didn't promote (Doomsday, Mentats, Lucassss, NoobMapMaker, t, and kuba). If none of them accept we plan to hold a tournament for the final spot just before season 5.

Now onto potential changes for season 5. As of now the intention is still to utilize the RAGL website and in turn add automation to uploading. This will cut down on a lot of headaches. Other things we are looking into are, changing how delays work, mirroring how Unano is treating strikes in TD(players receive the strike but still must complete games), setting a much shorter deadline for playoff games, altering guest/home games, and many more.

Be sure to check out NoobMapMaker's thread for play of the season. Once the videos go online voting will commence!

Lastly, There were 3 prizes awarded for best use of grenadiers, best use of Chronosphere or Iron Curtain, and best use of Tanya:

Grenadiers were used frequently in season 4 but most ended up adding to the long casualties list for the season. There where a few notable examples however, Kuba in his game against Medium Tank on Keep of the Grass 2 had a fantastic rush attempt. 10 Grenadiers managed to snipe 2 powers plants and the barracks of Medium tank preventing any quick defense. Medium tank's war factory was the only thing standing in the way of Kuba's victory. With only a few grenadiers still surviving Kuba tried to micro around Medium Tank's harvester as it tried to squish the infantry. In an absolute nail biter Medium tank managed to get a ranger out and kill the grenadiers while his war factory survived with a sliver of health. 
In SoScared vs Mentats on Shadow Fiend SoScared went bold and tried a war factory before barracks build. Mentats picked a great time to use grenadiers. Just as the war factory was placed Mentats troops arrived. In a panic SoScared sold the warfactory and got a lucky bundle of soldiers to repel the attack. Feeling so scared indeed and knowing he was very behind, SoScared panic sold his base an attempted to move his MCV all the way to Mentats base in an attack that ultimately failed allowing Mentats to easily take the game.
The Winner however goes to Chewey for his play against Dragunoff on Sidestep. Chewey rushed grenadiers and killed off a power plant, refinery, and a barracks putting Dragunoff very far behind. A few minutes later Chewey rolled in to find Dragunoff still struggling to rebuild and quickly defeated his oppoenent. Well done!

For Chronoshpere and Iron Curtain usage it was the latter that shined the brightest. Eloyros used it magnificently to defeat Mechanic in a titanic match, Orb used it against Smitty force a surrender, Smitty and FiveAces both used in countless times in a 70 minute slug fest, and Unano vs Sostch saw Unano inch his way to victory in a marathon game with key Iron Curtain uses.
The Winner though showed the greatest and creative uses. WaRRyKeR vs Eskimo on sidestep proved to be the victor. Eskimo seemed to be ahead until halfway through the game when WaRRyKeR produced the Iron Curtain. Every use by WaRRyKeR proved to be devastating. The first use resulted in a near clean wipe of Eskimo's huge army. The second use saw an APC get incredible crushes as Eskimo's reinforcing army tried valiantly to save an expansion. The best use caught Eskimo off guard as 2 APCs full of flamethrowers sprinted through his base and razed the Allied tech center and his nuke with less than 2 minutes left on the timer. With no army and no advantages left Eskimo quickly surrender.

Best use of Tanya was very difficult to decide. Sostch used it to counter Unano's Iron curtain play, Mechanic and Eloyros used it (and almost every other unit) in their 2nd game, and Digital Jihad used it to batter Chewey down. 
The Winner in the end had to go to Seacucumber. Tanya was an integral part of his strategy and he used it repeated to punish his opponents. Whether it was with a Chinook or with a phase transport you could bet Tanya would be sneaking around haunting the battlefield with laughter and she demolished building after building. In one game alone Seacucumber used 5 Tanyas to kill 1 MCV, 3 refineries, 1 war factory, an oil derrick, 1 airfield, 2 advanced power plants, 1 barracks, turned 3 blobs of infantry into swiss cheese, 1 radar dome, and a tech center. Well worth the cost and well worthy of recieving the prize. Congrats to Chewey, WaRRyKeR, and Seacucumber!

As always feedback and comments are most certainly welcome!

SirCake
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Post by SirCake »

Isn't that a bit rough to Omnom? Like he stuck around all season, played 22+ games and now he gets totally booted with no reward for not attending one last match??

Idk, but do you have any proof that both (or one of them) really attempted to play the playoff? (Like an Email). "We felt like Happy was around the majority of the time" doesn't sound bullet-proof to me, more like an assumpion you made.

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Clockwork
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Post by Clockwork »

SirCake wrote: Isn't that a bit rough to Omnom? Like he stuck around all season, played 22+ games and now he gets totally booted with no reward for not attending one last match??

Idk, but do you have any proof that both (or one of them) really attempted to play the playoff? (Like an Email). "We felt like Happy was around the majority of the time" doesn't sound bullet-proof to me, more like an assumpion you made.
I have to agree it's completely unfair. The final week he could play was when I was in an exam week with college and its more bad luck than anything.

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

Speaking from experience, the managing part of the league is pretty monstrous task and being dependent on players' intention to play on a whim can be pretty distressing and should be avoided at all cost. There's a reason why there's an exception rule in the rulebook and that is simply to shield the manager from headaches resulting from loopholes that are being unreasonably exploited.

The only way to have that work is to be able to show that the action was reasonable so that the managers don't lose trust with the remaining players. In this case there was what, 2-3 months or so, with afaik no attempt to even find a time for the mathces, or a statement up front saying there's no way to find a time for the games in-between seasons. I'm not sure what I'd do myself but it's hard to find this decision unreasonable really.

Beyond that there might be a case of skipping play-offs for the divisions below Masters'. I myself was not too happy with locating a ton of games post-season, right into the holiday season, when it feels like it's time for a resting period and with other tournaments being run at the same time.

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jaZz_KCS
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Post by jaZz_KCS »

Having behind the scenes knowledge from Season I onwards, I wholeheartedly agree with SoScared. There are always situations of bad luck like this, and when it comes to the organization of such an event with this amount of players and games to be played, there is of course some leeway.

But there are limits. Don't get me wrong. RL, health and family always come first. But an event of such magnitude can only wait and give leeway for a limited time. The limit in this case was two months (of extra delay time). Generous enough of the officials to give this amount of time in the holiday season, as SoScared already correctly stated. And dragging this out indefinitely is neither desirable by the officials nor fair to the other players.
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