Red Alert Global League: Season 14 - Feedback

[TTTPPP]

The group stage is complete, most players have finished the season, so we're looking for feedback on how the season went. Is there anything you think we can improve for a Season 15?

Pre-season we saw a lot of discussion about division assignments. Is this something we should look to change? For clarity I'm planning to keep the same system for S15 because players who have completed this season have already "won" their positions in the continuity rankings - particularly in Minions this is the prize that they were playing for. However we could potentially do something different going into S16.

Last season a lot of the feedback was around delays and so we updated the rules around this. How do you think the new rules are?

[TTTPPP]

Some feedback from the competitive Discord.

On the topic of creo forfeiting in the playoffs:

damn that triple letter guy is corrupt as fk
draggin someone in to play bronze who didnt play n either of the semis
just give default win u dirty corrupt man
this is just awkward mate, imagine if both semi losers dropped and u had to drag 2 in to play a bronze match

Unano left this discord. It should be me in the bronze match
Also fazzar left the discord too, so I should be given bronze by default

(This one was a joke, but I think it's relevant since there could be issues if players leave the Discord during the playoffs)

From the feedback channel:

For situations where a set doesn't get finished, be it regular season or playoffs, I think the best course of action is to send it to admin review and let them decide. If they it didn't get finished because of extenuating circumstances then maybe an admin delay in playing is permissible. Other than that it should probably just be granted as a win to the other player.

If its playoffs then I dont think that person should be replaced for bronze match. Just grant the other 3rd. Especially considering bronze gets money right?

/2cents

[TTTPPP]

On the topic of joint second place in Minions:

@tttppp do people in second spot get promoted

Usually yes
But it depends on number of open master spots
But I would say 2nd in minions is pretty much a lock

Yes that is what anjew said. Masters top 4, minions top 2 are basically guaranteed masters for next season

You and Margot came joint second, and the tie breaker for the continuity ranking is:
Points (both tied on 14)
Head-to-head result from this season (1-1)
Fewer strikes (both tied on 0)
Length of current streak of completed RAGL seasons (both tied on 1)
Lower forum id -> tux comes out ahead of Margot

So assuming everyone signs up again the continuity ranking for S15 will have you 6th: Masters1, Masters2, upps, Masters3, Masters4, tux, ...

There's a weird edge case that if 17 players sign up we get only 9 people in Masters, and in that case you could miss out

Most likely is that Margot would be in Masters too, but 3rd place in Minions is 9th place on the continuity rankings, and so much less certain to make it

but margot and I are tied right

You're tied for this season, but there are no ties in the continuity ranking (or the ladder ranking)

Widow and tux then both expressed concern over "lower forum id" being used as a tie break.

The lower the older the account
Weird metric but there isn’t much else
Unless we wanna go through games for who got the best $/kills or most harvester snipes or something arbitrary like that

could add results against the next highest ranked players into the equation. in this case you'd draw a triple comparison with upps in the mix and you'd already get a decision. if that does not help, add the next player to the mix etc.

Just add up their point scores in the matches they played. If those remained tied than yall should play the lottery together

(I had to clarify, but "point score" means the in-game score at the end of a game)

Oh Ok - that's a possible route except I'd have to manually find it out
Could do most rifles queued

Why not do a bo5 between the two on ladder?

well the idea is to avoid that, there isnt a minions playoffs for a similiar reason
i believe the idea is to avoid "putting pressure on players to play after the standard end of season (especially given there's no prize at stake for lower divisions)"

What about using the results of season 18 on milkmans ladder for promotion? In the time between ragl 14 and 15, both players could grind ladder.

The issue is that it's possible that neither player will play the ladder. Currently the ladder is pretty active, but in the past there have been periods with low activity. Also some players basically only play RAGL, so it wouldn't help break a tie then

Since we already have half the division assignment based on the ladder (RAGL ladder, but including ladder) then I didn't really want the continuity ranking to be based on the same thing

Ok, I forgot you already factored in ladder. What makes up the other half of division assignment? Also, taking the tux and margot example, if margot got near to the top of milkmans ladder next season, would that override tux’s lower forumn number?

I couldn't find any response to this, but the answers are:

• Division assignment is half from "continuity" (results in previous season(s)) and half from the ladder (the RAGL ladder rankings).
• If Margot was in the top five ladder spots from the registering players then they would qualify above tux (who's 6th spot from being 2nd in Minions).

[TTTPPP]

On the topic of the removed Minions prize (which was there until Season 12):

Is the reason minions doesnt have a prizefund for 1st, 2nd and 3rd because of smurfing/sandbagging?

sandbagging

playing down at a lower skill than you should

[TTTPPP]

Suggestions around map picks in Playoffs.

Any thoughts on using the two-point lead scoring rule, for RAGL playoffs in the future?

I think the biggest issue is really the size of the map pool. We could say that maps could be reused after some point, but it gets complicated to keep track of which maps are permitted

So one map is banned each game, and that map cant be used for the rest of the playoff?

No it’s only for that series

How about this: players can veto a certain number of maps, and then have the remaining maps randomly selected from the pool by a streamer for each game in the series?

Streamers are great but sometimes games get played without them. Makes more sense to just let loser pick so that they can eek out any little "advantage" they can. And in a true competitive sense rng is bad

When I originally joined RAGL I put a suggestion for a veto system similar how maps are picked in csgo
So for 9 maps you do: player 1 ban, p2 ban, p1 pick, p2 pick, p1 pick, p2 pick, p1 ban p2 ban and the map left over is the 5th one