Quote:
Originally Posted by the_cake
It might help the cause if there was an FF button on the top menu and there was actually some mention of it on the main page.
Some thoughts from my experiences about FF leagues in general:
Don't try dynamic scheduling; it just doesn't work. It turns into a mess of scheduling conflicts that people are expected to manage for a video game, this makes it especially hard for less hardcore teams which are necessary for even the slightest chance of league growth. You have to either set a date which will make it hard for a few people or have a league that will fail in 1 week.
In a community this small you will inevitably end up with 1 team with all the best players. You can't expect the type of personality that makes a good competitive player to "give a little," they will always gravitate towards what's best for their success as player and not the success of a community. This is the nature of the beast; no one who puts large amounts of time into a game with little or no payoff outside of their own ego can be expected to risk defeat by playing with less skilled players. It's for this reason that good players naturally band together in a competitive gaming environment. From this arises a skill gap issue which creates stale and uninteresting gameplay.
Normally the division system solves this problem; this makes 3 kinds of teams happy:
-Casual players who want to actually play the game instead of pub dm. They have a place to play with others who don't want to invest tons of time into a game, and will get an enjoyable alternative to pub play.
-Hardcore players who want to win above all else will inevitably end up in the top division, with other players who also want to be the best. This forces a competitive environment; it's impossible to stack the teams because everyone in the division is good. This also makes for interesting and spectator friendly gameplay.
-The "aspiring" competitive clan. These are the people who want to be the top tier clan but don't have the skill yet. The div system allows them to build skill gradually, all the while playing fun competitive games on the way. Their competitiveness will push them ahead of the people who are comfortable with their division. This allows competitive personalities to "win," effectively feeding their egos while they build the skill to enter the higher divisions.
In short, pretty much everyone is happy here.
Now take the case of a small community. Everyone is thrown together. The casual players get put up against a team they don't stand a chance against, and end up going 400-20 while being made fun of the whole time. The aspiring competitive team gets their asses handed to them from the get-go, egos get hurt, they move elsewhere. The one competitive team is bored out of their mind yet too afraid of a bruised ego to split up the talent.
No one here is happy, and this is why FF leagues inevitably self-destruct.
I've been ranting on for a while like I have some kind of solution but I really can't think of anything that can work here. The best I've seen in the past is just to avoid scheduling hardcore teams vs casual teams. The problem here is you end up putting the same clans vs each other all the time. But this is the reality of clan play in a small community and without some solution I'm afraid history will just keep repeating itself.
|
the
ff cup was a good idea which solved the problem; semi-randomizing the teams by an admin to be approx. equal. it was an exciting prospect to be locked into playing as a team with people you didn't expect; i was sorry to see it not take off. the reason it failed was dynamic scheduling. maybe it would work if we did it differently