I really think it's a poor idea to take a break from having a season this long. The summer time would have been a great opportunity to have another ENSL season... yes, some people are gone for the summer, etc, etc. but why are the players that are struggling to find scrims and struggling to keep the competitive scene alive, why are those players having to tough it out while there's nothing but a few teams playing each night with not a lot to play for.
If there was another season, instead of taking months of time off, the competitive scene would be much more active than the pathetically bad 1-2 scrims (MAYBE) a night here in the North American division.
TL;DR - Start another season, teams have nothing to even play for. Causing there to be barely any teams. (Or make a massive tournament with double elim, and advertise for it(i.e. nxzl PG Tourney))
@carnage The way I see it, is that the currently inactive teams will be inactive during the summer regardless of cups, seasons and whatever. If we were to boot a season right now, that would result in a NA division of 1-2 teams as you say. That won't be entertaining for too long. Currently we have already one cup running, the European Open, every event is very time consuming and therefore we don't run several competitions at the same time and cups are way more friendly to the teams in the holiday season. I would tell you to either try to encourage inactive NA teams to play against you more often or get out and enjoy the sunny weather until the season of gaming begins again.
@jewbear A ladder system have been discussed in the admin forums and I don't think we are going to do them. They would be used very limited by a maximum of 10-20 teams on a worldwide scale and they would be pretty inactive, like most other ladders in smaller games have been throughout time, including NS1. The combination of seasons and cups should bring you plenty of entertainment, either by watching or playing.
It's soon september and then you will have your season ;) Have a nice summer and enjoy the European Open. We might put up another cup, open for everyone, between the playoffs and the final of the European Open, I think it should be doable but I won't promise anything yet.
@jewbear A ladder system have been discussed in the admin forums and I don't think we are going to do them. They would be used very limited by a maximum of 10-20 teams on a worldwide scale and they would be pretty inactive, like most other ladders in smaller games have been throughout time, including NS1. The combination of seasons and cups should bring you plenty of entertainment, either by watching or playing.
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The European league is currently participated by 18 team - so i don't see an ongoing league of 10-20 teams being a problem.
Who cares if its only 10-20 teams? That's more games that can be casted and gives the community a chance to increase.
If the ENSL need a hand running it then just ask people. I'm sure there are enough people will the skills to lend a hand - there has been a genuine request for ladder play that has largely been ignore by the heads of the community.
1-2 NA teams? There's plenty of NA teams that would jump on a season 3 once announced. Most teams are either hibernating until it's announced or struggling to find scrims on weeknights.
Need help with stuff? I'll volunteer. What kind of stuff needs done?
Force all 6 on 6 matches to be registered on a ladder.
If you're active, you play more than enough rounds to ensure that your true skill will come out in the wash. If you're not active, you don't give a shit anyway.
And I know you'll get mercs but fuck it. It's your fault if you can't get 6 and you should be punished for it. The opposition should have the /mercsOK choice. That way they only have themselves to blame if they can't get a game by refusing mercs.
the whole point of a ladder is so that ~10 teams can still play and have something to do. there is no 1-2 team division shit because everyone is on the same ladder. It creates activity with less teams then forcing 6 teams into dumb divisions where teams die and less matches get played and casted.
the whole point of a ladder is to help with the whole inactive team thing. it lets new teams join and dead teams leave and everyone will still get matches the very next week instead of a million byes and waiting 3 months.
the whole point of a ladder is so that nexzil gets more matches against the top NA teams instead of one match against DN and then 3 matches against teams they'll roll over. Or snails and godar can have it out once a month instead of once in 3 months.
the whole point of a ladder is that it fixes a ton of problems with having a competitive scene that is too small to support a 3 month long 'season' and forced divisions where the skill disparity is ridiculous. EU doesn't feel this nearly as much as the NA scene, because you don't have essentially 2 teams that can compete with the top 16 of europe.
so for the love of everything, PLEASE have a ladder for NA. The only reason not to is the amount of extra work admins have to do.
hell, if it's too much work, I'll volunteer to run the whole thing myself.
i have no idea what you're on, but ladders work because you can make it so you only play teams near your rank. sure, 1-2 teams will dominate, but it provides better separation between them and the rest of the teams.
I think the beauty of a ladder is that in theory at least, once it is set up the amount of maintenance required should not be that high. You might need more referees, but I think from the reception to the idea there are quite a few people willing to give time (myself included). As such it could run in parallel with leagues or cups which are obviously more exciting as they have actual winners.
A ladder would also be great for testing things like friendly fire, new maps or whatever else.
ladders are probably worse than divisions/groups - if you have enough teams to do proper divisions and groups. unfortunately NA isn't as blessed as EU is, and while the EU NSL open stuff has been going on, NA is down to about 6 teams with enough ppl to play, and maybe 2 more trying to recruit.
what it comes down to is that its the best solution to NA's problem. The exact same problem NA had last season with teams disbanding and groups that had really terrible matches.
you can still (and really should) just have weekly matches set up by admins, but putting everyone into the same 'group' and then being able to have teams that are actually around the same skill level play makes for much more fun for both the teams and the people casting/watching.
but what we rly need is a system to easily find PCWs.
a place where i hit the button "PLAY NOW",
where i can choose "vs any team" or "vs same skillrange"
and theres the problem, how do you define skillrange?
continent is easy :P - but... at the state of the game
and so few teams competing ...
I played with some of the Nxl players the other day on our server - they had pings of about 140 - I think if you gave them the option for more regular play with pings of ~140 they would be take it.
What great incentive for playing cross continental! Sounds like we really need this "ladder" system and should avoid playing pcw's since this new system is so much eaiser (dont forget better!).
Wiry is right, there is no need to discuss any further. You can tell he's right because he used "speech marks" to confirm this (though in the wrong context).
The one thing that is clear is that a good deal of teams do want the ladder - and there are some that don't. So making it an option for those that do has to be better than what we have at the moment.
I don't understand why everyone is bashing a ladder system. It will no doubt give players a greater incentive to play. It will give the lower ranked teams a reason to play the higher ranked teams because if they do win they will get more points and move higher in the ladder (as opposed to beating a lower skilled team).
It is also extremely flexible and people don't have to message each other for a week in order to set up matches that get rescheduled 3 times.
@Wiry - No one said that people should not play PCW's anymore because of this. If a system like this actually gets implemented it is possible that it will overtake PCW's because it is a better and more rewarding system, but there will also be PCW's for rounds to experiment with strategies.
Also cross continental play is what it is. NA scene has a good time playing euro teams because it is something fresh and new instead of the stale ~3 teams that they have constantly been playing. Both teams agreed to play and know the ping differences. I don't understand your point arguing cross continental play. I enjoy it just as much as any other game.
I'm not saying that a ladder system should be implemented to replace the season's...but it should always be an option 24/7 in order to find a competitive game with some substance to it.
You are focusing on a solution to a problem we cannot fix with a 'tool'. The actual problem is the low number of teams and the low number of players.
The main question should be; how do we persuade players to join the competitive scene.
The way we are currently working, we are fairly closed to new teams. New teams with new players will get destroyed by the current way teams are built by playerbase cluttering.
If you would rout for a ladder system for farmteams I would be all for it. That gives new players and new teams a platform to learn and play, and could increase the competitive playerbase.
Long story short; there is no solution for the NA teams until we increase the playerbase. The same might happen to the Euro scene in time if we don't invest in the crucial part everyone has forgotten since NS2 launch.
I believe having an open style ladder based system would be a possible solution to this. Teams do not have to wait until the beginning of a season in order to start playing, and there are no join dates. Simply form a team and start playing...
Once again it wouldn't take over the seasons or the cups at all, it is just something on the side.
