League General Discussion Thread

[aequitas-et-veritas]

@trulpen said in League General Discussion Thread:

@aequitas-et-veritas said in League General Discussion Thread:

@gamerman01 The Server or the game right now is having an issue with dl the games to the Forum. However, you are able to start the game threat and/or continune with your ongoing games via email for the moment. DJensen is on it!

Works with copy&paste of the game history along with uploading the game-file in a post here.

Copy Paste never worked for me. It doesn’t le me highlight all, only a line and even the line I cannot coppy, nor paste. But will try to post the savegame file manually now. Thank you.

[trulpen]

Not even with ctrl+c and ctrl+p? That’s weird. Well, the important thing is the save. Saves the day.

[aequitas-et-veritas]

@trulpen I figured it out what you meant. It is at the end were you can click on View History and it is letting you copy and paste it. What I was allways thinking was the History log on the Left side wich you can’t copy nor paste.

Thank you again, it works!

[gamerman01]

We’re only 5 days into the next league year, so I will let the discussion play out a few more days before designing the standings spreadsheets and recording the games from the first week. You all can count on having a separate standings for OOB, BM, and P2V starting January 1. You can also safely anticipate a separate playoff for each version a year from now! The details will be firmed up later, like how many games to qualify.

Please allow me time to read and consider more discussion that comes in the next several days before firming up the 2021 league rules, and allow me some time before I “publish” the standings, thanks for your understanding

[Karl7]

@gamerman01

The League is fracturing! And just when I thought I may return!

I haven’t played POV, but isn’t it pretty close to BM3? If not seriously different, I wouldn’t care if it counted.

[Pejon_88]

@andrewaagamer As a more experienced player, how could we have further strengthened Moscow? I totally agree regarding the neutral crush.

[AndrewAAGamer]

@karl7 said in League General Discussion Thread:

I haven’t played POV, but isn’t it pretty close to BM3? If not seriously different, I wouldn’t care if it counted.

It is a completely different game. Dramatically different map; especially in the pacific. Different National Objectives, different combat capabilities for a couple of the pieces, different pricing for some units, different airbase scramble rule and now revised carrier scramble rule.

[AndrewAAGamer]

@pejon_88 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@andrewaagamer As a more experienced player, how could we have further strengthened Moscow? I totally agree regarding the neutral crush.

Well you had everything in place; you just didn’t focus on defending Moscow.

At the end of G5 the German army was in Ukraine and Rostov. Frankly, because since @Majikforce and I didn’t think we could take Moscow, we were thinking of heading to the Middle East to try and get some great money and Egypt. However, on UK5 instead of buying 3 fighters for Persia you only bought 1. Then during combat you moved 2 Persian fighters to counter attack India so they could now not make Moscow in time for a G7 attack. Thus, seeing the Allies were down 4 fighters from what we had expected to defend Moscow, we decided on G6 to go for Moscow and moved into position for the G7 attack.

The G7 attack on Moscow had an 83% chance of success. Add in the 4 additional UK fighters that could have been there it drops all the way down to 45%. In addition, there was 1 UK bomber that could have made the defense that at 83% I understand not wanting to lose it but it would have dropped the 45% battle down to 40%. Even if we could have won at 40% the loss of units would have made it a Pyrrhic victory at best.

Considering you did such a great job setting up Russia for additional income from Africa and the Middle East it didn’t make sense that you didn’t make the defense of Moscow your number 1 priority. You instead settled for minor gains elsewhere and let us have a great shot at winning the game. When we won the Moscow battle I IM’d Majikforce and said “We just won!”

Your play was impressive. You deserved to win. We certainly appreciate you letting us win instead. :)

[gamerman01]

@karl7 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@gamerman01

The League is fracturing! And just when I thought I may return!

I haven’t played POV, but isn’t it pretty close to BM3? If not seriously different, I wouldn’t care if it counted.

There’s no fracturing, we just have a major new version that would potentially cause big problems for next year’s playoffs if we don’t adapt.

P2V is a more advanced, detailed map than G40 and there are various other changes that make it substantially different. You can scramble to land from airbases, and carrier planes can scramble to neighboring seazones and even islands and territories, for example. Map for Pacific Ocean, China, and Russia is substantially more detailed and changed. Many players will not be able to transition back and forth between BM and P2V very successfully because of these significant differences - most players will probably stick with one version or the other. Definitely check out P2V, Karl, you’ll be very intrigued.

[simon33]

@karl7 I think the major change is the scramble rules (can scramble to land and/or from CVs) but the map is drawn differently so that few islands are in their own sea zone and most border 2. Also USSR is significantly stronger and has an IC in the east.

There are many changes but that gives you a quick overview.

[farmboy]

@gamerman01

I’m happy to see the changes and I’ll be pretty happy with whatever is decided but I’ll just rearticulate my preference for overall standings to shape one’s eligibility for the playoffs:

If one’s ranking for one of the playoffs is based on only the games played of the particular version, than you would need enough games of that version so that your final score is a pretty good approximation of where you rank. I doubt we could do that with much less than 8 especially since someone could play 3 games against the same person.

But most of us only play about 8-15 games in a year. If we need 8 games to get into the playoffs than we are going to end up playing mostly one of the versions, since that is our best chance to get in the playoffs and a game or two of another version won’t be meaningful. It is likely to discourage people from playing the different versions if they also have an interest in making the playoffs.

If playoff eligibility is determined by overall standings (and perhaps a minimum number of games of the particular version for that playoff) than players won’t have a disincentive of playing other versions since all games will be meaningful.

[simon33]

I have to disagree with you on that one though. If you play 8 games of BM and 3 of P2V, I can’t see why that should qualify you to be the league champion (potentially) for P2V or even OOB.

If you only really care about getting into the finals, play 8 games of one version then move to another if it is feasible you will have time in the year to complete that.

[trulpen]

@farmboy said in League General Discussion Thread:

It is likely to discourage people from playing the different versions if they also have an interest in making the playoffs.

I also have to disagree. And maybe also prove you wrong. Admittedly I’ve played 54 games this season, but I just agreed on playing an OOB-game with a newcomer because of gamer’s proposition.

You know I despise OOBsolete, or atleast don’t think much of it. Definitely wouldn’t play it if it affected my BM3-rating. You also know that the ranking system discourages players with higher tiers of playing new players or those with a tier-difference of 2 or more.

Anyway, since I don’t care so much for the OOB-playoff, I may very well agree on a game with a player needing introduction to the league. @majikforce did that for me, so now is the time to return the service. I’m happy that @gamerman01 construes the effort of making that possible.

[Pejon_88]

@andrewaagamer thanks for your comments. I agree with most of them. We also did some additional errors a long the way and failed at a couple of crucial attacks, such as Leningrad but these might not have mattered after an early loss of Moscow.

[farmboy]

@simon33 I guess my assumption here is that the skills from one game are pretty transferable so that a high ranking in one version will transfer to others. And we have already been doing that with BM and OOB although I appreciate that PTV is a more substantially different game. But what qualifies someone to be league champion is that they win the tournament. And I would expect players who can play in the tournaments are going to self select for the tournaments they have the best chance in, so they won’t use their BM wins to sneak past better PTV players into the PTV tournament.

And my concern here is that we are going to end up siloing the league such that a lot of players just stick to one version or the other. I play for fun, but the competition and the goal of ending up in the playoffs is a big motivator and part of the fun. So my choices around the games I play is always partially influenced by how it will effect my rankings. I will end up playing other versions less than I might otherwise if the games don’t effect my chances in the playoffs. Obviously other people play for different reasons, so maybe this will just be my problem.

@trulpen Definitely its good to play newcomers as it also helps maintain this as a community and bring new players in. I did the same earlier last year. I played a game of OOB with a new player and a couple of games of BM with someone who had recently joined the league. I won those games, but if I had simply not played them, I would have ended up in 7th in the league ,rather than 11th. I don’t mean to whine about that (I’m quite fine with where I ended up. Apart from the top 4-5, there are about 20 players that have a reasonable chance of making the final 8. This just wasn’t my turn) but I think it speaks to how this can be a disincentive.

Again, I’ll be happy with whatever the changes are and adjust accordingly. Just thought this was worth flagging the concern.

[Amon-Sul]

@simon33 said in League General Discussion Thread:

I have to disagree with you on that one though. If you play 8 games of BM and 3 of P2V, I can’t see why that should qualify you to be the league champion (potentially) for P2V or even OOB.

If you only really care about getting into the finals, play 8 games of one version then move to another if it is feasible you will have time in the year to complete that.

Well, we can put 8 games total as the condition to play in any play off, and 5 games per game version for that specific play off, so somebody who plays 8 PTV games and nothing else, cant compete in other play offs.

And playing 5 + 5 games gets u in 2 play offs (BM and PTV will be the usual combo).

10 games in a season is ok, and even if u finish 8 only (or we can decrease it even more) u play in at least one play off.

I totally like the idea of 2-3 play offs, it will be so much fun.

[Amon-Sul]

I am not an OOB dude, but i ll try to compete in that one too.

I like the challenge.

[simon33]

@amon-sul I would say just one rule, 8 games of that version.

[Amon-Sul]

@simon33 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@amon-sul I would say just one rule, 8 games of that version.

ok, we disagree.

let s hear what other folks think, and Gamerman should have the last word as some kind of mediator.

i am for some compromise which would be something that the majority of people wishes.

[Tizkit]

I’m happy with the direction this discussion has taken, but wanted to add my input. To help you understand my perspective here’s how I would describe myself:

• OOB only player – currently no intentions of branching out
• Hyper focused – I prefer to play 1 game at a time and analyze it to death, rather than keep multiple games going, resulting in:
• Roughly 3-4 games played per year

I’ve become disinterested in the league for two main reasons:

1. The focus on BM3 and PTV would mean historically that I have to force players to play OOB in the playoffs and create resentment (last year is case in point) – so I’d rather just not play
2. The 8 game minimum to compete in the higher playoff bracket means I’ll probably never get there, even if I did make the jump to BM3

I think the idea of multiple playoffs based on game version solves the most problems. It means no one has to acquiesce to a version in the playoffs that they don’t want to play. (In regular season they already don’t have to because they can just say “no thanks”)

My one caution is to be careful how high you put the minimum game thresholds for playoff participation.

I’d like to suggest that the playoffs are the most enticing part of the league, and that the higher you set the minimum game threshold, the more casual players like myself are likely to abandon it.

I understand that it’s easier to manipulate your PPG or have an inaccurate PPG with a low number of games. In fact I’m probably a great example of this in 2020. I have the second highest PPG, but I’m certainly not the 2nd best player.

It’s definitely true that BM3 and PTV are the most popular versions here, but the pipeline of new players is primarily full of OOB and casual players, and that needs to be considered.