Ladle 105

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Magi
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Ladle 105

Post by Magi »

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Re: Ladle 105

Post by sinewav »

I think now is a good time to brainstorm about Ladle in order to preemptively solve problems and keep it running smooth. Below are a bunch of thoughts in no particular order with no particular importance.

Ladle 104 had just a few teams, but I'm fairly sure every single one of them needed a substitute from the outside. We no longer have significantly sized clans contributing full teams, and the "regular" Ladle teams we have a comprised mainly of free agents (Open Teams). What does a clan-less future look like? What does a Ladle where the majority of players are unaffiliated look like?

Given that teams are frequently merging, it may be helpful to think about Ladle team size. We can keep it 6v6. Or, we can make it 4v4, or 8v8, or any size appropriate for the community's ability to organize into discrete groups. Right now teams are choosing to play 5v5 and 4v4 when necessary. This works, but we could change the configuration files to allow much larger teams as well.

It is my opinion that devotion to clans is one of the reasons CTF Brawl collapsed. Talent pooled in small groups and competitions became stale. This probably won't be a problem in Ladle, but it is something to keep in mind. Is there a lesson to be learned here? Personally, I don't care if I ever win another Ladle, I'm happy to play and double-elimination keeps me satisfied, but everyone isn't me. I've noticed a lot of people are still hungry for wins!

What can we learn from #pickup? There may come a time when the total number of players in Ladle is small enough that we might want to use system like #pickup and have Team Leaders pick from a pool of players. We might design some team "break points," that is, if x number of people show up we have 4 teams of 5, but less than that is 2 teams of 8 with subs (this is just an example).

Given that so many players are unaffiliated, perhaps we can break the community into a system where participants belong to a conference or division? Each Ladle would be a meet between these divisions with anywhere between 2 and 6 total teams of various sizes. We can even have a draft or trade system (if it's not too much work). It could be as simple as being a semi-permanent member of the Blue Team or Gold Team.

The teams in Ladle 104 wasted a lot of time finding players to fill gaps. I suggest we start migrating Ladle organization to IRC and develop some tools to help us out. Again, this is a place we can learn a lot from #pickup. I think it would help a lot if everyone met in #armagetron.tourneys before Ladle starts to finalize rosters.

I have more ideas, but this is enough to get started.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Monkey »

I still can't play the game without crashing so if any of the Sparks and friends regulars want to play in Ladle 105 then post in this thread and/or speak to sinewav.

As for my opinions on how we could change the Ladle, I'd keep most things as they are, especially 6v6. The one thing that we do need to recognise is that we don't have many players, as sinewav rightly points out. My solution to the problems this causes is to try to not sign up teams unless they have at least 6 players that they are pretty sure can make it on Ladle day. Anyone who wants to play in it but does not have a team of at least 6 likely players should post in this thread saying that they want to play. Sinewav (or someone else with enough Ladle knowledge/experience) can then make an appropriate number of teams and fill them accordingly just before the brackets are filled. The method for filling the teams may need some discussion here, so...discuss...
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Word »

i can be there, but for me it depends on how fast my train is. as for the more general discussion, I'm on the same page as sinewav mostly, but I'm wondering how low participation will be next winter or if the devs sooner or later come up with something that causes us to get more players again.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by compguygene »

Kinda off-topic but very relevant. If you want more players, play the game. I have played sumo 6 times this week in my Ww saloon sumobar server, alone for less than 10 minutes each time. But, my point is that in each case in less than 10 minutes people came to play. Lots of players seem to be lurking out there waiting to play. Let's be the ones to start playing. When I started playing in December of 2008, Ww Fortress Shootout, my favorite server at the time was routinely empty. Play there for a while and it would fill up.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Plee »

Heya guys, ct's having an open team again. You're welcome to join, but please let me know in advance. ^^
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by [Anonymous] »

compguygene wrote:Kinda off-topic but very relevant. If you want more players, play the game. I have played sumo 6 times this week in my Ww saloon sumobar server, alone for less than 10 minutes each time. But, my point is that in each case in less than 10 minutes people came to play. Lots of players seem to be lurking out there waiting to play. Let's be the ones to start playing. When I started playing in December of 2008, Ww Fortress Shootout, my favorite server at the time was routinely empty. Play there for a while and it would fill up.
YOU WANT PLAYERS, PLAY THE GAME!
Good point. I came back for a day, first time in a few months but new players are constantly being kicked an shunned from Fort. I could understand the ones who refuse to Chat but I've seen atleast 3 willing to learn an instantly told to "**** off" an admin abused. Just throwing that out there.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Word »

compguygene wrote:YOU WANT PLAYERS, PLAY THE GAME!
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of free time right now. I guess it's the same for most guys my age.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Ratchet »

Pretty much the time thing. When I was 15, I had ample time to sit around and play tron. Not these days...
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by compguygene »

I am older than all of you and have less time. I am not saying play like you did when you were 15. I am saying just come and play some, and others will join you. Just occasionally. If everybody that could did that just a little, this game would be pretty busy.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by nara »

Monkey hope you're able to fix that problem soon. Sine, shall we make a Sparks open team on the wiki? There are several regulars who come on the day of, but I still end up having to recruit a few players. Might as well put the team up and see if anyone wants to sign up in advance.

Nice to see teams signing up! Part of it is the domino effect, teams won't sign up if others aren't.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by sinewav »

nara wrote:Sine, shall we make a Sparks open team on the wiki?...
Done.

Like I mentioned in my tl:dr post above, we should seriously think about a new way to organize all the free agents on Ladle day to keep events fun and on-time. CTF Brawl had that problem. There were 2-3 regular teams and 2-3 teams of free agents. Organization was difficult and the regular teams destroyed free agents most of the time. Now, you can make the argument that wining is the reward for organization and commitment, but it also makes a stale playing environment in a small community. I think the solution is to move away from a Ladle based on teams to one based on players. Again, I think we can learn a lot from pickup. (Remember hours of pickup with the same 16+ people?) We should also consider being flexible with team sizes.

Here is one idea I had. Instead of a Team List we have a Player List. On the day of Ladle we determine the best number of teams and team size (assuming there will be some players not on the list), then let teams form from the pool of players. I think it would be more challenging and fair for teams to grow and shrink as needed, maybe 7v7 one month or 5v5 another month.

OR... We can do a combination and have a special list of free agents alongside the Team List. Regular teams won't be under pressure to take on free agents and the Open Team players can form stronger, more balanced teams on Ladle day.

As I post this we have one full team, a team of four, and two open teams with six players in total. That's a grand total of 16 players. Let's assume there are another 6-8 players out there not on the list that will show up on Ladle day. The question is: How can we make the best Ladle for approximately two dozen players?


More rambling: I can imagine a pickup-style bot that can automatically make teams based on the number of people !added prior to a certain cutoff, perhaps with an option for players to have a team preference. It would be a hybrid system that wasn't fully random.
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by niin »

I like the idea of making it a player list. I imagine it like the one for sumo tournaments with a random putting together of teams. That would probably get more players to register imo since they don't need to pm team leaders / find 7 other people.

Still a problem with the people showing up on ladle day. They could sub if someone of the listed players is missing. And as you mentioned we need a way to handle clans like ct. They either need to be willing to get mixed or an extra section.
With writing this I like the idea of two lists (team and player list) 3 even more cause you can fill free spots in teams with players from the list

Maybe make a thread for it?
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by blondie »

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Ratchet
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Re: Ladle 105

Post by Ratchet »

sinewav wrote:
nara wrote:Sine, shall we make a Sparks open team on the wiki?...
Done.

Like I mentioned in my tl:dr post above, we should seriously think about a new way to organize all the free agents on Ladle day to keep events fun and on-time. CTF Brawl had that problem. There were 2-3 regular teams and 2-3 teams of free agents. Organization was difficult and the regular teams destroyed free agents most of the time. Now, you can make the argument that wining is the reward for organization and commitment, but it also makes a stale playing environment in a small community. I think the solution is to move away from a Ladle based on teams to one based on players. Again, I think we can learn a lot from pickup. (Remember hours of pickup with the same 16+ people?) We should also consider being flexible with team sizes.

Here is one idea I had. Instead of a Team List we have a Player List. On the day of Ladle we determine the best number of teams and team size (assuming there will be some players not on the list), then let teams form from the pool of players. I think it would be more challenging and fair for teams to grow and shrink as needed, maybe 7v7 one month or 5v5 another month.

OR... We can do a combination and have a special list of free agents alongside the Team List. Regular teams won't be under pressure to take on free agents and the Open Team players can form stronger, more balanced teams on Ladle day.

As I post this we have one full team, a team of four, and two open teams with six players in total. That's a grand total of 16 players. Let's assume there are another 6-8 players out there not on the list that will show up on Ladle day. The question is: How can we make the best Ladle for approximately two dozen players?


More rambling: I can imagine a pickup-style bot that can automatically make teams based on the number of people !added prior to a certain cutoff, perhaps with an option for players to have a team preference. It would be a hybrid system that wasn't fully random.
You essentially described FFA with a bot choosing teams instead of captains
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