BuzzerBeater Forums

i understand the frustration with teams getting placed above you...but why wouldn't you be upset about a team getting put into DIII when you are in D IV?

I don't see how we can avoid putting teams into leagues that are already somewhere in the playoffs. I also don't see how we can reset the standings for new teams...as this would make strategizing a nightmare... say you are CT to get into the playoffs... then a new team signs up and you are now in.. but you didn't check your tactics soon enough and are then upset cause you CT unnecessarily etc...

we very much would love to get rid of as many bot teams in human divisions as possible. I'm not sure whether we have decided what to do.. part of me wants to just promote everyone up in some way so that there are no bot teams except in the lowest active division. the downside of that is that it sort of makes the playoffs this year meaningless...

we very much would love to get rid of as many bot teams in human divisions as possible. I'm not sure whether we have decided what to do.. part of me wants to just promote everyone up in some way so that there are no bot teams except in the lowest active division. the downside of that is that it sort of makes the playoffs this year meaningless...

You could give meaning to a combination of playoffs and the regular season. Think of it something like the NCAA conference tournaments. If you are 3-15 in league, you have to win the tournament to get a berth. If you are 12-4 (and 20 wins overall) you might get in if you can advance a couple of rounds. If you are first in league, and choke your tournament opener, you might still get in.

Use the playoffs to determine a champion who is guaranteed promotion, and use the rest of the playoffs, including a losers bracket to determine the ranking for additional teams that might promote to replace bots. Base the ranking on the combination of league and tournament wins. A first place team in the regular season will have a win or two starting out, but if they are 0-6 in the playoffs, they'll get passed by other teams.

BTW. if you plan on removing bots by promoting active teams, you never have to put teams anyplace but the bottom division. You could have started all the USA teams in D.V and let the top 1/4 promote each season and would have a filled D.I after the 14 teams after the fittest rose to the top.

Or you could use the first season of the new countries just to rank and place all teams for the 2nd season. Start the countries out with 4 divisions, and place all the teams in D.IV. Only count wins by the owner, so the teams that sign up early will have 22 games, and those who sign up in the last week only a game or two. At the end of the first season, place the top 16 teams in D.I, the next 64 in D.II and so on. If you like, you can use the playoffs for more games to base the ranking on.

I don't completely follow your suggestions....

i agree that initially if we promote to fill the divisions we will only put new teams in DIV... but the reason why we have bot teams in upper divisions now is because of inactive users.. not because we were randomly filling spots. Then at some point we decided to not put new teams in the upper divisions so that users that came in at the same time would all start at the same time.

I'm not really sure how the second suggestion works in a situation where we are alwasy gaining and losing users... what happens in season 2 when you lose a number of owners from season 1?

the problem with the losers bracket playoff idea is that we just don't have time to have those playoffs.. at least at the pace that the rest of the site is run at... plus the average team wouldn't ever have 6 playoff games...i think it would be easiest to just promote the teams with the best regularseason records.

lastly... i happy to hear your suggestions.. sorry this was very point by point... its late, i'm tired and i'm a scientist so i tend to be overly analytical sometimes... please give more ideas.. or bring up points against those i rose.. i'd be happy to read and respond..

Edited 10/10/2007 9:46:32 AM by BB-Forrest

How many weeks do you have available for the playoffs? I've assumed 3 weeks, and up to 3 games per week. Teams in the promotion playoffs would not have scrimmages, just like if they are still in the cup. They would play 2 or 3 games per week based on whether they sweep the first two games of three game series.

For a losers bracket, I don't mean that it would be a double elimination format where teams with a loss have to play more games or series, but simply play against similar placed teams:

S1 G1 v B4 (Series 1, Great 8 1 vs. Big 8 4, home court advantage listed first_
S2 B2 v G3
S3 G2 v B3
S4 B1 v G4

S5 W1 v W2 (Winner series 1 vs Winner series 2)
S6 W3 v W4
S7 L1 v L2
S8 L3 v L4

S9 W5 v W6 (home court advantage decided based on higher regular season place, better record, or head-to-head, etc.)
S10 L5 v L6
S11 W7 v W8
S12 L7 v L8 (or you might sliminate S12 or reduce a single game plus a scrimmage)

There is assumed to be some economic disadvantages to losing vs. winning. Playing in the championship series should sell out (can we charge more for playoff tickets?), while playing for 7th place after losing two series should be rather subdued.

By combining the league record and the playoff record as far as determining extra promotion opportunities to replace bots, you give credit for the league performance, but an opportunity for teams to move up. But even if teans lose in the first round, there will be a reason for them to continue to try to win.

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There might be a different format for the bottom 8, that has fewer games, but continues the competition over 3 weeks. For example, you could have the teams in one conference play the 4 teams in the other conference, completing the home and home series, and rank teams for relegation based on the 14 games between the bottom 8.

Again there is value in the league record, since 10 games would carry over, but teams would have a chance to move up and avoid relegation against relatively weak competition. The 5th place teams will have lower risk of relegation because they will have a game or two advantage, and the 8th place teams might have to go 4-0. But even if they are 0-4 and confirm their relegation status it is better than sitting idle.

So the top 8 would have between 6 and 9 playoff games, and the bottom 8 would have 4 classification games, plus 3 scrimmage openings.

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I understand that the teams in the upper divisions are due to teams going inactive. If BB is like HT, then around 1/2 of teams will sign up and do little more. There might be another 20% in the next season, and then 5 to 10% in each following season.

If you put teams strictly in the bottom division (instead of the bottom 2 like HT), then all teams that get to the 2nd bottom division will be more likely to continue playing. Players who like the game will tend to do better, those who do better will tend to like the game more. And you can add new teams at about the same time. If you start at IV.1 at the start of the season, and never look back until you get to IV.64 teams will all have about the same starting date. Personally, I'd start them at 0-0. It might seem a bit odd to have a 3 game league, but if everyone is in the same boat, it was fair, and you didn't tell people to wait for 5 weeks until the new season.

If you do get to IV.64, then start looking for the leagues with the most bots, and replace all the bots at once (or in as short a period as possible). There can be some league that have 16 bots, and others that have just a few.

I think by 2nd suggestion you were talking about my suggestion of starting the new countries out with 4 divisions, and placing all teams in D.IV during season 1, and then at the end of the season filling up D.1, D.2, D.3 based on their performance in their first season. If you'd like, you could think this as a bunch of amateur clubs trying out for placement in a professional pyramid.

So there are several things that can happen:

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We can get enough teams to fill at least 3 divisions (336+). So we fill all 3 divisions. The 16 very best teams in D.IV will go to D.I (best here could mean the 16 playoff champions with the best regular season record). The next 64 would go to D.II, based on some ranking scheme, and the next 256 would go into D.III. Assignment would take into account the rankings so the leagues have about the same overall quality, with some teams that just missed D.II and others that barely made it into the top 336.

This will probably leave D.IV decimated. If we had 400 teams still active, that is only 64 left in D.IV, widely scattered among leagues. I'd consolidate them all into a few leagues.

From then on, promotion and relegation would work like normal. If you deliberately relegate all bots, there will be a fairly easy opportunity to promote into D.III at least until D.IV is more completely filled.

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We can only fill D.I and D.II and some of D.III (80-336). In filling D.III we can either fill some leagues completely, or all leagues somwhat completely. My preference would be to fill as many leagues as possible, as consistently full as possible. So you will have some leagues with 16 bots. At the end of season 2, those 16xN bots will be treated just the same as the teams that drop out in Season 2. There will be additional promotions from D.IV to fill these leagues and open spots if possible.

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We can only fill D.I and some of D.III (0-80). There are a couple of choices. One would be to simply move the teams to D.i and D.II and removing (or temporarily deactivating) D.IV, and treating D.III as the top division. This way you don't have to guess which countries will take off, and which will languish.

Or we can continue to use D.IV and repeat the procedure at the end of season 2 and following season. First there should be promotion from D.II to replace any bots in D.I, and then start filling up the holes in D.II, and go on to D.III as necessary.

I believe this 'problem' might solve itself over time. Once more players will start playing the game (and they will ;) )
there will be many divisions, and when new players are added to the lowest divisions, it won't be so bad if they are entering above or below other teams, since the way to the top is still far ahead.

Now, when a new team hits the top of second division, he gets a shot directly at the top, while a players who's in for a longer time, has to wait for at least an other season...

In the end, the better teams will show on top... so even if it seems unfair, and maybe it IS, it shouldn't be a problem, since if the new manager is not as good as you, you will catch up on him... If he is,... well, then he doesn't realy deserve to start out lower than managers who aren't better either does he...

All I'm saying is, where-ever a players starts out, after a while, he'll get where he belongs.

Ofcourse I've seen some good sugestions, and I would support them too, but I'm not sure if the extra work to get these things set up would be worth the few seasons it might take to have players evolve to the ranking they are supposed to have. After all games like these are ment to be very long termed.

In a 1:4 pyramid, 3/4 of the teams are in the lowest division. So if you put a team in the 2nd from the bottom, you are putting them among the top 25%. They may become frustrated by losing almost all the time. If they quit, they will get replaced by someone else that won't be competitive plus may start off with a losing record.

And if you place teams in the 2nd bottom division they may end up relegating into a league that is all bots. If the US were to fill up its D.IV (around 1300 teams) and had 1 team in D.V (they could even be an 8th place team in D.V), around 1/5 of US teams would be relegated into a league where they were the only team.

A team with 16 active owners is likely to have more rivalry and competitions that a league with any number less than 16. Keeping the leagues full of active owners can be done, with dropouts removed at the end of each season, and promotion being awarded to those that earned it by being competitive.

well, I must agree that it would be nice if real (human) players would not drop a division if this means that a bot comes in it's place.
Bots should go down all the time, or in the worst case stay, never get up.

I'm not sure this is easely done though.

If it's not to much trouble, a check-up can be run right after regulary season, to put all bots in a league at the bottom of that leage. This way, the 'real' teams get to play the play offs, and this will be, as you said, more interesting competition for all.
By simply putting this move in it should have all the effects we all want.
Real players stay, will have the best opportunities they can get in their league, and bots are pushed down.

However I'm still not sure how to solve the problem of people who might slip in during the season, getting a higher ranked team in the leage, unless the staff won't fill these higher placed spots up. But this goes in agains the theory of most interesting possible competition, since keeping a bot in a league will always be less competitive to replacing him with a real player I think...

An other thing is that a bot team isn't a bot team right away, a player who quits mostly won't tell everyone, so his team will be ownerless for a while before it becomes a real bot, but in the meantime it is acting like a bot, or even worse...

a lot of long posts on this topic. I will readily admit I did not wade through all of jimrtex's posts, but I think at some point, it would be nice if all the bots were moved to the lower divisions and then the new teams get added to the lowest division with bots, replacing them steadily.....
then, when users leave, and their teams become bots, reset their lineups with scrubs, let them play their way down, making sure they don't have illegal lineups, causing forfeits----;) and all is right with the world!!!

If new teams are placed in the lowest division, and steadily added across the division you will have new teams that were added within days if not minutes of each other. They could all be started out with a 0-0 record. Even though their initial season is short, it is better than placing 16 new teams in a division, and giving one team 16 wins and another 3 based on the performance of some bot before they arrived.

In each league, there will be some who who really get into the game, some who play a few weeks and stop logginng in, some who look at one game, and some who won't even log in after they sign up. Those who aren't active will tend to slide to the bottom of the standings, and once they go long enough, they can be made a bot and slid to the bottom of the standings.

If BB gets to the final league in the bottom division, they can start over at the first league in the division. By that time there should be a large number of teams that will have become inactive. And then BB can then replace them all within a few days of each other, with 0-0 records. They wild simply form a 2nd group of teams behind the veterans. All teams wouild then start the next season 0-0.

If a team goes bot during the playoffs, there is not too much you can do about it. If they happen to win the league, you can not promote them. And there can be rare cases where a replacement team might win the the championship team and promote, but that will be relatively rare.