Dueling League WDA Discussion

About 10 days ago, the discussion for the duel league went public. http://www.worldduelingacademy.com/t3884-joker-s-dueling-league-idea
(I strongly suggest you read through the posts in the topic)
I had to wait until now to bring up the discussion because digi, who is running all of the current events, was away, so believing this was a discussion that should include her in that case (a duel event goes up when another goes down so the current duel events would be affected either way) it was postponed until she now returned.

A quick summary. Originally the Dueling League idea was brought to staff. Firstly because other events were running at the time and at the same time not having much faith in it due to its structure it was decided not to run at this time over another main event, and that it would have to wait until a main event dead period (for example now we have infection, which should start today. being a main event it'd be best not to have it run alongside others), at which point it would be fine to risk it despite of defects after a bit of fixing.

The member who submitted the idea, upon learning of its rejection then brought it up for public discussion. In the discussion the staff's position did not change, as I, excuse the personal opinion here, do believe it was the better way to handle it. At the same time, as support for the idea existed, and the staff did make a decision, the idea was decided to be brought up for discussion on the only other decision making body of WDA, which is the WDA community itself.

This is a topic for the WDA members to discuss this matter, state their opinion clearly and come to a decision as a whole. We are not here to say "yes" or "no", neither are we here to place a vote on "a" or "b" option, but to help create the event for WDA.

Here's an overview of what's coming up for discussion.

Structure:

Arguements:

As the above idea was presented as the answer to a need for more and more serious events, an idea trying to amend many of the previous one's issues but in the end straying far away from it and keeping mostly the seeded tournament factor was brought up as a counteroffer.

Tournament revamp counter-offer

Structure:

Arguments:

At the very least, for obvious reasons of spreading activity on main events, the dueling league will not run as long as the infection is still in demand, however as we are already in season 2 it is possible the infection will not last more than a few weeks. That on the other hand remains to be seen, whether it's just going for the new thing or honestly liking it, we'll find out the fate of infection in the future. Of course if decided by WDA they can both run at the same time, but on this I will put forth something that may seem to some as an opinion or guiding the decision, and state that when you run 2 mainstream events at the same time you are sacrificing activity from both. Infection won't be fun with not enough participants, dueling league will be pointless with less than 6 active players, so this I will ask you to understand. Do not run multiple mainstream events at the same time.

As for the 2 ideas put out here, since one of them if implemented will meet the demand for serious events and there is a great deal of overlap (the seeded tournaments that is), they will not run at the same time, so I suggest going for at most one of them. If you have an innovative idea on the matter however that would allow something else to happen, of course you are free to share.

Assuming there is a sufficient amount of members here (4 members will not be considered to be the entirety of the WDA community, even the actual staff has more members than that), in the case there is not a wholesome agreement, the decision of the majority will pass. That being said, this is not a voting process, but a decision. Your opinions are needed. Posts that look like "votin counteroffer" or "go dueling league" will not be counted as opinions, please speak your mind. If you really have to keep it short, refer to them as "package cou" or "package due" just so I know you actually read what is written here.

You are welcome to make modifications on the ideas and propose them, as well as proposing your own solution to this, even if it is not the same as either idea. First of all and before everything else we want your opinions and for all of us to make a decision.

Note 1: Spam posts will be deleted and a warning will be issued the first time.
Note 2: Please, if you have arguments for or against either idea, or feel like we should expand on the current ones, put them up, as I myself can only think so much so the argument section can be poor at the moment. Especially Joker and UP, if you have any arguments you'd like added, please say so. As you can see the dueling league section is poor on 'for' arguments as I wrote it, I didn't mean for that to happen but I personally was on the against side from the beginning, so even when being neutral I can only know what I know. It would help if you informed me fast enough, before the topic has been out for enough time. Please try to consider the neutrality of the OP when proposing an argument though. If you believe I had been heavily biased at some point in the topic, please note it out.

I think this event should be put to the test. A trial first,I'm optimistical that this will work fine. If the trial works,continue the event as normal.

The Current point system does not show who is the top duelists on the forum, I think Fila and I are the top two and while both of us are above average I wouldn't say we are the best two this forum has to offer. There is also no way for people to actually see who are the top duelists of the rank point system without going through everyone's profiles to which few people have the higher rank points.

The Dueling league idea has worked in the past at TWA (the original TWA that is) and is a great way of showing who is the better duelists in the academy, whilst yes duel spammers are more than likely going to be up in the top 8 skilled duelists who duel less often and win more often have more of a chance to be in the Top 8 just on wins alone and then a tournament at the end decides who is really the better duelist for that time frame in stead of just people constantly collecting points. If the idea ran a Widget could easily be made to be displayed on the forum to show the top 8 duelists

The idea has a tonne of support behind it the only against person for it in the topic I made was you,Al, and yes you have your reservations about the idea but your main argument against it is inactivity will hurt kill it or the other events, yet a large number of people have shown support to the idea, they don't all need to write big posts with their reasons for support if the reasons for it have already been mentioned or for the simple fact that they like the idea.

WDA has more than enough active members interested in the event for it to run easily, whilst the one duel a week is not that much to ask for, if someone literally can not find 30-45mins (max) out of the 168 in a week to get one open tier match done then they simply do no have to sign up for the event, it's not an event that is going to be forced on to people it is an event that lets people sign up, so if they sign up they do so knowing what they are required to do and if they don't believe they can commit to that then they simply shouldnt sign up. Asking for one duel a week is a lot fairer than asking for one duel a day and there is even leniency to those who have to go away for something in their life (assuming they let people know before hand)

The Joker wrote:

The Current point system does not show who is the top duelists on the forum, I think Fila and I are the top two and while both of us are above average I wouldn't say we are the best two this forum has to offer. There is also no way for people to actually see who are the top duelists of the rank point system without going through everyone's profiles to which few people have the higher rank points.

The Dueling league idea has worked in the past at TWA (the original TWA that is) and is a great way of showing who is the better duelists in the academy, whilst yes duel spammers are more than likely going to be up in the top 8 skilled duelists who duel less often and win more often have more of a chance to be in the Top 8 just on wins alone and then a tournament at the end decides who is really the better duelist for that time frame in stead of just people constantly collecting points. If the idea ran a Widget could easily be made to be displayed on the forum to show the top 8 duelists

The idea has a tonne of support behind it the only against person for it in the topic I made was you,Al, and yes you have your reservations about the idea but your main argument against it is inactivity will hurt kill it or the other events, yet a large number of people have shown support to the idea, they don't all need to write big posts with their reasons for support if the reasons for it have already been mentioned or for the simple fact that they like the idea.

WDA has more than enough active members interested in the event for it to run easily, whilst the one duel a week is not that much to ask for, if someone literally can not find 30-45mins (max) out of the 168 in a week to get one open tier match done then they simply do no have to sign up for the event, it's not an event that is going to be forced on to people it is an event that lets people sign up, so if they sign up they do so knowing what they are required to do and if they don't believe they can commit to that then they simply shouldnt sign up. Asking for one duel a week is a lot fairer than asking for one duel a day and there is even leniency to those who have to go away for something in their life (assuming they let people know before hand)

I think I've had this exact same discussion before, either with you or UP, and I am pretty sure I have answered all of those questions in that topic at least, so I'm not going to comment on all of the topics brought up, just one of them since in the other topic it is a subject I never completely answered.

It was mentioned that this is the way to find the best duelist, I argued that a duel league in no way does that, as the amount of duels is vital in the competition while the amount of duels naturally does not have to do with player ability (the best players I know in WDA do a very little number of official duels). As you say there is a tournament in the end so it is such a competition so I'll ask right back: How does the duel league better in proving who the best player is, than the results of the regular tournaments, when in the duel league there is a good chance the best players won't get in the tournament, while on the other hand in the regular tournaments, the participation of the not as good players does not hinder the result?

There is really no reason to try and convince me personally here of course and that means you don't have to refer to me personally as in the end I am not the one who makes the decision in this case, and even if I were, I would not make the decision based on which one does produce the best player as staff, although as a player I would of course prefer the more healthy one. It's just that, while again as staff it doesn't concern me as much, as a player I do consider that specific argument (and forgive me for this description, again this is only my opinion as a yugioh player) really ridiculous.

That being said, I will make a tiny comment on one more thing you said before continuing.

Quote :

WDA has more than enough active members interested in the event for it to run easily

Allow me to consider this to be merely your personal assumption since the last topic certainly didn't gather even the 12+ one liners from different people you'd need in a very, very debatable, but simple case, to prove that. That's what we are here to find out now.

This is part of what this topic is here to do. As I had said myself in the other topic, the original plan was to wait for a dry event period (no infections or anything else interesting going on) and throw it in for 1 season, as filler in the worst case and see what happens (read my last post in the other topic for more details. Turtle, you'd see that what you suggested was in fact very close to the original plan until the topic happened). Of course that decision by the staff, which was fair in my opinion, was overturned as a result of the last topic and now we are looking for a new decision by WDA.
If WDA does decide that, and even if the decision falls through because of a lack but we read enough interest, or even if there is not enough interest but we later need the filler, we'd have no issue or grudges in running it one way or another, more work off our hands which is always nice. But right now that is not my decision to make of course.

I think I've already posted all I wanted to post about all this :P (Wall-o-text duel versus Al :P )

Anyways, I think it'll be active, for all the reasons that I posted in the previous topic.
Let's do this.

My standpoint of the whole league idea Joker has is purely based on my observations and personal experience with hosting events here thus far. I cannot stress how frustrating it is to host a tournament just to have people eventually drop out due to forgetfulness or lack of interest. In the end, we should all be aware that it is up to the members' amount of interest that they put into the place to see whatever results may come out. We can chuck events and tournaments, regardless of the style of said event, if the members are interested in the most repetitive form of dueling, then that is what they will eventually receive. When I create dueling leagues, it is purely out of innovation and curiocity to see what the reactions of the memberbase will be. My events, referring to Firefight and Infection, have been successful due to the set regulations and the amount of interest that was invested in it. Albeit, Infection lasted 3 or 4 days while I was absent, that surpassed my expectation of the event lasting the entire 2 weeks I was gone. People were interested enough to finish it in said amount of time.

Now to type up my opinion on Joker’s Dueling League by the bullet points.

“People want that kind of ladder events.”

We are unsure if it is a solid fact that the members demand a ladder-type event rather than this particular event purely because it came from Joker or whatever the cause may be.

“The mandatory "1 duel a week" can create activity issues for people who do not want the extra commitment and can unbalance the results”

“It promotes dueling more often”

“Dueling more often in turn boosts activity”

Mandatory Dueling does not promote dueling, it acts as a supplementary method to boost the consistency of an event. The event itself and the contents within it is what promote dueling. From the observation of how mandatory dueling has worked for the Firefight, I have seen that it really works well based on a rotating structure such as the Firefight.

As for the constant comments on how a dueling league determines skill, I say you are very wrong to believe that. http://www.worldduelingacademy.com/t3344-psycological-money-luck-and-skill-factors

The contents of this article disprove that repetitive dueling and the outcomes of a single tournament/event are not direct results of one’s skill when referring in strict Yu-Gi-Oh! terms. On another note, when we tie in the online shufflers, the order of proportion is mathematically randomized by an imbedded widget installed by DN or whatever dueling service you may be using. Using a widget versus shuffling by hand are two very different things that must be accounted for when determining an overall result of a duel. With all of this in mind, the results of an extravagant online dueling league will only show the results of the winner’s overall good fortune rather than strictly “skill.” In my opinion, a true demonstration of “skill” in Yu-Gi-Oh! is based off of strictly one’s understanding of the concepts of the game (from rules to deck construction to the ability to teach others.) That is why I disagree with this dueling league.

EDIT:

As I explained in chat, my counter offer is still in a draft form--my goal is not to keep your idea word for word, but it is to give it my view in how it could be better. Although you say it is something entirely different (it is true I admit,) and you're going to pass this up, I will leave it up to the people to show their opinions on it. This is my counter offer:

Spoiler:

Dr. Chuckles wrote:

[color=cyan]ok wait i think i missed something. when the league went on in TWA it was ran behind the scence, no real partaking from the members was needed it was just like us normally dueling so i don't understand why we're so worried about it failing. people are going to duel, so i have faith that this idea will float.

Another note in case something was missed. Chuckles, this does take attention from the participants because of this

Quote :

If you are inactive from duelling for a week you lose all points you have in your league.
(If you have said why you are gone before leaving then you are excused)

It is possible it can happen without paying attention, but most participants will need to pay attention to the event itself.

We didn't get much from this so we'll probably go with the original one and throw it in when we see an appropriate opening. I'll probably lock the topic at noon tomorrow.