Hey Warbanders! So we're at the end of Season 2 of the Warband Native League. Had lots of ups and downs this year with plenty of excitement. I'll be going over a lot in this thread but first up is the congratulations for the top 3 teams. So first up Apis Europae. As a member of the team it's probably not appropriate so here's a quote from Goliath:
"Apis Europae have one Season 2 of the WNL and few could argue that they do not deserve it. Once again they showed skill and dedication, proving themselves worthy champions."
So next up congratulations to Guard of Istiniar. Once again they've show unbelievably tenacity and staying power to finish second. Once again they've finished a season in a great position, with a utterly dominant run in the final part of the season.
Finally congratulations to Defenders of Wonwokie. You recovered from a difficult start to the season and recorded an unbelievably succesful second part of the season. It's great to see new teams make it this high in the table, you guys can be proud.
As with the previous season, next i'd like to say thank you to a few groups and individuals.
First up thanks to the admin team. Maynd was a great help getting the servers ready and he will be missed greatly. Scar came into the admin team part way through the tournament and immediately proved himself an invaluable asset to the team, working extremely hard to keep the league going. ReneKB may have joined the admin team late in the day but once again I have to say he proved a fantastic addition. So thanks to the active admins but also to those who have moved on such as Goliath,Flecha, Prince Eugen, Maynd, Mawi, Harman, Greed and Stuboi. As both a member of the community and as part of a participating clan i'd like to thank you guys for all the hard work you put in to make this competition possible, a sentiment i'm sure everyone else will wish to echo.
Sticking to the same structure as last season, I would like to thank the server hosts next. Really for a free league set up for a game this age, these guys are even more important than the admins. The extremely generous donations of Stuboi, Court of Reveran, Wolfpack, Tallie and ReneKB allowed this competition to happen and we all owe them thanks for facilitating the league. We had more servers than ever before (mainly thanks to the super generous ReneKB and his 8 Germany servers) Like last year i'd like to also thank Barny who hosts the Hungarian server but also the Battlegrounds TS which is used by countless Warband clans.
Would like to additionally thank Captain Lust, Eman and everyone else who streamed WNL matches this season. Particularly MB_TV and it's casters who put an amazing amount of content out. You guys really made this tournament brilliant and more professional than ever before.
My final thanks is to all teams which took part in this season of the WNL. We had many dropouts this season (actually the number is fairly similar to the previous season) so double congratulations to those who made it to the end.
Well I think that's it for saying thanks, might get a little soppy if it continues.
Observations
So here's the biggest issues as I saw it:
- Default wins leading to unfair team placement.
- Dropouts.
- Ladder issues.
- Map classification issues.
I'll go through the problems individually below.
Default wins leading to unfair team placement.
Well I think the final placement of FIN was perhaps unfair on the other teams but furthermore it was also unfair on them as they were not able to play many matches (which is after all the reason for joining the league). I don't have some magic bullet idea to fix this problem and I welcome input from anybody on the subject. Nonetheless this is certainly one of the key issues and one that we will certainly be looking to rectify in the future.
Dropouts
I believe there's two sides to this. First up poor tournament timing meaning the end clashes with summer holidays. The flip-side is a problem with the ladder. There's very little to encourage teams to stay in the tournamnent once they've lost a few matches and believe they will not win. There is a problem with incentives when using a ladder instead of leagues. Whilst leagues give something for lower teams to fight for (promotion), ladders do not. Perhaps introducing tiers within the ladder would encourage teams to stay and fight it out but it's certainly an issue we'll need to consider in the future.
Another idea that's been raised is having a knockout stage at the end of the tournament. Whilst I was initially sceptical I do believe it may be a good option. It can encourage teams to fight for the knockout positions and provides an exciting end for the tournament. Perhaps a 10 Week ladder followed by a top 8 single elimination bracket might be the way forward.
Another issue that has been brought up by several people is the length of the tournament. This is something I would once again consider. This touanment was shorter than previous ones but if a streamlined tournament (10 weeks perhaps) would be an improvement then i'm open to it.
Finally I think i'll be more demanding with teams entering next season. Certainly we'll have to more thoroughly consider the applications of some teams.
Ladder Issues
I've used this vague term because I think the ladder raised a few issues (though in general I thought it was a success). First up I believe only having 3 levels was a mistake. The levels barely came into the tournament and too many teams were able to challenge each other throughout. Once AE reached Level 3 over 80% of the teams were already level 2 and were therefore able to pick them. I believe adding 1 or 2 extra levels will make the league more competitive.
Another issue is the fixture picking method. Whilst I did very much enjoy the pick nights they are arguably not the best sorting method. I was considering something like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament
The advantage of this would be a shorter tournament and effective sorting. That said, i'm a big fan of the theatre of events like pick night so perhaps there's a way to improve the fixture picking method without losing the vibrancy.
Map Classification Issues
So this essentially boils down to our failure to correctly classify certain maps. Having two all encompassing map classifications mean using "mixed" maps is kinda unbalancing. We found that we ended up with a less "open" map pool because so many of the open maps were in fact "mixed". This shouldn't be too hard to fix for future tournaments.
What Next?
So we'll obviously be taking a fairly lengthy hiatus during the summer. I expect Season 3 to come about late this year or the start of next year. Also fully expect some exciting knockout tournaments to take place in the meantime. So have fun, enjoy your summer and i'll see you soon!
