Topics for discussion for 2016 Season

[KingPin Games]

I am going to keep the top of this tread updated with the suggestions/idea that have come up

* Ability to discard one league nights score
* Possible change to the absent score percentage structure
* Current "tie-breaker" format for top 4 playoff
* Submit scores to IFPA at the end of the league instead of monthly
* Initial 4 packs for start of the night are determined by current league standings. This pits similar players against each other from the start.
* Reschedule of the current months of play and bye months
* Possible expansion of the league
* Using a "play every game" format instead of randomized groups
* Invoking a "pre-play" structure (solely up to each host) to give league members more options for participating.



I would like to open this thread to "Current League Members" to be able to share ideas for possibly revisions for next season (we are already in this season and i see no reason to change the current status).

I have 2 suggestions that i would like to see brought up for discussion for next season, even though they would be closely related to each other.

01) I would like to have the ability to discard one league night (lowest score). While i enjoy coming to each and every league event, i do not always play at my top skill level and therefore would like to be able to discard my "bad night."

02) I am not entirely a fan of the 80%, 40%, 20% level for missing nights. While i completely understand the challenges involved in trying to have an active life and still making it to pinball i find that this is too gracious.

League average restarts each season, and is established with scores from at least 3 months of play. If an individual is unable to attend one month, they will receive an absentee score of 80% of their average. (Note: absentee scores are not used to compute your league average). If they are unable to attend a second night their percentage drops to 40%, and 20% for a third absence. All additional absences will yield a score of 0. These absent scores will be calculated retroactively in cases where a member misses league night before an average has been established.

I will use myself as an example for what i am discussing

as of night 5
Christopher Meunier 87

Christopher Meunier 25 (week 1)
Christopher Meunier 18 (week 2)
Christopher Meunier 20 (week 3)
Christopher Meunier 16 (week 4)
Christopher Meunier 08 (week 5)

now, if i had chosen to miss week 5 i would have been awarded 16 points (25+18+20+16=79, 79/4=19.75, 19.75*.8=15.8). my suggestion is that next season we should be able to disregard on bad night for cases like this where we just have an off night.

with regards to the 80,40,20 breakdown, i find this to be too much. first off, i think that you should really only get 2 passes, not 3. you should get one pass for your worst night (wether that be a low score or a missed night), and then you should get somewhere in the range of 50% for a one time miss. Since we only play 10 nights anyways i do not think it is too much to ask that people show up for 80% of the time. I understand that we all have busy lives, but it is almost a reward for not showing up compared to doing poorly that night.

i am by no means an official spokesman for anyone but myself, but i figured if i had concerns/questions about current policies then perhaps other people did also.

if i am overstepping anyone here please let me know. I really enjoy playing in this league and would like to see it grow to even more in the future (bi-monthly) and beyond.

[Hilton]

I agree with KingPin.

I would second the idea that for next season we do away with the 80/40/20 average for misses.
I would like to see:
1. Everybody drops their lowest score at the end of the season. If you miss then you drop a zero. If you show up and throw a stinker then you drop the stinker
2. Your second miss counts at 50% of your average. 80/40/20 is too much. In most cases people have an 50% avg that is better than 5-6 people that actually show up for the night. I think the idea of a second miss being 50% avg would keep you from being completely blasted out of the season but also not provide an advantage for not showing up.


The other change I would like to propose is for how we determine tie-breakers for making top 4 playoff. Currently we use the lowest league total per player. I think the original intent was to handicap better players. For example, last night we had a 4 way tie for the 3rd and 4th positions. I would like us to use league average rather than total score as a tiebreaker. If we want to handicap a better player then current average would be a better indicator of skill for this handicap. This would also incentivize attendance early in order to get an average calculated so you could have it used for a tiebreaker situation. I do not think this situation will come up often, but last night was a good example of where the intent of the rules did not work in reality. Last night we gave the benefit to players that had a lower total, not because they were typically not as good, but because they had missed multiple nights.

[u2sean]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. We should definitely adjust for the 2016 season. Kingpin - I was actually thinking the exact same thing as you regarding dropping your lowest game of the season. If there are any other suggestions from other members, please put them in this thread so we can keep track of them and bring everything up for a quick vote in November (last official league night). Remember - this is your league and we want it to be fun and enjoyable for everyone. If you'd rather not publicly suggest something, you can email any one (or all) of the board members. They are Tully, Sean S, Tim E, Mike S and Mark S.

With that in mind, I would also like to make a suggestion that we only submit scores to the IFPA once at the end of the season instead of monthly. This will likely require us to modify the playoff format slightly, but not too much.

Regarding the tiebreakers - the rules state "Ties will go to the member with the lower league average, or if not yet established the lower IFPA World ranking." Note that this is AVERAGE and not total. For the May night, the outcome of the four individuals tied for 3rd - 6th would have been exactly the same had average been used, with the assumption that the 80/40/20 handicapping to establish missed earlier games was used. Therefore, we should keep averages for all players in addition to total points.

[Hilton]

With that in mind, I would also like to make a suggestion that we only submit scores to the IFPA once at the end of the season instead of monthly. This will likely require us to modify the playoff format slightly, but not too much.

I want us to continue to maximize our IFPA point opportunities for league members as many are interested in SCS and IFPA points.
If we only report once per year then we are leaving lots of points on the table given the current IFPA 5.1 WPPR rules.

Currently the number of games played is a factor in the point availablity of an event. The TGP (Total Game Percentage) maxes out at 25 games played. Given our current format, TGP for each night/month is 9 games. If we only report once every 10 months of play that means we will have played 90 games but only get credit for 25 games. Hypothetically, reporting once means a single event that would be worth ~12 points to the winner. Our current structure means reporting 10 events worth ~4-5 points to the winner. In other words 12 points vs 50 points available at base.

The monthly reporting is a pain, but I still prefer this rather than tossing away IFPA points with once yearly reporting.

There are all sorts of other league formats we could go to if we want to do something besides monthly reporting.
Our league format is actually outside of what most pinball leagues do.

Sean, What is the reason behind a desire to only report once per season?

[u2sean]

What is the reason behind a desire to only report once per season?

Hilton, I thought I remember you stating earlier in the season that other leagues were doing it this way and that it'd be easier than monthly reporting. I'm just putting it out there as a suggestion. If there's another format that other leagues are using that you feel would be better, please put together the details (no rush...) and we can take it from there. Thanks.

[Hilton]

What is the reason behind a desire to only report once per season?

Hilton, I thought I remember you stating earlier in the season that other leagues were doing it this way and that it'd be easier than monthly reporting. I'm just putting it out there as a suggestion. If there's another format that other leagues are using that you feel would be better, please put together the details (no rush...) and we can take it from there. Thanks.

There are a WIDE range of different league formats to choosen from and it really depends on what the main objectives of the league are. I will be honest that I am not really sure what our main objectives/desires are with MCF. It seems we have a broad range of members between the casual/competitive desire spectrum and also why we each desire to come to league. Some come for the party mainly, some come for the competition mainly, some come just to check out new games, some come for the compainionship. I am guessing all members would place themselves on different parts of each spectrum, which makes it difficult to steer our path.

In general terms, the more established leagues I have researched tend to slowly evolve to a format which looks to create less luck and more straight forward lines drawn for competition and for requiring/incentivizing attendance. Most of the older leagues tend to group a four pack together for an entire night to keep things running more smoothly (no breaks to recalculate pairings for each game). They also tend to establish some degree of handicapping from either previous years results or the inital 2 months which then helps to place people into future 4 packs on future months.

Currently we have a bigger degree of random luck since we draw names for intitial pairings and for games. In our league it is possible for a top player to randomly draw 3 lesser players for round 1. Since we only play 4 games each night to determine league points, this means we have a 25% random factor right there. We also have random luck from game draw since everyone plays different games throughout a night or could even end up on the same game multiple times. Again, favoring luck over skill.

Many leagues use a pre-established handicap to place people in 4 packs. For example, we could use the top 4 players from current standings to establish initial 4 pack and this alone would at least start people off in a more level 4 pack. Could continue this down the line so initial 4 packs are already determined for next month and no real luck at the onset of each night.

Many leagues also have people play through 5-6 games in a given night and record actual scores. This means everyone plays against everyone else each night and on ALL the available games. There are numerous variations, but basically people play through with a set 4 pack on all games and in that 4 pack they are awarded points (7, 5, 3, 1) based on how they do in each game. Scores are used for the entire league and bonus points are awarded for sweeping all games in a 4 pack and for high score on each game throughout the night. People have worked out the math, but in general terms after initial seedings are determined then people can shift up or down into another 4 pack from month to month but big (multiple 4 pack swings do not happen). Somewhat hard to explain and I will look to find a league ruleset for one of these that seemed to work well.
I do not think this format would be ideal for our needs, but think we could leverage a few things to make out league easier to run, allow more pinball to be played, and also cater to a more fair competitive style which also allows people more concerned with the social aspect to play together more often while also allowing those more concerned with the competition to compete.

[Hilton]

I should also say, that there will never be one perfect solution for our league.

I personally think what we have now is pretty good and just needs small tweaks.
I would like to see next season change to:

1. Drop your lowest score (regarless is a zero or a stinker)
2. Second miss = 50% of your average
3. Tie breakers determnined by 2 factors: #1 attendance (i.e. incentive to attend and I think we should favor those that are attending) and #2 HIGHER league average (i.e. advantage to those that are playing better on a consistent basis rather than punishing a better player that has an off night or gets some random bad luck of a tough 4 pack at the start)
4. Initial 4 packs for start of the night are determined by current league standings. This pits similar players against each other from the start.


If we want to talk about more large scale tweaks then we would need to discuss actual over reaching format changes.
I could see us going to combining a few months into smaller competitions for IFPA point purposes and an end of year competition.
For example, break the MCF season into 3, 3-month mini events for IFPA reporting.
Month 1, play through 4 games same as we do now. EVERYBODY gets a qualifying knockout round on single game (4-player, 3-player, 2-player best 2 out of 3) Winner of each playoff bracket gets awarded 2 bonus points and second place of each bracket gets 1 bonus point.
Month 2 = repeat of month 1
Month 3 = play though 4 games same as we do now. Then look at current league standings over past 3 months in total to place people into 4-player backets. Same knock out style 4 player brackets.

This 3 month event would allow us to only report 3 times a year and each reporting would max out TGP (over 25 games played).

We could still keep our points like we do now for internal league scoring pruposes. Basically treating our event duration for the overall league as different than the IFPA events we report.

Month 10 could then be some sort of yearly capstone event where all previous play seeds you into a bracket for end of year bigger competition for league memebers.

If we did something like this then we may need to think about drawing months for hosting out of a hat as sometimes people perfrom better on their own collection?

The permuatations and style of league can really be whatever we want.

[KingPin Games]

Another topic i would like to open up for discussion is the league schedule. Here i sit on a beautiful Thursday night (working) and wondering why we have league during the summer. I would like to propose that we do league from January to December and take July and August off (i would actually like to see June, July and August off but that might be pushing it). I know we have a league night this Saturday (June 27th, 2015) and as of right now the weather looks amazing. the last thing i want to do i be inside playing pinball. i will go (and i will have a good time once i am there), but i have given serious though to just skipping and letting my "absent" score take my place.

let me know if anyone has any thoughts on this. I can only imagine the urge to not play pinball during the summer is multiplied if you have kids and want to go camping or anything outdoors during our short summer in Wisconsin.

[Hilton]

I think that is a reasonable suggestion. I know I would like to have summer weekends completely free also, even though I am also looking forward to playing this upcoming sat.

We could likely figure out some sort of system to front load and back load the year in order to still have ample nights for league. I would hate to see us drop any lower than 9 meetings in total per year, but would also like to see a way to increase attendance at each event (just more fun to have a true league where almost all make it each time for the competitive fun of it)

I know last year we settled on Sept (typically the month of MRP but stuff got messed up due to Badgers home schedule this year) and Dec (due to holiday stuff?) as the off months.


I could see us doing something like
6 times in the months of
Jan, Feb, March, April, May,
plus 3 times in the months of sept, Oct, Nov?

I always open to any idea which means more pinball during bad weather months and less pinball during nice weather months.


If we are going to these 3 time combined type reporting

[Methos]

I personally would like to see either July or August as our "bye" months. I know the thought process is Nov/Dec would be good choices due to the holidays, but I can make a weekend in one of those months much easier then the summer months. Weather is also a factor - I honestly have little desire to play pinball when it's beautiful outside. I understand not everyone might have their summers fully booked like we seem to do.

[KingPin Games]

i have updated the beginning of the initial post so that we can have a running record of what topics/ideas we would like to discuss for the next season of the Madison Pinball League.

I have also began to think that we might have possibly outgrown our current league in the term of number of players. After showing up to a couple of the Pooley's events i have noticed that there are a lot more players there than what we have in our league. While i do not know everyone, it might actually be time to consider a second league. I am not sure how this works as far as who gets into what league (is it done by seniority, luck of the draw, current IFPA standings, etc), but i would like to see this area expand. I know that between Tully and myself we are the furthest away from the central Madison group, but i would like to propose maybe a madison north and a madison south division?

Let me know what you think. I will also be talking with everyone on Saturday June 27th at Mike's league night.

[Hilton]

more wouls be great.

i see the biggest constraint being the same blockage we have now... the need for more hosts.

It was a struggle to find 10 hosts for this year so unless peoepl are interested in hosting multiple times per year or we find more hosts, that seems to be the limiting factor more than number of interested players?

[KingPin Games]

Here is an idea that i have been playing with a little.

According to the 2016 calendar there are 26 Saturdays in the first 6 months of the year. if you take away the 6 Schweogler's nights that leave 20 Saturday's free. Then there are 17 Saturdays in the last 4 months of the year. take away the 4 Schweogler's, the Saturday for Christmas Eve (12/24/16 is a Saturday), the Saturday for New Year's Eve (12/31/16), one Saturday off for Mad Rolling 2016, and that leaves us with 10 Saturdays. that is a total of 30 Saturdays. according to that schedule we can still do 10 league nights, we might just have to do two in one month. There is also the possibility of Sunday evenings/nights, but i know that these could be somewhat problematic for some of the guys/gals with kids or early morning jobs (myself included in the latter). If we decided to go to a Sunday afternoon/evening league then it would open us up to 42 nights (taking Sunday 12/25/16 off for Christmas). With Sundays we could easily do 10 nights, and could possibly do 14 nights if we wanted to do a league every 3 weeks. I would be open to other suggestions also (during the week). This would give us all of July and August off.

[KingPin Games]

more would be great.

i see the biggest constraint being the same blockage we have now... the need for more hosts.

It was a struggle to find 10 hosts for this year so unless people are interested in hosting multiple times per year or we find more hosts, that seems to be the limiting factor more than number of interested players?

what are the rules on doing a league night at an establishment? we have two great establishments in Madison already. I know that each of them has their own "league" night already, but what if we picked another night? i am not as fluent in the IFPA rules as i should be when talking about this, but it is just another suggestion.

[Hilton]

more would be great.

i see the biggest constraint being the same blockage we have now... the need for more hosts.

It was a struggle to find 10 hosts for this year so unless people are interested in hosting multiple times per year or we find more hosts, that seems to be the limiting factor more than number of interested players?

what are the rules on doing a league night at an establishment? we have two great establishments in Madison already. I know that each of them has their own "league" night already, but what if we picked another night? i am not as fluent in the IFPA rules as i should be when talking about this, but it is just another suggestion.

That is COMPLETELY acceptable. Given IFPA rules there is NO restrcition to the number of events that can be held at any location and we are also completely allowed to host a league night at either location. I would be fully in support of that and think it would be nice to have that added option of 2 more spots to "host".