[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />Blah blah straight draft<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;m not talking about a straight draft, if I seem like I am I apologize.&nbsp; I don&#039;t really apply any rigor to these forum posts, so it&#039;s possible I made a mistake somewhere :) .<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]<br />IDL makes round 1 of the draft more even by letting poor captains pick first, and forcing elite captains to pick last.<br /><br />IDL makes round 2 of the draft more fair by letting elite captains pick first, and forcing poor captains to pick last.<br /><br />#1 is not always better than #2, thus higher pick order is not the sole determinant of pick quality.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Which is it?<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;m talking about the political effect, not the mathematical effect, which is marginalized at best by other variables.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />By the way, the usual argument against it (the virtue of it, for God&#039;s sake, not the brute [i]fact[/i] of it), is not that it will make players ago away.&nbsp; You and NoStar are the only people who have made that point to me.&nbsp; The usual argument is that it is unfair (and that unfairness is intrinsically bad).<br />[/quote]<br /><br />You&#039;re the one who likes to talk about inductive reasoning when you have no data ;) .&nbsp; All we&#039;re saying is that elite captains will be less likely to captain if there are additional disincentives, and the draft fucking them harder is a clear disincentive.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />That would be very fucking sad if changing the draft order made some captains realize how shitty they are.&nbsp; But I think they know.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I was actually going to captain through the foreseeable future on FLS until the IDL administration repealed franchising, which screwed my strategy pretty hard.&nbsp; So yes, draft changes have affected at least 1 captain not volunteering again.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]<br />There are maybe 3 people who give a fuck at all about the draft, why waste so much time on it?<br />[/quote]<br /><br />This is your thread.&nbsp; <br /><br />The last draft discussion I started was before the beginning of last season.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;m actually referring to all the discussion in #idlb.&nbsp; As I&#039;ve said before, placement of new captains merits discussion, changing the draft otherwise does not.&nbsp; This is because the draft already does as much as it can to achieve parity.&nbsp; Anything else is overshadowed by millions of other variables.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]The other goals are also important though.&nbsp; Because the draft is a snake draft, it does the following:<br />&nbsp; - Motivates good players to captain (so a poor captain can&#039;t draft them)<br />&nbsp; - Gives poor captains an elite player they can learn from<br />&nbsp; - Gives elite captains a better chance at building a team[/quote]<br /><br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]<br />Ralphis is saying that no matter where he drafts, he&#039;s going to have a successful season<br />[/quote]<br /><br />A straight draft does the first two as well or better.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think elite captains are starving for the third in virtue of the second quote.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />It&#039;s not about abliity to win.&nbsp; It&#039;s about the politics of getting captains to volunteer.&nbsp; Remember I said:<br /><br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]<br />My perspective is that the draft is 100% political.&nbsp; You can say to poor captains, &quot;but you get to pick 1st!&quot;, and you can say to elite captains &quot;but you get to build a team&quot;.&nbsp; The psychology of poor captains picking after elite captains makes it so that this works, and honestly has no problems in and of itself.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Conversely, you can say to elite captains, &quot;yeah Ladna may get to pick 1st, but he gets the worst 3rd&quot;, and you can say to poor captains, &quot;yeah you have to pick 24th, but you get Potent and Ralphis gets Rust&quot;.&nbsp; No, mathematically it doesn&#039;t always work out.&nbsp; But you&#039;re the only one who cares about that.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />[quote author=Ladna link=topic=517.msg4978#msg4978 date=1318461226]<br />The goal of the draft is not to make a Ladna vs. Ralphis matchup always 50/50 odds.&nbsp; Rather, it&#039;s to make it so that one day it can be.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />When?&nbsp; Explain how that happens.<br /><br />(Don&#039;t say by giving Ladna the early snake draft spot next season, since, as you have repeatedly said, that does not do the trick.&nbsp; And, as we have repeatedly seen, that does not do the trick.)<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;m a poor captain.&nbsp; I pick 3rd.&nbsp; I somehow get mikehail.&nbsp; Mikehail, because he doesn&#039;t want to lose every goddamn game ever, teaches me how to cover for him, how to drop back when our flag is out, how to know the spawns so I can camp/run effectively, how to play chokepoints, etc. etc. etc.&nbsp; I&#039;m infinitely better after playing a season with mikehail, and I got a .333 record.&nbsp; Now I pick 6th, and I can put together a more solid team, not only because my pick position allows it, but because I myself am a more solid player.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />This is the crux.&nbsp; You are telling me (and you are not the first person) that making the IDL fair will cause elite players to walk.&nbsp; Elite players do not want an even playing field; they do not want to have to put an equal effort into a game in order to win as does a bad player.&nbsp; Instead, they want the odds to be in their favor because they are elite players.&nbsp; They want it to be an uphill battle for the novice players.&nbsp; If you turn their 80/20 odds into 50/50 odds, they will walk.<br /><br />You might be right.&nbsp; You are probably right.&nbsp; But I cannot imagine why.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />There is no reason that Ladna should have the same chance at winning the Masterbowl as Ralphis, Nostar, Stallion, Jenova, HumanBones, LordBritish, RussianDumbass, etc. etc. etc. etc.&nbsp; There&#039;s no reason the Colts should have the same chance at winning the Super Bowl (w/o Peyton Manning) as the Steelers, the Ravens, the Packers, etc. etc.<br /><br />Now, because elite players don&#039;t always volunteer to captain, and because there&#039;s a psychological issue with picking last in any draft (straight, snake or otherwise), we do a snake draft.&nbsp; This prevents poor captains from being raped the entire season (though not always), and takes some of the sting out of picking last.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=517.msg4983#msg4983 date=1318479595]<br />On the other hand, you might not be right that this would discourage player growth.&nbsp; Novice players should find an even league attractive.&nbsp; In that league, their numbers are spread out, and each of them has a better chance on being part of a successful team.&nbsp; Since being new is correlated with (and causes) novice-level skill, this is likely to attract new players.&nbsp; These players will improve.&nbsp; This seems much better for the league than begging Chaindude and Fastidious to come back.&nbsp; And therefore you might not be right that this is BAD.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Novice players are rarely as valuable as veteran or elite players.&nbsp; There are a number of reasons for this:<br /><br />&nbsp; - Veteran/Elite players have shown they&#039;re interested in IDL in the long-term.<br />&nbsp; - Veteran/Elite players are critical in maintaining the culture of IDL and PCTF.<br />&nbsp; - Veteran/Elite players are much more likely to donate their time via captaining or administrating.<br />&nbsp; - Veteran/Elite players are less likely to make mistakes (that harm the league) while donating their time.<br /><br />Sure, IDL should be all about expanding the playerbase.&nbsp; But that doesn&#039;t mean letting shitty players captain, and then raping elite captains so it&#039;s &quot;even&quot;.&nbsp; That&#039;s perverse.&nbsp; The answer is to not let shitty players captain.<br /><br />I also don&#039;t like the characterization that anyone&#039;s &quot;begging&quot; anyone to do anything.&nbsp; Talking to a player like Chaindude or Fastidious (both of whom have contributed significantly to IDL) about playing in an IDL season, asking them what they think is wrong with IDL or what they liked about the last season, is very different than &quot;begging&quot;.&nbsp; If the IDL administration isn&#039;t doing this, then they&#039;re remiss, and I certainly hope it&#039;s not due to the <br />fact that they feel like they&#039;re too good for it.<br /><br />[hr]<br /><br />Hatred:&nbsp; 100% agree, nice work ;)<br /><br />[hr]<br /><br />Jenova:<br /><br />Finding 12 reasonable captains shouldn&#039;t be that hard.&nbsp; Here is my list (made in roughly 5 minutes):<br /><br />RussianDumbass<br />Tai<br />LordBritish<br />HumanBones<br />ThatsJustPrime<br />ItalianStallion<br />Jenova<br />Xenaero<br />MassVC<br />Gilgamesh<br />Nostar<br />Doomguy666<br />mikehail<br />Ladna<br />Ralphis<br />Hatred<br /><br />Sure there&#039;s some variance in skill (and I don&#039;t mean to dismiss the efforts of captains not on this list by any means, as I said, made in 5 minutes :) ), but with the exception of mikehail, these are all current or ex-captains and above-average (mostly elite) players.<br /><br />It&#039;s popular to lament the lack of good captains, but it&#039;s really not true.&nbsp; All that&#039;s necessary is to talk to the players you want to captain, and make it happen.<br /><br />It&#039;s also popular to lament the fact that you&#039;re a good player, and you might get on a bad team.&nbsp; The answer to this is [b]captain your own team![/b].&nbsp; When Fast was on Nero&#039;s team, I told him exactly this, and it&#039;s still true.&nbsp; Either you captain your own team, or you take your chances in the draft like every other player.