This post is in 2 sections, 1 for the real content of the post, the other to argue in-depth about MassVC&#039;s claims.<br /><br />This discussion happens every season because there&#039;s disagreement on the balance between [b]fairness[/b] and [b]parity[/b].&nbsp; Fairness is a random draft.&nbsp; Parity is ranking player skill and putting a skill cap on teams (however that&#039;s actually accomplished).&nbsp; I would argue that the administration&#039;s job is to dull the blade of either of these extremes, so that no one&#039;s discouraged from playing and captaining in IDL, because growing the playerbase is #1 priority (right?).<br /><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 />There is nothing the draft can do (and still be called a draft) to achieve more parity than it already does.&nbsp; Captains picking their own spot won&#039;t matter, because draft position is a smaller factor in team success than captain skill.&nbsp; It&#039;s like if you have f(x) = -x^2 + 3x.&nbsp; Yeah at the beginning it&#039;ll be above water, but as x increases (the season goes on), the team ends up drowning deep in the sub-X-axis ocean.&nbsp; -x^2 is captain skill, 3x is draft position.<br /><br />My perspective is that the draft is [b]100% political[/b].&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 [b]team[/b]&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 /><br />Constantly fucking with it, on the other hand, draws undue attention to the fact that poor captains actually have no chance whatsoever.&nbsp; Thanks for that, by the way.&nbsp; I guess even if no one joins because they think they can&#039;t win or they have to play with shit-ass players, it&#039;s OK as long as the best-case mathematical model of the draft achieves better parity.<br /><br />[hr]<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=511.msg4974#msg4974 date=1318436990]<br />However, I can do something to make elite captains lose.&nbsp; I can give them a crippling handicap.&nbsp; You are going to respond, &quot;But that is wrong!&quot;&nbsp; And it may be, but this discussion doesn&#039;t seem to be about what is right or wrong, but what is possible.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I think it&#039;s about right or wrong.&nbsp; Crippling elite captains means they won&#039;t volunteer to be captains anymore.&nbsp; If this is the goal, that&#039;s fine, but since the administration is in charge of choosing captains, I&#039;d say you should fix that problem further towards the beginning of the pipeline.<br /><br />And I can certainly appreciate the difficulty in defining &quot;right&quot; and &quot;wrong&quot;, but in IDL&#039;s case it&#039;s pretty straightforward:<br /><br />&nbsp; - More players?&nbsp; GOOD<br />&nbsp; - Fewer players?&nbsp; BAD<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=511.msg4974#msg4974 date=1318436990]<br />It is deductively reasonable that draft picks #1 and #13 will be better than picks #12 and #24.&nbsp; In the same way, I can say that the first pick of a straight draft is better than both the first and last picks of a snake draft, and both of those are better than the last pick of a straight draft.&nbsp; (I would consider that pick to be a crippling handicap.) <br />[/quote]<br /><br />I disagree with your premises.&nbsp; #1 is not always better than #2, thus higher pick order is not the sole determinant of pick quality.&nbsp; Here are some others:<br /><br />&nbsp; - The way other captains pick (Ralphis should&#039;ve picked Fast, but picked Ladna instead)<br />&nbsp; - Player attendance (Ladna is better than Fast, but Ladna will disappear for 2 weeks)<br />&nbsp; - Map selection (Fast on Map X is better than Ladna on Map X)<br />&nbsp; - Team chemistry (Fast on Team X is not as good as Ladna on Team X)<br />&nbsp; - Team schedule (Fast against Team Y is better than Ladna against Team Y)<br />&nbsp; - Skill depth (Ladna is 5x better than Fast, but he only went 11th while Fast went 12th)<br /><br />Sure, if you assume all these things are trivial or even out via entropy you can make your claim.&nbsp; But as you said, there&#039;s nowhere near enough data to say that.&nbsp; Suddenly the equation is much more complicated eh?<br /><br />Furthermore, because good captains have been picking at 9, 10, 11, 12 since Season 5, it&#039;s really difficult to separate those draft positions from the elite skill of their captains.&nbsp; I&#039;m not totally sure how to resolve that statistically.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=511.msg4974#msg4974 date=1318436990]<br />The fact that we can&#039;t determine whether early or late picks are better, is evidence that a snake draft succeeds in doing little to compensate for captain quality (or previous season record, or whatever), whether this is a good thing or not.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I would actually like to skip all that stuff and make some sweeping generalizations about a snake draft:<br /><br />&nbsp; - Elite captains picking 1-4 stacks the league<br />&nbsp; - Elite captains picking 5-8 might stack the league<br />&nbsp; - Elite captains picking 8-12 probably won&#039;t stack the league<br /><br />&nbsp; - Poor captains picking 1-4 gives them an elite player<br />&nbsp; - Poor captains picking 1-4 might give them an elite player<br />&nbsp; - Poor captains picking 8-12 probably won&#039;t give them an elite player<br /><br />And the counter-balance:<br /><br />&nbsp; - Elite/Poor captains picking 1-4 get the worst 3rds<br />&nbsp; - Elite/Poor captains picking 5-8 might not get the worst 3rds<br />&nbsp; - Elite/Poor captains picking 8-12 gives them the best 3rds<br /><br />The problem with all this is that it&#039;s highly dependent on the depth of skill in that season&#039;s playerbase.&nbsp; If we&#039;re talking about a league where ThatsJustPrime and Ladna are the worst 3rds, then that&#039;s probably OK.&nbsp; But there are some players that, if they&#039;re 3rds on your team, will cripple you.<br /><br />So there&#039;s 2 things you can really do about that:<br /><br />&nbsp; - Give crippling 3rds to elite captains<br />&nbsp; - Don&#039;t expand the league to the point where anyone&#039;s forced to play with a crippling 3rd<br /><br />Both of those options are controversial, and I won&#039;t analyze them here.&nbsp; Suffice it to say it&#039;s basically the root of all IDL arguments every preseason, because either option is terrible for obvious reasons.<br /><br />[quote author=MassVC link=topic=511.msg4974#msg4974 date=1318436990]<br />To go back to the contradiction:&nbsp; If the elite captains always win, then the other guys don&#039;t have a fighting chance.[/quote]<br /><br />You&#039;re being too literal (most people don&#039;t talk in maths).&nbsp; Ralphis is saying that no matter where he drafts, he&#039;s going to have a successful season, but that there are positions at which Ladna could draft where he would not succeed.<br /><br />Anyhow, the draft&#039;s real &quot;function&quot;, if you want to be technical about it, is to give new captains an incentive to join, &quot;hey I&#039;ll get a good pick!&quot;, and give veteran captains a reason to stay on, &quot;hey I&#039;ll get to run a team the way [b]I[/b] want to&quot;.&nbsp; The effect of this is to keep veteran captains in a relatively stable position (which would happen in any draft system that could still be called a draft) and to handicap new/poor captains with an elite player during their first season or so.&nbsp; The draft provides mobility, and actually does a good job of adapting to changing captains and player pools.<br /><br />Trying to do too much with it really ruins the mobility aspect.&nbsp; 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 /><br />===<br /><br />Consider this Section 2, part b if you like.<br /><br />I&#039;m finding myself more at odds with the IDL Administration more and more these days, which is strange because I like all of you guys (to varying degrees ;) ) !&nbsp; I think my problem is that I fundamentally feel like none of you quite know what you&#039;re doing.<br /><br />The goal of the draft is:<br />&nbsp; - Be fun<br />&nbsp; - Avoid radically unfair situations<br /><br />The goal of making a new WAD every year is:<br />&nbsp; - Keep IDL fresh<br />&nbsp; - Remove unplayed/hated/broken maps<br />&nbsp; - Evaluate new maps<br /><br />The goal of having a web site and team names and graphics and stats and gee-whiz-bang is:<br />&nbsp; - Be awesome<br />&nbsp; - Make the administration&#039;s lives easier<br /><br />The 1st goal of any of that stuff is something like [b]BE FUN[/b].&nbsp; There are maybe 3 people who give a fuck at all about the draft, why waste so much time on it?<br /><br />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<br /><br />Other draft systems don&#039;t do these things, or cause them to be less likely to occur.<br /><br />Additionally, IDL needs to keep the players it has, and it&#039;s important to listen to player grievances and ideas.&nbsp; Not because doing so actually does anything (although it definitely does, see franchising, uneven games, etc.), but because when players have a say in the way IDL is run, they&#039;re more likely to continue participating in it.<br /><br />Ultimately the IDL belongs to all of us.&nbsp; Us players are trusting you administrators to do what&#039;s best for the league, and in order to do that, you need to engage with us.&nbsp; The team name poll is a good start, but no one gives a fuck about the draft; it&#039;s bad politics to mess around with it (especially when you know draft order already), and there are way more effective uses of your time.<br />