[quote author=ItalianStallion link=topic=504.msg4814#msg4814 date=1317355688]<br />I&#039;d have to agree with Hatred.&nbsp; Although I haven&#039;t ever been in his kind of situations, I can imagine that it would be horrible.&nbsp; All the excitement to be on a new team for a new season, just to find out that your team pretty much rests on your shoulders because of a weak player base must be awful.&nbsp; Especially last season where it felt that a lot of teams had really good thirds and others didn&#039;t.&nbsp; It&#039;s like being on a bad team in Priv, but it lasts 9 weeks. :(<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Really, I just see this as a negative overreaction in general.&nbsp; I have been on more than my fair share of terrible teams (HWB, SPE, KGB, KNF, others maybe?) Sometimes you just don&#039;t get on a good team or something doesn&#039;t work out.&nbsp; That is unfortunate, but its not impossible to enjoy being on a poor team, probably my favorite season was playing on SPE with Mortalogy and Rus when he was first starting in IDL.<br /><br />I think we won a single game and took an additional win due to forfeit by some other team.&nbsp; I was definitely the best player on that team at the time and even though a large burden was placed upon me to excel for the team (especially when our captain Nautilus showed up doped out of his head every practice/game) I still enjoyed myself and had fun playing with mort and rus, even though that same team now would have probably gone +.500 now due to Rus getting so much better.<br /><br />I am not trying to tell anybody what to enjoy of course, it is really just kind of lame that players are dreading the possibility of not ending up on some golden team.&nbsp; I personally find more satisfaction playing with a weaker team, it makes me feel as if my contributions are larger, even if the team has &quot;no chance&quot; of winning in the long run, a couple nice upsets can make a season (KNF vs BSK).&nbsp; I would hope people play because they love it, not simply for the chance to win some trophy that has no meaning outside of a small community.<br /><br />[quote author=Fastidious link=topic=504.msg4817#msg4817 date=1317388250]<br />[quote author=Hatred link=topic=504.msg4807#msg4807 date=1317271391]<br />Just like when I was drafted #2 overall with Goatface and had Quiksilver as our 3rd, call me a coward, call me whatever you want but let&#039;s see how much love you&#039;ll have for the IDL when you&#039;re constantly losing 5-0[/quote]<br /><br />The lowest of lows in the IDL don&#039;t make up for the highest of highs.&nbsp; That&#039;s why I think everything should be done to keep trying for the mythical season where every team is .500.&nbsp; Just like Hatred I&#039;ve had two horrible seasons out of my six overall.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />The more I think about parity, the more I think it isn&#039;t a good goal for the league.&nbsp; The more you approach parity, the more random the results of games are, which some may say is good, but also reduces the amount of upsets which take place in the league, simply by virtue of what parity means.&nbsp; Nobody will ever remember how KNF beat BSK on a map nobody believed in us on (not even nostar I think, and he is pretty believing in me).&nbsp; Is this really a good thing?&nbsp; I am not convinced it is for a few reasons:<br /><br />There is no top team to beat within a perfectly even league, leaving less to strive for/against.<br />4ths may get less play, often many 4ths get play in what are considered easier matches.&nbsp; If all matches are equal, how many captains will risk a loss to give some rookie face time?<br />Style/strategy development may suffer, there is less incentive to develop high risk/reward strategies if a game is expected to be close, rather then one team having to try new things against a superior opponent.<br />Also others I would imagine, obviously I have no statistics to point towards these outcomes due to a state of parity within the league never existing (nostar) rather they are the product of my expectations and some application of common sense.<br /><br />That is not to say a league in parity is without advantages such as:<br /><br />Players will likely be more interested if they perceive their chance of winning as higher.<br />Games on average should be more exciting, due to unpredictability, even if great historical games become rarer.<br />4ths may actually net more play time, a more even league could promote their extensive use.<br />The league is more inviting to new players who may sign up upon seeing no SNaX exist within the league and that talent allocation is sufficiently skilled as to allow all players to play without large gaps in skill.<br /><br />It is a complex issue to say the least and we have been discussing it in depth for some days now&nbsp; ;)<br />