Re: UnFreeZe league
Posted: Mon May 24, 2021 11:13
Some words from me.
I hope that everybody enjoyed the tournament. We managed to collect 30+ players and more or less equalize the team strength. I believe that for most of the players it was their first opportunity to play competitively in the team for a long (7-week) period of time. Team games differ dramatically from public server games in terms of strategy and preparation. If 1 player makes a mistake and dies somewhere on the enemies territory, the opposite team receives very good chances to comfortably take the round. Mistakes and lack of preparation are punished. And we observed that quite often during the tournament. However, closer to the end team skills improved significantly.
Actually I consider team skills improvements to be the key element for the ILM ultimate championship. That improvement took place both because of their motivation and their hard route till the final. They started the tournament by a loss. They lost group match to Russians hard. When they received an opportunity to take 2nd place in the Group by winning 2-0 against OKO not only they failed to do this but were close to loose first two games. Then they had a very hard semifinal. The route to the final was really not easy, but all these difficulties made them stronger and better prepared. On the other hand, team Russia led by strong individual players with previous team games experience had a brilliant start setting the initial standard of team play for the other teams. The route was easy for them making their preparation for the games reluctant and them to feel overconfident. If they had watched the semifinal ILM games, they would have been much better prepared to the strategy on overkill and dm7. But that is how sports work. To win you should have higher motivation, better communication, proper tactics (constantly reconsidering it) and luck rather than just rely on previous tactics and individual skills. Congratulations to ILM on that.
Considering “jumping to lava” tactics. I feel that these strategies should be either prohibited or penalized. I feel that 7-8 suicides (not 15) should be the limit. In the same time I do not think that penalization team Russia for future events is a good idea. We are not even sure that they will play with the same players or even that the tournament will be held in the foreseeable future. But that penalty has a negative impact on our relationship with them. Without them the tournament would have been less interesting. I did not see any intent from team Russia to bypass the rules. And there are no grounds to anticipate that they will try to bypass the rules somewhere in the future. Actually I find the warning on the forum to be not so clear formulated and not properly communicated to the teams. Simply adding a rule could be enough to fix the ‘lava’ problem.
As for other similar strategies (like jumping into void or chasing opponents with gauntlet until they kill you) I find these to add complexity to the game and thus they are ok. If done at the wrong time these strategies could benefit opponents.
New tournament perspectives. The tournament was 7-weeks long and requires a lot of efforts for preparation at the cost of working/family time. I feel that half of the players are too tired to enter another tournament right now. Summer is also not a good time for such commitment. And finally I am tired of organization too. So until October I do not feel enough motivation to hold something similar once again. If someone wants to try to organize something in the summer, I would recommend some short-term 3-vs-3 games (3+1, 1 on bench) that could be finished within 2-3 weeks.
P.S. .WTF!Porsche suggested to award reigning champions by adding a golden star before their nick names. Might be a good idea.
I hope that everybody enjoyed the tournament. We managed to collect 30+ players and more or less equalize the team strength. I believe that for most of the players it was their first opportunity to play competitively in the team for a long (7-week) period of time. Team games differ dramatically from public server games in terms of strategy and preparation. If 1 player makes a mistake and dies somewhere on the enemies territory, the opposite team receives very good chances to comfortably take the round. Mistakes and lack of preparation are punished. And we observed that quite often during the tournament. However, closer to the end team skills improved significantly.
Actually I consider team skills improvements to be the key element for the ILM ultimate championship. That improvement took place both because of their motivation and their hard route till the final. They started the tournament by a loss. They lost group match to Russians hard. When they received an opportunity to take 2nd place in the Group by winning 2-0 against OKO not only they failed to do this but were close to loose first two games. Then they had a very hard semifinal. The route to the final was really not easy, but all these difficulties made them stronger and better prepared. On the other hand, team Russia led by strong individual players with previous team games experience had a brilliant start setting the initial standard of team play for the other teams. The route was easy for them making their preparation for the games reluctant and them to feel overconfident. If they had watched the semifinal ILM games, they would have been much better prepared to the strategy on overkill and dm7. But that is how sports work. To win you should have higher motivation, better communication, proper tactics (constantly reconsidering it) and luck rather than just rely on previous tactics and individual skills. Congratulations to ILM on that.
Considering “jumping to lava” tactics. I feel that these strategies should be either prohibited or penalized. I feel that 7-8 suicides (not 15) should be the limit. In the same time I do not think that penalization team Russia for future events is a good idea. We are not even sure that they will play with the same players or even that the tournament will be held in the foreseeable future. But that penalty has a negative impact on our relationship with them. Without them the tournament would have been less interesting. I did not see any intent from team Russia to bypass the rules. And there are no grounds to anticipate that they will try to bypass the rules somewhere in the future. Actually I find the warning on the forum to be not so clear formulated and not properly communicated to the teams. Simply adding a rule could be enough to fix the ‘lava’ problem.
As for other similar strategies (like jumping into void or chasing opponents with gauntlet until they kill you) I find these to add complexity to the game and thus they are ok. If done at the wrong time these strategies could benefit opponents.
New tournament perspectives. The tournament was 7-weeks long and requires a lot of efforts for preparation at the cost of working/family time. I feel that half of the players are too tired to enter another tournament right now. Summer is also not a good time for such commitment. And finally I am tired of organization too. So until October I do not feel enough motivation to hold something similar once again. If someone wants to try to organize something in the summer, I would recommend some short-term 3-vs-3 games (3+1, 1 on bench) that could be finished within 2-3 weeks.
P.S. .WTF!Porsche suggested to award reigning champions by adding a golden star before their nick names. Might be a good idea.