Broken Bat - Suggestions: Larger, Fewer Divisions

Forum >> Suggestions >> Larger, Fewer Divisions

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date

#78178	10/23/2020 12:40:29 pm	Aug 19th, 2047
rlawrence Joined: 02/03/2020 Posts: 102 Inactive	12 Teams only in a division doesn't quite feel like baseball. Playing 160 games against 11 teams feels a bit redundant. Let's get this thing a little more real! Why not go North, South, East, West and get each division up to 24 teams? This would allow for more variation of play against a larger pool of teams during a season, and would make each division feel a lot more fulfilling. It would probably allow us to get rid of at least division VI and possibly D-V as well, so there are less bot teams, and a feeling of being closer to the 1st division for the folks in the basement. Ultimately, it would also foster a greater feeling of Rivalry within each division as well (Particularly in Legends, as twice the amount of players would now be at the top) Updated Friday, October 23 2020 @ 12:48:49 pm PDT Updated Friday, October 23 2020 @ 6:22:00 pm PDT

#78207	10/23/2020 7:43:16 pm	Aug 21st, 2047
hurstdm Joined: 01/18/2017 Posts: 576 Murfreesboro Moo Cows VI.5	We wouldn't be against this.

#78208	10/23/2020 11:55:07 pm	Aug 21st, 2047
JJNZ Joined: 12/09/2014 Posts: 1580 Yakima Monster III.3	Interesting. I have no problem with how it is now, would be intriguing to see how this may look also.

#78217	10/24/2020 1:43:40 pm	Aug 21st, 2047
amalric7 Joined: 01/20/2016 Posts: 2236 New York Lancers V.4	How would promotion/demotion work in all this? Same as is? Normally I'm the most change-averse person around but I don't actually see anything wrong with this. At this point.

#78218	10/24/2020 2:27:23 pm	Aug 21st, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I would assume it would be the top team from each of the 4 divisions promoting? And the bottom two from each division demoting. The same as we have now. That would essentially mean the pyramid structure is flattened by one level. Instead of an upper league being fed by two leagues with two divisions it is fed by one league with four divisions. Since there is double the teams in Legends, and presumably double the demotes (bottom two from each division), it would mean double the teams at each level. So LL-6 would get removed. The biggest change would be schedule. You would probably be playing the teams in your division less often. So there would be less rivalry between teams. Updated Saturday, October 24 2020 @ 2:33:30 pm PDT

#78220	10/24/2020 2:39:30 pm	Aug 22nd, 2047
jezzat Joined: 01/27/2019 Posts: 113 Rockford Rhinos V.9	If you wanted to keep to 160 games it could be something like play the other 5 teams in your division 14 times each and the 18 teams in the 3 other divisions 5 times each. Would mean less than half the games (70 out of 160) would be against your direct rivals.

#78223	10/24/2020 3:47:05 pm	Aug 23rd, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Currently we play 60 interleague, and 100 in division. That would mean 90 interleague and only 70 in division. Not sure I like that. You could go to 3 game series, which would mean only 54 interleague games. That sounds more palatable to me. But both of these options have impacts on the schedule since you are changing the number of interleague games.

#78225	10/24/2020 4:02:07 pm	Aug 23rd, 2047
rlawrence Joined: 02/03/2020 Posts: 102 Inactive	In MLB, you only play your division rivals 75 times, So Jezzrat's math looks good. Keeping 160 games and just doubling the league size wouldn't require much of a programming change In the current format, we play our division rivals 100 times. Again, feels excessive. For me, playing a greater variety of teams is a. more real to life b. more exciting/adds to game flavor c. winning an award or title, even in d5, would feel like a greater accomplishment Updated Saturday, October 24 2020 @ 4:03:43 pm PDT Updated Saturday, October 24 2020 @ 4:16:23 pm PDT

#78227	10/24/2020 5:03:37 pm	Aug 24th, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Its actually 76 (19 games x 4 teams). The equivalent in BB would be 19 x 5 = 95 games. I'm not against the idea. But I don't like reducing the division rivalries. In the real MLB there are 6 division, and you only have 5 teams per division (not 6). With most games being out of division it feels like we wouldn't really get "best of division", which is what promotion is based on. Updated Saturday, October 24 2020 @ 5:05:46 pm PDT

#78229	10/24/2020 7:30:31 pm	Aug 25th, 2047
Ken_Kennilworth Joined: 11/26/2019 Posts: 400 Charleston Hawks II.1	well, playing more opponents would add some spice...but was it mentioned there is hope someday to have head-to-head match series versus online friends? wouldn't that satisfy some of the variety desire? and one of the design elements to this game, as well as other computer games, is progression through ranks to the top levels...not sure how increased league sizes would fit with promotion/relegation

#78232	10/25/2020 12:30:24 am	Aug 25th, 2047
JJNZ Joined: 12/09/2014 Posts: 1580 Yakima Monster III.3	The only downside I can see really is a longer play off series as you'd need to have semi finals before the finals. If you didn't finish top then it's a long week of watching the other teams while you're guys twiddle their thumbs

#78233	10/25/2020 2:00:44 am	Aug 25th, 2047
jezzat Joined: 01/27/2019 Posts: 113 Rockford Rhinos V.9	Yes, it would add 3 more days to the season so, if you want it to stay the same real-life length and keep it so the Cup always starts on a Monday, the league on a Tuesday etc, you have to "save" those 3 days somewhere. We have 1 blank day on the Friday after the Cup Final which could go and personally I wouldn't mind if we shaved 2 days off Spring Training. Overall, I was 50/50 at first but I'm coming round in favour. I like the idea of playing more, different teams. There would still be hundreds of teams I could never get to play except in the cup or if we both got to Legends as they're on the other side of the pyramid so anything that gives more variety of opponent I think is a good thing.

#78235	10/25/2020 2:16:43 am	Aug 25th, 2047
jezzat Joined: 01/27/2019 Posts: 113 Rockford Rhinos V.9	Actually, ignore my last post. I realised I was wrong and crunched the numbers. At the moment the regular season consists of 10 4-game series and 20 3-game series (i.e. 100 games) against the teams in your division and 12 5-game series against the teams in the other division. So 42 playing days. The possible change would presumably mean 10 4-game and 10 3-game series (i.e. 70 games) against the teams in your division and 18 5-game series against the teams in the other divisions - so 38 playing days and therefore room for the extra 3 day play off series with a day to spare. Still think on balance I would be in favour.

#78236	10/25/2020 7:25:02 am	Aug 25th, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I wouldn't add to the playoffs. You can do a 5 game semi-final series in one day. And you can have the finals play off in 2 days instead of 3.

#78240	10/25/2020 2:06:06 pm	Aug 25th, 2047
terryhumphreys Joined: 01/20/2014 Posts: 103 Athens Gold IV.5	+1

#78249	10/26/2020 11:43:07 am	Aug 29th, 2047
Jobywan Joined: 04/08/2020 Posts: 54 Makakilo Eruption Legends	+1

#78250	10/26/2020 11:59:35 am	Aug 29th, 2047
texg8r Joined: 05/22/2020 Posts: 92 Pembroke Pines Gators IV.2	+1

#78255	10/26/2020 3:53:07 pm	Aug 30th, 2047
Ced Joined: 11/07/2014 Posts: 626 Denver Broncos IV.4	We'll probably relegate this season, but we've seen a lot of these teams for years and years. The rivalries get pretty good, so I wonder about if those would go away with a watered down opponent list. How much turnover...same percentage of promotions ‘n relegations? Anyways, I support this sug. I wanted to clarify, my team might benefit from the change, so I was trying to put a disclaimer. And stuff. Updated Monday, October 26 2020 @ 5:30:16 pm PDT

#78260	10/26/2020 5:54:04 pm	Aug 31st, 2047
Hurr Durr Joined: 05/01/2018 Posts: 32 Inactive	This might be something to consider if ever there were no more bot teams available for new players... say, if the number of teams had to be expanded from 756 due to demand. Beyond that, it just seems like needless tinkering with something that isn't broken.

#78262	10/26/2020 7:37:00 pm	Aug 31st, 2047
Haselrig Joined: 04/13/2014 Posts: 2790 Novi Doubledays III.4	With the caveat that Steve doesn't think this sort of change would cause any major bugs, I'd be for this. The ratio of new teams year-t-year always feels too large to me. Might even be an opportunity to add to the max number of teams in the game if Steve still thinks that's a potential problem. +1

#78266	10/27/2020 4:51:09 am	Aug 31st, 2047
PrivateSnowflake Joined: 01/06/2015 Posts: 1163 Bloomington Thunder Legends	I could go along with 4 divisions per league. West Federal/West National, East Federal/East National. That way Steve doesn't have to recode team locales. To keep things fresh, randomize the east and west divisions after each season and give more clubs a path to the division title trophy. 164 game season. One time, 3-game series, West vs East. 4-game home and home East vs East/West vs West. That leaves 4, 4-game series vs your own division. 5-game, two day West and East Championship series. 7-game, three day League Championship.

#78267	10/27/2020 5:50:19 am	Aug 31st, 2047
ChillFunkEz3000 Joined: 03/13/2017 Posts: 170 High Point Shaolin Stars III.4	+1

#78276	10/27/2020 5:09:26 pm	Sep 3rd, 2047
Hurr Durr Joined: 05/01/2018 Posts: 32 Inactive	I say this as a weak sister in my league... how would this do anything but bring down the quality of competition? In basically every division at every league level, there is already an obvious and often very wide gap between the two or three teams actually competing to promote and those just trying not to demote... and maybe even one or two who are all but out or have things all but wrapped up sometime around the break. I'm not sure how there's any way that just saying half of the LL2 teams, for example, are now Legends teams is going to do anything but make that gap more pronounced. I also don't like the proposed shift away from the nicely balanced schedule we have now to an imbalanced schedule that's heavy on division opponents; they do that IRL for travel and to foster geographic rivalries in relatively static divisions... which doesn't really make sense here. If it's variety you're after, maybe try to enjoy the Cup more. Updated Tuesday, October 27 2020 @ 5:21:54 pm PDT

#78277	10/27/2020 5:15:47 pm	Sep 4th, 2047
Geech Joined: 01/12/2014 Posts: 545 San Luis Obispo Turtles IV.8	I do not care for this suggestion. It's not a terrible alignment. I won't get all worked up into a huff and claim it's going to ruin my enjoyment of the game, but I definitely prefer the current alignment to this idea. As described in the OP, this starts with a 24-team LL 1, and then presumably each lower league doubles in size like it does currently until we reach a similar number of teams. This is effectively going to result in lopping off the top of the existing pyramid. Check out the below comparison of the current alignment to the proposed alignment to see what I'm talking about: You can see the new alignment, in terms of numbers of teams and division, is exactly the same as the current alignment without the top level. Yeah, we have twice as many teams in the new League 1, but as far as I'm concerned that just waters down the prestige of being in League 1. I think this is a bad tradeoff for the minimal benefit of seeing more faces in League play. We already have Cup play to give us more opponent variety.

#78279	10/28/2020 5:40:33 am	Sep 4th, 2047
Ouija7 Joined: 08/06/2019 Posts: 88 Inactive	the proposed LL and teams is gd but there is no need for the extra divisions keep the same number of divisions. LL teams divisions 1 24 2 2 48 4 etc maybe do 3 up 3 down for promotions etc

#78281	10/28/2020 5:56:05 am	Sep 4th, 2047
wuggla Joined: 05/10/2013 Posts: 1058 Colorado Springs Vultures VI.28	+1 only if we get 3promotions 6demotion. But 24 team leagues would make All-Star players really rare. Also make 4divisions with 2 wild cards must win wildcard game to promote. Complicated schedule for sure?

#78301	10/28/2020 6:55:13 pm	Sep 8th, 2047
FreddyThe2nd Joined: 06/08/2020 Posts: 163 Tombstone Pistoleros II.2	It would make it easier to get to legends, easier to stay there, and as mentioned earlier, water down the quality of the top league. -1 to the suggestion barely, but like mentioned, seems like a big change to something that is not broken. Scrap this and give me the ability to schedule friendlies on off days instead for variety!

#78437	11/06/2020 2:28:19 pm	Oct 9th, 2047
Brewnoe Joined: 03/25/2014 Posts: 816 Fall River Naughty Dawgs IV.5	Pew pew ... recipe for a deader game

#78484	11/08/2020 5:27:15 pm	Oct 20th, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	One of the more interesting effects of the small league sizes is that almost every game counts. Even at the end of the season, the majority of the teams are in one race or another

#78541	11/11/2020 6:29:46 am	Oct 28th, 2047
Seca Joined: 05/05/2014 Posts: 5197 Waterloo Dinosaurs Legends	Just my opinion, but I like it as is. With a 12 team league I am able to "get to know" my opponents. Think that would be lessened with more teams. Ultimately, it would also foster a greater feeling of Rivalry within each division as well (Particularly in Legends, as twice the amount of players would now be at the top) Would it? Rivalry stems from repeated confrontations. I would think a larger league would reduce rivalries. If the pyramid structure needs freshening up, maybe have the 4th place team move sideways (obviously wouldn't work at Legends). Ie., the 4th place finished in II.1 East goes to II.2 East, etc.. (This idea is off the top of my head - haven't thought through the repercussions).

#78543	11/11/2020 8:33:23 am	Oct 28th, 2047
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9588 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I'd be sad if I got kicked out of III.1 because I'm in fourth. I'd like to continue competing against the teams I've built up rivalries with.