RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool
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Payouts for the prize pool are distributed roughly 2-months after the previous season ends.
The process is that division admins must collect PayPal email addresses for all the teams receiving payment every season which gets sent to Sigafoo for distribution. We have been consistent about this for all of our seasons; however, for RGL 6s S7 we ran into the issue with PayPal requiring users to provide a 1099-K form if they receive $600 or more over a tax year. There was a bottleneck with Sigafoo moving to Europe and also him working on the new payout system.
These are not meant to be excuses, but just to clarify the situation on what happened. With Taylor being the new owner of RGL as well, we hope this process can be improved – particularly to make it a bit more efficient.
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vorboyvo said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
ethanf Yep, and there is a payment structure we can work with where every invite team that lives through to the end has its starters make their money back. It would mean other divs slightly subsidize Invite, but definitely not totally.
i wouldn’t make it so all invite teams make their money back, just make it so they arent $50 in the negative after a season of hl. like if I pay 50 dollans to play and I get last at least gimme back like 30 bucks
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Micahlele invite 6s doesnt even have $50 fees they pay $40. i guess we could do that if we copied 6s’ fees - but should we? the other thought was to have $25 fees for invite to start - at which point itd be hard to give everyone in invite anything substantial without them just breaking even (assuming they’re a starter that finished the season)
e: or what we could do is have invite’s higher by 10 dollars but then they get 10 back at the end ($90 per team)
s.t. it’s $10, $15, $20, $35 but Invite teams that live to the end are guaranteed at least to make $10 back so $25 deficit -
seems like another excuse for people to sandbag lower divs when they cant win higher ones
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lampin we already have measures in place to prevent sandbagging - class restrictions, admin placement rather than teams choosing their own div, and harsher restrictions on teams with lots of offclassers.
imo a lot of the sandbagger problem rn comes from the fact that people want to coast rather than work hard - which they can because HL doesn’t take itself seriously, lots of HL players don’t take it seriously. i don’t see how it would be any easier with this - more of an incentive, sure, but we’ll still be able to do our best to combat it
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People keep saying “hl” is dead. I’ve only been around for a couple of seasons so I can’t rly tell but I do think that hl would be a little bit more competitive if there was more money involved. Right now, the top invite team is a troll team, and it was a serious struggle just to get 8 teams into both invite and adv, neither of which needed quals. More people would create teams and take it more seriously if there was cash involved in main and adv. Do NOT make IM or lower cash involved, as those players are mostly still new and learning the ropes.
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I’m not sure what the actual logistics of it is as I don’t even know how much it costs to play invite but im sure if the fee to play main was like $10-$15 and the fee to play advanced was like $15-$20 with a chance at a decent prize pool no one would really complain, however, I would only pay out for the top 4 teams meaning that in every div the top team gets back over 2x what they spent per player to create an incentive for trying to win the div like there is in 6s. Honestly playing 6s feels much more higher stakes than HL considering how there’s money on the line so I agree with the other posts in suggesting that teams will take the game much more seriously with prize pools. At the very least I would experiment with implementing it in advanced.
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humphrey said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
I’m not sure what the actual logistics of it is as I don’t even know how much it costs to play invite but im sure if the fee to play main was like $10-$15 and the fee to play advanced was like $15-$20
Two structures we were thinking of:
- Copy 6s: $15 for IM, $20 for Main, $30 for Adv, $40 for Invite
- Smaller fees to start: $10 for IM, $15 for Main, $20 for Adv, $25 for Invite (or possibly $35 with $10 being deposit for finishing the season)
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i believe advanced and invite should both have a prize pool and fees; but i also believe anything below it should not.
i always saw main hl as this kind of gatekeeper to higher level highlander gameplay for people who actually take hl seriously; capabilities to perform well in main is what makes you recognizable and allows you to move up to adv and go from there. you are meant to experience the most obstacles in main, whether that be obstacles regarding mechanics or game understanding. with all that being said, i know not everyone plays in main with serious intent, even this season i know there are some teams that play just to relax and have fun as a friend group, not necessarily to place and move up to advanced the next season. it is true that highlander never was taken seriously by most of the players; i think that the competition and the sense of it only becomes a real thing when it gets to the round robin divs, i.e., adv/inv.
main is also meant to be the largest div where people encounter the most obstacles, first season in main is rarely going to be a performance that is above low to mid main especially with how wide the gap is between high main gamers and low main gamers. i think some (if not most) of the im players that would want to move up might be repelled by the league fee in main, as result of “why pay money to go 0-7?”
with all that being said i would be 100% willing to pay to play in main but i am concerned about how it is going to affect main as a div, as well as all the divs below; i am more than certain that it would increase the skill ceiling in main since more players would take it seriously but i am not sure if main is going to serve the same role as it does now, if the fees are involved. i also think that prize pools/league fees for advanced and invite would be beneficial to both divisions and would incentivize actually tryharding -
vorboyvo I definitely think IM should remain free and have no prize pool. Main is already pushing it for HL I think, but IM is definitely too low of a div in HL to require people to pay.
EDIT: also in the first category, would every team in invite that lives receive some of the prize pool at the end of the season? If not $40 would be extremely excessive.
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TheS4rr you think? imo we should make decisions based on where we want to be in the future, not where we are right now, and work our best to overcome the potential immediate hit for it.
i think IM is too low/an extension of AM/whatever in HL precisely because it’s the third div down with no prize pool. there’s no reason IM should be an unserious div or anything - AM is the lowest div that’s not strictly for new players, so it makes sense, but IM i think should be part of the paid, semi-professional league the way it is in 6s.
katz ^ also summarizes my thoughts on your post - I think it’d be overall better for the scene if we aim and start high rather than if we started too timid, like we did in s1 when we started with just invite having a prize pool (as opposed to UGC having no fees/prizes). the divs may take a small time hit in player popularity but the rebound will be better and more healthy for the scene.
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vorboyvo I don’t really have as eloquent an argument as katz, but I know that the last time I played at that level I would not have wanted to pay to participate.
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Bringing prizepools to divisions below invite has the potential to be a positive change to the format, while also having the possibility of being damaging. (If mishandled)
Getting enough teams for ADV this season was a struggle to say the least. But when you stop to think about it- what incentive do people really have? Why should joeblow2005 challenge himself against the upper echelon of players in advanced, when he can attempt to roll main for the 3rd time in a row?
Bringing prizepools to advanced would be a great thing to try- it would incentive people to try and move up, while also keeping more players in circulation. (Less potential RR, and less reason to sandbag in lower divisions) Definitely worth a try.In terms of the other divs, (main/intermediate) in my opinion, should not be touched. If the prizepool is extended to ADV and nothing further, it will certainly keep it feeling more special, and sought-after. (As it should be) Intermediate prizepools would not be smart. many players there are new, and the increased competition would likely drive away more than it would bring. As for main, I personally disagree as well for a similar reason, but at the very least a poll or something similar should be done. (Something that includes main players in the decision)
TLDR; Prizepools in advanced are a no-brainer, intermediate would be unwise, and main should be carefully considered.
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As someone currently in IM I think if you surveyed the players, roughly a third would want to pay and the rest wouldn’t. My question is not whether IM should be free or paid, but whether it needs to exist at all. I think both sides could be rolled into Main/AM respectively without too much trouble. This would make a very large AM, but in 6s AM is the biggest division and arguably the one with the greatest skill range because it’s the last division before paid. Having an unpaid IM on top of it would not serve much purpose, and a paid IM would have far too few teams.
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Generally what I’m seeing in this thread so far is a general support for prize pools in Adv, ambivalence regarding prize pools in Main with some people supporting, others opposing, and generally people don’t think they’d like it in IM.
What I find quite interesting is a lot of people say they would pay but they don’t think it would be a good move for the division. I’m interested to hear from more Main players whether they would play or not in a division with league fees. Fifteen dollars for three months is not a lot of money over the time, and I think expanding the prize pool over more divisions than less is a good move for promoting the league, and its overall prize pool, in the future. So I’d like to hear more, as the main mod, from players in that div.
I do see the argument that IM, as it is right now, is still a “low div” and not as serious as it is in 6s. I think we should set fees based on where we want to be - making IM paid entry/prize winning will make it and people playing it more serious, but that’s just me. Ultimately, the HL admin team wants to do what’s best for the community.
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TheS4rr said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
EDIT: also in the first category, would every team in invite that lives receive some of the prize pool at the end of the season? If not $40 would be extremely excessive.
Probably. 6s does that. But it might not be more than they paid in like 6s does, just because the size of the prize pool might not allow us to do that without having lower divs heavily subsidizing Invite.
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I’m only going to comment on Invite right now, since it is the only current HL division with a monetary incentive and I think a prize pool expansion discussion is an opportunity to fix the horrid state of Invite’s prize pool.
As a player, I would love to see Invite have a real prize pool past competing for $40 and an ego title. But the reality is that a real prize pool is not sustainable just off of $153 team fees. HL can only advance as much as the players want it to be, and if money is a hurdle we can’t pass, then it’ll likely remain as a for-fun tournament–which isn’t strictly a bad thing, but just a different path than I’d personally like to see.
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i see this as a necessity for advanced for the longevity of the format, however, be careful w/main. leave IM untouched, but you can come back to in the future if main/adv is successful.
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Preventing money-incentivized sandbagging is pretty simple, make the payout for first place advanced be worth less than last place invite. Make fees for main and advanced, no prizepool for main, small prizepool for advanced, majority prizepool invite. That incentivizes players to try to move up and do better every season instead of stagnating, and it also helps invite with the problem of teams threatening to die if they don’t get to play their sweet sweet advanced sandbag season.
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pajaro I don’t think making a div with fees but without prizes will be popular at all, especially if those fees are subsidizing higher divs. I can’t speak for other HL admins but that’s not something I personally want to do at all.
What we can do, in addition to our regular protections against sandbagging (such as class restrictions, including heavier restrictions against stacked teams, and forced move-ups) is make Invite players see at least some of their money back each season, up to 100% return on fees paid in some cases - but with 9 players * 8 teams, it’ll be very difficult if not impossible to have a prize pool scheme which is both sustainable for (IM?)/Main/Advanced and pays out last place Invite more than 1st place Advanced.
Much more than that, right now, I see the sandbagging problem coming from teams that would prefer to take it easy and offclass/troll in a free div, even to the point of randomizing their classes every match. I’m reasonably confident that players, when made to pay in, will prefer to take competitive play seriously - I think that this, at least, will make it easier to identify and deal with sandbagging teams, and hopefully help counteract any issues we have right now.