RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool
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Highlander requires many more ringers and backups than 6s does, just by the nature of the format (9 distinct classes to find instead of 4 + 3 extra players per team = higher chance someone can’t be present). Most people won’t be willing to pay full roster price for a team just to play maybe one official match, but at the same time I can’t recall a single highlander team that went the entire season with the same 9 people having perfect attendance for every game.
Also, from what I’ve seen, ~half of the current playerbase in NC-IM is underage (or otherwise broke) and therefore willing to pay a maximum of exactly $0.
I think having a minimum combined payment per-roster is likely to cause less heartache when convincing players to sign up than paying per-player, as long as the rule is explained clearly and the site’s UX is good (impossible difficulty)
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minty said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
prizepools would be amazing, however, are we gonna have the same problem but worse where 6s players dont get their payouts for seasons on end? i think you need to fix that problem before you try and introduce it on a different scale with highlander.
Payout speed shouldn’t be a problem. There have been complications Sigafoo has addressed over the years, but the system is easy. I’ll communicate to the HL league if there’s an issue that will cause a delay.
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vorboyvo said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
… 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.
Isn’t this litterally how 6’s does it? I hate to be that guy, but I really do not think the whole HL team needs to spend a ton of effort to re-invent the wheel when 6’s already has a perfectly functioning system.
Just decide the specifics of if IM/Main will be paid or free, if you will switch from team fees to player fees/Ringer fees, and adjust the system accordingly.
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I would love to see IM and up paid and I would love if it had a similar structure to 6s.
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@Mothership said in RGL HL 2023: Expanding the Prizepool:
Isn’t this litterally how 6’s does it? I hate to be that guy, but I really do not think the whole HL team needs to spend a ton of effort to re-invent the wheel when 6’s already has a perfectly functioning system.
Yes, it is. 6s also has a $40 Invite player fee (including for subs) which, based on previous Invite players’ comments in this thread, I don’t think would go over well. 6s also has 12 teams in Advanced, 18 teams in Main, and 14 teams in IM - a great deal more than HL has, which generates a lot more revenue for that league.
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Iso In 6s, if you need a sub or ringer, the leader or other team starter pays for them most of the time. Also, part of the issue imo is teams stacking subs they don’t need - roster riders included.
NC/AM wouldn’t be paid in any case. Underage players, in any event, can get visa gift cards from a pharmacy with cash - I’ve done that for online transactions when I was a teenager - and teams who want them enough will pay for them - I’ve also seen this happen in 6s including on teams I’ve been on.
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some thoughts–
the best thing that could happen with the introduction of more paid divs/higher fees would be
- stimulates growth and brings in new players
- rewards dedicated players with a bigger prizepool
- encourages teams to be more dedicated, and increase the level of competition at higher levels
- the $ could also be used to fund lans, pug site development, more staff, etc.
the worst thing that could happen with the introduction of more paid divs/higher fees would be
- league declines due to players that arent as dedicated/financially stable leaving
- players try to play down a div to avoid losing $, or to get easy $.
- the same players who win now keep winning, and just make more $ doing so, and lot of players end up subsidizing a few players
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Colin To be clear, I think I see a lot of these things happening together. I think it’s natural that as a league moves forward and changes its direction to prioritize future growth, it will leave behind players that aren’t as dedicated to being a part of this growth - so players who aren’t as dedicated will leave. Meanwhile, change will, as you say, bring in new players and reward dedicated players, thus incentivizing players who stay to be more dedicated.
I don’t think sandbagging will be necessarily increased by this. People may try to play down for money or to avoid losing money, but again, admin placement exists so teams don’t directly choose their division, as a check on sandbagging. I think a big source of sandbagging right now is teams trying to take it easy/chill because they’re burnt out playing at higher levels - maybe with teammates they don’t feel care as much as they do - so they offclass in lower divs and roll anyway because of better understanding of the game. So this would necessarily be combated by prize pool introduction.
The problem of subsidizing few players from winning dynasties is a real and big concern. We saw this in 6s where there was concern for a while that lots of teams would have to just pay froyo season after season, essentially. The way 6s combatted this is by making sure the last place Invite team makes more than the 1st place Advanced team - but this would require a huge share of the prize pool to go to Invite. I’m still not totally sure how to solve this - but I do think it’s fair to not want to bet on it when some top teams have had dozens of seasons to build chemistry. I don’t think it’s as much of a concern in any div except Invite, since the seasonal winners presumably move up afterwards.
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The decision is contingent on whether or not the highlander community wants to increase the competitiveness of the game mode. One of the biggest reasons why the environment of RGL 6s is more competitive than its counterpart is because of the physical investment and connection the players have with their teams. As long as people can play in almost any div for free in highlander, the investment that ties players to 6s will not carry over toward the highlander community to the same degree.
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As a new-ish to here person who doesn’t have any idea about sixes:
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a fee for individual team member joins etc just seems weird unless it’s directly before/after roster lock or before playoffs(to quote Max Payne, “You play, you pay”). However obviously this would make a lot of low-end teams straight up disband rather than pay up. If we’re talking a fee paid before the first official I’d like it to be a team fee that a team may divide amongst themselves.
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Also in the above interest: (If we have individualized fees) I’d like for sub seats to be cheaper(or even free, with only the starter 9 paying) personally as well(along with the requisite lower prize pool cut), as a sub would often be paying for a team they barely if at all get to influence positively or negatively.
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I do not know what a ringer fee is, but it’d stress people extra to have to pay up every time they ring someone seeing how common that seems to be in main and below, and no one’s gonna ring for a team if they themselves are paying for it, in fact with a prizepool I’d expect to be compensated for ringing any official as much as I know that would really not happen if it wasnt the final or smth.
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I very much welcome a HL league that takes itself a bit more seriously, but there are the Obvious Caveats in that the raised stakes would increase ferocity of arguments and toxicity in general within and between teams, in and outside of matches. This would also significantly discourage lower-end teams from joining in the first place. I don’t know if the “I paid so I must get my money’s worth” will outweigh the team stability issues caused by this, and league growth is important.
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This would also reverse the incentive to climb divisions. Where now it’s seen as not a big deal to move up from being dominant in a division to being mediocre in the upper division, depending on fee differences between divisions it probably will make a ton more sense to stay at the lowest div you can feasibly convince the admins to let you stay in.
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I’d prefer that the prizepool be distributed amongst all of the playoffs or maybe top half of playoffs, because no one’s playing TF2 to win big, and having it rather feasible that you at least make your money back if you’re semi-decent would be cool and encourage lower-end teams to still try, big high-end prizes are cool for viewers, but really not that big of an incentive. (Example numbers for example distribution: if there’s 12 teams in a league, 4-5-6 would get back 1x their fees, where 1-2-3 would get back 4x-3x-2x what they paid in order)
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fees below Main/IM really are a bad idea because of player demographics, high NC being good enough to be good enough for playoffs in AM, and AM(and tbh maybe IM too depending on role/player) really being doable for anyone with 1k+ hours and no comp experience. The amount of unknown quantity players and teams with average ages of 15 makes any given caveat with this system significantly worse, especially in Open divs, souring the new player experience for most teams.
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