Weird league structure

#1

Explodey

1. No apparent reason for divisions
Why are they dividing teams into two divisions? Did they mention the reason anywhere? Because I really don't see the point of this. I did talk about the possibility of Blizzard having two or more divisions for the league about two months ago in one thread (https://www.over.gg/5409/overwatch-league-teams/?page=2#60), but my reasoning was to decrease the distance to travel for each team by not having to play against the teams of different regional division until playoffs. But they are not even doing that, so I don't really see what purpose this is serving. Are they planning to do that for later seasons when teams will actually have to travel around?

2. One less match against random(?) four teams
Also, five matches against the teams in same division and five matches against the teams of the other division for each stage "seems" fair, but if you think about it, this is really weird too. You have six teams in each division, so teams will have five teams to compete against in the division they are part of, but they have six teams to compete against in the division they are not part of. In the end, each team will compete with everyone except one team in different division in each stage. This might not seem like much, but this could end up giving slight advantage in the overall map score to the teams that played less games against the top teams.

For example, if you check the schedule, you can see Seoul Dynasty will not play against Philadelphia for stage 1, Boston for stage 2, Florida for stage 3, and Houston for stage 4. This means Seoul will play against these teams three times during regular season, and four times against all other teams.
So if there is a team that is playing one less match against top 4 teams, they will have advantage over a team who is playing one less match against bottom 4 teams. I don't know if this will make a huge difference, but I don't see why they can't just add one more match in each stage, so every team will compete against each other same number of matches.

#2

ideekae

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It honestly does not mean anything in S1. However, come S2, it will probably mean home games in their region since teams will be in their respective locations.

edit: i reread the post, and it will have an effect to some extent with how games are matched up, but it would probably end up the same say regardless of the system.

#8

DrWitz42

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It might not necessarily end up the same regardless of the system, but I do agree that it's not too big a deal for season 1. If they added 4 more games to make sure each team plays the other teams an equal amount of times, they would end up playing out of division more often than in.

The divisions most certainly will be more important next year. How they will end up doing the scheduling for travel will be interesting. Having a Texas team be in the same division as a Korean team will be tough to schedule for viewers since KST is roughly minus 10 hours (depending on the time of year) than Texas time and one day ahead. Hopefully, more Asia teams will be added in the future and they can create a division over there as well. That'll help build the global viewing experience.

#3

poi98

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Well they actually used the NBA system but improved a lot thanks to the 4 stage system( anyway i agree they have to play against all same numer of match)... but the structure is awesome to my eyes...but i think we will see if it will works

#5

Explodey

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I am not saying having divisions is bad. I just don't see why.
For the second point though, I don't like how it could give unfair advantage to some teams.

I certainly do like 4 stage system too! Overall, I really like what they are doing. I just found these two things a bit odd.

#22

Mewpers

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It’s to reduce the traveling strain on the teams.

#4

remiska

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agree
and comeon we have 12! teams stop over complicating things

#6

robokun87

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When it comes to sports Americans never do anything simple, ever. They complicate the shit out of everything that doesn't need complicating, the entire point of the OWL was to get the 12 best teams playing against each other, how can you possibly complicate that?

#7

Pixelfish

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Ur just a ray of sunshine aren't you

You realize every team will still play against each other, right?

#9

robokun87

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Then it begs the question, why do this? if you're going to have them all playing against each other have one league and hey man, we can't all be massive positive OWL fanboys like you we do need a bit of negativity as well, something you clearly know nothing about.

#10

remiska

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you forgot you cant be negative on this forum
right now because im negative even when i just post links to stats it gets downvoted which is a joke

#13

KuroiRyuu9625

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Disagreeing with the majority isn't necessarily negative, it's just an opinion. Now, if you shit on people for having a different opinion, whether popular or not, is what I'd consider negative. Also, getting down voted shouldn't mean much to anyone since it's just some random person hitting a button on a post you make.

Not sure how many times you've complained about it, and still are, already but imo it shouldn't matter.

#14

robokun87

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What's really negative is the flat out immaturity whenever someone doesn't agree with the general popular opinion or says something remotely negative about one of two gods, Seagull or Dafran. This concept of downvoting someone who doesn't agree with you is the dumbest shit on the planet hence why I've probably had more downvotes than anyone else on the site because I'm not a sheep.

Still couldn't care less unless there's a hidden system in place that bans you after so many downvotes :P

#15

KuroiRyuu9625

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I think your choice of words gains you more ire than your actual opinion. Negative fluff is just as disruptive as overly positive hot hair and distracts from the actual message you're trying to convey, imo.

Being direct and to the point is important, and sometimes even required, but throwing some extra BS like insults or other pointless banter tends to invalidate even the best of arguments yes? I do my best to ignore the irrelevant fluff that gets added to some comments but it does sometimes take away from the core of the message by changing my perception of it's tone.

So to me at least, labels like rebel, or not a sheep, aren't free card to fling shit around like it's 1969.

#16

robokun87

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No the fact I don't agree is what causes ire my choice of words is reserved for afterwards, anyway let's not fill the thread up with off-topic pish because this is the way over.gg words and it's all good, I'll keep disagreeing with the masses and collect my downvotes :)

#20

poi98

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well i dont agree with you... for examples i've been always negative about xQc and Seagull....also on the first times i was a little bit negative about harbleu but no one said that i am an idiot or things like that like on reddit. Just share opinions but even if you get downvoted just dont watch that...also is the way you( general terms not you robokun) put yourselves is important...:)

#11

Wombat

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I imagine that a lot of this is the foundation and groundwork for future OWL seasons when there will actually be home and away games with expanded divisions that contain more than 6 teams. It makes sense to try out the proposed division system for season two and work out any unseen kinks in the system now since they have the opportunity to do so.

A symptom of this does seem to be an over complicated system that doesn't really make any sense.

#12

KuroiRyuu9625

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Not sure them being american has anything to do with their scheduling choice though, I actually agree with you on the relatively excessive nature of the format but then again, I don't have the insight they do, and obviously neither do you. Like, I fail to understand why you would choose to bring nationality into this as it's irrelevant to the subject at hand.

In any case I assume divisions are being put into place now even though they will only have an effect once the teams play from they home stadium.

I also think that if they want to go the division route, rankings within the division itself may be more important than overall ranking when it comes to making the playoffs. I have nothing to corroborate this as I'm just basing it off traditional sports so take it with a grain of salt.

Essentially to make this system work they'd have to play once against teams of the other division and at least twice against teams of their own division, bumping the total number of games per regular season up to 16, from 10. With teams playing 2 games per week and having a week off in between each phase the regular season would last for 16 weeks.

I'm assuming that may be too long for them? Hard to tell but I'd actually prefer that format since it add a bit more meaning to inter division matches and rivalries since you know you'll see them again.

#17

Explodey

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Playing twice against the teams of their own division and once against the others kinda makes sense for me actually. That way, travel distance would be decreased while still maintaining a sense of all teams being in one league. We will see how they build up on this system.

I feel like four stage system actually suits Overwatch pretty well. As metas rise and fall, we have seen different teams rise and fall as well. Since the length of one season of the league is pretty long, we will most likely see this happen within one season of OWL. This four stage system will make sure the team that was reigning king during a certain meta will get at least some reward, while the one who managed to stay on top throughout the season will be rewarded with a playoff spot since that is determined based on overall map score of all stages.

#21

remiska

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You realize every team will still play against each other, right?

at least read thread, point 2 is all about the fact that you wont play against everyone for no apparent reason

#18

robokun87

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I guess this will work in the future with about 16 teams or whatever and Blizzard want to have the structure in place for years before that happens so it makes sense from that point of view but still not a fan of the American divisions they have in every league, then again America is massive so what can you do.

#19

Explodey

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And the world is much bigger than America, since OWL is a global league (although most of the teams are based in US). I guess having the division system now at least tells us which direction they are headed. I guess trying to implement this system in later seasons might have stronger resistance from the fans, so they are building the ground for what they want to implement in the seasons to come.