Implemented Tier Lock in Playoffs

[Star]

The TD team is looking to modify the existing tier lock rule to also extend to playoffs. Tiebreakers will still be excluded and participants can play any tier there regardless of their signup.

The main impetus for the tier lock rule was to prevent price-fixing, and through various adjustments it has mostly done that. However, we have still seen several cases of players signing up for some tier they're unfamiliar with / wouldn't get bought for to lower their price and then be available for playoffs in their "real" tier.

Obviously there are varying degrees of problems here but the one we are most focused on is players specifically trying to avoid playing in the regular season and just be available for playoffs. We think it is against the spirit of the tour to essentially sign up as a substitute with the goal of only playing if the team makes playoffs. The current system allows these kinds of cases, but it would be prevented by extending tier lock to playoffs. We also think it just makes inherent sense that your "Tiers NOT Played" should apply anywhere full lineups are used, as the playoff week structure is not different from regular season weeks.

However, we are not looking to apply this in tiebreakers given that the number of slots (and maximum number of tiers) comes down to 3. Due to the tier pick structure, tiebreakers generally involve the best players playing tiers they might not usually play, and we are not looking to apply any restrictions in those scenarios.

We plan on making a decision on this topic before SPL season, so this thread is to invite public discussion.

 

[z0mOG]

I fully support the inclusion of this change. As a frequent manager, I've very much appreciated the steps taken so far towards making team cancering as obsolete as we possibly can. This is another step to reinforce the positive spirit of the game that we want cultivated, and I see no good reason it should not be included in future tournaments.

 

[fade]

This proposal just makes tier lock as a whole feel like shooting yourself in the foot. Anyone who is able to float / play multiple tiers should be able to pick out whatever they are not willing to commit 9 weeks to and exclude themselves out of said tiers knowing that they can be unrestricted and fit to the teams needs come playoffs. Those are the people who will be affected, rather than who I believe this to be targeted towards: benchriders like nat + zioziotrip who signed up without intentions of playing unless their team make playoffs. Choose a different way to handle the (very few) people like that. Retains being tier locked is ridiculous we don't need to add even more restrictions.

 

[obii]

Disagree with this change.

I'm not sure if zom's post is suggesting that the current form of "price-fixing" is team cancering but in case it is, I'd argue it's not. I wouldn't even call it price-fixing since I think it's a legitimate strategy and makes the tour more interesting in a few ways. mind in spl is a good example of this since he played DPP for regular season, for 10.5k, and now has the ability to switch to SV. I'd argue that his lower price is a fair tradeoff for him being limited from his main tier for at most 9 games, and being able to play at minimum 2 games in his "real tier".

Another point is that not having a tier lock in playoffs allows teams to adjust their lineup if needed. We often see very different lineups in playoffs than we do in regular season and having a tier lock even there would be very limiting in terms of forming a desired team composition. I think it's a legitimate and interesting strategy to pay less for a strong player to go into a different tier, and then having them able to go elsewhere for playoffs. The team IS paying the price difference since that player is restricted from their main tier.

I think current tier lock rules are great, as it eliminates any ambiguity as to what tier a player will actually play, and if they're willing to play xyz for friends, which led to a very suffocating auction for less socially inclined managers.

What seems to be the issue now is that a few players are slipping through the cracks of a good system, and those should probably be handled differently, if at all. The goal of this tier lock seems to be to prevent those specific players but it's much more wide-reaching than that and will undoubtedly affect genuinely flexible players.

 

[ABR]

Option 3 - nuke tier lock.

Right now we are incentivizing people to play shit they are worse at (or outright won't play as others have mentioned) in order to be cheaper. This is the opposite of a competitive virtue and lessens the overall quality of our tours.

If someone wants a free ride to playoffs alone they're not entitled to that and should plainly choose between playing and skipping the tour.

If someone truly feels a passion for another tier and wants to go there, they can do so - but at a higher, normal looking price without tier lock. They can also move around as they please if they aren't feeling it, yippee!

The no lock system worked for eons and honestly we started seeing more issues once we tried the half season and they've persisted to this day. Go back to the good old ways.

(but the OP's idea is better than the status quo)

 

[baddummy]

I wholeheartedly support this change. Ultimately if you want to lock yourself out of playing a tier, it's a decision you made and you should have to commit to that.

People locking themselves out of tiers played for the regular season so they can be shifted into that tier for playoffs is very silly, the regular season is as much a part of the tour as playoffs are, and this sort of behaviour deducts from the competitiveness of weeks 1 through 9. It might be the case that people feel like tier locking yourself is now too detrimental - but in that case don't do it. You are fully entitled to just leave all tiers open and therefore be able to provide maximum value for your team.

Tier locking is simply an option that gives players the ability to still sign up if they really don't want to play a tier they're known to be good at, to instead play a different tier. This ruleset change lets players keep that option, closes loopholes, and keeps people honest to the commitment they made at the start of the tour. This is an objectively good change.

 

[Amaranth]

Option 3 - nuke tier lock.

Right now we are incentivizing people to play shit they are worse at (or outright won't play as others have mentioned) in order to be cheaper. This is the opposite of a competitive virtue and lessens the overall quality of our tours.

If someone wants a free ride to playoffs alone they're not entitled to that and should plainly choose between playing and skipping the tour.

If someone truly feels a passion for another tier and wants to go there, they can do so - but at a higher, normal looking price without tier lock. They can also move around as they please if they aren't feeling it, yippee!

The no lock system worked for eons and honestly we started seeing more issues once we tried the half season and they've persisted to this day. Go back to the good old ways.

(but the OP's idea is better than the status quo)

this is the single possible worst take anyone can have on the issue of tier lock

your memory doesn't work, or you are remembering the past through rose tinted glasses. things were dogshit with no tierlock, people claimed to "not want to play a tier" and then play that fucking tier anyway when their favorite manager bought them, all the time

it seems to me that people truly forgot what SPL was like pre-2020 before all of the format improvements were made. we have killed midseason cheaters, we have killed "i won't play this tier (actually plays the tier)" cheaters, we have killed "i am probably only available some of the time (is actually available every week)" cheaters. these were good solid improvements to the quality of the tournament, of course we have not reached perfection yet but "it's not perfect so i guess nuke everything and go back to the wild west" is truly just illogical

definitely maintain all the good progress that has been made, and keep making progress towards cracking down on the edge cases. i support the proposal in the op


also quickly while i'm here, re: obii's concerns. genuinely flexible players will have no reason to lock themselves out of anything, so no, they will not be impacted. if you want to be particular and picky and ~only play DPP~ because you feel special, then YOU are deciding to remove your own flexibility. the rules are not going to restrict you unless you want to restrict yourself, and in that case it's your funeral

 

[D4 Repertoire]

I support the proposed change. I think that tier lock being used in the strategic manner that obii talks about is unhealthy for the tournament because it lessens the self-determination of teams in the tour.

The inherent tradeoff with the tier lock gambit is that the team doing it is worse during the regular season but better during the playoffs.
(For example maybe they make playoffs only 20% of the time but win playoffs 50% of the time that they do make it in instead of a regular team normally making playoffs 40% of the time and winning from playoffs 25% of the time; a 1/10 chance to win in either case)

Normally, a team's success in the tournament can be ensured just by taking care of business themselves. All the teams they encounter will be on equal footing in some sense, and they just need to come out ahead in those "fair" encounters to progress. However, when a team that's gone for a significant tier lock gambit exists, keeping that team out of playoffs is extremely important to a regular team winning the tournament. This is because the tier lock team will have an inherent advantage if it reaches playoffs. This means that a team's chance of winning the tour depends much more on which other teams make playoffs--specifically that at least 3 other teams finish ahead of the tier lock team, something that they have minimal control over.

(Using the example numbers from above, a regular team would have a 1/4 chance of winning playoffs if the tier lock team misses but only a 1/6 chance to win if they make it, a relative reduction of 33%. Without such a tier lock team, a regular team would be indifferent as to which other teams make playoffs in this simple model. These numbers I picked are somewhat extreme but not that unrealistic if a team does this with strong enough players in 2-3 slots)

Therefore, I think that this strategy being removed is good for the tour--whether it manifests as playing an off-tier in the regular season into one's main tier in playoffs or as benching into playing in playoffs--because in both cases it has the undesirable effect that I discussed above.

 

[HANTSUKI]

I support the OP. It also helps the poor guy who knows he might be subbed out at playoffs because they have a better/more clout player than him for that slot - seems a pretty annoying situation for me. This midground nowadays sucks, if you're going to tier lock just tier lock through all weeks (except tiebreaks of course).

If you want to be a flexible player just do not tier lock yourself. If you don't want to play something for 9 weeks then give the slot to someone who actually does, they deserve the fun.

 

[MANNAT]

Nuking tier lock is a lot less unhinged than people replying to ABR have implied. Social capital is an important part of being a good manager and recent changes have eroded the importance of that quality.

If you can’t motivate players to do what’s best for the team in situations where they don’t end up on the team they wanted, and you bought a player that you knew wouldn’t be at their best on your team, then that’s a failing of you as a manager.

Like ABR said, price fixing attempts accelerated once the initial edition of tier lock rules were put into place. Prior to those changes, all of the “I’m not really available early in the tour” and “I don’t wanna play X tier” into actually just playing that tier wasn’t a significant issue.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of the people that sign up for SPL do so because they want to play in the tournament. Historically, people naturally sort themselves out after the auction, outside of fringe cases already covered by the cancering rules, and manager capital should be important.

 

[Excal]

The idea that we should nuke tier lock to increase social capital’s already high influence on official teamtours is something else.

Tier locking playoffs is especially important for SCL, as it’s much easier for level 100 singles players to lock themselves out of regular season with doubles and lc signups.

Restricting tiers played in a signup is a concession the player makes to benefit themselves. If they shoot themselves in the foot with their signup, that’s on them, not the rules.

I support the proposed change as a logical extension of a rule that has done way more good than harm. Think after this we will have finally found the sweet spot.

 

[z0mOG]

Like ABR said, price fixing attempts accelerated once the initial edition of tier lock rules were put into place. Prior to those changes, all of the “I’m not really available early in the tour” and “I don’t wanna play X tier” into actually just playing that tier wasn’t a significant issue.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of the people that sign up for SPL do so because they want to play in the tournament. Historically, people naturally sort themselves out after the auction, outside of fringe cases already covered by the cancering rules, and manager capital should be important.

I dunno what sort of rose tinted glasses you are wearing but just to show an (egregious) example to the uninformed, this is what SPL price fixing looked like before the modern changes:

...

hey look you were even there

 

[MANNAT]

I dunno what sort of rose tinted glasses you are wearing but just to show an (egregious) example to the uninformed, this is what SPL price fixing looked like before the modern changes:

...

hey look you were even there

There’s a reason this guy was permabanned. My post literally says “outside of fringe cases”.

 

[Raiza]

agree with extending but moreso agree with keeping tierlock, as a manager I want to just think about drafting the best team possible by looking at the signups as they are instead of trying to scheme with my friends to get an advantage, even if I had the possibility to do so. Simply the less bs we have to deal with the better.
Social capital, as in how much you socialize and are friends with players that might want to make your team a favor by only playing a certain tier for you, is certainly a quality but it's not a quality we should incentivize more than it already is, and I don't think it should be what makes or breaks a manager. Removing tier lock would just help actual bad managers that wouldnt be able to piece up a decent draft if they didnt have social connections or easy way out fixes.

 

[Star]

Given the mostly positive feedback and internal TD alignment, we will be implementing this.

Future editions of SPL and SCL will have Tiers Not Played apply for both regular season and playoff weeks. Tiebreakers are still excluded from the tier lock.