Poll for changing the length of the seasons

[SeaWyrm]

I know I'm the obnoxious odd-guy-out for saying it, but it's a real bummer when people put polls and stuff on Facebook where only Facebook users can see it and you're le me and you don't want to use Facebook. :C
I mean, to some extent, that's the price I pay for not using Facebook and I just have to live with it if I'm going to be all fussy like this. But I just wanted to point it out as an unfortunate thing that is true.

[Entropy]

I just don't understand why I'm in like 8 different facebook groups for Descent Did you guys really have to make a new group for every little thing? lol

[Jediluke]

SeaWyrm, feel free to put your answer right here and we'll manully add it.

The New DCL Season draws near (Oct. 1st) We are contemplating changing the length of a season from 6 months to some other length of time and wanted community feedback.

1: 6 months seasons are perfect, don't change it. (has 5 votes currently)

2: 4 month seasons would be better (3 months is too short and 6 months is too long) (has 7 votes currently)

3: 3 month seasons would be great (6 months is too long) (has 1 vote currently)

[Jediluke]

Discussion that followed:

Daniel Keymer I'm thinking it's either 6 or 4. Yes, the seasons do seem long, but... I'm not sure they really are. At least not for my circumstances.
Since I don't have a strong preference I think leaving it as it is wins out through being easier.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 1:48am

Ernie Barnes I say 3 months because why not!?! tongue emoticon The algorithm only counts 90 days and the meteorological seasons are 90 days each. I mean numbers don't lie! They all point to 3 months! grin emoticon
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 2:18am

Mason Pluzak This is my first time seeing the ladder get reset. I've been told the only thing that happens is that everyone loses their W/L record. Why isn't everyone also made unranked? I would think that that could be a good way to fix the 'leaking' problem.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs

David Martin Mason, are you referring to seed or to skill rating?
Like · Reply · 14 hrs

Mason Pluzak I'm referring to this viewtopic.php?f=4&t=391

descentchampions.org • View topic - It's Leaking
DESCENTCHAMPIONS.ORG
Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 14 hrs

David Martin There is nothing wrong with bronze beating a silver and taking their rank.... But that one win doesn't necessarily mean they are also silver.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs

Mason Pluzak It's just that the ladder doesn't look very pretty when all the colours are everywhere haha. There are two gold in Bronze and Silver is all over the place.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs

David Martin The 2 gold are due to rank drops.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs

Catherine Darrow People who haven't played in a while are automatically retired at the season break, which does help clean things up. Some of the mixup is just people falling in rank and not playing.

I like the ladder sorted, too, and it usually mostly is. But the f...See More
Like · Reply · 14 hrs · Edited

David Martin Towards the end of a season I find myself not being able to remember details from the beginning of the season.... I'm thinking somethings that I recall having happened were from the previous season when in fact it was the current season but the seasons are just so long that I can't remember that far back I guess. I'm thinking three 4month seasons would be better.
Like · Reply · 13 hrs

Tom Darrow The advantage to short seasons is that everything seems to fit together.

The advantage to long seasons is that they give you time to progress and accumulate stats....See More
Like · Reply · 8 hrs

Ronald M. Clifford Perhaps someone can explain the philosophy behind seasons on the DCL? I voted to keep it as is simply because there's not a lot of motivation to do anything season-related, but maybe if I understand the why behind them, I might have a different opinion.
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 hrs · Edited

Mason Pluzak I share similar sentiments with Roncli. That's why I figure if the stats are going to be reset, might as well also reset the tiers. It might be cool to see what kinds of trends happen.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Ronald M. Clifford I actually like the stats reset. It makes the numbers more reasonable and comparable. That's why I voted as I did, keep it the same for comparison purposes. That's it, really.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Ernie Barnes If everything was reset I'd be down for six month seasons. Till then I'm with three.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow It provides a better look at your piloting over a career than globbing all the stats together onto a lifetime profile page would do. For example, Fall of 2013, my record was 4 -287 / 42 - 80 / 15 - 0. A plucky low silver pilot. Spring of 2015, my re...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow The seasons actually haven't been identical lengths in the past. I know one was seven months. I'm not sure about the others, exactly. But yes, if we changed the length, we'd have to recalibrate things like the "matches played" ribbons.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs · Edited

Mason Pluzak Yay metadata!
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

David Martin There is only a 90 day look back for determining skill rating tier. That is by design so that it represents your current level of skill with reasonable stability. Why while that out and start everyone as unranked... Which would add chaos to the rankings I would imagine.... Only for it all to end up right back where they are now?
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 hrs

David Martin Why THROW that out? Stupid phone keyboard
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

David Martin Or are you saying to keep the tier rankings but make everyone unseeded and needing to re-jockey for position on the ladder?
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

David Martin Either way, I'm against both personally
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Mason Pluzak I just think it might be interesting to make everyone unrated and then watch as they get their colours. Nothing really insightful behind it, I just think it would be cool.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow It doesn't work that way. When we launched the ladder, we built up enough data and then colored everyone at once. Everyone's scores are relative to everyone else's, so it doesn't know enough to color anyone until it knows enough to color almost everyone.
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 hrs

Mason Pluzak Wouldn't resetting the stats though mean that it has no initial data?
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow For those with a math/programming background: it will only color pilots who are on a single five-connected graph (where matches are edges).
Like · Reply · 7 hrs · Edited

Catherine Darrow No, resetting the stats has nothing to do with the ratings. The algorithm doesn't use your record. It uses your match history, and looks back 90 days regardless of season boundaries.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

David Martin All it would do is mess up cross tier stats imo.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow Yeah, it sucks to play matches against unrated pilots and not get proper credit for them one way or the other. It's necessary when people join the ladder or don't play for a long time . . . but we really try to minimize it.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow No, ratings and rankings persist across seasons. So do trophies. Medals, ribbons, and records reset.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Tom Darrow The reasoning behind seasons came from experience on IDL.

There were pilots, particularly guys like Humle and Alfa, who played a lot of matches over the course of a decade. At first they were kind of low LT pilots, but over time they got to be very s...See More
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Ronald M. Clifford With all this, I'm not seeing a compelling reason to change the current implementation of seasons. Shortening the season would cause the following:

- It becomes more difficult to get the higher tier participation medals (ie: different opponents, diff...See More
Like · Reply · 2 · 7 hrs

Ronald M. Clifford A semi-related question, what technical changes would have to be made to change the season? Are the seasons currently hard-coded to 6 months and given their names (ie: Fall 2015), or are the season names variable and the seasons ended manually?
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow - We would recalibrate the participation medals so they still reflect roughly the same pace
- Mark's already had one perfect season. wink emoticon You are actually not catching him at the high point of his career IMO, hard as that may be to believe.
- Streaks do...See More
Like · Reply · 7 hrs · Edited

Catherine Darrow No significant technical work either way. Season changes are manual, season names are just strings. Past seasons have been 6.5 months, 6 months, 7 months, and we're 5.5 months into this one.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs · Edited

Ronald M. Clifford replied · 1 Reply

Catherine Darrow If we went to three seasons, we would have to think up names for them. That would probably be most of the work involved.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

Ronald M. Clifford replied · 1 Reply

Ronald M. Clifford "Mark's already had one perfect season" He'd have 3 then if seasons were 3-months long instead of 6, which makes the concept of a perfect season a bit less special when it's been done multiple times.

"Streaks don't span seasons" This is exactly my poi...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 hrs

Catherine Darrow Ah -- I could have been more precise about streaks and seasons.

Streaks in the lifetime hall of fame page (http://descentchampions.org/hall_of_fam ... n=lifetime) ignore season boundaries. That's what you should be looking at if you want to c...See More
Like · Reply · 6 hrs · Edited

David Martin So all that being said I see little reason not to switch to three 4 month seasons.
Like · Reply · 1 · 6 hrs

Ernie Barnes 4 is better than 6 so I'm down for that.
Like · Reply · 4 hrs

Daniel Keymer Early/mid/late?
Unlike · Reply · 1 ·

[SeaWyrm]

Thanks, Jedi!

I don't feel too strongly about it, but I do think it might make seasons more compelling as things to pay attention to if they changed more often.
I joined at the beginning of the current season. That means I've been playing on this ladder for less than a whole season yet. I don't know how helpful that is as a measure to anyone but me, but if you're me, it makes six month seasons seem quite long indeed.
I think four month seasons would make good sense. Three months seasons might be too short, or then again might not. My instinct is to say that four month seasons would be better than three months - I can't back that up with any sort of rational argument, though.
I guess #2 is where my vote goes.

[Jediluke]

You're welcome.

Your vote is noted.

[Sirius]

Speaking of which, if seasons go down to 120 days, maybe we should just simplify stuff and make trophies last until the end of the season? I think they're reset each season anyway, right?