[MKU-DX] Season 16 Plans

[Brandon]

Hello everyone,

To begin, we'd like to thank everyone who participated in Season 15. We understand that, for several teams, it did not turn out to be as enjoyable as many were hoping, but it never hurts to try new things; unfortunately, it seems this format just didn't work out. Of course, it is not our intention to suggest that everyone dislikes it in its entirety, as that is not the case, but the immense feedback, while overwhelmingly negative towards this format, at least helps to give us an idea of what our next steps should be, being the reason you're reading this thread.

This past week, we conducted a poll to gain an idea of what all of you thought about this format. We thought we'd share the results, as they will dictate what our next steps are. The first pie chart listed is the overall results from the actual poll itself, and the charts that follow detail specific demographics from all 314 responses we received. Without further ado:

Spoiler: Results

After looking at all of the charts, it should be pretty clear what our next steps are — we are going to be returning to conference format for Season 16. It honestly caught us by surprise that all of the charts are relatively similar, although, truth be told, we aren't exactly surprised by the results themselves. Given the feedback we were hearing leading up to the poll, it's basically what we were anticipating.

If you were a fan of the Promotion/Relegation format and are disappointed with the results, don't worry. It is pretty likely that it will return in the future as a tournament preceding a regular MKU season, albeit with some adjustments. While this format may not be ideal for an MKU setting, we do feel like it has some untapped potential. Specific details about this are rather flimsy at the moment, so obviously, we aren't going to say anything for certain just yet.

As for Season 16 itself, we are currently in the process of getting everything ready to go for when we run it before the year concludes. We'd also like to add that banners for Season 15 will be released at some point in the coming days, so be on the lookout for those. Finally, it'd be wrong of us not to extend a goodbye to @Athaway and @Lez who have recently departed from MKU Staff. They've both done an insane amount of work, not just for us, but for the community as a whole, and we greatly appreciate them for that.

We'd again like to thank everyone who participated this season, as well as those who partook in the poll. Here's to hoping that, with this outcome, we'll be able to move forward without having to worry about format complications for a change, being able to focus more on what really matters; having fun.

- MKU Staff

 

[Nato]

Why Brandon

 

[Blaze]

Why Brandon

 

[imasara]

i was minding my business and i saw a discord notification and i thought it would be something important and i saw this and i typed these

 

[Athaway]

Brandon you might want to retire after that thread

 

[myles]

I'm surprised

 

[Zenith]

thanks guys

 

[Nato]

@Brandon why

 

[Rookie]

Tbh, I would just get rid of the S15 format entirely. I think you have it mixed up - it is ideal for a MKU setting, the community just didn't like it over the older MKU format. I'm not sure if there's much reason to host a 2nd divisional team tournament when another one (MKU) will clearly just be more popular. It'd be a rehash rather than an innovation, even if the format was done right the next time.

 

[Teeples]

I just want to make one suggestion when returning to the conference format.

I would propose that the playoffs are crossover meaning the following in the given scenarios.

1) 2 conference A teams and 2 conference B teams make playoffs: A1vsB2 | B1vsA2
2) 3 conference A teams and 1 conference B team makes playoffs: A1vs A3 | B1vsA2
3) 1 conference A team and 3 conference B teams make playoffs: A1vsB2 | B1vsB3

 

[Sz Kuru]

I'd like to propose an Idea I got.

To mix both format, 8 teams per division, the 1st week would be a bracket with double bracket, you have to win 3 matchs (quarter finals, semi, finals) to get promoted into the division higher, and if you lose 3 matchs (quarter, place for the 5th/6th, place for the 7th/8th) to get retrograde into the lower division. It means, less team who'll get to play 3 matchs a week because teams between 3rd - 6th place won't go up/down and it might avoid seedings problems. It add only a week more from the former format and we lose a group stage week. After this bracket stage, the conference format would start

 

[Hollend]

I'd like to sorry in advance if I misspell some words and grammar isn't perfect, will try to fix that after school in a few hours..

Regarding the comeback of conference format, I'd like to give a showcase a new m bracket format I've been thinking about.

This bracket is divided into 2 distinct sections:

1. Division Rounds Bracket:

The idea behind this week is to create opportunities to lower div teams to climb faster in the divisions like Felix's format was aiming.
Each Division Rounds Brackets will be a package of 4 divisions (3 if necessary due to an amount of divisions that isn't a multiple of 4)
This bracket will lead to Division playoffs with 8 teams for each divisions. Teams playing in each division playoffs will be as follow:

-Losing 1st Round: d4 playoffs
-Losing 2nd Round: d3 playoffs
-Losing 3rd Round: d2 playoffs
-Winning 3rd Round: d1 playoffs

The biggest advantage with adding this 'Gauntlet' sort of bracket makes it so there's opportunities for anyone to play playoffs from a higher division (regarding the level), now when it comes to the top of the competition, this will provide the best 8 teams every time regardless of the division played during the championship phase.

These matches will be played from 20CEST to 22CEST within the same week. Yes that means there's 3 matches in the same day but looking at the bracket, it's unlikely a team has to play all 3 matches (the only team who may be risking it is seed 17 i.e. 1st of D3), otherwise it should always be from 1 to 2 matches.

Some schedule adjustments will be required especially for our Friends of Version 2 as (if I consider they're seed d4-5) they'll have to play either on saturday of next week or earlier the sunday with teams being prepared to play in those early times. I'm pointing out the biggest issue for this bracket but for the rest, this should have great feedbacks especially in lower divisions. It should also help finding what are lower teams' actual skill since well... if you're better you'll go higher in the bracket.

2. Playoffs Bracket:

This is in the continuity of the Division Rounds Bracket. Teams that will reach a certain division bracket will play QF (or R1) and SF (R2 for losers of QF). 3rd, 5th and 7th place matches will not be played* and final placement will be set depending of the teams results during the championship phase so last week of competition will be dedicated to Finals and special matches I'm bringing between the D4s and D5s.

*not every team will be free after SF/R2 as it'll then become a nightmare to get promoted from d5(d9,d13,d17) to d4(d8,d12,d16), here's the reason of the existence Promotion Matches.

These are special matches will be played by 3rd and 4th of the Bracket of D5 (i.e. losers of SF) and 5th and 6th of D4 (i.e. winners of R2). This is meant to give more chances to more teams to go higher in the division. please note that these matches will be Bo1 and that the two teams from the same divisions will not play each other. Top 2 teams out of these 4 matches will be promoted/maintained in d4 while bottom 2 will be in d5 for the next season. Reminder, this only matters for 3rd and 4th of the Bracket of D5 (i.e. losers of SF) and 5th and 6th of D4 (i.e. winners of R2).

tl;dr the whole season will last 9 weeks as given below:

I think that's about it, thanks for reading (I'll edit some grammar mistakes later)

 

[Hollend]

I'd like to sorry in advance if I misspell some words and grammar isn't perfect, will try to fix that after school in a few hours..

Regarding the comeback of conference format, I'd like to give a showcase a new m bracket format I've been thinking about.

This bracket is divided into 2 distinct sections:

1. Division Rounds Bracket:

The idea behind this week is to create opportunities to lower div teams to climb faster in the divisions like Felix's format was aiming.
Each Division Rounds Brackets will be a package of 4 divisions (3 if necessary due to an amount of divisions that isn't a multiple of 4)
This bracket will lead to Division playoffs with 8 teams for each divisions. Teams playing in each division playoffs will be as follow:

-Losing 1st Round: d4 playoffs
-Losing 2nd Round: d3 playoffs
-Losing 3rd Round: d2 playoffs
-Winning 3rd Round: d1 playoffs

The biggest advantage with adding this 'Gauntlet' sort of bracket makes it so there's opportunities for anyone to play playoffs from a higher division (regarding the level), now when it comes to the top of the competition, this will provide the best 8 teams every time regardless of the division played during the championship phase.

These matches will be played from 20CEST to 22CEST within the same week. Yes that means there's 3 matches in the same day but looking at the bracket, it's unlikely a team has to play all 3 matches (the only team who may be risking it is seed 17 i.e. 1st of D3), otherwise it should always be from 1 to 2 matches.

Some schedule adjustments will be required especially for our Friends of Version 2 as (if I consider they're seed d4-5) they'll have to play either on saturday of next week or earlier the sunday with teams being prepared to play in those early times. I'm pointing out the biggest issue for this bracket but for the rest, this should have great feedbacks especially in lower divisions. It should also help finding what are lower teams' actual skill since well... if you're better you'll go higher in the bracket.

2. Playoffs Bracket:

This is in the continuity of the Division Rounds Bracket. Teams that will reach a certain division bracket will play QF (or R1) and SF (R2 for losers of QF). 3rd, 5th and 7th place matches will not be played* and final placement will be set depending of the teams results during the championship phase so last week of competition will be dedicated to Finals and special matches I'm bringing between the D4s and D5s.

*not every team will be free after SF/R2 as it'll then become a nightmare to get promoted from d5(d9,d13,d17) to d4(d8,d12,d16), here's the reason of the existence Promotion Matches.

These are special matches will be played by 3rd and 4th of the Bracket of D5 (i.e. losers of SF) and 5th and 6th of D4 (i.e. winners of R2). This is meant to give more chances to more teams to go higher in the division. please note that these matches will be Bo1 and that the two teams from the same divisions will not play each other. Top 2 teams out of these 4 matches will be promoted/maintained in d4 while bottom 2 will be in d5 for the next season. Reminder, this only matters for 3rd and 4th of the Bracket of D5 (i.e. losers of SF) and 5th and 6th of D4 (i.e. winners of R2).

tl;dr the whole season will last 9 weeks as given below:

I think that's about it, thanks for reading (I'll edit some grammar mistakes later)

Regarding promotions and delegations, the best 2 teams of a division during the Bracket phase will be promoted. E.G. if 2 teams from d4 manage to get into d3 playoffs, then those 2 teams will be automatically promoted to d3 next season (also giving them two matches between d3 teams to see the skill range to top it of).
If more than 2 teams manage to get to the upper Division playoffs, it'll always be : X teams - 1
For example, if 4 teams (yeah that's a lot) goes from d4 championship to d3 playoffs, 3 of them will be promoted and thus 3 of the 4 teams from d3 will be relegated.
In case of a team going up multiple division, it'll be considered as part of the teams of the division below it plays the playoffs.
To be clearer, if a d19 team goes to d16 playoffs, this team will be considered as a d17 team in the promotion/relegation system, leading to the rest of the d19 teams to still have 2 spots for promotions

 

[RhayKou]

All hours are in CEST format

I'd like to propose a format which could be a mix between conference format and side-tournaments :

First of all, conference format seems to please players, or at least more than the S15's one

For that reason, we could have 2 Conference of 8 like below :

The 4 first weeks could be played as the following screen illustrates it, with 2 matchs during week 1-2-3 and only 1 during week 4 :

As you can see, each team will face each opponent from its conference and only from it

Then, each team will have a classement from 1 to 8 in Conference A or B, and the bracket phase could begin

This system could give some importance for Conference phase by giving you an easier path during the bracket, yet it's not so of prime importance for weeks 5 to 8.

Now I will give you an exemple :

Imagine during the Conference phase you reach the 1st place of your conference (A for instance), you will face the last from Conference B, which is presumably an easier opponent than the 1st of conference B for instance.
If you win your 1st match, you continue in the Winner part of the bracket, if you lose, you have a 2nd chance to reach the grand final with a loser part of the bracket (which really looks like Frontier system). With that system, you cannot have more than 2 wars per weeks, except during the week 8 if the loser finalist win the 1st match at 21.
As each double elimination system, the lower part will have more wars to play than the winners one, but no more than 2 wars per Sunday.

If you want to add final placements matches for teams eliminated early, it's definitely possible as following :

Each teams with that systems will play at least 11 wars per season and could play 16 wars at maximum (which is the current maximum with S14's system) and will play for at least 6 weeks.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and also for your great job !
Have a nice day

 

[Haupi]

I'm not that active anymore, but the old 10 week format WITHOUT playoffs was the best I've ever played. For smaller teams its literally impossible to have 6 motivated players for more than one match (I just couldn't enjoy 2 or 3 matches in a row and I never heard that someone of my mates really enjoyed it). Brackets and 2,3,4 matches per day should only be part of tournaments like amplify (never saw a football club playing more than one match at league day). That's just my opinion after playing mario kart competitively for 6 years. I would like to have the OG format back, but I think that's not gonna be the case unfortunately.

Spoiler: format table

 

[immdaviid]

S15:

https://imgur.com/a/n4F95Ig

 

[TheKoopaGuy]

I'm not that active anymore, but the old 10 week format WITHOUT playoffs was the best I've ever played. For smaller teams its literally impossible to have 6 motivated players for more than one match (I just couldn't enjoy 2 or 3 matches in a row and I never heard that someone of my mates really enjoyed it). Brackets and 2,3,4 matches per day should only be part of tournaments like amplify (never saw a football club playing more than one match at league day). That's just my opinion after playing mario kart competitively for 6 years. I would like to have the OG format back, but I think that's not gonna be the case unfortunately.

Spoiler: format table

We already knew that germans dislike the conference format, but there's very little chance we're going back to 10-week seasons with 1 match a week

 

[Flo]

We already knew that germans dislike the conference format, but there's very little chance we're going back to 10-week seasons with 1 match a week

Not only germans, I also feel like this old format was the best and I know some people that think the same

Edit: The best thing would be to adapt and change the format following the division's level. I'm pretty sure top4-6 teams doesn't care anymore about playing top 8-16 teams. Why not bring back this 10 weeks format for Division 1/Division 2 (and maybe Division 3?) and adapt another format for lower divs ? I'm pretty sure this 16 div format worked great for bottom 5 divisions but was terrible for top teams.

 

[Jazzy]

It's great to see people trying to contribute by proposing ideas for MKU. That's great, we need that, and any debate on these topics is healthy.

I read the suggestions above. I'm sure you all have good intent here, and that's great, but I really don't see these formats as getting close to solving the issues we had with S15. I detailed what those issues were on this post, which i suggest you read to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The main issues I presented were that the format is confusing, it doesn't result in teams trying their hardest (despite the initial theory that it would), and the split season being a bad idea. Unfortunately (and no offense to you, since I know you are all trying to help), I just see most or all of these issues reappearing with these proposed formats. You can be your own judge, but I feel I made some convincing arguments regarding the matter.

I concluded that post with the following paragraph:

This past season was an interesting experiment, but it should be seen as just that--an experiment. We've learned a lot of lessons from Season 15, and I think we can use this experience and knowledge to our benefit in the end. Although constantly experimenting isn't really a good thing--we need some form of consistency--I don't think it was the biggest mistake we could have made. We just need to learn from this, and move forward, and try to be smarter in the future.

This presents a vital take-away. Season 15 was an experiment that didn't turn out as planned. And it should be treated as such. If we continue experimenting season after season, not only does it confuse and alienate everyone, but it projects the impression that MKU has no vision other than to "try harder". If you're constantly changing the format, it's impossible to really say what MKU is anymore. It's just a tournament that becomes different every time, only valued by its status, history, and recognition. That's opposite to what it should be. MKU is successful and so highly regarded because it was so good, the best we had. I'd argue that something like Frontier recently was far better than MKU S15, even though both were innovative. Unfortunately, MKU, which is most people's event of choice, was not the best we had to offer. If we want to continue to advertise MKU as our flagship event, it has to live up to that name. The more we mess with MKU, the more we tarnish it. Of course, there's room to change things here and there, but constant change and experimentation is not the way to go here.

My suggestion: revert back to the old conference format for S16. It's a tried and tested formula, even if not perfect, but it's the best we can do without experimenting more and risking messing up again.

A few seasons down the road, we can consider another major change to the format. But we'll need to think it through better then, or we'll risk ending up with another format that is just as flawed as we just have.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone weighing in on this. It's really good, no such thing as a stupid idea, just some may end up better than others.

Thanks!

 

[Seb]

A little thing i want if we have the conference Format like Season 14:
- 3rd place Match after Semi Finals lose for not having Tie Placements

Then another Thing:
- In Season 15 we have to much weeks that Teams aren't playing a Match and weeks with 3 or more Matches. Without a Match in a week you have to wait to long in my opinion. Ig its better to have save Matches and you can focus them. In a League Format you know your opponment every week and you can Focus week by week for them. So you train your playstyle for this opponment. In Playoffs you know this If you win or lose. So it's harder to train for it. So the team they are constant and train have a better chance to win.
Playoffs after a League is fine for me but i miss it to play League Matches. We have a lot of Playoff tournaments and a League format would do the MKU unique. The pacific League is a good start for them but for europeans unplayable because its at 5/6 am CEST.
Greedings Seb