CAL Playoffs

how many teams are selected for playoffs?

and is it based only on RPI?

8 teams are selected first based on points, which is not what you see in the standings. If there is a tie for points it is broken by the RPI.

The points are awarded as follows:
4 - win
3 - Tie
2 - Loss
1 - Forfeit Win
0 - Forfeit Loss

So if you played lots of matches but lost you will actually be ranking higher then someone who has a perfect record but all FWs. In fact in 5 losses you can beat a guy with 8 Fws.

It's actually the top 8.

so its 8 and not 16?

Yeah apparently. I never can seem to believe that it takes 6 matches to get through 8 people for some reason =[

Fearsome* wrote:Yeah apparently. I never can seem to believe that it takes 6 matches to get through 8 people for some reason =[

idk why cal has playoffs setup like fios.....

3 rounds at the most for 8


quarters/semi/finals
just run consi-semi and consi-finals under the same map/round

4 rounds for 16

Cause its double elimination cause thats what some people wanted so that the best 2 teams compete in the finals. The way it is scheduled this year it is all done in 3 weeks but you have 2 matches a week.

I have been informed that the scheduling of the next round (playoff game 2)
WILL NOT be delayed due to matches not being played on time. Get them done guys. Unreported matches willl result in teams not moving forward.

I don't understand why CAL is becoming geared towards the 16 year olds or the unemployed, who can sit around and play games all day everyday. 2 matches a week? Are you kidding me? You guys are forgetting that a lot of players have lives and jobs ect, and I feel real sorry for teams who made it and are expected to adhere to that type of schedule. For teams that are serious and have been around forever, why would it matter if the season was 16 weeks long or 20 for that matter? Do you think that these teams are suddenly going to stop playing after 16 weeks? The answer is no, it does not matter and the serious teams will continue to play no matter how long the season is, but if you continue to make it too difficult for the majority of teams to play, then a fair amount of teams are going to stop competing as it's just to hard for those not strapped into their chair 24/7.

Aside from that can you please do something next season in regards to the point structure. The byes are a ridiculous situation, there is no excuse for having more than one team a week getting a bye. Also to make things fair, you need to make sure the byes are given to a different team each week. I know you don't like to do things manually but until CAL can get their auto scheduler working right I see no other choice.

Go through the weekly schedules and take a look at how many byes there were across the board in all divisions. I know a few teams dropped out and that makes it worse, but come on this is ridiculous especially in 1v1. Granted the problem subsided somewhat as the season progressed, but it can be fixed, and there is no reason to have the first half of the season botched by BYE's.

I can tell you the biggest part of the problem is that you start the season with last seasons team list (big mistake) in addition to the new sign ups. I have complained about this in the past and heard the same story of "thats what the pre-season is for, to weed out bad teams". Well I honestly don't think that is what a pre-season should be and it's been painfully obvious that its a epic fail when those bad teams continue to get scheduled beyond the pre-season. Once you get around to removing those teams, all the matches turn to byes and free points. Free points is not what CAL should be about, CAl should be about earned points by actual matches played. At times it can be pretty dam hard to earn points when your getting scheduled against bogus teams, (there were even teams getting scheduled in the first few weeks who didn't even have a full roster).

Please consider the following actions to make the CAL season worth playing and FAIR:

#1 Delete the entire divisions and wipe all teams from the list, make serious teams sign up again. (If your serious a 10 minute sign up won't bother you to do again)

#2 Make sure there is no more than one bye per week in each division. (If a team drops after scheduling, thats understandable, but leads to #3)

#3 Make BYE's worth 0 points, unless the match was actually played and the team dropped after it was completed.

#4 Make sure the same team is not given a auto BYE more than once a season (unless there is less than 8 teams, but I doubt that will be the case)

#5 Make forfeit wins worth 0 points. It is beyond lame the amount of non hl2dm players that signed up, then purposely made scheduling impossible only to race to the FW button on default day and time (which believe it or not does not work (default time) and is not possible for EVERYONE to make). This will eliminate a lot of disputes, as well as give teams more incentive to do make up matches with teams that need them, and in the long run make the true points MORE about matches played.

#6 Bring back the 2 week break after regular season before playoffs so that final disputes and make up matches can be resolved in a FAIR amount of time for all players, not just the unemployed. This also will give teams more time to really practice for there upcoming playoffs and be more competitive once the playoffs start.

#7 Make pre-season what it should be, a time to become familiar with the system, a time to play 2 matches that don't count but go along way towards helping teams see where they need to improve, not a time to weed out bogus teams or to learn where the FW button is. I cant tell you how many teams in the past have complained to me when they got scheduled against a bogus team in pre-season, they get discouraged quickly as they want to play but see this as a sign of things to come in the rest of the season, which leads to loss of interest and teams being more prone to dropping out due to frustration.

This post is in no way meant to disrespect the admins of CAL, I know its not easy, I know its time consuming and in general I respect what you are doing for the community. These are just problems that need to be dealt with if you want things to be FAIR for all and you want people to come back and try again in the following seasons to come.

L2K I agree with much.of what you said. I will need to reread and think about all of it some more. This is my first season adminning CAL so for me much of it has been to learn the proceedures and observe how it works. I agree there are things we can/need to do to improve it.

I agree that 2 matches a week is tough, I believe this is the first season it was tried? Maybe we need to adjust that for next season. You don't know how things are going to work until you try it.

The problem that can arise with giving more (not saying we shouldnt) or too much time after the regular season for makups is whether teams would still wait til the last possible minute and then still complain that they need even more time.

I think an adjustment in the default days might help as I stated before.

I got very frustrated with the fact that rosters were open for creating new teams for do long. For 2V2, I had to deal with them for just about the whole season because they get 2 chances to play their matches. If they join in week 6 then they have to week 8 to prove themselves. These are also mainly BS teams looking to cause trouble anyway and does create a lot of work. I think rosters should be closed after week 4 of the regular season because the chances of teams joining after that to make it into the playoffs is slim. I don't know why a legit team would join then anyway, it makes no sense.

I agree making FW worth nothing would hopefully give some incentive to play the match. I did have BS teams FW their opponents 2 days before the deadline. The reason you are seeing double Byes is because of teams that were later deleated for too many FL and Non reports. Their past matches become byes. On a couple of occasions, a team dropped too late in the week to give a new match a decent chance of being able to schedule.
You may not realize this, but at least half of the teams that signed up for 2v2 wre either deleated or they dropped.out before the season was over. That is the reason you see so many Byes.

Many in both divisions just stopped trying to schedule their matches and didn't play again.

So yea I agree that we could/should try some changes, but the issue remains that whatever we do, teams need to get their matches done in a reasonable amount so time so that the next week can be scheduled to give them time to schedule and get those matches played. Otherwise the domino effect works against us rather than for us, but it will take everyone's cooperation.

I have my own thoughts to add, but no time right now, so I will try to post later. This is a good discussion to have IMO.

Yes WT I agree it is and its one we need to have if we want CAL to grow. I look forward to any constructive input that anyone is willing to share.

#1 Delete the entire divisions and wipe all teams from the list, make serious teams sign up again. (If your serious a 10 minute sign up won't bother you to do again)

this isn't a bad idea, they do this in dods in cal-o open started doing it in s3 or s4 and it has helped with the bogus teams,

They create a New division once playoffs start so you can create your team well before the new season starts and before playoffs end.

" #2 Make sure there is no more than one bye per week in each division. (If a team drops after scheduling, thats understandable, but leads to #3) "

Like para said, this doesn't happen it's just when the bogus teams get kicked it changes there team name to a bye on the history section.


"#6 Bring back the 2 week break after regular season before playoffs so that final disputes and make up matches can be resolved in a FAIR amount of time for all players, not just the unemployed. This also will give teams more time to really practice for there upcoming playoffs and be more competitive once the playoffs start."

I don't like this idea, speaking from admin exp, the thing you need to do is keep as many teams active as possible or real teams will fade away. Matches should get done in one week at the most. dods/css are 6v6 and 5v5 and have less issues with this dods does 1 week break, which sucks for teams that make finals, but is about 4-5 weeks for those who don't.

"#7 Make pre-season what it should be, a time to become familiar with the system, a time to play 2 matches that don't count but go along way towards helping teams see where they need to improve, not a time to weed out bogus teams or to learn where the FW button is. I cant tell you how many teams in the past have complained to me when they got scheduled against a bogus team in pre-season, they get discouraged quickly as they want to play but see this as a sign of things to come in the rest of the season, which leads to loss of interest and teams being more prone to dropping out due to frustration."

If teams are purged each season this will be less of an issue. While it is needed to weed out the teams that don't show. It'd be best to purge them and have the active teams resign-up. Because again as an admin you want to keep teams active by getting them matches against real teams, and when a team gets 2 ffw in a row it can be discouraging. This is why i quti in s1/s2 or w/e. It was a fight to get a match in cal.

As far as 2 matches in 1 week....dods does this for playoffs as well, some leagues do 2 matches per week. If you made playoffs you should be able to get those matches worked in. It's just gonna be one of those things unless the format is changed.

Making ffw worth nothing may hurt, if you get a team that claims they will show and you show up and they don't show and don't say anything it can be frustrating to have to do it all over again with a make-up match. But like i said be you wanna keep teams active and if you force teams to go out and find another team that didn't get a match, thats a good thing.

Default time is a must, i know it's impossible to play everyweek at the same time but if most of the matches happen on default day and people get use to it, it will make things run smoother.

With the help of this site i believe hl2dm is getting stronger and Cal will run smoother in the future.

And para you have a good idea for closing the rosters at about week 6 or so, other league do this normaly, the reasoning in the past was hl2dm needs to stay open because it needs all the teams possible, but if the teams are just fakes it hurts worse, also this will stop teams from just reforming late in the season, althou thats not much of a problem as far as i know

all in all i understand your issues with the league as i had many of the same, but things changed after working as an admin for sta.

Not sure if this matters or whatever...but when I was still playing in CAL, a few serious teams actually waited on us to schedule a match just so they wouldn't HAVE to report a forfeit win...also the rules are not quite clear to everyone...about screen shots and scheduling and what not....part of the problem could be is that not everyone knows the rules?

I am currently working on making the rules more consistent between the two team divisions and clarifying where the need to be clarified. The problem is if teams wait too long they get into trouble. This happened to aXon. They get such a backlog they can't get out of it. Your highschool team can't say this week is no good can we do I next week? They would never finish their season.



The info on screen shots is in there. As far as people not knowing the rules, its their responsibility to read thm. We can't make them read them. If they don't understand the rules then it is their responsibility to ask for clairification in one of several ways: CAL Forums, PM an admin, email an admin, IRC, DMU forums. These are checked daily by the admins and there is an admin in IRC on most if not all nights.

When a team drops out the cal system shows it as a win vs BYE. Never ever did I schedule more then 1 team vs bye in any given week, that would not make any sense. You should know this L2K since you were an admin. The website could be improved to not show that but it has not happened yet. In every season roughly half the teams signed up drop out this is why it looks like there are so many byes. The byes dont have a major effect on the points that I know of active teams who make up matches get more points. And you dont lose points if you completed a match and the team drops. It does not turn into a FW. This season I deleted nearly all in inactive teams and I do it periodically.

I want playoffs to go fast so teams who did not make it can get back to playing. Some people really wanted double elimination last season and people complained about long playoffs. The 2 choices are a fast double elimination or a regular single elimination with 8 teams. Either way is fine with me. One is done in 3 weeks the other done in 4. But we don't want to get into 6 week long playoffs. People can input opinions if they would rather have a single elimination.

As far as I have ever seen no one has pushed their way into the playoffs with FWs. If you are even half active you will beat them to the punch. All it takes is 1 win to catch up to 4 FWs Any team that plays a decent amount of matches is going to make it into the playoffs.

Ill post again as I read more.

You get 1 point for a FW because in all seasons finding people who are willing to do make up matches has been very hard. So there is no way you can tell a person who received a fair FW that it is worth nothing and then they get further screwed in that they cant even find a makeup match. That said 2 points for loss gives you incentive to make up matches any way.

I think a Normal double elimination rather then a true Double elimination would be better. it would keep the current format and cut out a week/round from the playoffs

Fearsome* wrote:When a team drops out the cal system shows it as a win vs BYE. Never ever did I schedule more then 1 team vs bye in any given week, that would not make any sense.

Fearsome I'm not trying to offend you here, I'm just pointing out a flaw in the system. I did not say you that you intentionally scheduled more than one bye a week. What you did do is allow the team list to be recycled from last season. As I have pointed out to you in the past this leads to problems. The end result is that teams who no longer play or are not interested in playing this season get scheduled against teams who are playing. BY the time you or the division admin gets around to removing them all of those matches turn into byes and free points for teams. This may not seem like a issue for you or your team, but it is for the teams who are not as strong as SW and are not as likely to win every match. For starters you are robbing the teams of the chance to get 4 points by allowing that to happen. Another aspect is that you then have teams who end up getting that 4 or 5 times and they now have 4 or 5 points for not playing. Please don't respond saying that they just need to do make up matches, as you already have acknowledged make up matches can be very hard to get.

Now in 1v1 I don't know what happened perhaps Ko-tao can explain, but in the first few weeks there were like 5-10 players getting byes and I see no reason why those should not have been consolidated the second the schedule went up and it was seen. I remember looking at the schedules the day they were posted and seeing all those BYE's and I was like WTF! That should not have happened. It does have a effect on a persons season.

A loss being worth 2 points is incentive to do a make up match but it's not enough to prevent the non hl2dm teams from filing false FW's and from making scheduling impossible. As I posted earlier not all teams can play at default, and thats not to say we dont need a default. When you have teams who post in MC default day and time only thats when we play, what are you to do when part of your team is at work during that time? Most of those teams that do that are also teams who don't even have acess to a server, dont play hl2dm and are just trying to get FW's so they can put a line in there signature that they wre 4-4 in hl2dm right under there CAL-O CSS results, its lame and it screws real teams who are hear to play this game only. Yet somehow these type of teams end up managing to get more points just cuz they were good at forcing FW"S.

I removed nearly all the inactive teams manually before the season started. It's really just that much new sign up and dropping out every season. I can't tell a team you cant play cause I don't know who they are. And the very active teams were not playing matches either which means I would have had to inactivate basically everyone.

I will second what Fearsome said. He did remove the ones we knew were not going to play. As others came to light, we removed those as well. Most of it was from teams that dropped or were deactivated.

In 2v2 48 teams had signed up by week 6 (when rosters were closed). Of those 22 either dropped or were deactivated by me some time during the season for FL or non reported matches. That creates ALOT of byes in the previous weeks.

CAL better pick some better playoff maps next season or I am seriously done with that league. Avalon, Amplitude and Zeta what a joke! Talk to me when LV and LD are in the playoffs again...

Sorry herb. It's only what $W likes. : (

LD is in the finals, it would be stupid to have it in the playoffs too. Would you rather LD was in the playoffs and Amp was in the finals??

I agree we need at least a couple more good maps in the mix. I personally like a lot of maps. Sadly I have to say that there are not many that lend themselves to competative play.

A lot of people hate LV. I dont feel that it allows for dynamic play. I have yet to see a match (someone post a demo if I am wrong) on LV where the play was dynamic and wasn't a one sided domination with the RPG.

BI here is a news flash: SW is pretty much good at all the maps. They don't need to pick the ones they like, I think they pretty much like them all. It is up to the rest of us to learn to play better than they do on those maps. It will happen some day but its going to take one hell of a dedicated, well coordinated team that works together extremely well. The question is who will do it?

Paradox wrote: The question is who will do it?

Smart money's on Love VP

What have we got here? A damn comedian....

you talk about LV like its zeta or something.

for the record, amplitude is seriously one of the worst maps i have ever played

how it is in the playoffs, or even cal in the first place, is beyond me

avalon has been a staple in almost every 4vs4 league ever, and zeta is fine

amplitude roxored my soxors

zeta would be much better if the inside wasnt so powerful. suit, orbs, and rpg is too much.

Funny you should mention that. There have discussions recently with the guy who made Zeta about doing a remake. I suggested that a pulse rifle and at least one orb be placed outside and that the stuff on those two balconies that you can't get unless you spawn or prop jump up there should be moved down to the ground. It would make the play more interesting.

The idea of contacting him to make a final was to fix any remaining issues and eliminate CAL rules regarding the roof, not to change the gameplay. The struggle to control the center is what makes zeta so much fun for me, I wouldnt want to see the ar2 placed outside, it would change the map too much for me.

Then Im sorry I have to agree the inside of that building is way too powerful and I would like to watch two equally matched teams play that map to see how the ones that are outside gain contol over that building, if they ever do. I will say that unlike LV there are several ways to attack the building instead of the two very narrow choke points you have prey to get past if the other team is camping RPG. I prefer Zeta to LV for that reason. You can be more unpredictable in your approach. With LV they know you are gona come one of two ways.

There are loads of ways and that is what makes zeta so much fun. It is also a challenge trying to hold the middle versus a well organized team that has many different ways in.

I recall Fusion versus LsD and Fusion vs DGC matches where the middle turned over so many times it was pure chaos trying to hold it, scores were tied on occasion. I have also been on the plus and minus side of a complete shutout. Yeah it can hurt your ego, but I wouldnt trade it for anything.

For me it is a style of play that is just unique. Make the outside stronger and it would end up playing more like avalon, where camping the inside is prone to being spammed to all hell with orbs. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but part of the appeal of zeta for me is the assault type feel.

Give it some time is all I have to say to those who don't like it. It really grows on you the more experience you get playing it.

The way I feel is the game nino and I had against Fusion in zeta is still hands down the most fun, and active CAL match I've played to date.

I've rarely played zeta before joining the league but still managed to chase those fellas out of the middle room, and getting chased back out is what made the map and game for me.

ya that game was fun....demo para? althou fusion had some neat tricks.

I don't mind zeta that much because it has much better spawns than the A maps (amp and ava) I mean what comes next season Biohazard in 4v4 playoffs?

I would like to see Caverns as a 4v4 map. Playoff map? Maybe? It certainly is big enough and the game play on it is fun. I like Amplitude the for the same reasons people like Zeta. There are a lot of different ways to get at the rpg area, not just 2. More options = more unpredictibility = fun.

http://www.hl2dm-university.com/videos/ ... s_xvid.avi

Thats a short video on getting up the balconies.

Right now there are 2 orbs outside. Alot of the game in Zeta that makes it so unique is the strategic game of trying to snag a good weapon from the inside as WT said. If you can sneak up the stairs from the charger and grab an AR2 then you will never run out of orbs outside so long as you stay alive and you can keep spamming them in. However perhaps a relocation of the AR2 to make it slightly easier to get would be good but I do not think moving it outside is the answer. The inside of Zeta is stronger but it does not have staying power especially for a large team, there is just more ammo and armor outside. There is simply not enough stuff to go around. As more teams realize the power of terrorizing the inside rather then rushing in I think the overall feeling of the power of the inside will fade, we are just now since the game over released starting to see people really take advantage of alternative tactics. More and more we are seeing teams throwing frags in over the roof think about 4 guys all grabbing frags and throwing them in as they collect stuff outside. The simple dynamics of having less area inside then outside will tell you the guys inside are more likely to get hit and further reduce their ability to keep full on armor. It is possible to win a match never controlling the inside. If you kill them and your team is outside you are very likely to get multiple spawn kills before the guy can get back inside. I think that people just need to let the strategies of the map mature to the level of a team like $W then go back and comb it over for flaws or desired changes. Yes the inside has a charger but honestly playing a match the guys who do not have control seem to charge more then the guys who do because it is so near the door and easy to get to. It is also a weakness to charge and the placement of the charger creates alot of fighting and kills on both sides of the control. If you take anyone of those items out of the inside you are probably going to see less strategy as people have less of a reason to care about the inside. Less of a reason to try to get in.

2 orbs.....???? One under the stairs, and the other Ill have to look around.

Weird how you tend not to notice things when you are just pubbing.

Yeah the other one is up on that balcony.

herbalizer wrote:CAL better pick some better playoff maps next season or I am seriously done with that league. Avalon, Amplitude and Zeta what a joke! Talk to me when LV and LD are in the playoffs again...

I think this is a powerful statement; In fact I agree to some extent. Lets see some maps that are not so well memorized, something new, I don't care what they are just make it something thats not so repetitive, even LD and LV to some extent have been overdone. If some maps that were fairly new, and not well known were introduced it could breath some new life into the game/league.

Fearsome* wrote:Yeah the other one is up on that balcony.

Ahh no wonder I think Ive been ip there 5 times total and most of the time I was trying to jump the hell out of there before I got fragged.

Lockdown and lostvillage were just in the playoffs last season, just cause it isn't the same 2 maps over and over every season doesn't mean people should freak out. But on the other hand we got L2K wanting something new. We rotate new maps into the regular season every season.

Your right change is good at times, I think caverns would be a really nice map for playoffs. I wish I had read more about this season, I didn't even realize it was double elimination until it was too late.