Season 2 Update

Important news regarding the Divisions splits

NS2 is still new, as are many teams and so of course the NSL Seasons. We finished the first season, have had Up&Down matches played and seeding matches. But even with the results we got from that, it wasn't easy at all to put the teams into divisions for the upcoming season.

The ENSL has a wide history of using groups and sometimes not using groups as have many sports. It is impossible to just arrange fair and exciting matches for everyone with one single system, there always has to be compromises. But these also allow for some upsets and having teams increase just by playing higher level teams.

In most sports, any team would be happy to be in the highest league regardless whether they get stomped or not. But we are talking about e-sports here, mostly without any (significant) prizes involved - the ENSL is and stays a non-profit organisation that makes it possible for teams in Natural Selection to play in a competitive setup and have fun by that. And this fun part can of course vary regarding to the division your team is put into.

Right now, many discussions, personal ones and forum posts here and in UWE forums and even a petition have shown up to get our attention. As a community platform, our main goal is to do this work for the community and not against it. Hence we will take all of that into consideration for a better seeding system and maybe a restructured division setup (groups, playoffs etc) for Season 3.

Our biggest problem right now is time. The official matches start tomorrow and most of this discussion started yesterday, basically 2 days before the season start, although most of the information was already out there. Also, it is common opinion throughout the community that the European League (EU divisions) is far better off then the American League (NA divisions). Considering all that, we can't change the EU Divisions anymore and go by the seedings and system we have. Short:

EU and AU Divisions will not change and be played as it is.

The NA Divisions are a different story. After some lengthy internal discussions we decided the following:

We postpone the start of the NA matches by 1 week. This means, if you play in a NA Division, Week 1 starts at the 17th March - ignore the match times on your contest for the moment!

Some final words with the teams will be changed and then we will decide after this weekend whether we restructure the division setup for the NA Divisions. After that we will hit a news again and correct the matches (at least the times).

Please note that this change on the American League then would be a trial to see if the restructured setup fits the mission of ENSL and the NSL Leagues better. The feedback from you, as a community, and results we see would then be used for the whole NSL Leagues in Season 3.

We acknowledge that maybe some teams, especially on EU side who wished the same, will be disappointed by this decision. But please keep in mind that we can't allow changes to the EU League due to organisatorial circumstances. The NA League has a shorter playtime in general (since it's only 24 teams) which is the main reason why we decided to do this: They can start their matches later and still be finished before the EU League ends. Also the matchups on EU side seem way more acceptable for the teams than the NA ones. We want to improve the quality of ENSL and are happy about all sorts of (constructive!) feedback we can get.

We couldn't do this League without you, the teams, and hope you can follow our decisionmaking and reasoning.

Thanks,

The ENSL Administration

blind on 09 March 13 23:09

Comments

Noavatar

Blank Fr33K1LL

I completly agree with this =D
Also the season is 1 game per week which leaves 6 days and 22-23 hours for PCWs and whatever else you can think of.
As stated we will work hard to make Season 3 better for everyone with help from the Community

9 March 2013, 23:18

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Blank ScardyBob | Team 156

I know both myself and many of the other NA teams appreciate this. It really speaks volumes about the quality and integrity of ENSL that they are willing to make these changes, even though they can be a big hassle.

Thank you for all your hard work!

9 March 2013, 23:48

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Blank xtcmen

Awesome news. Thanks for being flexible and responding to the community.

10 March 2013, 00:08

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minos

Hope this works out. Best of luck to all teams in the coming season- I'll see some of you in game in the coming weeks. :]

10 March 2013, 01:26

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Blank Bitey

Minos! <333

10 March 2013, 06:15

176

Blank jiriki | old people

Well if you delay the games by week, you can redo the divisions.

Its perfectly possible to have groups in div2 or div3 if there are too many teams of equal skill, but div1 without groups. We did that in some season(s) and it worked fine.

10 March 2013, 12:10

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Blank Chlamydia

Sounds like a good plan ENSL dudes. This is not an easy task you're trying to achieve here.

Even within clans, there's often differing opinions on what division they should be in!

10 March 2013, 12:54

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Blank kajiwht | Brazil

For us in CiB, whichever decision u guys make we´ll welcome it... I didnt sign the petition myself coz I was unsure as we have opinions in both sides of the balance.
We understand that for most people being the punchbag of 1st div might be unpleasant... but after thinking for a bit... we dont mind it that much... coz you only get better by playing with ppl stronger then u. If u guys decide to change, great... we'll play with people on our level and scrimm the high level ones when we can. If you dont, we'll play the best we can and try to at least scratch the titans of ns2 and learn from it

11 March 2013, 16:00

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