Lonewolf #5 - Survey Results
Introduction
First, let me say thank you to everyone that took the time to fill out the survey. In all, we had 37 people respond. The Lonewolf mods are very happy with the amount of responses and the information that we were able to gather from the answers you provided.
Going into the 6th season, it felt like it was time to reconsider the core aspects of the Lonewolf tournament and see if there were any areas that we could improve. Lonewolf has grown significantly since its inception as a way to play games in addition to the team tournament. All of the moderators felt it was time to see what the players liked, disliked and what they wanted to change about the league. With the creation of the new Ladder league we also wondered if the Ladder league was the place to fill your time with games - and perhaps it was time to change Lonewolf into something different.
Our Interpretation of the Results
The actual survey is at the of the document, but first, I want to take you through our interpretation of the results. While we may not have time to implement or further make changes for Season #6, we are eager to hear the players' thoughts and suggestions based on their interpretation of the results.
Two things became clear when reviewing your answers. First, over half of those surveyed liked the tournament the way it is. Second, a substantial minority of those surveyed were interested in changes.
General Changes
In section 3, we asked some specific questions about how the tournament should be setup, based directly on the answers given we have decided that Season 6 will have these attributes:
- It will be 11 rounds.
- It will start on Jan 9th.
- Players will be able to join at any time.
- Chesster and the website will provide new options for reminders (to see your notifications screen, DM chesster: notifications lonewolf):
- Chesster will Direct Message you and your opponent immediately after the pairings are announced.
- If you choose to respond in that DM, chesster will record the date/time that you first respond in order to help the mods know when players are not being responsive. Note: Chesster will not log any of the contents of your messages and none of the moderators, developers or system administrators will have access to your messages.
- You may opt out of this feature.
- We will not become more strict regarding the 48 hour response window. It will be up to the players to decide. It is still your responsibility to contact your opponent within 48 hours. Failure to do so (for whatever reason) may result in you forfeiting that round. Please respect your opponents time by communicating with them promptly.
Sections
We dedicated a series of survey questions to the idea of splitting Lonewolf into Sections. It was a close split, but there were more people that wanted Lonewolf to remain the way it is than to split it into sections. However, there was a substantial minority that wanted to split it.
After some review, we took the answers to the following questions to be indicative that Lonewolf should remain with a single section:
- 18 / 37 responded that that would play in the open section no matter what.
- 10 / 37 responded that they would play in the open section if close to the rating limit
- 9 / 37 responded that they would play in the rating-limited section no matter what.
- The most desired thing people want from Lonewolf is the opportunity to play higher rated players in a serious game.
- The 3rd most desired thing people want from Lonewolf is games against players close to their rating.
- It was close, but more people (19 vs 17) wanted Lonewolf to remain in a single section.
Based on the above we have decided to keep Lonewolf as a single tournament. However, based on the amount of responses that were interested in playing people closer to their rating, we have decided to use Accelerated pairings. Accelerated pairings will reduce the significant rating mismatches in the first rounds, leaving them only for later rounds for players that are severely under or over performing. For more on accelerated pairings, see this wikipedia article.
Once again, thanks to everyone that took the time to respond. The survey results follow.