Reviewing Community Feedback — Clarity League Season 0

Going over the questions and results

Foreword

Our intent with the early seasons of Clarity League was, from the onset, to test things out and gather community feedback as we went along. While we feel like we have a fairly decent grasp on the preferences of the community in general, having a two-way dialogue on the logistics of the league streamlines the process of arriving at a finalized and consistent way of handling things (which, at the end of the day, is our goal), and we have no interest in getting there based purely on assumptions. This is the lens through which we’re viewing Season 1 as well, so to reflect the preferences and opinions the community voiced in the post-season feedback form, we’ll be implementing some changes for Season 1.

Playday Feedback | Questions

The important bit: We’re moving to a single-playday format for Season 1, and sticking with Tuesday as the playday.

The first question we asked around playdays was about keeping the main season format at two matchdays a week:

The results are fairly tight, but the majority class of answer was ‘No’.

There are a number of potential reasons for this, including the grass is always greener effect; it’s additionally somewhat likely that this result is a bit skewed, as the community members who’d prefer single-playday might’ve been more inclined to participate. That being said, our intent was always to use the initial seasons of Clarity to test things, and are thus pursuing a one-matchday Season 1. This does extend the season a bit, but it should let more community members participate, and does also give teams more time to practice and develop.

With this in mind, we’ll be looking to run frequent Draft Cups (~ once every fortnight) to allow people to play a similar amount of Dota (if they wish). In addition, the Inhouse Season will be starting, which gives greater flexibility over when you can play too. We’ll also be forming committees for both Side Events and the IH, which should hopefully allow for these parts of the League to be a more consistent experience.

To pick which day Season 1 is on we can consider the following answers:

This doesn’t give us a clear answer; in hindsight, this specific part of the feedback form worked around the assumption of a 2-playday main season. With that being said, we’ll be looking to use Tuesday as the matchday for Season 1; this is partly to retain some consistency with Season 0, but also stems from a preference to use a weekday, rather than the weekend, as we’ve received feedback independent from the community form on this matter. To go along with this, we’ll reserve Saturday as a dedicated day for regularly scheduled Side Events.

Playday Feedback | Free Comments

[…] if there are any multi play day formats they need to be separated by 3/4 days […]

Make (the playdays) 3 days apart or 1 day apart

We realize that this was a significant gripe with the TUE/SUN format that we had for S0, and so for any subsequent two-matchday season, we’d absolutely be looking to spread them out more evenly across the week.

It’s hard to commit to anything specific at this point — particularly as we’ll be looking towards introducing a concurrent second format alongside the main one for Season 2 — but if the main season format does return to 2 matchdays, we’re interested in moving it to WED/SUN and using another weekday (likely either Tuesday or Thursday) for said new format.

Daytime options would be cool as I am increasingly likely to work nights […]

While it’s unfortunate that some community members might not be able to participate due to it, we currently have no intent to move away from the 20:00 start time; anything earlier is likely to just cause more issues (with work times, time zones, etc), and at the end of the day, we have to look towards accommodating the largest sections of the playerbase.

For these (and similar) concerns, the inhouse league (whilst far from a great substitute) is something that placates this sentiment and allows members to participate in some capacity.

Format & Side Event Feedback | Questions

The important bit: We’re not looking to implement an additional format for Season 1, but we’ll be organizing more side events.

In general, a majority of people had an interest in seeing both a linear draft/single division format and a franchise format.

However, given the… uncertainty of how many people would play these formats, the time constraints around developing and integrating them, and realistically the split in playerbase between two formats (which we’re unlikely to be able to sustain before the league is fully open), this is not something we’re looking at running for Season 1 — but will strongly consider for Season 2 (specifically, we’re focused on implementing a single-division, linear-draft format).

We also asked about Side Events too; this is of note as out of those that had a preference, most people were actually against Side Events being run whilst the main season is active. We’re actively going against this with our Season 1 proposal — however, we believe that the fact that we’ve reduced the weekly commitment (from 2 matchdays to 1) should hopefully reduce the opposition, which (judging by some feedback) seems to be around ‘too much stuff going on’.

Format & Side Event Feedback | Free Comments

The staff does not need to run all the side events. You should encourage the community to host events that you help back.

MORE PLS I’LL HELP IF NECESSARY❤

We don’t want to stand in anyone’s way if they wish to organize unofficial events! As long as they don’t clash with anything official we’ve planned, that is; if there is anyone in the community who has an idea, please do feel free to contact a member of staff to see how we can help it happen — the Side Event committee’s got a couple spots open as well!

Custom game side events like hardcore ninja?

Variety is the spice of life. Trying cool formats is fun, and can keep doing ones that work well

Things like custom games come under the bracket of something we wouldn’t consider officially running, but if someone came to us wanting to host something we could definitely look at supporting you — so please do reach out!

User Experience & Rule Feedback | Questions

The important bit: We’re going to revisit & re-do the Discord channel layout.

In general, the feedback around user experience and rules was positive.

The worst-performing section was around information and links pertaining to the league being easy to find in the Discord server. This is something we’ll definitely be looking at cleaning up (as per the elaboration in the free comments), so hopefully things will improve soon.

User Experience & Rule Feedback | Free Comments

[…] the way I see the INFORMATION section it has a lot of stuff. I think it should only have announcements, season info, transparency […]

Stuff is hard to find over 4 different channels. Have one message that links everything that is updated.

I feel like there should be an easier list with a collection of useful links in one place […]

Feels like not everything related to the season was at the same place […]

It was very messy finding things in the discord, I often found myself going through several channels before finding what I was searching for […]

We definitely tried to consolidate things in (what we thought were) fairly obvious places, but we clearly missed the mark. In hindsight, one thing we perhaps missed in setting up the Discord layout is that a lot of us came in with preconceived notions on what certain terms and labels would entail, not realizing that, for people who are less involved with amateur Dota leagues, these labels don’t really mean much.

As such, the above feedback gives the impression that we should cut down the number of channels, and instead make them denser in terms of information. We’ll have a go at this, and hopefully make it clearer for you all.

Bring back :ahegao:

Nah.

Staff Review Feedback | Free Comments

Probably could have been cooler on div1 tiebreaker situation but we have learned!

It’s sloppy not accounting for tiebreakers but im sure its just teething problems that will get worked out

Honestly, we messed up. Sorry for the inconvenience caused — but as said we have learned from this, and it shouldn’t happen again.

Some players returning after a break were not adjusted enough.

We definitely could have given more transparency around players that we thought had a high MMR variance on adjustment. Whilst even in hindsight we don’t really think most of those involved in adjusting would edit their adjustment (based on the information they knew at the time), we could definitely give the drafters an indication of the variance that the adjusted MMR had — we’ll look to incorporate this somehow in the future.

Lower mmr representation when?

While we’re aware that the league’s staff setup doesn’t necessarily have a lower MMR bracket representative, we’ve made efforts to talk to and garner feedback and ideas from lower MMR members — both in the run-up to the league’s creation as well as during the season.

If any community members have any questions or suggestions pertaining to their experience in the league as lower MMR players, we encourage them wholeheartedly to bring them up — be it in public discussion channels or in a private message to an admin. That being said, we’re not looking to make any additions to the league staff for the time being.

League Invites Feedback | Questions

The important bit: We’re doing another wave of invites — if you have someone you think we missed or don’t know about, let us know. No guarantees though!

This was the biggest mixed big of all the answers:

On the back of this, we’d still be looking to go public between season 1 and season 2; however, please note that, whenever we do go public:

• There will be a sizeable blacklist to go along with this public opening;
• At that time, moderation will increase substantially (for as long as needed);
• Ideally, anyone joining the league who behaves in such a way to detract from the league will adapt their behaviour on the basis of said moderation. If they don’t, we have no qualms with banning people swiftly.

League Invites Feedback | Free Comments

[…] it could probably be a good idea to wait at least 1 more season with invite only cause you can test how the league develops like this.

[…] either after S1 or after S2, depends on whether or not more changes should be tested […]

As above, whilst we would be looking to go public after Season 1 this will be dependent on lots of factors, in particular testing how the league is developing & community feedback; it’s worth noting that part of the value of being invite-only is that it allows us to focus purely on testing things and not necessarily having to worry much about moderation — this is fairly likely to change with the public launch.

More lower mmr invites! There are a lot of cool boyes and girls who are bad at dota too.

I have someone dying to play!

Give people who agree to captain in a season a possibility to suggest inviting someone to the league!

[…] make it so people can invite their friends if they vouch for them, that way the player base can grow but it’s still a moderated base […]

If you think there’s someone worth inviting who hasn’t yet been, please reach out to a staff member and we’ll consider them. In the next week or so we should be inviting more people too, some of whom weren’t invited previously simply because we didn’t really know them — if you do, and you think they’d be a good fit, let us know!

Have an invite system where someone can be invited with enough backing or blocked from being invited with player vetoing.

Given we only have 1 more season for which we are intending to be invite-only, we think it’s a wasted effort to design a new system for invites. We’ll revisit this after season 1 though if there’s a strong majority of the community who want to keep it invite-only.

Don’t let dodgy people i.e who are fine in-game but share questionable opinions on discord, spewing hate, baiting ppl, claim they have free speech to say anything, and literally to stress tests on banned things entry into the league […]

[…] I support opening the league but think there should be tougher requirements to get in and maybe a sort of trial period in first season where toxic behaviour ect is treated a bit more harshly […]

This is essentially the plan! As we mentioned earlier, if and when the invites open more (in any capacity), moderation will be stepped up to match it. Additionally, there will be a (pretty comprehensive) preban list, don’t worry.

We’ll also use this opportunity to mention that if we do give someone a chance and they misuse it, we absolutely won’t hesitate to crack down on them harder and faster than other members of the community who’ve had (in effect) a pretty clear slate up to this point.

Clarity league to me is like a sophisticated cigar club. One doesn’t just enter a sophisticated cigar club unannounced and uninvited. For me, the name “Clarity league” would get dragged through the mud if we let the low lives of Dota player roam our streets however they please. We’re part of an elite community and I want this to be our building bricks. In a couple of years when I write in my tinder bio “Proud member of Clarity League” I want the girls reading that to know what an achievement that is. I want them to know that I’m part of the elite. If we let anyone in it won’t have that effect because then anyone could do what I’ve accomplished. We need to hold our doors shut and build up our name, our brand, our legacy.

If you wrote “Proud Winner of Clarity League” I’m sure that’d be even more attractive!

Cheese Feedback

The important bit: A shockingly low amount of people said “Omegasaw”.

If you genuinely want to explore the (exhaustive) cheese opinions of the inhabitants of Clarity League, you can do so here — but that’s it from us. Massive thanks to everyone who submitted a response to the Feedback Form for Season 0 — and enjoy Season 1, the sign-ups for which are live right now.

The Clarity League Admin Team