Yep I get what you mean and I've thought about this.

I would develop new skills via all the tiers as usual. However, I don't think players should be forced to develop them in a specific linear format. Instead let players choose the tiers to complete at their own discretion. The tier "difficulty" can be conjoined with the tier as a recommendation. This would benefit the tier system as the difficulty of the tiers is subjective and will vary depending on the players perspective/context. Thus, allowing players to complete tiers most familiar with their play style then allowing them to develop new technique understanding.

Hope this makes sense mate.

The linearity of the tiers system is fucked after T5. I think it'd be a good idea to separate the first five basic tiers from the advanced "tiers" entirely. With that, we'd have a program for those trying to learn the basics and another for the experienced players.

i support the idea of the split into two areas. perhaps add a new question for the app as well or requirements for replays

I'm not against something new but Tiers has been a reliable system for more than a year. If we're all bored then maybe we can come up with something new.

As "advanced" aikido players how do thing you guys can benefit from Team Aikdo?

Tiers hasnt really been that reliable. some of the new people weve accepted havent attempted any of them.
We need something to keep new members active rather than joining and never posting

I have things I like and one major thing I dislike about tiers:
Likes:
1: Encourages members to learn real moves
2: It is set up in a way that is easy to learn off of previous knowledge
3: Promotes members to come together and help each other with their techniques

Dislike:
Has no way of reciprocating the effort it takes to learnt he techniques, so in other words, there is no motivation to participate in the system.

If we can find some way to motivate members to enter into tiers, that would be great, but I think we are limited in that aspect. We may replace the tiers system, but I would really like to keep the Knowledge Base, because it is a great source of information for any aikido player.

How about a TA Move of the Week.

A selected member posts a move that members must try to replicate in multiplayer aikido during that week. This move can come from the technique library or something of their own. Obviously the move needs to be something that can be replicated.

At the end of that week we vote on who's replay demonstrate that move the best or just the replay that is most like whatever. The winner will then decide and post next week's Move of the Week.

This will NOT replace Tiers but it's something to involve the org and keep steady activity.

Good idea in theory. I think a good way to promote activity both inside the org and encourage new members to join would be to have something like this "move of the week" and spread it out to the community, don't contain it within TA alone. Of course, this would then raise the question of providing the winner with some sort of reward (more than, say, a pat on the back and letting them tell us what the next move will be) like TC because your average dude that plays Toribash doesn't give a shit about real moves or TA's "forbidden moves."

i think the forbidden moves are fine. as long as we can articulate why this is.
Personally i think that for bidden moves are forbidden because they produce a narrow skill set and a less fun game over all. for example the shovel its like a rocket launcher in cod. They stop being useful in high level game play. If you rely on it too much you dig your own grave when you reach higher levels and have focused more on one thing to the detriment of others. In the shovel sure you learn how to generate lift but once you have it you don't know what to do with it besides putting them down out of the ring. while winning in cool and all. If the win feels unfair to the opponent and you do it often enough they will just leave. This is also part of the reason they are forbidden i think. Though i do think that if the move have been thought off but the person and not copied its a good thing as long as they don't stop there. Shows that they are heading in the right direction also if its a shovel they will be met with this or something like it.

If the advanced techniques had their own thread I could put them all in a neat slideshow.