A lot of the solutions being tossed around revolve around adding more organization. I actually think we’d be better off by addressing the problems with the bracket format. Let me throw up a strawman system:
Registration
You register online. At that time, you’re allowed to pick a 2-hour slot of when you’d like to play in the prelims. We have 8 slots available. A group of 16 players hand picked by Shoryuken.com don’t have to play in prelims. They automatically qualify for the semi-finals.
Pool Play
Pool run every 2 hours. Everyone in the pool plays “King of the Hill”. 1 game. Winner stays, Loser goes to the end of the line. At the end of the 2 hours, the n players with the most wins move onto the quarter-finals.
Quarter Finals
Divide everyone up into 8 groups and play “King of the Hill” again on 8 consoles for 2 hours. The top 2 players in each group move onto the semi-finals.
Semi-Finals
Now you’ve got the 16 top players hand picked by SRK and the 16 people from the quarters left. Put them in a bracket and run it till you get down to 8.
Finals
Run the final 8 EVO2k4 Style.
The Biggest Wins
No one can complain about seeding. If you don’t want to play against someone, call them up, find out what pool they’re signing up for, and don’t register for that pool.
You never have to call someone on the microphone ever again. If they don’t show up, it just makes it easier for other people to qualify. No individual can ever hold up the tournament again.
Judging is trivial. Just watch who plays and record who the winner is. And make sure no one cuts in line (but the players can manage that themselves).
There should be a limit in the pools if a player dominates their pool. Like if they beat the entire pool twice they should get kicked off and 2 new players would restart play.
I think it was ink that posted that he thinks part of the loss of excitement was due to there not being any new games. What about including Smash Bros. Melee next year afterall? I don’t know how seriously you guys were considering it prior to this years evo, but there’s already a fairly large community out there for SSMB, still plenty of time till next evo (so we can learn it and practice), and it’d be something new to see;…well?
Most of these ideas are actually quite good. I’d say to use PS2 for as much as possible, since it has the fewest hardware problems. Next year it’ll have usable versions of everything except Marvel and maybe GGXX Reload. When you can run 3/4 of the tournament on the same setup, it makes training your volunteers really easy. If you want to let people use their own sticks, maybe you could provide some PS2-DC converters instead of having to haul out the DC itself.
If people play in Apex and do well, they are seeded high, and will not conflict with other high seeded Apex players. If they don’t play in Apex…oh well.
That only helps if people play in Apex, but if they don’t, I don’t really see a good solution other than random. Random + Apex seems like the best option.
We did that for Evo2k3 (or Evo2k2… I forget)…
Anyway, know what happened? People cheated by either padding the results of their tournaments or submitting results for tournaments that never took place. The more attractive you make a top spot in Apex, the more corruption you see in the system.
hm, can u throw together random brackets, then take like 15 minutes reviewing them to sort out at least some of the death brackets? no favoritism, just if you see two or three top players in one bracket, just divide them up, maybe back into the same group. that way u can give out group assignments right when ppl sign up, then rearrange the brackets after you give out badges, since the group they’re in would run at the same time anyway. right?
also for #r and t5, just use ggxx and t4 seeds i would think, it’s better than nothing
A possible solution to the problem about the seeds and brackets might be to hold regional qualifiers for the seeds in each area before the actual tournament. Basically in the apex locations, Pac North, Pac South, Atlantic North, Atlantic South, Midwest, etc.
I’m not saying whether I like or hate this new King Of The Hill format or not, I’m just pointing out a few theoretical flaws in the system.
-winning or losing is no longer the only factor anymore.
Due to the nature of the system, time is now a huge factor in whether you’ll beat out your rival in your pool. It could sometimes be in your best interest to beat your opponents as fast as you can to rack up the win count as fast as possible, especially if you’re falling behind your rival. Conversely, if you have the lead you’ll want to drag out your games for as long as possible to give your opponents fewer chances to play. This leads me to:
-inconsequential annoyances before become actual threats now.
That guy that spent 10 minutes configging his buttons? He just now killed your chances of qualifying if you were behind in wins. Same with the guy whose stick died in the middle of the match and caused you to play it over (not to mention the time take to show the judge the stick was dead, getting another stick, reconfigging it and starting over). Same with the guy who spends hours at the character select screen thinking about how to counter you.
-it’s easy to corrupt.
Let’s say I’m Ricky Ortiz. I eat CvS2 players for breakfast. I have a scrubby buddy in my bracket, let’s call him Buktooth. Now, Buktooth can beat most scrubby players, but will lose to anybody decent. However, since I am Ricky and winning is cake, I throw all my matches to Buktooth. Buktooth gets a good number of wins on the scrubs, loses to a decent player, which I beat, then I amass more wins before throwing my match to Buktooth again. We both advance.
That’s one example. Here’s another theoretical problem. A guy is playing me and he… accidentally soft resets the Dreamcast. Do I get a win? Does no win get recorded at all? Either way, something can easily be done to exploit the system.
Lastly giving seeded players a bye all the way to the semis seems a bit of an overkill. That’s a LOT of matches they’re skipping there. I know some of those players would actually prefer to play some filler matches to get warmed up and used to the environment. Putting seeded players in the quarter finals would probably make more sense.
Actually the only reason there was corruption was the fact that people could “see” where they were ranked, how many points they had and what not. So simple solution, don’t show peoples points, dont show how many points they get (so nobody can just do the math and know). The only thing you show is the current top 20 but randomlly…so nobody knows who is first second or 3rd (or you dont have to show them at all). So come time for evo, the SRK staff has all the numbers and scores of peeps so they can easily seed everyone, then right before evo they can show who those seeds are. It will be like a suprise at that point but definately no corruption.
It was only corrupted cause people could see who exactly was in the lead. So just dont show them it. Apex is still a good system, and I dont think it should just go to waste.
Another thing, I believe not reseting the brackets for the finals is just taking away from them. You get a better showdown, and definately can see who the real players are. At the point of final 8 all 8 of those guys deserve a shot to show there shit. It will make a much better finals. Just doesnt seem right you make it to the final 8, through all the hardship of qualifying and then you get a big show down and still in the loser bracket.
SRK did this year one for EVO, and it worked good, I think this should be reconsidered and disccused as well.
The FIRST thing that popped in my head when I read this was ‘then people will falsify results even MORESO to ensure that they’ll always be near top’…and I’m not even one of the ppl that does it, so the ppl that do will likely think the same thing. I’m just don’t think that would do much good.
-On second thought (edit): that sounds ok…maybe as good of a solution as there is to this problem.
I dont know the lack of help or whatever but Tom you know me(pot and faust player at svgl)And I have 3 friends who are willing to be helpers in any way possible…
regarding mvc2 I know that saying using arcade isnt the solution, but dropping dreamcast is not the solution either. So for now dealing with blue box is the only real option. or making sticks universal like only mas sticks or the sticks you guys provided. the ps2 has problems that will effect mvc2’s complete game play not just timing or speed or anything like that.
To prevent blue box i know that it usually occurs when an agetec is plugged in with a mas stick.
also for super turbo, the wait in between matches was ridiculous. it wasnt the actual button setting that screwed everything up but it was the fact that no one could read japanese. it literally took 20 min in between peeps in pools for some of them.
console is whackass and the players is what saved this years evo, so as long as they keep coming it’s always going to be worth it… arcade cabs would be the shit for next year but so would getting a billion dollars…
2 questions also:
will there be player intros and interviews in this years dvd?
and is SF:AE and Alpha3 being considered for next year?
King of the hill format just sounds janky to me, to much room for side deals to be made and matches to be thrown over the course of the time limit if running totals are kept. I honestly think seeding of the known entities plus random pool play is the best option available. Keep round robin, and let the chips fall where they will. I would suggest that you are given 10 minutes to show up, or you are dq’ed. No questions asked, if they call your name for you first round robin match and your not there in 10 minutes you are out of the pool or at least forfeit the match. People have to learn to respect the gamers that show up on time for their matches. Also perhaps running pools on an overlapping time frame, say if you have 4 marvel setups you dedicate 2 set ups for each pool, then start one at 10, next at 1030, next when group a (10) finishes. If you immediately start two pools right off the bat the congestion and changeovers tend to occur simultaneously and that just bogs things down.
Suggestion number three, rope off area for pool players only. Rope off each set of 2 or 3 tvs indiviually, then allow ONLY pool players in that area. Roping off by indiviual pool again cuts down on clutter. Rule number three chairs are for pool players ONLY. If I want to play sitting in one chair and with stick in another chair facing me I should damn well be able to play however I feel most comfortable since I payed hotel, airline and tourney fee to get there. I could care less if your tired of standing to watch, you will get the same luxury when you play.
Big screen suggestions, KEEP 3D OFF THE BIG SCREEN. I understand there are many 3d fans at evo. but far more came to see marvel, Cvs2 or 3rd strike. Keep the biggest games on the best projectors.
Last of all definitely keep round robin pool play in. The more meaningful games you give the player the better. I don’t expect to advance from my pool, but its great to give even the lesser gamers as many tourney games as you can against the better players. Most people come to evo with no chance to win, only hoping to get to play soo or justin in MVC2, or the japanese in cvs2.
Ponder/Inkblot - The double control stick you had set up for the japanese was very nice. You guys should consider getting a nice universal set up for american and japanese for all the SF2 games. It is the only fair way. You will then no longer have problems with people switching buttons, no more problems of having to sit on the floor and play in an awkward position. Just come up with a good hieght and some nice chairs and it will be perfect.
There seem to be no problems with any of the 3d games, so maybe people can still bring there ps2 pad or namco stick for these games, but for all the SF games, we need a universal set up. Too many problems with BYOC.
Hear Hear! Universal setup for all Capcom games! Thus, solving the majority of blue box, start button, and controller config problems. With a properly wired and stabilized joystick, why should there be a problem? And those who prefer japanese style controls can use the japanese setup when the japanese aren’t using it perhaps?
Just because Evo isn’t arcade anymore, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive as hard as possible to replicate a comfortable, stable, arcade control setup does it? Plus, it does a lot to up the atmosphere of the tournament.