I have a lot to say on this issue but i’ll say it real quickly.
Pure random seeding will make it so that people have more faith in the tournament system and that new heads have the chance of winning. The most skilled players will always win the tournament in the end regardless of their difficult bracket.
If you get rid of seeding and get rid of people complaining about playing their friends the most “skilled” person should prevail and less split scenarios are possible (unless of course the best 2 dudes will always prevail - in that case, TRAIN UP FOOLS )
Again, I’m not against splitting pot as long as the players and viewers get their serious matches. But when there’s no regard for trying to give these people what they technically paid for, you’re disrespecting them, their money and the competitive spirit of the game.
The two and out system of running tournaments might be outdated when looking at local 15-25 man tournaments. The higher entry fees could possibly be justified if people could play more matches and if there was a casual station or two for people done with the tournament. I’m very interested in the Swiss and Round Robin format systems that have been brought up.
I’d like to give some more time for people to post their opinions and ideas, but eventually I’d love to see an experimental tournament come of this thread to test out these ideas. Perhaps we can decide on a mix of ideas, have anyone who wants play in it and then after the tournament ask the players how they liked it and if they’d enjoy seeing more events like it in the future.
I’m loving how this is going so far, even the posts by LB and Hiro. All points must be taken into consideration.
for example. people who are tied for LAST place play a round robin and the winner of that gets 50% of their entry back. that way there’s incentives for more pot feeders in the tournaments.
Honestly, if I were in that situation it’d be more embarrassing than anything. Don’t think I’d want to go through with the effort just to get a couple bucks back.
But I agree that something to get people to come, regardless of their skill, would be interesting. Can you get someone know knows they can’t win to come? Convince them they can? Give favoritism to new/not as skilled players with a … What… Loser loser bracket? Ask the person who wins the tourmanet to do 1 on 1 sessions with all those below a threshold for fun? (this of course could cause the complete opposite of what is trying to be accomplished, hah)
So my input on the Swiss style… It fucken works great and I know this from experience. I used to play Pokemon TCG competitively and Id go to things called battle roads. Now it works great because a pokemon match from what I see takes about as long as a sf set should take and we had a turnout of 30 people at least. Pretty much on average USUALLY everyone plays 4 to 6 matches and if Im paying 10 plus I better get more then 2 shots if I lose. How Ive seen it works is once your losses are the higher percent in possible wins your out ( so if in total your max plays is 6 and you lose 4 your out but you can go 3 and 3/ 4 and 2 as long as your Losses doesnt become more then your possible win percent ) I think this would work greatly, just we will need dedicated set ups because from what Ive seen at shadowbrookes from the past 3 or 5 week me haunts and maybe one other person brings a set up and if you guys want this to work you need to show some fucking initiative and bring stuff to contribute if you want to see tournaments work out. Instead of people complaining about how there are lack of set ups or shit like that step up and help out.
PEACE
ps if my post makes no sense its cause its 3 fucking AM…
Oh and PLEASE get rid of super long sets for losers / grand finals. 2 out of 3 for the whole thing. That totally kills the excitement at the end of a tourney, no one ever wants to watch the same players playing for 20+ minutes. (Especially bad if loser wins first set in grand finals, ughhhhhh)
We should just do Swiss style or round robin I mean fuck not all of us are amazing ass players but we like to play, and to go to a tourney and go 0-2 and be done its kinda bad. I mean I know some asshole will say " LTP scrub " but seriously im paying 10$+ for this and there are others like me who arent hella good but try there ass off and want to see more then 0-2.
Cool thing bout single elim is shit will be done hella fast. Just hang out and play casuals after the tourney is done. If there is time you can just run another tourney banning the winner from the last one. Credit to ChoiBoy for that last bit.
Thxyoutoo - why would I knowingly enter a tournament with someone who gives bad checks, that’s something that’s found out threw experience. I’m alittle smarter then that would you say ?
Thxyoutoo - you said we SHOULD make friends play first, that’s BIAS right , you’re always OVERLY opinionated I would think you would catch yourself saying that let alone POSTING it:wtf:
This has left a bad taste in our mouths and we are on day 3 of this crap. ill say let’s copy japan like we always do and do single elimination ?
I like that…old school. Only thing…maybe not ban the winner…but make them use a diff. character. That might work as well.But everything you said was on point.I like these kind of tournaments, they force better play …consistently.Without the bias,superseeding,byes,undeserved ass shit…you just got play your ass off the whole time…and not run into MEeeEEeeeEEEE :badboy:…so I like it…make it so #1
If it’s round robin what’s it matter if they play early or not?
Hyro, I like you. Don’t be a dick just because your friend is in the spotlight and people are talking about how to progressively change things. Keep personal opinions out of this thread as requested and stick to this topic.
It appears this thread was started due to recent controversy regarding match throwing/splitting. But it seems like people are mistaking cause and effect and are bringing up ideas which may not be all that relevant to address this.
Payout for top 8 makes sense for big events such as EVO. But for most events which get 20-30 players, paying out more than top 3 doesn’t make sense. Also, spreading out the prize pool from beyond top 3 will not deter match throwing or splits. People generally throw SF matches for a variety of reasons, one of them being cash. This decision is often decided before hand and whether the amount is $5, $10, or $20 will have little effect on his decision.
Cash is the universally accepted reward system for many things; poker, SF tourneys, your day job, etc. Replacing that with some other reward system is very complex and difficult to pull off unless that system is universally accepted by all parties. With so many different entities/groups running SF events utilizing different formats (round robin, bracket), this is not very feasible. And once again, people throw matches for a variety of reasons. Whether the reward system changes from cash to check to ranking systems, this does little to deter the unethical behavior and just creates extra burden for the winners.
I’m all for minimizing entry fees. This makes it more accessible and gears the gaming events more towards a fun pastime rather than a job. However, a fine balance must be struck since if the fees were too low (or even free), the motivation factor would be gone. Playing poker with nothing on the line does not result in good games. Not counting venue fees which will vary greatly with location/circumstance, I like the standard $5 or $10 for a tourney. But this is at the tourney director’s discretion. Just note that increasing/decreasing entry fees has virtually no effect on unethical behavior and just increases/decreases barrier of entry for competitors.
All these ideas for different tournament format such as swiss, single elim, round robin, etc, have NO effect on deterring unethical behavior from players. There is no fool proof format for any system. Every system has flaws and a players can take advantage with a little scheming. Given resource constraints that most tourneys face, it doesn’t seem very practical to try time consuming formats.
Seeding top players is a generally accepted practice in many competitive circuits, not just SF. If people do not like this method, then random brackets is the alternative. Each method has positives/negatives. Most tournaments utilize seeds. EVO utilizes random seedings. But once again, neither format can deter unethical behavior by the players.
Someone mentioned that by paying the entry fee, it is the right of competitors to see a spectacular finals with the finalists giving it their all. This assumption is wrong. Paying the entry fee gives a competitor the right to join an event and compete for the prize. In no way does it give the right for some other player to behave a certain way. If a player wants to play his heart out in every match, that is that player’s right. If the player is tired, doesn’t feel like it, or wants to forfeit and does not play 100%, it is that person’s right. Joining an event gives you no rights to control other people’s actions. Note that you may spectate the finals without even paying the entry fee.
So basically, changing the format or reward system does NOTHING to prevent unwanted behavior of individuals. If you want to deter certain actions, then you need punishment power. DQing/banning players for actions such as taking a loss is one method. However, this opens up a whole new can of worms as this is highly subjective. A player may state he was just not playing well due to some other reasons. Giving the tournament director the subjective power to DQ/ban based on assumptions is very dangerous. Also note that most tournament rules today does not explicitly state that you have to play your heart out and can not forfeit a match. This needs to be specified and made clear for competitors.
Bottom line, every system known to man has flaws and is prone to abuse by unethical people. There is no perfect system and there is no need to waste time trying to come up with one. If there is a problem about forfeits/splitting, then write in rules at your tournament to give you the power to punish this behavior. (note the subjective issue with this power)
Honestly, try harder then. This isn’t a topic about how to hold scrubs’ hands through a tourney so they can feel good about winning matches that don’t matter because the tournament allowed them to. This is about adopting a system that deters favoritism in brackets, minimizing money scamming, monopolization and promoting EFFICIENCY. Your tourney woes because you aren’t as good as other players is irrelevant. Hit the training room, watch videos, read and play more casuals. What IS relevant, is working with a system that only makes SKILL a factor, not the “luck of the draw”.
Round robin is the purest way of determining skill. Everyone plays everyone and a score is tallied. Problem is, round robin takes FUCKING FOREVER.
I dunno much about Swiss System, however, it is available as an option for Challonge.com.
One thing we do have to factor in though, is entertainment value. Half of the tournament experience is watching good matches. Separating the best players will create an atmosphere for hype matchups in the final rounds and there’s always the possibility of bracket upsets, but never tournament upsets. Random bracketing creates an atmosphere that’s a bit of a toss up. There’s that chance that a random can get an easy bracket, make his way to the finals and upset the pro player that made it there by having to go through other pros. Good and bad I guess. Random is the most fair though.
Invisible brackets, the tournament organizer DOES NOT show the brackets to the players, and the format of the tournament should REMAIN UNKNOWN.
So it could be a round robin, or pools then round robin, or of any mix.
Tournament organizer just needs to call out player names for their fights. I’m thinking a freestyle blind tournament where the players will be unaware of possible results. Just a new idea I came up with.
Need more ideas, we don’t have to follow standard tournament listings