174 replies to this topic

[kesmai]

The pirates will take all ye moneys.
Harr harr.

Edited by kesmai, 06 April 2016 - 02:01 AM.

[smokefield]

I would not put that strict rules on region. I mean an unit may be made of people all over the world...and maybe they want to play togheter..it would be stupid to prevent that.

On the other had I would replace REGION with UNIT - meaning a team should be made of at least 51% of people from same unit. Give people a period of time while they can migrate/make other units/whatever and enlist to the tournament, and lock it a couple of months before the start date.

I think MWO is or should be a game focused on team play, therefore we should encourage it not limit it. Region means nothing. If that players is willing to stay up late to play with his friends why not ? But unit should mean something. Units should be rewarded.

[Crockdaddy]

Glory, on 05 April 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

TBF, no finalists will be using joysticks anyway.

To be fair, no one winning their first match regardless of opponent will be using a joystick.

[Bush League]

100% Bush League.

[Crockdaddy]

MaxFool, on 05 April 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

Terra therma should not be a risk. That map is just stupid stupid stupid for competitive play. If they listen to competitive scene at all this map is simply never going to be used. Because, you know, we have tried it, seen how it goes, and we will probably never try it again. If it's in rotation for this tournament it proves that PGI simply ignores everything we have learned from tournament play so far.

HPG manifold should also not be used. As such, I'm not considering anything involving these two maps.



If you watch MRBC videos from this season you can see that many teams use (successfully) same mechs they use in every other drop. LRMs are not a must. Some teams may use special builds made specifically for this map, but it's not a must. And if a map is so different from others that you have to consider special mechs and strats for it, then teams will do just that, doesn't matter if it's kept secret if this map is going to be used or not.

There is just no upside to keeping it a secret if teams will develop their strats for it the same way if they'd know it's used. Still, knowing it's used only increases chances that some teams will actually try harder to come up with some surprises and not the generic strats. Again, not knowing the maps beforehand just makes the generic meta strats more likely, if you want surprises you gotta give teams a chance to develop those surprises.

Good post. You'd be surprised just what mechs people use in the MRBC League play. It doesn't always conform to "public queue" meta or "CW queue" meta. The mechs are largely driven by map type, game mode, and strategy each team decides to use (range vs brawl vs medium range vomit vs mech composition vs hot vs cold vs dakka). I'd say most successful has typically been knife fighting SRM type battles or Atlas supported Dakka Dakka with laser vomit. Really you are just trying to play to your team's strength ... make an educated guess against the other team while taking into consideration the map you are playing on.

[Rushin Roulette]

MaxFool, on 05 April 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

Terra therma should not be a risk. That map is just stupid stupid stupid for competitive play. If they listen to competitive scene at all this map is simply never going to be used. Because, you know, we have tried it, seen how it goes, and we will probably never try it again. If it's in rotation for this tournament it proves that PGI simply ignores everything we have learned from tournament play so far.

HPG manifold should also not be used. As such, I'm not considering anything involving these two maps.



If you watch MRBC videos from this season you can see that many teams use (successfully) same mechs they use in every other drop. LRMs are not a must. Some teams may use special builds made specifically for this map, but it's not a must. And if a map is so different from others that you have to consider special mechs and strats for it, then teams will do just that, doesn't matter if it's kept secret if this map is going to be used or not.

There is just no upside to keeping it a secret if teams will develop their strats for it the same way if they'd know it's used. Still, knowing it's used only increases chances that some teams will actually try harder to come up with some surprises and not the generic strats. Again, not knowing the maps beforehand just makes the generic meta strats more likely, if you want surprises you gotta give teams a chance to develop those surprises.

Sorry, but that is absolutely false.

Too many people think that the comp teams will only play certain maps or certain mechs compared to PUG games. This is not true, because a truly comp team must be ready for any map or any scenario. Including very hot or very cold maps and different game modes and additionally a different setup depending on your opponent. Each combination will need a completely different mech setup, strategy, counterstrategy and sometimes even diversionary tactics.

Tera Therma is honestly far from being the worst map for comp gaming.... its just terrible if both teams do the PUGrush to Mordor and throw away their Hobbits in the Lava. There are so many different areas which can be used for defensive and offensive movement. The other thing is, all spawn points have about the same probability of reaching the middle at the same time depending on mech placements in the lances. If the middle can be accessed easily, then all other points are just as accessible depending on movement path used. Its just a little big sometimes, but it should be possible for 16 players to meet up somewhere within 15 minutes.

I personally think that Canyon networks is a far worse map for comp play, just because the map itself is unbalanced and favors one side better due to the fact that the central area is more accessible from the north.

[James Wirth]

I won't comment on the merits and issues of the actual tournament structure and requirements, since there are much more qualified people than me who can address those issues.

However, since real prize money is involved, PGI needs to consult with tax attorneys with international experience to develop a better way of handling the reward. Just handing a large bag of cash and a 1099 over to the winning team leader won't work since the various cognizant tax authorities will jump on him or her like fleas onto a dog. In fact, the proceeds are likely to be taxed multiple times by federal, state, and local revenue authorities, and then again after the money is split, depending on where the winners live and file. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has been particularly aggressive in collecting taxes from Americans earning money outside the country, as explained in the links below:

https://www.irs.gov/...road-is-Taxable

http://money.cnn.com.../irs-penalties/

http://www.huffingto..._b_8905614.html

Consequently, there can be some very real and even devastating financial and legal consequences for tournament winners if the prize money is not delivered in a more well-thought-out way to protect them from their own respective countries' taxation authorities.

Edited by James Wirth, 06 April 2016 - 06:48 AM.

[Gorgo7]

James Wirth, on 06 April 2016 - 06:43 AM, said:

I won't comment on the merits and issues of the actual tournament structure and requirements, since there are much more qualified people than me who can address those issues.

However, since real prize money is involved, PGI needs to consult with tax attorneys with international experience to develop a better way of handling the reward. Just handing a large bag of cash and a 1099 over to the winning team leader won't work since the various cognizant tax authorities will jump on him or her like fleas onto a dog. In fact, the proceeds are likely to be taxed multiple times by federal, state, and local revenue authorities, and then again after the money is split, depending on where the winners live and file. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has been particularly aggressive in collecting taxes from Americans earning money outside the country, as explained in the links below:

https://www.irs.gov/...road-is-Taxable

http://money.cnn.com.../irs-penalties/

http://www.huffingto..._b_8905614.html

Consequently, there can be some very real and even devastating financial and legal consequences for tournament winners if the prize money is not delivered in a more well-thought-out way to protect them from their own respective countries' taxation authorities.

The MWO holder should do as little as possible to accommodate any nationality concerning taxes. They should cut a cheque and let the winning team figure it out. End of story. They are not your mama or papa or tax accountant. They are handing over cash. Period.
You've got 7-8 months before you "Win" the big prize. Do a little research.

Edited by Gorgo7, 06 April 2016 - 06:59 AM.

[James Wirth]

Gorgo7, on 06 April 2016 - 06:59 AM, said:

The MWO holder should do as little as possible to accommodate any nationality concerning taxes. They should cut a cheque and let the winning team figure it out. End of story. They are not your mama or papa or tax accountant. They are handing over cash. Period.
You've got 7-8 months before you "Win" the big prize. Do a little research.

So you're OK with throwing the game's top competitive players to the revenue wolves, most of whom have ZERO experience in international taxation matters, and could conceivably end up either bankrupt or in jail because of how the significant prize money will be distributed? This is real world law and real world consequences you're talking about. I don't don't how it works in Canada, but doing what you suggest could literally destroy American winners because of our asinine and exceptionally greedy tax system.

And I don't suppose you have ever worked for a real company before, especially one that issues stock, and has to make arrangements to protect its employees from the very rewards that are given to incentivize performance?

And here are some things to think about, similarly coming from the game show world:

http://moneyning.com...on-a-game-show/

http://www.accountin...e-game-show-win

http://www.dailyfina...game-show-winn/

http://www.marketwat...u-1295044732458

Tournament participants need to be cognizant of this stuff....

Edited by James Wirth, 06 April 2016 - 07:17 AM.

[Gorgo7]

James Wirth, on 06 April 2016 - 07:05 AM, said:

So you're OK with throwing the game's top competitive players to the revenue wolves, most of whom have ZERO experience in international taxation matters, and could conceivably end up either bankrupt or in jail because of how the significant prize money will be distributed? This is real world law and real world consequences you're talking about. I don't don't how it works in Canada, but doing what you suggest could literally destroy American winners because of our asinine and exceptionally greedy tax system.

And I don't suppose you have ever worked for a real company before, especially one that issues stock, and has to make arrangements to protect its employees from the very rewards that are given to incentivize performance?

And here are some things to think about, similarly coming from the game show world:

http://moneyning.com...on-a-game-show/

http://www.accountin...e-game-show-win

http://www.dailyfina...game-show-winn/

http://www.marketwat...u-1295044732458

Tournament participants need to be cognizant of this stuff....

If the top competitive players (who you seem to be very concerned about) are unable or unwilling to grace the competition due to tax woes you think that MWO should create a new, heavily populated department, with the sole intention of learning the in's and outs of some ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY foreign countries tax laws in order to allay the fears of...you.
Perhaps instead the winners could wait to cash said cheque and consult a tax accountant before disbursing said funds. Hell! Open an account in Canada and disburse from there. After some due diligence of course. Remember ALL participants are Adults.

or

They could hire you a to consultant for a *small* fee, you would feel better and so would they...

Edited by Gorgo7, 06 April 2016 - 07:42 AM.

[James Wirth]

Gorgo7, on 06 April 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

They could hire you a to consultant for a *small* fee, you would feel better and so would they...

Ignore the tax and legal implications of the prize money at your own peril. That's all I'm saying, which you're completely blowing off. Do you even work and pay taxes in the real world?

[Gorgo7]

What is your excuse for Trolling during working hours? Is your employer willing to pay for this crap of yours?
Mine certainly isn't.
Today, however, I am off.
Further, I am an adult who has paid income taxes for the majority of my life. Can you say the same?

Your concern for others is laudable, however, suggesting that MWO should spend more on researching how to ensure the winners have a painless experience with the IRS in the future is asinine. Hell, there is a good chance that the winners will NOT be American, ever thought of that? Smart guy?
I doubt you have any experience with any financial decision making. You may be a hell of a bean counter. But you know nothing of limiting a companies exposure to suits which may occur as a RESULT of trying to dole out advice based on good will.

Good luck.

[James Wirth]

Gorgo7, on 06 April 2016 - 07:59 AM, said:

What is your excuse for Trolling during working hours? Is your employer willing to pay for this crap of yours?
Mine certainly isn't.
Today, however, I am off.
Further, I am an adult who has paid income taxes for the majority of my life. Can you say the same?

Your concern for others is laudable, however, suggesting that MWO should spend more on researching how to ensure the winners have a painless experience with the IRS in the future is asinine. Hell, there is a good chance that the winners will NOT be American, ever thought of that? Smart guy?
I doubt you have any experience with any financial decision making. You may be a hell of a bean counter. But you know nothing of limiting a companies exposure to suits which may occur as a RESULT of trying to dole out advice based on good will.

Good luck.

I guess it's too much to ask in having an adult, civil conversation on this forum about a very serious financial aspect of this tournament without it degenerating into nastiness and accusations of trolling.

GG.

[QueenBlade]

Instead of having one, six-month qualifying period, do something like League of Legends does and have multiple qualifying events.

Spring Event (2 months, May/June)
Summer Event (2 months, July/August)
Fall Event (2 months, September/October)

This would also leave a nice 1 month buffer that can be used in between events to give teams time to register again.

Then the winners from those three events are invited to the Dec 3 Championships. I feel that it would encourage more teams to sign up and play. It would also make for a much more entertaining Championship series with many qualifiers of top play caliber rather than just 1 team from each region show up for a robin round play at the Dec 3 event, now you can have something like 2 qualifiers from each event for 6 teams per region, and now have a bracket playoff for the championships. Something like 18 teams (yes this would mean 1 extra round to round them out to 16 teams) facing off in a championship setting sounds much more entertaining for all parties involved instead of a two hour round robin between three teams.

[Glory in the Highest]

Gorgo7, James is not trolling.

This is actually a serious concern.

This is a part of having a tournament that has to be addressed by the company holding it.

Edited by Glory, 06 April 2016 - 08:37 AM.

[Ultimax]

Araara, on 05 April 2016 - 10:00 AM, said:

To be fair Matt, much appreciation for your work but I think you should reconsider looking at reddit or other forums. Competitive players and organizers have long since branched out to outreach hpg reddit and mwo reddit for feedback as they usually contain the bigger majority of long time competitive players.

The mwo forums are, not trying to be insensitive here, mostly populated by players with less play experience. The ones with more play experience also frequent reddit and league forums too. (edit : talking general playing experience here, not just competitive experience)

Now, I'm not saying you should always take feedback from reddit instead of here but you have to realize that if you want tested and proven feedback for the competitive side of mwo, you'll want to actually look where those competitive players and spectators are.

Case in point, how many links on the official mwo forums are there about competitive streams, shoutcasts of competitive games and analysis of said matches? Not to mention all the discussions about said games and teams.

Compare it to both reddit pages (mwo reddit and outreach hpg reddit) and you'll see they're miles apart.

Excellent post.

I'll go a step further and say that if PGI is unaware, not only will the greater source of experienced competitive players be found community run sites like Outreach - but that these official forums are often openly hostile against all things considered competitive or higher tier play.



This tournament could be huge for PGI, huge for MWO - it would be unwise in the extreme not to utilize a willing community of competitive players and especially previously successful league/tournament organizers in order to make their first foray into an Esports tournament a success.


I leave it to PGI how they are going to harness those players, and sift through the players who intend to compete and want this tournament to be excellent as opposed to bystanders and peanut gallery commenters who are unlikely to enter, and possibly even hope that the tournament fails because its not the vision of the game that they have.

Edited by Ultimax, 06 April 2016 - 08:58 AM.

[Shikata nai]

Túatha Dé Danann, on 05 April 2016 - 03:59 PM, said:

Aside from the price pool:

a) Motivation
Not everyone is into money, most of us SPEND money to play this game. So a tounament should be something promoting E-Sports, getting people into the boat, having a good time and giving them something in return. Are there teams in the lower skill levels? Yes. Do they have a reason to participate? Not really. Beside the 3 winning teams, there is not motivation set from this tournament to participate. You could simply take the 4 best teams from the internal server statistics and shorten up the overall tournament and be done with it.

Is this fun? No. Does this promote E-Sports? No. Is that a motivation? No? Do the rule-sets create any kind of room for creativity that is fun for the viewers to watch? No.

This is (I'm sad to say this) what happens, if you don't know stuff about your own game.

b ) Listen to the people who already organized big leagues. They have been and are able to get all kinds of groups under one roof, while maintaining fun for everyone. Do you have a weak team of noobs? You want to try it out and still give the community something back? Nice! You have a tryhard team of pros that goes full out and shows the max. amount of what is possible? Nice! Do you get that under one roof PGI? Nope. But you have to.

c) This is not just an event, this is a chance to push the little trust you gained after tossing out IGP into something bigger and you are wasting it. The only question I have to this is: Why? I mean: Really, why? Is that so hard to listen to people who already have experience in organizing this stuff? Is it an ego problem or what?!

Please sort out that stuff, come clear with the community and make it worth participating - for everyone!

Couldn't agree more.

[Deebs McFluffen]

I for one am stoked they are at least going in this direction!!!!!! it is about time we had something other than that lame *** league of legends bull ****** as the main esport.



Anyhow lets keep this in a positive as they are starting something we've all wanted.


Look forward it!

[Husker Dude]

627, on 05 April 2016 - 12:40 PM, said:

so, I'm just curious, what kind of 4 button mouse will be provided? Is it symetrical?

I mean, sure, us lefties are a rare species, but we exist. And if you give people these nice ergonomic right-hand formed gaming mice I'd expect at least some complaints about it. And by the way, what serious gaming mouse has only 4 buttons? Standard is 3, normal is 5 and good mice have 7+...

Yeah, count me as well among those who use a left handed mouse, I know there aren't many others but I definitely use a 5 button lefty one.

[Mawai]

Who receives the Prize Money?

The Team Captain will receive the entirety of the Prize Pool money and is solely responsible for distributing the winnings to their Team.

----------------------

Does anyone else think that this is a prescription for disaster? The contest rules state that ALL of the awarded prize money goes to the team captain who may then choose if and how it will be distributed. In many cases, the teams may not know the team captain's in real life, they may all reside in different countries with different contract law, teams may be composed of subgroups or cliques.

In all of these situations, the team captain could decide to keep the prize money for themselves or simply split some with real life friends. There is no obligation for the team captain to distribute funds or other rewards to other members of the winning teams.

This means that any members of a team should get a signed contract from the team captain on how the funds will be distributed if they happen to win. Even then, due to the different jurisdictions that may be involved the contract might not be enforceable.

Less than ideal behaviour by one or more of the winning team captains could become a PR nightmare for PGI. Team captains that do not distribute funds will demotivate the player base from participation in future tournaments since they will receive no rewards from participation in this one.

Honestly, I think PGI needs to seriously reconsider this plan or they may suffer for it down the road.

Several other options could be:
- even distribution to all players and alternates on a team
- even distribution to all players or alternates that participate in at least one match
- even distribution with an extra share going to the team captain (if the captain role needs extra acknowledgement)

In addition, if you listed prize distribution option choices the TEAM could select the preference for prize distribution when it is formed. Presumably, all the team players will be onsite for the finals and prize distribution will be via cheque or money transfer at the time of the tournament completion .. so getting in touch with the team members should not be an issue.