86 replies to this topic

[Rushin Roulette]

We signed up fully aware that it will mean a really, really large number of games until November..... but 1 game per day? lol

This is psychologically a completely crazy and insane task for any comp team.

You have to get 8+ players together at the same time, get warmed up, talk over tactics and variants which in itself takes a minimum of 30 minutes, especially for hard to crack opponents, then you get in the drop... 10 mins max of full concentration and rinse and repeat 3 days in a row. Gather, warmup, prep talk 10 min game.

Other leagues have you fighting 3, 4, 5, 9 games per Session in one night. The 30 minute warmup and prep talk is done once for all games at the start and after that the games are pulled through in one sprint after which you again have a few days break to calm down and prepare for your next opponents.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 21 May 2016 - 01:15 PM.

[M A S E]

This is an international tournament and you guys scheduled the games on the work week? What the hell? Not every employer likes the idea of people requesting time off to play a video game.. This should be scheduled for the weekend. GJ PGI

[CwStrife]

Thank god I didn't do this. This is a joke, and looks like it will end up being a disaster.

[Crispy Chicken]

Much of the stuff I am going to say here has already been said, I know. Still I think it does not hurt to say them again, some points of view are new. Plus the more often they are said from different people the more serious they might be taken.
This is actually a more systematic version of my first/original post about this, also with some new items in it.

The situation "as is":
round robin tournament for close to 160 teams (for arguments sake lets say it is 160 teams). The bigest reegion being NA, with 82 teams. This results in overall approximitely 11k required matches. This is an enourmous amount of required games. Each NA team has to play 81 times, and that between June 3rd and October 7th. That is 18 weekends after my count. You canot expect for people to have time durign the week ... so matches wil happen from friday to sunday (region time), and 1 or 2 games a day (in average just above 4 games per week/weekend)
This is how PGI did decide to handle the tournament (hopefully just for now).

Considering the issues this modus operandi raises one has to wonder if this was well thought through before announcing it and/or if people with experience in large scale tournaments were contacted regarding advice. Some of the issues seem so obvious that you wonder if the people organising it did seriously think about the doability of this.
The issues as I see them are as follows (forgie me if I explain my reasons too much, Idid TRY to keep it short and to the point, I promise!, if you have questions feel free to ask):

*) NOBODY can/will be willing to dedicate 18 weekends in a row nonstop. You simply cannot go far from home cause your game settings and equipment are at home, so playing somewhere else is pretty much out of the question.

*) Spreading out the games with an equal number of games on each tournament day for each participiant is a REALLY BAD idea. It might make no difference for the referes who is playing how often each day (because they have to sufer through all games anyways). But it is a HUGE diference for the single player if he has to pretty much sacrifice each and every day of every weekend for 18 weeks ... or if games for teams are clustered together (As usual in tournaments IMHO) so you do not have 1 to 2 games each day each weekend but either 4 games on ONE day each weekend (Still pretty bad IMHO cause you still need to be available each weekend) or maybe 8 games on one day every second weekend.

*) 8 playyers required, maximum team size limited to 12, the majority MUST be from the appointed team region. Teams are locked as of announcement of the schedule so no changes possibe. With that many game days mixed region teams will ahve serious problems to even include their replacements (especially if they cut it close in numbers from the appointed region already). So this will deffinitely result in a lot of forced forefitments. Which has a pretty good chance in resulting not neccessairily the best teams winnig.. but the ones with least forefitments ... not exactly what is intended I think?

*) 11k games over all will put a big stress on everybody.. players, referees, server load/hardware ... so a good idea to reduce all these problems would be to reduce teh number of required games for the tournament. While I fully agree with giving each team, even the not so good ones, a numebr of matches to show their skills (and enjoy their tournament), I think most if not all people coudl do with less than 81 games ... So why not make a qualification bracket round where you split teams (eitehr all or per reagion) into lets say groups of about 16 to 21, and have them do a round robin qualification within that bracket (which shoujdl result in about 8 to 12 brackets). that would result in 15 to 20 games for each team tops during qualification. The top 2 or 3 teams of each bracket earn their place in the race for region winners, and regional winners play for world champion. That would leave lets say 10 to 12 weeks for the qualification, 8 to 6 weeks for the regional decisions... and you still would be done on time. And you can group the games to have for each team to not have to be available to play each weekend, and each tournament weekend not each day (it wont be possible to have each team only play one day each of their tournament weekends. but it would over all make the whole tournament way more managable for each participating player and also for the teams.

*) I am sure PGI can crunch the numbers better than me, but you could even have 2 qualification bracket rounds (with smaller brackets) because smaller brckets means less plays üer bracket and also less teams, so better chance to group games for each team to one day a weekend.


Sure hope a more player and family friendly solution will be decided on ...there is still time, and I do not think many people would complain about changes right now.

Thank you for your time
Crispy Chicken
...with the license to baAWK!

Edited by Crispy Chicken, 22 May 2016 - 05:22 AM.

[Husker Adama]

For the time being, this is a "no-life championship".

Make a pools / brackets tournament and it will be the MWO championship that we were all expecting.
You have 15 days to change that mess.

Thank you for your players

Edited by Husker Adama, 22 May 2016 - 08:23 AM.

[Crockdaddy]

A lot of good well reasoned comments here. To echo pretty much everyone else, this schedule has zero chance of working. Even the most try hard of try hards can't avoid things like work and at least some family time. This completely wipes out any adult west coast players on a 9 to 5 type schedule.

[Elizander]

shadowcat67, on 20 May 2016 - 04:22 PM, said:

Can you open the rosters for the vetted teams that have less than 12 players? Playing 81 games in North America is going to tax the 9 of us on my team.
We thought there would be fewer games.
Also the games are Thursday through Saturday in NA, correct? based on the utc time.

81 games is ridiculous. They should make smaller groups do the round robins. Are you fighting everyone? :/

[Crispy Chicken]

Bilson, on 20 May 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

There are so many better qualifying formats that could have been used, that were strongly suggested to be used. You don't have to have previous experience running a tournament this large to apply basic reasoning when planning it.

I think, one answer to the big question why this championship is scheduled as it is might be that there was a management decision at PGI and nobody dared to point out to the management that their decision was .. errrrr.... less than optimal ...

[Crispy Chicken]

Paul Inouye, on 20 May 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

Just want you to know that no matter what the outcome on Tuesday is, we still have to burn through 11K+ matches and end in time for teams to make preparations for travel to the Finals. It is imperative that matches are completed in a timely manner in order to meet this deadline.

That being said, I will be proposing that matches can be played outside of the scheduled window of a match but has to be completed before the official scheduled match date/time. Of course more details will have to be fleshed out to make this work and I will update on the outcome of the meetings that are going to be required for this.

As much as I (and I guess everybody in the comunity) understands and agrees with the fact that the finalists must be deteremined at a reasonable early time ... as much I (and again most in the comunity) have to disagree with your statement that it HAS to be 11k games at all. Do the sensible thing, make it qualification brackets, that will cut down drastically the number of games and will aso increase the teams who can actually paly.

Your planned solution of giving the teams opportunity to schedule their games themselves makes the whole thing just way more complicated (did you even think about availability of referees at the self scheduled times???). round robin without brackets is nice and works well with a lowish number of teams, but I think we can safely state that 80+ teams in one regional bracket is more than is humanly possibly in such a short time

[M A S E]

Hydrocarbon, on 21 May 2016 - 07:34 AM, said:

The most likely winners won't be the top team in skill, it will be 12 unemployed guys who live in their mom's basement. At least with this scheduling.

I can understand needing a timetable for your referees, but I also understand you're able to record all game data. You could easily have a few volunteer ref's (maybe toss them a few MC), then review the data if someone calls foul.


I think the biggest problem isn't as much the timetable as it is when we were notified. I'm certain many teams may have reconsidered their roster if they knew certain members could never make it, including mine. Now they're locked in with teammates that cannot fight.

We are entirely with you on this.

[M A S E]

Crockdaddy, on 22 May 2016 - 09:41 AM, said:

A lot of good well reasoned comments here. To echo pretty much everyone else, this schedule has zero chance of working. Even the most try hard of try hards can't avoid things like work and at least some family time. This completely wipes out any adult west coast players on a 9 to 5 type schedule.

Not even the 9-5's dude, I'm bustin' out them 3-11's during MT -07 time. They have practically voided the majority of the NA region. These matches should be held Sat-Sun.

[Appogee]

CwStrife, on 21 May 2016 - 09:04 PM, said:

...looks like it will end up being a disaster.

Not really. We already know how it ends. One of three large and well-known teams will win the event.

Smaller units will have battles. Many won't show up or be able to compete with a a full team, creating forfeits.

But it won't matter

in the end the same name teams will end up in the finals competing with each other.

[N0MAD]

it will be interesting to see the demographics of who actually shows up there..

[K O N D O]

They should have Divisions within each Region comprising 8 teams for each Division (or as close to 8 as possible).
They should seed each team in the Region based on a players cummulative Tier.
A Tier 1 player = 10 points
Tier 2 player = 8 points
Tier 3 player = 6 points and so on...
(PGI should have the ability to count Tier points for each team).

If a team has 12 x Tier 1 players, their points equal 120 seeding points total and they should be seeded at number 1 for that region. If a team has 5 x Tier 1 Players and 7 Tier 2 Players, their seeding points equal 106 regional seeding points.
I believe this would be the fairest option to seed team without going through a load of matches.

Now from highest seed to lowest, the teams should then be spread among each of the divisions in the relevant region.
The number of Division's will be based on the number of 8 team Divisions that can be formed in that particular Region.
Asia & Oceanic has 20 teams, so the best Division spread would be 2 x Division's with 7 teams and 1 x Division with 6 Teams.
The Americas has approx. 80 teams, so they would have 9 x Divisions with 8 teams and 1 x Division with 9 Teams.

This way, we have balanced regional Divisions each with a good mix of Top to Low Tier Teams. This will also alleviate the accidental clumping of Top Tier Teams in a single Division if it was a random draw.
Once the Divisional's are all seeded, the scheduling should be 2 matches per week (Monday to Sunday), comprising a best of 3 rounds for each match. Complete your 2 required matches at a time during that week, that best suits each team and the Ref's. Should not be hard to schedule.
All Divisional matches should be completed within 4-5 weeks by seeding and scheduling this way and all Divisional teams have a good chance of participation with a minimum of 8 matches.
The Top teams from each Division then fight out for the Regional title playing the same best of 3 round format.
Regional winners then go to the Worlds.

I think this will be the fairest for peoples personal life, the Top Tiers teams, and the team just wanting to participate.

Edited by K O N D O, 24 May 2016 - 12:53 AM.

[Karl Marlow]

Grow up people. Your playing for 130000 dollars. You have to put in some work. Good grief of the whining is this loud over a tough schedule then the tears will flood small villages when these guys start getting creamed in the matches.

You're going to have to put in some effort for your prize. You aren't going to get a lot of sympathy over half assing it going in. This is supposed to be an eSport. This is the championships. Supposedly made up of the pros. Pros have to work hard to win. It's part of what makes the winners worth the money they get.

What next? Bitching over the distribution time table of your participation trophy?

[PeteZonee]

ThomasMarik, on 24 May 2016 - 01:38 AM, said:

Grow up people. Your playing for 130000 dollars. You have to put in some work. Good grief of the whining is this loud over a tough schedule then the tears will flood small villages when these guys start getting creamed in the matches.

You're going to have to put in some effort for your prize. You aren't going to get a lot of sympathy over half assing it going in. This is supposed to be an eSport. This is the championships. Supposedly made up of the pros. Pros have to work hard to win. It's part of what makes the winners worth the money they get.

What next? Bitching over the distribution time table of your participation trophy?

Agreed with all the whinging... But some teams have 2 matches set at the exact same time on the exact same day for some reason... Also, PGI should have released the schedule BEFORE teams were allowed to register. That way there is zero reason to whinge afterwards.

[LordSkyKnight]

ThomasMarik, on 24 May 2016 - 01:38 AM, said:

Grow up people. Your playing for 130000 dollars. You have to put in some work. Good grief of the whining is this loud over a tough schedule then the tears will flood small villages when these guys start getting creamed in the matches.

You're going to have to put in some effort for your prize. You aren't going to get a lot of sympathy over half assing it going in. This is supposed to be an eSport. This is the championships. Supposedly made up of the pros. Pros have to work hard to win. It's part of what makes the winners worth the money they get.

What next? Bitching over the distribution time table of your participation trophy?

#1 That's not actually that much money, especially considering this tournament is supposed to be 6 months long.

#2 The schedule they came up with is going to make it so that several of the top contenders will have to forfeit a lot of matches. When your best teams can't play, your comp scene dies a horrible death.

#3 There's a difference between working hard and building your life around something. Top players in this game don't have sponsorships. They don't get any money or advertising or anything. They just practice hard when they can and play hard when they can within the confines of their lives. There are exactly 0 actual professional MWO players, and one 130k prize pool after 6 months for a game with 12 man rosters isn't enough to let even the winning team live off the winnings.

[lpmagic]

Plenty of people have good points in here. There is NO way that PGI is ever going to satisfy everyone, it is just not possible. I have been waiting for a tourney like this since the inception of the game. No one will be able to give up every weekend, or even, 3 nights every week, it is just not possible. What they need to do is use something like the back end of MRBC where we are able to schedule each week as many matches as we can get, as long as we are over the amount of matches we should be by that point we should all be in the green.

There are tools available to get this done, and, I'm not trying to put MRBC on the spot, but I suspect that they would help to some degree with a back end scheduling system or at least info on how to put it together.

this is sheer lunacy and will lead to mass defections in the tournament, maybe not right away, but as soon as someone plays half their games and is sitting at 500 they are gonna just walk, and not come back, further mangling this, I have no desire to make the time to play and not have a team show up three times in a row, and that is what we are gonna have, it will end up being just the hard core teams left, long before the end of the round robin portion, this is supposed to be for everyone, and this is certainly not going to do that.

I do appreciate the effort to even put this on, happy with the money put up, happy with the map and 2,2,2,2 set up, even happy we have 4 months to get through 80+ drops, not happy with being told that I have to give up 3 evenings a week, leave work early on a couple of them, and never do anything but this on a saturday.....just not going to happen.

To me the fix is three fold

1. Use a backend similar to MRBC for scheduling purposes

2. set it up on a two week basis, give us two weeks to play our scheduled matches within that time frame, use the scheduled time as a fail safe if one team or another does not schedule.

3. Allow another 4 players per team, making it a cool 16 players, giving much more flexibility to scheduling concerns.

barring that I dunno.........

Maybe just give us all 4 months to just take care of our own thing, and just get it done, at this point, that actually might work best......

also, if you want teams to finish the tourney, don't post results.....I'm telling you now that some teams will lose 15-20 and just disappear way to soon for this to be entertaining, nothing like an 80 + drop slog while getting thumped to completely destroy some peoples thoughts of ever becomming a comp player. And this last part is just IMHO

Thank you for listening!!

Lp

Edited by lpmagic, 24 May 2016 - 08:46 AM.

[lpmagic]

ThomasMarik, on 24 May 2016 - 01:38 AM, said:

Grow up people. Your playing for 130000 dollars. You have to put in some work. Good grief of the whining is this loud over a tough schedule then the tears will flood small villages when these guys start getting creamed in the matches.

You're going to have to put in some effort for your prize. You aren't going to get a lot of sympathy over half assing it going in. This is supposed to be an eSport. This is the championships. Supposedly made up of the pros. Pros have to work hard to win. It's part of what makes the winners worth the money they get.

What next? Bitching over the distribution time table of your participation trophy?

understanding that the largest part of the player base for this game is above the 18 year old mark, and making it known that 3 days a week including weekend days with only 15 minutes of play time per is un-doable, is not whining, it is ensuring that PGI understands that the vast majority of people will not be able to do this. it is allowing them information on something they are spending irreversible cash on, and it is giving them multiple ideas at how to fix it, there is no perfect answer, but feedback is how things become successful.

getting information from players that have played in 20 + league schedules, including two to three leagues at a time (which this akin to) is what it should be about. No need to call people out because they are expressing an opinion or thought. This should be, and seems to be, a pretty positive thread about what can and can not work.

[Crispy Chicken]

ThomasMarik, on 24 May 2016 - 01:38 AM, said:

Grow up people. Your playing for 130000 dollars. You have to put in some work. Good grief of the whining is this loud over a tough schedule then the tears will flood small villages when these guys start getting creamed in the matches.

You're going to have to put in some effort for your prize. You aren't going to get a lot of sympathy over half assing it going in. This is supposed to be an eSport. This is the championships. Supposedly made up of the pros. Pros have to work hard to win. It's part of what makes the winners worth the money they get.

What next? Bitching over the distribution time table of your participation trophy?

umm, first its a price pool, the winners do not get all of it

second there is a HUGE difference ebtween putting in some effort and pretty much giving up your life for 4 moths ...
of course many teams know fromt he start they have no chance in winning (Well, with things how they are right now, maybe they have because of a high number of forefits) ... but they want to be part of it and have a good time
Just that it stops being a good time when you have to give up every weekend for 4 months ...
there ARE way smarter methids of doing this ...