The Next Tournament: A Suggestion

[N-Sunderland]

I don't like participating in tournies, but I like to watch the replays. I didn't find the sniper wars on the Fjords too interesting and hope the next tourney is either a Point Capture or Crazy King style game. These games are more dramatic and less conservative which should lead to a better viewing experience.

There were like two sniper battles at the Fjords tournament. Most of the games were close-range. Have you seen the SMAC-MNS semi-final?

[HamsterIV]

Nope, I knew the results of the tournament before I stared watching the replays so I just watched the brackets. I still think a Point Cap tournament would make for some interesting viewing.

[RearAdmiralZill]

I know im biased but you really should watch that semi-final. It was as fun to watch as it was flying in it.

CP and CK will add some very new ideas. Interested to see what comes out of those if they get used.

[Machiavelliest]

I know we have the Cog Tournament. What about a less open-ended Aviator's Kumite?



The premise would be a duel between crews to test the crews' ability to adapt strategy in a one-on-one environment, removing the often frustrating element of teammate performance.  It would be fought in a 2v2 map, with only two ships doing combat at a time.  When one ship was victorious, it would be allowed to repair, and then then next opponent from the other team would engage from their starting point.  The rules need more refining, but here's the starter concept.

Ships would be constrained either to specific ship, specific loadout (which would allow concept testing for experimental builds), specific loadout (harpoons only, flames only, or more imaginitive combinations), and other permutations.  The important part in this Iron Chef: Battle Duck-style concept is that the Kumite restrictions aren't released until the lobby is created.  This prevents practicing, which is the whole point of selectively testing your crew and its ability to adapt, not the ship.

[Moriarty]

You know that 3v3, Casters vs muse was amazing to play in, everything was different it honestly felt like capital ship combat.

I think a structured 4v4 teams would be mindblowing, screw the petty differences between the different groups we should try our best to make this happen from time to time.

[Moriarty]

you could incorporate it into the cogs (because this is the largest of the few structured events we have) something like every 3 weeks its a 4v4 with two teams joining up.

[Veyka]

4v4 has some pretty iffy technical problems though, with the game quite often slowing down to half speed with a full match, also with the only 4v4 map being a CP one, that plus slomo means that you can easily end up with 40min matches ++++ when both sides are good and one side isn't just holding it all the way to 650.

Also just jamming two random teams together doesn't mean they can fly together effectively.

3v3 might be doable, but even the biggest clans might have problems filling 3 ships, let alone the smaller ones who have to shuffle crews every week anyway.

Not saying it should or could not be done, just that there are practical concerns.

[Pickle]

4v4 is doable as a format whilst retaining 2-ship teams.  It only requires three matches to complete a league.

With four 2-ship teams (A, B, C and D):

AB plays CD
AC plays BD
AD plays BC

Each team is scored with the points for and against (those their team scores and those scored against them).  The leaderboard is ranked by the points difference.

With eight 2-ship teams, their broken into two 4-team pools and the top two from each pool play in the winners pool.

[Helmic]

As a regular competitive thing, it probably will remain an impossibility until some things change (adding in-game fleet suppport could possibly make it easier for clan numbers to swell enough to fill these gametypes).  Having them as exhibition matches would probably work wonderfully though, have four teams in the same match and just let them go at it once a week after the Cogs.  Results don't matter, it's just there to show people what these other game types are like at a higher skill level.

[Pickle]

3v3 works for individual ship teams, similar format to above but this time with four matches to complete a cycle.

Six 1-ship teams (A, B, C, D, E and F)

ABC plays DEF
ABD plays CEF
ACD plays BEF
BCD plays AEF

Leaderboard ranked on the points difference between for and against.

The weakness of these systems is the potential for "team orders" (given the proliferation of Anatidae).