46
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 16, 2016, 09:38:48 am »
You could not have titles. B)
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47
Community Events / Re: Event Organisation - Could it be Better?
« on: January 16, 2016, 12:45:14 am »
Cronus League isn't professional in what sense?
48
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:30:16 pm »
@Skrim: I never said don't test it. I just said this is what might happen. It could be good, it could be bad, it could be neither.
@Dem: I think you're misunderstanding what I was saying. A team that thinks that they have to let other teams win the title is arrogant.
For example, lets pretend your clan wins the first SCS with titles. Then in the next round, they feel the need to sit out and let another clan. That would be arrogant. They'd be assuming that by participating, they're going to win. And the only way to pass on the title is to not participate.
Another fun fact is that the best way to win a tournament (let alone a title) is to tryhard. If people want the champion title, they're very likely going to have to try hard. That's just how tournaments work. Prizes just give players move motivation to win, encouraging them to try harder (you're keeping up, right?). SCS hasn't had prizes before and didn't have much to encourage teams to win, so it has generally been a relatively tryhard free environment.
@Dem: I think you're misunderstanding what I was saying. A team that thinks that they have to let other teams win the title is arrogant.
For example, lets pretend your clan wins the first SCS with titles. Then in the next round, they feel the need to sit out and let another clan. That would be arrogant. They'd be assuming that by participating, they're going to win. And the only way to pass on the title is to not participate.
Another fun fact is that the best way to win a tournament (let alone a title) is to tryhard. If people want the champion title, they're very likely going to have to try hard. That's just how tournaments work. Prizes just give players move motivation to win, encouraging them to try harder (you're keeping up, right?). SCS hasn't had prizes before and didn't have much to encourage teams to win, so it has generally been a relatively tryhard free environment.
49
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Week 2!
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:21:36 pm »
Thank you Guagadu, it's just like he said. We could try to schedule every match for a specific time, but then we have to plan each match lasted the longest time. It's more efficient to move from match to match as they're completed. This makes it difficult to know what time any match beyond the first matches will start. However, they will start at 2 PM EST and continue in order. (However, matches may be moved as necessary, but this will only be done when absolutely necessary).
50
Community Events / Re: Event Organisation - Could it be Better?
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:18:13 pm »
A fun fact is that there have been no unannounced rule changes since sign ups started (with the exception of the time change). The rules were initially written several months ago and posted for everyone to see and comment on. Due to player feedback, we adjusted the rules before sign ups. The link was re-distributed at sign ups for everyone to look at the rules. If you didn't think there was going to be any changes since it was announced in October SPECIFICALLY ASKING FOR FEEDBACK, then I can't help you. I'm not sure anyone can.
The time change was both unfortunate and fortunate. As stated, the event was originally designed months ago, during daylights saving time. This went unnoticed until teams started asking about what time the tournament started, and it was changed to standard time. This shouldn't have happened, but it did. It was also necessary to get a hold of other casters, since both our scheduled casters weren't available.
That being said, these suggestions aren't bad. I would encourage organizers to adopt them into their rulesets as necessary. However, it's not possible to enforce them. Community run events are community run events. Individuals make the rules. BoCA tries to help, but they do not enforce anything. It's totally up to the organizers, and that's how it should be.
The time change was both unfortunate and fortunate. As stated, the event was originally designed months ago, during daylights saving time. This went unnoticed until teams started asking about what time the tournament started, and it was changed to standard time. This shouldn't have happened, but it did. It was also necessary to get a hold of other casters, since both our scheduled casters weren't available.
That being said, these suggestions aren't bad. I would encourage organizers to adopt them into their rulesets as necessary. However, it's not possible to enforce them. Community run events are community run events. Individuals make the rules. BoCA tries to help, but they do not enforce anything. It's totally up to the organizers, and that's how it should be.
51
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:52:11 am »In my opinion, it wont make the scs more competitive, well maybe in the first 2 weeks but then, once some teams have that title, they wont have to compete that much and it'll all calm down. After that, it'll just be some nice advertisement. Plus once a team has the winner titel, they will probably back off a bit and then the other Teams who will probably still be wanting that title will have an easier time. It should all sort out well
They could back off, or they could keep tryharding their best to prevent any other team from getting the title.
If everyone gets the title, it's a pretty empty and meaningless title. If only a few people have it, it can be something to take pride in. The Skirmisher title is already pointless before it's been released. The Skirmish Champion is another story. Teams could easily win it, and then sit back and let other teams win it (showing an incredible level of arrogance). This means that less people would participate or try in SCS. I have my title, why bother competing again (or why bother tryharding again)? On the other hand, a few teams could win it, and then keep fighting over every Sunday to prevent as many teams as possible from getting it. This makes the title more valuable in a way, but would also cause the SCS to become increasingly more tryhard competitive.
52
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 14, 2016, 08:03:38 am »The largest competitive event? Did Hephaestus League not count? As far as I'm aware, not only was it the largest, but the most successful. Other events, such as Aerodrome have also done quite well and are a bit more innovative than a standard bracket. Sky League was about as popular as the R&D Invitational.
Sky League: 21 teams
Claiming the Fjords: 15 teams
Hephaestus Challenge: 14 teams
Anvalan Conflict: 14 teams
Sky Tournament: 12 teams
R&D Invitational: 8 teams
Sky League ejected more than half the teams in the first two weeks. The group phase was only a prelim to the main event of 8 teams, very similar to Rob and Dan Invitational. Hephaestus on the other hand kept every team around until it finished, and lasted a lot longer than any other tournament. Fjords isn't even worth mentioning as a tournament.
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Mod bias aside, getting back on topic is ideal.
Do titles mean more to new players or veterans? Was this idea implemented to draw people into competing in SCS? Was it put in place to reward people who already participate in SCS? Will such a reward make the SCS more or less competitive, and is that a good or bad thing? If you start adding in titles for repeatedly participating and winning, will that change how people feel about the SCS? Are the reasons this was put into place important, or are the results more important?
My general pessimism leads me to believe this idea is mainly self-serving and had little to no intention of getting people more involved in the SCS itself.
The title idea itself is fine enough, ulterior motives aside. It may get more people interested, it might not. It might just be to reward people who have already been participating and winning consistently. It very well could make the SCS more competitive, which I wouldn't like to see happen, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. We'd just need a new scene to help introduce teams into competitive in a relaxed atmosphere.
53
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 14, 2016, 12:06:03 am »
The largest competitive event? Did Hephaestus League not count? As far as I'm aware, not only was it the largest, but the most successful. Other events, such as Aerodrome have also done quite well and are a bit more innovative than a standard bracket. Sky League was about as popular as the R&D Invitational.
For Blood and Brass, there was a lot of miscommunication. Due to this, the event was heavily criticized before it even got off the ground. And even then it was still fairly successful, despite some people's best efforts otherwise.
Peoples concern about the SCS are valid. It's had it's ups and downs, and there's been very few new teams getting into the mix, let alone new players. For a long time it was considered as a good starting place for new teams to get involved in competitive play. There wasn't a huge ruleset, there was no prizes to compete over, no restrictions on ships or playstyles, no long sign up period and no limited amount of teams. Even if you lose one week, you can just play again the next. A nice relatively low stress environment for people to build up their confidence for larger more organized competitive play. Over time, and especially with the most recent organization team, it's been drifting away from that.
This current attempt to give titles for participation and victory seem skewed. It doesn't address concerns about the SCS at all, but rather seeks to bribe people into participating. While it's not a bad idea for getting the SCS to liven up, it's also not a good idea. I have my own ideas of why they're doing it, but at least they're trying.
For Blood and Brass, there was a lot of miscommunication. Due to this, the event was heavily criticized before it even got off the ground. And even then it was still fairly successful, despite some people's best efforts otherwise.
Peoples concern about the SCS are valid. It's had it's ups and downs, and there's been very few new teams getting into the mix, let alone new players. For a long time it was considered as a good starting place for new teams to get involved in competitive play. There wasn't a huge ruleset, there was no prizes to compete over, no restrictions on ships or playstyles, no long sign up period and no limited amount of teams. Even if you lose one week, you can just play again the next. A nice relatively low stress environment for people to build up their confidence for larger more organized competitive play. Over time, and especially with the most recent organization team, it's been drifting away from that.
This current attempt to give titles for participation and victory seem skewed. It doesn't address concerns about the SCS at all, but rather seeks to bribe people into participating. While it's not a bad idea for getting the SCS to liven up, it's also not a good idea. I have my own ideas of why they're doing it, but at least they're trying.
54
Community Events / Re: New Sunday Community Skirmish Rewards
« on: January 13, 2016, 10:53:02 pm »
Skeptical.
55
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Week 2!
« on: January 13, 2016, 10:46:24 pm »
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wbh1ATjh3L_ddCPECpgHHoajWfmxjHj3JDoPiMSUXnU/edit#gid=1869348923
Matches and Maps are up (Follow the link above and go to the Week 2 Tab at the bottom of the screen)! As a general and important reminder, your ship name MUST match your team name. Please update your names ASAP if necessary, this will be your only chance to do so.
Pairs should not fight the same opponent more than once. If you see this in the matches, let me know so that I can fix it.
Regrettably we didn't have enough late join teams to put the remaining teams into the matches, this was the last week for teams to join.
Late join teams incur a mild point penalty (5% lost for each match they missed; as opposed to 10% for losing a match. A Fine Nights Curse took a break on week 1 and the point loss was the same.
Remember that if you need to take a break, try to let me know before the matches go up. Teams that do not show up will have all 20% of their points lost for each match they miss, and their ally team will not suffer a point loss.
In the even that teams do not show, we will be happy to replace such teams with late join teams if they fail to communicate with us before matches are set up the next week. (So if you miss matches this week and fail to inform the organizers before next Wednesday, you will be removed from the League).
Good luck this Saturday!
Matches and Maps are up (Follow the link above and go to the Week 2 Tab at the bottom of the screen)! As a general and important reminder, your ship name MUST match your team name. Please update your names ASAP if necessary, this will be your only chance to do so.
Pairs should not fight the same opponent more than once. If you see this in the matches, let me know so that I can fix it.
Regrettably we didn't have enough late join teams to put the remaining teams into the matches, this was the last week for teams to join.
Late join teams incur a mild point penalty (5% lost for each match they missed; as opposed to 10% for losing a match. A Fine Nights Curse took a break on week 1 and the point loss was the same.
Remember that if you need to take a break, try to let me know before the matches go up. Teams that do not show up will have all 20% of their points lost for each match they miss, and their ally team will not suffer a point loss.
In the even that teams do not show, we will be happy to replace such teams with late join teams if they fail to communicate with us before matches are set up the next week. (So if you miss matches this week and fail to inform the organizers before next Wednesday, you will be removed from the League).
Good luck this Saturday!
56
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Signups!
« on: January 12, 2016, 09:18:21 pm »
Of course you can join in!
Late joining is still available this week. It will likely close out on Wednesday so we can release the matches for this upcoming Saturday. Just make sure you have a team of 4 players. When you're ready to sign up, post your team name and let us know that you're signing up.
Late joining is still available this week. It will likely close out on Wednesday so we can release the matches for this upcoming Saturday. Just make sure you have a team of 4 players. When you're ready to sign up, post your team name and let us know that you're signing up.
57
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Week 2!
« on: January 10, 2016, 02:54:38 am »
Teams don't have to sign up each week. Once you've signed up, you're in it for all 10 weeks until you quit or stop showing up.
Although if a team forfeits and brings us down to an odd number of teams, we'll have to figure something else out for the remaining teams...
However, this is the last week for the late sign ups. You can show up for week 2 with slightly reduced points. We still need sets of 4 teams for this to go smoothly. (So if only 3 teams sign up, we won't be able to get them into the League as a regular team.)
Although if a team forfeits and brings us down to an odd number of teams, we'll have to figure something else out for the remaining teams...
However, this is the last week for the late sign ups. You can show up for week 2 with slightly reduced points. We still need sets of 4 teams for this to go smoothly. (So if only 3 teams sign up, we won't be able to get them into the League as a regular team.)
58
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Signups!
« on: January 10, 2016, 02:51:23 am »
Team pairs are currently up, so you can start talking with your ally tam immediately. Matches/maps and such will be up on Wednesday. I want to give teams the opportunity to bring up complaints, notify us of breaks or forfeits, point out incorrect scores, etc. This way I don't have to change the matches repeatedly and confuse everyone more.
Lobby timer will almost definitely be increased to 5 minutes. Match length is very unlikely to change.
And additional streamer would be nice, and we'll see what we can do about it. We were lucky enough to get two streamers and 2 refs for today.
Lobby timer will almost definitely be increased to 5 minutes. Match length is very unlikely to change.
And additional streamer would be nice, and we'll see what we can do about it. We were lucky enough to get two streamers and 2 refs for today.
59
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Signups!
« on: January 09, 2016, 07:24:14 pm »
This point system is similar to the MMR system. It comes from the concept that more skilled opponents are worth more points, and less skilled is worth less. So if you have a match of a champion player against a novice, if the champion wins, they don't get a lot of points. However, if the novice wins, they earn a lot more points. There's a lot of variations on this type of system and it's present in many multiplayer games in one fashion or another.
You can consider it the evolution of the Hephaestus League. In that system, teams earned points for wins, regardless of who it was against. You could beat 10 novices or 10 veterans and it's still the same points. We want a system that gives value to the teams and also acts as a balancing factor.
So along with more skilled teams earning more points (the more you win, the more skilled you show yourself to be) we balance it by pairing the skilled and less skilled. This, ideally, will lead to some balanced matches which are more enjoyable to play and watch.
It's kind of like what Veteran Matches and/or GoIO MMR should be in the right conditions.
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Timers come into play from experience. I've seen tournaments that lasted way too long because a match or two went over an hour each (Sniping is just the most common). There have been events where the lobby wasn't timed and matches took an incredible amount of time to start. Today we had 6 matches on each stream. With 3 minutes each, that's 24 minutes of just sitting in the lobby. Then there's the added time of creating the lobby and getting the majority of players into the lobby. More than a few matches went over the 3 minutes before starting. So it's likely to be over 30 minutes of not being in a match.
If we move it up to six minutes, you could be looking at over an hour of that. 3+ hours of GoIO ever weekend for 9 more weeks would be stressful on a lot of people.
That being said, we can increase the lobby time (not to mention the other ways of getting more lobby time). However, I can't justify increasing the match time regardless of how loose it makes you.
For subs, they can play on your team as long as they want. However, they can't play for a different team immediately. I have adjusted the wording in the rule to make this more clear. If you have a sub for Team A, they can keep playing for Team A. If they want to play for Team B, they have to wait 3 weeks. I hope this makes sense.
You can consider it the evolution of the Hephaestus League. In that system, teams earned points for wins, regardless of who it was against. You could beat 10 novices or 10 veterans and it's still the same points. We want a system that gives value to the teams and also acts as a balancing factor.
So along with more skilled teams earning more points (the more you win, the more skilled you show yourself to be) we balance it by pairing the skilled and less skilled. This, ideally, will lead to some balanced matches which are more enjoyable to play and watch.
It's kind of like what Veteran Matches and/or GoIO MMR should be in the right conditions.
------------------------------------
Timers come into play from experience. I've seen tournaments that lasted way too long because a match or two went over an hour each (Sniping is just the most common). There have been events where the lobby wasn't timed and matches took an incredible amount of time to start. Today we had 6 matches on each stream. With 3 minutes each, that's 24 minutes of just sitting in the lobby. Then there's the added time of creating the lobby and getting the majority of players into the lobby. More than a few matches went over the 3 minutes before starting. So it's likely to be over 30 minutes of not being in a match.
If we move it up to six minutes, you could be looking at over an hour of that. 3+ hours of GoIO ever weekend for 9 more weeks would be stressful on a lot of people.
That being said, we can increase the lobby time (not to mention the other ways of getting more lobby time). However, I can't justify increasing the match time regardless of how loose it makes you.
For subs, they can play on your team as long as they want. However, they can't play for a different team immediately. I have adjusted the wording in the rule to make this more clear. If you have a sub for Team A, they can keep playing for Team A. If they want to play for Team B, they have to wait 3 weeks. I hope this makes sense.
60
Community Events / Re: Cronus League Signups!
« on: January 09, 2016, 06:45:24 pm »
So week 1 points are going to be messy, there's no denying that. It's purpose is to start creating point differences, which it has done. The problem with the week 1 points is that the matches were relatively random. You might go against a team with 2000 combined points or 22000 combined points; and that makes a difference in what you can win.
From weeks 2-9, we'll be pairing teams in a high-low system.This will help create teams that have relatively the same amount of points. So you might have a team made of ships with 1000 points each (2000 total) or a team with 1300 and 700 points (2000 total). It's unlikely to be nearly that clean, but you won't end up in matches with a huge difference in combined points.
It may be adjusted at the first break to scale points for winning/losing to the point difference. For instance, if we do get teams that have a combined score much higher than anyone else, we may make it so that they can win less points, but are worth more points when defeated. We'll have to get more opinions on that.
Points are bound to change a lot as time goes on. They should start to stabilize near the end of the League. You don't have to be the number 1 team to win, but you do need to be top 4 to have a chance at it.
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As far as time goes, I can agree on the lobby time. It is short, but we don't want people forced to play GoIO for hours on end. Most tournaments have a lobby timer of around 3-5 minutes. This is because of past tournaments that had lobby time nearly as long than the matches themselves.
As for match time, nearly all of our matches finished well before even the 15 minute mark. Very few people enjoy a long drawn out sniping match where nothing interesting is happening. And again, we don't want people playing GoIO forever. Once more we look to past matches that have lasted ridiculously long periods of time and wasn't fun for anyone involved or watching.
From weeks 2-9, we'll be pairing teams in a high-low system.This will help create teams that have relatively the same amount of points. So you might have a team made of ships with 1000 points each (2000 total) or a team with 1300 and 700 points (2000 total). It's unlikely to be nearly that clean, but you won't end up in matches with a huge difference in combined points.
It may be adjusted at the first break to scale points for winning/losing to the point difference. For instance, if we do get teams that have a combined score much higher than anyone else, we may make it so that they can win less points, but are worth more points when defeated. We'll have to get more opinions on that.
Points are bound to change a lot as time goes on. They should start to stabilize near the end of the League. You don't have to be the number 1 team to win, but you do need to be top 4 to have a chance at it.
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As far as time goes, I can agree on the lobby time. It is short, but we don't want people forced to play GoIO for hours on end. Most tournaments have a lobby timer of around 3-5 minutes. This is because of past tournaments that had lobby time nearly as long than the matches themselves.
As for match time, nearly all of our matches finished well before even the 15 minute mark. Very few people enjoy a long drawn out sniping match where nothing interesting is happening. And again, we don't want people playing GoIO forever. Once more we look to past matches that have lasted ridiculously long periods of time and wasn't fun for anyone involved or watching.