Author Topic: Room for Improvement  (Read 34862 times)

Offline Imagine

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #30 on: July 29, 2014, 11:10:50 am »
I'd agree there. It does kind of push out other events given it's length.
Gonna be devil's advocate here and say that's what people wanted. Everyone called for a league not just a tournament, and having that take up ~2 months is about as minimal as you could get it with the amount of teams that participated.

Offline Thomas

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #31 on: July 29, 2014, 01:07:03 pm »
Personally I kind of like the longer season, it gives a nice spread for win/loss records. Shortening the season gives a lot more ties, less head to head, and a higher chance of teams having similar k/d. Just makes it difficult in general to seed the tournament.

Some options might be splitting the Hephaestus over a couple of days, such as Friday and Saturday matches. Same number of matches and stuff, but half the teams play on Friday, and half on Saturday; leaving more room for other events on Saturday.


Then the problem with that is it'll be harder to find a good time on Friday for teams to play. Since players in America have work/school more often on Fridays. Moving the time to later in the evening is often far too late for EU players, despite being a weekend.

Offline Velvet

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #32 on: July 29, 2014, 01:46:18 pm »
maybe a 2 week break at the midpoint, then?
« Last Edit: July 29, 2014, 01:47:49 pm by Velvet »

Offline redria

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #33 on: July 29, 2014, 02:46:39 pm »
The real question comes down to what the community wants from this. The goal, if need be, is for this to be treated as the high level competitive event, as Cogs and Sky League were treated. The event you look to compete in to be crowned the best competitive team in the game. With this in mind, there are 2 distinct features where we made choices that pushed us towards where we are.

Tournament, league, or other? We chose league. This allows teams to continue to play over the length of the event. However, it keeps daily events long throughout, and it increases the length as teams play more matches. Tournament offers faster resolution, but teams eliminated early have nothing to do while it plays out. Other options are possible through creativity possibly. Ideas are welcome.

Size: exclusive or inclusive? We chose to be inclusive. Anyone can participate. This allows dark horse contenders and fresh teams the opportunity to make headway. It also makes the event much larger. With more teams, there needs to be more matches to help really determine where teams fall. Exclusive play would allow for a limited team pool of the best teams, allowing for shorter seasons and higher level play all around, but at the cost of teams that don't do as well.

No matter what else you look at, it really boils down to these 2 factors.

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For example, keeping league play and switching over to exclusive play. The League features 4 top level teams. These teams all play each other once in a best of 3 over the course of 3 weeks. The top 2 teams play each other in a final best of 3 during the 4th week, determining the season winner. After a week off, the next season starts. The top 2 teams from the previous season stay, and the bottom 2 teams are knocked out. They are replaced by the top 2 teams in whatever event was running for everyone else during the previous season.

Using this all but the top 4 teams can participate in whatever event the community puts together on Saturdays. The best 2 teams coming out of this are offered a place in the next season. Take it like the soccer system, where you can move up by playing well and move down by playing poorly. The premier event features only those teams that are hot at the moment, or that can perform exceptionally consistently.

Now your low tier events can be whatever fits inside a 4-5 week window, and if it is shorter than that it gives teams a break.

This helps solve a lot of problems in a lot of areas, but it breaks one of the decisions we made to be inclusive. It is a route we could move to, but it would naturally move away from some of the better rewards these events have had. It would also beg for something like a yearly Sky League tournament to be held.

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Looking at something falling in the "other" category, let's keep the length of the league and make it more accessible to teams. This wouldn't help other events, but it would help individual teams and new teams.

Take the regular season and break it up into 3 separate and distinct periods. These periods last 3 weeks and run in succession. You may sign up for a period up until 1 week before it starts, so a team could join in at the end of the regular season. Teams are broken into divisions of 6 teams each, and you play 5 games over the course of the 3 week period. The top team from each division is advanced into the winner's bracket. All other teams are free to sign back up for the next period or to take a break. At the end of the 3 periods, all teams in the winner's bracket move into a 2-3 week playoffs. While periods are going on, any team in the winner's bracket can request a match to earn a higher seeding in the playoffs. These matches will be custom made between teams that sign up from the winner's bracket, meaning the admins could even make it a CP map, or take 3 teams and create a 3v3 match. This allows winner's bracket teams the opportunity to play and advance while having a sure spot in the playoffs.

This format frees teams from the long commitment and the small window of opportunity to sign up. It keeps winning teams entertained after they secure their spot and provides an opportunity for unique matches not usually seen in competitive. And it still gives a feeling of there being a season event with a dramatic playoff. But it really breaks apart the league concept and turns it into something... else.

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Overall, there are creative solutions, but you have to make concessions to try to balance between a perfect theoretical idea and making something that is enjoyable. Feel free to give ideas on ways to move around problems, or feedback on the couple ideas posted. Those are my personal ideas for a direction we could move, but the first is radical and the second didn't get the most favorable feedback from fellow admins.  ;D But that's okay. I'm farming for ideas to see what people enjoy/hate. And somehow I think exclusive play would not go over well.  ;)

Offline Alistair MacBain

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #34 on: July 29, 2014, 02:58:55 pm »
Same as always ... Just my thoughts aswell no official statement.
I can totally sign the last sentences from redria.
I would love to improve the issues we had and the problematic facts. But i dont want to turn this to one of the thousands of one-off tourneys we already had.
Yes they are good and allow a big potion of teams to competet whenever they want. But then we lack that major event that puts everything together and allows only the best teams to come out on top. Thats what we lacked during the Sunday Rumble and Saturday Box Social period. We had tournaments going all weekend but all of them were one timers. You played one and that was it. There was no big event that crowned the king.
Thats what i thought Hepheastus should be. And you cant have this when you dont drag it out. A simple elimination tournament will never be able to crown the best teams. No matter if its played on one or several weeks. Thats what a league is good for. It judges much better who is good. That doesnt that certain factors dont influence it but the influence of say one player missing isnt that big.
Ill take the Mad Hatters as an example. They had to forfeit one match and still came out on third place of their division. One unfortunate factor (missing player, lag, mood, day performance) doesnt influence your whole score to hard. It will always have an influence but the influence gets smaller the more matches you have in a league.
And adding a two week break instead of just a one week break introduces the problem of longterm commitment much more.

We will see what we can grab for season 2.

Offline Sammy B. T.

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #35 on: August 02, 2014, 02:52:24 pm »
Match A
1 SIR 5-3
2 SIR 5-1
3 NA

Match B
1 Thralls 5-1
2 Thralls 5-0
3 NA

Match C
1 SIR 5-3
2 HRA 5-2
3 HRA 5-4

Match D
1 Thralls 5-4
2 Ryder 5-2
3 Ryder 5-3

Match E
1 Ryder 5-4
2 HRA 5-3
3 HRA 5-2

Offline Shinkurex

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #36 on: August 02, 2014, 02:56:00 pm »
Match A
1 SIR 5-3
2 SIR 5-1
3 NA

Match B
1 Thralls 5-1
2 Thralls 5-0
3 NA

Match C
1 SIR 5-3
2 HRA 5-2
3 HRA 5-4

Match D
1 Thralls 5-4
2 Ryder 5-2
3 Ryder 5-3

Match E
1 Ryder 5-4
2 HRA 5-3
3 HRA 5-2

wrong thread maybe?

Offline Sammy B. T.

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #37 on: August 02, 2014, 03:27:47 pm »
Nah, I just give my thoughts on improvement in complicated code form

Offline AbbyTheRat

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #38 on: August 03, 2014, 11:24:05 pm »
I want to just say thing, I do think the playoff should be changed back into a 2 week affair (OR two days weekend thing if teams can do it), with the quarter and semi finals played out on the first week with the finals being a bo5 played on the final day. It be way more fun to watch for me, I tend to watch playoffs and keep an eye on the leagues.

Also, maybe it be worth keeping in mind (if we get lucky with the game becoming a popular e-sport) running several leagues and playoffs into a world championship, this would solve the EU/US problems. So the HC is designed with being scalable.

I think 30 minutes is a perfect setup for now with bo1 considering the constraints HC has. It's actually shorter than a lot of the current sports out there, I would love to see it expand slightly with more teams completing and if we get more casters, having the season extend a bit with more matches. I can dream..

Having said all that, I really wanted to see a bo5 finals, 2 hours of two of the top team battling it out would be glorious! That's the one thing I'd love to see out of all my suggestions.

Offline Tanya Phenole

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #39 on: August 04, 2014, 05:34:44 am »

Is the HC League too long, too short, or just right? Why do you feel this way?
It was just fine. Really good format for seasonal league, 2-3 in year will be best to keep teams in tonus

Much of the league uses a best of 1 system. Would a best of 3 system have felt better, or was the best of 1 option a good way to protect your time and the audience's time?
I loved the usage of Bo1, however, I believe that in case of smaller amount of teams (8 or less) Bo3 is possible
The HC League (re?)introduced a separation of casting and administration, but failed (largely due to me) to separate administration and referees. Was the separation good? Would you have liked to see more separation between administration and referees?
I see no difference between motivation of tournament hosts and referees. It will be great, if administration will have abilities to hire more referees, but I see no disaster if hosts need to be referees themselves

Time limit rules came into play multiple times. Were these rules a good way to end the match, both as a player and as a viewer? Is there a different format that you feel might better protect the ability to bring any style to competition?
HC showed that with any playstyle in 2v2 is possible to get kills on limited time. We seen sniper battles finished in 10 minutes, we seen brawling builts, who haven't got kills in given time... I consider calling longer time for a match is a total disrespect to other teams and organisation. Also, there are quite few people who can afford playing more than 6 hours a day, and we can't all be oriented on their capabilities.

Were the set start times a good or bad thing? Did you feel you were left waiting in full lobbies too long waiting for your match to start? Did you enjoy knowing exactly when your match would start? Did it allow you to schedule better and get friends to watch you? Would a rolling start time or a different format work better?
Set start time was a huge impovement. I expierenced waiting for 1,5 hour in crew formation during sky league, not being able to leave, because game could start any time, and that was quite exausting. Fixed starts allow viewers to view streams in chekmate order, which is a great advantage both for streamer and viewers

Did the lobby time limit provide an adequate arena for selecting your ship without opening the match to excessive ship swapping? Did you feel safe to take unusual builds, or would a different system make you feel safer in taking unusual builds?
This is  teamwork-based game after all. Build, perfectly trained by crew always wins newly taken one, even if it is a perfect counter. The example of double junker, runned by the Mandarins, illustrated this well enough - they survived and destroyed even under carronade fire. That is why I am convinced, that swapping always punishes the swapper, and plays fewer role in match score

Were the pause time rules fair, and fairly enforced? Were you ever concerned that server problems or player disconnects would ruin a match for your team?
I believe, that pauses were helpful to avoid several connection problems. Unfortunately, they can't protect from all the disconnects. And yes, server issues influenced the team's performances a lot.

Were the substitution rules sufficiently flexible to allow you to make all needed substitutions? Did you ever feel the substitution rules were too lax, allowing a player or team to abuse them?
Substitution rules were greately liberal. I remember how much drama strict subbing rules called in Sky League. Unfortunately, we currently have a situation where one captain was able to play for three different teams, which atually mixed up the team's ratings a bit.
I am absolutely agreed with Frogger, who mentioned that team captains must be locked to their teams. The person in captain slot does greater difference to team's performance, rather than crew substitute.  That is why a person, piloting for one team, must not be able to pilot for another.


Were there any rules you felt strongly for or against? Something you felt harmed the integrity of the match or League?
The ranking, based on kills, needs improvement. Maybe it needs to be balanced with kill/death ratio or other ways to protect teams from being unfairly underscored

Do you feel that the map pool provided sufficient variety, and that the maps each added something beneficial to the map pool? Was there a map that detracted from the quality of the League that you felt should have been removed?
I have very strong pesonal dislike of "Battle in the Dunes" map. It's removal needs to be discussed

Would you be intrigued by a restructuring of the regular season to allow more fluid participation, or would you prefer a second season to maintain a more strict adherence to current structuring?
I loved the current structure of league, and I would prefer to keep it

Would you be interested in playing more than one match per day (Bo1) even if your matches were not scheduled consecutively?
Absolutely no! only if my match time will be scheduled in advance, so I can plan my evening

Would you be interested in taking an axe to the pause rules and removing official pauses?
No chance, current pause rules protect players, not abuse them

I totally agree with AbbyTheRat that  forming divisions considering the teams' region will give a great advance both to american and european parts of community. The overlap between timezones is narrow, but large enough to put cross-divisional matches there

Offline AbbyTheRat

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #40 on: August 04, 2014, 02:10:51 pm »
Bare in mind, I say the future seasons should bare in this mind and allow to build into regions, however right now, I do not know we have enough team to really create exciting leagues battles, so right now we want to merge the leagues.

I repeat, it's something that future HC Seasons should build into their seasons so that if we ever get lucky with being a big e-sport, it won't be a huge complication to do because it was built that way in mind.. I really like the current system and like it to stay.

Idea moment - HC could do with a website to track this, more information in one place instead of spread out across the post. Statistic would be easier to track cause the website would design to track it.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #41 on: August 04, 2014, 04:10:33 pm »
The following junk of words is not greatly related to improvement of all the tournament rules and neither is it meant to attack anyone's opinion, but rather it is an opinion on why this:
Quote
Team captains must be locked to their teams.
might not be the best idea for improvement. I hope the following opinion (/story telling/philosophical rubbish) helps tune the sub rules in a less strict way and thus improve them:


Unfortunately, we currently have a situation where one captain was able to play for three different teams, which atually mixed up the team's ratings a bit.

Oops.

But how unfortunate is it really? A clan with an active playerbase of 8 or less and therefore needs a constant basis of subs (or a few permanent crewmembers that are not even part of the clan) can't have everybody in their team ready to pilot. And neither can a team that can only get their full team together just barely long enough for each crewmember to practise their roles in their team, before the next competitive match. The Mad Hatters could pull it off after they got their team back together, could the SIRs? Even us Rydr had trouble once we had to get a second sub-pilot going.
Can you blame a team that it has not prepared for such unfortunate circumstances? Even though not every clan/team can be ready for this, you probably could. Would it be fair to "punish" them by restricting their performance and flexiblity? I say, this particular topic needs to be discussed thoroughly by the organizers of their tournaments.

I jumped in for TAW and in some people's eyes it was one of their better performances. We still lost 5-2, even with a full Rydr crew which might or might not have had as big of an impact as me. I jumped in for SIR, that time without any other Rydr to give me company and SIR won the silver play-offs. When I think about this, I wonder just how much of an impact I really made and it could be very well, that I alone had not made that much more impact than the unfortunate crewmember I was subbing for.
What would the difference have been if the teams I subbed for had their full crew? Would TAW have won against Holy? Would the SIRs have performed worse if they had their actual pilots instead of a one-time sub from outside their team? Would the Rydr actually have lost the golden play-offs or even make it in there if Hillerton and Lueosi could have been flying together for the entire tournament? Strictly speaking, I was not even part of the Rydr's official team.
Do you want people to sign up their entire clan, just to be sure they have enough pilot subs?

The person in captain slot does greater difference to team's performance, rather than crew substitute.

I think I was only as good as the team I was subbing for. SIR had that much more experience than TAW and thus the scores were that much better. However, that is subjective and very likely to be inaccurate and just a coincidence how everything worked out.


I am not against a rule where a pilot can't just fly for every team as he likes, but if the rules are too strict it could lead to unfortunate results, maybe even to that extent that it wastes peoples time (one could say though that it is just a game and wasting time is part of it).
I would fly or even gun/engineer for every team if I can help them to not surrender in advance. Such an event is just unfortunate and I wouldn't want to see any team succumb to this in an over-a-month long tournament. Why would anyone?
Not to mention, if the surrender happens shortly before the match, the opposing team has wasted its time practising when it could have relaxed instead.


I apologize if this was too badly structered.

Offline Tanya Phenole

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #42 on: August 05, 2014, 02:08:18 am »
Daniel, changing substitute rules is a field for a separate tread. I feel like you probably should  create one, if you have so much to say about this.

Offline redria

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #43 on: August 05, 2014, 09:35:52 am »
Daniel, changing substitute rules is a field for a separate tread. I feel like you probably should  create one, if you have so much to say about this.
Actually it's perfectly fine to discuss here. This thread is for feedback, and he gave good feedback.  :)

Offline Jub Jub

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Re: Room for Improvement
« Reply #44 on: August 05, 2014, 11:09:47 am »
Quote
Is the HC League too long, too short, or just right? Why do you feel this way?
While the Hephaestus was quite lengthy (10 weeks in total I believe) I feel it should be that long. The Hephaestus was supposed to be a competitive league, not week long tournament.

Quote
Much of the league uses a best of 1 system. Would a best of 3 system have felt better, or was the best of 1 option a good way to protect your time and the audience's time?
Bo1 matches for the Regular Season and the Silver Playoffs were perfect for keeping things short, interesting, and on schedule. There's far too much that can happen in a Bo3 to keep it nicely planned out, and when there's a whole bunch of other matches waiting to be played, Bo3 for the Regular Season (and possibly the Silver Playoffs) just takes too long.

Quote
The HC League (re?)introduced a separation of casting and administration, but failed (largely due to me) to separate administration and referees. Was the separation good? Would you have liked to see more separation between administration and referees?
The separation between casting and administration was fine, as well as the "combination" of administration and referees. Far too often during the matches I saw people asking questions about the rules. Who better to answer them definitively than the people who wrote them?

Quote
Time limit rules came into play multiple times. Were these rules a good way to end the match, both as a player and as a viewer? Is there a different format that you feel might better protect the ability to bring any style to competition?
Its inevitable that if given enough time a match will end, one way or another. However, having a match that lasts 3 hours is tiresome to watch, just as tiresome as it is to play. The cut and dry time limit rules were great for keeping the entire Hephaestus rolling smoothly. 30 minutes is plenty of time for a match to be played and ended without getting too dragged out.

Quote
Were the set start times a good or bad thing? Did you feel you were left waiting in full lobbies too long waiting for your match to start? Did you enjoy knowing exactly when your match would start? Did it allow you to schedule better and get friends to watch you? Would a rolling start time or a different format work better?
Static start times works much, much better than a "lose" scheduling would. There's no wondering when you're going to play, you already know.

Quote
Did the lobby time limit provide an adequate arena for selecting your ship without opening the match to excessive ship swapping? Did you feel safe to take unusual builds, or would a different system make you feel safer in taking unusual builds?
Teams usually had a game plan before matches anyways, so I never saw choosing your ship loadout in lobby as too much of an issues. The shorter time-frame kept teams for doing an endless rotation of loadout swaps and kept it to forcing teams to play with something that they felt comfortable enough to fly.

Quote
Were the pause time rules fair, and fairly enforced? Were you ever concerned that server problems or player disconnects would ruin a match for your team?
I believe the pause time rules were fair in their design. As for fairly enforced, there are instances where I might disagree. There's always a concern that a player will disconnect and ruin the match (it happened to a lot of teams during the season, as well as my team during the finals unfortunately). Making the pause rules a bitter necessity.

Quote
Were the substitution rules sufficiently flexible to allow you to make all needed substitutions? Did you ever feel the substitution rules were too lax, allowing a player or team to abuse them?
Several things for substitutions: The rules for substitutions were lax enough to allow for a last minute substitution, which is a good thing. However, I would also like to add the idea of a mid-match substitution pause to be specifically longer than a normal pause to allow enough time for the in-game timers to run out and allow time for the player to join the game. Substitutions in general however I feel should be more tightly controlled. If Hephaestus is truly a league, then the competing clans are in every sense of the word; teams. Competitive teams don't lend one another players (American Football Example: If the Green Bay Packers' Quarterback was out on an injury, the New England Patriots wouldn't lend them Tom Brady on their bye-week. European Football Example: If Manchester United was down a goalie, Real Madrid wouldn't lend them their's if they weren't playing that week). Competing teams should list their players, their regular crews, as well as people they think might need to play for them as a sub sometime in the future. If a team does need a last minute substitute, they should be drafted from people not competing at all.

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Were there any rules you felt strongly for or against? Something you felt harmed the integrity of the match or League?
I had no problem with any of the rules, except the aforementioned substitution rule, and maybe some more strict regulation on using the text chat mid-game is needed, so a referee's words aren't drowned out in all of the random blabber.

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Do you feel that the map pool provided sufficient variety, and that the maps each added something beneficial to the map pool? Was there a map that detracted from the quality of the League that you felt should have been removed?

I had no problem with the map pool. While I understand the majority of people don't like Battle on the Dunes, it is 2v2 Deathmatch, and one that forces teams to play in a different style, due to its terrain. What sucks is how people are forced to play on the map, but assuming you keep the 30 minute time limit rule, then this map should continue to stay in the map pool.

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Would you be intrigued by a restructuring of the regular season to allow more fluid participation, or would you prefer a second season to maintain a more strict adherence to current structuring?
As I said earlier, if this is supposed to be a league, then the more strict and organized, the better. Forcing teams to sign up by a specific date makes scheduling things far down the road much, much earlier. And for the teams themselves, they already know who they're going to be playing for the entire regular season (which is a good thing). Allowing teams to come in during the middle of the regular season also encourages teams to drop out entirely during the regular season, giving it more an atmosphere of the Sunday Community Skirmish, which isn't a good thing for a competitively league to have.

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Would you be interested in playing more than one match per day (Bo1) even if your matches were not scheduled consecutively?
I liked the league's current set up, and don't really see a need to change it from how it currently is.

Quote
Would you be interested in taking an axe to the pause rules and removing official pauses?
No. Competitive gaming over the internet has far too many variables to not have some sort of pause rules in affect. Between disconnects, lagging out, restarts, and a whole other plethora of things that can go wrong, the pause rules are necessary.



Ending Note: I thought the Hephaestus was very well thought out, planned, and excited. There's very little criticism I personally have for the Hephaestus Challenge. It was a great experience, lots of fun, and I can't wait for next season!  :)