Tournament: 7 Deadly Ships! (Information)

[Fynx]

If that didn't fully answer you, please let me know.

I needed some time to process it, but in the end it still doesn't exactly make sense to me.

The manual adjustment of ship tiers by organisers is obviously necessary in some situations.

However, currently there are exactly two situations why anyone would bring a 4th tier gun:
1. It's not in a relevant gun slot.
2. The pilot is confident the overall ship tier is going to be adjusted by organisers.

It's a natural result of the fact  that maths here simply do not work for 4th tier guns in any situation for any ship for any relevant gun slot. Select a random ship and put a flare (or even better, a harpoon) in any relevant gun slot. Either the points for the ship will be adjusted, or that 4th tier gun can be replaced by one of 3th tier guns allowed for that ship which is both a cheaper and more effective solution.

I'm not arguing with the general system (which I like, in fact). What I'm saying is that the full point score for the 4th tier guns is excessive.

[Jub Jub]

However, currently there are exactly two situations why anyone would bring a 4th tier gun:
1. It's not in a relevant gun slot.
2. The pilot is confident the overall ship tier is going to be adjusted by organisers.

It's a natural result of the fact  that maths here simply do not work for 4th tier guns in any situation for any ship for any relevant gun slot. Select a random ship and put a flare (or even better, a harpoon) in any relevant gun slot. Either the points for the ship will be adjusted, or that 4th tier gun can be replaced by one of 3th tier guns allowed for that ship which is both a cheaper and more effective solution.

I'm not arguing with the general system (which I like, in fact). What I'm saying is that the full point score for the 4th tier guns is excessive.

We still encourage people to take tier 4 weapons (mostly the flare I suppose) as they see fit, but at the same time, this shouldn't lower a normal ship's tier that uses flares for their functionality, rather than to try and decrease the tier and get more points.

Consider in this case a Mobula equipped with a Hades (T1), x2 Artemis (T1), Light Carronade (T3), and a Flare (T4). Now, I would argue that a Mobula with a Hades and x2 Artemis is a fairly "Meta" setup: (1.75 Hades + 1.75 Artemis + 1.75 Artemis + 1.0 L. Carro + 1.5 Flare) / 5 = 1.55, Tier 1.

Now, with that same set up, if the Flare was any lower, lets say its valued the same as Tier 3, so 1.0, the equation turns into this instead: (1.75 Hades + 1.75 Artemis + 1.75 Artemis + 1.0 L. Carro + 1.0 Flare) / 5 = 1.45, Tier 2.

So a ship that, I personally, would otherwise argue as being completely effective, is getting a lower tier, and more points, simply because a flare is placed on it. Valuing the Tier 4 guns so highly is done for reasons like this, where having a flare on the ship should be useful to the team, but shouldn't mean that the ship should necessarily get more points because of it. Obviously this needs to be looked at by organizers on a case-by-case basis, but this is a perfect example of where having a flare on a ship doesn't mean that it'll get a lower tier.   

[Fynx]

So a ship that, I personally, would otherwise argue as being completely effective, is getting a lower tier, and more points, simply because a flare is placed on it.

I wholeheartedly agree that this would be an undesired effect.

Still, put a flamer in place of the flare what results in a mobula with
Hades, 2 x Artemis, Light Carronade, and a Flamer -> 1.45, Tier 2
which is a loadout arguably as good if not better than
Hades, 2 x Artemis, Light Carronade, and a Flare -> 1.55, Tier 1.

That's exactly the opposite of the desired effect.
The situation, where a fully functional build with a flare doesn't get a better tier level is avoided.
Instead, there's a situation where replacing that flare with a fully functional gun from Tier 3 (it's not important if it's functional, actually) provides better tier instead.

I can fully understand that it's something difficult to balance out and so I'm not offering any particular sort of solution at this point.
However, bringing a 4th tier gun should not be punished comparing to bringing a 3th tier gun that is arguably more effective.

[Lueosi]

I'd like to have the manually changed tiers by the organizer published in advance somewhere. For example: Deadline for manually changed tiers 2 hours before the event on that day starts; Manually changed tiers are published in the tier document. That way nobody gets a disadvantage for not selecting a loadout just because it has the same tier as an arguably better loadout - just to know after that day, that they could have brought the intended loadout and get more possible points for it.

[boulder-]

I don't see the point of Tier 4. In the best case you add two of the same Tier 4 guns on a squid or pyra and then it gives you the same amount of points as two of the same Tier 3 guns. In all other cases Tier 3 makes your ship worth more than Tier 4.

Why not make Tier 4 worth the same amount of points as Tier 3 and keep the "All Tier 4 Guns Only" exception?

[Jub Jub]

Let me hit these one at a time:

Fynx:

I wholeheartedly agree that this would be an undesired effect.

Still, put a flamer in place of the flare what results in a mobula with
Hades, 2 x Artemis, Light Carronade, and a Flamer -> 1.45, Tier 2
which is a loadout arguably as good if not better than
Hades, 2 x Artemis, Light Carronade, and a Flare -> 1.55, Tier 1.

That's exactly the opposite of the desired effect.
The situation, where a fully functional build with a flare doesn't get a better tier level is avoided.
Instead, there's a situation where replacing that flare with a fully functional gun from Tier 3 (it's not important if it's functional, actually) provides better tier instead.

I can fully understand that it's something difficult to balance out and so I'm not offering any particular sort of solution at this point.
However, bringing a 4th tier gun should not be punished comparing to bringing a 3th tier gun that is arguably more effective.

Firstly, thank you for bringing this to our attention. As I'm sure you're aware, balancing something like this isn't easy. To fix this Tier 1 weapons on the Mobula and Junker have been upped from 1.75 to 1.85. This should solve the issues where "Meta" build ships get tiered lower than they should be on these two ships. Our system for tiering ships was changed around several times in development, and this is clearly an instance of something getting left behind and not updated. If you find any other weird loopholes like that, let us know.

Lueosi:

I'd like to have the manually changed tiers by the organizer published in advance somewhere. For example: Deadline for manually changed tiers 2 hours before the event on that day starts; Manually changed tiers are published in the tier document. That way nobody gets a disadvantage for not selecting a loadout just because it has the same tier as an arguably better loadout - just to know after that day, that they could have brought the intended loadout and get more possible points for it.

If I don't entirely nail this, let me know because I'm a bit confused by what you're saying. Things like what Fynx brought up, where a ship that should be a higher tier and isn't, is a mistake in the system, and something that needs to be resolved (and we're hoping that everything is fine and dandy now). But, the issue with having us post a list of ships that will have their tiers lowered in advance is that we can't predict what teams will bring. And many times I'm sure even the teams wont know until minutes before we ask.

Teams are at any time more than welcome to ask via PMs or such what tier a particular ship would be if they're unsure of how we might rate it. But I'm hesitant to put a list out of the ships that would be Tier-Decreased if only for the sole reason that this tournament is essentially a blink-pick system. And listing ships that people ask about just seems unfair to the team that brings them.

[Lueosi]

I suggest to not allow any manual tier adjustments until X hours before the event for ship Y starts. If teams want a tier adjustment, they should ask beforehand and then the tier should be published for that loadout so every other team knows about this adjusted tier. (And then as already in the rules, teams select their final ships before they join the lobby, no matter if they asked for tier adjustments.)

I find this very important to limit the influence of the organizers in giving advantages or disadvantages and keep the tier selection fair and transparent for all participants.

[Jub Jub]

I suggest to not allow any manual tier adjustments until X hours before the event for ship Y starts. If teams want a tier adjustment, they should ask beforehand and then the tier should be published for that loadout so every other team knows about this adjusted tier. (And then as already in the rules, teams select their final ships before they join the lobby, no matter if they asked for tier adjustments.)

I find this very important to limit the influence of the organizers in giving advantages or disadvantages and keep the tier selection fair and transparent for all participants.

This is something me and the other organizers helping me are going to have to look at. Though I can assure you the point of the Tier Adjustment Rule isn't to give advantages or disadvantages to certain teams. But rather to help make up for some of the short-comings of the numbers system that we use, which doesn't seem to cope too well with really strange/unorthodox builds.

[Jub Jub]

UPDATE: OP has been edited to include the event's logo, created for us by amazingly awesome, adventurous, artistically able Ayetach. I think that's enough alliteration.

[Jub Jub]

UPDATE: Sign-Up Threads have been added to the OP. Sign-ups are open!

[Jub Jub]

This is the LAST WEEK to sign up for 7 Deadly Ships. Sign ups will close Wednesday, May 18th.

[Lueosi]

Did you guys look at the proposal about tighten the rule about manual point adjustments? I'm not worried about giving advantages to certain teams, just about generally advantages without the possibility to count on some loadouts for the other teams. Just to make it more fair for everyone.

[Jub Jub]

Did you guys look at the proposal about tighten the rule about manual point adjustments? I'm not worried about giving advantages to certain teams, just about generally advantages without the possibility to count on some loadouts for the other teams. Just to make it more fair for everyone.

Myself and the other organizers did review your proposal and after about an hour long discussion it was decided to not change the rule.

Teams in Guns of Icarus are fairly lax when it comes to things such as "prepared-ness" and we didn't want to further stress teams out by forcing them to have to think 'X-time' in advance of what crazy load-outs they might want to try. We can at any point in time review and discuss a load-out with a team that messages me. But, in the event that a team has a silly load-out that WOULD need a tier reduction, and doesn't ask about it before hand for whatever reason, we didn't want to have to shoot them in the foot over that. Posting a list of the ship builds getting this tier-reduction also seems against the nature of what the blind-pick should be. Even if those teams don't bring that particular load-out, teams shouldn't have any idea what anyone else is going to bring, other than the ship type that is the theme of the week.

If this rule causes serious issues during the event, we will look at it again and consider changing it, but it has not been changed at this time.

[Solidusbucket]

im sure everything will be fine.

just be ready to answer this question / give the suvgestion before its asked.

team: you reduced my tier because of blah. what gun can i use to put be back at the higher tier.

[Jub Jub]

im sure everything will be fine.

just be ready to answer this question / give the suvgestion before its asked.

team: you reduced my tier because of blah. what gun can i use to put be back at the higher tier.

I make a solemn vow to answer any load-out question as swiftly as I can. Teams' best bet would be to PM me here over the forums.