Winter World Cup WINNER - poweewee (Philippines)

[RandyDogz]

Ok my 2 cents, in principal I don't think that after a pretty high profile tournament has started the rules should be debated/changed.

But let's face it, this is just a game and I'm not going to be upset if it is changed to make it 'better' for the community at large - I want to see Outwitters continue to grow as its good for all of us. Valid points have been made on both sides. If this World Cup was different than the first I can see how there was some confusion. This is still a relatively young community, things aren't going to be perfect.

Having top 2 advance does not seem like a bad thing, and shouldn't hurt anyone. If anyone 'gave up' thinking they wouldn't win their group that's a bad decision - who know's the winner could have dropped out of the tournament for whatever reason, everyone should play each match to win, thats what a competition is about!

For full disclosure, I think I'm going to win my group so theoretically a change would be bad for me as there is more competition but I've got no problem with that. Only concern is if more players makes the tourney drag on too long, as this was a concern for awpertunity as the tournament organizer.

[amoffett11]

As stated on the rules page: "The tournament officially starts February 1st".

Technically speaking, people are raising concerns over only 1 advancing before the tournament was meant to begin. I know a lot of people were caught off guard by the start of this thing, people who weren't aware the tournament had begun were being challenged to matches and the thing just took off. I imagine that people who signed up for this long ago before the rules were finalized didn't have a chance to see the final rules before matches had begun. For this reason I don't think that the "tournament has started therefore no rule changes" argument really holds a candle.

Sitting in 2nd in my pool, I'm coming from a biased position (but then again so is everyone in this discussion) but I can't help but think that if we only allow one person from each group, aren't we just having a tournament of the same people over and over? The ST's will advance and face each other as usual, and everyone else has to go home. If you allow 2 from each group, you get more a little more unpredictability and more fun for more involved.

[Gf!sh]

(02-01-2013 03:33 AM)amoffett Wrote:  As stated on the rules page: "The tournament officially starts February 1st".

THANK GOD someone had to say that!


NOTICE: the upcoming statement is mostly based upon pre-knowledge, which YOU didn't have.

So, awpertunity PM-ed me a while before the start of this, regarding a question of mine: "Why 144 ppl?";

awpertunity Wrote:I didn't want to answer this on thread since unless there are exactly 144 this wouldn't be the format, but I'll answer you since you love making tournaments haha.

With 144 people they would be split into 16 groups of 9.

Each player plays each person in their group in one game (4 as P1, 4 as P2, 1 on each map). Top 2 from each group advances.

Now, with 232 competitors, what would make more sense? To stick to format after the qualifications and make it so only the winner moves on, or to double up in the second phase, with 64 competitors? IMO, it would be the latter. I simply don't want this tournament to become too elitary...

Iss Scheiße, Harti!

[Go Time]

(02-01-2013 01:47 AM)GreatGonzales Wrote:   Really? We have 232 players in this tournament; to whittle that number down to just 32 after 1 round of pools is EXTREMELY harsh.

Agreed. Very harsh.

Also, I don't think it would take any more time if the top 2 advanced. There are still groups of 4 dukin it out, just more of them. The overall time for independent groups of 4 competitors finishing their games should be the same regardless of if there are 8 groups or 16 since their games are not interdependent.

But if it is still an issue, make the time limit shorter...

[Thrutchy]

A downside is to those players who are top in there qualifier group. Those players now need to go through 1 more round for the rest of the tournament and increases the likelihood of being knocked out sooner relative to the final round.

The biggest downside in my opinion is simply that is a change in the clearly defined rules in the middle of competition. Making changes will undermine the credibility of the tournament.

That being said, I also agree that a 7:1 reduction in the very first round is quite drastic.

Here's another idea: go double-elimination. The 2nd place finishers in the qualifiers would start the first "losers" bracket round. The winner's bracket would look identical to the original rules.

[Harti]

(02-01-2013 05:00 AM)Thrutchy Wrote:  Here's another idea: go double-elimination. The 2nd place finishers in the qualifiers would start the first "losers" bracket round. The winner's bracket would look identical to the original rules.

Hah, I wanted to bring this one up earlier. However there would have to be another final after the final, enhancing the current KO bracket by one more round technically. And therefore it would make more sense to seed the runner-ups into the groups from group stage. It's the same length except more rewarding for the group winners.


Addendum to amoffett's post: I got confused with somebody inviting me to a match the other day, he told me to create the game against him on that map because it was my duty. As I've been busy during these days I didn't check back for the forums and just did what they said and checked it a few hours later because I thought I'd once again have forgotten about creating games.
However, the tourney just started unexpectedly. So in this case, even if I had checked the rules by that time (which I didn't: first off I didn't have the time and second off I didn't even think they'd already exist), it would have been after I started my tournament games, right?


@Gfich: lolwut

[CombatEX]

I've already withdrawn from the tournament and will not continue under any circumstances. However, like GG I would still prefer 2 players to advance despite the fact that it has no bearing on my situation at all. It seems too harsh for so many players to be eliminated due to a tiebreaker. I imagine many of these cases come down to 5-1 ties where only one will progress due to the tiebreaker. This gets rid of many potentially good players of all leagues. From hidden talent in clever/gifted to a Super-Titan who lost 1 match for whatever reason (misclick, skipped turn, encountered a "Samura|", etc). I think it would be more interesting to give these underdogs in Clever/Gifted who managed to do well enough to secure spot 2 (probably with a 5-1) or STs who have proven themselves through league but only went 5-1 here.

Again, I have withdrawn no matter what the final verdict is, so this is from an outside view. As for modifying the rules, I do understand the reason for avoiding this. Although technically the tournament hasn't officially started until tomorrow, it is a grey area. Might be best to avoid the rule change even if the change may be beneficial.

[Sharugames]

Hi People,

Laser mimas still hasn't invited me to start our game.

Regarding the elimination rules I'd say we need to stick with the rules that were planned and change them for the next WorldCup.

I lost my 1st game but thought to go through on best 2nd place (since hadn't read the rules that much) so wasn't too worried but if eliminated thats fine as well.

Truth is that it makes the initial draw very decisive on peoples chance to get further or not.

[Thrutchy]

(02-01-2013 05:32 AM)Harti Wrote:  

(02-01-2013 05:00 AM)Thrutchy Wrote:  Here's another idea: go double-elimination. The 2nd place finishers in the qualifiers would start the first "losers" bracket round. The winner's bracket would look identical to the original rules.

Hah, I wanted to bring this one up earlier. However there would have to be another final after the final, enhancing the current KO bracket by one more round technically. And therefore it would make more sense to seed the runner-ups into the groups from group stage. It's the same length except more rewarding for the group winners.

Yep. Also, the "losers" bracket would absorb losers from the winners bracket, so qualifying winners would eventually take advantage of that - except the ones that get to the final round.

The only players negatively impacted by sending 2nd place qualifiers to a losing bracket and forming double-elimination would be the players getting to the very final round of the original rules. Otherwise, it seems like a win-win for everybody else. Since the losers bracket goes in parallel, it probably won't have too much impact on the duration of the tournament. You could make the group play in the losers bracket keep only 1 per group to keep the losers bracket smaller. Absorbing losers from the winners bracket could use 3-way round robin instead of simple elimination.

[awpertunity]

Woooo, alright, this is why I will never be a politician. I wish I hadn't already posted saying concede to allowing top 2 from each group to participate, because if I hadn't I would have gone with the original rule-set after speaking to Adam. Unfortunately, I know people were excited to hear that the top 2 would advance and it will be even more frustrating to take that away now. I have an uncontrollable need to please everyone, but clearly that is not going to happen. I think it is also very clear now, especially to me, why Adam/Alex avoid discussions even after so many players beg for a response :] No doubt they are reading them, but anything they say will cause severe backlash as we see here, and so they are very smart in keeping to themselves (while of course listening to everything people say), making one decision and sticking to it.

As for all the arguments for and against top 2 players advancing...

Yes, I agree a reduction from 232 players down to 32 is VERY HARSH, and not even ideal. Perhaps in a different setup the top 3 finishers of the entire tournament all fell into the same group (in which case why don't top 3 advance instead of just top 2??), which obviously sucks to get eliminated right away.

As for people claiming that they want top 2 advancing because this will be more interesting and allow more participation from lower leagues in the final bracket, I would argue it is the exact opposite. If player A has a 40% chance of winning against player B, what is the best chance of player A moving on? Playing only one game. The current setup actually stirs things up a lot more, rather than giving the ST's who are expected to win, more chances. The more games player A and B play against each other, the higher the chance that B moves on. There are already a good number of groups in which the top seed in the group has lost a game, which means there are lower league players that are going to advance.

As for the rules changing with number of signups, no, this did not happen in public. I let Gfich know in confidence what my original plan was expecting a maximum of 144 players. But when the Qualifier rules were originally posted and I announced it at the top of the original post, it clearly said only the top player of each group would advance. As for people saying that the argument that rules should not be changed after the tournament has started is invalid because the post said "The tournament officially starts on February 1st", this is just a technicality and I am not even going to address it. The tournament has clearly started, the time limit for when games should be started was February 1st. I'm sorry I forgot to get my lawyer to look through my rules before publishing them.

Are the original rules the optimal set of rules? Not by ANY means. If you want the best players to stay in the tournament just because they lost one game they shouldn't have, you are looking for a League not a Tournament. Tournaments are much more unpredictably and the upsets are precisely what make them more exciting, which the original rules do as I argued above.

Basically, as hinted at above, I really wish I hadn't said anything and just stuck to the original rules, but I did and don't want to keep flip flopping back and forth just to try to do what's popular. Adam also believes the tournament should just continue the way it was originally intended and stated in the rules, which is exactly the attitude I should have had rather than trying to please everybody.

THAT SAID, HERE'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN:

The winner of each group will advance to the Group Play round.
The runner-up of each group will advance to a Consolation Group Play round.

The top two players in each group of the Group Play round will advance to the Elimination Round.
The top two players in each group of the Consolation Group Play round will advance to the Consolation Elimination Round.

The two finalists of the Consolation Elimination Round will play with the two losers of the semi-finals of the Elimination Round (i.e., 3rd and 4th place) in a 4-person Single Elimination bracket. The winner of this bracket will be the winner of the consolation (3rd place) prize.

So if you finished 2nd in your group after the Qualifiers, the best you can do in the overall tournament is 3rd place. This is the best way I can think of to keep as much of the original rules as possible, while still allowing participation from 2nd placers in the Qualifiers.

AND THAT'S THAT.