2nd Official FFR StepCon!

[hi19hi19]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

Not gonna lie, that's pretty fucking lame.

Oh well at least you answered.

[Xiz]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

Let me finalize the winner's songs and get those confirmed, then i'll look into it again. Gimmi a bit mmk

[MyNameIsNothing]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

yeah understandable waiting for winners picks.
i would love to see my notes to know what i could have improved on, it'd be especially helpful since those were my two first attempts at stepping anything.

I think the benefits from it would far outweigh any drama.

[hi19hi19]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

Let me finalize the winner's songs and get those confirmed, then i'll look into it again. Gimmi a bit mmk

You want an honest opinion?


I think this is an incredibly shitty and smug response, but I've come to expect that with this tournament.
The fact it's SUCH a major fucking deal to go "okay here's the notes" or decide "I am not going to release notes, here's why" is sort of indicative of all the reasons I've been disappointed with how this tournament has been run so far.

Until now I've been trying to be diplomatic, giving the tournament multiple second chances. But overall, this tournament has been a huge mess and has left me (and others) profoundly disappointed with how it was run:

First off, the format was fully fucking retarded.
Let's start with how little the first two rounds mattered. Of course scores on the first two rounds meant nothing for final placement, which is stupid, but it's worse than that. The first two rounds didn't matter AT ALL unless you submitted a total pile of garbage- actually, even that's wrong.
You could submit a total pile of garbage and still get through! Remember the cutoff to get into the finals from group D was a whopping 4/10. Several people got into the second round on files that would have literally gotten them multiple [--] ratings on a real batch, and based on the ratings given to people who advanced to the final, 16/20 of them would have had their files rejected from a real batch. Let that sink in. 80% of people in the final round got there based on an effort that wouldn't even have qualified them to put their file into the game.
WOW. HIGH QUALITY COMPETITION. GREAT FORMAT.

Of course, the competition was so damn high quality because everyone had great feedback on their files, right?
Of course not, there hasn't been a single judge note in this entire thread.
In this thread, I've given the most helpful feedback by far, which seems rather odd as I'm not a judge.
Considering the fact that judging took so long you guys must have generated some pretty detailed opinions. Why hide them?
This is the main problem with the tournament. With no incentive to do well in the first two rounds and no notes for feedback, literally nothing is changing. You'd hope a stepping tournament would be a catalyst for people improving and getting more interested in stepping, but so far all it did was foster an attitude of "I'll just shit out two pieces of trash to get into the final then try my hardest, but not learn anything because there's no notes to learn from"

Also, the song choice was pretty piss-poor. We've already been over this, but I'll reiterate it- group A and C were vastly different from group B and made for a somewhat skewed first round, group D was just completely hopeless as far as generating interesting files especially when compared with group E, and the "each of these songs caters to different styles" angle in the finals seems to have been a failure as well considering the top 4 places were all one choice and another of the choices basically only had one submission.

I'm not even going to get into the judging, but I'll just mention that if there's a judge who has had complaints about their judging after every single batch for the past few years, maybe you shouldn't ask them to judge a competition where real money is on the line. Just a suggestion.

I was going to be charitable and say at least you finished the tournament on time, but then the final round was late so I can't even say that.


And before people say I'm pissed because I didn't get top 3- let me be absolutely clear, I'd be as pissed as I am now if I got 2nd or 12th. LITERALLY all I want to know is what I could have done better, and so far I have exactly zero feedback for all my work.

I wasn't salty at all until I learned that your attitude towards the results was basically "you didn't win and I don't plan on letting you know why, hope this random number we assigned tells you why your file wasn't good enough kbye"
So yeah. You wanted drama? NOW I'm salty.

[lurker]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

"this tournament sucked because everyone who was retarded enough to submit a single file to it sucks at making files except me and my chosen ones" -corn

[hi19hi19]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

"this tournament sucked because everyone who was retarded enough to submit a single file to it sucks at making files except me and my chosen ones" -corn

I'm actually kind of amused you can get this interpretation from what I wrote. Try reading it next time instead of assuming.

I'll add this isn't a good time for sarcastic or flippant remarks.

[lurker]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

"i'm kind of amused someone actually managed to read through the lines but i have to call you an idiot to keep up appearances" -corn

[TC_Halogen]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

knock if off, lurk, he has a completely valid point

(response incoming)

[dashoe93]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

....So do I get my credit prize?

[lurker]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

"i think looking like i was the only person who saw through the flimsiness of this competition and turning it into some kind of huge expose is more important than there being enough staff for the 10th official to make it past round 3" -corn

[TC_Halogen]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

lurk: knock it off -- not going to ask again

with stepocalypse being an event that you have to run on the 1st, I highly suggest you stop trolling hi19 before you become incapable of taking care of it.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

"this tournament sucked because everyone who was retarded enough to submit a single file to it sucks at making files except me and my chosen ones" -corn

As someone who was personally part of the judgment team on two of the three rounds, as well as being on the back end, I personally agree with where hi19 is coming from.

I will disagree with hi19 for one thing, and that's the elimination structure -- the fact of the matter is that the competition had a large number of entrants (87, to be precise), and the cuts were done evenly based off of the number of people assigned to each rounds. This isn't unfair to do -- in fact, it would be more unfair to cut based off of the number of submitters if the group turnout is higher than another group; as an example, if 4/17 submit of one group submit and 16/17 submit in another, it wouldn't quite be fair to eliminate anyone in the first group if half are supposed to go on in both rounds, because half would be 8 and 8. This somewhat correlates with hi19's point about generally low file quality -- as a moderately to moderately-strict judge in batch judgments, I can very honestly say that I would not have accepted a large majority of the competition's files.

As for myself, I had judgment notes for three groups (A, B, and D), but I never felt comfortable in releasing them only because I was actually a competitor in the tournament, and I didn't want anyone to think that I was being a strict judge only because I wanted to rig the results (and I'm always thinking negatively like this). I'm perfectly willing to release my results, regardless of what Xiz/PrawnSkunk tell me.

Song choice was definitely weak, but not because the song themselves were bad -- the problem was that the song choices were used in a competition where there were a large amount of submitters for songs that simply didn't have many ways to take them. With that being said, there were some good songs (B, C, E, F-2 [bulldozer]), but there were a large amount of songs that didn't present a lot of potential overall. I wish I would have had more of a say with the song choice, but I was also a competitor in the event as well so I'd definitely be affecting the overall outcome by picking songs. I gave suggestions for two songs, neither of which were used for the tournament, so that's no problem here.

[t-rogdor]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

if there's a judge who has had complaints about their judging after every single batch for the past few years, maybe you shouldn't ask them to judge a competition where real money is on the line

[Xiz]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

Oh my. I didn't mean to offend you at all. And I did not mean to come off as smug at all. If I did, I greatly apologize.

I'll try to answer all points that you brought up...


What I am saying reflects just me. Not Max, nor the events team. Just me.

Yes, the format sucked.
Yes, a lot went wrong.
Yes, it struggled.

At first, this at first was just a fun little tournament by Max & I as a stepping tournament which then evolved into '2nd official stepcon' out of nowhere. It was not my vision, but that's what happened.

First off, the format was fully fucking retarded.
Let's start with how little the first two rounds mattered. Of course scores on the first two rounds meant nothing for final placement, which is stupid, but it's worse than that. The first two rounds didn't matter AT ALL unless you submitted a total pile of garbage- actually, even that's wrong.
You could submit a total pile of garbage and still get through! Remember the cutoff to get into the finals from group D was a whopping 4/10. Several people got into the second round on files that would have literally gotten them multiple [--] ratings on a real batch, and based on the ratings given to people who advanced to the final, 16/20 of them would have had their files rejected from a real batch. Let that sink in. 80% of people in the final round got there based on an effort that wouldn't even have qualified them to put their file into the game.
WOW. HIGH QUALITY COMPETITION. GREAT FORMAT.

You are right. Half of the participants participated each round, which created this problem. I did not envision that happening, so that is my fault.

Of course, the competition was so damn high quality because everyone had great feedback on their files, right?
Of course not, there hasn't been a single judge note in this entire thread.
In this thread, I've given the most helpful feedback by far, which seems rather odd as I'm not a judge.
Considering the fact that judging took so long you guys must have generated some pretty detailed opinions. Why hide them?
This is the main problem with the tournament. With no incentive to do well in the first two rounds and no notes for feedback, literally nothing is changing. You'd hope a stepping tournament would be a catalyst for people improving and getting more interested in stepping, but so far all it did was foster an attitude of "I'll just shit out two pieces of trash to get into the final then try my hardest, but not learn anything because there's no notes to learn from"

I was persuaded to not post them because I was afraid. Mostly because "Oh, money is involved. I don't like what (random judge) said about this file during this round. I am going to bitch about it." Both during, and after the tournament. It was difficult finding judges that were not only participating in the tournament, but also could get notes done on time, and gave good notes. I literally asked every judge. I ran with what I could. I only judged because I could not find anyone else qualified to judge. And no, I do not consider myself qualified at all.

Also, the song choice was pretty piss-poor. We've already been over this, but I'll reiterate it- group A and C were vastly different from group B and made for a somewhat skewed first round, group D was just completely hopeless as far as generating interesting files especially when compared with group E, and the "each of these songs caters to different styles" angle in the finals seems to have been a failure as well considering the top 4 places were all one choice and another of the choices basically only had one submission.

Yes. You are absolutely right. After finding out that nobody liked my R1 song, I spent all week trying to find a good R2 to make everyone happy. It didn't work. To prevent more trouble and to avoid people hating the tournament even more I just gave it to Max, and I didn't choose a song for the week to hopefully make everyone happy. I tried, and it wasn't up to your standards. I'm sorry.

I'm not even going to get into the judging, but I'll just mention that if there's a judge who has had complaints about their judging after every single batch for the past few years, maybe you shouldn't ask them to judge a competition where real money is on the line. Just a suggestion.

You are right. If I wanted 4 judges, I had to roll with what I had. There was nobody else. It would have been 2 judges, or 1 judge per group if that were the case.

I was going to be charitable and say at least you finished the tournament on time, but then the final round was late so I can't even say that.

It was because of an emergency with one of the judges. There were real life issues, and I couldn't force someone to do something they were not mentally ready to do. I'm sorry.



tl;dr

I tried, but it was not up to the standards anyone had for this tournament. This was suppose to be just a fun little event to make everyone happy, but it didn't end up that way at all. I didn't want to give everyone notes because I didn't want people to fight. Max did an amazing job helping out, and thank you to the judges who were on time with notes & ratings despite dealing with everything IRL. Sorry.

[hi19hi19]

Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

Hey, a reasonable response. I really appreciate it.
Shame I had to make a huge and uncharacteristically pissy post in the process, but at least we're here now.


Since this tournament is long over, we can do nothing about the past. The tournament was run as it was, and all can do now is thank you for the effort you put forth in doing so.
I will gladly and happily move on as long as the future is taken care of.
Which means, being aware of what was doing wrong this tournament and learning from it, and more importantly, NOTES.

Holy shit if one good thing is to come from all this overdramatic bullshit then at least let everyone who submitted learn from the experience. No amount of "X judge said Y about Z file" drama is worth hiding potential improvement. We always harp on about how stepping is artistic and interpretive and all that- a key part of any artistic endeavor is creative criticism. Give us our feedback