Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

I hope this makes sense, but in my opinion, I think that the first round should be a new song to give participants a chance to play something that's never been seen before. After that, in-game files up until Top 8.

Top 8 and forward should have new files...but with a slight modification to the elimination structure. It should go from Top 8 to Top 3 (unless top 5 gets something that 6-8 doesn't?). This way only 3 rounds would need new files.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

That sounds reasonable and about right.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

mix of old and new because given the state of the judging process at the moment gathering up 56 acceptable files that fit a very particular difficulty sequence will either take way too long or require a ridiculous amount of effort

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

everyone saying that it should just be new files is either being optimistic, ungrateful, or doesn't want an official this year

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

I'd be up for this.

Edit:// I agree with Ben, an 8 round tournament is a bit long. Maybe instead of going 8-5-3-1 it could just go 8-4-1 and end in 6 rounds

From two months to six weeks

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

The officials used to be 10 weeks long so I'd feel a little bad cutting it down again but if that's something a lot of people could agree on I wouldn't mind I guess. It would kill a lot of people off really fast though.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

i like this but i don't get the idea of skipping F5, 8->3 is a really sharp cutoff (although obviously we've seen it get pretty bad in d7 much earlier than F8)
also i'm going to predict that there will be too few beginner/inepxerienced players to justify keeping d1 and d2 separate (and i kinda think that was the case with 10th official anyway with all of the no shows in d1) so that could ease the file requirements very slightly

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

I don't suggest knocking people out sooner early on, just in the last two rounds. The last month of the official always just drags on, in the beginning, people are dropping 10-15 people at a time per round and then they start eliminating 3 or two people per round? The vast majority are eliminated in the first 4 weeks in the current structure anyways.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

Let's try to do a cumulative official this time around to keep interest for more people. This would mean everyone that completes the tournament gets a prize, but it would be more interesting to not only watch the 1st place battle, but last round snipes for a vRofl token (or taking it away from someone to be a dick.)

That or the entire first half of the tournament can be cumulative and the second half can be the playoffs. They'll be rewarded the right to play new songs for more prizes. Would be cool there.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

Tiebreakers and AAA-fests would make this very difficult, think about D7 especially.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

D7 gets everything anyways so they get away with more. D5 though would be a different story. Considering half of D5 is really D6 to begin with. :P

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

Honestly as long as there's a tournament I'm hype.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

Gonna sort my thoughts by division here because I think a generalized answer doesn't work.

However I will say I think all of the final rounds have to be a new chart. Don't really have a great reason for it, but I think that's best.

D1: Yes, in fact I think using familiar files would actually be better here. It gives them files they're already playing, so there's motivation there, they don't have to completely learn a file that is already difficult in the first place for their level... While yes it kind of detracts from the experience as a whole, I think it adds just as much in the long term.

D2: Kinda same thoughts as D1 as whole. But I think the amount of pretourney files can go down very slightly (like 1 tops.)

D3 I think could be half and half or less. D3's sort of a good point to go "ok now we're gonna test you with files you've never seen before" adding that surprise factor into the mix. I think D3's the best spot to really introduce the idea of most of the files being newer.

D4: I'd go maybe 2 / 8 here tops, but you'd wanna use them randomly rather than going from Old -> New.

D5: I think maybe using a file or two here that's already in the game is good, because what I think D5 and further up gets is the possibility of a file they're truly struggling on pattern wise. Like take when we got slapped with The Replicator for example. That file is literally a compilation of patterns and techniques I shit bad at. Yet it still gave me a massive drive to whore it sure. But imagine if that file haunts other players and all of a sudden they now have a good reason to whore it all over again?

D6: I think you can get away with littering a file or two that is known to be difficult to D6. I think using files some D6 players struggle with is actually a bit healthy for them. I don't play D6 so I can't really answer for them as a whole but I think if the files were the difficulty spiked files I think it could work.

D7: I think this is probably the only division where I think the surprises of a new file are needed. These players are probably way too good / content with previous scores on older files.

tldr: I think it depends which division we're in should depend on how many files are recycled. I think using them is fine, in every division except maybe D7. But again, I don't play D7 (can't really say I want to either.)

Either way, I think this question is going to be polluted with bias from most likely nostalgia, and I think it's worth testing once.

To be fair however, my bias is the idea this might entirely get rid of internal batches. Which is something I absolutely 100% fucking hate. I think I hate that concept way more than any file I've talked shit about. But I also think it can make lower ends of the tourney better for sure. I would really like to see it focused there. Higher divisions I think don't quite reap the same benefits.

So yeah take from that what you can I guess. I look forward to watching the tourney again, as there's no way I can play D5 anymore rofl.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

I agree... Yes, we have enough songs for the userbase to play the game, but the point of a tournament is to have fair competition. Do we really want to roll the dice on whether a player will have an advantage? There's no shortage of music and charts, the team just has to allocate and prioritize their budget of work time. So yes, please keep the official tournaments as competitive as possible.

Re: Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

I already mentioned that this solution wouldn't do anything to help the problem, reducing songs of the week when there's only 29 in queue and likely only a few that actually fit what we need isn't going to make this work.

How exactly is it a roll of the dice for someone to have an advantage with only old files? There can still be an advantage with new files based on the skillset that it stresses. What if I end up with nothing but jumpstream files for like the whole tournament in a division? Yes that's almost happened in the past. It would be better to have the option to change up the different skillsets each round with the huge amount of files that are available.

This part struck a nerve, I'm not going to lie. I've busted my butt for how many official tournaments now? You have no idea the time that already goes into it. It's not about a budget of time when basically all the ffr judges had to move on to different things and there's been no one to judge the batches. I've offered to help out with it, but they still need more people. This isn't about prioritizing time. They're working on getting new judges in which is going to take time, then they need to catch up on everything that's backlogged, then finally we'd be able to try to get to special batches for the tournament.