9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

Basically all you're saying is that it's not possible to enjoy a file when you're eliminated from the tourney. Wtf lol I don't get that argument srsly plz explain thx...

Well in a competitive manor, How would you feel if you get eliminated and then the next file you absolutely blow everyone's scores out of the water but yours doesn't count. Aside from tokens all these are available to the public, but being able to compete with others on a new file officially doesn't happen very often.

I still don't see a benefit to eliminating players, If we had a 4 division, or 15 division system the lines would be completely different along with the outcomes. Might as well let everyone have a chance to compete to the best of their abilities.

[Choofers]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

it's a tournament

you have the chance to compete to the best of your abilities, and if someone out plays you, you get eliminated

[xXOpkillerXx]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

it's a tournament

you have the chance to compete to the best of your abilities, and if someone out plays you, you get eliminated

This omfg. Look, in a competitive manor, I try to get rid of my threats, and when I get eliminated, I cheer for the remaining competitors. That's the fun of a tourney.

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

So theoretically, if there is a player better than you at every pattern but jacks, and a crucial song for moving forward contained a ton of jacks, they're out. It doesn't matter if they beat every score you post except that one, because of a single thing you can do slightly better they are out. Luck. If its the first elimination round they place poorly, if its the last they place second. The standing should not be affected by how lucky you got with the song order.

Where if you had a cumulative system, you drop a song early in the rounds, there is no way to make up for that without stomping a good portion of the remaining rounds (You can't slingshot, assuming the points are divided properly), but there is a hope. If you are actually top in your division, you will average the highest placements and get the most points, and win. Even if you are a middle of the pack player, you can still see X person scored this much better or worse than you and get a good idea of where you stand skill wise. Where if 40 people are eliminated in a round, all its saying is "these people couldn't do well on this single song".

Its less of a tournament and more roulette, hopefully you get placed in the lowest possible division, but if you just recently got moved up into D-x- there is little hope making it past the first round or two. I don't see why the push for eliminations, it just means you won't know who is actually the better well-rounded player. You just pray the songs line up with your individual strengths and you can play slightly better for your division because of it.

Elimination tournaments work great for games that can't be played out all at once, like pretty much every Esport (LoL/CS/Dota/ETC) because teams need to face each other in order to determine who is better. If every team had to face every team, they would take FOREVER. Because this tournament runs the same length with 5 people or 5,000,000 people since its deadline based, there is NO REASON it should be elimination. There is no downside for allowing everyone to compete to the very end, where as there are several problems running it as elim. (Luck based song order, Less players able to compete, etc)

I have yet to hear a single good argument for Elimination.

[HalfStep]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

If your skillset is so imbalanced that you risk doing worse than half your division on a song, you don't deserve to win a tournament, even if you are the best at everything else.
(coming from someone with an imbalanced skillset)

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

If your skillset is so imbalanced that you risk doing worse than half your division on a song, you don't deserve to win a tournament, even if you are the best at everything else.
(coming from someone with an imbalanced skillset)

And if that falls in the non-elimination rounds, you get DEAD LAST on a song because it was deviously designed to counter you and contains every pattern you have ever mind-blocked on. But you win every single elimination round and come in first. Or you get unlucky and its the first elimination round and you're out before it really began. Where as if everyone plays through every song, and you do better than everyone else 95% of the time you are very very clearly the winner by a large margin. Keep in mind throwing a song that hard is unlikely if you really are the best in your division, it was purely theoretical to point out the flaw with running the tournament this way. But it affects everyone even if the gap is really small.

Imagine you generated a list for every players strengths and weaknesses, Jump stream/Jacks/Speed/Tech/Poly-rhythms/etc every single conceivable thing you can measure that players skill by, and then place it on a scale. 1-10, 1-100, doesn't matter. Then you rate each of the songs in the tournament by each of those and give it a rating. If player [X] is a 9 or 94 at jacks and the song is a 90, they perfect it, maybe its a 98 and they have a little trouble and get some greats, maybe a boo. Chance are, you could generate completely different outcomes just by changing the order of the songs, hard jacks first and [X] is 1st, [Y] 2nd, [Z] 3rd. Put the same song last, maybe player [H] didn't get eliminated and he gets 2nd, [Z] 1st, and [Q] 3rd. Not every song is created equal and neither are the players, having everyone play every song and being compared to everyone else is the absolute best way to make sure the winner is the absolute best player and not just Tournament 9s lucky draw winner.


All switching from elimination to cumulative does is remove the luck factor, if you are a better player you win, simple as that. Or are you saying if two people play 10 games and P1 goes 9-1 they lose because the only one that mattered was the game they lost. I'm still not hearing a good argument for why elimination is better. The only possible thing I can see as a "positive" side to an elimination tournament is the feeling of progression you get when you are eliminated later in a tournament than in a previous one, but ultimately that just boils down to how close you came to the arbitrary line in the sand without crossing it. It would have an entirely different outcome if we dropped or gained a division, or even by changing the order of the songs in the tournament. But by having everyone play every song you get to see exactly how well you performed compared to everyone else in your division on a completely even playing field.

[benguino]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

I was going to post in here about how in elimination tournaments, you have the fact that simply just changing the song order could greatly change the entire outcome of the tournament but omega beat me to it. Anyways, it's for that reason why I don't fully enjoy elimination tournaments.

However, the thing to remember with elimination tournaments is that they create that feel of excitement, urgency, and a myriad of other feels that you just don't get with a cumulative tourney.

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

You lose the nervous pressure around the elimination line, that doesn't matter to people who are placed well above it, or to people who end up below it. But you get a constant feeling to do your best to improve your placement, and it can create healthy rivalries between evenly skilled players as they fight back and fourth for a higher seat in their division over the coarse of the entire tournament instead of only around the time they are in danger of being eliminated.

You aren't currently rewarded for doing any better than the elimination line, and you are basically labeled good or not good enough between rounds. Where if you constantly do better than everyone else you will have an easier time in the later rounds in cumulative, which could unfortunately lead to a stomp, but would improve placements as people who are very clearly above or below their current placement can be better placed next tournament. (Helps with the blurry lines in the lower divisions)

But I definitely understand it wouldn't be the same experience. For better or for worse. I wonder if it would be feasible or worthwhile to run a seasonal tournament that is elimination and have the official be cumulative, best of both worlds.

[xXOpkillerXx]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

But that's like the many people who are good at a few skills (like speed and handstreams for example) and just practice that allllll the time so they're godly at it but their weakness is still reaaaally weak. I don't want to see a winner who can't out play most of the competitors in Every skill. You're saying someone with a major flaw should have a chance, sry no, Like I and other people said, this is a tournament, come again when you'll have practiced that skill enough. Also like reuben mentionned, the hype is much more present for eliminations than cumulative; I rather get eliminated than keep doing worse than the others, same for the opposite, better to have that feel when you make it to next round than just earning points.

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

If the player is only really good at a few skills, there is absolutely no way they will be able to place high enough on every song to win. The winner of each division will be the person who placed the highest on average mathematically. If you dumpster a song the next best player would have to do that bad on a song as well for you to beat them, or have done worse than you on several songs to make up the difference. (Imagine it was a par-like system just to make understanding this easier, and I threw a song and landed 7th and you're 1st, I beat you on the next song (1st to 2nd) it becomes 8-3, repeat on the next song 9-5, then 10-7, 11-9, 12-11, and finally in round 7 13-13, I would have to beat you 6/7 times TO TIE and 7/8 times to win by a slim margin. I think that would be a well deserved win, don't you? Thats a pretty extreme example, I don't expect the same person to place first every round. But it shows that if you aren't the best of the best in your division you aren't going to win no matter how well you do on the rest of the songs)

You can stop focusing on the one major skill flaw angle, that was just a theoretical example. The point is that in elimination, skill doesn't matter as long as you come in the top 50%, and get lucky with which skills will be showcased in the final few files. The entire tournament outcome is easily changed by changing the order of songs.

By making every song count for everyone, there is more pressure to do your best on every song. In the current system the only time you actually care about posting a good score is if it means you could be eliminated, and for most players that will be one or two rounds before they fall out of the tournament, or for one lucky person, they win.

Elimination basically says fuck-off to the bottom 80-90% of any given division, they don't get a good idea of where they stand compared to the rest, just that they aren't good enough at a single file. The benefit of a cumulative system is it gives you the straight numbers, you did X better than person A but X worse then person B. You can actually see relative skill gains, you can look back and see where your weaknesses are to work on them, or where your strengths really are compared to everyone else. Like I've said before, there is constant pressure to do your best on every file to place as highly as you can, not just to be adequate enough to cross the line and stop caring until a file comes along that puts you closer to the line.

Everyone but the #1 player is doing worse then somebody, big whoop. Nothing to quit over. Even that person probably has a few things they have more trouble with than someone else, some pattern, or a specific file. It doesn't matter if you're the last in your division, maybe you're actually the best of the previous division, you just ended up on a new ladder to climb at the wrong time. At the least you now have a good idea of exactly who is around your skill level and you can compete with them to help improve everyone involved. I'd much rather have that then 40, 16, 8 other people who did varyingly better or worse on a single file but didn't do well enough to cross the line.

If you have fun with elimination tournaments, you can feel free to host some or push others to host more. I'm not against them as a whole, it just doesn't fit here. For the official tournament we should be using the system best suited to finding the best players of each division regardless of song selection order or other BS factors. And making it an enjoyable experience for everyone, not just the ones who are closest to the cut-off lines.

[xXOpkillerXx]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

Holy shit dude, I feel sorry right now, I Just realized you weren't talking about Raw score cumulative. Man tourney points would be cool too, yes. ._.

[HalfStep]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

If you've ever played a cumul tournament (no matter the format), you'd know how much of a chore it is to play each week. It also removes all motivation to play the moment you fall a bit behind a player who already is better than you, you can't try to improve in order to have a chance in the final rounds.

I'm pretty sure if you take EVERY division last official, do the scoring to be cumul vs elim, and you'd have the same top 8, the same top 3, and the same winner. It won't change the results, and just makes the tournament less fun to play and less fun to watch.

The tournament is also clearly not about finding "the best player" otherwise we wouldn't even have divisions.

On top of it all, FFR is a game where upsets almost never happen, the "better player" will beat a slightly worse player 99% of the time, especially with unlimited tries on a song. Predictable results are boring and elim allows for comebacks and clutch last second victories.

[omega_grunt666]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

It also removes all motivation to play the moment you fall a bit behind a player who already is better than you

If that is the way you feel, nothing stops you from dropping out in round 2, 4, or 5 because you didn't get the placement you wanted. Some (I would argue most) people want a chance to still give it their best and see where they end up. If you just didn't want to play through all the rounds, then why even enter? I don't see why someone scoring better than you is a deterrent to playing your best every round so that you can actually see how well you stack up against others. If anything its a challenge and you should be pushing yourself to do better, or isn't that what tournaments are about?

If the tournament isn't about seeing how far you can get, who is the top of their division, and recognizing players who have improved, then what is the point? Might as well just hold a raffle for the event tokens and release all the new songs like normal, let people fight it out on the leaderboards.

And even if the results were the same last tournament regardless of system, would they have been the same if the songs were in a different order? I highly doubt it, because in the current system your only pressured into putting yourself above the line, doesn't matter if you were the worst of the top 49% every round, as long as the final song plays to your strengths better than your opponents you win. If you don't even have to apply yourself and you're there because the division lines just so happened to line up that you weren't good enough to get into D-x-+1, so you stomp. Its really pointless.

If two players are actually even enough to allow comebacks and last second victories then it doesn't change no matter what system you use to score the player, it will still happen. So far the only thing I'm hearing for the elimination side is more Epeen stroking fake elitism bullshit because X players fall closer to the division lines so they get to actually participate. Why not just let everyone play, and let the numbers speak for themselves.

[Tim Allen]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

elimination is cool

[SK8R43]

Re: 9th (and 10th?) Official Tournament -- D7 (and others?) Format Change?

Elimination is how the officials should ALWAYS be. The point of it is competition. Why the hell do we need to change it now? All of the others have been very successful with elimination. Yes we added another division, yes people in that division will get eliminated in the first round but thats how it is for every division...
Its not like they wont get another shot in D7 next year or whenever they want to sign up again.