Should the FFR Official Tournament Only Use New Files?

[badman7772]

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

[[TeRa]]

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

[XelNya]

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.

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by Zageron

There is always an option of reducing "Songs of the Week" to "Song" of the week, to help accelerate the growth of the back-log. Is that a feasible idea?

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.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

There's no shortage of music and charts, the team just has to allocate and prioritize their budget of work time.

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.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by XelNya

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.
.

I've never liked using internal batches, I hate it. Unfortunately it's been the only way to successfully do all new songs for all rounds thus far. The batches just don't get the varying range of difficulties we need.


Like no offense at all to the people who have contributed to filling in slots because they're awesome for saving our butts, but it would be cool to get a better mix of simfile artists during tournaments. Someone needs to help fill in the easier side so it's not always Silvuh, lol.

[Silvuh]

There had been some complaints that all new files for the tournament heavily biases the release of hard files, like the latest tournmanet required 5 new 90+ files ... 15 files in the 80s, 11 in the 70s, 9 in the 60s, 8 in the 50s, and only 13 files in the lower half of the difficulty spectrum. Although I can understand why the lower divisions may be more comfortable with old files and the highest division may need more new files, doing that would skew the graph of new tournament file difficulties even more.

Another argument has been that too many files already in-game is discouraging for new players who see that huge list and don't feel like they can play everything. Then pointing new releases toward later rounds and higher divisions would just put even more hard files in-game that newer players don't have the ability to do well on, which would be even less encouraging for them, I'd think.

I agree that the final rounds should need all new files, because winning shouldn't have to be dependent on an old mindblock. New files for every prize round ... Well, that's several more rounds, so it's not such a clear "yes".

I do like the idea of changing the elimination structure to keep more players involved for a longer portion of the tournament. Like, the final rounds could be 16 -> 7 -> 4 -> 1. Decrease the number of prize rounds by 1 and we could still do 8 rounds to keep more people in at the start.

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

Yeah no one would know what files were coming up if files in game were used. The good thing with in game files too is it makes it easier to pick files that stress different things each round. When going with all new I'm limited to what people have submitted and so much of it tends to be jumpstream haha.

Lots of good points in the thread, but I really agree with this.

I don't think we need all new files every round, but sprinkling a few in there will help keep things interesting. Doesn't really need to be structured if every division gets around the same number of new files. I think forming a good tournament through file choice should be the top priority (good difficulty progression and variety in patterns), and if we can't do it with all new files, we should mix in as many old files as we need to.

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

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.

I'm not saying this is an immediate solution. If we took the three songs that are released roughly each week and saved them up for an entire year (the official tourney is annual right? I might be mistaken), that's like 150 songs. On the long term, if the team started filing away songs for the tournament really early, then there could be all new songs. But yeah, as far as an immediate solution, it's just not possible, given what you've told me about the state of things.

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

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.

I promise, I had no intention of insulting the efforts of the judgement team. I do apologize for how what I said came across. I'm saying, take the same amount of songs that were released this year and put as many as possible into the tournament. "There's no shortage of songs" was the wrong way to word that. :/

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

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.

Ideally we can mix up the songs so that there is a balance of the different skillsets, but what your saying makes total sense. If we had all the songs to pick from, maybe we could make a better tournament. That said, I can't help but think of the inevitable, when someone has been playing a song for weeks, and that song just happens to be picked for the official tournament. Song variety is something we can fix in the long run by getting more awesome people behind this site, but allowing any number of players to have practiced the tournament songs beforehand just breaks it for me. I don't think it's something we should compromise on.

[lurker]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

There's no shortage of music and charts, the team just has to allocate and prioritize their budget of work time.

you have no idea what you're talking about

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by lurker

you have no idea what you're talking about

Probably true, lol, but I tried to fix that statement just above.

[psychoangel691]

My post probably came off more mad than it should have, haha. I'm a blunt person most times, sorry. But I mean everyone has access to all files at all times so really there's no advantage to just one person. Knowing the official is coming up people can look at the typical file range and start practicing in those ranges the songs that are on the list. Everyone can do it, so really there's no advantage to one single person.

[Candor]

d7 = 7 new files
d6 = 6 new files
d5 = 5 new fiels
etc...

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

My post probably came off more mad than it should have, haha. I'm a blunt person most times, sorry. But I mean everyone has access to all files at all times so really there's no advantage to just one person. Knowing the official is coming up people can look at the typical file range and start practicing in those ranges the songs that are on the list. Everyone can do it, so really there's no advantage to one single person.

First of all, thank you for not being super pissed at me, lol. I really don't know how judgement works tbh, but I'd like to know. Anyways:

I still say there is an advantage to be had. One person is going to be lucky enough to pick the right song to practice a lot, whether it be just casually replaying the song they like, or if there was a user tournament with that song in it.

If you're saying that people practicing the songs beforehand is okay, then why not level the playing field completely and just release the tournament songs early? I know that's a bit of a slippery slope argument, but this switch to using new songs was made for a reason right? I mean, the timeline for each round is pretty short, meaning all of the memorization that goes into each song is super important.

Maybe I take this site a little too seriously sometimes, but dang, like, we had cash prizes last year! I want these tournaments to be 100% rock solid, e-sport level of integrity.

[hi19hi19]

I wanted to play a bunch of old files I'd just join/run a user tournament.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

First of all, thank you for not being super pissed at me, lol. I really don't know how judgement works tbh, but I'd like to know. Anyways:

I still say there is an advantage to be had. One person is going to be lucky enough to pick the right song to practice a lot, whether it be just casually replaying the song they like, or if there was a user tournament with that song in it.

If you're saying that people practicing the songs beforehand is okay, then why not level the playing field completely and just release the tournament songs early? I know that's a bit of a slippery slope argument, but this switch to using new songs was made for a reason right? I mean, the timeline for each round is pretty short, meaning all of the memorization that goes into each song is super important.

Maybe I take this site a little too seriously sometimes, but dang, like, we had cash prizes last year! I want these tournaments to be 100% rock solid, e-sport level of integrity.

I kinda started the trend with new files with the first official I ran when the site returned. I had been doing it on dragonsfury while the site was down and though it was a cool idea so I kept with it. Now we're facing 7 different divisions over 8 rounds which is a lot of files to fit perfectly.

The judgement process isn't normally like this, it just hit a really unfortunate time where a lot of the people who had been judges had to move on to different things putting it behind. It's being worked on, but it's going to take time. The time it will take will push the tournament back fairly significantly I think, which is why I brought this up.

[psychoangel691]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

I wanted to play a bunch of old files I'd just join/run a user tournament.

This thread was made to give a heads up/look for ideas to resolve a problem we're facing. Comments like this are not helpful nor necessary. There's 29 files in queue currently, please tell me how to make this work so I can have all new files for the tournament. I'm trying my damndest to get people to judge. Do you have some time to hop on and help out? We have 4 doing one group now from the backed up stuff.

[XelNya]

Originally Posted by Candor

d7 = 7 new files
d6 = 6 new files
d5 = 5 new fiels
etc...

Probably the quick interpretation of what I said except maybe make D1 and D2 both have a minimum of two new files.

like for D2 maybe make it rounds like 5 and 8

but for D1 rounds 7 and 8 would be best?

Stuff like that. My concern is more about where they're placed. (Not saying Kayla doesn't know how to do this, because honestly she'd have a better grasp of this than me by miles I imagine.)

[psychoangel691]

I'm going to do the best I can for new content, I promise you guys that. I just don't know how possible it is without major delay.

So I guess it comes down to how much people would prefer it to be in the summer and possibly have some old stuff. Or wait until it can be fully filled.

[Gradiant]

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

I've never liked using internal batches, I hate it. Unfortunately it's been the only way to successfully do all new songs for all rounds thus far. The batches just don't get the varying range of difficulties we need.

Don't do them then? Announce special batch specifically for harder and easier files ahead of time rather than last minute, and if we do end up needing a few files left let it publicly be known so everybody can try to fill those in rather than asking the same 3 people that usually get their files in this way.

Originally Posted by psychoangel691

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.

And what's wrong with this? It seems like more focus is being put on getting the tournament to happen as soon as possible rather than making sure it's the best it can be (sorry if this sounds rude). There is nothing wrong with the tournament happening in September if it means the tournament will go well. It went fine last year, only reason I think people could complain if I remember correctly was that it was announced early and then kept getting postponed. Simply just announce the official when you guys are ready for it to actually happen.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

I wanted to play a bunch of old files I'd just join/run a user tournament.

Pretty much this, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this statement.

[TC_Halogen]

- you guys are all assuming that the current queue is going to last
- you guys are all assuming that the judgment situation is going to be resolved before the queue runs out
- you guys are forgetting the amount of files it takes to be accepted, and if we're avoiding internalizing files, you will never get the files you need

true story: the tournament will never happen with 100% unique content with FFR being in the current state

stop being spoiled and take what you can get