Should FFR have D8?

[igotrhythm]

My argument against a divisionless tournament is how OT-related tokens would work. How would you give out Unconnected, Fractured Sunshine or vROFL? We'd need to make new requirements for that.

As for a modest proposal, I say we take the concept of "victory points" from contract bridge and assign it to the OT a la Dossar's famous Brutality tournaments. This way, instead of cumulative raw score, you get points based on how many people you beat in the round. This doesn't technically get rid of eliminations, while at the same time mathematically culling the weak after enough rounds. It'll also be easier to see how many points you need to stay in the running, plus for some people it'd be satisfying to finish ahead of their rivals over and over again~

Back to the OP, I say no to the D8. Someone mentioned having like an All-Star Game sort of deal, but that's no reason to kill the minor leagues (I think it was Pretentious?)

[lofty rhino]

This video explains OP imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[VisD]

Precarious basically gave a very elegant account of what i wanted to convey earlier, so here's a bit more in defense of the division system.

My best placing in an official was back in the 7th - the great trainwreck one, with jae's undiscovered bs and who gives a f*** (seriously - when possible, can someone please fix this file - the middle section is still offsync as balls) in the final round. I even came in 9th, placing just out of the good stuff, lol. Yet despite all that i had fun, and it was overall a very entertaining tournament.

A lot of this would be missing in a divisionless tournament, or a single- (or double-elim) type. i get dynam0's point that people should really try to aim for being the best instead of settling for mediocre, participation-certificate "victories", and i think the difference here stems basically from differing ideas of what the ot should be about. as is a lot of this thread, actually. so I'll elaborate what i think it should mean.

we all know the prizes don't mean that much anymore. really, to anyone beyond mid d3, the credits are worthless. the profile medals are nice, but again, nothing to write home about. the song tokens are actually worth something, maybe - still would love to be able to waste ten seconds failing out on vrofl - but not big, and can be gotten through other means fairly frequently.

I'll concede that the d4+ 1st place prizes this time round are fantastic, and it's great that there is real incentive there for the upper echelons of each division to go hard, while the bottom of the next division is essentially sol (but, let's face it - by the time you actually win, you're no longer the division you were placed into. despite being d5 i wouldn't even be able to win d3, let alone d4). so, drawbacks.

but, for everyone else outside of a lucky few, the prizes largely do not matter. and that's what this roundabout was getting at: maybe it goes against the spirit of "tournaments" and "competition", but the OTs have never really felt like they were about truly finding the best of the best, hardcore, serious stuff; they've always seemed more like great opportunities to draw more new players in & get inactive vets loading the game engine again. it's a tradeoff, and i don't think you can really have it both ways at once* - either you tempt weaker players with the possibility of doing well, or you declare that the OTs are truly a search for the best, a real ranking system.

there are other ways to draw in players and for weaker players to compete, sure - but they don't mean as much. there's a lot of hype that goes into an OT, especially because each round = new songs, and the site actually feels alive for once. big activity in the lower divisions also translates well for the file queue, i think, since there's more incentive to step for ffr.

tl;dr - i much prefer the tournament being a huge, everyone-is-invited party as opposed to an exclusive, old-boys' reunion.

* halogen is right in saying that ffr might have gotten too comfortable with the division system, and it is possible that some system exists which does both of these things. A divisional system where people are promoted/demoted based on results in the previous tournament, with (good) prizes only for people who finish near the top in the uppermost divisions, for instance, could work out well - there's still that element of progress for everyone else as they claw their way up. for this to work, though, the "tournaments" would need to be way more constant, say something like 3 months apart, with each tournament maybe lasting only a month or so, 1 song per week per division. (v few song releases outside of these windows, probably) I'd like to see this, actually.

[V-Ormix]

I think d8 would be cool to see more than anything, but it's not like we need it.

edit: plus I think d7 makes a nice cap of "well let's be honest, how good does anyone really want to get?" just let some one get their d7 title at the end of the day and feel happy they earned their induction to the highest division by having a little less of no life than literally no life.

[Xiz]

Charu 4 d8