Elements PvP Tournament - Suggestions and Feedback

[dragonsdemesne]

I join whenever I'm available.  I was not available at 4am last night :p

[RapidStar_]

We could do a Poll and in the poll have maybe 8 different times and we can vote for which ones we area available to participate in?

[CactusKing]

One option would be to introduce another kind of tournament like round robin when there are fewer participants.

I like this idea. It would allow for fewer people to join while still having a decent and fun competition. Also provides a little protection against bad draws. Can we actually do this next week?

[DANIEELA]

We could do a Poll and in the poll have maybe 8 different times and we can vote for which ones we area available to participate in?

[theelkspeaks]

Previously, we did a test of running small tournaments (4-8 players arriving) with Double Elimination format to make the victory more earned.  I don't remember what feedback was given on the popularity or unpopularity of such a solution - does anyone else remember?

[Zawadx]

Previously, we did a test of running small tournaments (4-8 players arriving) with Double Elimination format to make the victory more earned.  I don't remember what feedback was given on the popularity or unpopularity of such a solution - does anyone else remember?

Don't think there was much public discussion on it. TOs did discuss it, it should be in a separate thread in TO section.

We could do a Poll and in the poll have maybe 8 different times and we can vote for which ones we area available to participate in?

If you do choose to poll people, please don't make a simple poll but follow something like STV/instant run-off to get a better idea of what people want.

[deuce22]

Majority of comments seem to be based on "times" players aren't available. Just make a narrow group of times that are reasonable for european and US participants.

I think start times GMT 15-20 would allow the best availability for most players.

I understand that this may be difficult for some/most players in asia, but it sounds like tournament times that are convenient for asian players tend not to have enough players.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

If the amount of current votes on polling even one specific time are a hint: we don't even get 8 votes on whether a time does or does not work. So I do not see enough people voting to end up with a desirable result. Let's face it: it's too much effort for participants to vote for a poll each week, as weird/harsh as that may seem.

No, people should be able to plan the timing in advance. Plus, many people simply will not know whether they can be available for a tournament in advance.
Like: "Oh, sure nice tournament, I'll come!" at time of tournament: "ZzzzzZzzz..."
Or: "I have something else planned, sorry!" at time of tournament: "Looks like I can make it after all!".
It might have worked if a huge number of people voted, but even then we would likely end up with similar times each week. Plus, the real issue we are trying to solve is that there isn't a huge number of people to begin with! To still get enough participants, the poll would need something like 4 choices: 19:00 GMT; 20:00 GMT; 21:00 GMT and 22:00 GMT...

Majority of comments seem to be based on "times" players aren't available. Just make a narrow group of times that are reasonable for european and US participants.

I think start times GMT 15-20 would allow the best availability for most players.

I understand that this may be difficult for some/most players in asia, but it sounds like tournament times that are convenient for asian players tend not to have enough players.

But this is a short term solution. These times may end up with less than 8 participants at some point of time as well. Tournaments postponed to this time already have trouble hitting 8 (but that's not on Saturday).

Previously, we did a test of running small tournaments (4-8 players arriving) with Double Elimination format to make the victory more earned.  I don't remember what feedback was given on the popularity or unpopularity of such a solution - does anyone else remember?

Don't think there was much public discussion on it. TOs did discuss it, it should be in a separate thread in TO section.

Found it. Apart from taking a long time, there were no huge objections. This might be the most viable option for 4-7 players.
Full round robin is a bad idea unless there are exactly 4 players. I thought out and simulated a number of alternatives for 5-7 players. But they -along with round robin for 4- all share one common issue: players that have lost once, with no chances left for big prizes, will get matches with someone that has not lost yet. Meaning you only play for a chance to ruin someone else their prize. Here's one such example I was playing around with.

Spoiler for example: 6 players:

Participants: miniwally, Kael Hate, TheonlyrealBeef, bogtro, Odii Odsen, Physsion (past Darkness masters, just me having a bit of fun)
Round 1:
miniwally 0 - 2 Kael Hate
TheonlyrealBeef 2 - 0 bogtro
Physsion 2 - 1 Odii Odsen
Round 2:
TheonlyrealBeef 2 - 1 Kael Hate
Physsion 2 - 1 miniwally
bogtro 1 - 2 Odii Odsen
Round 3:
TheonlyrealBeef 2 - 0 Physsion
bogtro 2 - 1 miniwally
Odii Odsen 2 - 0 Kael Hate
Orange has already lost once: they have 0 chance at winning any big prizes.
Red lost twice: removing this match is a possibility since they have zero chances of winning even an electrum code.
However: if Physsion lost his Round 2 match we'd have 4 Oranges and 1 Red. How would you possibly match those? You could end up with the same matches, but bogtro would gain nothing from the round 3 match, whereas Physsion winning Round 3 match also does not make him the winner: it would only tie him for first along with TheonlyrealBeef AND the winner of Odii Odsen vs Kael Hate AS WELL AS miniwally if he beats bogtro Round 3.

[CactusKing]

We should also remember that people in the Australiasian zones make up many of our players. The time zones work that at any point it will be the middle of the night either in america, europe, or australia/newzealand. I assume no one want's to play between 11PM and 7AM local time so i propose 3 different times for pvp events:
- GMT 9 (Suitable for European and Asia-Pacific regions)
- GMT 19 (Americans and Europeans)
- GMT 0 (Americans and Asia-Pacific)

[JonathanCrazyJ]

We should also remember that people in the Australiasian zones make up many of our players. The time zones work that at any point it will be the middle of the night either in america, europe, or australia/newzealand. I assume no one want's to play between 11PM and 7AM local time so i propose 3 different times for pvp events:
- GMT 9 (Suitable for European and Asia-Pacific regions)
- GMT 19 (Americans and Europeans)
- GMT 0 (Americans and Asia-Pacific)

Those times are actually pretty solid tbh, but maybe have 6 times, those 3 and a second set of three which are the same but 1 hour later, so the full set would be:

- GMT 9
- GMT 19
- GMT 0
- GMT 10
- GMT 20
- GMT 1

[TheonlyrealBeef]

I think it's worth noting "Asia-Pacific" generally constitutes of 0 - 2 people even during their "favorable times". Recently, those times (~GMT 0 - 13) only got enough people when people from Europe/America got/stayed up in the middle of the night. This is because the participants from just Europe or America aren't at least 7 anymore (at those times, at least).

We had a full rotation going for a long time, but there just aren't enough players showing up at "Asia-Pacific" times (anymore).

[CactusKing]

I think it's worth noting "Asia-Pacific" generally constitutes of 0 - 2 people even during their "favorable times". Recently, those times (~GMT 0 - 13) only got enough people when people from Europe/America got/stayed up in the middle of the night. This is because the participants from just Europe or America aren't at least 7 anymore (at those times, at least).

We had a full rotation going for a long time, but there just aren't enough players showing up at "Asia-Pacific" times (anymore).

This really sucks for me, cuz I've gotten 3 of my mates into the game but they won't participate in tournaments because they're mostly held at midnight for our time zone. I know the community isn't what it used to be, but we can still revive it to the point where tourneys are viable. I see new players all the time on kongregate, they just don't enter tournaments because they think it's some sort of exclusive club and all the battle's will be insanely hard. We just need to get the message out to potential participants that anyone can enter, anyone can win, and we can get the player count up and have a great pvp event!

Who's with me?