11th Trials - Suggestions and Feedback

[Calindu]

Why do you allow multiple votes in phase 3? Especially considering you can vote for everyone and none worthy at the same time. It doesn't make much sense and takes away the advantage that a better contender can gain from this phase

[Zawadx]

Why do you allow multiple votes in phase 3? Especially considering you can vote for everyone and none worthy at the same time. It doesn't make much sense and takes away the advantage that a better contender can gain from this phase

Multiple votes were allowed to provide voters with options. If you couldn't choose between two or more people, previously you'd have to decide by RNG or something trivial. People would often vote strategically, to place theirs on a candidate who'd matter later on. We decided to provide everyone with the option to decide how their votes would go, so that they were no longer restricted by these concerns.

Also, this voting system is one of the simplest ways to ensure that the results represent who the voters agree with. It lets you make a relevant vote while also not having to compromise on your own wishes of say voting on a less relevant trialist. Normal polling is not a very good voting system to capture the complexities of human choice, and this system offers a compromise between that and simplicity.

Allowing votes on ALL the trialists was a mistake though. It should have been #(trialists) - 1, as any more votes than that is wasted. I wish I hadn't made this mistake when I made the polls, but it's too late now. We will fix this next time.

[MyNameIsJoey]

why must we have a final battle? couldnt we just declare no master? Solaris  has already been eliminated as per the rules. Nothing  personal, but i do not see why he should be given another chance.

[Basman-1453]

In addition to this, you may choose up to 2 cards. These are banned for both you and your opponent. This costs 0 points.

For the sake of future spectators (those who wish to learn past bans in future Trials, for example), mind marking bans declared this way in the final bans doc (italicising them, bolding them, writing them in all-caps, just whatever so that the free bans stand out)?

[hainkarga]

a random standin player having an overpowering upgrade advantage over a legit challenger makes no sense to me.

Suggestion: Upgrade count of standin should be equal to the challenger's on the final battle.

[Higurashi]

One can question whether a challenger who gives up less than halfway is legit. If the challenger was trying, they'd have to be doing very badly to only accumulate 9 upgrades. Looking at the standings, 20 is below average for finalist upgrades.

[hainkarga]

One can question whether a challenger who gives up less than halfway is legit. If the challenger was trying, they'd have to be doing very badly to only accumulate 9 upgrades. Looking at the standings, 20 is below average for finalist upgrades.

But with the current rules, trials are not objective meritocracy like you wish them to be, it is a competition hence they are relativistic. A magnificent player would win against a mighty player and become master of A. But it also allows a bad player winning against a worse one and become master of B. From a perspective of merit, this doesn't mean they are equally worthy of being masters.

If godisnowonline hadn't drop but performed even worse than solaris, Solaris would most likely have more upgrades and win. why does godisnowonline dropping from trials have to make it harder for solaris ?

[JonathanCrazyJ]

One can question whether a challenger who gives up less than halfway is legit. If the challenger was trying, they'd have to be doing very badly to only accumulate 9 upgrades. Looking at the standings, 20 is below average for finalist upgrades.

But with the current rules, trials are not objective meritocracy like you wish them to be, it is a competition hence they are relativistic. A magnificent player would win against a mighty player and become master of A. But it also allows a bad player winning against a worse one and become master of B. From a perspective of merit, this doesn't mean they are equally worthy of being masters.

If godisnowonline hadn't drop but performed even worse than solaris, Solaris would most likely have more upgrades and win. why does godisnowonline dropping from trials have to make it harder for solaris ?

It actually would have been godisnowonline against standin, not gino vs sol, because sol did not do well enough to make it to final battle. (iirc)

[hainkarga]

It actually would have been godisnowonline against standin, not gino vs sol, because sol did not do well enough to make it to final battle. (iirc)

I see. Like i said on other topic, i didn't follow the reasons, just the outcome. I haven't read the rules nor follow the progress of trials. If i cared enough, i would probably join.
I just checked the final battle topics and that looked (still does) silly.

[Zawadx]

STANDIN having the same amount of upgrades as their opponent would undermine all that happened in the first 3 phases of trials, which is not something we want AT ALL. So that is probably not going to happen.

A case may be made, however, for reducing STANDIN's upgrades. As kae pointed out, it might be worth making it slightly less than the expected upgrades of a mediocre player. This would provide an advantage to the challenger, which the community might accept if it was a one-person trial but is probably not on board with if there was a majority vote on None Worthy. We could do 15+phase 3 points for None Worthy to STANDIN and preserve the community's wishes, but that would do nothing to address the issue that hain raised. Another thing we might do is decrease the STANDIN upgrades for weaker elements, since these are more likely to have bad records in off-element matches.

What does everyone think?

[Calindu]

I see three main problems with STANDIN having the same number of upgrades:
 

• A good challenger that goes for 25+ upgrades is going to be at a disadvantage, since in the case 2 challengers are in the final battle, he's likely to have more upgrades than his opponent, not the same amount of upgrades.
• It disregards the first 3 phases. You can put 0 effort in and still have no disadvantage.
• the challenger can shape the meta around him, he's good in unupped meta? No effort and go for a low upgrades final

I feel like the number of 20 upgrades is good with the current rules, a challenger that's worthy and puts serious effort in is going to have a 5+ upgrades advantage most of the time.

I propose another change somewhere though: Forget about bonus points for trials and war. There's no reason to give someone upgrades just because he got drafted in the winning team and there's even less of a reason to give someone 5 more upgrades just because he lost 3 trials in a row. I find that these bonus points aren't in the spirit of trials and promote elitism.

And with these bonus upgrades gone, we can safely give STANDIN only 15 upgrades.

[hainkarga]

Do rules prevent two bad players, both of which are worse than a standin player, from playing the final match ? If we want deserving masters, i think the rules should address that issue. Otherwise it is only the ones without a legit challenger and facing a standin that are punished.

ie;
>i join aether trial and duke the final with guest-frog-3945 and get a free mastership
>averagepotato joins life trials and gets LORDOWNER_666 as STANDIN opponent and gets destroyed

How about pitting both finalist against a same standin player first ? And the loser is eliminated, if both win they may go for a bo5 together.