Trials Feedback

[xdude]

Post feedback about the previous Trials here.

Yes, it is very late indeed.

[Scaredgirl]

This is more like a suggestion than feedback, but I think we should consider how the current spreadsheet thing could be improved, either by adding more features or by improving the visuals.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

I personally liked a lot about the previous trials, but there are a few things that might need improvement:

• Phase 1: it's always difficult to think up some good stuff for this I can imagine, and I'd love to see even better stuff than last time.
• Phase 2:
  • Contenders: after showing decks other contenders might copy paste it, which I find to be lame. So don't let players show their decks until the battles of that element in this phase are all over.
  • Masters: I believe the Masters' Tournament still has a lot of room for improvement, since I haven't participated in one yet I am in no position to give appropriate feedback on this.
• Phase 3: not much to say about voting, it is what it is.
• Phase 4: now here's where things get most interesting. Last time people were illegally banning in-element cards, which I find disgraceful and totally unfit for a master to simply change the rules to the way you like it, rather than abiding by trials rules. Although there isn't much to prevent it I'd like to bring forth the idea to keep bans the way they were, but, to allow participants to ban in-element cards at the cost of 3 bans. So you could ban 2 in-element cards, 1 in-element card and 3 off-element cards or 6 off-element cards. So in Darkness you wouldn't have to ban Fractal, Mitosis, Earthquake and Immolation just for their synergy with Devourers for example.

[ak65ala]

Truly liked the trials during which I was a part of last time around. 

Part 1: Forum and chat activity is important for a master, and I feel this is a good phase.  I just did not like how I felt like 'spamming' the card ideas section because it was manditory.  I enjoy posting because I feel I have something good to say (most of my posts are long, thought out and discriptive, see my battle results, all but the weekly tournies of course).  The feedback towards card ideas is good though, so I don't think it should change.  Again, just did not like repeating what other people said just to get my manditory # of posts.

Part 2: I had very good battles and went 1-1 in my trial.  The rules were balanced (6 off element, 6 upgraded) to give a wide variety of deck options.  Learned slience is fun but only effective in PvP when you are a false god (go go platinum arena!)

Part 3: Glad to see this changed to part 3.  Community perception is always a fickle thing, with people active on the chat more likely to get votes over those not as much.  The questions during this part help to balance this out.  I was already "out" of the runnings at this point as well, so with my grandfather's death, I could not participate as much as I hoped. 

Part 4: Always sad to see an inbalanced duel set due to inbalanced points for either the master or the hopeful.  I know effort + victory = more points.  The master's tourney seemed to give ceritan masters more an advantage and others a dissadvantage vs. their hopefuls.  Perhaps some look into that part would keep some bad mono elements from being the 'easier' trials to win at.

Other: I hope we don't have masters that leave (light and gravity this war, maybe others?) but nothing much can be done to fix that.  Know there was talk of changing it to 500 post people only to enter, I hope that is not the case yet (not there yet, but been active for a while now).

Would be fun to see other PvP events help you at the trials, like the circuits for other games do for their respective final tournies.  Your standings in weekly tournies and events give you points or something... that way masters would be active members who have proven themselves over a few months instead of just in one event.  I guess that is part of the voting phase to factor in... Perhaps too much work anyway...

[SpikeSpiegel]

My feedback, aka "What I liked and disliked in last Trials"


Phase 1. Proving of Worthiness

I like the idea of proving to deserve to become Master, but I do not like points are given just for the completion of the prove, without a judgment about works quality. Just to give an idea, Elements Council should vote works of phase 1


Phase 2. Battles

Challengers

I agree with TORB, don't let players show their decks until the battles of phase 2 are all over.


Masters

I like the idea of a Master Tournament, but i don't like to use mono decks of own element; some elements are heavily penalized, others too facilitated. We need to find a good idea.

My suggestion is a tourney where are used duo decks of the elements that are facing each other.


Phase 3. Voting

Nothing to say about it


Phase 4. Final battles.

For me, we can continue the tradition and leave things of phase 4 as they are...

[10 men]

About the master's tournament: How about, Masters may use cards from any Element unupgraded and upgraded from their own Element. This would be way less restrictive than all mono, and also show that Masters are players who have acchieved mastery in their Element.

[kev]

Registration
We need to clarify rules ahead of time in the event there are more candidates for an element than available spots.  Last Trials we used a system (here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,18550.msg253043#msg253043)) where candidates were ranked by number of posts and score.  Are we using the same system this time?

Path of the Challenger
During last Trials 77% of challengers got full credit for Phase 1 and 14% got partial credit.  Phase 3 is a turd that most people hate.  This resulted in every challenger that won Phase 2 participating in the Final Battle.  For the Trials without a current Master, the challengers that placed first and second in Phase 2 fought again in the Final Battle.  Essentially Phase 1 and Phase 3 were completely irrelevant in determining the best challenger.

Here’s what I propose instead: Phase 1 submissions are made to the Trials Overseer.  He posts decks, articles, etc. anonymously and the community votes on which ideas came from the individual best suited to be Master.  Voting results are ranked (SG can break ties) and then given scores 1 (least votes) – 5 (most votes).  If a player fails to complete Phase 1 he’s eliminated from Trials.  Phase 2 happens during the voting phase and because Phase 1 results aren’t in yet everyone should be motivated to fight.  Challengers emerge from Phase 2 with scores 2 (loser) – 5 (winner).  The player with the highest sum from both phases challenges the Master using 2.5 x earned points upped cards (rounded up).

Path of the Master
Currently a Master who led his team to War victory and finishes 4th in the Master’s Tourney earns less points than the War boobie-prize-winner who gets lucky in a double elim tourney (and let’s face it, the previous Master Tourney winner was 100% luck).  This needs to be equalized a bit now that War is better established.

Here’s what I propose instead of the current system:

	War Bonus	Master’s Tourney
1st	5	5
2nd	4	4
3rd	3	3
4th-6th	2	2
7th-12th	1	1
13th	0

So Masters total points are the sum of Phase 1, War Bonus, and Master’s Tourney.  Masters use 2.5 upped cards per point (rounded up).

Element	Previous Phase 2 plus War Bonus	Proposed Phase 2 plus War Bonus
Darkness	10	10
Death	8	8
Earth	8	8
Entropy	11	18
Fire	16	18
Gravity	8	8
Life	8	13
Light	12	13
Time	7	10
Water	4	3

Basically it’s a small bump in total but challengers are getting a small bump as well.  It does a better job of balancing War Bonus and Phase 2 points, though.
Oh, and the Actual Battles…
In the challenger battles I agree with torb, posting decks at the end is way better than as they’re played.  Last Trials we used 1/3 off-element and 1/3 upped.  The time before we used 1/2 off-element and no upped.  I think 1/3 and 1/3 worked but I didn’t participate in the challenger battles so I’ll defer to those who did.

Possibly the single greatest complaint I saw in the entire Trials was that mono is bad, bad, bad for the Master’s Tourney.  Bad!  Some monos simply have an advantage over others and because each Master is playing to retain his title it doesn’t make sense to disadvantage some Masters.  Up to six off-element cards as was used two Trials ago was way, way better.

Final Battle was max 1/2 off-element, six off-element bans last go and max 1/2 off-element, six of any bans the time before.  I really like these rules and I’m slightly partial to the six of any bans over the off-element bans but meh. 

I don’t think SoGs should be allowed anywhere in the Trials.

One more thing I just thought of.  I'd love forum award icons to be given to Masters.  It'd be nice to see the  under blonde's name and  under Kael's name so I could mouse over and remember which Trials he won.

[MrBlonde]

Lots of good points there Kev (what a surprise, lol) and i'd like to add my two 

Path of the Challenger - I really like this. To be honest for most of my articles, i put effort into it, BUT i didn't PUT effort into it because basically it was an ungraded thing. Get err done get the credit. This way, it definitely makes it tougher to do but more rewarding in the end.

Path of the Master - The bonuses never made sense to me here mainly because the Challenger always gets 10 points for winning their respective tourney which likely puts the Master already at a disadvantage. And the Master's Tourney was super meh last time round with it not only being mono but being allowed to ban a card as well. Talk about gimping certain elements.

Final Battle - I am of a mindset that if a player doesn't want to ban SoG's it's definitely within their prerogative so no need to have it pre-banned (i know i love my SoG). 6 total bans is more then enough to cover most of what needs to be banned.

I do love the forum award icon's given to Master's. That would definitely be cool.

[Scaredgirl]

Thanks for all the feedback. I will now lock this topic and it will be later archived.

kevkev60614 volunteered to run Trials, has been given the title of Trial Overseer, and will be in charge of running the next Trials.

We made a new ruleset and scoring range which I think is very good and solves some of the problems we have had earlier.

kevkev60614 will start the signups shortly so don't go anywhere.