Thank you for the disclaimer, and I hope my response comes through clearly any translation you need. I agree there are some issues, but as best I can see they are not really issues to be solved by the TrOs.
The Trials overseers are not responsible for what questions the community asks the Trial-ists. I agree some questions are not helpful, and other questions are borderline insulting to some of the participants. However, it is up to the challengers to determine which questions they will answer and how to answer them. I read through all the questions, posts, and answers in all 12 of the elements, and there was nothing there I felt needed intervention or discipline from the TrOs or the forum admins.
As Trials Organizers our primary tasks are: 1) involve as much of the community as possible in the Trials and 2) create an event that determines who is best fit to be the Master of each element. Given our first task (community involvement) allowing anyone to ask the candidates questions and to vote for who they think is the best Master is important. What qualities people value in the role of Master is different. For some it is most important they are a good General in War, for others they value that the Masters are present to represent and embody the element they represent. Maybe there are some people that think Masters being involved in Brawl is very important (like Naesala). They are allowed to express their opinions and ask questions about them and then vote based on them. We as TrOs cannot tell them what is most important. We do tell people to not vote purely based on PvP record or vote for their friend (if they have one in Trials) but to try and look at the big picture, but ultimately who they vote for and why they vote for them is a personal choice.
The second goal was to design Trials to help select the best Master of each element. And as weird as it sounds, the TrOs don't decide what that means. The Council decides what the role of Master is, and the WarMasters get to decide what role Masters can or can't have in war. In previous Wars, Masters either had to be the General of their element or they could not participate. If that changes, it isn't the TrOs' decision or a function of the Trials, it is a War issue, and your feedback should be in the War subforums. And I believe I have made my position clear on this in the past.
Perhaps these changes to the role of Master will lead to changes in future Trials, and so we need to change Trials to better select people for the newer tasks the Masters are expected to handle. But as of the start of this Trials, the role of Master is as we described it: Someone who is the face of their element in the chat and forums. Someone who will lead their element in War. Someone who will lead their element in Brawl. I know that not all the competitors intend to do all those things, but that is not reason enough to simply disqualify them from the event. It is a tough balance. And the Organizers of War and Brawl are allowed to relieve Masters of these responsibilities as they see fit, like allowing Masters to appoint another General in their place to lead War. Those are decisions they make, and not ones the TrOs have authority over.
I would suggest to make more restrictive meta-altering deck-building rules, e.g. what Oni did previous Trials was fun with that graph-walking (even though we complained about the complexity, but at the end it was really interesting). The current rules allow pretty much open-meta, especially for the master's battles, where we do not even have bans. The even-game shard is a good rule in this sense (a step in the right direction), but it is not enough IMHO. More tweaks like that would be nice.
Possible rule ideas to include:
- you are only allowed to use any in-element card maximum two games per match (to avoid over-using an OP card)
- you are allowed to use a total of 10 copies of each in-element card (except for pillars/pends) per match -- an alternative way to achieve the above
I like that there is a pool-phase for the masters and it is not just a single-elimination tourney -- kudos for that!
Given that I really like how Challenger Phase 2 went, I will spend more time prior to the next Trials trying to re-vamp the master's tournament. As I have shown I like tying Trials to War, people should probably expect a more restrictive meta next time that feels more vault-like. But nothing is set in stone yet, and there is a lot of time before it will be implemented. But I agree, this Phase 2 was probably a little too open.
Well, I suggest important rules like the elements' usage per matches should not be just bold but also colored with a strong color like orange or yellow. That way, there would be less noobs like me who missed a few important deckbuilding rules of the event. :P
We will continue to do our best to spell out the rules with as much clarity and precision as possible. Using color and/or bold can be helpful at times, but at the end of the day all the rules are rules, and breaking any of the deckbuilding rules results in an illegal deck. If we make some bright colors and people miss the other ones, we end up making them all colored and then none of them stand out. Although maybe color coding them and referring to them by colors would help. Also under consideration is numbering all the rules for easy reference.
I would suggest putting a time limit between matches.
I agree to postponing and continuing another day if needed but taking an hour between 2 matches is just ridiculous.
The closest thing to a time limit between matches is going to continue to be the overall Phase timers. Anything more restrictive than that would require a whole list of additional rules that lead down a road we do not want to go. We don't want to award more forfeits because someone's parents made them leave between games to do something or glennfoo's university gets hit by lightning so he loses the entire match. The auto-loss for 1 game if you leave the game is harsh enough, and we want as few series as possible decided by people's internet connections and forces of nature. If someone schedules a match by the final deadline as then something like that happens, all the evidence would have to be considered on a draw/forfeit ruling. Those kinds of rulings are bad for everyone involved because it is always better if the match can be played out. Adding more timers that will result in more forfeits or draws is bad for the event.
I would suggest masters get less free points. They are masters, theyw hould be able to defend their titles.
The fact of the matter is they do have to defend their titles. As Zawad and I have made clear, they get a pass in Phase 1 because they already proved their worthiness. (well the last TrOs sort of let them off the hook I guess... but they did win a Final Battle before, which makes them worthy enough). Also as Zawad pointed out, we gave challengers the opportunity to show exceptional worthiness and outscore Masters in Phase 1. Sure it wasn't free, but it was a chance to outscore them. Any defending Masters next trials should expect similar treatment, as that is one of the benefits of defending your Title. Not all Masters do this (6 did this Trials), and this Trials we even had a Master forsake the easy road to the Finals in order to challenge another element. So no, those 6 points weren't free. They earned them in Trials 7 by winning (or defending) their title then.
In Phase 2 we set up a multi-part tournament that clearly rewarded people for winning more than losing. The fewest points they could get is 4, and the most they could get is 16. Challengers by contrast could get between 0 and 12. This is not to give the Master 4 free points, this is Masters playing against Masters to try and get points and Challengers playing against Challengers to try and get points. The requirements to enter Trials as a Challenger as set pretty low, and as such for a Challenger to make it to the Final battle we expect them to perform very well in Phase 2. This may be against unknown and untested opponents, so you have to earn all your points. Losing just 1 match (sorry RootRanger) can mean the difference between making the finals or not making the finals. And as Fippe showed, doing very well in Phase 1 and 2 can put you on even footing with a Master who did well in the tournament; a tournament where winning games is expected to be much harder than in the Challenger Phase 2. Again, the Master have earned this position last Trials, and are competing against other people who earned this position. You
could get 4 points for Phase 2 because you lost 3-2 to a mediocre player and beat someone who signed up, doesn't read the rules and uses all illegal decks. That is a possibility in Challenger's Phase 2 (I am not saying that did happen, only that it is a possibility). That doesn't happen in the Tournament of Masters, and those kinds of opponents can't just sign up to be in the Tournament of Masters. So the Masters get more points for competing in their Phase 2 because it is harder and they previously earned that challenge.
And Odii and deuce22 had a draw that would have been ruled the same if any two other competitors were in that position. If you and Regy were unable to play your match despite both putting in quite some effort and trying to work out schedules, you both would have gotten 1 point for that. That is how the rules work for the event.
[17:18:46] ‹SpikeSpiegel› the only feedback
[17:18:48] ‹SpikeSpiegel› i have
[17:18:57] ‹SpikeSpiegel› except you're doing a great job
[17:19:08] ‹SpikeSpiegel› is that rules for finals are a little bit...strict
[17:19:12] ‹SpikeSpiegel› the shard one above all
We will definitely explore more options for next Trials to incorporate shards while still trying to maintain a fair and balanced meta. We recognize the shards have been in the game for quite some time now, and it may be beneficial to try and push them a little further into the mainstream instead of continuing to give them "boogey man" status where we give them potentially prohibitive upgrade cost and allow them to be inexpensively universally banned. I wouldn't expect a big jump, but you will see some steps.
The thing is, you limited them even more than last trials. Right now there's three massive restrictions on them, which is completely unnecessary, because in Final battles, you and your opponent have the same element, there's no uneven ground based on having to build around one element.
Yes I know. I am afflicted more than most with "shards = boogeymen" syndrome. But my above post is my resolve to address that and be much more open minded about shards in the future.
CuCN and I tested the AM dimshield bug. It was pretty clear what the intended effect was supposed to be, thus the final decision.
to sum up briefly, what I think I remember:
Bug works when u use it vs AI. But if AI were to use it against you, it doesn't work. So if you play against a real opponent, one player will see one effect and the other will see a different effect. For one player, the HP constantly reset as if the creature did not bypass the shield (even tho it appeared to do so and poison marker was added), and for the other player the creature never bypassed the shield and the HPs never reset after each turn. Thus, it was determined that the effect of AM to bypass shields is a bug.
I'm sure someone will be confused by this, so if you have questions, then just test it out yourself.
I respect both you and CUCN as Warmasters, but the fact the hp resets is totally irrelevant; let me try to explain it to the community...
My personal experience is that Antimatter-Dim bug ALWAYS cause a desynch between a PvP match; I just do not know if it is always detected. But even if it is detected, I am pretty sure it can't be automatically fixed because the game's code in this area it just wrong!
In order to understand this, let's say we have two classes-objects: "my" which reffer to the player (first-person perspective) and "opponent" which reffer to the opponent of the player (third-person perspective).
Let's say we have the following boolean variables (boolean = they can either be TRUE or FALSE): Antimattered, which is TRUE if the creature has negative attack and FALSE if its attack is positive, and Dim_Bypass, which indicaters whenever a creature's attack bypass Dims (TRUE) or not (FALSE).
When you play with AI, things are easy; the human player is the object "my" and the AI is the object "opponent". Personal experience of playing versus the AI reveals the following:
If (my.Antimattered=TRUE) then my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
If (my.Antimattered=FALSE) then my.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
If (opponent.Antimattered=TRUE) then opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
If (opponent.Antimattered=FALSE) then opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
(I really think Zanz, while coding EtG's Antimatter-Dim relation, he forgot to replace the opponent.Dim-Bypass to TRUE instead of FALSE)
Now, while this wrong coding has no (serious) effect against the AI (because we have to deal with a single PC and a single running instance of the programm), if 2 human opponents face each other (here we deal with two PCs and two running instances of the programm that exchange info) things are really complicated.
Since they exchange info, they have to exchange variables too. However, while Player A is the "my" object and Player B is the "opponent" object in Player A's PC, thing are reversed in Player B's PC, where Player A is the "opponent" object and Player B is the "my" object.
In online PvP, that means each PC produces the "my"-related variables and recieves the "opponent"-related variables from the opponent's PC.
PlayerA.opponent.variable = PlayerB.my.variable;
PlayerB.opponent.variable = PlayerA.my.variable;
Let's say that Player A's creature is Antimattered. This is going to have the following effects in each person's PC.
Player A's PC:
my.Antimattered=TRUE;
my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
Player B's PC:
opponent.Antimattered=TRUE;
opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
And here is the issue; they both recognize the Antimatter condition, but only Player A's PC recognize its "right" to bypass Dims because Player B's PC treats Player A like an AI opponent.
Now, let's say that Player B's creature is Antimattered. This is going to have the following effects in each person's PC.
Player A's PC:
opponent.Antimattered=TRUE;
opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
Player B's PC:
my.Antimattered=TRUE;
my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
And here is the same issue once again; they both recognize the Antimatter condition, but only Player B's PC recognize its "right" to bypass Dims because Player A's PC treats Player B like an AI opponent.
But why do we have the hp reset desynch issue?
Because the game is coded in a way that, if either the PlayerA.my.variable == PlayerB.opponent.variable or the PlayerA.opponent.varialbe == PlayerB.my.variable conditions are not met, a desynch error occurs and it tries to fix those with various ways (if these conditions are not equal, then each player plays its 'own game' with 'its own rules' if you know what I mean and that's what pretty much happens in the Antimatter Vs Dim case).
One of the ways EtG use to solve desynchs is to re-recieve the values from the other computer by replacing the value of the PlayerA.opponent.variable with the value of the PlayerB.my.variable or the value of the PlayerB.opponent.variable with the value of the PlayerA.my.variable, even if the new value is game-wisely mistaken!
In our case, we have the player A with the antimattered scorpion taking the same amount of damage from Player B in both Player A's and Player B's PCs (so the PlayerA.my.variable == PlayerB.opponent.variable is true) while Player B with the Dim Shield takes far less damage in Player B's game than it takes at Player A's game (so the PlayerA.opponent.varialbe == PlayerB.my.variable is false).
In other words, that causes the PlayerA.opponent.health == PlayerB.my.health argument to be false for Player A, so the program tries to replace the PlayerA.opponent.health variable with the PlayerB.my.health variable (PlayerA.opponent.health = PlayerB.my.health;). Because of this, Player A may see his opponent's health rise for an instant in order to meet Player B's game.
CuCN and I tested the AM dimshield bug. It was pretty clear what the intended effect was supposed to be, thus the final decision.
to sum up briefly, what I think I remember:
Bug works when u use it vs AI. But if AI were to use it against you, it doesn't work. So if you play against a real opponent, one player will see one effect and the other will see a different effect. For one player, the HP constantly reset as if the creature did not bypass the shield (even tho it appeared to do so and poison marker was added), and for the other player the creature never bypassed the shield and the HPs never reset after each turn. Thus, it was determined that the effect of AM to bypass shields is a bug.
I'm sure someone will be confused by this, so if you have questions, then just test it out yourself.
I respect both you and CUCN as Warmasters, but the fact the hp resets is totally irrelevant; let me try to explain it to the community...
My personal experience is that Antimatter-Dim bug ALWAYS cause a desynch between a PvP match; I just do not know if it is always detected. But even if it is detected, I am pretty sure it can't be automatically fixed because the game's code in this area it just wrong!
In order to understand this, let's say we have two classes-objects: "my" which reffer to the player (first-person perspective) and "opponent" which reffer to the opponent of the player (third-person perspective).
Let's say we have the following boolean variables (boolean = they can either be TRUE or FALSE): Antimattered, which is TRUE if the creature has negative attack and FALSE if its attack is positive, and Dim_Bypass, which indicaters whenever a creature's attack bypass Dims (TRUE) or not (FALSE).
When you play with AI, things are easy; the human player is the object "my" and the AI is the object "opponent". Personal experience of playing versus the AI reveals the following:
If (my.Antimattered=TRUE) then my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
If (my.Antimattered=FALSE) then my.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
If (opponent.Antimattered=TRUE) then opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
If (opponent.Antimattered=FALSE) then opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
(I really think Zanz, while coding EtG's Antimatter-Dim relation, he forgot to replace the opponent.Dim-Bypass to TRUE instead of FALSE)
Now, while this wrong coding has no (serious) effect against the AI (because we have to deal with a single PC and a single running instance of the programm), if 2 human opponents face each other (here we deal with two PCs and two running instances of the programm that exchange info) things are really complicated.
Since they exchange info, they have to exchange variables too. However, while Player A is the "my" object and Player B is the "opponent" object in Player A's PC, thing are reversed in Player B's PC, where Player A is the "opponent" object and Player B is the "my" object.
In online PvP, that means each PC produces the "my"-related variables and recieves the "opponent"-related variables from the opponent's PC.
PlayerA.opponent.variable = PlayerB.my.variable;
PlayerB.opponent.variable = PlayerA.my.variable;
Let's say that Player A's creature is Antimattered. This is going to have the following effects in each person's PC.
Player A's PC:
my.Antimattered=TRUE;
my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
Player B's PC:
opponent.Antimattered=TRUE;
opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
And here is the issue; they both recognize the Antimatter condition, but only Player A's PC recognize its "right" to bypass Dims because Player B's PC treats Player A like an AI opponent.
Now, let's say that Player B's creature is Antimattered. This is going to have the following effects in each person's PC.
Player A's PC:
opponent.Antimattered=TRUE;
opponent.Dim_Bypass=FALSE;
Player B's PC:
my.Antimattered=TRUE;
my.Dim_Bypass=TRUE;
And here is the same issue once again; they both recognize the Antimatter condition, but only Player B's PC recognize its "right" to bypass Dims because Player A's PC treats Player B like an AI opponent.
But why do we have the hp reset desynch issue?
Because the game is coded in a way that, if either the PlayerA.my.variable == PlayerB.opponent.variable or the PlayerA.opponent.varialbe == PlayerB.my.variable conditions are not met, a desynch error occurs and it tries to fix those with various ways (if these conditions are not equal, then each player plays its 'own game' with 'its own rules' if you know what I mean and that's what pretty much happens in the Antimatter Vs Dim case).
One of the ways EtG use to solve desynchs is to re-recieve the values from the other computer by replacing the value of the PlayerA.opponent.variable with the value of the PlayerB.my.variable or the value of the PlayerB.opponent.variable with the value of the PlayerA.my.variable, even if the new value is game-wisely mistaken!
In our case, we have the player A with the antimattered scorpion taking the same amount of damage from Player B in both Player A's and Player B's PCs (so the PlayerA.my.variable == PlayerB.opponent.variable is true) while Player B with the Dim Shield takes far less damage in Player B's game than it takes at Player A's game (so the PlayerA.opponent.varialbe == PlayerB.my.variable is false).
In other words, that causes the PlayerA.opponent.health == PlayerB.my.health argument to be false for Player A, so the program tries to replace the PlayerA.opponent.health variable with the PlayerB.my.health variable (PlayerA.opponent.health = PlayerB.my.health;). Because of this, Player A may see his opponent's health rise for an instant in order to meet Player B's game.
rob: You're a lucky man, ARTH.
'ARTH': How so?
rob: You're talking to one of [the few] men in the [EtG-verse] capable of following that train of thought.
'ARTH': Well, what do you think?
rob: I said I could follow it, I didn't say I [could solve it].