Tournament improvements

[Serbia]

The parts that I like most in these suggestions is the idea of being able to click on a drop-down and find which tournaments you're currently active in. When I was playing in a lot of tourneys at a once, there were times when I'd receive game invites to a tourney which had been inactive for a while, for whatever reason, and I'd totally forgotten I was in it! I never knew exactly how many tournaments I was playing in at any given time. Also, an easy way to look back at the tournaments you've participated in would also be cool.

[P4Ssoa]

You say, "We don't think much of it." So you see yourself as the whole community? Or you think you can speak for the whole community?
Did you even take a look at it greenoaks? Because if you didn't, I would say that's very unrespectful... I put a lot of time in writing that post.
You may think you contribute a lot to this forum or whatever, but unrespectful comments like yours make me want to stay out of the forum. I don't care if my idea gets put to the ground, if it happens on a respectful way, with good arguments.

Maybe the community doesn't care, maybe the community is just too inactive, maybe they don't care about tournaments at all,...
In my opinion, when the improvements are implemented, it would be a very big step forward for this website.


IRT: Doomyoshi:
Thanks for commenting. I hope you can read more later!

I would say they start a tournament because it's fun. When it's fully automated it wouldn't be worth a medal though. Everyone can start a tournament in that case. People would make tournaments, because they want to play in a tournament with a certain setup then. Just like the normal games, but then in a bigger picture.
I'm not sure if automated tournaments is a good idea though...

[greenoaks]

You say, "We don't think much of it." So you see yourself as the whole community? Or you think you can speak for the whole community?
Did you even take a look at it greenoaks? Because if you didn't, I would say that's very unrespectful... I put a lot of time in writing that post.
You may think you contribute a lot to this forum or whatever, but unrespectful comments like yours make me want to stay out of the forum. I don't care if my idea gets put to the ground, if it happens on a respectful way, with good arguments.

Maybe the community doesn't care, maybe the community is just too inactive, maybe they don't care about tournaments at all,...
In my opinion, when the improvements are implemented, it would be a very big step forward for this website.


IRT: Doomyoshi:
Thanks for commenting. I hope you can read more later!

I would say they start a tournament because it's fun. When it's fully automated it wouldn't be worth a medal though. Everyone can start a tournament in that case. People would make tournaments, because they want to play in a tournament with a certain setup then. Just like the normal games, but then in a bigger picture.
I'm not sure if automated tournaments is a good idea though...

it is not disrespectful to point out the community were not making comments about it. it is called a fact.

your suggestion does not excite the community. half the posts in this thread are from you. most of the rest are from me.

it seems YOU have decided there is a problem and thankfully for us, YOU are capable of fixing it.

thankyou for stopping by, please do so again.

[P4Ssoa]

IRT Greenoaks: Please don't stop by again, because like I said in my first post:

Greenoaks, with 7903 posts I am sure you know your way around this website. With 33 tournament wins, I'm sure you also know everything about tournaments. But you really disappoint me with the content (or better yet lack of content) in your last reply. It's clear that the threshold for posting isn't very high for you.

Stop spamming the forums man. You only made 1 single decent post in this whole topic. One single post where you actually had an argument.
You made it clear you don't like the idea. Now you can move along, because you don't add any value to the topic whatsoever.

[Night Strike]

So why should everything be coded into the site instead of controlled by the users? I don't understand the necessity.

[P4Ssoa]

So why should everything be coded into the site instead of controlled by the users? I don't understand the necessity.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. I'm not saying it shouldn't be controlled by the users!
I think it should absolutely stay controlled by the users, but on a special tournament platform. This to give tournaments a more professional approach. The forums work, but are basic. Maybe if you click on the spoiler tab in my first post, it will get more clear to you.
I indeed did suggest autmating bracket tournaments, but I think I should rethink this idea. The comments above did make it clear that automating a tournament, would be too easy and no honor should be given to the organizer, which makes it pointless for organizing. (except if you want to play in a specific bracket tournament, but if everyone should make his own automated tournament, there would be too many and the whole concept would fail...)

A special platform could hold more tournament features then the current forum setup.
A couple examples: Tournament statistics (active and completed tournament overview), subscribe to a tournament by clicking a button, better overview on the tournament you are organizing.

[Night Strike]

A special platform could hold more tournament features then the current forum setup.

Incorrect. No single system could be coded to provide the variety of tournaments that posting them in the forum allows. Currently, an organizer is limited by only what they choose to deal with, excluding a few specific rules. There are some features that can be included and will be over time, but I don't see the need to code the system to do the work for you. "Professional" just means the site does the work instead of the organizer. CC Tournaments are designed to be user-driven content, not site-driven.

[blakebowling]

A special platform could hold more tournament features then the current forum setup.

Incorrect. No single system could be coded to provide the variety of tournaments that posting them in the forum allows. Currently, an organizer is limited by only what they choose to deal with, excluding a few specific rules. There are some features that can be included and will be over time, but I don't see the need to code the system to do the work for you. "Professional" just means the site does the work instead of the organizer. CC Tournaments are designed to be user-driven content, not site-driven.

I agree with NS that there is a lot more creativity in the tournaments section because you have to do the work manually. However, I would like to see a bit of automation (i.e. players can click "Join" instead of posting in a thread, TO's can setup simple themed tournaments and mass-create games for the same group of players (i.e. I have 6 players together per round, each of them has chosen a "home" game configuration (map, settings, etc) and they all play all 6 games against each other), winner "reporting" (i.e. you can go in and look at Round X and see who won which games that round)). I do not like the idea of fully automated tournaments though, on occasion they are nice (such as the Conquer Cup), but having them all automated would de-value the whole of Tournaments. Of course, before any of these changes are made, I will get feedback from the TO's to see exactly what they want/need from such an update.

[Night Strike]

Of course, before any of these changes are made, I will get feedback from the TO's to see exactly what they want/need from such an update.

Thought that was what we TDs are for. And the features that we truly want are supposedly already on a list for the future.

[blakebowling]

Of course, before any of these changes are made, I will get feedback from the TO's to see exactly what they want/need from such an update.

Thought that was what we TDs are for. And the features that we truly want are supposedly already on a list for the future.

As far as I'm concerned, the TD's are TO's as well (for the most part). I also thought it was obvious that the TD's would be included in the feedback.

[greenoaks]

Of course, before any of these changes are made, I will get feedback from the TO's to see exactly what they want/need from such an update.

Thought that was what we TDs are for. And the features that we truly want are supposedly already on a list for the future.

As far as I'm concerned, the TD's are TO's as well (for the most part). I also thought it was obvious that the TD's would be included in the feedback.

it's not obvious to me, NS rarely runs a tourney. should we rarely ask for his opinion?

TD's are your contact point, they have their finger on the pulse. if you need to know something and they don't know the answer they'll get it for you.

it's like i've been suggesting elsewhere in this thread, if it ain't broke, don't try to rebuild the way things are done around here.

[P4Ssoa]

I think there is a real misunderstanding here though! I do not want tournaments to be fully automated. You are very right to say that the way things currently are creates a lot of space for creativity. I don't want to change this. The current topic system shouldn't disappear in my opinion. However, I do think some things can be improved.

The 'platform' I'm talking about gives a lot of overview and it also leaves space for future improvements.
This platform could still be linked with the forum topic. The options I suggested when you would click create tournament are mainly for when players want to join a tournament.
If you create a list with all tournaments, with a button to join a tournament automatically, you would want to know several things.
A) Tournament name (this is how your tournament will show up on the list.)
B) Amount of players and reserves (if filled, the tournament will disappear automatically from the 'Join tournament' list
C) Team games or single player (in case of team games, you will need to invite teammates before you can join the tournament)
D) Restrictions. (don't meet the requiremens? Then you are not able to click the 'Join tournament' button.
E) Player info required before joining? (This text will pop up when someone clicks the join button. Do you need to give up a certain map? A certain character name? Maybe settings for the games you'll play? You can ask your players this here, and when they click the join button, they will be asked to fill in what you ask them.
F) Tournament information = the content of the current forum topic! After creating the tournament, this info will be shown when you click on a tournament on the join page. Also when you create a tournament, a forum topic (exactly like we have now) will be created and this will be the content. The forum topic title will be the name of your tournament.

Tournament organizers will still do everything manually! My initial idea was to include an automation for bracket tournaments, but like people wrote before, this won't be a good idea.


The first goal of my suggestion is to create space and overview. After this, other improvements can be made, like automatition for joining a tournament, Mass create games, winner reporting.

Ps: Greenoaks, if you had an old nokia 3310, (the bastard almost never breaks.) you will never have that shiny iPhone then?

[greenoaks]

Ps: Greenoaks, if you had an old nokia 3310, (the bastard almost never breaks.) you will never have that shiny iPhone then?

haha, i have a Samsung. one of those slide ones. i have dropped it so many times and it bounces, not breaks like a shiny iPhone.

my kids think i'm weird because there is no touchscreen, no internet, no megapixal camera. the thing is it does what it is suppose to do (phone calls, txt msgs & my morning alarm) and it doesn't matter what i do - i can't break it.

that's what our tournament system is like. reliable. day after day.

your mega-overhaul will fail P4Ssoa. we TO's need reliable. we need functional, no matter what crazy concept we envisage (some tweaks would be nice but NS already has a list of those for us). what we need is a sandbox to allow us to be creative. we have that.

drop this world changing crusade and help us tweak what we have

[P4Ssoa]

Haha, I guess my quote was a bullseye then!

If you look at the whole concept, it doesn't need to be inreliable or afunctional. The sandbox concept doesn't need to change.
(Maybe I do want to get rid of the box, but I'd like to create a desert instead, where the same creativity is possible, but with room for improvement!)
I want to make it possible to grow and improve, and the foundations, like they have been should not change. It can (and maybe even should) still be forum based. I wish I could code a website, so I could create the layout and show you a preview.

Every tournament would still have it's forum topic. The topic would be created when you create a tournament. (automatically, as the topic title is the tournament title and the first post content is the content of tournament information)
Every TO can still make a tournament the way he wants. There should be room for this. The concept I have in mind should not block any creativity. That would be very bad, and we really don't want that.

Maybe I am trying to make a world changing crusade, and I know 99% of the time, trying something like this is useless. I am just convinced that this would be a revolution for tournaments on this website, and that's worth the other 1%.

[Night Strike]

Currently when tournaments are entered into the database, they are checked to make sure the tournament meets the minimum requirements. Your system removes that check.

You're to the point that you may be making it too easy for players to join tournaments. Going to the forum at least requires enough effort that most people will play in the tournament without disappearing. If all you have to do is click a button to join, then you're probably going to have more people who won't actually join their games.

[Serbia]

You're to the point that you may be making it too easy for players to join tournaments. Going to the forum at least requires enough effort that most people will play in the tournament without disappearing. If all you have to do is click a button to join, then you're probably going to have more people who won't actually join their games.

For me personally, this is the biggest argument against any automated join system for tournaments. I know blake mentioned earlier that he'd like to see a "Join" button option, but I'd be very much against that for the reasons Night Strike just laid out.

[greenoaks]

You're to the point that you may be making it too easy for players to join tournaments. Going to the forum at least requires enough effort that most people will play in the tournament without disappearing. If all you have to do is click a button to join, then you're probably going to have more people who won't actually join their games.

For me personally, this is the biggest argument against any automated join system for tournaments. I know blake mentioned earlier that he'd like to see a "Join" button option, but I'd be very much against that for the reasons Night Strike just laid out.

i have already expressed my opposition against it to.

if someone is incapable of entering the thread to post 'they're in' then they likely won't have read the rules. i don't need that headache.

[P4Ssoa]

I agree, that's something to think about. But could requirements for joining not partially solve this problem?

[general cod]

Good points for and against - It's good to discuss these and other topics as this will only to help improve players experiences. 'If it isn't broke why fix it' is my weak comment to add

[greenoaks]

Good points for and against - It's good to discuss these and other topics as this will only to help improve players experiences. 'If it isn't broke why fix it' is my weak comment to add

that's not a weak comment, it's actually a good rule.

we have a limited amount of resources to make changes and many, many changes that could be made. pointing out that things are fine as they are is quite reasonable, and helpful to determine where those limited resources could be deployed.

[Night Strike]

I agree, that's something to think about. But could requirements for joining not partially solve this problem?

Those same requirements for joining could actually be the cause of why the tournament is not meeting the minimum requirements. Plus, we look for unfair structures to the tournament such as unequal paths to win (one player can't play 3 rounds while most other players have to play 6 rounds).

we have a limited amount of resources to make changes and many, many changes that could be made. pointing out that things are fine as they are is quite reasonable, and helpful to determine where those limited resources could be deployed.

There are a bunch of suggestions out there that will be much more beneficial than this update because they revolve around actually getting players into games: invites for speed games, rescinding wrongly-sent invitations, invitations upon game creation, and bulk game creation; are all examples of suggestions that are supposed to already be on the list.

[P4Ssoa]

I agree, that's something to think about. But could requirements for joining not partially solve this problem?

Those same requirements for joining could actually be the cause of why the tournament is not meeting the minimum requirements. Plus, we look for unfair structures to the tournament such as unequal paths to win (one player can't play 3 rounds while most other players have to play 6 rounds).

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you please explain? What do you mean by "the tournament is not meeting the minimum requirements"? And what do you mean by: you look for unfair structures to the tournament?
You want to say tournaments like that are not allowed?
I'm not sure if I don't understand it, because I know too little about tournaments, or maybe my english isn't good enough.

----
There are always suggestions with a higher priority. I agree you posted some good examples. These suggestions should be implemented first.
I just hoped to start a discussion in this topic with how we could improve tournaments. A long term project. I've posted my vision and I was hoping to get other people to post theirs aswel (, or discuss the ups and downs of mine.) It doesn't seem to work like that around here though.

Maybe in the end you are right greenoaks. 'The community' doesn't seem to give anything about improving tournaments.

[Night Strike]

I agree, that's something to think about. But could requirements for joining not partially solve this problem?

Those same requirements for joining could actually be the cause of why the tournament is not meeting the minimum requirements. Plus, we look for unfair structures to the tournament such as unequal paths to win (one player can't play 3 rounds while most other players have to play 6 rounds).

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you please explain? What do you mean by "the tournament is not meeting the minimum requirements"? And what do you mean by: you look for unfair structures to the tournament?
You want to say tournaments like that are not allowed?
I'm not sure if I don't understand it, because I know too little about tournaments, or maybe my english isn't good enough.

Every tournament must meet certain requirements: the eventual winner must play at least 3 games, all game settings used need to be included in the first post, there must be at least 16 players or 8 teams, tournaments can't be limited to the top players on the site, etc. And even if it meets all the requirements, we have to make sure that the structure doesn't unfairly allow one player a quicker/easier path to victory over everyone else. You may want to organize a tournament or two to understand what goes in to organizing before recommending how it should be changed.

[P4Ssoa]

I am organizing a tournament at this moment. This is why I started this topic in the first plays. I see a system that could be so much better.

All the things you mentioned could easily be solved. You just need to do some effort and brainstorm with me.

Instead of:
Bad suggestion because we cannot check the tournaments if they meet the website rules.

You could've said:
Something to think about: The tournaments should always be checked if they meet the CC rules before people are allowed to join. So before they go on the "join tournament" page, were players can see them, they should go to the tounrament staff for review. Only when the staff verifies them, they should turn up on the join tournament page.

You can look for flaws to put this idea to the ground, but you can also help to get rid of these flaws and make a brilliant system.

[greenoaks]

I am organizing a tournament at this moment. This is why I started this topic in the first plays. I see a system that could be so much better.

All the things you mentioned could easily be solved. You just need to do some effort and brainstorm with me.

Instead of:
Bad suggestion because we cannot check the tournaments if they meet the website rules.

You could've said:
Something to think about: The tournaments should always be checked if they meet the CC rules before people are allowed to join. So before they go on the "join tournament" page, were players can see them, they should go to the tounrament staff for review. Only when the staff verifies them, they should turn up on the join tournament page.

You can look for flaws to put this idea to the ground, but you can also help to get rid of these flaws and make a brilliant system.

or you could run a few tournaments so we think you know what you are talking about. just a suggestion.

but don't worry, it's our fault. it's obvious the experience you've gained from running your one and only tournament allows you to take the commanding seat in a total ovehaul of a system that works so well for everyone else.

perhaps you could make it a little easier for the rest of us to back your changes by gaining some experience to support your opinion of this forum. but once again that's just a suggestion.