Introversion

You're not familiar with the World Cup format, I presume. First off, there is a first group phase (two, in fact, if you count qualification), where teams play in small groups, in one group every team plays against every other and points are allotted. There very well can be situations where on the last day, whether you advance to the next phase or not depends not only on your own performance vs. your opponent, but also the outcome of a different game. Add to that that Football is an extremely random competition sport; on a lucky day, a region class team can beat a world class team (BAD JOKE BEGIN as can readily seen by observing the success of the German National Team in international competitions BAD JOKE END), a property not shared by most other sports. If this happens to one world class team in a tournament, the winning chances for the other teams increase.

Those two properties together make the analogy complete: the outcome for you on a four player map depends not only on your performace vs the others, but also on how others perform against others, and is somewhat random.

And I'm not talking about other sports. Only Plain Old Football. American Football and Basketball and even Baseball are far less random to begin with, and the modes they're played in also differ from the World Cup format.

bert_the_turtle wrote:You're not familiar with the World Cup format, I presume. First off, there is a first group phase (two, in fact, if you count qualification), where teams play in small groups, in one group every team plays against every other and points are allotted. There very well can be situations where on the last day, whether you advance to the next phase or not depends not only on your own performance vs. your opponent, but also the outcome of a different game. Add to that that Football is an extremely random competition sport; on a lucky day, a region class team can beat a world class team (BAD JOKE BEGIN as can readily seen by observing the success of the German National Team in international competitions BAD JOKE END), a property not shared by most other sports. If this happens to one world class team in a tournament, the winning chances for the other teams increase.

Those two properties together make the analogy complete: the outcome for you on a four player map depends not only on your performace vs the others, but also on how others perform against others, and is somewhat random.

And I'm not talking about other sports. Only Plain Old Football. American Football and Basketball and even Baseball are far less random to begin with, and the modes they're played in also differ from the World Cup format.

Maybe I'm not understanding you or vice versa, in the world cup you have 4 teams playing simultaneously on the same field? Or you have 2 team match ups working your way up a ladder?

A 4 player team in MW is 4 teams on the same playing field at the same time, not 2 teams per field, the best man then competes with the best man of the other matchup etc etc.

For my understanding, even for the world cup, there is never more than 2 teams on one playing field at a time.

This is where I say the analogy doesn't apply.

You don't have four teams playing simultaneously on the same field, but four teams playing simultaneously. In each group, there are four teams. On one day, team 1 plays team 2 and team 3 plays team 4. The winner gets 3 points, loser get nothing, and 1 point is awarded for each on a draw. Those games are not yet simultaneous. A few days later, team 1 plays team 3 and team 2 plays team 4. On the last day, team 1 plays team 4 and team 2 plays team 3, and this time, the matches are simultaneous. The reason is this: from every group, only the best two advance (highest number of points + complicated tie breaking rules that change from event to event). Say team 2 wins against 1, team 4 wins against 3, team 3 wins against 1 and the match of teams 2 and 4 is a draw. On the last day, the scores are as follows:

Then, if team 4 loses against team 1 and team 2 vs team 3 ends in a draw, both team 2 and team 3 will advance. If team 4 wins, however, only one of team 2 and team 3 will advance. The outcome of one game influences teams that are not in that game. It is rather common to get these situations due to the tie breaking rules, you get stuff like "if 1 vs 4 ends in a draw, then team 3 can advance if it either wins or if it's a draw with at least 2 goals for each team, otherwise they need to win", and the teams will adapt their tactics accordingly, taking the current score of the other game into account. It's common because a team that has already secured its place in the next round will often not send in their best players. Especially evil and strong teams could even exploit the system by losing against the weakest opponent in their group on purpose.

I do understand that this is nothing compared to what you get in a four player domination map when two players decide to march in your direction. But it's the closes thing we get in the world of professional sports that I know of.

Where it DOES apply is that the format is this:

A vs B; A vs C; A vs D; B vs C; B vs D; C vs D.

If A loses to B, but C and D beat B, it's only B at a proven disadvantage with 2 losses. A still has an opportunity with a win outright if C vs D results in a draw; A needs only beat each of them to take the lead.

That's a little more like it, yes?


(THAT took me 6 minutes to write, refine, and post?)

It doesn't however fully utilise its dynamics. Whoever comes first is said to have won all three of their duels.

We were taking about what goes on DURING a match, not how to rate it.

So all in all, the only true solution to tournament play is stick to 2 player maps. and do the ladder scenario such as the world cup or most any other pro sports. That eliminates the political aspects and the gang rapes from the game and puts it back to pure unadulterated competiveness.

That is pretty much all I was getting at being the talk was about 4 player maps.

TomCat39 wrote:So all in all, the only true solution to tournament play is stick to 2 player maps.

You can also play lots of games to compensate for the luck factor, and accept the "gang raping" as part of the game and deal with it, like we do with alliances in Defcon. But given other benefits of the duel format (it's easier to organise), it's probably what we'll do in hardcore tournaments.

Really I think if you're expecting a large player base, it's better to use a similar method to what these guys have planned, just a free for all on some 4p maps. Then end that, and call it round 1.

I'd then cut out a chunk of the player base that didn't make the grade, and have another round (maybe on 3p maps) and filter off some more if needs be, then just get the last few to do some duals with different people on 2 player maps, 2 losses and you're out sort of thing, and maybe have the last 4 have proper playoffs.

It's an iterative process that tries to pick up the best players and then get them to play against each other. The problem is avoiding having to organise matches with specific people at specific times, and then get them to post screenies etc. Especially if you're trying to do large matches.

But consider, this is a schenanigan, and would take quite an amount of organising and monitoring, and such like. I think that they're probably taking the right attitude for tournaments, the only thing I would consider changing is the play window and not deciding the winner the first day, and having another round the next day (or in fact later on the same day) (with a different server password, obviously) so that it's more likely that the person who comes first, and the person who comes second, will have actually encountered each other in their games, since as I see things, the winner will be decided by the quality of their opponents.

If the iterating process could be automated, then due to Multiwinia's relatively short game length, it would not be that unfeasable to have a 2-3 hour tournament with back to back games every saturday, say. (If you can run enough servers). If you can get the players to play in quick succession in a smallish time period, then generalyl you have fewer problems than you would otherwise.

bert_the_turtle wrote:

TomCat39 wrote:So all in all, the only true solution to tournament play is stick to 2 player maps.

You can also play lots of games to compensate for the luck factor, and accept the "gang raping" as part of the game and deal with it, like we do with alliances in Defcon. But given other benefits of the duel format (it's easier to organise), it's probably what we'll do in hardcore tournaments.

I do take the gang raping as part of the game. I don't mind it a bit.

I'm just thinking that for tournament play, a small group of friends could secretly colaborate and work together to knock most everyone else out, then end up being in the top. Then they play it off and see who comes out on top out of their group. AKA hidden politics.

The 1 vs 1 scenario takes that possibility out of the equation but is harder to organize and do.

Half one dozen the other......

Well, secret alliances can be nullified by giving the winner of each match significantly more points than the others. That way, one honest good player will always beat the secret alliance (unless he meets them). Plus, don't underestimate the shunning power of the denizens of this forum

Also, it turns out basic crates does not eliminate luck as much as some people have you think. You're still done for if all you get is engineers and your opponent is getting turrets.

xander wrote:Second, for the modes that matter, there should not be handicapping for spawn points. If you manage to grab a bunch of spawns, while your opponent idles, I think that you have demonstrated your skill. Handicapping is meant to balance out differences in skill, whereas tournaments are meant to demonstrate skill. Finally, random crates, for the same reason as no handicapping.

xander

I really like handicapping - i think it makes games more stable, so they are in contention for longer, which gives time for crate luck to even out a bit and skill to triumph. Without it games would be decided sooner by smaller, more random details.

moth

bert_the_turtle wrote:Also, it turns out basic crates does not eliminate luck as much as some people have you think. You're still done for if all you get is engineers and your opponent is getting turrets.

Ha, ha - what ever made you think that? You are right though, the turrets won me that match.

Can i again suggest my fair crates http://forums.introversion.co.uk/multiwinia/viewtopic.php?t=1825&start=105 idea from the powerups thread? People have cut down my nightfall crate, but i'm still curious to hear what you think of fair crates mode.

moth

moth wrote:Ha, ha - what ever made you think that?

Me? Nothing * points at propaganda master xander *

And to be fair, I could have used that squad better.

moth wrote:I really like handicapping - i think it makes games more stable, so they are in contention for longer, which gives time for crate luck to even out a bit and skill to triumph. Without it games would be decided sooner by smaller, more random details.

moth

Then don't play on servers with those settings. The point that I was trying to make was that, in a tournament situation, luck and handicapping should be removed as much as possible. Handicapping allows a player with less skill to more easily win (in theory), and a tournament is supposed to test skill.

xander