As the winner of the voting for the next major enhancement to be added to WarGear I'm looking for your input on features that you think should be incorporated into Tournament play.

Please post any ideas or suggestions you have here.

Thanks all.

Who is going to be able to start tournaments?  Anyone on any map?  Only Map Designers?  Only players who purchase maps (will purchasing be available before tournaments?)?

A few flaws learned from the WF tournament system:

• Host needs the ability to Delete Tournament, even if in Round 1.
• Players need the ability to Leave Tournament.
• Host only allowed to start Tournament on unbroken map (may not be as big of a deal if you have the above two).  So only Live maps available, or allow 3 types of tournaments?   Public invite all WG players to a Released map.  Private, host manually adds players individually to a tournament and tournament is considered Private (with ability to open to Public), perhaps available for non-Live boards.  Test, something like a cross between Public and Private for "testing" a map?
• Need reward/ranking system.
• Double elimination really means double elimination.
• Be prepared for AnA board style tournament.
• Use Auto-Skip/Boot logic (make tournaments progress at a decent rate and not become stagnate).

Just quickly thinking there.  I'm sure there are more and better suggestions coming from others.

MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE: Odd-number-of-seat games at each round- winner advances. Single elimination. WF can allow odd numbers of players only in the first round. This small change would make tournaments, well, worth playing (by stopping tournament-long alliances, playing to win instead of playing to advance).

Some things I would like to see in tournament play:

1. Tournaments should be fast (measured in months, not years).
2. Tournaments should have a clean way of getting rid of absentee players.
3. Tournaments games should support any number of players at any level.
4. It should be possible to fix or cancel tournaments that have problems with them.
5. Tournaments should have the option to run a variety of boards rather than the same board over and over.

1. People have launched tournaments on Warfish that literally last several years.  This is a problem because there is always player attrition over time.  Strategies for keeping tournaments short might include:

• Estimate the running time of tournament and provide a warning ("This tournament will last approximately 1.5 years.  Are you sure you want to launch it?").
• Limiting the number of levels for double-elimination tournaments.
• Running games in parallel rather than in series and advancing players to the next level using a scoring system.  (Sports teams can only play one game at a time, but we have no such limitation here, so why do things the slow way?)

2. Keeping tournaments short should fix the absentee player problem.  Auto-skip for slow players and auto-boot for vanished players might be good ideas.

3. (Mongrel mentioned this in a previous post.)

4. It's very easy on Warfish to make a mistake when launching a tournament, and then there's no way to correct it or cancel the tournament.  This is definitely a problem that needs fixing.

5. I'd love to be able to launch a tournament that uses a different board at every level.  I'd also love to be able to change the rules at each level, for example making the fog a little thicker each level you advance.

I like the creator to have some sort of control over the tournament setup. Another site I used to play on had a tournament system that created the tournament based off of it's unchangable rules of set up and it was very often wrong. Starting a tournament that can have up to 6 players in it shouldn't ever end up with one round of 6 players and then 4 rounds of 2 player games. That's just silly. Show the brackets before the create and then allow changes before so the creator can fix something. Let the creator pick the number of games in each round and the number of players in those games. If they can't do simple math and do it wrong, give them an error message like "Trying carrying the 1" or something.
The more power given to me, I mean the tournament creator, the better for all GearHeads.

Disagree with #5. That sounds like a headache to me. Agree with the rest.

As for keeping it short, here are some of my suggestions:

• Single elimination only. Double elimination has the dual lengthening effect of not only adding to the overall number of games but adding an additional "first" round after the first first round, meaning the eventual winner of the top bracket has to wait EXTRA long.
• Limit the number of players. Nobody really needs more than 100 people in their tournament.
• As noted, moving past the strict binary bracket system and allowing more flexibility with regard to number of players per game and number of advancing players will also help with this issue. If I've got a 5-player board and want one winner to advance from each game, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to set up a tourney that way. This, in my mind, is the most important single issue as far as creating a tournament system.

I would like to see a tournament system based on the site, not specific player hosts. This scenario would see a tournament created for every map on the site, open to everyone to join just like the Open Games list is now. One open tournament at a time per map, when it is filled and started then another open tournament for that map is created.

"But I want to create a custom tourny!" you cry. Yes, well, hold on a second. Give the ability to the map creator to create X number of tournament scenarios, specifying number of players per tourny, per map, how many advance per round, how many rounds, and any other tournament related settings that make sense.

Then give the tournament creator a way to create an ordered list of say, the next 10 tournaments that are started in terms of which pre-made scenario to use next. Default to a random scenario in case none are ordered.

Stick to single elimination. Double elimination is a needless complexity that I never felt offered much compared to how difficult it makes everything.

Either allow booted players back into the next round, or allow for substitutions. Fairest substitution method would be to select someone already in the tournament but who was eliminated the previous round. Having a teammate booted in the first round was always a death knell and annoying as !%$@.

I recommend two main types of tournaments, game-ranked and free-play. Game ranked would mean that each individual game in the tournament counts towards your normal rankings on that board as if it were a regular single game. Free play would be the opposite in that individual games would NOT count towards your regular board rankings. Free play would allow for the diplomacy make-it-to-the-next-round style of play, which can be as fun and as challenging as the win-the-game-at-all-costs method in the ranked game style. This could be one of the tourny scenario settings.

Most importantly, tournament rankings of some sort are a must. WF tournies are fun, but even if I managed to win 20 in a row nobody would know and/or care about it. With rankings at least people would know. Yes, yes, they still wouldn't care... =/

New maps should be up for normal single game play for a period of time, perhaps a month, before tournaments are started on them. This would be necessary for the other rule, which is that only people who have played at least ONE single game on a map may join a tournament on that map.

I know restricting the map-maker to be the only one to set starting scenarios may sound restrictive, but remember this could always be extended in the future, maybe by having the map-maker assign people who can create/edit/re-order scenarios. I think initially it would be for the best, as the person who made the map has the best idea as to what kinds of settings would work best for it. At the very least it would avoid some of the more ludicrous tourny settings I've seen on WF.

asm wrote:

Disagree with #5. That sounds like a headache to me. Agree with the rest.

As for keeping it short, here are some of my suggestions:

• Single elimination only. Double elimination has the dual lengthening effect of not only adding to the overall number of games but adding an additional "first" round after the first first round, meaning the eventual winner of the top bracket has to wait EXTRA long.
• Limit the number of players. Nobody really needs more than 100 people in their tournament.
• As noted, moving past the strict binary bracket system and allowing more flexibility with regard to number of players per game and number of advancing players will also help with this issue. If I've got a 5-player board and want one winner to advance from each game, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to set up a tourney that way. This, in my mind, is the most important single issue as far as creating a tournament system.

I agree 100% with all of these words as well.  I never thought about how double elimination extended tourny times by much more than double, an excellent reason to kill it.

One more to address some of the other posts which I admittedly read after I posted mine.

Yertle what is AnA?

As far as the ability to delete broken tournaments, I don't think there needs to be anything over and above what is already in place to fix/delete broken boards. Maybe giving someone Tournament Moderation status to keep an eye out for issues?

Also for the keeping it moving / being able to leave. The autoskip/autoboot system for regular games should be sufficient for moving things along, and I wholeheartedly disagree with the ability to leave a tourny. Assuming no stuck tournies due to bugs, and no stuck tournies due to the autoboot process, then you should be able to at least estimate within a week how long one is likely to take. If you want to leave, then there's the door, and here's the boot. A sub will be waiting to take your place.

The different map settings for each level is intriguing. Different maps altogether sounds interesting too, but that could be built in later as sort of a Meta Tourny using interconnected tournies with small numbers of players. I do really like the map setting idea though.

I kind of agree with everything asm said. 11s said a lot of things I agree with and quite a few I don't agree with :P.

I really like the Ranked Game Tournament idea.
I wouldn't be against not doing double elimination (I never used it on WF).
I would like to see winner's only advance but to fill up the next game (ie 4 people for the next game).
I don't necessarily like idea that Map Designers have to create a tournament scenario (but I didn't read real hard here or think about it much).
I don't think I like the idea that you have to play the map before you can join the tournament, one of the main reasons to start a tournament is to get more people to play the map.
Limiting the number of players is a pretty good idea (some limit is needed), but I would like to see some big tournaments too.

AnA = Axis and Allies, 2vs3 teams.

One idea I had was that the person creating the tournament could upload a medal image for the winner. This medal would be displayed on the players profile page.

Potentially there could also be a tournament results tab which would list the tournaments the player has played in and their position reached (e.g. Round 4 / Semi-Final / Final / Winner)

The only problem I can see with having individual games in tournaments count towards regular game rankings is this would cause problems where 2 players can advance in each game.

Most things said by asm and 11's and Yert are good. I'd rather see tournament play be outside of Ranked play. I like the idea of having your Tournament stats displayed and having a trophy on your profile. You'd need some default images, however.
I don't like having when a map can be played in a tournament nor do I like only 1 tournament per map at a time. The first thing that must be decided is Who Can Start Tournaments and On What Maps? Anybody on any map? Premium Members on any map? Map Makers only? People who have purchased the map? (worst idea)
Tournament creation should be a premium option and maybe map makers could have an option to allow map for tournament play or something like that. I got asked by people to start tournaments on a map I had on another site I used to play on and I hated doing it but those tournaments were some of the most fun and people told me all the time. I think Yertle had one of his most memorable games in one of those tournaments. I like play on my maps, I just don't wanna have to be in the tourny.
I like starting a tournament on a map of mine when it is new. There are players who play private games and tournaments exclusively. I don't know why, but they do. Some RL friends of mine are that way. They don't like open games but they always join tournys. It's a good way of getting people to try out your map without the pressure of it being ranked or playing against people who already know it really well. I'd say that as soon as a map of mine goes live I would probably start a tournament on it just to welcome the GearHeads to the latest RiskyMap.
Oh, and I hate double elimination too. I would like to see Random Teams and Random Teams per round included but I'd like a more random system than one that I had seen previously.

i agree with some of what is said and disagree with others. i'll make a detailed list later when i feel like spending the time writing, but in short:
- like the idea of medals/stats
- don't like 11s idea of how tourneys are started. they should be an individual choice.
- tourneys should be started by premium members that have played at least one game on that board. anyone can join (like risky said, thats how many boards got publicized)
- agree that current skip-setup would suffice to keep things moving
- double elimination...good AND bad. many of the tourney's i've gotten to the finals are thru the double elimination as i fucked up once and sent me down. but i agree that this realllllly makes for long tourneys, and without thinking more i don't have a better way to make sure they stay moving along. theoretically it shouldn't take but a couple games extra time for the winner bracket and loser bracket to work themselves out.
- do like winners only (tho i do also tend to play 'win to advance' often)

I disagree with the parts of 11's ideas that others disagree with, too.

Like Risky said, a tourney is probably the best way to get attention for your new board that you want people to like. So I don't like the idea of the site hosting all the tourneys, or the cycling tournament spawning, or that a player would have to play the map before joining a tourney. That would end up with stagnation IMO. And less creative tourney setup.

When Yertle refers to 'leaving' a tourney he doesn't mean quitting midway. One should have the ability to back out of a tourney one has joined but only before it has filled up and started play.

I think there's enough oversight and administrative response here to allow a lot of flexibility in the way people set up their tournaments. If YSL joins the site and starts up a tourney with max fog settings, abandon/retain on, and a limit of 3 attacks and no transfers on a board that doesn't work in the first place, it won't be long before it gets shut down. So I wouldn't worry about that.

Personally I'd be against the Ranked Game tournament idea but I can see the appeal. As with my original objection to Lightning games, I'd say that if you do include this feature you MAKE IT EXTREMELY OBVIOUS. I'd also suggest limiting it to tourneys in which only one player per game advances anyway.

One thing I'd always thought would be cool but impractical would be to let one entire tourney round complete, re-pool and shuffle the players before spawning all the games for the subsequent round. Obviously the main effect this would have had in the Old World tourneys would have been to make everything take 5 times as long. But with single elim only, a smaller limit on total players, and autoskip/autoboot enabled it might be workable. The really great thing would be in tourneys where more than one player advances per game you could include the in-game diplomacy 'let's advance together from this round,' which I find stimulating, while eliminating the danger of two players just becoming permanent allies against a group of other players unaware of what they're facing.

I like the tournament results tab/page.

I like the tourney host uploading an image to be displayed in the winner's trophy cabinet/profile page (would have to lock this image at tourney creation and display prominently on tourney join page). With a default medal/trophy image hosted by WG in case tourney creator does not upload their own.

I think that's all for now.

tom wrote:
The only problem I can see with having individual games in tournaments count towards regular game rankings is this would cause problems where 2 players can advance in each game.

I really wouldn't mind seeing the 2 (or however many) players can advance thing thrown out, but I'm probably in the small crowd with that.  It just promotes stacking and not playing at times (which I have used as a strategy to advance at times, but still don't like it), then it's just annoying to see when games are down to just 2 players and they hold up a tournament when they both will advance.  Also a lot of people form "teams" with this setting to advance (again good strategy but still annoying), so if this is offered then all the players in the next round should be more Randomly distributed so "teams" can't be formed.

Perhaps instead of a traditional "March Madness" bracket, every game in each round must conclude before the next round begins. Upon conclusion of a round, all the winners (either sole player/team or host selected number to move on) are put back into a pool and then randomly distributed into the games in the next round.

This would allow you to more easily have an odd number of players in the games in each round of a tourney (you'll still have to automatically manage the right number of games in the first round to have that work out).

It would also prevent collusion between a few players who agree to ally throughout several rounds of tournament.


Also, I'm totally on board with the no double elimination option. Double elimination compounds the total length of a tournament in many ways. Anecdotally, the people who lose earliest also tend to be slower players. Double elimination piles them all into a bracket together maxing out the skipboot timer nearly every turn of every game of the front half or more of the consolation bracket which always ends up holding up the championship game.

You guys agree with me without even knowing it. Glad I type fast.

I love the idea of an author created tournament trophy image.

I think it should be treated like cards, in that not having a custom one should leave the board bouncing off the review team.

asm wrote:
When Yertle refers to 'leaving' a tourney he doesn't mean quitting midway. One should have the ability to back out of a tourney one has joined but only before it has filled up and started play.

There is that too, but I think players should be allowed to leave after round 1 or 2 (maybe not beyond that).  It seems like quite a few players join then they hate the map but still are forced to play it if they advance, even if by accident, the final end result is some stupid Map Review on how dumb the tournament was and how it was so horribly bad and ruined their life because they had to spend 15 seconds in a tournament they didn't want to play.  Getting Booted means it potentially holds up the tournament and we all know that Surrendering normally doesn't really work all that well either.

I dunno perhaps it wouldn't work, but just a thought (and one that I imagine will be raised by others at some point).

I like the idea of having tournament wins contributing to a separate ranking system. Give points for each round of tournament passed on an increasing scale. Here's one example:

10 points per player defeated in a first round win.
20 points per player defeated in a second round win.
30 points per player defeated in a third round win.
...
80 points per player defeated in an eighth round win.

If you cap the # of people allowed in a tournament to 128 (makes for an even setup of 1v1 games), then I believe 8 is the most rounds you could possibly have in a single elimination tournament.

The actual point numbers are irrelevant, as it will all be relative. The scale is important, I suppose, in determining the weight of winning deeper into a tournament.