Map Blaster V:The Wrath of Agrona [Information: 1st Post]

[Vikermac]

You know, honestly I'm okay with the competition the way it is. After five MBs, the point system has gotten to a point where all players still feel motivated to compete, only if there are only 10 games left. If someone gets too many loses early, there is little motivation to keep trying. But with the way the tournament is now, five wins near the end would almost guarantee a different outcome. It keeps things exciting imo.

[Vikermac]

Unofficial (but accurate) Juliet Score and Wins Update:

Geigerm - 414 (5 wins)
Joeaggie98 - 384 (9 wins)
Steelmind - 407 (14 wins)
Vikermac - 433 (11 wins)
Lisbon101 - 495 (17 wins)
Danryan - 487 (19 wins)
Haggis_McMutton - 393 (8 wins)
DimnjacarStef - 341 (5 wins)

With 12 games remaining, there is a 30 point difference between 7th and 4th place.

In theory either Lisbon or Dan could not make it, but only one of them and only if they did as absolutely bad as possible and someone else did as absolutely good as possible. Otherwise, it is pretty much a lock for those two.

[danryan]

I am limping in to the next round. My play has been horrible, my dice suck, and in general I'm glad I got such a good start early because I'm crap now. Happy that this one is ending and onto the next one.

Anyone mind a sergeant playing with the big boys?

[Keefie]

Can we have a scores update asap for November group.

Cheers
Keefie

[TtD]

Certainly (though a little late), just caught up after a long day.

TtD-539
Danalan-507
Jug68-496
Keefie-496
Vexx-479
General Flashman-433
Golson-424
Brandoncfi-405

[Keefie]

Cheers mate just needed to check I was still onwards and upwards

[brandoncfi]

Also, I was wondering: any plans to run another doubles version of the tourney?

Sure maybe later this summer

[brandoncfi]

Real time scoring.

You tell me a way to do this(automated) and it will be done!!!

[brandoncfi]

You know, honestly I'm okay with the competition the way it is. After five MBs, the point system has gotten to a point where all players still feel motivated to compete, only if there are only 10 games left. If someone gets too many loses early, there is little motivation to keep trying. But with the way the tournament is now, five wins near the end would almost guarantee a different outcome. It keeps things exciting imo.

Exactly I like the feeling that you can always catch up and i think people always feel like they have a chance

[brandoncfi]

This has been a difficult round, and I've had some good luck -- I've made Colonel for the first time ever, which is quite exciting. I don't expect it to last, but it's an important milestone for me.

I have to believe that there are some players in the November group that still don't understand escalating games very well. However I've just realized that over half of the games I've played are 8-player escalating games in Map Blaster tournaments. Clearly experience is an important factor in this tournament.

I still think the points awards are not balanced correctly. In my 007: "Bond, James Bond" #2: From Russia w/ Love tournament (BTW, I need reserves) I'm awarding 7 points for a win, 3 for second, 2 for third, 1 for 4th & 5th, and 0 for 6th & 7th. I'm not saying you should do the same, but it seems to work well, and rewards winning far more than playing it safe. I think you should consider the following points awards:
Win: 8
2nd: 4
3rd: 3
4th: 2
5th: 1
6th: 1
7th: 0
8th: 0

As the competitions resident cockroach I think that such a bias can have it's place, but you don't want to overdo it. The idea of so many games is to work out the strongest consistant scorer, wins are as much down to luck as skill and at least 2nd/3rd should get decent points. I'm fond of the current scoring, as despite the brutal luck i've had the past few days the scoring rewards me being in place almost every map to take a swing at the win. Far too many tournaments overly favour the wins column and it ends up being down to who can get lucky at the key moment, it really shouldn't be such a crapshoot.

I agree TtD....

[Dazoot]

Scores updated as of June 25th @ 1215hrs

[lisbon101]

Next round will be a blast...

[danalan]

Part of what's both right and wrong about the current scoring is that you are competing against a fixed group on a large number of maps. This is nice in that you get to know the other players play styles, but it doesn't really do a great job of allowing the best players to rise to the top. A much more representative group of top players could be determined if we went off the bracket system entirely. Since it's a points tournament, the top players would always advance.

Think of a group of 253 players playing 80 qualifying games. That's 31 8-players groups, randomized over 80 games, with 5 players as reserves for each game. The score sheet would have 253 rows, and columns for players, total points, total wins, total zeros, and 80 columns of individual game points. Another worksheet would have 80 columns, 1 for each game, with 253 players divided into 31 8-row groups, all placed by random.org. At the bottom would be a 5-row group of reserves for each game column.

Each player would play about 80 games (some would miss a game or two by being reserves) with a different group of 8 players. The top 120 players, decided by points, move on to round 1, where you now have 15 groups of 8 players, randomized over 100 games. Reserves are from the qualifying round players who didn't quite make the cut.

These players would play all 100 games, with the top 40 players moving on. From that group, you drop down to 8.

Ties in the qualifying round would be decided by most wins and fewest zeros (assume 7th & 8th get 0 points), in later rounds scores from earlier rounds would decide ties.

You'd miss out on a lot of the strategic moves regarding points on the later games, but I don't see that as a total loss. By the time you get down to the top 40 players playing 120 games, you'd really have the cream, and you'd meet each other often enough to bring new strategies to bear, and actually increase the interplay among the 40 players.

[brandoncfi]

Part of what's both right and wrong about the current scoring is that you are competing against a fixed group on a large number of maps. This is nice in that you get to know the other players play styles, but it doesn't really do a great job of allowing the best players to rise to the top. A much more representative group of top players could be determined if we went off the bracket system entirely. Since it's a points tournament, the top players would always advance.

Think of a group of 253 players playing 80 qualifying games. That's 31 8-players groups, randomized over 80 games, with 5 players as reserves for each game. The score sheet would have 253 rows, and columns for players, total points, total wins, total zeros, and 80 columns of individual game points. Another worksheet would have 80 columns, 1 for each game, with 253 players divided into 31 8-row groups, all placed by random.org. At the bottom would be a 5-row group of reserves for each game column.

Each player would play about 80 games (some would miss a game or two by being reserves) with a different group of 8 players. The top 120 players, decided by points, move on to round 1, where you now have 15 groups of 8 players, randomized over 100 games. Reserves are from the qualifying round players who didn't quite make the cut.

These players would play all 100 games, with the top 40 players moving on. From that group, you drop down to 8.

Ties in the qualifying round would be decided by most wins and fewest zeros (assume 7th & 8th get 0 points), in later rounds scores from earlier rounds would decide ties.

You'd miss out on a lot of the strategic moves regarding points on the later games, but I don't see that as a total loss. By the time you get down to the top 40 players playing 120 games, you'd really have the cream, and you'd meet each other often enough to bring new strategies to bear, and actually increase the interplay among the 40 players.

The bracket system was new ...I do not like it as much in pasted MB's it was random I will go back to that since the nature of this tourney is to play so many games I think it is nbetter to micx it up a bit...well I hope you all are having a good time. I am goint to take a brak for the summer and I won't start a new MB until september so epp giving me your ideas an if you want to run a MB during july/augaust give me an M PM amd we will wok it out with Dazoot

[geigerm]

danalan, I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure that system's more fair. I feel like the scores within a particular group are very dependent on the quality of players, particularly early in the tourney. I know in the first couple of rounds we had some groups with deadbeats, and the top people in those groups came out with higher scores than the rest of us who were probably in more balanced groups. Maybe the quality of play evens out after a couple of rounds. Maybe the change doesn't make that much of a difference--it would be interesting, if that's a consideration, to go back through this tourney after it's over, look at the scores in each round, and see how much that scoring style might have changed who made it through each round. Just my $.02 ...

[brandoncfi]

danalan, I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure that system's more fair. I feel like the scores within a particular group are very dependent on the quality of players, particularly early in the tourney. I know in the first couple of rounds we had some groups with deadbeats, and the top people in those groups came out with higher scores than the rest of us who were probably in more balanced groups. Maybe the quality of play evens out after a couple of rounds. Maybe the change doesn't make that much of a difference--it would be interesting, if that's a consideration, to go back through this tourney after it's over, look at the scores in each round, and see how much that scoring style might have changed who made it through each round. Just my $.02 ...

That would be interesting to see what the poutcome of each group would be with danalan's proposed scoring system

[Vikermac]

That would be interesting to see what the poutcome of each group would be with danalan's proposed scoring system

Speaking of scores...

[danalan]

Ok.

Here is November's group with my proposed scoring. The ranking remains the same, however the points spread widens. There are less points overall (26 vs. 38) awarded for each game, so the totals are lower, but that makes scoring in each game more important.

The most telling statistic is the total zero's. Unless the player has a corresponding high number of wins (buffs nails on shirt), a high zero rate is fatal. TtD's consistently safe play really stands out here, and is clearly rewarded just as well with my suggested system as it is in the current one.

[Dazoot]

Scores updated as of June 27th @ 1655hrs.

5 out of eight players have advanced to Mike Group, check out if you are one of them.

[Vikermac]

Woo-hoo, I'm moving on! Not that I had any doubt, but these last 20 or so games have been a bit disconcerting.

[TtD]

Ok.

Here is November's group with my proposed scoring. The ranking remains the same, however the points spread widens. There are less points overall (26 vs. 38) awarded for each game, so the totals are lower, but that makes scoring in each game more important.

The most telling statistic is the total zero's. Unless the player has a corresponding high number of wins (buffs nails on shirt), a high zero rate is fatal. TtD's consistently safe play really stands out here, and is clearly rewarded just as well with my suggested system as it is in the current one.

You forgot to open it up to the public, we cannae see your work.

[TtD]

Final November update, 13 games still live;

1-TtD-610-12 live games remaining
2-Danalan-568-11 live games remaining
3-Keefie-556-12 live games remaining
4-Vexx-542-10 live games remaining
5-Jug68-532-11 live games remaining
6-Golson-486
7-General Flashman-486
8-Brandoncfi-459


As is, Jug has collapsed over the last few days and needs a big effort in his last 11 games to make it to the final. TtD, Dan and Keefie are essentially through though both Dan and Keefie can still be caught if hit hard.

[danalan]

You forgot to open it up to the public, we cannae see your work.

Whoops. Opened up for viewing and editing, if you like.
Score Trial.

[Dazoot]

Scores updated as of June 28th @ 1700 hrs.

Juliet group is now decided. Congrats to those moving on.

[geigerm]

Whew ... glad to squeak through that round. Congrats to my fellow Juliet group-mates who made it through as well.