Tournament?

We should organize a tournament! 2v2 would be easy to set up~

I'd be all for a tournament! Thing is I don't have any experience setting something like that up. I agree, however, that 2v2 would probably be the way to go so that we get a higher number of entrants.

Do you have any ideas of a good format? I'm thinking something along the lines of having a month to sign up, then giving a week for each round to be played and the replays sent in, or something like that. What do you think?

yeah i have plenty of experience running tournaments.

We should do single elimination bo1. That is you only play one game and if you lose you are eliminated from the tournament.

we can use http://challonge.com/ to set up brackets (8 teams/16 people would be good)

I have no idea how many people will want to play so I think we should start with a small 2v2 tourney to see the interest level. We can always bump down to a 4 team tourney or even bump up to 16 teams if the interest level is high.

I think we can just have a set time for the tournament and just run it. If there are 8 teams that is a total of 7 matches (round 1 is 4 simultaneous matches, round 2 is 2 simultaneous matches , then the final) Something like saturday noon would work well. If you do it by scheduling its going to get really really stretched out and never complete lol. On the other hand, having a set time excludes some people.

You could have a link in the splash screen for the game that announces the tournament.

Sounds like you know what you're talking about! My only worry is that I personally won't be available on the day that it's scheduled due to the randomness of my work/life schedule, but if we pick a day in advance I could probably do what is necessary to make sure I can be there. I can also easily put information regarding the tournament in the game loading screen and also in the starting title screen (I could replace my little slideshow with details easily). I'll start thinking of ideas for a "prize," a perk of some sort I could give to the winners.

How far out should we schedule the day? A couple weeks? A month?

At least 2 weeks in advance imo. If its too short we might not get enough, if it is too long people will forget about it.

PierceSc2 wrote:
I have no idea how many people will want to play so I think we should start with a small 2v2 tourney to see the interest level. We can always bump down to a 4 team tourney or even bump up to 16 teams if the interest level is high.

You need to have at least 3-4-player teams for 2v2 mode. There will be players who simply won't show up and in order to maintain continuity of the event remaining teammates will pick up other players on roster or ad-hoc substitutes. This is far better than having forfeit matches all the time because both teammates didn't show up. The more players on a team, the more chances of at least couple of them will show up. Not to mention you need additional players if tournaments drags for more than 4 hours. One of custom maps ran a 1v1 tournament with 128 sign ups just to have it deteriorate because of no show ups. Having small teams without sub procedure and dragging tournament over several weeks was the main reason of failure. Better few sure teams than more teams which will likely not show up.

I agree, Saturday afternoon EU time is the best time for running a casual on-line tournament.

You have to plan tournament at least two months ahead to have any chance of gathering more than a couple of players. One month includes brainstorming, setting up rules, subforum for tournament, preparation of promotion etc. Sign ups should be open no sooner that month and a half before tournament day (one month is optimal)and no later than three weeks before tournament. Registration should be allowed only on official forums.

Promotion should start roughly the same time as registration and include inviting pubbers to official chat channel and pasting tournament notice in pubs. Info on loading page helps but pro-active advertising is better. Make sure people are aware that even single match played in tournament gives participation reward of some kind (people like shiny stuff).

I don't quite understand having 3-4 players for a 2 player team.

If there are 2 teams with 3 players, wouldn't we just want to use those extra players to create an extra team? Essentially, having more than 2 people per team takes from the pool of overall players that we have.

I think a better solution would be to allow last minute substitutions as long as they play throughout the entire tournament and don't switch after that.

Also the goal of having a small amount of players and bo1 single elimination is so that it won't run over 4 hours.

If we organize and plan correctly then most of the matches can be played simultaneously.

One goal of this tournament is to see the interest level as well. So we start with a small, low commitment tournament then go from there for future tournaments.
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One side note is that we can simply do a ffa tournament and it might be easier to run. Basically we get X people who show up then we divide them into groups.

For example lets say 16 people show up. We split them into groups of 4 and have them each play a FFA

The winners from each group get together for one final 4 player FFA. FFA can work really well with few players and its easy to group people into ffa games. Not only that but we don't have that huge risk factor of a 2 player team who has 1 no show and can't play.

We can easily handle things like 27 people show up. subtract from 27 until we have an easy round number (I like groups of 4 as a standard). So if you subtract 3 from 27 we have 24. Then we can have 6 groups of 4 playing simultaneously.
With the remaining 3 people we can either put them in their own group, or spread them over the other groups.

This format would also be nice because it would be easy to run on a weekly or monthly basis. I'm really leaning to this format instead because it would be really simple and almost fail proof. I mean people don't even have to sign up they can just show up. If we get this sort of pattern going and we have a consistent amount of players showing up, we can occasionally turn it into a team tournament and we will already have a sense for how many people show up each time.

You both bring up really good points, lots of stuff I wouldn't have even considered.

I actually like the idea of a FFA tournament from the standpoint of it being so very simple to coordinate. Of course the goal would be to have team-oriented tournaments in the future due to it being the intended game mode, but since the scene is so new I could see FFAs working.

There's so much to consider, I'd love to hear Ent's perspective on a FFA tournament to start since it's obvious he also has a lot of experience with these hosting tournaments.

PierceSc2 wrote:I don't quite understand having 3-4 players for a 2 player team.

If there are 2 teams with 3 players, wouldn't we just want to use those extra players to create an extra team? Essentially, having more than 2 people per team takes from the pool of overall players that we have.

I think a better solution would be to allow last minute substitutions as long as they play throughout the entire tournament and don't switch after that.

Last minute substitutions are necessity, unfortunately. Make sure those players are added to list of participants on tournament registration thread (opponents must know who they are playing against). Players should be allowed to switch as long as they haven't played a tournament match (otherwise players who took effort to register early and carry tournament are treated worse than those who jump in at the last minute).

You need to have substitutes. This is internet. People can do anything they want without any consequences, and that includes signing up for tournament just to not show up without notice (happens in every open tournament). A friend of mine done a math on this.

There *will* be people who won't show up. Taking chances and hoping that second parter shows up as well *and* finds substitute *and* does that under 10 minutes won't work in long run. This is unnecessary risk you can't afford in open online tournament.

PierceSc2 wrote:
Also the goal of having a small amount of players and bo1 single elimination is so that it won't run over 4 hours.

If we organize and plan correctly then most of the matches can be played simultaneously.

I disagree with BO1 single elimination and I am explaining why. This is a casual tournament for casual player, not professionals. The point of this tournament is to have fun. There is no fun in waiting a couple of weeks for tournament, taking effort to organise team, practise, reserve a day off at work and personal life just to be knocked out after 30 minutes because of whatever reason (or even worse: when your random parter didn't show up or sucked). Make sure people play at least a couple of games. Even if they get knocked out they get valuable competitive experience and get a feel of event participation (not possible if you play a single game, might as well play pub) This is why I find group stages or double elimination better. If number of teams is low just do round robin (all vs all) and then playoffs for highest teams or just finals.

Allow single registrations and make teams of that a week or two before tournament. Brackets few days before tournament. There are many people who play casually and would love to play tournament but are shy to ask to practise with someone. Signing up individually and being assigned to a team works better and takes less effort than creating threads "looking for a partner" - nobody looks there, creators get impatient after few days and never return.

PierceSc2 wrote:
One goal of this tournament is to see the interest level as well. So we start with a small, low commitment tournament then go from there for future tournaments.

Measuring interest level is good but if you end up with more participants than you were prepared for tournament might collapse and get people upset. You might end up with not 27 but say, 50 or 100 people (very unlikely if you skip registrations on forums - people will look at tournament thread, see there is no one signed up and consider tournament dead before it even began). Registrations on forums are also the best measurement of interest level - it takes minimal but nonetheless effort to post on forums. Not to mention that it requires actually to *register* on forum - such person is more inclined to stay afterwards, read tournament announcements and even engage in community affairs.

Skipping registrations puts you inconvenient position of not having brackets and schedule up until last minute (live updates are also important). You don't know how long tournament will last and can't expect people to stay long enough if they weren't warned in advance.

Registrations are excellent data mine and important part of community's history. A nation without history does not deserve to exist, as one wise man said. One day players will talk about tournaments and say "look, I were here when it all began" (every internet user has e-peen, regardless of gender :') )

PierceSc2 wrote:
One side note is that we can simply do a ffa tournament and it might be easier to run. Basically we get X people who show up then we divide them into groups.

For example lets say 16 people show up. We split them into groups of 4 and have them each play a FFA

The winners from each group get together for one final 4 player FFA. FFA can work really well with few players and its easy to group people into ffa games. Not only that but we don't have that huge risk factor of a 2 player team who has 1 no show and can't play.

We can easily handle things like 27 people show up. subtract from 27 until we have an easy round number (I like groups of 4 as a standard). So if you subtract 3 from 27 we have 24. Then we can have 6 groups of 4 playing simultaneously.

With the remaining 3 people we can either put them in their own group, or spread them over the other groups.

This format would also be nice because it would be easy to run on a weekly or monthly basis. I'm really leaning to this format instead because it would be really simple and almost fail proof. I mean people don't even have to sign up they can just show up. If we get this sort of pattern going and we have a consistent amount of players showing up, we can occasionally turn it into a team tournament and we will already have a sense for how many people show up each time.

I disagree with "let's see how many people we have online and play it out" for aforementioned reasons but I can see where you are coming from. It takes incredibly less time and effort to run such things so it might be good for a first time, especially if you are working professional with free-time deficiency. I have seen such tournaments deteriorate in the past but the reason might have been lack of dedication on organiser's part. I would, however, put a little more to it and aim for more. The more you strive for, the more you get in the end. My first tournament in which I participated had 41 participants, now following tournaments attract even hundreds of players. I think main reason of success (show ups and legacy of first tournament) is because tournament host did not content with less and tried to run "fully featured" tournament which is easily scalable. It worked out without hiccups, everyone was generally happy and wanted more. Everything was there: clear rules, visible list of opponents, promotion in pubs and chat channel, support of map developer (in-game skins rewards for everyone) over two months of preparations and most and foremost - dedication of tournament host.

I am just pointing out things which might not work out and blow into tournament host and participants' faces (personal experience). If you feel like hosting you should totally do it! Even though I might disagree I am ready to provide my opinion. The first rule of the tournament is: tournament host has final word in any discussed matter (unless map developer says otherwise). :')

I disagree with BO1 single elimination and I am explaining why. This is a casual tournament for casual player, not professionals. The point of this tournament is to have fun. There is no fun in waiting a couple of weeks for tournament, taking effort to organise team, practise, reserve a day off (etc)

Actually the whole point of it being single elimination best of 1 is because its a casual player base. You seem to have the right idea that the point is fun but you have to see that making the tournament short and sweet helps that cause. If this were tuned toward professionals then we would be using a longer more accurate format. The point of making it short is so that its low commitment and fast paced (exactly what a casual audience is looking for).

Doing a double elimination tournament would be against exactly what you were talking about. It will be long and drawn out and less fun. They have to take less time out of their busy schedules to do something quick and fun. The commitment for double elimination is much more.

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Requiring 3-4 players is still worse than giving teams walkovers. You are taking away from the entire player pool as I said. When there could have been 4 teams there will be 2. On top of that, people who sign up do so because they want to play, not so they can be a reserve substitute. What i mean to say is those extra 2 players will have no role whatsoever unless their teammates don't show up. That isn't a role that people readily sign up for.

Measuring interest level is good but if you end up with more participants than you were prepared for tournament might collapse and get people upset.

And that is exactly why we stucture it bo1 single elimination OR much better: FFA. It isn't just low commitment for the participants but also for the organizers. The structure is made to handle large numbers and small numbers alike. If we were to have 100 sign ups as you pointed out double elimination would be hell. You are bringing up good points but it seems like your suggestions to those points are contradictory to what you are actually trying to achieve. These are all factors that I have considered and that is why I suggested the formats that I did.

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I disagree with "let's see how many people we have online and play it out" for aforementioned reasons but I can see where you are coming from. It takes incredibly less time and effort to run such things so it might be good for a first time, especially if you are working professional with free-time deficiency. I have seen such tournaments deteriorate in the past but the reason might have been lack of dedication on organiser's part. I would, however, put a little more to it and aim for more. The more you strive for, the more you get in the end.

Formatting it that way isn't just for the sake of making it easier for the organizer and by no means makes the organizer lack dedication. It is simply a realistic, low-risk , fail-proof way to get some competition going. Its a casual and possibly weekly thing that can be held. It is starting point, it isn't just settling for the minimum.

I've held plenty of leagues and tournaments as well as helped organize some. I've learned that it isn't always the best choice to aim as high as you can. You have to correctly assess how big the participation pool will be. If you structure the tourament for 256 people (aka aiming for more) and you get 30 people, your tournament fails. Likewise if you structure for 16 people and get 256 you are screwed.

That is exactly why I wanted to ditch the idea of doing brackets rather than groups. We have no clue how many willing participants there will be. We need test the waters with something low commitment. The best way to do that is to get some weekly casual games going. We have the luxury of having a ffa mode that is actually skill based as long as you have a small amount of players. Because of that tool we have we can easily split people into groups.

Once we use that to gauge the interest level then we can move into whether or not we want a highly competitive and accurate format like double elimination or if we want a short and sweet single elimination.

Considering I'm the newest user and I made this 2 weeks ago, I think it's time for something like a tourney to occur to raise publicity.

Some great posts with a lot of wisdom regarding tournament structure that I can't claim to have.

Right now I'm leaning towards a FFA tournament just because of how simple it would be not only to run, but to participate. The goal will definitely be team-oriented competition in the long run, but for right now I think FFA would work well.

Here's the thing that most concerns me--I don't feel comfortable being a tournament host. Not that I'm not willing to learn, but due to my and my wife's work schedules I just can't commit to being in one place for several hours on a weekend. That being said, I'll throw my full support as the developer to create incentives for participants and winners!

So let's start small and build our way up. Why not advertise a FFA tournament for a couple weeks down the road? I know it doesn't give people a huge amount of time to prepare, but a FFA tournament would definitely be a more casual affair. I think by offering an aesthetic "perk" incentive we can get a decent number of people to sign up.

Pierce, would you be willing to take on the role of "tournament host?" I hate to ask something of you without being able to offer anything of substance in return, but it sounds like you would be well qualified for the job. I believe OldEnt is a Star Battle tournament organizer so I would assume you're busy enough already!

rut

Sure I'm willing to do it. My reward is the great game that you have put out man, and all the suggestions you have listened to .

My availability would be on a week to week basis though. Once we get consistent participation then we can occasionally hold team tourneys.

Good luck on your endeavor. :') Too busy and tired lately to post in last few days. Poke if if you need something (skype preferred).