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Malthor



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Sep 09, 2006 - 20:19 Reply with quote Back to top

Hi Coaches,

I know it is going back a bit now, but as part of my program of running the ranked tournaments, I review the running of each major to see what we did well, and what we could do better next time around.

Eg, this time around, we had a lot of problems filling in the early start times. This year, they were:

July 8th & 9th 2006, July 15th & 16th 2006
Start times: 4am, 10am, 4pm, 10pm BB time.

Two of the 4 AM ones were delayed for hours because we did not get the coaches to start the tournament. Being an Oceanic based coach myself, I like the 4 AM timeslot and I played at 4 AM, but don't think we will have four 4 AM starts next time. Eg, there might only be two 4 AM starts and an two 7 PM starts instead to cater for the much higher number of European based coaches.

Another issue was the long finals campaign with biweekly KO. Maybe they should be weekly KO instead.

I will also review the prize (for next year) to try and attract more agility based teams. Of the four majors, this had by far the most basher types applying to play.

Anyway, if you have any constructive comments about the running of the tournament please post in this thread. And thank you Angie for running this tournament and being there in to oversee or start all 16 qualifiers over two weekends, and also run the finals.

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Frankenstein



Joined: Jan 26, 2005

Post   Posted: Sep 09, 2006 - 20:42 Reply with quote Back to top

Major problems with FUMBBL majors:

- (Unlimited) recovery and cash-creating games after the qualifiers (encourages cherry-picking, favours cherrypickers and gives unfair advantages to coaches who can rely on helpful buddies).

- No TR-entry limit (TR 300f or example). It simply cannot be that you may enter a FUMBBL major with an artificially engineered uberteam which has rarely taken up any real challenges for hundreds of games (not specifically related to the current tournament, I have critisized that serious flaw for more than a year now).

- Seeding by coach ranking. Seeding should be by team ranking rather than coach ranking. If there has been made a wrong major decision on FUMBBL then it was the abolition of team ranking. As long as there is no team ranking, I'd recommend seedings by TR instead of coach ranking.


Suggestions for future tournaments:

- Swiss-format replacing knock-out format, with the option to drop out of the running tournament before a new round starts. This will keep up the interest in the tournament's later tounds.

- Allow all qualifier runner-ups to play an additional qualifier and/or allow coaches to enter the qualifiers with up to 5 different teams. It's ridiculous that qualifiers containing 2 or more superior coaches make it impossible that more than 1 of them advances. I mean, you really want some quality in the majors, don't you?

- Grant awards to the best players with regard to completions, casualities, touchdowns, interceptions and most SPPs. These awards could be medals, special unique skills (e.g. +1 on all interceptions attempts for the best interceptor) and/or skill upgrades (e.g. change one skill to STR+1 for the best blocker). These unique skills/upgrades could possibly only work for a limited amount of time (e.g. until the subsequent major has finished).

Malthor wrote:
I will also review the prize (for next year) to try and attract more agility based teams. Of the four majors, this had by far the most basher types applying to play.

This had, of course, nothing to do with the fact that the GLT collided with the XFL Dark Elves... Rolling Eyes
Ansalon



Joined: Jun 18, 2006

Post   Posted: Sep 11, 2006 - 09:16 Reply with quote Back to top

I played in the GLT qualifiers this year and it was pretty enjoyable. Overall I think the tournament is fun, but there are a few changes that I think would improve the tournament for next year.

1) A large knock-out style tournament rather than qualifiers. I read somewhere that Malthor is already thinking of doing this, so I won't say too much about it.

2) Adding a TR cap. I think that this tournament would be both more fair and more interesting if there was a TR cap. Every team would enter at an equal level and the tournament wouldn't be reduced to watching powerhouses beat teams 100 TR lower. I've spectated alot of Fumbbl Smacks and one of the big draws is that in every division but legend there is a TR cap so the games are more competitive.

Also a TR cap would encourage coaches who are more casual about playing to join the tournament. A casual coach won't be that willing to join a tournament where he/she may have to play a TR 350 team. If there was say a TR 200 cap you might find more coaches willing to play, which would make the tournament a much better celebration of Fumbbl. With a TR cap every coach on Fumbbl would have a chance to compete, which I think should be a goal of these tournaments.The only drawback I see in a TR cap is that is may make it hard for some of the legendary teams to compete as they wouldn't fit under the cap. I think that maybe there could be another tournament for them, a 'legendary team cup' or something like that.

3) No seedings. I don't believe in seedings for Fumbbl tournaments because there really is no effective way to decide them and they detract from the excitement of the tournament. You could use CR, but many people here believe that CR is not very accurate and encourages cherry-picking. If there was a TR cap you couldn't seed by TR either, as it would be equal.

I don't think this is a problem, as having no seeding makes the tournament much more exciting all around. It's not fun to watch every high CR coach get a free ride in the early rounds because they're drawn against coaches with very low CRs.

Anyways, these suggestions are contingent on the probably incorrect idea that in a year's time we'll still be playing LRB 4 without a reset.
Buur



Joined: Apr 29, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 11, 2006 - 09:33 Reply with quote Back to top

Quote:

- Seeding by coach ranking. Seeding should be by team ranking rather than coach ranking. If there has been made a wrong major decision on FUMBBL then it was the abolition of team ranking. As long as there is no team ranking, I'd recommend seedings by TR instead of coach ranking.


This is a very good suggestion i don't think coach rating is the best way to seed teams i a major but if it should be team rating or teams strength should maybe be thought over if the rules are changed.

Also 2 weeks round seems like forever, but if some round collide with holidays i know it can be impossible to make one week rounds... maybe one week round with an option to get a delay?

but all and all i enjoyed playing in both qualifier and main round and if a have the possibility ill play next major for sure whether changes are made or not!

-Buur

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Cloggy



Joined: Sep 23, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 11, 2006 - 09:42 Reply with quote Back to top

Some good suggestions there, but I want to commetn specifically on the Tr-Cap thing. I woud like to see it introduced on GLT, since it fits there best fluff wise.

There is no way the ulthuan invitational would ever consider inviting a team below TR200.

What I see as the main benefit of introducing a TR cap to at least one of the majors is that we might see a bit more racial variety.

Just Orcs/Chaos/dark elf/woodies all the time gets boring after a few tournies. Quite a few teams just lose their edge when you get to artificially enhanced TR level above 250, while others profit disproportionally. Capping at 200 might get some more Undead or humans into the games, which would make the tournies more interesting imo.

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OverDose



Joined: Apr 07, 2005

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 13:35 Reply with quote Back to top

I will also vouch for a short swiss and some kind of a change in the qualifying system.

I should be automatically qualified for every major for instance.
eyeslikethunder



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 20:00 Reply with quote Back to top

I agree with cloggy having one the tournaments capped would add variation and give a chance to teams who cannot compete above tr200

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Dominik



Joined: Oct 29, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 20:17 Reply with quote Back to top

Buur wrote:
Quote:

- Seeding by coach ranking. Seeding should be by team ranking rather than coach ranking. If there has been made a wrong major decision on FUMBBL then it was the abolition of team ranking. As long as there is no team ranking, I'd recommend seedings by TR instead of coach ranking.


This is a very good suggestion i don't think coach rating is the best way to seed teams i a major but if it should be team rating or teams strength should maybe be thought over if the rules are changed.
-Buur

Why not? In the Champions League or probably in all other sports, teams are seeded by their success in the past.
Or in the national soccer cups.
This is done for only one reason: To assure, that the two "best" coached teams don't knock out themselves in the first round while two moderately coached teams play against in the 1st round.

I don't want to see two uninteresting teams standing in the Final when the big one's are eliminated out.
pac



Joined: Oct 03, 2005

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 20:25 Reply with quote Back to top

Dominik wrote:
… teams are seeded by their success in the past.
Or in the national soccer cups.

Not in the FA Cup! There there is no seeding at all (except in that some teams enter the competition before others). And it is perhaps not by chance that (even though it is not quite what it was) it remains the most prestigious national cup around!


But attempting to make translations from real world sport to on-line games is doubtful at best … Smile

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Walks_in_the_Sun



Joined: Apr 16, 2006

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 20:35 Reply with quote Back to top

I'm no expert, but making the different Majors unique from each other is a good idea. I like the idea of UI having a high minimum TR and the GLT having a maximum. The mutations is enough to make the WO special, but there's no need to stop there. Having different means of qualifying for different tournaments, or even different organization (KO vs Swiss) from tourney to tourney would help keep them intereting. Anything to make it so that the path to victory for each tournament is different.
Synn



Joined: Dec 13, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 21:01 Reply with quote Back to top

This was discussed before and originally i was against any kind of TR cap......

Now as a spec, ALL majors should have a TR cap. This tourney was very anti-climatic since everybody knew who was going to win and i fear that a blueprint has been established.

TR 310 would be a sound TR cap to keep under. That is suitable for the teams that NEED a high TR (chaos and elves) while keep engineered teams out.

__Synn
OverDose



Joined: Apr 07, 2005

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 21:33 Reply with quote Back to top

Synn wrote:
Now as a spec, ALL majors should have a TR cap. This tourney was very anti-climatic since everybody knew who was going to win and i fear that a blueprint has been established.
There are plenty of high TR teams that can challenge Malthors überteams. My darkies (due to my donkey plays and bad dice I lost the first round match), Tautology has good darkies, PeteW has got nice darkies, Borgen has got nice darkies, they were just tied to the XFL. I really honestly think that in normal conditions Malthor will not overrun the field. I mean, the Blood Falcons didn't even make it to the UI final tournament!

I would really like the swiss thingie though at least for some of the tournaments.

Besides, you have to consider that Malthor got very lucky to not receive much damage to his team throughout the tournament.
Walks_in_the_Sun



Joined: Apr 16, 2006

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 21:38 Reply with quote Back to top

It's kinda depressing that every team you named was darkies.
Synn



Joined: Dec 13, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 21:43 Reply with quote Back to top

I don't consider it luck that Malthor was able to avoid damage. Malthor is a good coach after all.

__Synn
MadTias



Joined: Jun 19, 2004

Post   Posted: Sep 14, 2006 - 21:46 Reply with quote Back to top

On the whole, the tournament worked fine. Bi-weekly was too slow at the end, sure, but that's no biggie. Frankenstein has a point that could be experimented with: no games between qualifiers and main event. I think it would just mean bigger treasuries going into the qualifiers, but it could be worth a try. If you want to limit the "bought games" factor, no stars/wizards could be an option. Whatever you can work into the fluff. Myself, I don't see this as a problem, big teams are big teams and mostly they should beat small teams. The majors are for BIG teams, SMACKS are for smaller teams. To each his own.
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