Tournament 3 - Season 1 2009 Pre-Discussion

[jonboylondon]

You see i knew I missed something.....

I was not miffed at you flocke by the way mate i know you had not made up your mind!!! I was miffed that BOP came in to the discussion and UDM was not thats all. As i said BOP is rarely played in MP. I think BOP is a fantastic mod no doubt but I have the same reservations as Flocke on this one regarding colonies.

I think as welll the New UDM Version (save the rommies !!) is quite a good balence in mp especially at T4. At lower levels the Dominion and the Feds seem to have the upper hand but not by much.

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Anywho....... I agree with keeping the same mod/game the whole tourney through and think vanilla is still got a lot more to offer at present with lower techs and 1.03.....

A plate tournament is one where those eliminated in the first couple of rounds drop into a secondary "plate" tournament (they win a shiny plate not the main cup - hence the name). It is used in sports to ensure teams who enter into a competition get the most out of it and the tournament gets the most out of them. Think of Rugby 7's or Champions League football/Uefa Cup format.

It stops players or teams just sitting on there bums if the get knocked out early. Also if two big hitters meet early then a strong one will drop into the plate tourny and provide valuable experience to newer players/teams while still giving their all as they have something still to aim for.

It would be no problem to run as it follows the model of the main tourny and the same time limits etc... It would benefit all players as most would probably get two games minimum and keep both vets and newbies interested all the way through always having something to aim for!!

JBL

[carcher]

Ah ah plate tourny yeah sounds a great idea,it will add more fun to the whole tourny and keep our lobby buzzing away

[Flocke]

I like the idea of a plate tournament. Have to think about how to set it up, cause it doesn't seem to be fair giving a medal to the a winner of such a "subtournament" of people that lost in early matches and giving none to the looser of the final in main tournament. Got it?

Asked thunderchero about balance in UDM and he didn't recommend using it for tournament. With other opinions I've read on that so far, including my own, I think we can exclude that mod.

I'm unsure about bop, would like to hear more opinions about that one.
Alternative would be having t3 vanilla or something in semi and final.

[RSE_Chris]

Anywho....... I agree with keeping the same mod/game the whole tourney through and think vanilla is still got a lot more to offer at present with lower techs and 1.03.....

1.0.3 is vanilla with bug fixes, and a few optimisations (eg you can't see enemy ship experience level). Tech has not changed at any tech level as far as I can see so far.

Def a good choice for multiplayer, I plan on using it as "vanilla" from now on.

[jonboylondon]

1.0.3 is vanilla with bug fixes, and a few optimisations (eg you can't see enemy ship experience level). Tech has not changed at any tech level as far as I can see so far.

Def a good choice for multiplayer, I plan on using it as "vanilla" from now on.

I know.... thats what i meant with there more to be gotten out of vanilla....

[ruthlessferengi]

here are a few rumblings and ravings...

having been eliminated twice early on, i like the plate idea (but that's biased opinion, mind you... ... you can award 2nd and 3rd place as well to recognize the achievement of the runner up.

maps should get progressively larger as tourney progresses, with final one being an epic... however, this essentially ensures a massive fleet battle after multi sessions - and it is possible that the final battle may not be resolved due to crashes... so medium is good compromise for the final...

bop is a very stable mp mod, paticularly if played in xp. while it allows decent and speedy development from level one, it may still prolong the game - due to ship stats you can pull out earlier and preserve 60% of your fleet if things turn sour, hence letting you breathe longer... planet take over is a hellish nightmare - requiring significant fleet size - and that increases survivability... minors are key in early game so without minors early game is challenging...

my take on bop for tourney - good choice BUT give it time to let folk get comfortable with it. i'd take bop over vanilla anytime but vanilla is the currency of the federal reserve, being the most well known configuration...

next tourney should be 1.0.3 for sure, and for the plate part, bop could be a good choice - if it does well - as i am sure it will - make an exclusive bop tourney or mix it up in the next one..

[jonboylondon]

I like the idea of a plate tournament. Have to think about how to set it up, cause it doesn't seem to be fair giving a medal to the a winner of such a "subtournament" of people that lost in early matches and giving none to the looser of the final in main tournament . Got it?

There would be no medal for the winner of the plate tourney. Just a sense of achievement. Its the same structure as main tourny with first round losers drop out, play eachother with the winner then being pitted against second round loser. Then it carries on till winner....

If there not too many participants in the main tourny then only first round losers enter in plate competition.

[Flocke]

my take on bop for tourney - good choice BUT give it time to let folk get comfortable with it.

If we ever will get that far...
But most seem to prefer a vanilla only tourney and I don't want to confront with the masses. (at least not this time *g*)
Seems like I've no other choise than making new plans for a vanilla-only-tournament. And the way JBL described the plate tournament concept seems to be promising!
On weekend I'll post a new proposal here, hope you all are more conformable with it.

p.s. By the way, Spocks-cuddly-tribbles suggestion seems to be an interesting alternative

[Flocke]

Have updated first post. Would like to hear your thoughts!

If I remember right, people wanted to have an epic final, so I figured some real challenging settings. Tested it today with ferengi as well as federation, playing t3, letting AI start with t4 on impossible, big map, no minors and randoms on but without borg. Vanilla 1.0.3 of course, so with scrapping ships giving only half the money back.
It's quite a hard setting even in SP, but in most cases it's possible to deal with AI. (not in all though) giving AI one tech level ahead has been cancelled cause of balance
I let you decide about, but one thing I would recommend for such a game is having a timer. At least a 5min max one to prevent people like me spending endless time on their colonies!
Such a timer should be applied to semi final, too, although the timer sometimes is causing crashes.

Keep discussing plz.

[ruthlessferengi]

yes... timer is good... anything past 5 min per turn is painful...

[RSE_Chris]

Not keen on the final with the AI being 1 tech higher, as a tournament surely it should focus on the human 1v1 aspect, not having to worry about fighting the AI? I can do that on single player.

[carcher]

it's sounding good flocke,the timers a good idea t3 in the semi's and final sounds tough ,but i dont think i need worry about that
i assume we're gonna be using 1.0.3 ? i got the files off thunder but not installed them yet, i'm waiting until i've finished an epic mp game i'm having with kim, but i look forward to trying it out.

cheers
carcher

[Flocke]

Not keen on the final with the AI being 1 tech higher, as a tournament surely it should focus on the human 1v1 aspect, not having to worry about fighting the AI? I can do that on single player.

Well, you're right, have tested more games and AI would influence balance between players too much. Sometimes it's with you and sometimes against. Have already cancelled that.

1.0.3 will be used as vanilla, yep

I'm not sure about the balance on tech3 with new vanilla, cause ferengi trade routes/economy can't be compensated by scrapping ships anymore.
Shall we ban establishing trade routes for tech3 games?

oh and tech3 large map is epic enough? or too much?

[jonboylondon]

I thought id bring this back to the spotlight as what I feared might happened seems to have occured.

While we wait for the new mods to be tweaked (1.03 and BOP) can we boot up a tourny in the meantime with vanilla 1.02? Its been over a month since this post was last discussed and Xmas break means well have a few people online with the hols....

Jingle Bells, Carcher smells, jonboy lost again....

Merry Xmas all!!!

[jaruler]

yea best time is holidays