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Other Tournaments
2017-09-25, 19:55
Administrator
284 posts

Registered:
Sep 2015
Completed three of these now, last night's probably felt the most chaotic.

1) People not being able to confirm until very late on - I need people to checkin on discord (or be on server) between 7pm and 7:45pm, otherwise it's not clear who is going to turn up. Last night there were a few late "can't make it" and a few late "can make it", but at 7:30 I didn't know if it was going to be 7 people or 12, and final groups were done very much last-minute. Obviously we are all old now and have lives/interruptions so we have to allow for that, but I just felt very unprepared compared to previous weeks, and in the end some games started 15 minutes after others. Or even just confirming "I won't be early but I will be there" is fine.

2) The group-stage-then-knockout-stage has 4 sweetspots: 6,8,12 & 16 people... yesterday was 10 (which actually turned out to be 9) and so I did two groups of 5. While we cut the knockout stage back to be only two games long, it was still a pain. When there are 5 people in a group, the games have to be played in a particular order to avoid 5 rounds turning into 6... yesterday the other group only had 4 due to dropouts and that meant it was even worse as group A (with 4) had to wait around... and then group B had 3 2-1 matches and that made it worse still. Bit of a disaster, I'll try and come up with an imaginative solution to 10 players next time, and avoid 5-player groups in future. Thanks to everyone for sticking with it, we still finished pretty much on time but it could have been better.

3) The skill-gap - this changes with different signups, but right now we have very few div4/5/6 players. This week we also lacked the low-div1/high-div2 players that made previous tournaments so close. I'm not sure if this is through lack of communication (I don't know if people aren't entering through lack of interest or lack of awareness) but if we had enough lower-level players and there was a clear gap in skill to the rest then I'm happy to create a second 'division' tournament, even if that is simple double-elimination or something. I'd rather people could turn up and play reasonably close games, than be the one with little chance. On the other hand if you are borderline high/low division you might get put into low and have an easy time of it - not sure of good solution to that problem. Other than more low-division players signing up Are there other ways of contacting people that I'm not using? Last week we emailed everyone who played in Thunderdome8, and it didn't seem to have much impact.

4) The map-tossing - this was meant to avoid someone tossing an opponent's favourite map, or picking one they knew they hated. Unfortunately with the seedings being largely made by my guesswork, it can give slight advantage to lower seed, when the opponents are otherwise very closely matched. Generally though I'm happy with how it has worked out, just the "backup choice" section I'm not happy with. As we're going to a map-pool of 7 next week I'm going to leave it as-is (it will be toss-toss-pick-pick-toss-toss) for the moment and see how it plays out, but I'd like to consider alternatives.

5) Ping rules - this is frustrating for those playing from North/South America but I'm not sure there's much we can do here. Currently the rules are "be prepared to play in London, and ping-up to half your opponent's ping or 51, whatever is lower". Is allowing games in New York/Miami and matching pings too much? Minimum ping-up level 70 instead of 51? I'll go with whatever gets the greatest number of players involved.

Also, a little-known feature of KTX that would have come in handy yesterday: admins can pause games. Elect an admin and then do /pause - older versions of mvdsv has a bug and can decide you are a 'userinfo spammer' when the game is paused (to avoid this: leave the console down to talk, and don't alt-tab out) but badplace and other servers on latest versions should be okay. When unpausing, you will be told it will unpause in 2 seconds, then the game resumes.

tldr; it's gone okay but I'm still learning.

I'll do a news post tomorrow about cup #4 - this will be a 7 map pool, with dm6 returning and also possibly/probably skull, as it's currently the most well-known of the kenya maps. The next time we do a kenya tournament I'd like to try out some of the other suggestions and maybe mix the map-pool up a bit, maybe alternating least-picked maps out for trying something new. Something to think about.
2017-09-25, 21:05
Member
398 posts

Registered:
Feb 2006
Thanks again for a great tournament meag! I really enjoyed it despite a hangover from hell and playing like shit

I'm not sure how we can get a better audience. I think we are all just a bit too old to be able to commit to a tournament I think most of us are just casually playing, and have a hard time committing to a certain day/time.

Regarding the pings I think 51 is high enough. I know it's not fair for some, but unless we get more people from the US/Brazil, then I think this is just the way it should be. I only play with 12 ms and really struggled with my aim and movement against x1bot with 51 ms. This might just sounds like some really lame LPB bullshit, but I actually don't mind playing with higher ping if I have some time to get used to it, but when almost all games will be with 12 ms, there just isn't much point!

Thanks once again, looking forward to participating soon again, but will unfortunately be away for at least the next two weekends.
2017-09-25, 22:02
Member
152 posts

Registered:
Feb 2012
agree with Hagge completely on pings. I'm used to 51 by now even though the delay is noticeable and affects aim and movement and been playing with it for years (recently my ping became lower to certain servers), but 64 is already too much even for me. I mean, I can suffer it if absolutely necessary (had to a few times in EQL), but would've refused 77. I have no idea how some people get used to higher pings. It requires a lot of practice I suppose.
However, ultimately the goal of playing is to get fun and satisfaction. I honestly get neither when playing with high pings. It's a different game and one I don't enjoy much. So, more than 51 is not an option for me, personally.
“If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.” (c) Johan Cruyff
2017-09-26, 06:47
Administrator
887 posts

Registered:
Jan 2006
Two things:
* There could be a stream. Our professional and friendly Jehar likes casting QW, just like Andeh. Why are they not casting? Because they weren't aware of it happening. Because people don't follow/read qw.nu. This is easily solved by simply directly writing to them on Discord. Tada!

* Spreading the word. Getting out the info well in advance is key, and keep an active thread about it on Facebook really helps. Åke Vader is great at this! But the rest of us could do more to help.
Join us on discord.quake.world
2017-09-26, 09:56
Administrator
1265 posts

Registered:
Jan 2006
regarding ping, my experience as a high pinger is:
A) ping differences of < 38ms is okay.
B) ping differences of = 38ms this is where you start struggling with ping
C) ping differences of > 38ms lower skill opponent may win
some examples to illustrate:
ping 26 vs ping 51 -> A
ping 26 vs ping 64 -> B
ping 26 vs ping 78 -> C

what i mean is: higher pings are okay to play with, IF the ping difference between players are less than 38ms. more than that and you are at disadvantage you might not cope


Another note: ping 51 is okay, ping >=64 is shit.
never argue with an idiot. they'll bring you back to their level and then beat you with experience.
2017-09-26, 18:35
Member
60 posts

Registered:
Sep 2016
On ping - think it's silly to ping up to 52ms - if some one pings 26ms to the uk server so be it
when did you last play on 52ms, hagge?

Is Sunday the best day?

Are the times too early?
2017-09-27, 08:17
Member
398 posts

Registered:
Feb 2006
lordlame wrote:
On ping - think it's silly to ping up to 52ms - if some one pings 26ms to the uk server so be it
when did you last play on 52ms, hagge?

Is Sunday the best day?

Are the times too early?


When I had a crappy connection, so about 3 years ago maybe. AFAIK I don't ping more than 38 ms to any server in Europe
2017-09-28, 04:04
Member
215 posts

Registered:
Feb 2011
Regarding ping rules, I reluctantly agree that it's not fair to ask people to ping up to higher than 51, as the feeling starts to change considerably afterwards. However, "up to 51" has been kind of standard for years now with TD, and I don't think it's unreasonable.

Yes, it's not as smooth as 12 or 26 or 39, but remember that you'll only be forced to go that high against basically me or dev, and we'll still be at a huge disadvantage! Playing with 90 vs 12 is a joke, and 90 vs 26 or 39 is only slightly less funny Not to mention dev's 140+ :L

I don't really enjoy asking anyone to ping up because I know it it's not as fun for them, but I think it's the only way to shift the balance [very very slightly] towards being more fair. Last coupe of weeks I didn't ask (or forgot to ask) any of my opponents to ping up to 51, pretty sure I lost at least a few decisive battles (and therefore maps) because of it which makes playing in tournaments very annoying...

And Meag added a small twist to the TD standard, which is "up to 51 or half your opponent's ping, whichever is lower". That rule really only negatively affects me and positively affects everyone playing against me (because no other high pinger reliable pings less than 51*2=102, so you'll only have to ping up to 45 against me), but I'll live with the compromise and I feel honoured that Meag basically wrote me into the rules without explicitly naming me
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