Future STGT Guidelines (STGT '08 Rule Changes?)

[Edge]

Personal Ability/Tier Placement Expectations: Lower-Tier / Upper-Tier / ?
I agree that personal expectations are really not acurate at all. But the idea with using numbers as "how good are you" value was just to make sure the players don't write something like:

"I am moderately above the average and have been playing shmups for years, still might be an underdog in certain games, but with the right motivation also get a good position for my skill-level."

So that it would be hard to tell for us what he actually thinks about himself. But let's keep "Upper Tier / Middle Tier / Lower Tier / ?" or something alike, if we let the player just choose one of this descrpiptions it probably is also more unlikely to get misunderstood than pure numbers. ("I thought 1 was the highest value, not the lowest")

But we might discuss the entryform in detail later again. So I think that's all about the team set up and captains. Looks good so far.



Leading to the next point. if you don't mind me stepping to it, DJI?

Question

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Initiate the 'Cautioning' highlighting methods and get some basic "mame or console-only player" information on next year's participants and highlight them also?.

Before discussing this...
I think we need to make sure the STGT will stay MAME/emulated games centric. We might have or might not have some other games as well (doujins), but this will be discussed later. And if we have that will stay a minority. Does everybody agree with this part?

So if this stays the same I think all players who stated in their registration that they don't use MAME will be highlighted as "cautioned". I'd further say a multiple level of highlighting "how much cautioned" a player is might be a good idea. Might sound as it could complicate things unneceassary, but it is easy to visualize with different colors for the nicks.

So it could be divided like this:

Green
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks


Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 4-3 Weeks


Orange
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 2-1 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console Only
Expected # Week Participation: 5-4 Weeks


Red
Game Participation Type: Console Only
Expected # Week Participation: 3 or less Weeks


We could as well only do 2 levels of cautioning, green and red, for the sake of simplicity. Opinions?


So now comes the complicated part:
What should be the limit to guarantee a team will have a 100% joining rate?
No problem we could give players a point value, depending on their cautioning level color.

Something like:
green = 10 points
yellow = 7 points
orange = 4 points
red = 1 point.

And make a certain point value as a minimum to get a team going. Maybe 30 points is a doable limit?

But should we make a minimum "reliability level" as a factor to let a team enter the competition? Because we can't predict how many people of each cautioning level will join each year, so it is hard to tell what should be a reasonable point value to have a good working team. For example If 10 green people, 30 yellows, 20 oranges and 30 reds would sign up for the next STGT it would be difficult to get the teams filled with relyable players. The color highlighting however will help people to predict by themselves how relyable their team looks currently, so they might invite some "green" guy in the common sense phase to have a more solid team. And offcourse the organizers might help assisting with the team set up, but the final choice will be on the players side.

I'd "like" to see each team having at least 3 green guys and maybe one more green or two yellows as a puffer. But I ain't too sure if we should keep this as a team registration requirement?
Maybe 2 green guys is a doable value, also I'd like to reccomend in order to attempt a team captain postition you have to be in the green area, in some cases yellow might be ok as well.

Your thoughts?

[Icarus]

While I think the idea of coloured ranks and "cautioning" is an interesting one, there will probably be a lot of factors that contribute to participation (and lack of) - availability, hardware/software, time etc - that need to be considered. It is a good idea to get participants to list their available forms of gaming when signing up - console, MAME, PCB - so 'team leaders' can see which players will be able to contribute greatly to their team's efforts, and which players will be joining for a bit of fun.

It is also important that when announcing the competition, that you make it absolutely clear how the games will be selected, to avoid the "I hate this MAME-centric thing!" that cropped up a few times during STGT '06.

As for self-tiering during registration - how many players will actually tier themselves accurately without getting a basic idea of game selection? ^_-

[DJ Incompetent]

While I think the idea of coloured ranks and "cautioning" is an interesting one, there will probably be a lot of factors that contribute to participation (and lack of) - availability, hardware/software, time etc - that need to be considered. It is a good idea to get participants to list their available forms of gaming when signing up - console, MAME, PCB - so 'team leaders' can see which players will be able to contribute greatly to their team's efforts, and which players will be joining for a bit of fun.

Yeah, I was just lobbing PCBs into the console crowd. 'Guess it would be better I actually specify that.

Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / Console-PCB Only / MAME Only

It is also important that when announcing the competition, that you make it absolutely clear how the games will be selected, to avoid the "I hate this MAME-centric thing!" that cropped up a few times during STGT '06.

I think we need to make sure the STGT will stay MAME/emulated games centric. We might have or might not have some other games as well (doujins), but this will be discussed later. And if we have that will stay a minority. Does everybody agree with this part?

I agree with the mame centric thing for the most part. But I have some ideas in later questions to challenge this somewhat. We'll sort that later.

Personal Ability/Tier Placement Expectations: Lower-Tier / Upper-Tier / ?
I agree that personal expectations are really not acurate at all. But the idea with using numbers as "how good are you" value was just to make sure the players don't write something like:

"I am moderately above the average and have been playing shmups for years, still might be an underdog in certain games, but with the right motivation also get a good position for my skill-level."

So that it would be hard to tell for us what he actually thinks about himself. But let's keep "Upper Tier / Middle Tier / Lower Tier / ?" or something alike, if we let the player just choose one of this descrpiptions it probably is also more unlikely to get misunderstood than pure numbers. ("I thought 1 was the highest value, not the lowest")

But we might discuss the entryform in detail later again. So I think that's all about the team set up and captains. Looks good so far.

As for self-tiering during registration - how many players will actually tier themselves accurately without getting a basic idea of game selection? ^_-

...-...-...good point.
A lot of the upper players stay with their limited circle of titles, don't they. I suppose we'll be obtaining enough demographic information on the entry form we could just eliminate personal tier expectations:

Example 6:
Nick: username
Desired Team: team name
Team Captain Vote: username on your desired team
Desired Team Registration Status: Open / Private / ?
Region: country name
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / Console-PCB Only / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks / 3-4 Weeks / 1-2 Weeks / ?

It sounds like we might be pre-discriminating before the competition began anyway, turning away the remaining four people if we shoved it in their faces three people of the seven on the team claimed to be hot shit.

We always have reputation to go on anyway. You agree Edge?


(Note: I have redone the Expected week participation choices. The yellow highlights are reflected as guide to my Cautioning proposal below)

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'Cautioning'

Here's my original post from '06

So for this "people not playing" problem. Ya can't really ban people for future years 'cause that just riles up others and it could lead to future disruptions and a lot of general bitching. On the flipside, more dedicated players don't want coattail-riders takin up space.

A solution:

After this contest has completely ended, may I propose something called a "Cautioning." People who don't play at all (or even 1 week total*) are subjected to being cautioned, more like a name highlighted in yellow or something.

For next year, the only difference between a Cautioned participant who wants to sign up again and a regular un-cautioned participant is that a regular participant will get priority in requested team placement over a Cautioned participant. So basically, when a certain team is maxed out on players and a new regular participant requests to be on that same certain team, then the last Cautioned player to join that team would be removed and redistributed to another team with a lacking number of players.
To safeguard against teams with too many Cautioned players, a minimum of 4* regular participants would be required in-addition to the 5-players-total rule for their team to be acknowledged.


An example in-motion:
In 2007, a new team calling themselves Teh Fanboyz is formed with the following members:
listed in order of request to join

ParodiusFruit
Raiden4DXFightersJet
Psikcho
raizingJUNKIE
DDPforever!!1
Cavefan

This team is legit because it has 4 regular participants. The two players in yellow were people who signed up for STGT 06 that didn't play (or only submitted a score for one week*). Every player who happened to request being on this team was granted the request. Even the Cautioned players. This is because the team still had openings. In this case, nothing bad happened to the existing Cautioned players, nor were they penalized, labeled, or ridiculed for any reason. This was because all 7 slots were not filled.

Take another example:

member jpjpj just signed up on the shmups.com forums. He wants to join newly-formed Team Clusterfuck.

But Team Clusterfuck is already maxed out at 7 players:
listed in order of request to join

CarpalTunnel
uninspiredusername
zakkkk
ThunderForceGuardian
HeyPoorPlayer!!|
GameFAQsAlphaMale
FPSTG

In this case, jpjpj would be added to Team Clusterfuck and GameFAQsAlphaMale, the last Cautioned member to join would be moved to another team with an unmaxed listing of players. Nothing bad would happen to the guy. He just gets shuffled around to another team so proven players or untested players can enlist where they choose.


Again, players who would be highlighted as "Cautioned" would get the same chances to participate and play games as any other player. The only difference is that these Cautioned players, who have shown they didn't play in 06 will not be able to stop other members who have not (intentionally or unintentionally) coat-tailed a team from picking the team they want to be in.

And for 08, if a Cautioned player had indeed participated in at least 2 weeks* (given we stay at 6) for STGT 07, the Cautioned status would be removed.

*exact number or stipulation for future subject to discussion




Yay or nay?

I have an idea to simplify all this. I like what you've proposed:

So if this stays the same I think all players who stated in their registration that they don't use MAME will be highlighted as "cautioned". I'd further say a multiple level of highlighting "how much cautioned" a player is might be a good idea. Might sound as it could complicate things unnecessary, but it is easy to visualize with different colors for the nicks.

So it could be divided like this:

Green
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks

Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 4-3 Weeks

Orange
Game Participation Type: Console & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 2-1 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console Only
Expected # Week Participation: 5-4 Weeks


Red
Game Participation Type: Console Only
Expected # Week Participation: 3 or less Weeks


We could as well only do 2 levels of cautioning, green and red, for the sake of simplicity. Opinions?

Straight-up, great ideas of player allocation. However,
1. the problem I think is gonna come up (without anybody actually telling us) is if we have a specific highlight that says "I'm gonna be playing all 5 weeks" and a team has that listed on three people, I think the rest of the people on that team are going stop playing somewhat faster and just ride on the green player's efforts instead of just going out there and seeing how the non-green highlighted player stacks up against everybody else.

Drink & Fly

Acid King . . . . . . . .USA Eastcoast
big_aug . . . . . . . . .USA Eastcoast
DJ Incompetent . . . USA Eastcoast
Fighter17 . . . . . . . .USA Eastcoast
Kiken . . . . . . . . . . USA Eastcoast
malcolm . . . . . . . . USA Eastcoast

If my team looked like that before STGT '06 started, and I had my first difficulties with MAME (which I did), I might be more inclined to say "fuck it" and just procrastinate getting MAME working for the week after...because I know before the tournament even started that the required three people are going to put in scores and I wouldn't be totally needed.

2. Real life doesn't wait for anybody. It can strike a player claiming will play all weeks at anytime. We don't quite need players to honor a commitment they made 2-3 months before that they'd play every single week. We would prefer they play all weeks of course, but we already have something in-place that would drive people to play all weeks. The Single Player Rankings.
I don't think we should officially add the "I'm playing every week so you don't have to" statistic to official team rosters.

--------------------------------

With that said, I believe people saying they'll play all weeks and people playing above half the weeks should be kept together in the same highlighted or no-highlighted form. Players expecting to play the majority of the tournament should have the same status as people who claim will be playing every week but can still break that 100% all week commitment if something comes up without social penalty. Because if we leave it the way it is, as soon as a Green player skips a week, it's less likely another team player will be backing the team up and posting a score to cover him.

How about we edit your highlighting proposal to look like this:

Green or no highlight (white or quote-box blue)
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks or 4-3 Weeks (3 or more weeks)

Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 1-2 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: Any #

Yellow players select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.

Orange
Status reserved for players that played 0-1 weeks in STGT '06 that have not already received a Yellow highlight upon posting their entry form.

For players cautioned orange, (like I originally proposed above) if there is a dispute between an orange cautioned player and a player in the green wanting to be the last player added to a specific team roster, the player in the green will be honored that choice (unless the captain said otherwise).

Orange players otherwise select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.


Cautioning does not limit a player's rights to play. It is a heads-up to other team members about what timely expectations should come from that player for the purposes of coordinating other people's schedules and team planning. Cautioning is not to be used as a handicap or a negative social label. A cautioned player may go above and beyond his scheduled expectations as he so pleases by playing and posting more weekly scores than expected. This is encouraged.

(For STGT '08, Orange Cautioning should then be applied to Green/unhighlighted players who played 0-1 weeks in STGT '07 [thus unfairly misleading their other team members]).
Players who select "?" for expected week participation and also play 0-1 weeks will get an Orange Cautioning upon registering '08.

So now comes the complicated part:
What should be the limit to guarantee a team will have a 100% joining rate?
No problem we could give players a point value, depending on their cautioning level color.

Something like:
green = 10 points
yellow = 7 points
orange = 4 points
red = 1 point.

And make a certain point value as a minimum to get a team going. Maybe 30 points is a doable limit?

[...snip...]

I'd "like" to see each team having at least 3 green guys and maybe one more green or two yellows as a buffer. But I ain't too sure if we should keep this as a team registration requirement?
Maybe 2 green guys is a doable value, also I'd like to reccomend in order to attempt a team captain postition you have to be in the green area, in some cases yellow might be ok as well.

Your thoughts?

Now that 3-5 week non "Console-PCB Only" players are held as equals, how about we just say each team should have a minimum of 4 Green/non-highlighted players.

Now you have the flexibility to place 3 "All Weeks" players & 1 "3-4 Weeks" players on a team, 2 "All Weeks" players & 2 "3-4 Weeks" players on a team, etc.


This way nobody needs to do any Points calcuations, and assigning spare people would go quicker based on looking at the entry form or simply however the guy was highlighted. Then you just...count to 4.



Your opinions?

[Edge]

It sounds like we might be pre-discriminating before the competition began anyway, turning away the remaining four people if we shoved it in their faces three people of the seven on the team claimed to be hot shit.

We always have reputation to go on anyway. You agree Edge?

Ah yeah, let's skip the personal ability. It wasn't very useful anyway. So we may as well leave it out getting the entry form shorter and there won't be any negative response about inaccurate judgment about own skills.

Green or no highlight (white or quote-box blue)
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks or 4-3 Weeks (3 or more weeks)

Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 1-2 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: Any #

Yellow players select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.

Ok, I also wasn't too sure if multiple levels of cautioning were making things uneccessary overconvoluted. So, yeah i agree, let's stay with your suggested form. Actually putting the green and yellow guys into the green field and the oranges and reds into the yellows.

Orange
Status reserved for players that played 0-1 weeks in STGT '06 that have not already received a Yellow highlight upon posting their entry form.

For players cautioned orange, (like I originally proposed above) if there is a dispute between an orange cautioned player and a player in the green wanting to be the last player added to a specific team roster, the player in the green will be honored that choice (unless the captain said otherwise).

Orange players otherwise select teams and voice their opinions as they normally would.

However, here's where I disagree with you. We could introduce orange players maybe on STGT 08. Because in STGT 06 people didn't have to give any information about their playing time or options (MAME). And if we go strictly by the rules it was encouraged that console only players join as well. And if people skipped most playing weeks, for whatever reasons (we do not know which they were), they shouldn't be penalized for that in any way. But we could introduce another level of cautioning for people breaking their promises they made when they signed up, but this could be not before STGT '08.

So I'd say let's stay with this only:

(For STGT '08, Orange Cautioning should then be applied to Green/unhighlighted players who played 0-1 weeks in STGT '07 [thus unfairly misleading their other team members]).
Players who select "?" for expected week participation and also play 0-1 weeks will get an Orange Cautioning upon registering '08.

Now that 3-5 week non "Console-PCB Only" players are held as equals, how about we just say each team should have a minimum of 4 Green/non-highlighted players.

Let's do it.

But, I'd say we should leave us the possibility to make some excaptions. In case we can't get enough green guys to join a team. So that 3 green players and 3 yellows might still form a team.

[DJ Incompetent]

Orange

However, here's where I disagree with you. We could introduce orange players maybe on STGT 08. Because in STGT 06 people didn't have to give any information about their playing time or options (MAME). And if we go strictly by the rules it was encouraged that console only players join as well. And if people skipped most playing weeks, for whatever reasons (we do not know which they were), they shouldn't be penalized for that in any way. But we could introduce another level of cautioning for people breaking their promises they made when they signed up, but this could be not before STGT '08.

So I'd say let's stay with this only:

(For STGT '08, Orange Cautioning should then be applied to Green/unhighlighted players who played 0-1 weeks in STGT '07 [thus unfairly misleading their other team members]).
Players who select "?" for expected week participation and also play 0-1 weeks will get an Orange Cautioning upon registering '08.

They get off the hook this year. That's fine. As long as it's remembered the idea sparked from this dialogue.

Self expectations of participation rates should be just cause for keeping people at least more reliable anyway.

I'll expect no objections. Let's move on.


Cautioning highlights on players are based on what they submit on their entry form (in '08, also based on if they play as long as they said they would in '07)

Green or no highlight (white or quote-box blue)
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: All Weeks or 4-3 Weeks (3 or more weeks) "?" also qualifies here.

Yellow
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB & MAME / MAME Only
Expected # Week Participation: 1-2 Weeks
or...
Game Participation Type: Console-PCB Only
Expected # Week Participation: Any #

Orange
Not used in '07. For STGT '08 (and after), Orange Cautioning is applied to Green/unhighlighted players who played 0-1 weeks in STGT '07 (or year before current) thus unfairly misleading their other team members.
Players who select "?" for expected week participation and also play 0-1 weeks will get an Orange Cautioning upon registering '08 (that current year)

Unfilled non-hand-picked teams will be molded to the best of the organizer's ability to have the minimum roster of either:
4 Green Players + 1 Cautioned Player (any color)
3 Green Players + 3 Cautioned Players (any color)
2 Green Players + 5 Cautioned Players (any color)

To Organizers: Players entering their Expected Week Participation as "?" while are still highlighted as green, should be distributed as the variable (being "green" or "cautioned") when dealing with remainders of uneven total player numbers. It is prefered loose "?" players are distributed to teams last.



QUESTION

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Team balance issues & multi-tiers (Supertier & Normal Tier)
Subquestion: Tier split a few weeks in?

I placed the question this far down expecting our responses to the earlier questions to affect what our focus should be here. Because as a forum we decided to let old teams come back in full-force no matter what their power, I feel as organizers, it is now a looser secondary goal to shift known skilled players more evenly amongst the remaining teams.

The primary goal as organizers should be to adjust things so all players have a reason to keep going; to keep contributing to scoring weeks no matter what the odds, or for themselves.

A 100% team joining rate for all teams.



Having said that:
STGT is designed for the hardest players and the casual players to enjoy the same large-scale competitive grounds. Knowing that the most dedicated allied players will reach the top and also knowing that midway through the tournament, teams were starting to cluster into their own "Tiers" per se with huge point-gaps between the upper end of the table and lower end. Should we visually group the Total Team Rankings table into two honored tiers and celebrate the winners of both tiers?
This would not cut up the ranking order of all teams, just give players on all levels something to shoot for. (and promote the possibility of prizes for both tier winners.)

This is to say would you rather have this:

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   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement
 1.namakoteam           830pts       +149pts (55, 52, 42)        =
 2.Feka USA             618pts       +139pts (49, 46, 44)        =
 3.Team Sweden          511pts       + 64pts (32, 25,  7)        =
 4.Team Old Schoolers   468pts       + 61pts (28, 17, 16)        =
 5.Team Cowboy          434pts       +114pts (40, 38, 36)        =
 6.Team Germany         349pts       + 51pts (26, 15, 10)        ^ +1
 7.Drink & Fly          348pts       + 53pts (21, 19, 13)        ^ +1
 8.Super Buffet S.T.    329pts       + 29pts (18, 11,  0)        v -2
 9.Team Stranger        315pts       + 77pts (30, 24, 23)        =
10.Team Loser           276pts       + 38pts (20, 12,  6)        v -1
11.Team Canada          261pts       + 43pts (34,  5,  4)        =
12.California Dudez     207pts       +  9pts ( 9,  0,  0)        =
13.Bargiggia Team       198pts       + 34pts (22,  8,  4)        =
14.Team Skandinavia     131pts       + 18pts ( 7,  6,  5)        =
15.Underdogs            130pts       + 17pts (14,  3,  0)        v -1

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THE CHAMPIONS OF STGT ARE NAMAKOTEAM!

...Look like this:

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   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement

Upper Tier             
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 1.namakoteam           830pts       +149pts (55, 52, 42)        =
 2.Feka USA             618pts       +139pts (49, 46, 44)        =
 3.Team Sweden          511pts       + 64pts (32, 25,  7)        =
 4.Team Old Schoolers   468pts       + 61pts (28, 17, 16)        =
 5.Team Cowboy          434pts       +114pts (40, 38, 36)        =

Normal Tier            (-85pts) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 6.Team Germany         349pts       + 51pts (26, 15, 10)        ^ +1
 7.Drink & Fly          348pts       + 53pts (21, 19, 13)        ^ +1
 8.Super Buffet S.T.    329pts       + 29pts (18, 11,  0)        v -2
 9.Team Stranger        315pts       + 77pts (30, 24, 23)        =
10.Team Loser           276pts       + 38pts (20, 12,  6)        v -1
11.Team Canada          261pts       + 43pts (34,  5,  4)        =
12.California Dudez     207pts       +  9pts ( 9,  0,  0)        =
13.Bargiggia Team       198pts       + 34pts (22,  8,  4)        =
14.Team Skandinavia     131pts       + 18pts ( 7,  6,  5)        =
15.Underdogs            130pts       + 17pts (14,  3,  0)        v -1

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THE CHAMPIONS OF STGT ARE NAMAKOTEAM!!
The winners of STGT's Normal Tier are TEAM GERMANY!

Then the subquestion: So where and when do we split up the rankings board into two groups? "When do you initiate and maintain a Tier Split?"
'To which I say: The rankings are displayed normally until the 3rd scoring week ends (meaning split to 2 tiers on the Third created Results thread).
The cutoff for who tops the Normal Tier and who bottoms the Upper Tier is determined by the first largest total team points gap AFTER 3rd place.

Using this method, the best teams in the english-speaking world can focus on each other and the rest of the world's teams who do not feel like coordinating in ridiculous detail and just want to play together can focus on battling each other. These two tables give teams of each group an attainable challenge while the algorithm by where to split the tiers maintains the largest visual gap and is not easy to manipulate by any single team.


Let's use '06 as an example:

Week 1. Results displayed as normal.

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   Team              Total Points        This Week
 1.namakoteam           144pts       +144pts (55, 49, 40)
 2.Team Sweden           84pts       + 84pts (36, 28, 20)
 3.Feka USA              80pts       + 80pts (46, 18, 16)
 4.Bargiggia Team        78pts       + 78pts (52, 14, 12)
 5.Team Loser            70pts       + 70pts (38, 23,  9)
 6.Team Old Schoolers    69pts       + 69pts (32, 24, 13)
 7.Drink & Fly           59pts       + 59pts (30, 25,  4)
 8.Team Cowboy           55pts       + 55pts (42,  7,  6)

Week 2. Results displayed as normal.

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   Team              Total Points        This Week
 1.namakoteam           291pts       +147pts (55, 52, 40)
 2.Feka USA             170pts       + 90pts (44, 32, 14)
 3.Team Sweden          165pts       + 81pts (42, 26, 13)
 4.Team Cowboy          137pts       + 82pts (34, 25, 23)
 5.Team Loser           128pts       + 58pts (36, 15,  7)
 6.Team Old Schoolers   126pts       + 57pts (24, 21, 12)
 7.California Dudez     114pts       + 61pts (46, 10,  5)
 8.Drink & Fly          112pts       + 53pts (28, 19,  6)

Week 3. Tier Split. Find the largest point gap after 3rd place.

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   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement
Upper Tier             
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 1.namakoteam           415pts       +124pts (46, 42, 36)        =
 2.Team Sweden          261pts       + 96pts (49, 32, 15)        ^ +1
 3.Team Old Schoolers   249pts       +123pts (55, 52, 16)        ^ +3
 4.Feka USA             244pts       + 74pts (28, 26, 20)        v -2

Normal Tier            (-56pts) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 5.Drink & Fly          188pts       + 76pts (40, 30,  6)        ^ +3
 6.Team Cowboy          181pts       + 44pts (23, 18,  3)        v -2
 7.Team Germany         179pts       + 71pts (25, 24, 22)        ^ +2
 8.Team Loser           162pts       + 34pts (17, 10,  7)        v -3

Week 4. Tier Split. Refind the largest point gap after 3rd place.

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   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement

Upper Tier             
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 1.namakoteam           547pts       +132pts (52, 46, 34)        =
 2.Feka USA             356pts       +112pts (55, 40, 17)        ^ +2
 3.Team Sweden          343pts       + 82pts (38, 36,  8)        v -1
 4.Team Old Schoolers   322pts       + 73pts (44, 16, 13)        v -1

Normal Tier            (-58pts) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 5.Drink & Fly          264pts       + 76pts (28, 26, 22)        =
 6.Team Cowboy          257pts       + 76pts (42, 20, 14)        =
 7.Team Germany         238pts       + 59pts (23, 21, 15)        =
 8.Super Buffet S.T.    227pts       + 83pts (49, 24, 10)        ^ +2

Week 5. Tier Split. Refind the largest point gap after 3rd place.

Code: Select all

   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement
 
Upper Tier             
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 1.namakoteam           681pts       +134pts (52, 46, 36)        =
 2.Feka USA             479pts       +123pts (55, 42, 26)        =
 3.Team Sweden          447pts       +104pts (38, 34, 32)        =
 4.Team Old Schoolers   407pts       + 85pts (44, 21, 20)        =

Normal Tier            (-87pts) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 5.Team Cowboy          320pts       + 63pts (30, 18, 15)        ^ +1
 6.Super Buffet S.T.    300pts       + 73pts (49, 24,  0)        ^ +2
 7.Team Germany         298pts       + 60pts (28, 25,  7)        =
 8.Drink & Fly          295pts       + 31pts (19, 12,  0)        v -3

Week 6. Tier Split. Refind the largest point gap after 3rd place.

Code: Select all

   Team              Total Points        This Week            Movement

Upper Tier             
----------------------------------------------------------------------  
 1.namakoteam           830pts       +149pts (55, 52, 42)        =
 2.Feka USA             618pts       +139pts (49, 46, 44)        =
 3.Team Sweden          511pts       + 64pts (32, 25,  7)        =
 4.Team Old Schoolers   468pts       + 61pts (28, 17, 16)        =
 5.Team Cowboy          434pts       +114pts (40, 38, 36)        =

Normal Tier            (-85pts) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 6.Team Germany         349pts       + 51pts (26, 15, 10)        ^ +1
 7.Drink & Fly          348pts       + 53pts (21, 19, 13)        ^ +1
 8.Super Buffet S.T.    329pts       + 29pts (18, 11,  0)        v -2

See the patterns...

Good idea or bad idea?


--------------------
I was looking through the hi-score forum, then I thought it would be more fun to call the "Normal Tier & Upper Tier" something better as a game reference to difficulty like:
"Original Tier & Maniac Tier"
"Original Tier & Ultra Tier"
"Normal Tier & Arcade Tier"
"Original Tier & Arrange Tier"
"Normal Tier & Expert Tier"
"Normal Tier & Very Hard Tier"

But you guys can decide the names, make up your own, or just keep "Upper Tier".
Your choice, your tournament.

[Icarus]

Tiering the tables in this manner looks a little complicated and probably not very practical unless the tiering also affected the way points were calculated. See this idea I posted early into the STGT '06 thread for an idea. The only problem being that the idea I posted originally isn't that practical either.

[nZero]

I have no idea what's going on anymore.

Can I just show up in the sign-up thread for next year and play when the tournament starts up without worrying about the details? I missed my shot at last year's tourney, so...

[The Coop]

Afraid not, nZero. In order to join, you have to pass a 57 question test, dealing with the intricacies of the tournament rules, set up and logistics. There'll be 34 multiple choice, 10 true or false, and 13 matching.

Best get studying now.

[nZero]

Does someone mail me my shmupping license if I pass?

[Davey]

I see your reasoning behind creating tiers, but I don't think they'll have the effect you're looking for, at least if they're implemented as you propose them. Really, you're still lumping all the teams together, except now there's a line drawn somewhere near the middle of the standings.

It's not like in, say, MLB, where your division has like 5 teams (which stay the same, regardless of performance), and you can still consider it a good year if you win your division even though you weren't better than all 28 teams in the entire league (or however many there are these days).

The way you're proposing it, it'd be like if the Padres could move into the AL Central by playing better. At that point, divisions are basically just markers for certain percentiles. Even if you win, you're winning an arbitrary title ("Of all teams between the 40th and 60th percentile, we're the best!").

Having said that, I agree that it would be nice to have more incentive for hopelessly mediocre players like myself to try hard [insert your own DonPachi joke here], but I don't think this is going to provide that. Nor do I know what would.

[Pirate1019]

As long as you guys are willing to do it, I don't mind.

Although, in regards to Davey's comment:

How about, in order to have the teir's actually make a difference, actually split the teams into leagues. Go to a big point difference after 4th or 5th place of the 06' results and all of the teams above it (the difference, where you would put the line) make them the upper tier for the 07' STGT.

This, of course, assuming that all of the to-be upper tier teams rejoin.

[Rob]

Having said that, I agree that it would be nice to have more incentive for hopelessly mediocre players like myself to try hard [insert your own DonPachi joke here], but I don't think this is going to provide that. Nor do I know what would.

Placing as high in the single player rankings as you can?

[BulletMagnet]

I dunno, unless I'm missing some intricacy or other, the "tier" thing seems sorta like an excuse to declare more than one "winner," and not a heckuva lot else. It wouldn't really affect much of consequence in the end, so I'm not rabidly opposed to it or anything, but methinks this might open up the can o' worms as to exactly where the line/s should be drawn between the different tiers, for the sake of being able to say "I won Division B" instead of "I placed fifth."

[shoe-sama]

What is this tier nonsense?

[Davey]

Having said that, I agree that it would be nice to have more incentive for hopelessly mediocre players like myself to try hard [insert your own DonPachi joke here], but I don't think this is going to provide that. Nor do I know what would.

Placing as high in the single player rankings as you can?

Putting forth extra effort to go from middle of the pack to slightly above middle of the pack hardly seems worth it. Riding Landshark's coattails to the North American EST Amateur Division B championship sounds much more appealing.

[Pirate1019]

And more official.

[Edge]

I have been thinking of different ways how to incorpote some kind of tier system. But after thinking about several solutions and I ended up with the conclusion to leave tiers out of the STGT. That's at least what I think and here is the reasoning behind my decission:

So let's see what tires are meant for:
In a league or something similiar it makes sense, as you are actually competing against a certain opponent. And to avoid very unfair matches or to handle a too large number of teams you divide them into tiers. So, to avoid something like this: namakoteam vs Team Loser. However since we are all competing in the same game, it is All Teams vs (enter Shmup here). So everyone who submits a score can exactly be compared to everyone else, depending on the value of his highscore. So we can rank these scores from 1st to last place.

So as long as everyone plays the same game, we have a tier independent single player ranking for each week. No matter if we include a tier, because all scores can be compared in this particular game (top tier or lowest tier). This could also lead to the thought: Why not try to let people play different games, depending on their tier? Well, first it is difficult enough to handle one game per week and offcourse things would get way more confusing. "Hey, why do you submit scores for this game? You are in tier A not B! And despite from the organisation it might also be pretty unfair, shmups can not simply be divided by more difficult game or advanced players only game. Because the results of each player is connected to how much experience the player had with this or similiar (same developer) games.

Another way would be to change the point accumulation depending on the tier. All players play the same game, but they get points depending for the position of their tier. For example best team of the weaker Tier gets more points then the last team of the upper Tier. The problem is this would simply be unfair. As The last team of the upper Tier tried their best and did better as the first team of the lower Tier. Therefore I can't see a reason to penalize them for doing better.

Though I am not heavily against DJI's proposal I think it wouldn't make any difference. As it is simply just a drawn line without any impact on the tournament at all. That's why I agree to disagree with this one.

Tier systems make sense in versus-based tournaments or leagues, but I can't see how we could implement an useful tiersystem for the STGT. However if you disagree I'd be glad if you try to convince me how it would be better to include tiers.



If you think the lower positions won't get rewarded enough, we could rather change the values of earned points per postion. As far as the Single Player Rankings go I think they are fair and just the way they worked. Because I think it is only natural, even essential, for a fair tournament to reward players who did better than the lower positioned players. The point accumulation is no "The Winner takes it all!" you even get points for last place, but offcourse a small value.

This looks a bit different in the team rankings, as only the 3 highest scores of a team count. This could be discussed further.
Because as it stands now, the less skilled players of teams. Might have not any impact on the team rankings. So they do not really feel so much as a part of the team.

Other proposals would be:

-Average all submitted scores from all teammembers. (minimum 3 submitted scores)
Bad Idea, since this could motivate teams to ONLY submit their best 3 scores, kicking their lowest players completely out of the torunament.

-Summerize all teammembers scores and divide them by the number of total team members. (minimum 3 submitted scores)
This one is also a good option in my opinion, as it adds a lot to the team feeling. However on the downside it may also lead to a more elitist approach of team formations. Team could be more likely to skip unexperienced players in order to don't weaken their strong setup. And the number of teammembers who could submit a score will be an important factor. Bad times for people who don't play on MAME or don't have so much time.



So even if I am not 100% satisfied with the way team scores were earned in STGT 06, I think it is still the best option. At least from what have been suggested or what I could think of, ... yet.

[BulletMagnet]

namakoteam vs Team Loser

BRING 'EM ON!

[DJ Incompetent]

I have no idea what's going on anymore.

Can I just show up in the sign-up thread for next year and play when the tournament starts up without worrying about the details? I missed my shot at last year's tourney, so...

Of course, by all means. This is just a giant brainstorming thread. Everything that's addressed and sorted out here will be summarized in '07 thread the month that happens....and there won't be that much new to explain.

How regular players will be participating will be virtually identical to last time. So don't worry about it. If you just want to play, just show up in the thread next year and in that post, so far, when you post your desire to register you'll be tellin' us a little bit extra about yourself like how many weeks you estimate you’ll play, can you play only MAME, Consoles/PCBs, etc. That's it.

It [registering] will be no more effort than say, posting a score in a proper format in a hi-score thread.

Nobody wants to overcomplicate stuff. We're not gonna do that. It just looks bad in this thread because with every careful decision we want to make, it's best to have long-winded discussions, weighing in all viewpoints, and ensuring people can totally understand what the hell the other is talking about.....similar to like any country trying to propose and pass new laws, or a Cave board room deciding on what to tweak or include for the next DonPachi sequel. When ya need to make careful informed decisions about something huge like this tourney thing, there's gonna be a ton of dialogue about it.

Don't fret about it. Just show up and we'll make the process painless for you and everybody else who's worried about being confused in the next tournament.

I promise.

[DJ Incompetent]

response to question...

Yeah...that's all it was basically gonna be. A line.

But while the top teams in 'upper tier' would be the best English-speaking players in the world, you have that lower "attainable tier" where I was gonna arrange for some kinda minor tangible prize for the winners of the normal tier....just something on the roster listing that looked like would give people on the lower end something to fight for when the top positions looked so far out of reach. My whole idea was more of a cosmetic issue with how the rankings should look..only to instill motivation for casual players.

I was gonna propose something of a major league split, but that would be changing the tourney a bit too much. I like how it is.

I wasn't interested in changing the point systems and how they were distributed. I think they are done fine.

'Sounds like this is something to revisit in a future year. Not this one.

No tiers. One listing of team ranks. Same as '06.
Because of returning team rosters, Team balancing will be adjusted based on how often people say they can play, aiming for a 100% team contributing rate (3 players on every team play every scoring week)

QUESTION

Code: Select all

Any kind of individual score sub-average compensation for players missing a week?

In STGT '06, individual rankings (Single Player Rankings) were enjoyable for comparisons. But they only functioned properly for players contributing scores all 6 weeks. Missed weeks would grant 0 points to your individual total, leading to unanswered claims that some guy woulda beat another guy only if he played all weeks. This, of course, comes back to our mentality if it is ok to miss a scoring week or two for whatever reason, how much chance should that player have in the running for high placement in individual standings?

The compromise would have to be that the player missing the week:
-Receive only enough [individual] points to still have a chance to defeat his equal rival(s) another week
-Still fall behind as a sufficient penalty for skipping the week when equal rival(s) took the time to play
-Remembering the missed week points-compensation should be so low that it is not profitable to skip a week and score more points than it was to contribute a score to a game the player knew he sucked at.

Note: This question is only about Individual Rankings, not Team Standings.



So this is kinda a 4 part question...

1. Is the concept of granting players who miss X weeks an individual score compensation a good idea?

Fun Fact: In my old bowling league, for every missed week, the player would be put down for scores for all three missed game, but the scores would be equal to the player's average minus 10 pins.




If yes:
2. How many weeks should be the limit a player can miss and still get an average compensation?

I believe 1 should be max since there are only 5 scoring weeks now, but all suggestions are welcome. '2' and '3' week misses could be adjusted for, depending if Edge is willing to do it.


3. Should the average points compensation be given:
A. right after the scoring week is missed?
B. after all weeks have passed?
C. hybrid of A & B; as long as the player doesn't miss X* weeks, an average score compensation is added to the player's total score for that missed week computing all weeks played so far. The average individual points compensation is then re-configured for every week played after the missed one and the new average is reapplied to the player's total?

*TBD in question 2
Pros & Cons to all these:

A. It will be quick and easy to compute this number during that missed week and never have to re-calculate again. However, If somebody misses week 1 and plays the rest, would only week 2 be used as a quick average calculation to apply to week 1? Same goes for vice versa. Say the player does really really good in week 1, then skips week 2, knowing he isn't going to ever be that good again in weeks 3, 4, & 5. That score compensation may be skewed a bit the wrong way.

B. It will be most accurate to wait till the end of STGT '07 to calculate the average individual points obtained then apply it to the missed week(s). However, the player interested in tracking his progress every week won't get to until the very end.

C. Recalculating the individual points average every week and changing what that applied individual missed week points average is for that player, then applying the new number to the rest of the missed playing week(s) every results week would keep the calculation always accurate without being skewed in later weeks. This also lets the player track himself every week. However...this would take a lot of extra work...and...does anybody even understand what I just wrote here?..?...


4. How much percent of the average individual points should be used in this missed week points compensation?

The formula would be:
X = total individual points of all played weeks / # of weeks played by the person

missed week individual points compensation = X * (any number between say, .4 and .6) [X * between 40% to 60%]

pick a percentage you think is fair.


Example

This is the total single player rankings, final week of STGT '06

Single Player Rankings

Code: Select all

   Player             Team                 Points     Weeks
 1.Icarus             namakoteam           576pts       6
 2.Rob                Feka USA             517pts       6
 3.mulletgeezer       namakoteam           490pts       6
 4.The Coop           Team Old Schoolers   463pts       6
 5.Smraedis           namakoteam           433pts       6
 6.MrMonkeyMan        Team Cowboy          418pts       6
 7.landshark          Super Buffet S.T.    414pts       6
 8.freddiebamboo      namakoteam           408pts       6
 9.Tvspelsfreak       Team Sweden          401pts       6
10.DEL                namakoteam           394pts       6
11.Gion               Team Stranger        385pts       6
12.Edge               Team Germany         371pts       6
13.sven666            Team Sweden          370pts       6
14.DJ Incompetent     Drink & Fly          349pts       6
15.javel              Team Sweden          325pts       5
16.Randorama          Team Cowboy          311pts       6
17.Galdur             Team Canada          304pts       5
18.Nemo               Feka USA             293pts       4

Notice javel, Galdur, and Nemo getting as high as they did without playing every week:

Code: Select all

15.javel              Team Sweden          325pts       5
16.Randorama          Team Cowboy          311pts       6
17.Galdur             Team Canada          304pts       5
18.Nemo               Feka USA             293pts       4

If this rule went into effect last year, saying players who missed 1 week got a missed week points compensation equal to 40% of their average (and the compensation was added at the end of the tourney {option #3,B}, javel, Galdur, and everybody who played 5 weeks gets the following added to their total Single Player Rankings:

javel =
325pts total / 5 weeks played = 65pts average * 40% {.4} = 26pts compensation added to his total
(as if to say he played in the missed week, but did poorly)
325 + 26 = 351pts (weeks played 6)

Galdur =
304pts total / 5 weeks played = 61pts average * 40% {.4} = 24pts compensation added to his total
(as if to say he played in the missed week, but did poorly)
304 + 24 = 328pts (weeks played 6)


After a 40% points compensations for a single missed week, the final standings look like:

Code: Select all

   Player             Team                 Points     Weeks

10.DEL                namakoteam           394pts       6
11.Gion               Team Stranger        385pts       6
12.Edge               Team Germany         371pts       6
13.sven666            Team Sweden          370pts       6
14.javel              Team Sweden          351pts       6
15.DJ Incompetent     Drink & Fly          349pts       6
16.Galdur             Team Canada          328pts       6
17.Randorama          Team Cowboy          311pts       6
18.Nemo               Feka USA             293pts       4

Example 2:
If this rule went into effect last year, saying players who missed 1-2 weeks got a points compensation equal to 60% of their average (and the compensation was added at the end of the tourney {option #3,B}, javel, Galdur, Nemo, and everybody who played 4-5 weeks gets the following added to their total Single Player Rankings:

javel =
325pts total / 5 weeks played = 65pts average * 60% {.6} = 39pts compensation added to his total
(as if to say he played in the missed week, but did poorly)
325 + 39 = 364pts (weeks played 6)

Galdur =
304pts total / 5 weeks played = 61pts average * 60% {.6} = 37pts compensation added to his total
(as if to say he played in the missed week, but did poorly)
304 + 37 = 341pts (weeks played 6)

Nemo =
293pts total / 4 weeks played = 73pts average * 60% {.6} = 44pts * 2 compensation added to his total
(as if to say he played in the missed weeks, but did poorly)
293 + 88 = 381pts (weeks played 6)


After a 60% points compensations for a 1-2 missed weeks, the final standings look like:

Code: Select all

   Player             Team                 Points     Weeks

10.DEL                namakoteam           394pts       6
11.Gion               Team Stranger        385pts       6
12.Nemo               Feka USA             381pts       6
13.Edge               Team Germany         371pts       6
14.sven666            Team Sweden          370pts       6
15.javel              Team Sweden          364pts       6
16.DJ Incompetent     Drink & Fly          349pts       6
17.Galdur             Team Canada          341pts       6
18.Randorama          Team Cowboy          311pts       6

What are your thoughts?





Note: If we vote yes to missed week compensations, this can lead us to further explore the possibilities to not having a totally 100% MAME-centric tourney (which I'll get into later)

[Pirate1019]

Ehh, I'm not so sure about this idea. It seems logical enough, but it seems to rub me the wrong way.

You didn't play the week, didn't get the points. Keep it simple. If you missed a week and want to compare scores with other players then compare who won more of the weeks all of the players involved competed in.

If it does get put into next years STGT then I vote for option 1B (1 Week of compensation added on at the end of all playing weeks.)

[Edge]

QUESTION

Code: Select all

Any kind of individual score sub-average compensation for players missing a week?

1. Is the concept of granting players who miss X weeks an individual score compensation a good idea?

That's an interesting idea...

If yes:
2. How many weeks should be the limit a player can miss and still get an average compensation?

If yes, I'd say 1 week out of 5. Three joined weeks could also work, but could maybe encourage cherry picking liked games. So I agree with you that 4 joined weeks should be a minimum to get a point compensation.

3. Should the average points compensation be given:
A. right after the scoring week is missed?
B. after all weeks have passed?
C. hybrid of A & B; as long as the player doesn't miss X* weeks, an average score compensation is added to the player's total score for that missed week computing all weeks played so far. The average individual points compensation is then re-configured for every week played after the missed one and the new average is reapplied to the player's total?

I am all for B of these options:
Because first of all it's way easier to implement than C. Which would be too complicated and also confusing if players prior week scores would drop and rise depending on each week's results. And A wouldn't be so accurate and fair, for the reasons you already mentioned.

4. How much percent of the average individual points should be used in this missed week points compensation?

If you look carefully on your posted single player rankings, you'll notice that the position of a certain member would have been dropped from 12th to 13th with the 60% compensation, instead of the 40% method? I think this clearly proofes why this value is absolutely unfair.

No, seriously I'd say some value below 50% sounds good, i.e. 40%. People who know they suck in a game but took part anyway shouldn't get penalized for ruining their average score with at least trying their best.



I think this is a pretty interesting and fair system, I am just afraid that instead of rising the participation rate it might have the opposite effect. That people feel like: "Who cares if I join this one week, I can't stand this game so why bother? I'll get an compensation anyway."

Or if you had a really bad week where you placed near the bottom, you shouldn't ask yourself why you didn't skip the week to get more points. Which would be true, if you screwed one week.

That said I am not absolutely against that proposal. I am just not too sure if it is actually helping to increase the playing rate. And also the "if you didn't play the week you won't get any points"-rule may sound harsh. But it is also fair to those people who joined a game which they didn't like or weren't good at.

That's at least what I think.

BTW, DJI:
Seems like your wound haven't healed yet, despite the avatar change.

[Rob]

If people want to place high in the individual charts then play every week.

[shoe-sama]

If people want to place high in the individual charts then play every week and get some skills.

Well said, well said.

[freddiebamboo]

Having a "can't-be-arsed-playing-this-week" bonus could just encourage more people to just not bother with games they don't like the look of or are bad at. We already had enough people only turning up for 1 or 2 weeks without rewarding them for it.

It's not a great challenge to play for an hour in a week to just show face in the hi score board if you don't like a game.

On the other hand DJI, if it means we can get some non mame weeks I'm all for it

And for those whose pc kicks it that week or they break an arm (I'm guessing these were not the reasons most missed weeks last year though) it is a nice gesture.

[Davey]

Mark it zero, next frame.

This is not 'Nam. This is shmups. There are rules.

[landshark]

I'm in favor of the 0-score as well. You don't play, too bad.

[Edge]

Provided nobody page-one's the Guidelines thread again, I'll hold off on the STGT stuff till this thing finishes.

Yo Edge! Suit up!

seems like someone did page one it again...


So regarding the last question and also the responses:
I say let's stay with no point compensation for the reasons I mentioned above. Offcourse we may still discuss this farther if you think point compensation is better suited.

[GaijinPunch]

I don't think people should be punished for missing a week. This isn't Gamefaqs... we aren't 13... real life will get in the way for many of us.

[Edge]

I absolutely see your point there, GP.

Though I am afraid if this rule will actually help to get competitors more satisfied in the end. I'll just quote the main concerns from my pretty confusing post above:

People who know they suck in a game but took part anyway shouldn't get penalized for ruining their average score with at least trying their best.

I think this is a pretty interesting and fair system, I am just afraid that instead of rising the participation rate it might have the opposite effect. That people feel like: "Who cares if I join this one week, I can't stand this game so why bother? I'll get an compensation anyway."

So, yeah we all have a real life and might not be able to invest much time into a game every playing week. But, I say if you don't have much time in a week I think it isn't much asked to give the game a few shots in the timeframe of one week. Even if it was a busy week, you might still play a few rounds on saturday. So, to make sure you'll get at least some points.

The point compensation may lead to more cherry picking and people procastinating more dropping the play rate even more and this leading to more frustration among the other players. But I do agree that the intend of the point compensation is pretty reasonable and a solid concept. Still I think that it would hurt more than it would help.

That's my 2 cents anyway, if you disagree please post so and help us with this discussion.