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[Rabid]

Hi All

Many thanks to the 24 players that attended for a long days playing of Dominion.
So who wants to play again?
I have a few ideas to make this run more smoothly next time.

The more important being to have a sign up confirmation 10 minutes before we start, if you miss it you are out.
I might limit the event to 16 players as well, as this has taken 11 hours so far. (final is still in progress).
Or we could try different event structures?

I should have been clearer with "7) Log off / on to reset the start player rules before each match "
A match is the best of N games, so you only need to reset before each new opponent, NOT between each game.

Also I think I was a bit optimistic playing in the event in the future I think we need a dedicated admin.

Time of the event, this was to early for the USA, and is finishing too late in EU.
Maybe split into 2 groups, and play a grand final on Sunday?

Any other ideas or feedback would be great.

Rabid

[Eevee]

first of all, thanks for running this! had lots of fun, some intense dominion action to play 7 matches in one day. the chat interface isnt that great for people waiting on an ongoing match to finish (basicly cant see whats up), the length isnt such an issue since arent we all just sitting behind our computer all day anyways, but having to constantly pay attention to find your next round opponent / generally not knowing how long its going to take (i had one 2hour wait) is kind of tiring. definitely a great experience still, would play again.

[nightdance]

USA vs Europe! Funny how you originally set the max as 256.

To minimize waiting time, you could try a Swiss-type system to determine top x players, say top 8 like in mtg, so people just need to play any y other participants z number of times. You just ask around in the waiting room for anyone interested to play you when both are free. At end of the day, after everything is over and reported, score each person based on number of wins, ties, and losses, say 2 or 3 points for win, 1 for tie, 0 for loss. Just throwing numbers but y could be 4 and z be 3 with x 8. So play 4 other players 3 times each = 12 games for everyone. We can say this will take maybe 3 hours with minimum waiting time in-between. Then top 8 players face off at later date. Splitting it up this way may eliminate need to split up over time zones. Cool feature will be a live score count tracker for everyone. So yea, main goal of this would be to minimize waiting time.

Then follow with a regular tournament for top x players at a later date when only they need to participate. This will also somewhat equalize the time as you do not need to play more games due to ties/trading wins, etc. and you still get to play a lot of games even if you keep losing.

Just my thoughts. Thinking of chess and mtg. =)

nightdance

[nightdance]

The additional benefit is that it scales very well with more people and theoretically, the more people the better as you have more choices of who to face to minimize waiting time. Also, it does not matter how many players want to compete. You still get a clean top 8-player tournament at the end. You can break ties for the top 8 with tie-breaker matches, or min losses, or first reporter, etc...

[Rhombus]

Thanks for organizing.  Even though I lost both of my matches, it was a blast.  I'm definitely in for the next one, but please don't limit to 16!  It was a bit early over here, but I can deal with that.  I liked the double elimination style exactly as it was.

[antony]

I'm really sorry I messed up the bracket by showing up late, it just happened that I managed to catch my scheduled opponent early enough, that he was kind enough to agree playing and that the match went all the way to 3-2-2 (!) which obviously didn't help at all.  Anyways, thanks for cleaning up the mess behind me :-)

I actually liked the one-day(ish) double elimination format, but I have some suggestions:
1/ The loser's bracket has to play twice as many rounds as the winners bracket, so perhaps it makes sense to have shorter matches in the loser's bracket.  First to 3 wins seems good to me but probably first to 2 wins (in the loser's bracket only) will help smooth out the tournament.  Yes I know extra variance but well.
2/ I really dislike the presence of first-round byes.  Dominion can handle 3/4P games, I know they are definitely different from 2P games but I believe the first round could be done with a mix of 2 and 3P games, that would still be better than direct byes (even though I dislike 3P games personally, I would still prefer that).  One way could be 1st=1 win, 2nd=0.5 win, 3rd=0 win (split ties accordingly) and once a player reaches 3 "wins" he is qualified, and the remaining two continue playing 2P matches until one of them reaches 3 wins as well (so that the first winner doesn't have to play "useless" matches), resulting into two qualifiers.  Or perhaps reduce this to two wins requirement as 3P matches will definitely be longer than 2P matches.
3/ To avoid long rounds randomly happening due to lots of draws (e.g. my first round), score draws as 0.5-0.5, not 0-0 (and keep playing until split if tied at 3-3).  Again some (very small) extra variance but probably helps.

[Mazwa]

Many thanks to Rabid for setting this up.  For a first time event, I think it went quite well.  Especially with Rabid both playing and running the thing, I'd have thought it either would be a huge disaster or else Rabid would have been distracted and knocked out early, but neither was the case.

I would second what MrEevee said - my biggest complaint would be an iso-interface one, in that it is difficult to know the progress of the games you are waiting on.  It might be nice if everyone, as a courtesy, said "Soandso up 2-1", during the 5 seconds when they return to the lobby but before starting the next game.

I would probably be against limiting to 16 people.  I think structural changes could cut down on the time taken as much as cutting down on the number of players.  These things have all been mentioned already by others, but 1) having the loser's bracket play fewer games, 2) not allowing latecomers, 3) having a dedicated admin who would move things along more quickly, or 4) playing the final (and possibly also the loser's final) the next day.  The people who had the longest waits were ednever waiting on his finals opponent, and qmech after he got dropped down to the loser's final.

I'd definitely play again.  And I'd be all for USA vs. Europe if it meant we could get a later starting time for the US.

[Lekkit]

I think it went well. I had to get from one appartment to the other, but was able to do so during downtime, so I hope I didn't belate any of the matches. I love the idea of a fast tournament. Maybe you could add sometime rules, like if there are 12 rounds, make every round half an hour and all players that haven't finished in that time are disqualified unless they are in the lobby, as that would make them stay in the tournament.

Anyways thanks to Rabid for a great tournament!

[Mergus]

Thanks for organizing Rabid, it was fun!

I think the main problem that caused it to be so long was that some people showed up too late, which then made many players wait for other matches to be finished. I think with your idea of a check in confirmation this problem would be solved, even if that might lose you some players, because some are always late. But that would be to the benefit of those who take part as waiting time would be minimized. I think it is good that opponents are assigned, this is part of the excitement of a tournament, that you can look into the bracket and see who you would play next depending on the result of your own match.

With double elimination the winner of the winner bracket will always have to wait for quite a while for the winner of the loser bracket and so will the loser of the winner bracket final. Depending on the size of the tournament, I think it would still be a reasonable waiting time for the size of tournament that we had. Especially since the players that make it that far will usually be okay with waiting, because their chance of winning the tournament is quite high.

I'd definitely play again if I happen to have time