Curse

Ecks · Jun 12, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

*Automated Tournaments

Participants in Daily GvG Tournaments no longer require 14-day guild membership.
Teams in Daily GvG Tournaments now require only four guild members instead of the previous eight.
After monitoring Automated Tournaments, we believe the number of eligible guilds is too low. To resolve this, we plan to relax some restrictions for Daily GvG Tournaments, and to allow guests. It is our hope that this increases the number of teams that can play and raises the popularity of the tournaments*

So exactly what is the point of having Automated Tournaments now? I know the reasons anet gave us about smurfing / tanking. But have they not gone back on their word by doing this. I mean thats what you wanted + the guild ladder to be used as a history thing but there are so many unactive guilds there, but thats not the point. i just want to know why we require Automated Tournaments if its the same thing as before?

Sapper2289 · Jun 12, 2007, 10:51 PM // 22:51

I agree... like i posted in the update thread I don't understand the change made to AT's. If they want more guilds to participate they can lower the requirement to play in AT's to 7 or 3 days. The update they propose makes the change from the original system almost pointless.

Yawgmoth · Jun 13, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

I agree this is just bad. Allowing 1 or 2 guests would be an improvement but this is just too much, and can lead to abuse. The tournaments will be full of smurf guilds and plenty of guilds with a crappy rating will be found with 4+ very good players.
The required membership time should also be at least 7 days, or people can just freely jump between guilds even 3+ times every day, with no penalty.

One of the main reason why there are so few guilds playing in the tournaments are heir starting times. Far most of them are just bad, and the really good ones happen only once or twice a week. Just see the Monday 19:00GMT tourney, it has the most participating guilds of all.

Yabba · Jun 13, 2007, 12:34 AM // 00:34

6 guildmembers, 2 guests, 7 days membership in guild required . that would be enough

and if it`s not than try K.O. system for the dailys instead of swiss rounds to make them less timeconsuming

perhaps that could do the job

zic · Jun 13, 2007, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Alright, as i posted in main form about the updates. Didn't include this part but... Anet if you want more teams to show up for the AT's look at the times you set them at. Very bad times for the East and Central players, most of them are in the morning or right before dinner time, or people have to stay up to catch the late night 1 am tournament, really the only tournaments that get a lot of teams showing up are the ones on the weekend. So maybe you could working something out with the time of the tournaments and maybe allowing 1 week or even 4 days before a person is aloud to play. But as you said see how everything goes with the weekend.

The Last Anthem · Jun 13, 2007, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yabba

6 guildmembers, 2 guests, 7 days membership in guild required . that would be enough

and if it`s not than try K.O. system for the dailys instead of swiss rounds to make them less timeconsuming

perhaps that could do the job

^ best solution
if your not willing to stay in the guild 7 days then you shouldnt be worried about ATs anyways

Yaga Philipe · Jun 13, 2007, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yabba

6 guildmembers, 2 guests, 7 days membership in guild required . that would be enough

and if it`s not than try K.O. system for the dailys instead of swiss rounds to make them less timeconsuming

perhaps that could do the job

I think that's the best way. Like the guy before me said, if you're not willing to stay in your guild for 7 days, you shouldn't be interested in AT's. Not having a limit on guests could mean you have 1 guild member and 7 guests, so that guild really didn't even win, it was like 8 guilds who won.

Div · Jun 13, 2007, 05:46 AM // 05:46

So now AT is basically like the old ladder, except top teams lose even more against smurfs. Good job anet for trying to fix a shitty system and then having to revert back to it because you find out the new system is even worse. As 90% of the semi-intelligent PvP community would say, you fail again anet.

FoxBat · Jun 13, 2007, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Another flip-flop, 14-day requirement on guild members is back. You can still bring 4 guests though.

Championships are still with the old 6 humans, all guildies restriction.

Lodurr · Jun 13, 2007, 07:37 AM // 07:37

And they're not bothering to fix the forfeit system. My guild still isn't trying to make one of these things because we'd much rather play back-to-back GvGs when we get together, not two GvGs in three or four hours. Maybe if they had less than 3 GvG tourneys a day at regional primetimes they'd be meaningful and cool. Doing a mini-tourney of 8 guilds, only 2 of whom will actually play their matches, doesn't sound like fun.

Trevor · Jun 13, 2007, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Tanking -25s is going to be ftw.

Frantic-Sheep · Jun 13, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

They just nullified their own reasons for actually implementing a 14 day rule. They go from one extreme to the other. As someone posted up here, a golden path in between should be able to fix it better. This just encourages farming ATs with PUGS.

Vaga · Jun 13, 2007, 12:37 PM // 12:37

At least there will actually be AT's.

Ecks · Jun 13, 2007, 02:29 PM // 14:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaga

At least there will actually be AT's.

Yes there will be... with a lot more smurf / tanking

just what anet likes apparently...

FoxBat · Jun 13, 2007, 03:39 PM // 15:39

In all fairness, ATs aren't really meant to make a "fairer" ladder system. It's to replace the ladder entirely with QPs and championships. The tanking problem is mostly sidestepped if you follow this logic, because it just isn't that hard for good teams to rack up 20 QPs, you can't smurf in the championships, and tanking rating doesn't cost you your spot in champs.

The problem with this is that ladder rank is still fairly prestigious compared to championship performance. That the in-game client makes such a big deal displaying ranks, and says nothing about champ performance, contributes greatly to this perception.

Patrograd · Jun 14, 2007, 06:54 AM // 06:54

I'm not going to QQ about this change too much. A few days ago I made this post about some things that couold be done to improve participation in ATs. The changes I asked for were:

Quote:

Clearly, the key thing is to make it easier to enter. Some things to consider:

1) Reduce the requirements for daily (but not monthly) tournaments. 6 guild members plus 2 guests? Remove the 10 player limit so you can roll people in and out as you see fit within this framework?

2) Maybe some form of "designated" guest system could be introduced to retain the "known opponent" status? Each player can be entered onto the "roster" of 2 guilds, his own, plus one other as "designated guest" (you can keep the 2 week rule for this if you like to prevent too much smurfing/PUGing)

3) Remove the swiss format from the daily ATs and make it straight elimination, meaning you dont have to put aside 4 hours unless you are going to the later rounds.

4) Either reduce the K value for early rounds, and/or increase the k value for ladder, so that a loss in the early rounds doesnt destroy your rank, retaining relatively high k values for the later rounds. Maybe a k value of 10 for rounds 1 and 2, with the k value for quarter finals onwards being 30?

Taking some or all of these steps would, in my opinion, make the GvG tournaments a much more attractive proposition for the lower ranked teams like us that want to take part but currently either cant or just wont.

My opinion on the changes therefore is that the decision to make the daily ATs easier to enter for a wider range of teams is a good one, and something to be applauded. Without proper participation across the widest possible range of teams the whole tournament structure lacks real credibility.

I believe though that this particular change goes too far in some ways and does nothing to address the issue that the tournaments are just too long. 4 members plus 4 guests is too loose a requirement really, you will see alot of PUGs and smurfs for whom this restriction is no restriction at all. Losing 9 points to a rank 50 team is discouraging enough for a team like us, the heavily increased possibility of losing 25 points to a rank 1000 team full of rank 50 players is even more discouraging.

So I would suggest again that the restriction for entry be 6 members + 2 guests

The other discouraging factor is the time each tournament takes. 3 hours near enough is probably a little bit too long to hang around to achieve anything other than a top 8 finish. The nett result will be, even with greater participation, a whole raft of forfeits in the later rounds once teams reach the point where a top 8 finish is beyond them. Just remove the swiss format imo, keep it for the monthly finals, but make the dailys straight elimination.

Speaking for my team, we will look closely at the tournaments over the coming days and try and assess whether it is worth our while to enter or not. So I would say thanks to Anet for at least appreciating that the problem exists but urge them to just look at this a little bit harder with a greater udnerstanding of the issues invloved

Ec]-[oMaN · Jun 14, 2007, 08:04 AM // 08:04

One problem you will see though Patro if elimination is implemented it further increases the likelihood of pretty much everyone and their mother going in first match, on burning, running all the broken 8v8 builds. Do or die, won't be in the slightest sense to help make the current state of the game any more healthy/enjoyable

They need to really ditch the whole AT hogwash, give us old ladder with old k values, and pvp skin unlocks using balth faction, rinse their damn hands and work on the damn balance instead of sippin mocha crapachino all day while they figure out AT improvements.

What really needs to happen, to even take the first damn step like babies do, which would get the AT's steared in the right direction is as follows;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

You make a good point, as did others, and we have made a change -- and kept it very visible -- on the Dev Update. The change concerns eligibility for the Automated Tournaments. Comments in this thread and others lead us to believe we should amend eligibility to some degree. Please give it a read and let us know what you think.

How about make it a like 3-7 day rule. You can't partake in another AT within "" of your last AT if you are in a different guild. Keep the 8 member rule though. This way people can still jump from guild to guild and stick with one that they gel in and still be able to play in an AT without delay in the new guild. Would also prevent smurf/pugs which I thought was one of the main purposes of the AT's. The system you want to put in place will just make daily At's worse gameplay wise(pugs/smurfs/tankage), and proceed to make monthly a more noticeable JOKE. The 14 day rule was a deterrent but so are the available play times. Increased play times per time zone 3 different start times for Euro/American/Asia with 1 hour intervals or something, and actually make PVP SKIN unlocks, UNLOCKS!!!

Patrograd · Jun 14, 2007, 10:32 AM // 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

One problem you will see though Patro if elimination is implemented it further increases the likelihood of pretty much everyone and their mother going in first match, on burning, running all the broken 8v8 builds. Do or die, won't be in the slightest sense to help make the current state of the game any more healthy/enjoyable

!

Why did they take away the random map element of ATs?

Seemed to me that was half the point of them......

romO · Jun 14, 2007, 09:26 PM // 21:26

I thought that this thread was named "Automated Tournaments have a point now?" and was completely satisfied, but when I reread the title I was kind of confused. The previous requirements led to 1-2 guilds participating in each AT so that there was often not even a single game played. This will encourage more people to play, both real guilds and pugs. Regardless of any "tanking" going on, it doesn't matter, since it's all just ladder rating anyway. If you care about ladder rating, I don't think competitive play is for you. Playing in more tournaments will lead to more QP for anyone, and when it gets to the monthly tournaments, the pugs won't have enough players to enter and the real guilds that lost to them will have a chance.

Pugs beating "top guilds" was never the problem because top guilds crush pugs in 4 minutes. Pugs "tanking rating" was never the problem, since rating is only the measure on a pointless ladder. What pugs do is allow more people to get involved with the system and promote more activity for players who otherwise wouldn't be playing at all. Then when the real tournaments roll around, the monthlies, the list of participating guilds will be cleansed of pugs and there can be an objective competition.

I would be in support of Anet letting guilds with 8 guests play in daily ATs. Let's face it: the AT system can be very fun. People can't always get the right people on at the right time, but would love to play and have a lot of fun anyway. Just allowing people to play for the hell of it encourages the casual play that they're striving for, with no real detriment to the outcomes of the major tournaments.

If the worst result of this change is guilds who are actually trying feeling bad about themselves, then I'm really not too worried because that seems rather ridiculous, and a simple objective view of the situation will remedy that, as well as participating in pug AT teams for fun as well.

Lodurr · Jun 14, 2007, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

I would be in support of Anet letting guilds with 8 guests play in daily ATs. Let's face it: the AT system can be very fun. People can't always get the right people on at the right time, but would love to play and have a lot of fun anyway. Just allowing people to play for the hell of it encourages the casual play that they're striving for, with no real detriment to the outcomes of the major tournaments.

If the worst result of this change is guilds who are actually trying feeling bad about themselves, then I'm really not too worried because that seems rather ridiculous, and a simple objective view of the situation will remedy that, as well as participating in pug AT teams for fun as well.

There's logic to what you're saying but you're missing some perspective on being a mid-level guild constantly trying to improve. The problem with running into smurfs and tanking rating isn't how we feel about ourselves but our ability to recruit more players. And it has an affect on morale when we know we're better than most of the guilds ranked above us but we're never on at the same time, instead we get to fight top guilds several times in one night, if we manage to beat them we just get +1 or +2 for our effort. An exception to that rule is [emo] who actually bothered to continue winning and has a good record now. The bad smurfs are the ones that restart or tank themselves to stay low on the ladder.

The AT system, in a perfect world, would remedy this. Instead of playing regular ladder each night, we'd play ATs against other real guilds for real rating and smurfs/PuGs could GvG in the regular +2/-2 ladder. But the AT schedule doesn't work for us on any night and we don't want to make sacrifices in our daily schedules in order to play 2 matches in four hours.

I think the solution is to pay attention what regional primetimes are and schedule ATs for that time. I'm sure 6pm PST/9pm EST would work for most American guilds, if not there could be another one for 3pm PST/6pm EST. There must be similar primetimes for English, French, and German players, and another for Aussie, Korean, and Japanese players. If Anet couldn't figure out these times on their own they could look at the existing tournament data and double up on the popular tournament times.