Peasant Tournament Round 3 Pairings

[links] FINAL PAIRINGS & MATCH TIMES ARE HERE
(This thread has become an obsoleted discussion thread.)



Trying something new this round. Below are the pairings for Round 3 of the Peasant Tournament without match times.

Contestants have 48 hours (until 6 p.m. UTC on Tuesday) to check this list and then get in touch with both their opponent and myself via PM ("conversation" on these forums). I will initiate all of these conversations myself. We will have three-way conversations in which each player will give all availability for this week (before the weekend preferably). I will take the given data and set up the match times that work for all involved.

• TheShadowTitan (2-0) vs. ItsEtai (2-0)

• Stexe (2-0) vs. thedoughster (1-1)

• ArcadianRook (1-1) vs. Tuknir (1-1)

• Mosalla (1-1) vs. Stormyknight (1-1)

• Alfonze (1-1) vs. Scared Little Girl (1-1)

• Dave (1-1) vs. CT5 (1-1)

• Tragus (0-2) vs. Red Mage (0-2)

• PIZZA (0-2) vs. ElShafto (0-2)

If a player does not participate in these conversations at all, they will be dropped from the tournament. The lack of accountability that has led to no-shows has been less than ideal and so here I'm going to be a bit of a jerk. If multiple players drop due to this new rule, I will do my best to pair unpaired players with each other.

If there are any complaints, please post them below and do it before the 48-hour window expires because your complaints might not change the rules.

If, on the pleasant side of surprise, we complete all these discussions in a timely fashion, I'll post match times either in this thread or a new one, and the round will begin ASAP.

 

I like the stricter rules. People really need to show up as ti undermines the entire point of the tournament when they don't show up. Even if they aren't trying to win, as long as they are there and playing it is at least better than simply skipping entirely.

The next time a tournament is run I think they should use some type of scheduling thing so people can put the time they are free and it automatically matches people up. Then you could have it on Google Calendar so everyone knows the date and time. Also, I think there needs to be a larger number of "alternatives" and anyone who doesn't show up in the first round is immediately dropped and replaced by an alt. Having a cost to enter the tournament that is forfeited on not showing / not rescheduling would be a good idea too. The entry fee could be refunded if they show up to every match. And/or maybe have a "runner up prize" for people who show up for every event.

 

I was thinking about this..

We already gave our time frames when we signed up for the tournament. Now we are basically doing the same thing again. Using PM's is a great way communicate with players and make sure that they know when the match is happening, but wouldn't it make more sense if you just PM'd us our match time, and then have us agree to it by saying "ok"? And if the time doesn't work, then we could just find a new one using the same PM conversation. Unless people have completely different schedules each week, this should be easier and faster for everyone.

In any case It's definitely an improvement since now people have to be more active.

Yes, I agree. Scheduling is a big issue right now. It's a lot of work for the organizer and source of a lot of confusion and no-shows.

In my perfect world this would be a 5-phase single-elimination tournament that happened at a fixed time, and lasted about 1-4 hours depending on how far you get. This would mean we didn't have to deal with all this scheduling and people not showing up. All we needed to do was take 16 people from the lobby when the tournament started and we would have a 100% participation. It would naturally mean that games happen simultaneously so things like recording every single match with commentary would not be possible, which would of course suck because the videos are great.

That could lead to all kinds of trouble, and I don't know how it would even work. Would we pay with real life money? I think it's better to keep participation free to avoid all kinds of whining and other problems. When then add tournaments inside the game itself, then entry fee would be much easier to implement and would make more sense.

We could have a system where you will be penalized for not showing up by banning you from the next event. I would like that system because it doesn't really cost you anything but not bothering to show up has at least some consequences.

 

Being banned from the next event probably isn't motivation enough to show up. They need to have something on the line.

 

I think that a huge majority who participates in these things will show up without any big penalties. Having to bet something big, and then lose it if you are unable to show up on time, would send the wrong message imo.

There are probably many reasons why people have been absent during rounds 1 and 2. I'm guessing some reasons are:

• new forum users (almost always fails)
• timezone conversion fail
• general rule confusion fail
• etc.

Things like adding a post count requirement will definitely help. Also people will slowly learn the system as we go along.

But if that doesn't work, we could always take their family hostage.

 

To clarify, the 'fee' I had in mind would have been something small, 5$ or so. Interesting thoughts guys, we'll see how this round goes and continue improving.

 

Wait what.. you mean actual real life money? I think that would be a really bad idea. I've never heard a community event that charges you money.

Free-to-Play games like Card Hunter need to be really careful when they ask for money because many people like to jump on that Pay-to-Win bandwagon. Even if that is not the case here, money would still be exchanging hands, which would be kind of against the whole BM philosophy of players being able to enjoy Card Hunter without paying anything.

But if there has to be payment, one way to make it work would be if there was a way to transfer pizza between two accounts, and participants would give something like 50-100 pizza as collateral (that they would later get back), or even as a straight up tournament fee (that they may or may not get back as prizes). But the problem is that there is not such system and probably never will be because people could make new accounts and send their free pizza to their main account. Of course pizza is pretty close to real life money because you usually need real life money to get pizza, but there are two main differences:

1. Pizza doesn't feel like real money (which is why online games use this kind of currency)
2. You can get pizza from making custom scenarios, tournaments, etc.

Best payment imo would be in-game gold because anyone can obtain it but it still has a value. But like with pizza, there is no system for transferring gold.
And one important question is where would this real life money be going? The developers or the organizer(s)?

 

Wasn't the proposal a security deposit (repaid on reliably showing up) and not an entrance fee? Of course this would still leave the defaulted deposits, which could be banked for e.g. future tournament prize use.

 

Yes, but the fact that real money (any amount) even enters the equation, changes the whole nature of the tournament from a casual community run event, into a more serious business where you suffer financial loss if you are late from your match. Also it would make the tournament much more exclusive because not everyone can use credit cards or PayPal.

I think it would be weird to start collecting money just because a couple of people didn't show up. There are many better and easier ways to fix the no-show problem, like a better scheduling system, fixed tournament time, or substitute players.

 

Yeah, you're right, those are valid concerns. Money is the great motivator but it does change the things it touches.

 

Yeah... I meant like five dollars... In pizza.

 

How would that work? There's no way to transfer pizza between accounts.

 

The infrastructure isn't there yet, but we can imagine a system that allows for it (with appropriate security measures ofc).

 

This is easily done with little support from developers. I would use game gold instead of pizza though. Just add a "Tournament Access Card" item to some store. You could even try to sell (very cheap) tickets for spectators! The Card could not be sold back but all attending participants would get a reward item at the end. That treasure would be worth either original Card value or more, depending on your placement in the tournament. Additional pizza slices could be granted when you sell the item or there could be two separate rewards etc.

 

Easily? As far as I know, any kind of system where players can move items/cash between accounts is a difficult project because of all the potential security issues. Without proper precautions and vigorous testing, it would be a field day for hackers.

How would this "Tournament Access Card" item actually work? Lets say I buy one and have it in my inventory. Then what? What you suggest here sounds more like the upcoming official tournaments, and not this community tournament where almost everything happens outside the game-client.

If we look at the big picture of Card Hunter, Peasant tournament is really small-scale operation, like community-run events usually are. Its main job is probably to keep players preoccupied until BM implements their own in-game tournament system, after which Peasant will most likely die off, unless it offers something that the official tournament system does not. I don't think that BM will focus their development time on anything that Peasant tournaments need unless they were planning on implementing that particular thing all along. This is why I wouldn't be relying on the developers to give us the tools to run Peasant (which is a good thing because they should focus on something more important). We already have all the tools we need to run an event like this smoothly because similar things have been done before on other forums.

We want everyone to join in as spectators so why on earth would we charge them for it? I mean it's not like we can use that in-game revenue to buy something.

 

I am for official tournament format, but some ways of organizing community small events could be provided as well before big thing is ready or maybe even after that.
Community tournament could work just like an official tournament. The difference is that the rules are set by someone else and referee is a human instead of the game itself.
Of course items I suggest would work only with a cooperation of a BM. He would need to do the following things, when a tournament proposal is provided:
- decide if the tournament is a good idea
- add a pool of Access Cards to the stores and set their price, also add Rewards items at that point, these could be visible somewhere
- decide who can be referee (at least one referee must be present when a battle takes place)
- activate tournament mode (rooms, chat, whatever you add later) when all cards are bought
- after the event is over judge (or trust referees) if it had been run well, all went fair play, and distribute rewards
- default reward is a treasure worth the same amount of gold you payed for Access Card
You can make it work by restricting Tournament times and number to one per week or something. It does not really sound like a tough thing to do but any additional work can be viewed as unnecessary or just impossible to do (read: no money for that). This format uses BM (to minimum), but any other idea which doesn't, would be much more complicated to implement I think. You can always make it better - it is just a simple idea how to handle matchmaking (pairing and game times are not described above) within the game instead of forums. One small change would help with this format a lot - some kind of tournament chat or room, where you would see participants and you would be able to pick a fight. Next addition is an option for referees which they get after the battle - to accept the result of it. It is a small step towards automating results, advancing to another turn, making scoreboards, etc.

 

I doubt the BM devs have the time and interest to start micro-managing 16-, 32- or even 64-player community tournaments like that. They probably want to focus on game improvements that affect thousands, like that in-game tournament system they've talked about, because those are the ones that will keep the casual-playing masses interested in the game. I will bet my game account that what you talk about there will never happen.

The whole point of community events is that the community runs them. They are usually something extra for active community members, not something that will grow so big that the devs start to design their whole game around those events. At least that's what my experience has been with every single online game I've been a part of. Devs usually just observe and give out prizes.

I'm 100% sure that BM is not going to implement any kind of trading system (items/cards/pizza/gold) just because of Peasant, but they might do it for other reasons. And if they do, then that system could be used for tournament entry fees. But since currently nothing suggest that it's going to happen any time soon, we should probably shift our focus on something that is currently possible.

 

Currently it is possible that we get rewards, as this tournament proves. So you are wrong that devs are just watching. I have no idea what trading you talk about as there is no need for any trading implementation. All devs need to do is adding some items to shops from time to time - they already did it on Haloween and XMass for example. So it is another thing they already do. Adding treasure type item (Access Card) is very simple. So there is basically almost no extra work. And even if there is - some extra effort they might want to put into this, would not be wasted because sooner or later they will make their own formula using similar solutions. Scoreboards, pairing, chat - it all must be coded anyway.
I am not talking about Peasants. It can be some regular tournament with all items available and sideboarding. Maybe played fast in a matter of hours not days.

PS. I do not agree that care for people who are on top of the leaderboard is time wasted. There are only several people there right? But they play a lot, they test a lot, they help and strengthen community and when they leave, others will follow sooner or later. So you do need to provide some ways to keep interested those who try to find some fun somewhere. This means that their attention is already away from main flow of the game. Peasant tournament is a way to make game more interesting for a bunch of people. This is a signal that the game is far from "well done" and finished.

 

Good discussion, guys, though a lot of it is predicated on assumptions about what the devs will or won't do. At this point, I'm ready to say the test run has been successful in sussing out what is or isn't possible with the set of rules I put forward. I look forward to finishing two more rounds and handing out prizes! I am sure that official tournaments, supported by mechanisms in the game itself, will be much smoother. As for community events... we can continue to brainstorm ways to improve our process. Thanks for all the input! The point of this event (and all my participation in the community, teebs) is to make the game more fun for more people

By the way—
[link] I have posted Round 3 pairings and match times in a new thread.

 

Just as players go all the time, new players will come too. The life cycle of the average gamer isn't game-centric anymore, its 'playing experience'-centric due to the abundance of choice. Tournaments should not be built around keeping top players but in ensuring the playing experience is unique and fun for everyone at all demographics.

When is the next 'test run' ?

*whips Flaxative and runs away*