PC tournament starting on June 29

EldarOfSuburbia · Jun 30, 2015

PC players finally have a tournament! And the table selection is... Gottlieb/Premier-heavy, to say the least:
- Space Shuttle
- Tee'd Off
- Class Of 1812
- Haunted House
- Victory
- Twilight Zone
- Ripley's Believe It Or Not
- Cactus Canyon

invitro · Jun 30, 2015

Get excited! It's about time! I hope it works!

EldarOfSuburbia · Jun 30, 2015

It was working smoothly last night. Not sure how my ~2B on TZ will hold up. Got a 500M LITZ and about 100M from Gumball locks and bonus to finish up in the last 30 seconds of that game. Everything else needs work. There's time though.

The 20-minute limit makes for some interesting and different decisions. On some tables EBs are pointless after a certain stage. And if you can keep a single game of Haunted House going for 20 minutes, well, you deserve to win.

invitro · Jun 30, 2015

It'd be nice if there were some rules. Or maybe I'm just dense. I started with a game of HH, guessing that I was allowed one game. I crapped out with 106k and 17:52 left. So I then guessed that I had 20 minutes total, and could play as many games in that time as I wanted/chose. I tested by starting a new HH, and immediately exiting. Hmm, looks like my theory is ok, and I have 17:50 left.

Then I played RBIoN, used the whole 20 minutes to get 115M (which was #1 then). I wondered what would happen if I chose RBIoN again, so I did, and a new game started. I paused, took a break, then played another 20 minutes for 156M (which was #1 then).

So is there a limit on # of games? If not, why did my second HH game start with 17:52 left? Or did I mis-record something?

This seems very neat, but it's almost incompetent of Farsight to not provide any rules at all.

suffocater · Jun 30, 2015

For me, every new game starts with 20:00. I understand this is the maximum time per game, not per table.

EldarOfSuburbia · Jun 30, 2015

Basically it's play each table as many times as you want and it'll take your best score, whether it's from your first game or your tenth or your fiftieth. Each new game has a 20 minute limit. Not clear what happened on HH for you, I've had the timer reset to 20 minutes every time I press 'Start'.

Actually for the current mobile tournament, they're complaining about how it's becoming a grind-fest even with the 20-minute limit. FS really should make it a "only your last score counts" or "limited credits" tournament. Heck, the TotM just finished and that's an unofficial cross-platform tournament using the honor system to ensure fair play, enforce rules, one of which is "2 credits only per table", and it's doing very well so far.

Crepello55012 · Jun 30, 2015

If it's anything like all the other tournaments you can play each game as many times as you want in the week. The score will stop if you are still on after 20 minutes. Next time you play it only counts if you beat your previous high score.
Basically you have a week to play as much as you like and see what the best score you can make for each table is.

invitro · Jun 30, 2015

Thanks, guys. I must have screwed up with my note on HH. So basically this is like a new leaderboard for 20-minute games, but only for 8 tables.

I don't know if I'm upset with unlimited tries, now that I know that's the case. I favor allowing the number of tries that maximizes the importance of skill. That number is probably not infinite, or one, but it doesn't seem clear to me what it is. I might go with 10 tries. Two is way too low if the tourney lasts more than a day.

The major problem then is that this tournament won't be complete for 17 months.

Well I guess there's no reason to delay playing more tables, so off I go.

Crepello55012 · Jun 30, 2015

EldarOfSuburbia said:
Basically it's play each table as many times as you want and it'll take your best score, whether it's from your first game or your tenth or your fiftieth. Each new game has a 20 minute limit. Not clear what happened on HH for you, I've had the timer reset to 20 minutes every time I press 'Start'.

Actually for the current mobile tournament, they're complaining about how it's becoming a grind-fest even with the 20-minute limit. FS really should make it a "only your last score counts" or "limited credits" tournament. Heck, the TotM just finished and that's an unofficial cross-platform tournament using the honor system to ensure fair play, enforce rules, one of which is "2 credits only per table", and it's doing very well so far.

I love the tournament structure the way it is because I like a week of playing 8 random tables and seeing how much better I can get at them than I was when it started.
It might be a grind fest for you really good players but for me it's really fun. I hardly ever go for 20 minutes on any of the tables anyway, so it's a week of concentrated play with a real goal.

shutyertrap · Jun 30, 2015

The end date to the tournament has been fixed. It ends on Monday. FarSight probably didn't bother explaining the rules because they are the same ones that have been on mobile and PSN for over a year now. They are...

- You have one week to post the best scores you can on 8 different tables
- You get 20 minutes per try to achieve your score
- You may play an unlimited amount of tries to get a better score

People say it is a grind fest because it is limited only to how many tries you feel like giving it. If you are skilled, it is a matter of maximizing points within the 20 minutes. If you aren't so skilled, it's about getting that one lucky game where everything goes right for you. In other words, it's less about talent and more about time invested. I think it would be downright diabolical, and fun, to make it use only what your last score posted was. That way you'd have to think twice about topping a score you were pretty happy with, but think you could do better on, maybe.

Here's how the rest of the tourney runs...

- There is a maximum of 800 points available.
- 100 points goes to top score, 90 to 2nd, and 85 (I think) to 3rd. After that, points work in fractions based on total number of unique players.
- This first tourney there is only bronze level. Top 10% of all scores in overall standings will earn silver rank for next tournament.
- Same will apply next tourney for silver level, where top 10% will earn gold status. Lowest 10% will drop back to bronze.
- You only compete against those in your same bronze/silver/gold level

Xanija · Jun 30, 2015

Something worth noting: The total points you find in the overall view are not equal to the 8 tables points as it has been pointed out already by someone else in another tournament.

I'm in gold league, probably because I was in gold. Playing just one table, where I drained all balls, gave me 1 pt. for the table, but 82 points for the total. After I had played all 8 tables with 1 pt each, I had 660 points and was ranked 3rd of 7 (?) players in gold. This would probably change if all players played every table. Then I still might have a lot of points, but I would be ranked last.

- This first tourney there is only bronze level. Top 10% of all scores in overall standings will earn silver rank for next tournament.

Looks like if you are ranked in silver or gold already on another platform, you will take over the rank. Not sure if this is working as intended.

invitro · Jul 1, 2015

shutyertrap said:
The end date to the tournament has been fixed. It ends on Monday. FarSight probably didn't bother explaining the rules because they are the same ones that have been on mobile and PSN for over a year now. They are...

- You have one week to post the best scores you can on 8 different tables
- You get 20 minutes per try to achieve your score
- You may play an unlimited amount of tries to get a better score

People say it is a grind fest because it is limited only to how many tries you feel like giving it. If you are skilled, it is a matter of maximizing points within the 20 minutes. If you aren't so skilled, it's about getting that one lucky game where everything goes right for you. In other words, it's less about talent and more about time invested. I think it would be downright diabolical, and fun, to make it use only what your last score posted was. That way you'd have to think twice about topping a score you were pretty happy with, but think you could do better on, maybe.

Here's how the rest of the tourney runs...

- There is a maximum of 800 points available.
- 100 points goes to top score, 90 to 2nd, and 85 (I think) to 3rd. After that, points work in fractions based on total number of unique players.
- This first tourney there is only bronze level. Top 10% of all scores in overall standings will earn silver rank for next tournament.
- Same will apply next tourney for silver level, where top 10% will earn gold status. Lowest 10% will drop back to bronze.
- You only compete against those in your same bronze/silver/gold level

Thanks a bunch SYT!

I don't have PSN or mobile (nor do I want them, well I'd take a free PS4), so I suppose I'm rare

. No worries, I've got the rules down now.

I have doubts that "grind fest" is an appropriate term for this tourney, but we'll see. I know that having lots of relatively high scores on the (main) leaderboards is strongly dependent on amount of time invested (though skill is still much more important than time for most tables; maybe not BoP).

I would absolutely be fine with using last score posted. In fact, I think I will say that the current format is broken without this feature

. I do not like tourneys with a small # of maximum entries because that massively favors luck over skill, and also trying to improve your score is one of the most fun parts of a tourney. But Farsight should work on putting the rules into one or both of the info screens, first.

3rd place does get 85 pts, and 3rd to last place decreases linearly from 85 pts to 1 pt.

EDIT: Farsight, you should take SYT's post and make a rule screen out of it.

shutyertrap · Jul 1, 2015

Xanija said:
I'm in gold league, probably because I was in gold.

Looks like if you are ranked in silver or gold already on another platform, you will take over the rank. Not sure if this is working as intended.

Oh, okay. I just assumed they were starting from scratch on the PC. I was in gold on PSN the first few, but then I never played again. Obviously I dropped off then!

invitro said:
Thanks a bunch SYT!

EDIT: Farsight, you should take SYT's post and make a rule screen out of it.

I've gotten much better at condensing rules down to their essentials after having to explain my own!

invitro · Jul 1, 2015

Uh oh guys, JPelter has discovered the tourney. He's started with a #4 on Space Shuttle.

Looks like SYT took offense to my RBIoN score and grabbed #1. Eldar has been pouring it on too.

This thing looks like a blast... maybe it'll be like PAPA qualifying and the #1 scores after the 1st day will be out of the top 20 at the end.

shutyertrap · Jul 1, 2015

invitro said:
Uh oh guys, JPelter has discovered the tourney. He's started with a #4 on Space Shuttle.

Looks like SYT took offense to my RBIoN score and grabbed #1. Eldar has been pouring it on too.

This thing looks like a blast... maybe it'll be like PAPA qualifying and the #1 scores after the 1st day will be out of the top 20 at the end.

What can I say...RBION is the only table I have an actual strategy on! Cactus Canyon is just how long can I keep a ball in play to get the biggest multiplier I can, and TZ is just trying to get LitZ going (which I finally did). I'm notoriously horrible at Space Shuttle, and then there's all those damn Gottliebs that I know next to nothing about. And yeah, I dread the numbers that come in on Saturday and Sunday.

JPelter · Jul 1, 2015

I'm honestly not super happy with the 20 min tournaments since it makes the optimal gameplay different than it would be in a normal game. Then again there's probably no other good way till they have actual tournament settings for tables in. Going to play all the tables once to get a baseline for silver next tournament I guess. I'm still really sour that the DX11 cameras are wonky so I have to play on DX9 too. Hoping they fix that at some point soon.

invitro · Jul 2, 2015

JPelter said:
I'm honestly not super happy with the 20 min tournaments since it makes the optimal gameplay different than it would be in a normal game.

So does disabling extra balls... just sayin'...

JPelter · Jul 2, 2015

invitro said:
So does disabling extra balls... just sayin'...

Disabling extra balls simply limits your mistakes. An arbitrary time limit changes the entire scoring system of the game.

I get your point. It's just that I consider no extra balls the baseline for playing a tournament, and a time limit is definitely a weird aberration, and one which I don't particularly personally like.

invitro · Jul 2, 2015

JPelter said:
Disabling extra balls simply limits your mistakes.

I don't understand this claim. There are always certain shots you take to lite/collect EBs in any strategy. These shots and related strategy disappear when EBs are disabled. This is a massive change in strategy for most tables, any table where getting an EB is important and non-trivial. It does limit your mistakes, but it does much more than that.

I'm not (here) commenting on the goodness of the two things (that's another discussion which I'm also very interested in

), just saying that disabling extra balls changes optimal gameplay at least as much as the 20-minute limit does. (At least it sure seems that way... I don't want to state this as a fact.)

shutyertrap · Jul 2, 2015

JPelter said:
Disabling extra balls simply limits your mistakes. An arbitrary time limit changes the entire scoring system of the game.

I get your point. It's just that I consider no extra balls the baseline for playing a tournament, and a time limit is definitely a weird aberration, and one which I don't particularly personally like.

It's a lot better than the unlimited time was though. I remember seeing some of the AFM and Scared Stiff scores and just giving up before even really trying because there was just no point. I knew it took those people 3+ hours of playing, and I had no desire (or ability) to play that long.

PC tournament starting on June 29

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