End of Season 1, Start of Season 2....Share Feedback

With TotAN as TotW and the tournament this coming Saturday, the 25th, we'll officially finish off our first "season". Normally a new Table of the Week would have been announced, but I wanted a clean break between this and our 2nd season. Take this week to practice the four tables we'll be playing, and I'm going to go about tinkering with any format changes regarding season 2 and posting them.

So if there is anything you'd like to suggest that we move forward with, rule changes or adjustments, promotion and prizes, whatever...now's the time to speak up!

I do foresee one major obstacle with our TotM, and that is December. Would you guys like to have the month off of doing TotW and the tourney? Should we soldier on like normal, or maybe change things up just for that month? I play pinball regardless, but I know how crazy that month can get. Something to think about.

I vote for going from random groups of four players, to having an A and B division, and those being the two groups. With A division having 8-12 players. Maybe a C division also. Promotion and relegation of two or three players per tourney.

I vote for playing in December as usual.

I vote for keeping the rules for actually playing games the same.

I vote for submitting scores via this forum, so that we can see them as they happen.

I vote for fixing your randomizer so that Seasons 3, 4, and 5 will be represented more than once per 24 tables.

Season 3 has had 3/24 (12.5%) of the tables so far. So it is a touch under-represented (since 10/59 = ~17% of all tables are in S3).

0 tables from Season 4 is definite lack of representation, though!

But it's not my randomizer! I go to random.org and enter all the tables that haven't been picked. Push the button, whammo. I will say this...considering how slow tables are to appear on PSN and Xbox, this has actually been a good thing, allowing more people to play every table in the tourney. I could always force the issue though, keep redrawing until a season 3 or 4 appears. Make sure at least one shows up per tourney or something.

I have no intention of duplicating what FarSight does with divisions. I've set this up to mimic how my league plays, the tournament software Xanija made for me is designed this way, and in general I like the idea of players co-mingling. Also, it isn't entirely random, in that at least one top 10 (which ARE "A" division) is present in every grouping. Put Up / Shut Up let's those "A" people go head to head.

As for posting to the forum instead of the link, well the link allows for all the scores to be collected in one spot in a formatted way that then is easily inputted into the tourney software. If I had to grab scores from the forum, it'd take forever. I essentially did that, manually entering scores, the very first tourney. It took me 3 hours to compile everything. Xanija's deal allows me to finish in 15 minutes. On top of that, we are trying to get players who are not part of this forum to play too. If they had to enter scores here, they'd have to sign up first. There is nothing that says people can't enter their scores onto the forum, as many do.

And I get that people want to see live updates, but there is one issue with that; when people sign up and then don't play at all. Again, the first and I think second tourney, we wound up with rounds where there were only 2 players, and one time only 1. I need the flexibility to fill in the blanks of groupings, and that is done at random too. We one time wound up with the 3 top scores all in the same round, but that happens in my league too. I wish there were a way of guaranteeing that all players who sign up actually play, but we've yet to have it happen.

I'd like seeing a tourney in December. Gives people a chance to play on their shiny new X-mas hardware (potentially), and I'm not travelling until the 27th. I missed last month while travelling so I feel I deserve it

More seriously though, I don't see submitting scores to the forum as they happen helpful. Once you know what score you want to beat the strategy changes and the meta-game of everyone waiting as late as they can (so the player knows what he needs to beat) seems like something not to be encouraged.

I just wanted to say thank you as feedback. The TOTW made me play tables again that I hadn't in a long time and although I couldn't participate that often anymore the last couple of weeks as I would have liked, I bettered a lot of my scores! It also encouraged players to interact more with each other, and with TPA being an individual thing by nature, that is also very nice. I got to know a couple of people more than before.

Slam23 said:

I just wanted to say thank you as feedback. The TOTW made me play tables again that I hadn't in a long time and although I couldn't participate that often anymore the last couple of weeks as I would have liked, I bettered a lot of my scores! It also encouraged players to interact more with each other, and with TPA being an individual thing by nature, that is also very nice. I got to know a couple of people more than before.

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What Slam said. It was TotW that got me started posting here, and playing pinball is more fun when you get to know some of the players high up on the leaderboards. The format of the TotM definitely adds an element of chance, but that's part of the charm. Everyone has a shot at a good result. Its sort of like a bowling league with handicaps thrown in. That would be a bummer for the top players if there weren't leaderboards or the TPA tournaments set up to reward the elite players. But we already have those, and this gives a nice something else.

Meanwhile I cannot stress enough how good TotW has been for my game. Focusing on one table at a time, with tips and insights from quality players has helped me with a steady accumulation of HOF points...I've added nearly 10k since this started.

Here's what I'd suggest to cover scheduling not just for December but for all the holidays. Adjust a week sooner starting with October. Avoid Halloween by playing on 10/24 instead of 10/31, Thanksgiving on 11/21 instead of 11/28, and Christmas on 12/19 instead of 12/26. That's all at four week intervals, counting from 9/26. I know you like the "last-Saturday" principle but I think working around the holidays is the bigger concern for participation. I would be out for all three of those holiday Saturdays, and knowing that ahead of time, probably wouldn't be interested in the whole season much at all.

As one of the elite players, I do confess to not being fond of the pool format (for May, I lost to switch3flip even though I beat him on all four tables), but yeah I've got my glory on the Farsight leaderboard. I do like the egalitarian nature without divisions, since yeah Farsight has that too. The one adjustment I'd like is a consensus or vote on which table to select for "put up" rather than just moderator's decree.

I don't want live updates during the tourney. As workshed says, that lends advantage to players playing later in the day who will know what scores to target, with a degenerate endpoint of everyone trying to cram as late in the day as possible. I prefer keeping it blind on an equal footing. I try not to notice score posts from anyone in my pools until I'm done. Again, Farsight's leaderboard always has the scores to shoot for and it's actually refreshing playing blind on what the target will be.

Season 4 was left out randomly? I thought that was intentional for the TOTWs to be older tables as there isn't any need to revisit a game that just came out.

vikingerik said:

Season 4 was left out randomly? I thought that was intentional for the TOTWs to be older tables as there isn't any need to revisit a game that just came out.

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Well I had stated that we wouldn't do a TotW for something released in the last 3 months, but it never even became an issue for me to deal with! Kinda crazy (and suspicious).

You might be onto something with Oct/Nov/Dec tournaments. Probably the best solution for keeping the most players.

I could always add a poll question to the table sign up sheet for Put Up/Shut Up, that way only people playing get the vote. It's worth a try at least.

About December: If we play TotM in December and follow the system to play the tourney on the last weekend of the month - well, this would be December 26th. I don't think we would have that many players on that day, but I could be wrong. I think a little break for TotW/TotM would be ok in December.

As for rule changes: SYT and me already talked about scoring and the issues of having a lot of ties in each tourney. I came up with the idea of a different scoring table. Rather than having 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 point for the first in the group to the last, I suggest 13 - 9 - 6 - 4 points. This should lead to less ties in each tourney and in the season results. Also it would be more rewarding to win in a group, giving players a better chance to climb up the ladder. Currently winning a group is worth 2,5 times of the rank 4 player, with this it would be 3,25 times.

PS3 players in Europe are only up to table 5 I think it is of season 4 so I certainly would appreciate you not going ahead of the tables available to us stragglers, especially as they are new tables anyway. I think you have hit most things spot on despite my initial scepticism. Don't mind Xanija's proposal for tinkering with the points system but not really bothered either way.
I do think you should definitely stick to the last Saturday of the month. That's what everyone knows and if you started messing about with it all the time it wouldn't work. Ok I can see the argument for Christmas and to maybe leave December out, although if you put that to a vote I'd vote to play. It'd be a welcome distraction from turkey and The Wizard of Oz. But Halloween? C'mon where would it end? Whatever you do don't get held to ransom, you have done a great job and if anyone doesn't want to play because they don't like it they don't have to. There are a lot more that do like playing.

Fair point, Halloween is IMO a non-consideration anywhere - most people stay home! at worst we're interrupted by trick-or-treaters.

End of November (Thanksgiving) is unique to the USA, everyone else it's just the last weekend of November.

Christmas/New Year is a different thing, that's busy everywhere. I'd still vote for playing.

I like the idea of increasing points for a win.

^^^ I agree with Crepello & Eldar.

I agree with Dedpop

Here's the current changes we are considering most...

-Increasing the point spread to 13,9,6,4
-If you don't play a table, you get 0 points instead of the current 4
-Moving the December tourney to Jan 2nd. This can be discussed more when the time comes closer, say in November.

I know some of you are asking for divisions. For one, we simply don't have enough players to warrant it. We average 30-35 players each month, so split that into 3? You wind up playing the same 10 players over and over. Also, it would completely screw up our tournament software. Right now it recognizes the top 10, and puts one in each grouping. That's if we have 40 players. Since we often don't, there winds up being two in some groups. So until we have larger numbers of players, there's no point in even discussing it. Go recruit players!!

I'm going to try and keep track of what tables have dropped on PSN so that everyone at least has the option to play whatever is selected. That means the most recent season will probably be under represented in TotW.

We will not change how you sign up or post scores. If we want to increase how many players play, we have to make it so non forum members can register and post just as easily without signing up for forum membership.

I think to increase non-Forum participation, there might need to be a bit more linkage and explanation of rules that aren't on the forum, including posting of results. Google+ or Facebook maybe (I'd go with G+ since Facebook is... well, Facebook). Or possibly some static pages.

Of course more content in different places is more work.

I like the idea of a move to Jan 2; by that point everyone is bored of the holidays, has to go back to work, etc.

I'm fine with 0 for a no-show/no-play (but couldn't someone "game" the system by putting in a fake low score if they didn't play it?) Say you set the 'no-play' points to 1, then someone might enter 2 or 10 to get around it.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

I think to increase non-Forum participation, there might need to be a bit more linkage and explanation of rules that aren't on the forum, including posting of results. Google+ or Facebook maybe (I'd go with G+ since Facebook is... well, Facebook). Or possibly some static pages.

Of course more content in different places is more work.

I like the idea of a move to Jan 2; by that point everyone is bored of the holidays, has to go back to work, etc.

I'm fine with 0 for a no-show/no-play (but couldn't someone "game" the system by putting in a fake low score if they didn't play it?) Say you set the 'no-play' points to 1, then someone might enter 2 or 10 to get around it.

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Yeah, that's why I keep coming back to the idea of needing a website. (hint hint, any designers out there?) I'd still have everything here on the forum too, because the community aspect is what makes it so much fun, but and stigma this place carries with those on Facebook could be averted.

I'm not too concerned with anyone trying to game the system. I still personally look at scores to check for anomalies, so it'd have to be a much more realistic score submitted than just putting in '2'.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

I think to increase non-Forum participation, there might need to be a bit more linkage and explanation of rules that aren't on the forum, including posting of results. Google+ or Facebook maybe (I'd go with G+ since Facebook is... well, Facebook). Or possibly some static pages.

Of course more content in different places is more work.

I like the idea of a move to Jan 2; by that point everyone is bored of the holidays, has to go back to work, etc.

I'm fine with 0 for a no-show/no-play (but couldn't someone "game" the system by putting in a fake low score if they didn't play it?) Say you set the 'no-play' points to 1, then someone might enter 2 or 10 to get around it.

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I'm leaning towards our own web presence for this purpose. Github Pages would fit the bill here nicely.

Have a poll on this site, something along the lines of which ToTM was best fun ?
People who have never heard of it will read it.
I suggested it in the other thread. You keep harping on about recruitment but ignore suggestions.
What harm could it do? Nearly too late now for the start of season on Saturday which would've been the best time to get new players involved.

Crepello55012 said:

Have a poll on this site, something along the lines of which ToTM was best fun ?
People who have never heard of it will read it.
I suggested it in the other thread. You keep harping on about recruitment but ignore suggestions.
What harm could it do? Nearly too late now for the start of season on Saturday which would've been the best time to get new players involved.

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Wouldn't really say he's harping on recruitment. He's still happy with 26, but would be happier with 50+. And it looks like a lot of 'regulars' were busy that weekend. I don't think he expects us to recruit anyone. I do try, but I just come off as a crazy person. As far as ignoring suggestions, that's the opposite of what's going on. Polls don't solve everything. But if it's for fun, then hey, I say go for it. I'd vote to keep things how they are. For the most part at least. Changing the scoring wouldn't be a bad idea. Espescially changing tables not played from 4 to 0