Honestly, I was more surprised they answered it at all. It does sound like they would consider getting rid of the Cup altogether though. We'll just have to wait and see.
The lag is ridiculous! You'd think that TNT would know to increase their server...space or whatever it is, to prevent lagging as they would have known well that there'd be more people using the site during an event like this!
I'm tired of waiting around. I feel like it's become a waiting game, waiting between digs, waiting for the factions to arrive, waiting for the war to start, waiting for the site to stop lagging so I can fight, waiting until they talk so I can equip my weapons, and now waiting a couple of days between waves.
I figure the final wave will be the guild leaders and they're be outrageously leveled, but that seems like it's at least another week away...and then waiting for prizes.
It would have been nice for TNT to make the mittens 100 NC instead of 125, that way everyone had a chance at a free pair since I haven't spent the 100 from the GMC...oh well.
They changed Switcharoo to Flycatcher with the same score (surprising, Ninjas usually get a lower score :P) and right now it's tied 50-50. Although the flag on the rope still sits at the 52% spot in Pirates' favor. So either the Ninjas have a massive following making up for past challenges since they can't play 2 today, or it was bugged from the start.
They changed Switcharoo to Flycatcher with the same score (surprising, Ninjas usually get a lower score :P) and right now it's tied 50-50. Although the flag on the rope still sits at the 52% spot in Pirates' favor. So either the Ninjas have a massive following making up for past challenges since they can't play 2 today, or it was bugged from the start.
Rank 29 was the minimum for the top prize, 30,000 prize points and 2,500 games of YYB wins or the equivalent of.
I don't think All-Star has ever given enough points, I think 25 would be fine for a minimum, but that would mean either prizes worth less points or the games being worth more points. I think TNT has their formula and don't want to change it.
They froze people that were maxing YYB and SOSD every day. That's about 20 hours a day every day until the point they got frozen. It's a logical conclusion that TNT would just assume they are cheating, I mean, 20 hours a day of Altador Cup? That's just crazy. It doesn't mean they are right to do it without proof but still, it's just expected. Pretty sure they freeze tons of dual maxers about halfway through the Cup every year. The fact that people don't learn or make sure they can prove to TNT that they are not cheating is their problem. TNT doesn't care. I wonder how many of them actually will get their accounts back. They'd still have 80k prize points or so.
Rank 29 was the minimum for the top prize, 30,000 prize points and 2,500 games of YYB wins or the equivalent of.
I don't think All-Star has ever given enough points, I think 25 would be fine for a minimum, but that would mean either prizes worth less points or the games being worth more points. I think TNT has their formula and don't want to change it.
They froze people that were maxing YYB and SOSD every day. That's about 20 hours a day every day until the point they got frozen. It's a logical conclusion that TNT would just assume they are cheating, I mean, 20 hours a day of Altador Cup? That's just crazy. It doesn't mean they are right to do it without proof but still, it's just expected. Pretty sure they freeze tons of dual maxers about halfway through the Cup every year. The fact that people don't learn or make sure they can prove to TNT that they are not cheating is their problem. TNT doesn't care. I wonder how many of them actually will get their accounts back. They'd still have 80k prize points or so.
So even though Altador Cup VII is not officially over, I'd say about 90% of the players agree it's pretty much set in stone that Kreludor will win and Meridell/Mystery Island will play a tiebreaker for 2nd/3rd and that we are playing for prize points. With that being said, this year was a total disaster. Without taking anything away from Kreludor, they are a fantastic team who has had excellent year after excellent year, falling short only because of the finals, this year will go down as probably the worst year in history, which for Kreludor is unfair since they deserved to win after dominating this year as well.
With that being said, Altador Cup VIII is likely to still happen, and after the bracket system failure this year we can only hope TNT has a few repairs ready for this year. The problems seem to stem from TNT's reluctance to explain just how the bracket standings work. Teams sweep one another but still fall behind the losing team, even though the rules say to help your team win as much as possible. Some teams (Roo Island/Shenkuu) had the misfortune of playing each other in every single round, while others (Darigan Citadel) had the misfortune of playing the favorite (Kreludor) in 3 brackets in a row, even rematching them once for 4 (potentially 5) matchups. This confusing and erratic system led to some players protesting the entire Cup and quitting, meanwhile other good players were frozen for playing too much. Not only that, some teams will never play each other this year at all, leading some to wonder what could have happened if Mystery Island and Kreludor had been able to square off.
This year introduced the bracket system, a far shorter year, and bonus games. While good ideas they were poorly implemented, marring a potentially great year with it's lack of clarity and frankly just absolute stupidity on the part of TNT. Some people asked for clarity only to see their boards deleted or be silenced, leaving questions as to whether the Cup was even fair this year. According to what I've gathered, the bracket system was devises by TNT because some players wanted mid-tier teams (Tyrannia, Meridell, Kiko Lake) to have a better chance, and the year being shortened was another player request. TNT took these requests and formed the bracket system, which could have worked well when based on winning but instead appears to be based on either a Strength of Schedule setup or a Total Points setup, meaning a team could lose every match, but because they score a lot of points compared to the other teams scoring less (for example teams playing Darigan scoring much more to win but dropping activity to play a team like Altador) they could still theoretically come out in 1st place. While this technically occurred with Haunted Woods being swept by Roo Island twice but still placing 4th in their bracket to Roo Island's 5th and Tyrannia placing 4th to Maraqua's 3rd in Round Two (despite Tyrannia's perfect YYB record in the bracket), there were no major upsets for 1st. The bonus games also become questionable, there is no mention of whether or not winning the bonus game is required for the "greater payout", meaning that as long as you play the same amount of the bonus game as normal you could still be doubling/tripling your score for it.
In addition to all of the confusion, it appears that certain All-Star and cheating groups backed the top contenders in this year's Cup, begging the question of whether or not the Cup will ever truly be fair again. Which leads me to wonder what potential changes to the system we could have in order to try and make the Cup more fair and balanced. These are the ideas I have come up with, some coming from other ideas I have heard:
RANDOM TEAMS
Everyone has a favorite team. Mine is Krawk Island, and I'm sure if you are reading this you have joined your favorite team (or at least have one or two teams you like). This technique however would force everyone to join any one of the 18 teams. While you have a 1/18 chance of getting to play for your favorite team again you could easily end up on a team you dislike. However, this is the most fair way of all ideas I can come up with. There is no chance for an All-Star group to load up a team to give them an advantage and there would be no need for scoring ratios because everyone would be the same size, barring a few teams potentially having 1 more player because the total players didn't end in an interval of 18. The problem is most people don't like the idea of not being able to play for their favorite team, however if you truly want to have as close to a fair and balanced Cup, this is the only real way. People will still cheat but it shouldn't be as significant.
SINGLE ROUND ROBIN AND 8/10 FINALS
This idea came to me first. More and more people want to contend for the championship, but don't want to spend forever playing. Unfortunately there are a strange number of teams, so the usual system of brackets (4/8/16/24) can't apply to 18. However what TNT could do is set a Single Round Robin in place, everyone plays each other once. Every game would matter because after the Robin ends, the Top 8 (not 4) teams enter the Championship Bracket. #1 Seed vs. #8 Seed, #2 Seed vs. #7 Seed, etc. Single elimination until a winner is crowned. Now because people would dislike the inability to play or having to rejoin a new team, TNT could set it up so that when a team is knocked out they play another team that was knocked out, if the #8 Seed is eliminated they would play the eliminated team from the #3/#6 match. Winners continue to advance while losers continue to drop. As for the remaining 10 teams, they too enter a bracket, but as I mentioned it wouldn't be a perfect bracket because of it's number, however should a team be eliminated from further advancement they could just play the Practice Team for prize points. Under this system, 8 teams stand a real chance of winning, just look at how the LA Kings won, #8 Seed, they won the Stanley Cup.
DROP TWO TEAMS/TWO 8 BRACKET FINALS OR 16 BRACKET
Simple enough, 16 teams worksout well for brackets. The problem? Who do you drop? Well, you could drop the #1 and #18 teams from the previous year. That way the winners need to migrate as well as those from the worst team. The following year you repeat and those who sat out return. As for the finals, Single Round Robin determines the seeds, and once again you could do an 8 Bracket for the Championship and an 8 Bracket for the losers, or make the Round Robin solely for seeding and see if the #16 Seed can pull the ultimate upset.
SINGLE ELIMINATION/ACI FORMAT
This is self-explanatory. We return to a single elimination format where if you lose you are a out and join a new team until someone wins. Again the problem is people are loyal to teams and this may hurt their feelings. Oh well.
REPAIRED BRACKET SYSTEM
The bracket system was a good idea, however the lack of clarity made it terribly confusing and frustrating to play in. Why are teams that win still behind teams that lose? Why is it all luck based for brackets? It could have been random brackets to begin with but afterwards TNT should have stepped in, made the next two brackets so everyone played each other, and then randomized the final brackets. In addition, make it so that winning matters. If they want to try bonus games again they can, but winning should factor into the bracket standings.
These are the ideas I came up with, some of them will not be well received I'm sure (Single Elimination/Random Teams) but if you truly want a fair and balanced Cup some sacrifices must be made. People will cheat, there is nothing to really do to stop them, you can catch one but they can just make another account and do it again.
If you have any ideas you would like to see, add them in the topic, if you like an idea vote for it or if you don't like an idea explain why. Hopefully TNT will add a feedback option this year again, and maybe we can all give them a few ideas on how to make Altador Cup VIII a better Cup.
That doesn't account for the first round brackets. For several days Krawk Island had a better record than Darigan but Darigan stayed in first. Moltara had a better record as well. Plus, Meridell is 1st but Mystery Island has 30 points to Meridell's 26. If it were based on cumulative points then MI should be first.
It just shows that TNT has completely changed everything and even winning is meaningless.
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