Altador Cup VII - Disasterous

[Azeruth]

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.

[LizyMarie]

I love the random teams idea! That's pretty brilliant. Then those who use bots will not be able to flood the system. (I also think it would make things more exciting!)

[Azeruth]

Personally I wouldn't mind playing for anyone, I like Krawk Island, I have Kiko Lake and Meridell as my "backup" teams. But even if I was on Faerieland it wouldn't bother me or affect how I play the game. I do know however the loyalty thing some people have, my pet is decked out in Krawk Island gear everywhere possible, but it's not that big of a deal.

[Bubbleline]

I'm pretty attached to my idea that I actually posted to another board around here. It kinda sounds like your second option, but not quite. Every team would play each other once, and then the top 1-6 teams would go in a bracket to play each other, 7-12 and 13-18 would do the same thing. It would only take about 22 days (which is less than previous years still), and they could add a day or 2 if tiebreakers are needed. I didn't think anything about discouraging groups like Sotac and Stealth because people should be able to join whatever group they want, and doing something that would stop those groups would also stop loyal members from joining their preferred teams. However, people generally dislike free-loaders and people that join towards the end and bog down the team, so I thought that they could make sign-ups 2 weeks and after that people get to join an actual Jelly team and Meepit team to play for rank points. To give a team with lower popularity a chance, they could try averaging the amount of players together with the amount of plays, for instance: a team with 10,000 players that had an average of 20 games per player would do worse than a team with 5,000 players that had an average of 40 games. Maybe that exact system wouldn't work but I'm sure those tech geniuses could come up with something a little better so that team like Altador and Faerieland who have very small fanbases could stand their grounds against powerhouses like Krawk Island and Darigan Citadel if they put in the work.

[Xepha]

Idea:

 

Maraqua floods Altador.

Lost Desert add some sand in.

We ask Roo Island to send purple bugs.

 

^We get an awesome beach party plot instead of the AC!

[RigelB]

I actually quite enjoyed the ACI format. Sure, if your team got knocked out in Round 1, that sucks a bit, but you could always join another team, and keep playing through the whole cup. I really doubt anyone likes just one team, it seems everyone has backups. The later rounds felt very epic, especially the final. Everyone was either on one team or the another, battling it out and making a contribution to the final, instead of sitting back and watching it. It's simple to understand, but I think it can fall prey to the luck problems that the current bracket system had. I dunno, I don't play a lot of sports, so I don't know a lot of tournament layouts. If there's an flaws I've looked over, please point them out.

[Azeruth]

I see someone voted "I Like More Than One Idea" and I realize that it's a bit redundant since I made it multiple choice xD

[voteforpedro333]

Firstly, I love how well thought out your first post is. I see positives in a lot of the suggestions you posted, as well as MidnightSky's great idea.

 

Personally, now that we've left single elimination and double round robin behind, it would be weird going back. It's kinda like how instead of changing YYB from keyboard to mouse between last year and this year, they just let players have both sets of controls. I would be most happy with fixing the system they created this year, and actually telling us how it works. I would prefer non-random selection after the first round, where rankings put teams with similar power together. The point system I don't like as much, though I understand they want people to be playing at the end so they make it more valuable.

 

Instead of bonus game points, I'd like to see the achievements come back from last year (or two years ago?). That was the AC I felt most motivated because I was simultaneously helping my team and getting myself some cool prizes. It was good for setting goals and I was playing until the last minute for some of those.

 

Finally, I want a comprehensive finals. I don't care what rounds come before it, but there needs to be a physical final game. This year, we were able to see the first place winner a mile away whereas previously, we didn't know at all until the next day (and we all know how late those results come out sometimes!). I love Kreludor, I've been rooting for them since I started playing and especially last year after LD's win, but they have the disadvantage of not having the awesome epic finishing touch like previous teams have been awarded. More people have finished disappointed this year, that their hard work and winning still hasn't helped their team placed where they should be. I think having a proper endgame would remedy a lot of that, or at least it would for me.

[-Ryan]

Someone else said the same thing, but let me put it into a little more detail.

 

Theres the Round Robin. A single one. So everyone plays every team once, and then teams 1-6, 7-12, 13-18 get placed in brackets. Each team in those brackets play eachother once(5 days) and it will be decided by wins, not this stupid point stuff. Anyway, on the sixth day, the 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6 teams from each bracket play, and the winner gets the top spot.

That would be 24 days total, let you play everyone once, with a rematch against the best, and have a true winner.

[RigelB]

Finally, I want a comprehensive finals. I don't care what rounds come before it, but there needs to be a physical final game. This year, we were able to see the first place winner a mile away whereas previously, we didn't know at all until the next day (and we all know how late those results come out sometimes!). I love Kreludor, I've been rooting for them since I started playing and especially last year after LD's win, but they have the disadvantage of not having the awesome epic finishing touch like previous teams have been awarded. More people have finished disappointed this year, that their hard work and winning still hasn't helped their team placed where they should be. I think having a proper endgame would remedy a lot of that, or at least it would for me.

 

This! In enjoy having a final, deciding round than being able to tell a winner from the third round. This is why I enjoyed other systems like Single Elimination. I think the Single Round robin mentioned above would be one of the better systems.

[~Ğǿǿmy~]

I want my double round robin back :[ I loved round robin D:

[Azeruth]

I want my double round robin back :[ I loved round robin D:

I like the round robins as well, but the problem is it's just such a long event with a DRR, 34 days because we have so many teams, and I believe ACVI didn't have any break days in between which made it feel longer because we didn't get to relax for one day in between. That's why I like the SRR idea more, it's only 17 days and we all play everyone.

 

I like the bracket idea from MidnightSky, it would play into the new bracket system so no one would feel weird going back to a Round Robin and it would open it up to 6 teams instead of 4. As for adding the Practice Team and a Meepit Team it would be funny but 20 teams is way too many.

[Bubbleline]

As for adding the Practice Team and a Meepit Team it would be funny but 20 teams is way too many.

 

That's why they wouldn't be actual teams. Just teams that people who joined late went to so that they could play and earn rank points without skewing the real teams. They wouldn't go against any of the main teams. They'd be all on their own.

[Azeruth]

That's why they wouldn't be actual teams. Just teams that people who joined late went to so that they could play and earn rank points without skewing the real teams. They wouldn't go against any of the main teams. They'd be all on their own.

Oh I get what you mean now, I thought you wanted to add them to the actual Cup as contenders.

 

To my knowledge people who join late get stuck on a random team.

[AgJu]

I don't know about any of these. Random Teams would mean I don't get to play for TM and single-elimination would really hurt the already small teams. I mean, how likely would it be in, that format, for a team like Faerieland or Altador to go all the way? Or at least improve on their positions.

[ice cream man]

I like the ACI format since you would be able to play for more than one team and it can be controlled on how long it is.

[xtreme654]

Personally, I like the DRR format. I just liked the AC to last long, lol. It just gave me that feeling that teams can catch up, and teams who were in the 1st tier, can drop into the 2nd tier at any moment. Sure it was long, but it was exciting. Upsets were done here and there, and the cup was just unpredictable. But other than that, the single round robin is also a good idea :D

[Finn the Human]

Go Double Round Robin!

You will be remembered.

[Lady Lyuba]

The original Double Round Robin, but Single is fine too.

[rtr75]

Regardless of any changes, the main thing the AC needs is transparency. Outside of TNT, no one knows how anything is really calculated. They can manipulate it however they want and none of us are any the wiser. They need to make it clear how everything works, numbers tabulated, etc. I know there would have to be some scaling involved and such as some teams have a lot more players than others, but if they really want to get people excited and legitimize the event, it needs to be done.

[ashleagh]

I too miss the double round robin format, but if that was too long for most people then why not go with a single round robin with finals. At least every team would get the same opportunity, unlike this hokey system where you play one team four times and others not at all!!

[jonathanjoseph99]

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.

 

This is definitely what I want. I mean, this format would pretty much separate the "bad" teams with the "good" teams. So the AC will be more balanced. Aside from the random teams thing, I think this will do.

[Finn the Human]

I like the ACI format since you would be able to play for more than one team and it can be controlled on how long it is.

Me two because I mainly like Roo Island, Terror Mountain and Meridale. So I could play for maybe more than one.

[Desertfreak]

i like two

 

single round robbin 8/10 finals becuase i saw it and its almost like a one i did

 

and fixed bracket maybe 10 days for bracket witch means we face everyone twice per bracket and we need to face everyone

 

and i got a couple of ideas

 

LOST DESERT FOR THE CUP

[Aqua111]

I either would like to see a repaired Bracket system (the idea was good but they should never release something before they have thoroughly tested it), the eleminations of AC I or the good old Double Round Robins + Finals though those Cups always were a bit long.