Timing Opinions on 2/3 vs. 3/5

[CrimsonShadow]

So we've had a few tournaments exploring both at this point, and we should have enough data for some honest feedback. Note: his thread is specifically to discuss one aspect of the set length -- the timing. No other issues, emotional, game-related or otherwise; just the sheer amount of time it takes to run 2/3 vs. 3/5.

Mikemetroid SweetJohnnyCage Shock AK Pig Of The Hut AK Reno_Racks Cat BigE TenZeRo7 and anyone else who's experimented with the format or run an IGAU tournament bracket this year, I'd like to hear from you guys on what you think about the time constraints of one format vs. the other.

Mikemetroid RapZiLLa54, I know you guys ended super late at Infinite Crisis -- but I'm assuming you started late as well. Also round robin has it's own time considerations. But, I'd like to get your views nontheless.

We've had IGAU at a lot of majors run late this year, which was also par for the course in MK. But a lot of that is also due to preparation and logistical issues; so I feel like the set format is actually affected by how well TO's can stick to running a tournament on time in the first place. If you have issues getting everyone registered and running 2/3 to top 8 on time, then clearly 3/5 isn't the best idea.

Sabin CurlyW Want to get your opinions as well.

But anyway -- I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts.

 

[Mikemetroid]

Round Robin 3/5 was nice. (I actually wasn't staff at the event, just provided my console and helped set up stuff). SwiftTomHanks


3/5 is only good though for the smaller groups.

3/5 with a hundred man tournament double elim would take a helluva long time.

 

[Relaxedstate]

It is absolutely possible if the tournament can start on time and run smoothly.

I honestly think that the next 2 pools should start during the end of last 2. This avoids a bottle neck effect, which always happens because winners/losers finals of pools need to be streamed and everyone is just waiting around while like 5 consoles sit idle.

 

[Zyphox]

Round Robin 3/5 was nice. (I actually wasn't staff at the event, just provided my console and helped set up stuff). SwiftTomHanks


3/5 is only good though for the smaller groups.

3/5 with a hundred man tournament double elim would take a helluva long time.

i disagree, if started on time 3/5 would run smoothly, even at SJ the damn thing started @ 5pm and had soooo many issues with brackets. if you can start a 200 man Major at the latest 1pm for pools and play until only pools are done and save top 32 for next day then you would have ample time to make 3/5 major work, the problem is the brackets take way too long to make, and it takes way to long to start a new pool. if everyone can work that kink out am sure 3/5 double elimination will be the future for injustice and i wish TFC was doing it like that.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

i disagree, if started on time 3/5 would run smoothly, even at SJ the damn thing started @ 5pm and had soooo many issues with brackets.

I feel like these things are habitual at large East Coast IGAU/MK tournaments -- it seems to happen more often than not. Registration issues, bracket issues, stream issues etc. I agree 100% that we have to solve these problems just to open up enough breathing room to have a choice on this issue.

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

3/5

 

[RapZiLLa54]

We ran 175 sets of 3/5 in 4.5 hours on 6 setups. It depends on how many setups, the # of people per bracket and the # of brackets.

3/5 if timed out and went to game 5 would take 7.5 minutes total so in almost every case it will be faster than 7.5 minutes.

2/5 if timed out and went to game 3 would take 4.5 minutes total so in almost every case it will be faster than 4.5 minutes.

So theres a potential 3 minute difference per set. So it definitely will cut down the time by about 40%. If we would have ran 2/3 sets we would have finished Infinite Crisis in around 2.7 hours potentially.

 

[Zyphox]

We ran 175 sets of 3/5 in 4.5 hours on 6 setups. It depends on how many setups, the # of people per bracket and the # of brackets.

3/5 if timed out and went to game 5 would take 7.5 minutes total so in almost every case it will be faster than 7.5 minutes.

2/5 if timed out and went to game 3 would take 4.5 minutes total so in almost every case it will be faster than 4.5 minutes.

So theres a potential 3 minute different per set. So it definitely will cut down the time by about 40%. If we would have ran 2/3 sets we would have finished Infinite Crisis in around 2.7 hours potentially.

which would have sucked...... i liked playing 3/5.

 

[RapZiLLa54]

which would have sucked...... i liked playing 3/5.

I agree. A big thing SwiftTomHanks are trying to do and will continue to do is ensure everyone gets more bang for their buck and we will always run 3/5.

Shit, I believe with the right amount of setups we can achieve an 80 entrants round robin in the same 4.5 time span. But I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

As for bracket issues, I feel like the online registration should already have you prepared for the brackets in some capacity. These people paid, they are most likely coming and if you know your scene you should have a pretty good idea who most players are and at the very least which state so you can separate by state.

With infinite crisis, a big reason we wanted all the confirmations ahead of time was because we wanted to have a mock bracket going into the tournament. Started with separating all sparring partners and groups, then got into balancing the brackets. So when registration was finished we already had our excel file done, then plug and played with the people who didn't come and the new players who didn't already confirm. It took us literally 5-10 minutes to have the pools posted.

 

[Zyphox]

I agree. A big thing SwiftTomHanks are trying to do and will continue to do is ensure everyone gets more bang for their buck and we will always run 3/5.

Shit, I believe with the right amount of setups we can achieve an 80 entrants round robin in the same 4.5 time span. But I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

As for bracket issues, I feel like the online registration should already have you prepared for the brackets in some capacity. These people paid, they are most likely coming and if you know your scene you should have a pretty good idea who most players are but atleast you'll which state so you can separate by state.

With infinite crisis, a big reason we wanted all the confirmations ahead of time was because we wanted to have a mock bracket going into the tournament. Started with separating all sparring partners and groups, then got into balancing the brackets. So when registration was finished we already had our excel file done, then plug and played with the people who didn't come and the new players who didn't already confirm. It took us literally 5-10 minutes to have the pools posted.

it should be like that always IMO, thank you guys again for running a great tournament. hopefully TFC will be better than SJ in terms of starting time and how well the pools run.

 

[funkdoc]

crimsonshadow is right about east coast majors, they've long had a history of lateness etc.

one thing that stands out about a lot of those tourneys is that they don't do a whole lot to discourage last-minute signups, whereas UFGT jacks the price waaaaay up and does whatever else it can to punish them. and of course, Evo just doesn't allow them period.

another general issue that i think could be part of this is the way a lot of EC tourneys just let the game's own community run the brackets and everything else for their game. imo that is one of the main things about our scene that absolutely *has* to go - the other tournaments i mentioned have their own staff who oversees all of that, and i think that makes things better-organized (in addition to reducing the potential for bracket shenanigans!)

also: not too sure about this, but i remember some of the EC majors running larger pools than others. if this is the case that's another issue; i think the 16-player pools a la Evo/UFGT should absolutely be the standard for all majors, as that means fewer people standing around and potentially leaving when you need them.

if marvel can run 3/5 for entire tourneys with hundreds of people, i see absolutely no reason why injustice couldn't do the same with their smaller numbers as long as the people in charge don't fuck up. i really think a lot of it just comes down to this community getting past the growing pains that come with being newer to major tournaments, and setting the bar higher for themselves!

 

[Shock]

The reason why round robin works is because there's never a bottle neck in playing matches. However many setups you have, they can all be used at once. During double elimination there's a point where you can't run more than 4 matches, or 2 matches, or 1 match at a time and this slows the progress down more and more over time. This is why the 2 station, 4 pool method works that Big E has been using for a while. IMO, that's sort of like running 2 large pools that represent the entire tournament which are broken up into independent chunks and it prevents downtime on the stations later in the brackets.

Most of the reason EC majors have run late is because of late registration and bracket completion or unforeseen delays. At Summer Jam I wanted to start the tournament at 4:30, it didn't start until almost 6:30 and finished at 1:30. Finishing at 11:30 would have been perfectly fine, but we still couldn't have run 3/5.

At NEC late brackets and the issue with 16-bit's pool held it back a couple hours. There were some reports of unused stations but I don't know if that was because they weren't just being used, or players were unaware of the bottleneck effect.

 

[SwiftTomHanks]

This game needs to be 3/5; like marvel some matches can be over before you know it due to 50/50 scenarios and some intractables. Having that extra match gives both players a more legit chance to get a truly satisfying win.

RapZiLLa54 and I ran through 175 sets within 4 hours, each set being 3/5, it can be done!

Bigger tournaments need bigger staff; and staff need to be payed. Just like when buying anything, you normally get what you pay for. Would Rapzilla and I do that crazy shit we pulled this weekend for free...hell no. Staff also shouldn't be entering the tournament what so ever; when they lose they get salty and their performance running the event goes to shit. That's a chief reason Rapzilla and I won't enter our own events.

So in closing, you can and should do 3/5 for this game. But to do so you need good staff who are not also players, and you need to treat them well.

 

[Mikemetroid]

SwiftTomHanks good thing I can deal with not playing Injustice anymore.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Shock SwiftTomHanks -- what do you guys think about the issue of major multi-hour delays at the start of big (often East Coast) tournaments? It seems like sorting through that is key to working through this issue.

 

[Mikemetroid]

Shock SwiftTomHanks -- what do you guys think about the issue of major multi-hour delays at the start of big (often East Coast) tournaments? It seems like sorting through that is key to working through this issue.

People need to pre-reg. Thats ONE of the huge issues.

 

[Zoidberg747]

One big issue with timing is button checks. People seem to take almost 10 minutes on them and that slows things down quite a bit. At my local a few weeks ago it was a 30 man double elim., and it took about 3-4 hours with 3-4 setups running 3/5.

If we could make it a standard to change buttons during the start animations, then we wouldnt have a problem. There is no need for a button check and you can go straight into a match.

Less button checks=more time=easier to run 3/5

 

[SwiftTomHanks]

Shock SwiftTomHanks -- what do you guys think about the issue of major multi-hour delays at the start of big (often East Coast) tournaments? It seems like sorting through that is key to working through this issue.

Just to clear this up first, infinite crisis ran 100% on time. We planned on closing injustice sign ups at 8pm since we wanted to get other events such as mk in first.

IMO, the reason a lot of majors start late is due to poor communication. The cut off time of registration seems to the paramount issue; the people who run NRS games have no idea when the tournament is cutting off at door registration, thus a ton of time is lossed when people are running all over the place asking where the registration list is and what time can we start making the brackets. The best way to fix this is probably only allow pre-registration players to enter tournaments. If you wish to have at door people then the best option is to give more control to the individual communities running the event. For instance, when people sign up for injustice they come to us, and we also get to post the cut off time. It cuts the middle man, and saves hours of wasted time trying to communicate in a moving hotel swarm of thousands of bodies.

That all said, I'd like to also say I haven't helped run a major event for almost a year and things may have changed. For now I'm working with Rapzilla and Shock to experiment with the best ways to run events at a local level, and so far it's worked great.

 

[YOMI Reno_Racks]

I'll time our upcoming AKA this Friday with the 2/3 format and time 3/5 tourney next week on the same amount of setups. I'll post the results and my thoughts in this thread afterwards.

I do think 3/5 is better for this game and as long as the tournament is organized correctly and adequate amounts of setups are being used, there should be no reason we can't have 3/5 tourneys.

Good thread btw Crimson. We need more positive, productive threads on this site.

 

[Shock]

Just to clear this up first, infinite crisis ran 100% on time. We planned on closing injustice sign ups at 8pm since we wanted to get other events such as mk in first.

IMO, the reason a lot of majors start late is due to poor communication. The cut off time of registration seems to the paramount issue; the people who run NRS games have no idea when the tournament is cutting off at door registration, thus a ton of time is lossed when people are running all over the place asking where the registration list is and what time can we start making the brackets. The best way to fix this is probably only allow pre-registration players to enter tournaments. If you wish to have at door people then the best option is to give more control to the individual communities running the event. For instance, when people sign up for injustice they come to us, and we also get to post the cut off time. It cuts the middle man, and saves hours of wasted time trying to communicate in a moving hotel swarm of thousands of bodies.

That all said, I'd like to also say I haven't helped run a major event for almost a year and things may have changed. For now I'm working with Rapzilla and Shock to experiment with the best ways to run events at a local level, and so far it's worked great.

Our tournaments ran on time when we took all the sign ups ourselves and there was no prereg at all. It was simply a matter of "OK there are a ton of people here playing, time to stop casuals and take signups." and that pretty much always worked. I mean we could even start making the brackets to some extent while reg was being taken.

The reason for this is because we visually confirmed every single sign up, and people aren't waiting in line for extensive amounts of time because it's literally like, "Here's my $10, this is my name." By sight confirming players, we know who is there and who isn't. A huge example of prereg failing was at ECT3. We ran MK9 with 5 setups, and 140+ people on the list. About 50 of those players got DQ'd because they either didn't show to play, or weren't there at all. The only reason we don't do this anymore is because of prereg itself, and we can't not have prereg. We took sign ups (including money) one, maybe two times when prereg existed and Big E was not thrilled but things were fine because we appropriated the money responsibly and there was no discrepancy in the payout.

We verified venue and prereg by checking their receipts and if they didn't have a receipt they had to get a wrist band before we could enter them in the tournament. At one of those events, another game took reg when there was a prereg and their payout numbers were off. Because of this, all games were then made prereg and at the desk sign up only. This removes the responsibility from the players running the brackets and that's fine.

Side games are an entirely different matter but even at Summer Jam, they took sign ups for UMK3 and MKII at the desk.

Swift Tom Hanks and Rapzilla's event at the KN Arena was a pure example of picture perfect planning and a "masterpiece of meticulous exactitude." My only critique is I would have run the event about 2 hours earlier, but using the same time tables, ie: 2PM to 6PM casuals, 4:30PM t 5:30PM registration, 6PM start time. This would have ended the tournament around 10PM. We should probably strive for this at the next event. It also helped that I had the stream ready to go the night before so it was simply a matter of turning it on. Twitch's server issues were the only problem.

Side note, something great about round robin is that it's almost like playing all-in casuals. You have way more of a chance to get to play against people you might not normally have a chance to play against. We use to do round robins back in the day for 2D games when the turnouts were single digits. We did some 9 player round robins on one cabinet at 8 on the Break back in the day. I think I still have those charts or pics on my comp somewhere.

 

[BlaqandMild15]

One big issue with timing is button checks. People seem to take almost 10 minutes on them and that slows things down quite a bit. At my local a few weeks ago it was a 30 man double elim., and it took about 3-4 hours with 3-4 setups running 3/5.

If we could make it a standard to change buttons during the start animations, then we wouldnt have a problem. There is no need for a button check and you can go straight into a match.

Less button checks=more time=easier to run 3/5

To add on to that I think that if someone is gonna change the controller presets then they shouldn't change them on custom 1 which should be default. For example I play on default presets and when I face someone who doesn't, they shouldn't use custom 1 to change the controls because it forces me to go into another custom preset to change my controls. I remember having to start over an entire match twice because of the controller presets. That would have been avoided if he didn't change custom 1 presets. We did do button check afterwards but it just so happened that we missed that one button that we kept trying to use in the match.

 

[Shock]

Ah yes presets and button checks. I've never experienced a button check last more than a minute or so if it wasn't on the stream and even then, maybe a couple minutes. It is annoying, but you have to do them.

As for presets, I agree, preset 1 should remain default but it's impossible to enforce.

Side note:

Found an old 11 player, hand drawn Round Robin bracket for a UMK3 tournament at the Break, from 2007
http://www.ultimatemk.com/tempmatt/brackets.jpg

 

[RapZiLLa54]

Swift Tom Hanks and Rapzilla's event at the KN Arena was a pure example of picture perfect planning and a "masterpiece of meticulous exactitude." My only critique is I would have run the event about 2 hours earlier, but using the same time tables, ie: 2PM to 6PM casuals, 4:30PM t 5:30PM registration, 6PM start time. This would have ended the tournament around 10PM. We should probably strive for this at the next event. It also helped that I had the stream ready to go the night before so it was simply a matter of turning it on. Twitch's server issues were the only problem.

My only concern with it starting at 6pm is that on Saturday you either have people working till 2pm or 5pm so that rules out almost everyone in the PA, NY area as they wouldn't get there till around 7-730. We're going to add a 7th setup since nobody touched the 2 MK setups during Injustice so that will cut down the time by almost an hour. As much as I'd love to start the tournament at 6, we had Reo, Cdjr, Arma, and frantastic show up between 730-8.
Although the beauty of round robin is there's no restriction on who plays who when so it is possible to just run their matches when they get there while getting all the others in.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Sabin]

I'm torn on it.
As a player, of course I would love 3/5 absolutely. The more matches the better. There have been plenty of times where I got blown up 2-0 (or vice versa) because this game has 1 long lifebar.

As a streamer, it makes me pause a bit and hesitate. 3/5 can either be really fast, or super slow (like Wonder Woman vs Black Adam matches from CDjr/Rico). Combined with the button check issues on PS3 etc..it makes for a long time in general.

I think the only way that 3/5 can work is if everyone coordinates well to work with the tourney/streamer. show up on time, play matches when scheduled etc. But we all know how that goes.

It's the final community's call on this, but like I said, 3/5 for large scale tourneys (100+ people) is TOUGH, and WILL overrun unless the logistics are right on all points in the chain of a tourney. Just some food for though.