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Final Round Conversation With BobSmack, Chief Technical Officer of Final Round LLC

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
PIG
regarding (1. Although shin approved it and have me the go ahead why didn't the pre reg thing happen? This is very easy to do. Two ways, pools 15+16 or allocate first two rounds of pools have have the non pre reg play each other first immediately first two rounds despite skill/location)



this is actually the first I heard about any of this - I don't know if there was a communication breakdown or what, but it was never brought to my attention. I didn't even know you guys had a bonus pot? I will tell you that the main reason why this would not have worked in our scenario was due to schedule conflicts - we had hundreds of people in multiple games on the same day, so any late comers would have had the potential for conflicts, and that's something we try first and foremost to avoid. plus, the pools needed to be even in number, else if 1-14 had 8 or 9 people and 15-16 had 16 each at the door, it wouldn't have been fair across the board, as 15-16 would have had to win more matches, work harder, etc. than everyone else, which could have caused more issues. we work very hard to ensure that scheduling conflicts do not happen, hence why a few people from Mike's original seeding might have been moved (if they were playing in multiple games). That's about all I have on point 1 - you might want to talk to Larry about it, he wondered why you didn't contact him directly.

i can say that the pools should have been intact from what mike did originally - if they weren't for some reason, that was an oversight.

after the redo, of course



PIG
regarding point #2 Who made KN merge pools and screw up seeding and pools even more than what they were?



I combined the pools, I take full responsibility for that action - the reasoning is similar to what I mentioned in point 1 - the times weren't changed, but we do have as an official rule on the website that all games are played in 16 man pools. The bracket math gets fucked up if you have less than 8 people in a pool, which was the case in injustice - you have people flipping in the bracket at the wrong times, which also further creates issues that people will complain about later (we've had it happen before). The thing is, normally when we do our seedings, we seed by top players and region only. I see now that you guys had EVERYTHING seeded, and that's not how any of the other games at FR were done. If the math was followed correctly (which I can't really speak to quite yet, I'll address that in #3), then it shouldn't have mattered that the pools were combined, b/c the players would have met at the same time that they normally should have, just in pools instead of out of pools. Even though we use pools, the rule for FR is that once you come out of pools, you are set up in the same way that you would have been set up had this been one big 128 man bracket, aside from the fact that you are constrained to the pools themselves. So technically, coming out of pools, the players *should* have met the same players they would have met if these were 8 man pools instead. But again, I'm getting to that in a sec...



PIG
Addressing #3. Was KN in charge of FR INJ? Or was shin or yourself? There was not ever a single bit of accountability when any issue arose .



Let me start this one by saying that I think Shock did a great job with what he had regarding the patch issues, the move of the equipment, etc. - the only one of the volunteers that I met outside of Shock was (I think) Kevin? (The dude wearing the black muscle shirt). I could tell that he was not only more than willing to go out of his way to do things right, but he was also super hype about it all. When I first caught wind of the complaints, I told one of the guys that I didn't care if they reseeded or did whatever as long as it didn't conflict with the time schedule, which, again, we HAD to uphold first and foremost, b/c I had 5 other games running at the same time and I didn't want anyone getting DQ'd b/c they were still in another game. That takes precedence above all, b/c we don't want anyone having a bad experience at FR because of this. We have a plan to address this type of thing in future years specifically because of this situation, provided your community will still want to participate. In the end, the FR staff (myself included) had to take more of a hands off approach and just let the volunteers (I don't know if they were affiliated with KN or not, they were just on my list) make the calls in hopes that it was representing what the community wanted. I personally checked in as often as I could, but I was in charge of running the Grand Ballroom where Marvel and Tekken were, so I didn't get the opportunity to come over as often as I would have liked, admittedly. But when I did, I got the impression that everything was running fine - no one addressed any particular complaint with me except for the pools running a little late at times, but that also didn't seem to be much of an issue since most of the people playing were either taking steps to let the other TO's know what was going on if they were in another game or were just in Injustice only.


Let me also say that I'm not "blaming" any of the volunteers - they had quite a bit of shit to work through, and I think they handled it well. We just should have been more involved.


PIG:
4. You may not know this but MANY players magically appeared in last pool for mk after pool were approved 30 secs before the tourney started for balance. In fact one player named "gross" was DQ'ed for being 2-3 hours late of his scheduled pool and magically re added back in after he talked w someone . How does this happen? Who is to say I can't sleep in and attend when I want and magically get added somewhere too .


Regarding #4, I have absolutely no idea - when I turned the pools over, that was pretty much it. If people were added late, it had to be one of the volunteers that did it unless Larry himself walked over and said it was OK. I will put the blame on someone for that, because if they were letting people in the brackets and not collecting money and then transferring the money for us, that's a problem - all entry fees that are put in to the pot (that $10 per player) and if it wasn't there, then FR is out $10 for each person this happened with. So I would like to know more about this one myself. I'm still processing all the results (should be done by this weekend), but if I see a name in a bracket that belongs to someone that isn't in my registration system, then we are going to have a problem, because nobody put money in my hand at the end of the night that said "this is for XXX"

all of this being said - we can't make up for any issues that the NRS community have brought forth, that's all done. All we can do in the future is better accommodate you guys and try to do the best that we can to learn from the mistakes that are made and make sure that they don't happen again. even before any of this was brought up, we were already discussing a new plan to handle tournaments that have a strong community presence (like yourselves and SC, for example) that will address your needs and make sure that everyone has the best experience possible. More details on that to come.



Thank you all for attending Final Round 17. The hype is real with the NRS community, that's for sure. We hope that you will continue attending future events and that we can work together to make sure that everyone has the best experience possible! Kyah "BobSmack" Hicks Chief Technical Officer, Final Round, LLC.
Chat Conversation End


@STORMS @Shock @GGA 16 Bit @CrimsonShadow @Mikemetroid
 
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Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
Added Question 4 which i accidently left out

Makes more sense now as to what he's referring to
 
My personal opinion is that Shock worked his butt off this tournament and the stream station was awesome.

But on a sad note I am strongly thinking about not returning to Final Round next year. The drive is super long and I would have liked more leadership from the TO.
 

Gesture Required Ahead

Get on that hook
I guess the 'door regs play each other' thing wasn't thought out enough. Honestly though, how WOULD you do something like that when you're uncertain of the numbers of door reg.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
I guess the 'door regs play each other' thing wasn't thought out enough. Honestly though, how WOULD you do something like that when you're uncertain of the numbers of door reg.
Allocate pools 15/16 as all at the door registrations

So in other words any that sign up at the door all get Put into 15/16

Or

Cap tourney and keep rounds 1-2 open in every pool and spread at door registrants out within the rounds to play each other
 

Gesture Required Ahead

Get on that hook
Allocate pools 15/16 as all at the door registrations

So in other words any that sign up at the door all get Put into 15/16

Or

Cap tourney and keep rounds 1-2 open in every pool and spread at door registrants out within the rounds to play each other
Yes but what if there's not enough door regs to fill up pools 15/16 or, like in FR's case, have too many?

The second one I think is good.
 

haketh

Noob
One thing I'm curious about, was any of this brought up to Larry during the event? id anyone actually talk to him about problems during FR or just wait till after the event was over?
 

Rude

You will serve me in The Netherrealm
My question: Why does the NRS community have such problems when other communities seem to be able to work this stuff out? Is it because we're a younger "scene?"
 

Mikemetroid

Who hired this guy, WTF?
Allocate pools 15/16 as all at the door registrations

So in other words any that sign up at the door all get Put into 15/16

Or

Cap tourney and keep rounds 1-2 open in every pool and spread at door registrants out within the rounds to play each other
@P2W brought up this concern to me

But what if there was only 10 late reg for the game?

What if we had like maybe two killers and two free ass pools?


The real answer is pre reg only

No door registration
That's never gonna happen lol
 

Pnut

Mouth of the Illuminati
It's a shame that my first FGC major was probably the one with the most problems to date. I don't know how other majors work except for MLG (I used to play Starcraft), but this won't discourage me from traveling. I hope to go to UFGT, CEO, and EVO to see what happens at "top tier" majors. Because despite all of the issues, I still had a tremendous time meeting everyone I've been watching on stream for months. I have no beefs with anyone over how the tournament was run, but hopefully we can improve a little next time.
 

Vagrant

Noob
One of the reasons I attended this tournament was because it was told to me that they would add all the late reg players to their own pool.

I got there and it turned out to be just a flat out lie.

I won't spend money to attend this event again.

And shoutouts to all the players who know pre regging makes stuff easier, have a chance to do so, and just don't give a fuck and late reg anyway.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
My question: Why does the NRS community have such problems when other communities seem to be able to work this stuff out? Is it because we're a younger "scene?"
You apparently are not in touch w what's happening right now on twitter from ae scene from FR
 
Why? Does at Evo

Let me guess.....hotels ? Money?
How It Should Be: A perk of Pre-Registration be that you're guranteed a spot in the bracket. Coming in at the door has limited spots. Thus incentive. Those who can't fit into the bracket took that risk and they KNOWINGLY went into this agreement. Doesn't mean you have to leave, you can stay, enjoy the hype, play casuals and all that. However you go willing to take the risk. Then lets say not enough people are there to make the brackets even, insert those few people evenly around the pools. I mean if College Basketball can toss in 4 extra teams into a 64 man bracket to make it 68. I'm sure we can do it with individuals. As far as brackets being uneven and having to play more rounds. Once again that should be a slight/penalty for not pre-registering.