Ladle 48

[sinewav]

try a test tournament of it first

I'd say this goes along with Mecca's thread. We all know even the smallest changes in Ladle are hard to make without much persuasion. However, I have always thought we should try out more ideas on other tournaments, like the International Challenge, or US vs EU, or any number of other Fort-related events. Also, changing from limit_score to limit_rounds is what we have in CTWF. Not a real popular tournament format.

[dariv]

Worst case scenario is the first 5 rounds, the opponent gains a score of 98-0.

How did you get that?

Its feasable for a team to take 6-7 rounds to get a score like that. And yes we are talking about stupidly hypothetical situations

Ok, it's feasible for a team to take a maximum of 16 rounds. So let's call max_rounds 33.

[apparition]

Maybe some of this could be forked/moved into a ladle voting discussion thread.

Number of rounds is only a problem when there's fewer than 6 players, because more points need to be scored by less players to reach the score limit. What's the point in dragging out matches like that? 10 is there for a good reason. Suiciding to win matches in the 10th round is like ganking the match, and no one argues about ganking anymore

[sinewav]

What's the point in dragging out matches like that?

You know, I've been considering this point and paying a lot of attention to it when in regular play. Here's what I've noticed:

Yes, you are correct that games with fewer than 6-each will take more rounds. But not many more rounds. I've noticed in casual Fortress play, a 4v4 match usually has scores in the 80's after 10 rounds (assuming no one is really screwing around too much). Realistically, the game is won in 11 or 12 matches. So we can ask ourselves, "how likely are we to see a 4v4 match in Ladle? Is 12 rounds with fewer players actually longer than 10 rounds with full teams? Is it considerably longer?" Personally, I think not. I imagine the rate of kills and zone captures is about the same, and the thing that decides long matches is conservative playing style.

And while your comment about team suicide in the 10th round is true, you're kind of missing the point. It's not the 10th round we are worried about, but the 8th and 9th of every match in every meet between teams. It's just a matter of time before all games with any significant score discrepancy will end with suicide. It's just not as fun.

Speaking of voting, I'm not sure we even need one. Just looking over this thread it seems like everyone is largely in favor of this transition. In a few days I'd like to have kyle add the "shout" and "round_limit" settings to the ladle.cfg -- if you guys want to back me up on that.

[apparition]

Voting discussion thread would be a better spot than Ladle 48 thread. And yes we do need a vote thread if a change is to be made, that's just protocol for this type of stuff.

I thought about it, and I'd like to hear opinions on these two reasons/issues with adding rounds: (1) to prevent "suicide ftw" and (2) to add to accommodate for matches with fewer than 6 people (6v6 matches just don't require more rounds). This seems to benefit the team that has to catch up in two ways: (1) more chances to even the score (obvious), and also adds more time to each match allowing for additional players to show up and join (not obvious).

I think "suicide ftw" is a legit strategy to prevent both scenarios. "Suicide ftw" is comparable to an intentional walk in baseball, intentionally downing the football, or running down the clock. I don't agree with adding rounds because it favors the losing team or the team with fewer players too heavily.

[sinewav]

...that's just protocol for this type of stuff.

Actually, it's not. If you haven't noticed, we abandoned voting long ago because people grew to hate it. I don't think it would do us any good in this case either, but if want a vote you should totally make a thread.

I thought about it, and I'd like to hear opinions on these two reasons/issues with adding rounds...

Yeah, I would like to hear more too. But it looks like over the past two threads (this one and L-47), everyone has said about everything they are going to it seems.

I think "suicide ftw" is a legit strategy to prevent both scenarios. "Suicide ftw" is comparable to an intentional walk in baseball, intentionally downing the football, or running down the clock. I don't agree with adding rounds because it favors the losing team or the team with fewer players too heavily.

First thing to remember is Fortess is not baseball or football and there is no necessary connection. (I personally think those strategies are lame in those sports too.) And This isn't about giving the losing team an advantage, this is about the winning team making the game less fun for everyone. We're not taking suicide out of the game. We're taking multiple, continuous team suicides out. There is something about it that screams lack of sportsmanship. Even your football analogy can't compare because you can't start "taking a knee" half way through the 4th quarter!

[apparition]

I guess I really didn't notice voting changed because it was only happening like every 3 months anyway. Did we have a vote to quit voting? Maybe people wouldn't hate it so much if we had a different medium for organizing the Ladle. I doubt a forum is the best way to organize a tournament. I don't really know though.

I don't need reminding that this is isn't a sport, but whatever you guys wanna do is fine. You do seem to be the unofficial Ladle Moderator these days, sine.wav

[sinewav]

Maybe people wouldn't hate it so much if we had a different medium for organizing the Ladle.

One day we might have a dedicated tournament website with specialty features. But really, this forum works fine for our size.

I'm going to ask kyle to add the following to ladle.cfg tomorrow after brackets:

Code: Select all

ACCESS_LEVEL_SHOUT 20
DEFAULT_SHOUT_SPECTATOR 0
ROUND_LIMIT 2020

I'll be available to help set up tomorrow, but I hope some other Ladle enthusiasts will be around to participate. Looks like only 15 teams. Crazy Tronners where are you!?

EDIT: We are missing SERVERS! Admins, please list your devices.

[Word]

I think we can host a few.


In the light of recent events...
my avatar got boring


(PLEASE, do not reply here).

[compguygene]

I had a recent money crunch and let my servers expire. Between the need to take more money out of my business than normal to grow things, and the fact that a tree limb did $5000 USD damage to our garage that is not going to be covered by insurance, and a few new clients that have been delaying me starting to provide them service I just got a check from a new client that means a another check each month. Part of this is going to pay for my dedicated server in Kansas, same one I had, and a new dedicated server in New York. These should be up, running, and fully tested by Friday.

[sinewav]

These should be up, running, and fully tested by Friday.

Ok good luck with that. We'll use them next month. We can't place servers in a bracket Thursday if they don't exist until Friday.

[compguygene]

I assumed that these wouldn't be around for this Ladle, unless I happen to have servers up for Thursday. It just kinda breaks my heart a little, because I have had at least one server in each Ladle for almost 3 years now . But, its nice to see that there are enough American server owners nowadays. When I started donating servers to Ladles there were many months that if I didn't donate a server or 2 we couldn't have had enough servers to have an equal amount of American and European servers. Thankfully, that is no longer the case.

[sinewav]

SERVER EMERGENCY! (all caps!, nice, eh?)

We are severely short of servers. The EU is missing ONE. PRU, can you cover it? Your server is the only active one not on the list.

The US is missing TWO. I can put up AoT servers in their place, but keep in mind, they will be running on the same machine. It's a totally awesome machine, but I think we all agree it's best to spread the game around a little bit. While I have great confidence the machine can handle it, any anomaly could affect 36 players instead of 12. Imagine the complaints...

If anyone has a US server, please add it to the list. Or, if you have a few dollars and want to rent one for Sunday, that would be awesome.

[Word]

yeah we can host two

and don't worry about the out-dated names/team leader config, I update it always 2 hours before the tournament starts so we don't have to change it whenever some mistake is fixed

[dlh]

I can host a US server, if you still require one.