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EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

 
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Level Playing Field
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Kokujin Shintar
Caldari Manufacturing and Design
#1 - 2014-08-15 17:00:35 UTC
TL;DR Level the playing field by having the tournament in a location with a seeded market with all items having negligible costs (including limited edition ships).

I'll start this by saying that I don't play in the tournament nor do I know anyone in the tournament. However, it is billed as a competitive arena to showcase pilot skill and allow alliances to determine who is number one. With that said, there are two barriers preventing an even playing field for all participants. The first and most minor is cost. Not all alliances have equivalent budgets and therefore cannot afford to compete at the same level in some cases. The other barrier is access. Certain alliances have access to ships that no one else does (such as the Raven State Issue). This creates another imbalance between participants that ignores player skill.

Therefore, my first suggestion is to place both teams in a match in separate stations. Each station will have a fully seeded market that includes every possible mod, ship, implant, etc. that is legal for the tournament. This would include all legal limited edition ships. All items would be free in these stations or have a negligible price if free is not an option. This would remove access and money as factors and leave skill as the sole factor on match victories. The down side of this option is there is no risk of loss outside of the entrance fee.

The second option I can see is to just ban all limited edition ships. This would remove access as a factor on determining match outcomes, but retains wallet size as a factor and keeps risk of loss in the tournament.

I am not expecting anything to be done for ATXII, however, I think these changes need to be considered if pilot skill is to be the only determining factor on the match outcomes.
Forlorn Wongraven
Habitual Euthanasia
Pandemic Legion
#2 - 2014-08-15 17:21:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Forlorn Wongraven
Kokujin Shintar wrote:
I think these changes need to be considered if pilot skill is to be the only determining factor on the match outcomes.

What makes you think is has not been the case besides understanding the meta?

Winner ATXI , 3rd place ATXII, winner ATXIII, 2nd ATXIV - follow me on twitter: @ForlornW
Faife
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#3 - 2014-08-15 17:28:37 UTC
Forlorn Wongraven wrote:
Kokujin Shintar wrote:
I think these changes need to be considered if pilot skill is to be the only determining factor on the match outcomes.

What makes you think is has not been the case besides understanding the meta?


The fact that I can't afford a malice?
Forlorn Wongraven
Habitual Euthanasia
Pandemic Legion
#4 - 2014-08-15 17:35:35 UTC
Quoting myself:

Tournament ships are no match winners. Fortunately. Both Pandemic Legion and HYDRA RELOADED fielded tournament ships in ATXI along with several other former winners and richer teams as well. Over the four final matches there was exactly one tournament ship used, an Adrestia. And the team that fielded it, lost the match. None were used in semi-finals of the loser brackets. Three were used in the semi finals of the winner bracket, although two died in the process. When you look at the matches it shows you that the tournament ships could have been easily replaced with standard ships with similar results.

Winner ATXI , 3rd place ATXII, winner ATXIII, 2nd ATXIV - follow me on twitter: @ForlornW
Gesadt
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#5 - 2014-08-15 17:58:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Gesadt
look its been said again and again, cost is not a prohibiter or at least not the extend people perceive it to be. its the preparation (practice) required, to be competitive. i find hard to believe that any sort of alliance could not make 20-30bil within 3-4 months since tournament announcement. and as pointed out above historically pimp ships rarely if ever have been a deciding factor.

now if there was some sort of tourney format league, year round, then yea i would agree.
Tyrus Tenebros
State War Academy
Caldari State
#6 - 2014-08-15 18:08:34 UTC
the Alliance Tournament is a test of the "best" alliance, which includes logistical and ISK backing prowess in addition to pilot skill. It's sensical for financial backing to have some say here, as well as the potential to influence market (i.e. potentially require you to have the industrial capability to manufacture the ships in order to fly them if the market is sufficiently manipulated, or to manipulate the market yourself). All of these things are part of "being an alliance" in eve and thus are tacitly acceptable as part of the Alliance Tournament format. (to me, at least).



For other tournament formats, it is possible to make an argument for this to be the case, but frankly I don't see much need. the player run Syndicate Competitive League did this and did not change outcomes much. A continual league play style, writ large, may almost require this, dependent on number of matches played and time requirements outside of league weekends, but the reduction to 8 ships in most of these formats lowers costs substantially already.

Quote:
I'll start this by saying that I don't play in the tournament nor do I know anyone in the tournament

well. There's your problem right there.

Outside of the buyin cost:
a 30bn ISK wallet can easily get you through even a deep run in the tournament, it's no big deal to produce 30bn on command from most alliances that want to dedicate a tournament team. You won't have an officer fit flagship or tournament ships, but neither of these have been shown to have a significant impact on the outcome of a match.

10bn will buy you a couple of weekends of fully independent setups and the potential to reuse and recombine the ship hulls in creative ways. ditching selected implants and cutting corners on a couple of meta level items (scram, web, for example) will cut costs without seriously impacting flying ability.

5bn is enough to finance a minimal set of ships to produce ban-avoidance substitutes and sufficient ship variation to not duplicate your setup every match. This could screw you later in the tournament but one hopes that being a cinderella story may produce investors between weekend 2 and 3, as has been seen in the past (Fearless., and No Boundaries come to mind as public financed teams, and NEO1's Much Crying Old Experts garnered community donations from FHC as well).


PLEX bounty per win would help this as well, but at least the prize structure is moving in the right direction :)




TL;DR it's not a big deal for most competitive teams and I don't think "ISK" is the issue in most losses. Theorycrafting is a much better culprit to blame. There are very cheap and effective setups out there, and many of the people who lose the worst are not ISK poor but pilot-poor, fielding 6-7 pirate/faction BS instead of 11-12 mixed ships.
Kokujin Shintar
Caldari Manufacturing and Design
#7 - 2014-08-15 18:21:25 UTC
I'll concede that isk isn't much of a big deal for alliances when you factor in the cost to just enter. However, I believe access to limited edition ships does have an impact. PL and Hydra both used limited edition ships that their opponents did not have access to in previous rounds and both made the finals. Would they have still made the finals if they didn't use limited edition ships? Possibly, but we will never know for sure. Therefore, if you insist on having cost stay, I would ban all limited edition ships from tournament play in order maintain a level field.
Tyrus Tenebros
State War Academy
Caldari State
#8 - 2014-08-15 18:39:22 UTC
we won't know the hell of limited edition ships until next year.

Woe be unto those who face the wrath of GILAFALCON and CROWORM. Them ***** are insane.
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#9 - 2014-08-15 19:25:40 UTC
Tyrus Tenebros wrote:
we won't know the hell of limited edition ships until next year.

Woe be unto those who face the wrath of GILAFALCON and CROWORM. Them ***** are insane.

I lol'd. But seriously, them **** are insane.

Talking more,

Flying crazier,

And drinking more

Making battleships worth the warp
Sainsbury
Boars on Parade
The Tuskers Co.
#10 - 2014-08-15 20:44:34 UTC
drones are currently strong as hell, so wouldn't worry about next year... they'll have been nerfed into the ground by then.
Robbie Robot
Exiled Kings
Pain And Compliance
#11 - 2014-08-15 21:07:36 UTC
Kokujin Shintar wrote:
TL;DR Level the playing field by having the tournament in a location with a seeded market with all items having negligible costs (including limited edition ships).

I'll start this by saying that I don't play in the tournament nor do I know anyone in the tournament. However, it is billed as a competitive arena to showcase pilot skill and allow alliances to determine who is number one. With that said, there are two barriers preventing an even playing field for all participants. The first and most minor is cost. Not all alliances have equivalent budgets and therefore cannot afford to compete at the same level in some cases. The other barrier is access. Certain alliances have access to ships that no one else does (such as the Raven State Issue). This creates another imbalance between participants that ignores player skill.

Therefore, my first suggestion is to place both teams in a match in separate stations. Each station will have a fully seeded market that includes every possible mod, ship, implant, etc. that is legal for the tournament. This would include all legal limited edition ships. All items would be free in these stations or have a negligible price if free is not an option. This would remove access and money as factors and leave skill as the sole factor on match victories. The down side of this option is there is no risk of loss outside of the entrance fee.

The second option I can see is to just ban all limited edition ships. This would remove access as a factor on determining match outcomes, but retains wallet size as a factor and keeps risk of loss in the tournament.

I am not expecting anything to be done for ATXII, however, I think these changes need to be considered if pilot skill is to be the only determining factor on the match outcomes.

You would also have to suggest having all pilots in the tournament get temporary gifted all skills to level 5 then. Then it would be simply skill at fleet composition, and pilot ability to fly said ships. But it isn't. Skill Points also play a role, and probably a bigger role than whether an alliance can secure a few really rare ships. A bulk of the ships used in the tournament aren't terribly expensive (less than 600M per hull). CCP has already addressed this issue by limiting the modules and rigs one can put on the ship.