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EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

 
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Silent Auction/random draw system is dumb
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Kaleesa
Pathogen Inc.
#1 - 2016-07-29 17:11:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Kaleesa
CCP, please fix this for next year... If you have to, increase the team limit to 80 or something... but having 8 teams buy in with over 80 plex (one paying over 200 plex) is just ridiculous. We should all have the ability to get into the tournament without having to rely on the luck of the draw or breaking the bank.

I have been a member of an Alliance tournament team (different teams) for the past 5 years... and now our team cannot compete simply due to this crazy system....

Find a new way next year please, getting in should NEVER have anything to do with how much isk you have.
Kaleesa
Pathogen Inc.
#2 - 2016-07-29 17:11:53 UTC
and before anyone says so, yes I am salty.
SoulLess Zealot
Khaedra's Law
#3 - 2016-07-29 17:33:58 UTC
The problem is the time constraint. with what it takes to put on the tournament there is only so much room. If you truly want to see a larger investment from ccp, then you need to show them that it is in their best interest( from a company standpoint) to put more effort and support into tournaments. One way this could be done is just by tuning to watch player run tourneys like eve NT., or you could always host a small one of your design through the forums and other mediums.
GROUND XERO
The Legion of Spoon
Curatores Veritatis Alliance
#4 - 2016-07-29 17:44:23 UTC
Kaleesa wrote:
and before anyone says so, yes I am salty.



postet this somewhere else even before copy it to to join the salty side:_(



#14
- 2016-07-27 09:12:11 UTC |
Yeah!.... it is luck to get through the draw amd it sucks of course not to have this luck! Shocked But it sucks even more to try to get into it via secret auction... because it will prefer only the rich guys Oops !!! As the most important event in this game (at least it has been from my point of view!). Something should be changed! I think last year you didn´t get in when you didn´t drop in more than 50 plexes ....( this year 79 :_) )

Pls:
Take something like numbers during a period of time: Top shipkills, top solo kills, top points try to find some way to calculate an avarage ... or what ever numbers pvp related you like and those who are under the top 64 will get a place! So those guys who bring the content will be in there!

NCPL (Necromonger of new Eden) will make EVE great again!
Kaleesa
Pathogen Inc.
#5 - 2016-07-29 17:50:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Kaleesa
SoulLess Zealot wrote:
The problem is the time constraint. with what it takes to put on the tournament there is only so much room. If you truly want to see a larger investment from ccp, then you need to show them that it is in their best interest( from a company standpoint) to put more effort and support into tournaments. One way this could be done is just by tuning to watch player run tourneys like eve NT., or you could always host a small one of your design through the forums and other mediums.


I kinda disagree here, there are options to allow for everyone to participate with a relatively small increase in time/effot....

One way would be to allow all team into the tourney and then have quick single loss knockout prelim matches (unbroadcasted, minimal staff) to whittle the number of team down to say 64... but this way at least each team has a shot.

Other options are filtering applicants by pvp stats gathered in some form (zkill or other) and ranking them to allow the top teams priority entry.

I could go on, but all the options are better than the current system.
Teddy KGB
Red Warming
3200.
#6 - 2016-07-29 18:03:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Teddy KGB
i gave up speaking to ccp.. last AT13 i was pirate streaming it.. damn it was so boring. all team - same ships same rapid rockets. after 10 matches i didn't know what to say, but "here we have typhoon navy again on left side and.. typhoon navy on the right.." and both teams have bombers. but it seems to me that ccp do not worry about it. 950 plex in auction. that was the main goal of AT14 for ccp i guess.
Teddy KGB
Red Warming
3200.
#7 - 2016-07-29 18:09:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Teddy KGB
SoulLess Zealot wrote:
The problem is the time constraint. with what it takes to put on the tournament there is only so much room. If you truly want to see a larger investment from ccp, then you need to show them that it is in their best interest( from a company standpoint) to put more effort and support into tournaments. One way this could be done is just by tuning to watch player run tourneys like eve NT., or you could always host a small one of your design through the forums and other mediums.

online players number is back to 2007-2008 and only God knows how many alts they have now and that time. i think it's time to do something aside from looking new ways to make people with money donate for plex...
SoulLess Zealot
Khaedra's Law
#8 - 2016-07-29 18:21:05 UTC
Well i get it its not like i would put up 400 bucks to compete. But at the same time if it was my job to put this on .. In my iwn time on multiple weekends i may have a problem with it... The thing is player numbers are clearly down , and from a company stand point there unsure of toutnaments as a valuble investment to grownthe base again... Prove them wrong
Darek Castigatus
Immortalis Inc.
Shadow Cartel
#9 - 2016-07-29 21:42:11 UTC
Teddy KGB wrote:
i gave up speaking to ccp.. last AT13 i was pirate streaming it.. damn it was so boring. all team - same ships same rapid rockets. after 10 matches i didn't know what to say, but "here we have typhoon navy again on left side and.. typhoon navy on the right.." and both teams have bombers. but it seems to me that ccp do not worry about it. 950 plex in auction. that was the main goal of AT14 for ccp i guess.


Thats the case for every AT, each one has its own meta that generally applies over the course of the tournament. From sentries through bomb/rush to last years more kite/rapids based meta, its something you just have to accept. Having a single ruleset means that theres going to be a most likely optimal setup that gets a lot of use, its how eve works.

Pirates - The Invisible Fist of Darwin

you're welcome
Torgeir Hekard
I MYSELF AND ME
#10 - 2016-07-30 05:45:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Torgeir Hekard
It's dumb but the alternative is to either increase the number of slots to accomodate all teams or to decrease the number of willing participants. First one is probably something CCP does not want to. Because business.

Second one is probably reasonable.

I mean okay, we have the lowest bid of 80 PLEX this year. A team is at least 10 ppl. In reality - probably around 20. So that's 4 PLEX per team member and voila - you're in. Which is an entirely reasonable sum. E.g. there are pretty regular threads on reddit on players wealth, and the general consensus is that a several year old character (which you pretty much have to be to reasonably compete in AT) has an accumulated wealth of 50B+ in various assets. Of course it's not true for everyone, but come on, guys, you have a lvl5 agent on a leash. AND you have a 500+ man alliance.

So, getting to the point, most of the teams in silent auction were alliances enitrely capable of regularly fielding fleets worth more than the passing bid. For us the bid amount is limited by what we CAN bid if we really try, selling some kidneys, extracting some characters, begging on the town square, signing a contract with the devil e.t.c.. But for you guys the bid amount is pretty much what you don't mind sparing for the auction. Because for you there's some balancing involved - how much is it worth participating.

And here lies the devil. For the large amount of participants the AT is probably not a tournament. It's a business affair. Signing up is almost free. If you pass the random draw and win at least one game (probably against people with a similar attitude) you get dank skins you can sell and be in the green. It's a nice gamble where you don't lose much and have everything to gain. Of course in such an environment you get lots of teams that just feel lucky today, win the random draw, and you get a crowded auction.

What could be done is balancing participation fee with the potential reward so trying to luck it out would not be a reasonable winning strategy (where winning is defined as being net positive after a couple of games). So people would actually try to win, not to participate.
General Vachot
The Vendunari
End of Life
#11 - 2016-08-03 00:50:50 UTC
Being a team that was lucky enough to get into 2 randoms draw then get seeded this year I also agree the silent auction and random draw is NOT the best method.

However I also disagree with Torgeir on a few points;

1) You can take people into the tournament who are less than 12 month old and still do ok and have fun.
2) I disagree with making fee to enter higher - the main reason you are getting MUCH wider participation is because people want a shot at some SKINS. I think AT11 which I think was prior to skins being handed out for wins CCP had to ask a second time for people who wanted to join as they only got 61 teams.

I think having 92 teams wanting to join is great surely that goes a long way to showing CCP how much the players want this.

That said I had several older players who are new to my alliance who did not even know Alliance tournament existed so we can probably do even better advertising it in game.

I do think we can increase the number of teams by eliminating the best of 3 series in the semi's and making the best of 5 a straight best of 3 (with no points carried).

By my estimation this gives you 8 additional match spaces. So you could do this without any changes to timing or work.

1) Top 16 can buy in as seeded
2) Those teams finishing in top 56 get to buy back in as unseeded (i.e an additional 40 teams)
3) Then do a random draw for any new team or team outside the top 56. Select 16 teams from this draw then run 8 single elimination matches at the start of the first day. Winners of this enter main tournament and are paired to each other so as to not dump unknown entities onto other teams at the start of the tournament.
4) Any teams not taking up the top 56 or top 16 buy in then go into a silent auction (where money wins)

Not suggesting this is the only or best solution but its an idea that would effectively increase the number of teams who have a shot outside of silent auction from 64 to 72 in a manageable way.
Buhhdust Princess
Mind Games.
Suddenly Spaceships.
#12 - 2016-08-08 21:14:20 UTC
Hey! This is the first tourny we havent got in since we were born! :( bid a little too low..

Best of luck everyone i will be watching intensely.
J A Aloysiusz
Risk Breakers
SONS of BANE
#13 - 2016-08-12 19:15:19 UTC  |  Edited by: J A Aloysiusz
I will point out that *certain* alliances who made it in through the random draw are most likely not going to have a competitive team.

These certain alliances tend have the mentality: "hey, it's only 5 plex to for the draw, so we might as well enter!"

Thus most years a number of these alliances get in and contribute very little to the overall competitiveness of the tourney.

The simplest solution is to decrease the size of the random draw. Having only 8 slots auctioned is a bit silly. It essentially guarantees that there will be many "flukes" that get in, and that many potentially-competitive teams will be excluded.

If you want a more competitive alliance tournament, simply decrease what is left to chance.

Edit:

Also, I will point out that the random draw fee is less than it should be. For the average team (1 win, 2 losses, in this style of tournament), the cost of participation should have been *more* than what they received in prizes (to keep it from being a simply business endeavor), but instead it is less. In this case, it is much less, since their single set of 10 skins will be sold for anywhere from 20 to 50+ bil.

This is why Torgeir correctly points out the business aspect of entering the tournament. A renter alliance that doesn't give a crap about pvp or the tournament can and *should* join the random draw because their expected winnings is far more than their expected costs.
General Vachot
The Vendunari
End of Life
#14 - 2016-08-18 13:11:12 UTC  |  Edited by: General Vachot
I disagree that all of the "unknown teams" are doing this as a business decision. Sure some may but its illogically cynical to assume that all teams do it to just make isk.

Firstly if you are "not competitive" then how will you even get the single win - most teams with no idea on pvp or just wanting to "give it a go" will get bundled out first rounds (so might some better teams with hard draws).

Also its a false assumption that teams able to "buy in" to silent auction are better at AT or small gang style pvp just because they are bigger or have more isk.

Even if you make 1 win and score the 30-50 bill isk you still need to cover costs of ships and implants so your profit margin is closer to 10-40 bill and thats shared across your team of 10 or more players. Fair little reward for time spent dedicated to the event to incentivise people to get into this.

The only teams making big isk are the top 4 and likely these teams see this as a combination of pride, bragging rights, notoriety, isk profit but also elite pvp challenge.

I agree we need to change the system but its not use changing to a system that discourages more participation. Especially if you want this to be popular and grow and not just be an event for the few high end players or tourney only players.

Perhaps because I am a scrub at pvp myself and my alliance is a casual player alliance that loves pvp I can't see more participation being bad. We just need a way to get all those teams (good and bad) into the tournament so that the fighting in the arena can settle the debate.