There is a Huge difference between 4 players but only 3 play each week, and all 4 players playing but worst score is eliminated. –HUGE–
In case #1, team capt. tells Replay which of the 3 ppl are playing this week, possibly in which bracket… no less than 24 hrs ahead. There is no safety net for a person going out early, since all 3 scores count. Every place matters, in every bracket, but if a member has a prior engagement or an emerg to deal with, the team isn’t instantly screwed because of 1 DNF. Thats why there’s a alternate, for just that reason.
In case #2, since worst score doesn’t count, its almost like a rebuy tournament where there’s the safetynet of a rebuy. You are alllowed to take xtra risk, with no penalty really. Thats not why most ppl here wanted an alternate.
Its really the same basic idea, as the difference between 1st 3, and best 3 of 4… big difference there.
Unlike a traditional pool league, where the capt. matches up players against each other in the linup that week, the best we could do here is tell Replay which 3 ppl are playing this week in which brackets, ahead of time… unless some kind of ticket system was used so teams could enter manually each week.
I can tell you after bowling in leagues for many years, committing to a 30 week schedule ahead of time sux sometimes. Plus you pay all 30 weeks, whether or not you show all 30 weeks. So all sanctioned leagues, allow sanctioned players ( with an established average, because its handicapped ) to be a sub for a night, when a team is down 1 member… If they don’t wanna use the blind score for that person , that night.
Unlike say TheRegionals, where there’s 2 per day * 30 days, so 60 MTTs, it might be ok if you miss 1-2 days, but from past experience… if you do that, usually you can’t win, unless you’re wayyyyy ahead of the field before miss’n a day or two. But RTC was only 4 weeks of prelims where 1 DNF might not kill your chances but is 25% of that players potential output, then 4 weeks of knockout rounds where 1 DNF just ruins your chance of moving forward almost completely.
The other big reason 1 DNF hurts so bad was the points system. When the difference in points between 1st and 2nd, is more points that 11th place gets period… That DNF could be as much as 9x worse than playing. That needs to change, because what happened was it was more an individule promotion, than a team promotion.
Mark’s team went 4th, 5th and 6th in semifinals, but was 7th and miss’d the finals. ( that was rediculious ) Team play seems wasnt most important, what was …was 1 or more of your team being on the podium ( top 3 ). Conversely the time/date was UK favorable…
This type of promotion needs to be fair all the way around and can easily be built to accomodate everyone fairly. The points system is the easiest to fix. 1 point per finishing posistion, where lowest score is best. This also helps somewhat on how much 1 DNF effects a team’s chances.
As far as time/date goes… this is more of a problem, as everyone wants to play in the evening 1-2 hrs after dinnertime. Or for ppl who don’t sleep/work traditional times, they almost need to play in another time zone’s evening time. Even if you did this regionally, then combined top # teams from each region for playoffs, then the playoffs still have same problem. We all know there’s a smaller group of players that seem to be here 24/7 and will never miss a day, versus most of us who have jobs, a life, and sleep regularly… who can’t do perhaps a 6am or a midnight tourny time or commit to a longer promotion.
RPOS has what a 16 event schedule over 2 weeks, with 1-2 weeks of sattalites ahead of time. So RTC shouldn’t really be a 3 month event because the logistical nightmare of need’n to be here for 3 months once a week is very problematic for most players ( DNF wise if you miss a week. )
As stated above regionally seems best choice for prelims, you run it mon-fri for 2 weeks, then have playoffs over a weekend but when is the problem… my guess is asian and oceanic get the short stick… you can run 2 playoffs each day, say at 11am(est) and 5pm(est) … thats 4 playoff rounds in 2 days. The finals would be the 5pm sunday timeslot.
This makes the pts system 100% fair.
This only requires 2 weeks of players’s scheduling.
10 prelims dilute enuff any bad finishes.
Regional Prelims allow most players to compete easily.
Weekend playoffs allow flexability, and spectator support.
Approved alternates = usually no DNFs for reasons outta players’s control.
( just send in tomorrow’s roster of players/bracket in advance )
In conclusion, most promos here @ replay are timezone independant, as they should be… but when more ppl say " ohh I wanted to play but couldnt cause of the scheduling" than actually played, then there’s need for a tweak. If staff says “ohh we cant do that or that’d be too hard for us to do”, then ok … but continually making promos that exclude most of the playerbase or are inherantly unfair to 1 or more segments of the playerbase for whatever reason, to me seem counterproductive and really its insulting to the playerbase in general.
Is there a perfect answer NO, but a almost perfect answer is alot better than a just ok answer… Please Replay, RTC is good idea, but tweak it into a Awesome promotion. Make it more inclusive to your playerbase, and please chg the points system.
Sassy
. Tootles