Feedback Requested: The Masters

[goldfinger0303]

Hello all,

The Masters was once a staple tournament of this website. For those who don't know, The Masters was a 7-game tournament where you play every country and every player once. Games were anon, and scoring was 1 point for a solo, 0 points for anything else. But it was long. 7 games, each starting a month after the other.

Now, if there is interest, I would be willing to bring this back after the World Cup finishes. But before I even open that can of worms, I'd like to hear from some old participants. What didn't you like about The Masters? What could be improved upon in the format, or is the format itself inherently bad?

For example, one common complaint was stale, conservative play. A way to alleviate that, I think,would be to have the first tiebreaker go to whomever has the most non-solo board tops.

I look forward to a productive discussion.

[Mapu]

I enjoyed it. If I recall, my issue was that it was hard to find reliable players to stick with it so some of the games got ruined.

Thanks for diving into this again!

[Durga]

I'd like to play if it starts in September or later. But none of this DSS scoring BS please.

[VillageIdiot]

I enjoyed it. If I recall, my issue was that it was hard to find reliable players to stick with it so some of the games got ruined.

That was going to be my question about it, how was the attrition in previous iterations of this? Sounds like a pretty hefty commitment that certainly must wear down players who experience poor results early on. I've got to imagine many players bail.

[Tom Bombadil]

It is just so long. Not only from a commitment standpoint but from an excitement standpoint.

[Claesar]

That was going to be my question about it, how was the attrition in previous iterations of this? Sounds like a pretty hefty commitment that certainly must wear down players who experience poor results early on. I've got to imagine many players bail.

I've never played in the Masters, but I think poor results should be less of a problem here. You're never far behind if you can only score 1 point per game..

[goldfinger0303]

The last tournament, which you can find here had 18 of it's participants drop.

What do you think should be changed? Game times shorter than 36 hours? Games starting closer together? Or is it just unsalvageable. Bear in mind how many replacements the Century Leagues have already had, across just 3 very quick rounds.

[goldfinger0303]

Yeah,no one is ever too far behind in this one. Even if you don't have a solo heading into Round 6, you've got a chance

[ChippeRock]

I would want to do it. Replace the scoring system. Make all the games wait for order so people can't NMR and fuck up everything so you can replace them once they've been proven to be unreliable. Probably give players oodles of pause time as well because people are bound to ask for pauses over a 7 month stretch.

I would prefer either all the games run simultaneously or that you somehow keep all the usernames anonymous after a game has been finished so that people can't target a certain individual to make sure he doesn't finish out in first.

To probably alleviate the dropouts and NMRs you should probably make the The Masters truly involve the best of the best on this site. I think better players tend to be more reliable.

[Durga]

I would suggest heavily limiting sign ups, because I think Damian screwed up when he added another level and let a bunch more people join - this way you'll have way more subs.

[VillageIdiot]

What do you think should be changed? Game times shorter than 36 hours? Games starting closer together? Or is it just unsalvageable. Bear in mind how many replacements the Century Leagues have already had, across just 3 very quick rounds.

Cash prize incentives to get us a super high quality line of strong and motivated participants. :)

[ghug]

I would suggest heavily limiting sign ups, because I think Damian screwed up when he added another level and let a bunch more people join - this way you'll have way more subs.

The Masters has a 43- or 49-player limit by design, which makes this less of an issue. In the past, this was about as many signups as we'd ever get, but there seems to be more interest in tournaments recently.

I like the scoring being all-solo. There was a lot of conservative play in past Masters games, which I always figured was due to GR concerns. A tiebreaker that incentivizes "good" nonsolo results might diminish that to an extent.

[goldfinger0303]

I would want to do it. Replace the scoring system. Make all the games wait for order so people can't NMR and fuck up everything so you can replace them once they've been proven to be unreliable. Probably give players oodles of pause time as well because people are bound to ask for pauses over a 7 month stretch.

I would prefer either all the games run simultaneously or that you somehow keep all the usernames anonymous after a game has been finished so that people can't target a certain individual to make sure he doesn't finish out in first.

To probably alleviate the dropouts and NMRs you should probably make the The Masters truly involve the best of the best on this site. I think better players tend to be more reliable.

WFO is a given in any tournament I run. I was also thinking 3 days pause per game guaranteed. What would you want to replace the scoring system with?

As for the game's running simultaneously, do you think people would be willing and able to have 7 simultaneous high level press games going on? I don't. After 3 I start struggling. But there is a very real possibility that you can reverse-engineer the country allocations. In fact, that's what I had to do after the Round 4-5 games in a previous iteration when I took over as TD. So, this is obviously something that we need to think about and balance the impact on. By Round 7, if you do your hw, it's basically non-anon. So would it be better off non-anon from the beginning?

As far as quality of players, we generally get pretty good quality players for this one

[Octavious]

Replace the scoring system? The scoring system is what makes the Masters the Masters, rather than just an inconveniently large tournament.

Lots of simultaneous games would mean a no from me. I can cope with two at a time in comfort. Three becomes unpleasant at times. Any more than that is a headache, and I get enough of those at work.

I'd be very much in favour of keeping these games rated, by the way. Otherwise you're taking a large chunk of the site's best games out of the system, and GR will start to look a bit irrelevant. If an up and coming player in the back end of the top 200 solos against a MadMarx or President Eden in a quality game it would be a travesty if are ranking system ignores it. Especially as games against many of the top players are few and far between.

[goldfinger0303]

Oh, I tend to agree with you on the scoring and the ranked, Octavious. I think ranked will keep the smaller powers engaged and the emphasis on topping the board will keep the larger powers engaged. I'm just fishing around for ideas in case there's a way people think the tournament can be improved that I hadn't thought about.

[Octavious]

It's tricky, isn't it? The Masters has always been something of a slog towards the end, but that's part of what makes it the Masters. If you run a marathon you expect it to hurt. Making it a 5k jog will take away the pain, but it also takes away the challenge of a marathon.

The problem we've always had is that as a community we can be a bit rubbish at times. Ignoring messages, going awol, and being a bit of a tit is not an issue unique to the lower ranks :p

[The Hanged Man]

I like the Masters. I like the scoring system. The attrition/subs is a problem, but there's only so much one can do (maybe a RR threshold?). I think using non-solo board tops as a tiebreaker encourages *more* conservative play rather than less.

I agree the games should be ranked. These days, I'm mostly playing tournament or league games. I only play 1-3 FP games at the same time. Because of the recent trend toward non-ranked tournament games, I haven't had a ranked game in a while and I keep falling off the active GR list. The Masters is a great opportunity to meet new players and take on new challenges.

NMRs historically have been a big problem in the Masters. WFO only works if there are consequences for abuse. Some prior tournaments have had trouble because they were set for WFO but the TD was absent or occupied (I'm not pointing fingers; I thank all TDs for their volunteer efforts).

My biggest complaint about the Masters, and this site in general, is the flawed anonymity. The Masters should be anon, or at least semi-anon. Until player tracking features on the site are changed, it won't work like it's supposed to. Honestly, that issue has me questioning whether I should play in the next Masters, or really, at all anymore.

[chluke]

What about 1 point for topping board (most sc; or half a point each, if two players have most sc), and 5 points for a solo? That would still make it a unique tournament that rewards only 1 winner per game, but may not cause games to drag on as long or become meaningless when stalemated positions develop.

The topping board point element could also create a lot of exciting play, counter-balanced against both solo opportunities and risks.

[goldfinger0303]

The last run had an RR threshold, but that didn't stop some elite players from dropping after the first round or 2. I largely view dropouts as an incurable problem at this point. Something that can be mitigated to an extent, but not gotten rid of. I am very interested to hear why board tops would encourage more conservative play though. You can't win the tournament with only board tops. You need 2-3 solos. The issue from last time is that ranked play encourages a lot of easy 3-way draws.

As for WFO...there has to be balance. Nobody wants to kick out a player for WFO abuse, but they must be punished somehow. With the WC it's easy because every team has a sub. I'm just operating on a three strike rule - if you trigger WFO 3 times, you're out. But how would that translate to a Master's?

As for anon, the Masters will never be a truly anon tournament. By Round 6-7, you generally know who is who before the game starts. "Okay, I have these 12 players left to play. Of them, x and y haven't played England yet. A and B haven't played Italy" etc etc. There's no way around that.

[ghug]

@Chluke, that's effectively the same as using board tops as a tiebreaker, except in the extreme case where someone tops all of their boards but never solos.

@THM, there are imminent changes in the works to make anon more real, but the Masters has a deeper anon issue than that in that the seven games as seven powers against every player structure makes it easy to figure out who's who in the final rounds if you really want to. I'm not sure how to address that without playing them all at once, which sounds horrific.

Regarding ranking, I think one of the biggest problems with the old Masters was the number of games that just turned into the cautious, quickly arranged three way draw we see too often in high level ranked play. I do agree with Oct about the value in having it ranked, and I like the board top tiebreak, but that introduces differing incentives even more than the ones that already existed. I know the community has never really accepted SoS scoring, but it might be the best solution here.