Dammit, formatting. Will post again. Also, there may be a few small things I missed, so please check out the rules section for the Masters on the tournament website for full details.

https://sites.google.com/site/phpdiplomacytournaments/themasters

Hi all,

So with the next iteration of the Masters coming soon, there are a few changes that I would like to share with you. Some are specific to the Masters, and others are going to apply to the other tournaments I run as well.

For those who don’t know, the Masters is a true Winner-Takes -All tournament. Points are only awarded for solos. You get to play each player in the tournament once, and as each country once. It is in my opinion the most balanced tournament the site offers.

First, the Masters is going to be a bit more strict this time in order to keep it fast paced. There will be 43 players this time around instead of the old 49 players. Additionally, there will be 7 rounds instead of the previous 8. Each round obviously can only contain 42 players, so one player will have a “bye” month each round (and one poor schmuck has to play two rounds at once in round 7). Games will start on the first of every month, and I *will* have the ability to force players into games so that they start on time. If you have a planned vacation or absence, please tell me ahead of time so that I can try to make sure you have a bye on that month.

Second, there are a few changes in scoring. Draws will now be the second tiebreaker for the tournament – regardless of their size. The first tiebreaker will, as usual, be strength of schedule (the number of solos that your vanquished opponents have among them). Additionally, those who sub into the game halfway and solo will only be awarded 0.5 for that game.

Third – NMR policy. This is going to be more general and apply to the Leagues in the future as well. NMR’s will happen, WFO will not. Under no circumstance will I pause a game to prevent an NMR, so please do not send me messages before the deadlines asking me to do so. What will happen, though, are several steps to prevent chronic NMR’s.

There will be reliability ratings screening to enter the tournament. If yours is below 90%, you’re not getting in unless I’m truly desperate.

For each NMR, players will be docked – to my discretion – up to 10% of their points.

Once an NMR occurs, please notify me (I may miss it) and I will pause the game, contact the player and get a reasoning for it. If they don’t respond in a timely manner, they will be removed from the tournament.

If a substitute comes into the game in a situation where he only has a couple SC’s and likely will face elimination, they will not be punished for it. On their last disbands phase, they should message me and I will sub them out and put the original player back in the game. That way the GR hit and the loss on the record goes to the offending player. This will only be done in games where the sub enters into a disadvantaged position.

Any player who has abruptly left the previous rounds of the Masters or Leagues for a reason that I don’t deem sound will be prevented from joining this round of the Masters.

Great stuff goldfinger, thank you.

I assume disadvantaged/advantaged is your discretion, which is logistically and philosophically sound of course. I was wondering if it would be announced at time of replacement what their position qualifies as?

On the Masters rules site, I am putting it at less than 5 SC's, but will ultimately leave it to my discretion, yes.

And I feel like announcing it may alter incentives. I'm open to hearing opinions on the matter though.

Also, my mistake. 6 poor schmucks (Those who have byes in rounds 1-6) will be playing two games at once in round 7

Good stuff Goldie, I especially like the NMR and sub policies.

Ghug, have any interest in adopting some of this for the 2nd round of the ODC?

Thanks for all you do Gold. Anyone who volunteers to organize 43 wet cats is a saint in my book.

I like it all.

I think its that at least the sub be aware of his situation. I would think he would still work hard to make it to a draw or solo. I would be pretty lenient on whats disadvantaged as subs really are put into a tough spot.

Personally I don't understand the undue emphasis on solos. Draws are an important part of the game, and ignoring (or undervaluing) that takes away a significant element of tournament play. Just my two cents.

@Yonni, I may consider adopting everything except turning WFO off. I want subs to be able to take over positions that haven't already been ruined when they get to them (though I hope we've filtered out the majority of the unreliables at this point).

The rule alters incentives (still rather not see it but I lost that battle), as I've argued before, no matter what, and keeping in the dark to the other players and/or the sub simply leads to concealed information in a total information game where the incentives and standings are normally and supposed to be known. I don't want to have to guess if someone is playing with a stake or not.

@Valis - it changes incentives on a personal level, but not a tournament level. I hope that players are mature enough to not let personal decisions outweigh tournament level ones. The change is meant to encourage people to take over the position in the first place, not dictate their behavior after they have done so.

@Brankl - With the plethora of tournaments on the site (both mod organized and otherwise) its nice to give each some unique feature that helps them stand out. For the Masters, its solo only. For the Leagues, its the meta aspect, etc.

I will mention that once the ODC tournament is completed no future tournaments will be allowed to use WFO regardless of the request of the players. It has been abused far too much so we are discontinuing it completely.

-WebDip Admin

So if you expect it not to influence anyone's behavior why be hidden?

Either way, happy to join the tournament, happy to try out these new rules, and thanks to Goldfinger to both hosting the tournament and always trying to make them better.

By any chance, are these games GBs?

No, they are full press anon WTA games.

Not my cup of tea then.

Has the "true winner takes all" format worked well? I've got to assume making things so black and white has it to make things pretty frustrating as I've it to assume there's got to be a lot of hard fought games ending in no results.

Wouldn't at least having some kind of forced result (winner is solo, highest person in draw, some other tie breaker contingent) make for a more satisfying yet competition encouraging environment? I'd even settle for a vote for who's the more deserving winner in case of tie situation over a non-result,

@VI - historically ~20% of games in the Masters ends in a solo (10/49 in '13, 15/56 in '11). Its competitive enough, I think.

But there were some complaints last time about draws not being rewarded, so I added it as a tiebreaker this time.

My main question is if TheWizard will be joining us!

I'd certainly be curious to hear from previous "Masters" participants if they like the scoring format.

Speaking as a previous Masters participant I'd say that the scoring format is the tournament's most attractive feature. The only negative really is the tournament fatigue that tends to settle on some of the players towards the end, but the slightly shorter format should help this a tad.

I like that it weeds out those with a carebear attitude, that sounds great, it's the all-or-nothing that i question.

Often to get to solo you almost need that diminishing returns carrot to be able to bait people to gamble in a way that gets you close enough to the edge to make the right leap. With 20% solo's in the Masters obviously there's a workaround to that problem, i'm just curious if there's a better way that encourages the solo or bust but keeps people from going into stalemate mode (or worse yet, completely apathy for the game) the moment their solo dreams become remotely unlikely.

I feel the "Nothing" bit is overstated somewhat. The GR ratings system is very much alive and well in the tournament, and by its nature there are a lot of GR points up for grabs. A good draw is well rewarded in that sense. You are also rewarded by a draw in the sense that you prevent someone else from winning. In a tournament with very tight scoring this counts quite a lot.

I think it essentially turns into Lusthog.
I suspect you see alot more true stalemates in a Masters game.

I agree with Octavious that the scoring format is the tournament's most attractive feature, especially in the later rounds when it's the home stretch. The worst thing about the Masters is the high dropout rate as the tournament progresses. goldinger0303's proposal to try to curb that sounds like a reasonable shot to me. I do have some concern about a chilling effect, where people don't join in the first place because they are worried about the time commitment. You can say well, we wouldn't ultimately want those people anyway, but it may decrease the overall caliber of the tournament.

The Masters is a good way to play new people. Unlike the GR games, you are exposed to people outside your immediate ranking band. I've found that it can be a springboard for invitational games.

It's simple: if a 7-round WTA specialty tournament doesn't sound good to you, then the Masters is not for you. The solution is not to change the nature of the Masters.

The Hanged Man has it right that dropouts are the worst part of the tournament. Hopefully by banning previous chronic dropouts (Your Humble Narrator comes to mind), combined with the point docks and potential taking the GR hit for games you drop fromp; then we would see this less.

And I wouldn't necessarily say Lusthog, but a lot of games are interesting despite the non-solo. gameID=110375 comes to mind, where all three draw participants had a somewhat realistic shot at a solo in the final years. (Bonus, you get to see hellalt ranting)

I disagree with using YHN as an example Goldfinger. He didn't just drop out of the tournament, he dropped off the face of the earth and she hasn't logged in since his NMR in the leagues. For all we know he had a legitimate medical emergency, the kind that you give out a pass for. For all we know he's f****** dead.

you also took away over a thousand points on him so I think he's been punished enough if he does come back

He dropped out of the 2013 Masters too, Valis.

I'm just saying there's better examples...=(

YHN could have f****** died twice, goldfinger0303. Have some compassion.

http://blogs.bard.edu/lit2082s14/files/2014/04/Igotbetter.gif

Has sign-up for the Masters started?

I wanted to get feedback on the rules before I posted it. So far it seems to be generally positive. I'm also hoping the Leagues will wrap so I can get some sense of closure there before I kick off a new tourney :)

Thanks for all the input guys, very helpful!