Competitions: AC Weekend Cup

[Roflcopter]

I've been working on a small(ish) project called AC Weekend Cup. The idea is basically that every weekend we play a complete tournament (single elimination) and first place takes gold, second silver. Over time the better teams will tend to win more often so will accumulate golds and silvers more, which we use to rank teams.

The main benefits to this format for competitions is that it provides teams with more games and allows all teams to get games each week. I've also coded in features to help players participate in mixed teams and we aim to setup the match tree so that weaker teams aren't paired with heavy-weights -- at least in the first round. Because we run a whole new tournament each week, we'll be able to hold tournaments for modes other than CTF.

At the moment there's still very much for me to develop but I've already coded all the essential parts (making teams, joining teams, signing up, voting, statistics, profiles, providing demos, etc..). I hope to be able to get matches going soon but I was hoping that someone may have a free VPS that could host the site. AC Weekend Cup is coded in Python 2.7 using Django 1.3-1.4 and should be fairly easy to setup on a recent Ubuntu server and shouldn't use many resources.

I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this project, also I'm open to the idea, if it was desired, that this could be an officially recognised tournament. And of course, if you might be able to help out with hosting, please drop a message!

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[Undead]

here are my thoughts:

• 2pm gmt on sunday is a disgusting time for australians, as it is midnight and makes it impossible for us to attend school/work the following morning. 1pm on a saturday would work well for every time zone, including american timezones. the very worst affected timezone would be for people living on the west coast USA, and they would play at 7am onwards. id also stray away from modelling it on the swl as it is extremely awfully run. if you were to go ahead and run it on that time anyway, i'd rather make a competing tournament myself, regardless of how well run your league is, i and other players won't be able to play in it. be careful not to alienate players.
  

• seeing that you're going to add multiple cups for multiples modes, i'd suggest running 3vs3 ctf on saturdays and 1vs1 dm/surv on sundays, with single round format for earlier rounds of 1vs1 in order to ensure it progresses quickly, with semi finals/grand final in 2 map format. there should be a 32/64 person limit for any 1vs1 tournaments, and a 16 team limit for 3vs3 on a first come first serve basis. if somehow we get to a point where much more than 16 teams are signing up every week, then things will need to be changed but i doubt that will happen. if you want to change the modes on a bi-weekly basis then that is fine as well, its up to you i guess. however 3vs3 ctf is the most practiced and evolved mode in matches, so it should have priority.
  

• a bracket should be posted immediately as the competition begins, i'm quite sure an update-able bracket is possible to put together on the website. teams/players should be listed upon signing up as a activating each team is strenuous, and cheaters/offenders can simply be removed if the admin sees their account or they do try to sign up.
  

• a third place playoff would be nice as well and wouldn't be a burden to have, so when previous results are listed you can see a first, second and third placing rather than just first and second.
  

• you will need to ensure a proper map pool is in place as well, ESPECIALLY for 1vs1 or else people will begin picking ridiculous things like elevation and sunset.
  

• you're going to need a mandatory chat system for the organization of matches, else it becomes impossible to sort matches out. either an inbuilt chat into the website or IRC, or IRC built into the web page (lol).
  

• be extremely strict regarding people showing up or not. the beauty of a weekend cup is anyone can show up and just play, rather than having to be an organized team for tournaments and such. if people sign up and just don't show after 5 minutes of beginning, they should just be removed. i also suggest a 4 person limit for 3vs3 and a 2 person limit for 2vs2, rather than having clans join. if clans want their entire list to play, they should submit multiple teams.
  

• i also suggest a 4 person limit for 3vs3 and a 2 person limit for 2vs2, rather than having entire clans join. if clans want their entire list to play, they should submit multiple teams.
  

• your rule regarding spectators should be subject to change depending on the activity of casters/streamers in AC. only referees/admins/casters/streamers/players should be allowed in the server if a stream is available, or else there isn't any encouragement for streaming or esports in AC. if people really wanted to get into the server, and there was a stream for every tournament, you could even start selling monthly match passes to the server, in a similar likeness to dota2. on another note, please don't have 5 or something referees in a server like the acwc, you only need 1 referee, a backup referee(even that is questionable) and anyone else who is a referee should be removed.
  

• you're not going to need many, if any referees for something like this, except for maybe one or two in the final or the semis. the ro32/16/8 should just be left up to the players, with the results reported to the referee. i don't believe there is need for screenshots/demos to be submitted as it is just a formality. players are able to organize matches cleanly and fairly themselves, and if there are any disputes then the demos/screenshots can be sent to an admin or referee. something tells me there wont be many disputes though.
  

• lets do a bit of math to assume how long each tournament will take assuming optimal organization. at 1pm gmt in a ro16 ctf competition, game 1 will begin. lets assume that it takes 5 minutes for every team to set themselves up and start the match, completely possible if the tournament is organized well. both sides play 15 minutes on each map, and then a 15 minute final. so now we're at 1:50pm gmt. with absolute optimal organization, the ro8 begins at 1:55pm gmt, and ends at 2:40pm gmt. ro4 begins at 2:45 pm and ends at 3:30pm. that was 2 and a half hours just to get through 3 rounds. do you see how absurdly long that takes for a weekend cup?
  what you will need to do is change some things around. here are my suggestions:
  - on all servers where the tournament is played, the maps/modes have to last for 10 minutes in ctf/htf rather than the full 15 minutes. this is how i think it should be in AC, but its a good idea to take the lead and do it in a competition first if there isn't any support.
  - you have the option to play the earlier rounds with a server mod allowing for 5/7:30 minute halves for each map, and only playing a single, predetermined map for the ro16/8. the specifics of this are subject to discussion, of course.
  with the fast pace of rounds being played, and with optimal organization, it should only take a couple of minutes to get the next match started.
  lets now assume we play at 1pm gmt, and the first match ends at 1:15 on a single map with 5 minute halves. then, the next match ends at 1:27.
  jesus christ, we're at the ro4 within 30 minutes! what i've listed are just the options you have, and i trust you as the administrator to work out a format that doesn't make the cup drag out for an absurd amount of time.
  

• this does seem like a rather big undertaking on an AC scale, so when you do get this running make sure you have 1 or 2 people to help you out on the administrative side of things. you need a bit of bureaucracy sometimes but be liberal with who you appoint to such an undertaking.
  

my apologies if my thoughts are a bit spread out all over the page, but take them into account and you'll see this idea evolve into the best thing competitive AC has had ever. it just depends what you decide to do.

[Roflcopter]

On the first point, the reason 2pm is chosen is because it's more ideal for Americans. Sunday is chosen simply because I am not generally free on Saturday. I appreciate that some timezones won't find it easy to play, and I agree with you running on Saturday would be good. The only thing this would require would be a referee that's available at that time.

If Waffles, or someone else, can organise a Saturday tournament too then I can provide the necessary features of the website (most referee tools are already coded).

With regards to modes, we have polls built-in so we can allow players to vote on the following week's events. I think 3v3 CTF will probably be the dominant mode.

With regards to brackets, these are already displayed once the signups are closed. And yes the bracket auto-updates as the tournament progresses. Before the signups the teams participating are simply listed instead.

Third place doesn't make much sense in single elimination tournaments mathematically. With properly seeded trees second places can usually be "correct".

With regard to map selection, we will have a map pool: that is, a map for each round. In team modes these are played on both sides. Again, this is just the plan at the start and things will change depending on consensus.

Once the website is fully coded we'll have IRC or IRC-like chat features. For now you're right that IRC is probably a good idea.

With regard to punctuality the current rule is "If you're more than ten minutes late you risk forfeiting your place". We don't currently limit the size of teams but that's a possible future step we may take if it's desirable.

With regard to players in the server, this is unavoidable. Matches are played in quick succession, and it's highly desirable that the next team be ready straight after the last match.

The plan is to have one or two referees running things. It's not absolutely necessary that referees watch each of the earlier matches but we'll aim to.

You're right the format gives us several possibilities and the beauty is we can try new things and see which are preferred. Note we don't aim to play three rounds generally, just one round either side of the round map. I think 10 minutes per side would be a good solution actually. Or the other possibility is that AC Weekend Cup servers have the "half-time" functionality that I coded before where sides are switched at 7:30.

Thanks for your post, it has had some great ideas! Of course this is more likely to excite competitive players, but I'd also like to hear the concerns and thoughts of those people who perhaps wouldn't usually play AC competitively, but who would consider it.

[Undead]

On the first point, the reason 2pm is chosen is because it's more ideal for Americans.

only slighty better for americans, and there isn't any teams made up of primarily high level americans. its impossible for us to play at that time on a sunday, but we could play on a saturday if we made a stretch to. if you're going to exclude australians you're better off setting up the time at something like 8pm gmt lol. with the 1pm start, literally every timezone can play except hawaiians and new zealanders, and new zealanders could play on a saturday. its not really an issue for americans to get up at 9am to play. however we don't have the morning option because your sunday night is our monday morning.

i mostly agree with everything else you've said tho.

[Roflcopter]

And in fact I mostly agree with the timezone issues. 1pm on Saturdays is possible if someone trustworthy is able to referee at that time. Also we don't just aim to cater for "high-level" players players!

[Waffles]

I could work in tandem with Undead to make Saturdays happen. We can pull someone else in that is willing to ref and is reliable.

[Nightmare]

Love the idea. I think a lot of clans will miss game times and screw things abit but that happens.
Several tournies each weekend might be too much to chew. :D

[Cemer]

I agree with Undead- 2pm is not as great a time for other countries.

Is there actually that many players active for a full team tourney? Or will it be an inter/pick-up tourney?

[Link]

+1. That is all.

[Oracle]

Rule 19. That is all.

Kk.

This looks neat :). Hope my mates decide to play in this :>.

[Undead]

I agree with Undead- 2pm is not as great a time for other countries.

Is there actually that many players active for a full team tourney? Or will it be an inter/pick-up tourney?

essentially you can play with anyone. so if only 1 of your mates can play you could just get someone else to play with you, and then form another team for the weekend.

.
I think a lot of clans will miss game times and screw things abit but that happens.

and this is the reason to give anyone the ability to participate. if clans are active enough to participate in the tournament with 6+ members, they can submit multiple teams. solo people can group up with other people for the tournament, and you can form your own mixed teams if you want to.

[ReDBuLL]

Good job guys! If we could fix some European and USA servers so that they don't lag, it'd be great. Roflcopter's doing a better job than some of the developers.

[Roflcopter]

Thanks for everyone's consideration!

I agree with Undead- 2pm is not as great a time for other countries.

It's really a matter of having trustworthy referees for various times. Once everything has been built it should be easy to entrust a few people to run tournaments at other timezones.

Is there actually that many players active for a full team tourney? Or will it be an inter/pick-up tourney?

Essentially owners of a team can set a "share password". When you want to signup for an event you have to enter the team's tag and password. In this way it's possible to be very flexible on the day but we still require that each player can only play for one team in each tournament.

I'm still trying to work out a way of hosting it and then I'll need to get a few trustworthy referees.

[kingCHUBBY]

referees don't do shit.

if there is a problem, players can just post the demo and u can review it afterwards.

[Cemer]

pickup game tourney. sounds really fun.

i agree with kchub as well- what does a referee really do?

[Roflcopter]

Considering the tournament's games are to be run all the same day, disputes have to be settled as they happen. If team A makes a dispute against team B we need to make a quick decision which team should progress to the next round. Apart from that referees can help speed the process up a bit by collecting demos and screenshots and registering scores.

I am for it being a community run tournament since I only have so much free time. It shouldn't be hard to find a set of referees to cover the times.

The main issue at present is getting hosting!

[Xenon]

o-n-e 7

[Undead]

i'm not sure whether you've made a map pool for ctf or not but i'd like to suggest one up for debate. i've selected the following maps based on how good their gameplay is and how well they are designed, not on any balance issues.

ac_elevation
ac_gothic(debatable, i think it has poor gameplay, but because teams pick it so much it would win any vote)
ac_shine
ac_sunset
ac_arabian(only if all the users use windows/linux)
ac_werk
ac_outpost
ac_desert3
ac_mines
ac_ingress(debatable, as the gameplay is terrible in my opinion.)
ac_aqueous(some people will probably bring up the balance issues, but other than that it is a well designed map.)

[Flames]

what about urban and power ?

[Link]

Why not add one of Apollo's maps?

[Cemer]

Why not add one of Apollo's maps?

undead only listed official maps

(i personally hate apollo's maps)

rofl, would you accept certain custom maps, such as ones being considered for 1.1.1? it might add more variety.

[Oracle]

Tbh it should probably just be official maps.

[Roflcopter]

Undead, map pools may be decided by polls the preceding week. Custom map pools are certainly possible for some occasional tournaments.

The reason I'm not worrying too much on format yet is: because we get to run many events we can experiment to find what works best.

[Minty]

Just getting back into AC and still fairly new, but I would love to participate in things like this, especially if it caters to those of us who are currently not involved in clans and are only just starting to legitimately practice for pickup games and the like (AC's competitive scene).

I know Quake Live has weekly cups (used to be Zotac, now FACEIT runs it), which are always a roaring success.

Getting someone to stream this on twitch.tv or something for a little exposure would be awesome as well, and make it really professional. ;) That might be a possibility for much later on though.

Good luck, hope to see updates on this in the future!

Note that good first impressions are always a must, and that an undertaking this massive will take a lot of planning and hard work, especially in the beginning. I feel that you're a veteran around here though, so I have faith.

Cheers!

[Undead]

Undead, map pools may be decided by polls the preceding week.

that is insanity

Tbh it should probably just be official maps.

you probably shouldn't post on the ac forums

[Oracle]

Lol, <3 you too man :). Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of many custom maps in AC. But is it not better to just use the maps that just about each competitor would know? Odds are there will be at least one competitor that will complain about a custom map, for some reason or other (whether it be "unfair" or "not known by them" or who knows what else they'll pull outta their ***), unless you and the testers have found the perfect maps for such competition (but that's another story, and I don't want to end up like paul so I'll leave that there...).

[AtoMikK]

Undead picked his favorites maps. Bad faith...

You can win a round on urban & gothic even if you are on the "bad" side.

Aqueous is a lot unfair than urban & gothic.

And why not power king Undead...

[Roflcopter]

Undead, map pools may be decided by polls the preceding week.

that is insanity

Offer a reason why please! I can only speculate your concerns otherwise.

Map pools will contain three or four different maps, one played each round. My idea would be to create about three random map pools out of the suitably competitive maps (ie: excluding arid, aqueous & rattrap).

The community will tend to vote for the pools with the most popular maps but usually they'll contain one or two less-played maps as well. The aim is to balance two things: playing maps teams prefer, and adding variety. One reason clan matches can become a little boring is teams often pick the same maps over and over (for instance I always pick outpost); I think it's more fun if teams get some choice but are still forced to play some less-played maps. Also the map pools don't have to be completely random; popular maps such as desert3, gothic, depot, sunset, shine & co can be made more likely to be selected.

So an example would be a vote between:

iceroad, gothic, ingress, desert3
elevation, shine, power, urban
sunset, depot, outpost, mines

But, if something isn't a good idea, then it will get changed. I will listen to suggestions!

[Undead]

that is an even worse idea than what i thought you were doing. why the fuck would you exclude aqueous and then add iceroad/depot if balance doesn't matter.
just have one single pool of maps, not voted for by the community, because quite frankly most of them have no idea(read atomikk's post). its not really democracy that is being employed, its mob rule.

urban has an absolutely abhorrent layout(keep in mind i'm not talking about whether its biased or not). the long side with the two split pathways is not fun to play at all and makes no sense for a ctf map, winding completely all over the place and becomes a guessing game between the CLA and RVSF player on that side. the CLA base has an extremely awkward design, its an L shape. RVSF base on the other hand is also very awkward, being completely unapproachable from the CLA side(ladder and stairs, why????) and the room containing the flag being really tiny and spawn campable, the middle area approaching the CLA base is in a diagonal shape, what the fuck is with map makers putting ctf spawns in maps that can't play ctf?

[Hosta]

Larry : That's a nice idea , this tournament . Hope It'll work