Donkey Kong Forum
General Donkey Kong Discussion => The Kong Off => Topic started by: hchien on September 25, 2013, 05:50:03 pm
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Dean and I were discussing the format of KO3 yesterday. There were a lot of things that Dean and I agreed on, but I want to make sure I'm not speaking for just Dean and me (at some point, hopefully soon, I will ask Richie and/or Jourdan if it can be changed). I'm going to start a few polls to see what everyone thinks and hopefully get a concensus opinion. For this poll, please vote only if you are current top 12 or current top 8 online qualifier as these are the people who it will likely affect. Ross gets a vote too because I know he will be top 12 before Oct 25. Feel free to express your opinion below if you are not in the top 12/online 8.
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I don't have any strong feeling about this so I'm voting present :) but I can be induced to vote one way or the other with an on the side incentive.
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I accidently voted before reading the whole first post. If you can subtract 1 vote from the yes column
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I accidently voted before reading the whole first post. If you can subtract 1 vote from the yes column
I made this same mistake^
I voted "No". It seems to be unfair and probably too late to change this to "yes" for many people who have already booked tickets to get there Friday afternoon.
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For anyone voting yes (or whose opinion is yes whether or not they are actually in the group), I'd be curious to know your rationale.
Personally I say no, and it's a strong no, for about a dozen reasons.
I guess I'll just go over the most important: "start whenever you show up" is not only unfair in an "equal time" sense, it's just not how any public-facing competitive event works. At the Kong Off, the players are introduced on Saturday morning, the first quarter drop is simultaneous, and everyone is at zero. That's just the way! It's the tip-off, the starting gun, whatever you wanna call it. If there's a leaderboard already in progress, what's the point of even having that moment?
Imagine if Dean and Jeff had had their big opening games on Friday night last year, while the other players were doing various other things (hanging out, practicing, etc.)? How would it feel going into "Day 1" with 2 early bird scores already up that are higher than your personal best? Blech!
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I think the reason this discussion came up is that originally (and until VERY recently), the info published by TG about the event mentioned that scores performed by Top 12 players on Friday WOULD count towards overall tournament standings. It's not clear to me what exactly led to that, but right now that "appears" to have been reversed, as the most recent info on the event website does not specify that this would be happening.
I voted no, but mostly for purely logistical reasons. One of the things that seemed to throw a wrench into a lot of the early plans was the addition of the Online 8 qualifiers and the nature of their participation. I think what happened is that originally the idea of having a Wildcard Tournament begin on Friday inadvertantly gave those players an advantage because those players would have 3 days to put up a big score and the Top 12 players would only have 2. So then it was decided that machines would be set aside for the Top 12 players to play on Friday as well, and oh, as long as we're playing on Friday, those score might as well count as well. The problem with all that is that all of a sudden we have these Online 8 players who would not be able to play until Saturday. So then it was, well ok, Friday scores will only count towards qualifying for Saturday and then ALL wildcard players would compete on a clean slate -- but meanwhile, Top 12 players will be given ample opportunity to practice on Friday and if they happen to put up a score, it should count, otherwise, why have Friday play at all? Well, because some Wildcard players will have that extra day to play . . . and it was a cycle like that. The most recent changes seemed to suggest that the Top 12 players will now share machines with the Online 8 players on Friday, mainly for practice. Which I think is actually pretty decent in the sense of evening out the play time and finding a way to include the Online 8 players on Friday without taking away even more machines from the Friday Wildcard tournament. But, the problem now is that if scores still count for Top 12 players during this time, sharing machines becomes an issue for a bunch of reasons.
So, logistically, I just don't see a way for the current structure to allow ANY scores from Friday to count and have it make sense. Looking at the information today, it seems like the organizers were a step ahead on this since the information specifying scores counting on Friday was recently removed. I think the way that it reads now is probably the best that can be done. If desired, the Top 12 and Online 8 players will have the opportunity to get practice games in at approximately the same rate as the Friday players will be playing. At the same time, Top 12 players will be able to bounce around and test out about half of all machines throughout the day which should help speed up the machine selection process (which at this point I feel should be bumped back to late Friday evening, after the Friday Wildcard tournament ends).
With regard to machine selection, keep in mind that most of the Top 12 players would prefer to have a significant amount of time after they select their machine and before the tournament begins in order to practice on their own machine. This serves a couple of purposes. First, it's just to have some time to get comfortable and to gain confidence on the machine that they will be using. But also, it's to test out the machine to make sure that there is nothing wrong with it -- and if something is discovered, there needs to be enough time for Staff to fix it before the tournament begins. BUT, even with all of that, I feel that it would be in everyone's interest to have machine selection late in the day, say, around 9:30 or 10:00PM. Suppose it were changed so that the Friday Wildcard Tournament runs straight through from 11:00AM to a last quarter drop of 9:00PM. (Last quarter drops on Friday STILL have not been specified yet by the way! Why not!!???) I believe a vast majority of the Wildcard machines would be freed up by 10:00PM and there will be more than enough machines to choose from at that point. I think that machines would easily be chosen by 11:00PM and players could practice for an hour after that to test the machine. If problems are discovered, another machine could be chosen, or the machine could be worked on over the next couple of hours -- which is starting to get late, but not THAT late, considering the events on Saturday are not starting very early. Players could then also arrive an hour early on Saturday to get some "warm up" practice in. Perhaps not all Top 12 players would agree, but to me that is enough practice time on my dedicated machine (which would be IN ADDITION to all of the practice that is happening all day Friday and perhaps even earlier on various other machines). In fact, just for the "fun factor" of it all I think that would work out better as it would give us a chance to organize and go out for a sweet dinner at 7:00 or so and then head back for machine selection which could take an unknown amount of time -- dinner plans could get messed up if machine selection happens at 5:00 and then things do not go smoothly.
Ok, I digress. Just thought I'd throw some of this out there after thinking about it for a while.
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Dean, you may not have been following the wildcard stuff very closely, but it was actually made explicit from the first write-up all the way to now that Friday wildcard scores would NOT carry over to Saturday. There was never ambiguity about that. There was only ambiguity about whether Top 12 scores would carry over.
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I voted no.
I'm not even sure how I'll fit in this sumbitch in the end, but grinding on DK is the least fun aspect of the Kong-Offs, and I'd prefer to socialize and play games casually for as long as possible.
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Scuse me while I duck a whole bunch of rotten tomatoes, but I said yes. I just think the longer players will have on this game the better the shot that the truly best player will win instead of someone lucking out, and getting a much better score than they are usually capable of.
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I just think the longer players will have on this game the better the shot that the truly best player will win instead of someone lucking out, and getting a much better score than they are usually capable of.
While this is definitely true, I have to agree with Ross on this one. Having played DK for 2 straight days at both KO's, I can tell you I didn't want to touch DK for months afterwards. My back was sore and my mind grew numb. Also I think that 'luck' factor is part of the fun for both the competitor and the spectator. Theoretically a wildcard player could win it. If the NE Patriots won the Superbowl every year would you even watch?
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I voted 'NO'. But also, the way I look at it is this. YOu have a top 12, then you have a top 8 online qualifiers, so basically you're looking at the top 20 DK players total. So, in all reality, do you really expect someone in the 21-xx range putting up a friday score that holds and wins the entire Kong Off? ....if they do, then they deserve to have their wildcard score count.
I was expecting the Friday wildcard players to really just put up scores that wont eliminate them so they can play Saturday. Technically if you read the kongoff.com rules, it makes it sound like the wildcard players are only competing in the Kong Off 3 (against the top 12) on Sunday. (saturday is still just a finals)
"There are three Wild Card Division Online Qualifiers, held on June 22, August 17, and October TBA, and one Wild Card Division Live Qualifier on November 15 at The 1up. The top eight combined scorers of the Online Qualifiers will join the top eight scorers of the Live Qualifier to compete in the Wild Card Division Finals on November 16 in Denver. The top 10 scorers in the Wild Card Division Finals qualify for The Kong Off 3 and challenge for overall victory."
EDIT: Also, I would like to add, I don't like the idea of 11 PM machine selection (If I'm in top 12). MY expeirence in KO1 and KO2 is I like to get a relaxing night in before the main start on Saturday. That was a problem at KO1. So, I think getting the selection of the machine in at 5 PM for the top 12 is still best.
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If the NE Patriots won the Superbowl every year would you even watch?
Absolutely. I suspect Dean would as well, so perhaps we're the wrong people to ask.
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If the NE Patriots won the Superbowl every year would you even watch?
Absolutely. I suspect Dean would as well, so perhaps we're the wrong people to ask.
Let me rephrase that. If the wildcard NY Giants upset the undefeated NE Patriots (ahem 2007-8) every Superbowl would you even watch?
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If the NE Patriots won the Superbowl every year would you even watch?
Absolutely. I suspect Dean would as well, so perhaps we're the wrong people to ask.
Let me rephrase that. If the wildcard NY Giants upset the undefeated NE Patriots (ahem 2007-8) every Superbowl would you even watch?
Yes.
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EDIT: Also, I would like to add, I don't like the idea of 11 PM machine selection (If I'm in top 12). MY expeirence in KO1 and KO2 is I like to get a relaxing night in before the main start on Saturday. That was a problem at KO1. So, I think getting the selection of the machine in at 5 PM for the top 12 is still best.
It's good to see your thoughts on this Dave, and I also remember what happened with the late meeting on the Friday before the KO1.
I don't mean to further derail this topic, but I just feel that this issue (the machine selection) is going to turn out to be very important and I think it deserves some more thought before things are set into any harder stone than they already are.
Just think for a moment about what is likely going to happen if the schedule remains how it's currently written and machine selection happens at 5:00. The schedule would have us believe that there will be 12 hours of play time for Friday players. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, based upon the track record from previous events, 11:00AM will not be the true start time since everything always begins late. So, first quarter might happen somewhere in the range of 11:30 - 12:00. Now, to really have machine selection at 5:00, the entire hoard of Friday players would have to agree to stop play by about 2:00 -- or even 2:30 since most players are unlikely going to be trying for a 3 hour WR game (although that option SHOULD technically remain open to Wildcard players at all times!). Now, suppose someone like Mitch or Ross is playing on Friday and a machine opens for them at 2:50. Will they take their turn now and risk having the cord pulled on their game on Level 19? But, if they pass, a bunch of other players behind them will say -- "well, I'm just running boards! Two hours is more than enough for me!" and now you have your first issue.
Next, no one is going to want to be the one who waited through the whole queue and then stop the action. So, we could have a handful of casual players just jumping on at 3:30, 4:00, 4:30 . . . and now the whole system of the queue is breaking down, AND there WILL be good games going at 5:00 that will have to be aborted -- I can't stress enough how BAD that would be for the tournament if that happened to even a single player.
So, how could we avoid that? Require a mandatory last quarter drop at 2:30. So, now you have play happening potentially from 11:45 to 2:30, with a potentially large queue. How sick would it be if SOMEONE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO PLAY YET?
Now you have machine selection beginning at 5:00. Top 12 players will now be checking out about 25 machines according to some system that has not been specified (should it go in some sort of order? Maybe go down the arcade high score list and choose machines in order?) I believe that the chaos of the situation will cause machine selection to take longer. Players will have concerns. Machines will be labeled and rearranged. Problems with some machines will be found and they will be worked on. Now, we have to try to get ALL of those Friday players back into the room and reorganized -- the queue will need to be recreated, players will have to be reassigned to the 10 machines. All sorts of additional chaos will ensue. 6:00 will turn into 6:30, 7:00, or later. Let's say that play starts up again at 7:15. The schedule says that play continues until midnight. But when is last quarter drop (STILL NOT SPECIFIED!). I assume that last quarter in that situation should be 9:30, but let's call it 10:00.
Under this scenario I anticipate 2.75 hours of play in the first session and 2.75 hours of play in the second session, for a total of about 5 1/2 hours of disjointed, confused play for the Friday Wildcard players who will consider themselves lucky if they got 2 turns at the machine.
My solution is to bump the schedule forward slightly for the Friday tournament and have machine selection occur at the end of the day. Have first quarter drop happen at 10:00AM and go unbroken until last quarter drop, which could be scheduled for 8:00PM. This guarantees 10 full hours of smooth, highly organized play for the Wildcard Tournament players where the average player will have about 7 turns on the machine (assume 30 Friday players, 10 machines, "next available", "no restarts", avg game time of 30 minutes). Meanwhile, Top 12 players can informally begin the machine selection process throughout the day by playing on the 12 machines that were set aside for us on Friday. Beginning at around 7:00 we can get more serious about whether or not we like one of these machines, etc. Just after 8:00, people will begin bombing out of the Friday tournament and machines will begin opening up for us to jump on for a few minutes to test out. MOST machines will be open by 9:00 -- and do we really need to be able to check out those last few machines where people have good games going? Remember, this year the 12 players will be choosing from among about 25 machines! There is no such thing this year as the late arrival getting "stuck with the last machine that has some problems". The last player to choose will still get to choose from among 14 machines -- so if 2 or 3 games are still going in the Wildcard Tournament, who cares? I think machines will actually be chosen significantly faster doing it this way and we'd be completely done by 10:00. From about 8:30 - 10:00 I could see most players practicing on their chosen machine, making sure there's no problems, asking for adjustments, etc and we'd be out of there at a reasonable time.
I do understand that it's potentially not quite as good for Top 12 players as having the process done earlier, but I think the whole tournament will suffer pretty severely if it stays as is.
Ok, this post was WAY longer than intended! lol That is all. :-)
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I guess I was looking at things a little differently and sort of basing it on KO2. At KO2, Friday night there was all the machines, but given the event and normal crowd in the 1UP I was surprised to see no more than about 4 - 5 (maybe a few more) machines being played at one time, so it gave us time to walk around to the open ones. Feel the stiffness of the joystyick and button, then play one if it's open etc.
Now that there is a wildcard event Friday, I didn't realize all 22 machines will be open to the wildcard Friday. I figured they would be playing on the 10 wildcard machines. Also, I didn't anticipate the top 12 choosing their machine from the lot of 22, but from a lot of 12 dedicated machines. Then, once the top 12 chooses their machines, the machines are open to public or for top 12 to play one them as they wished that evening, but wildcard event would still be going on with the 10 wildcard machines. Plus, last year, I can swear the machine I picked on Friday was slightly different the next day when the tournament started, as if the panel was swapped with another machine or something.
Hmm...I guess the whole process is a little confusing to each of us differently. It's amazing the amount of detail that's left up to interpretation on this right now. But there's 6-7 weeks to clarify still.
I do know one thing, I changed my gameplay due to my own home machine to eliminate the posibility of spring back reverse while holding the hammer. It's automatic to me now and will help me greatly at KO3 because most of the joysticks did the springback reverse on me last year. I don't plan to bring my own control panel.
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I like that Dean is a catastrophist and an over-thinker. I am as well. :D I am always haunted by what could go wrong.
To me though, 3:30 (or 90 minutes from whenever machine selection time ends up being) seems fine for last quarter. Nobody in that particular field is going to be playing a full-out game at that time because, for the minority of Friday players even *capable* of that kind of game, doing so wouldn't make any sense (no sense that I can see at least).
Strategy for Friday is to run boards, since the only purpose of scores that day is to qualify for Saturday, and a run-board kill screen will be more than enough to do the job. It would be a waste of energy to go all out, since an "all out" score would be overkill and won't get you a spot on the tournament leaderboard.
So, if there is no hardcore shredding going on (and there shouldn't be), all machines will be clear by 5:15 or :30 at the latest (it's 1 hour 45 to 2 hours for basic kill screen, in my experience), and the majority clear before that. And not every machine has to be clear for the process to at least begin. Vincent will just point to a red one and be done with it!
There's going to be 22 machines, and 10-30 Friday players. We SHOULD be okay...
It's also important to remember that Jourdan/Richie may have specific reasons for setting the machine-selection time at 5:00 PM.
I do like the 8:00 PM suggestion though, or even 7:00. That 2-3 hour shift would make a big difference in the quality of the Friday tourney, without making a difference to the Top 12 players. (Nobody is going to bed before 8:00 right??)
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Let me rephrase that. If the wildcard NY Giants upset the undefeated NE Patriots (ahem 2007-8) every Superbowl would you even watch?
A painful sports memory, unquestionably one of my Top Bottom 3. :'(
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I just think the longer players will have on this game the better the shot that the truly best player will win instead of someone lucking out, and getting a much better score than they are usually capable of.
While this is definitely true, I have to agree with Ross on this one. Having played DK for 2 straight days at both KO's, I can tell you I didn't want to touch DK for months afterwards. My back was sore and my mind grew numb. Also I think that 'luck' factor is part of the fun for both the competitor and the spectator. Theoretically a wildcard player could win it. If the NE Patriots won the Superbowl every year would you even watch?
Good point Hank. To be honest I am not super passionate about this. The previous two Kong Offs did just fine on two days. Would I think it would be better with 3 days? Yes, but not to the point where I think it matters that much. So yeah, I am a yes, but eh whatever yes. ;)
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Friday scores will not count. Yeah!
I heard straight from the horse's mouth.
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For this poll, please vote only if you are current top 12 or current top 8 online qualifier as these are the people who it will likely affect. Ross gets a vote too because I know he will be top 12 before Oct 25.
It's pretty cool the way you called that, Hank!
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It's pretty cool the way you called that, Hank!
Yeah, the prediction itself was a pretty safe bet, but the timeliness was positively frightening. :o
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I strongly vote no. Let's just enjoy Friday night and watch the wildcard battle. I'm really looking forward to a fun socialnight Friday with a relaxed atmosphere. Plus I heard drinks were on hank Friday night. Lol