Tourney/League feature requests

[BIG_D_Sally]

I am head admin to the team league, True Friends In Spades. As far as tourneys are concerned, TFS TDs have been instructed by the HTDs to close on time and as such our members are registered early and ready to play. The latecomers take the risk of getting booted from the tourneys. Under no circumstances will the tourney be held up. If we make exceptions like we have in the past it only causes problems to the point of the TD being accused of playing favorites. We close on time no matter what unless of course Cases is down or Hardwood is updating. The TD has control to either close the tourney on time or give the member additional time to register. So I'm not sure I agree with a special room per se for tourneys when it is under the control of the TD to do so.

I agree with some things that were said in these posts as far as extra tools are concerned for those jumpers, banned people, etc. I do not agree with giving all TDs/HTDs room tools. You start having too many chiefs and you have problems. Leave the tool distribution as it is and let the Head Admins decide.

As far as leagues are concerned. Here are a couple of suggestions I have.

1. If people signed on to Hardwood and were automatically connected in chat to everyone on their "friends" list it would help keep people in Hardwood. Its done in Facebook and alot of people like that feature. You start making friends or have your favorite partner/teamie to play with they will stay around longer to play regular games in leagues other than tourneys.

2. Incentives. It would be nice to gives players special fooms or avatars, etc. if they play so many games a month. In order to keep these avatars/fooms you have to keep up that game ratio or better each month. Who would be in charge of keeping up with the member's stats? I believe each league should be responsible unless Hardwood can implement a system. It would be nice for the League itself to distribute these awards themselves but if Hardwood is not able to program it then the League could write to you or whomever and advise them to give that member a special foom/avatar and visa versa remove the foom/avatar.

Thank you for your interests in the Leagues/Tourneys, Jonas.


Sally

[Jonas]

I am head admin to the team league, True Friends In Spades. As far as tourneys are concerned, TFS TDs have been instructed by the HTDs to close on time and as such our members are registered early and ready to play. The latecomers take the risk of getting booted from the tourneys. Under no circumstances will the tourney be held up. If we make exceptions like we have in the past it only causes problems to the point of the TD being accused of playing favorites. We close on time no matter what unless of course Cases is down or Hardwood is updating. The TD has control to either close the tourney on time or give the member additional time to register. So I'm not sure I agree with a special room per se for tourneys when it is under the control of the TD to do so.

Sounds like you guys have pretty good discipline. How do you feel about us just having an automated system to do that for leagues. That way it just takes the burden and accusations off the TDs/Leagues. People either show up ontime, or deal with the automated consequences?

I agree with some things that were said in these posts as far as extra tools are concerned for those jumpers, banned people, etc. I do not agree with giving all TDs/HTDs room tools. You start having too many chiefs and you have problems. Leave the tool distribution as it is and let the Head Admins decide.

yeah, I think special caution would need to be in play to make that work smoothly.

As far as leagues are concerned. Here are a couple of suggestions I have.

1. If people signed on to Hardwood and were automatically connected in chat to everyone on their "friends" list it would help keep people in Hardwood. Its done in Facebook and alot of people like that feature. You start making friends or have your favorite partner/teamie to play with they will stay around longer to play regular games in leagues other than tourneys.

yeah, we're pondering the same thing, and we do have a friends list in the works. However I wonder if we can functionally extend the concept. Maybe some chat groups that aren't just friends, but members of a league for example? that might work better if each player has one official league they join (kinda officially endorse), and that league would show up as a chat window they could access from any room. So you could be in smoots, and then flip to the chat for your league, and still be in smoots?

There could be other social groupings too, it certainly wouldn't need to be just league related. Not sure what, but maybe you smart folks can think of something

2. Incentives. It would be nice to gives players special fooms or avatars, etc. if they play so many games a month. In order to keep these avatars/fooms you have to keep up that game ratio or better each month. Who would be in charge of keeping up with the member's stats? I believe each league should be responsible unless Hardwood can implement a system. It would be nice for the League itself to distribute these awards themselves but if Hardwood is not able to program it then the League could write to you or whomever and advise them to give that member a special foom/avatar and visa versa remove the foom/avatar.

Thank you for your interests in the Leagues/Tourneys, Jonas.
Sally

I think once we get our Microtransaction stuff up for these games, that opens up some possibilities here for room specific items etc. Maybe we could allot tokens to leagues to give out.

We just need to make sure things pencil out so we can fund these things

[Jonas]

My QuestionTds should be know where and how to find guides.

What types of activities to you need guides to solve? What can the do that you can't as a TD, and can we find a way where we can reduce the need to bring guides into the situations you find happening.

I know that there is as many styles as there is TD when it comes to handling situations. Some are timid some are brutal

[BIG_D_Sally]

Sounds like you guys have pretty good discipline. How do you feel about us just having an automated system to do that for leagues. That way it just takes the burden and accusations off the TDs/Leagues. People either show up ontime, or deal with the automated consequences?

I appreciate the offer but to have an automated system to run the leagues/tourneys is not something I would consider nor would I welcome it. Sorry but that is how I feel about it. All leagues are in control of their tourney start times, the Head Admin can make it happen by getting with their HTDs such as I did. I'm open to new things that will better Hardwood but I strongly feel the leagues should run their own leagues/tourneys as we always have.

yeah, we're pondering the same thing, and we do have a friends list in the works. However I wonder if we can functionally extend the concept. Maybe some chat groups that aren't just friends, but members of a league for example? that might work better if each player has one official league they join (kinda officially endorse), and that league would show up as a chat window they could access from any room. So you could be in smoots, and then flip to the chat for your league, and still be in smoots?

I think that's a great idea!

I think once we get our Microtransaction stuff up for these games, that opens up some possibilities here for room specific items etc. Maybe we could allot tokens to leagues to give out.

We just need to make sure things pencil out so we can fund these things

I look forward to learning more about this. If I can help in any way, please give me a shout. I'll be glad to assist.


Sally

[XrmplestiltsknX]

I am the Co Ha of the team league True Friends in Spades. As a Cases Ladder team league and from that perspective I feel that for Hardwood to delve into that domain would be a huge undertaking. It seems to me that Hardwood would best be served by continuing to outsourse that realm thru the exsisting leagues and working with them to maximise the rewards for the leagues and the site.
The head admin of our league has previously covered several of the suggestions we have discussed i wont waste any time in repeating them.
I feel some refinements in the ability for leagues to "police" their rooms would help. The ability to kick disruptive users from the room would be a tool we could use on occasion. The ability for us to track disruptive member nics would be a welcome addition. If we could determine if a disruptive person is one of our league members in a hider nic causing problems would allow us to resolve that issue at the league level using the administrative process we have in place for that task and have spent a lot of time and effort refining.
Any and all refinements we can make that facilitates the ability of the leagues to maintain the fun family atmophere that brought us here in the first place would benefit hardwood and the individual leagues. Some path that would allow us to pool league and site resourses to that end would in my mind profit both the site and the leagues as much or more than any other changes i see proposed in this thread.
Greg

[luvcookies]

ok im add friends list is good idea and closing out tourneys on time is great idea if you have enough people close it.i cant see 45 mins is to late to close out tourney.by that time i will withdraw .and jonas sometimes some leagues would like a guide to come and calm whats going on.but when you do use buttons to silence or warn them they go off after they silence and come off being silenced you do get cussed out and told off. Either way im glad you hearing us out

luvcookies

[Jonas]

Sounds like you guys have pretty good discipline. How do you feel about us just having an automated system to do that for leagues. That way it just takes the burden and accusations off the TDs/Leagues. People either show up ontime, or deal with the automated consequences?

I appreciate the offer but to have an automated system to run the leagues/tourneys is not something I would consider nor would I welcome it. Sorry but that is how I feel about it. All leagues are in control of their tourney start times, the Head Admin can make it happen by getting with their HTDs such as I did. I'm open to new things that will better Hardwood but I strongly feel the leagues should run their own leagues/tourneys as we always have.

I'd imagine that TDs would still have the control to determine those things like when the tourney would start for example. I think the idea would be that it would be a hard rule determined by the TD when setting up the Tourney that would be enforced by the system automatically.

[Sailing_Away]

Jonas' post has me thinking. The Tournament of Players doesn't use any external helps (such as Cases' Ladder uses). So, in that way, if we could have the rooms auto-set properly based on the type of game (several kinds are valid, so TD would have to change on the fly if it's 1st round, semifinal, final, playoff, or EOM/EOY tourney). The aid of room setting tools and tracking who advances would be of use too, such as Cases' has (though again, ours is more complex as we have top 2 advance from 1st round, winners from semis, and sometimes wilds to ensure we have tables of 4, with wilds being based on point differences between players).

Maybe this is too much to ask for. <grin>

You can forget all this if we can get lobby audio, lol.

Nothing is too much to ask for.... actually I want to know what would be the dream scenario. And then I also need to build our and design a feature set, so details of what you would need are important.

A dream scenario would take all of the manual effort of hosting and automate it. Walking through what we do might be the best way, then, to list the features that would benefit TOP most.

First, the host (or TD as some call it) lists and records who enters the room and wants to play. Currently people announce "in please" as we make no use of any registration process. If players could come in and hit some kind of register button in lieu of the host tracking this manually, this would be helpful. In the case of banned or disqualified players, they should either not be able to register, or the host should have the ability to remove any player from those registered. If a player leaves the room prior to closing, they should be removed from the register list.

At 9:00pm ET we start our tourney and the host sets tables. Every host seems to have his/her own way of doing this, which actually has caused some to accuse some hosts of favoritism and even sexism in one recent case. To alleviate that, if we can have tables set in an automated way, this could mitigate such complaints. Hosts may wish to set tables completely randomly, or by grouping together people of like skill, or trying to spread out and mix skilled people with less-skilled people. Those could be options available to the host, automated to look at player ratings or leaderboard position (more on that later). I allow 15 minutes for a final set of 4 to be seated in the event we have 1-3 people unseated at 9pm. We do not use bots ever except for where we need a playoff for a tiebreaker (will cover later). If people were placed into their tables, already set correctly, we would not have the problems we do today of game leaders setting tables wrong or people joining the wrong room. It also would cut down on time waiting for people to wake up and set or join.

The first round is to 200 pts, rated, anyone join, cut deck optional. Depending on the number of rooms, either the 1st & 2nd place players advance to the semifinals, or we take them plus 2 3rds for wilds to ensure a multiple of 4 for the semis. Wilds are determined by the lowest difference between 2nd and 3rd place scores in each game. I keep a goal of not setting people together in the semis who played in the 1st round. Automated tracking of player position (1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th) and potential wilds for automated setting of the semifinal rooms would be a great feature.

The semifinals and finals are 100 pts, rated, anyone join, cut deck optional. If we have 4 semifinal rooms, only the winners of those games advance to the finals. If we have 3 semifinal rooms, winners and 1 wild from the 2nds advance, with wild being determined by lowest score differential between 1st and 2nd place in each game. Again, this could be automated so that the people are placed into their proper and correctly set rooms to avoid problems of people setting wrong, joining the wrong room or waiting on people to set or join.

I mentioned a leaderboard before. TOP has a leaderboard we keep, which is reset every month. Points accumulate according to this model: 1st place = 10 pts, 2nd place = 7 pts, 3rd place = 4 pts, 4th place = 1 pt. In the case of a tie for 2nd, both 2nd place players get 7 pts and the last place player gets 4 pts. In case of a tie for 3rd, both 3rds get 4 pts. We have never had a 3-way tie for 2nd, but if that were to happen, all three would get 7 pts. Also, the host gets 10 pts for hosting -or- the points they get if they play, whichever is greater. We also have a "lucky dawg" rule, where in the 1st round, the 3rd place player from the 1st game to end may hang around in case we need a substitute for a player who had to leave or has connection problems. In case the "lucky dawg" subs, he/she gets 5 pts for subbing plus the higher points of either game played in round 1, not to exceed 10 pts for that round. The one who left gets no points.

At the end of the month, we have our end of month tourney where the top 16 on our leaderboard play four 100 pt rounds to determine the final 4 for the night. If anyone on the top 16 doesn't show, we go down the leaderboard in order to find substitutes and start promptly at 9pm ET. We have a grid we use to ensure no one plays the same player twice in the four rounds (if you really build this, I will provide specifications). After each round, the host assigns points just like the leaderboard points above (10-7-4-1) and keeps track through all 4 rounds. After the four rounds, the top 4 point getters advance to the end of month finals and qualify for the end of year tournament which follows the same format as end of month.

Sometimes we need a playoff in case of ties between wilds or 2nds on a normal night, or ties on the top 4 for end of month or end of year. We resolve those with social matches set to 100 pitting 2 people against each other with 2 bots, or in the case of a 3 way tie, 3 separate social games, each against 3 bots, with lowest human score winning. There are more rules to this, but you get the idea.

We admittedly have some complex rules that are unique to our tourney alone. We would not be willing to change our format of play, so if it is automated, it would have to do it this way. Perhaps there are some things that can be automated and some that it wouldn't make sense to, but this is the dream scenario which is to automate all the above that happens manually today.

[Jonas]

A dream scenario would take all of the manual effort of hosting and automate it. Walking through what we do might be the best way, then, to list the features that would benefit TOP most.

First, the host (or TD as some call it) lists and records who enters the room and wants to play. Currently people announce "in please" as we make no use of any registration process. If players could come in and hit some kind of register button in lieu of the host tracking this manually, this would be helpful. In the case of banned or disqualified players, they should either not be able to register, or the host should have the ability to remove any player from those registered. If a player leaves the room prior to closing, they should be removed from the register list.

At 9:00pm ET we start our tourney and the host sets tables. Every host seems to have his/her own way of doing this, which actually has caused some to accuse some hosts of favoritism and even sexism in one recent case. To alleviate that, if we can have tables set in an automated way, this could mitigate such complaints. Hosts may wish to set tables completely randomly, or by grouping together people of like skill, or trying to spread out and mix skilled people with less-skilled people. Those could be options available to the host, automated to look at player ratings or leaderboard position (more on that later). I allow 15 minutes for a final set of 4 to be seated in the event we have 1-3 people unseated at 9pm. We do not use bots ever except for where we need a playoff for a tiebreaker (will cover later). If people were placed into their tables, already set correctly, we would not have the problems we do today of game leaders setting tables wrong or people joining the wrong room. It also would cut down on time waiting for people to wake up and set or join.

yeah, that kinda stuff seems like it would benefit from automation, where the host sets the desired format and options, then people can file into place, removing much of the drudgery and areas for human error. I think it would be key that things are flexible enough for the TD to get the environment for the tourney right.

Some thought would need to be put into partner situations as well. How does one form a team in a partnership game.

I guess another thing would be that distribution of players. Should the 1st tier be random seating, similar rating, or should the favorites to win be dispersed throughout the tables, so its likely they'll be in the finals.

The first round is to 200 pts, rated, anyone join, cut deck optional. Depending on the number of rooms, either the 1st & 2nd place players advance to the semifinals, or we take them plus 2 3rds for wilds to ensure a multiple of 4 for the semis. Wilds are determined by the lowest difference between 2nd and 3rd place scores in each game. I keep a goal of not setting people together in the semis who played in the 1st round. Automated tracking of player position (1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th) and potential wilds for automated setting of the semifinal rooms would be a great feature.

The semifinals and finals are 100 pts, rated, anyone join, cut deck optional. If we have 4 semifinal rooms, only the winners of those games advance to the finals. If we have 3 semifinal rooms, winners and 1 wild from the 2nds advance, with wild being determined by lowest score differential between 1st and 2nd place in each game. Again, this could be automated so that the people are placed into their proper and correctly set rooms to avoid problems of people setting wrong, joining the wrong room or waiting on people to set or join.

So I suppose if we have automated seating, we need to allow a TD to specify the format for each round at an option. One could use the same formant all the way through, but it sounds that perhaps there is a need for customizing that. I suppose that could be a bit of work, but it might be able to be saved as a template for the next tourney.

Sounds like it would be a good idea to have some upfront information for folks on whats going to happen. So maybe we could have a current tourney format info box in the game list or something.

I mentioned a leaderboard before. TOP has a leaderboard we keep, which is reset every month. Points accumulate according to this model: 1st place = 10 pts, 2nd place = 7 pts, 3rd place = 4 pts, 4th place = 1 pt. In the case of a tie for 2nd, both 2nd place players get 7 pts and the last place player gets 4 pts. In case of a tie for 3rd, both 3rds get 4 pts. We have never had a 3-way tie for 2nd, but if that were to happen, all three would get 7 pts. Also, the host gets 10 pts for hosting -or- the points they get if they play, whichever is greater. We also have a "lucky dawg" rule, where in the 1st round, the 3rd place player from the 1st game to end may hang around in case we need a substitute for a player who had to leave or has connection problems. In case the "lucky dawg" subs, he/she gets 5 pts for subbing plus the higher points of either game played in round 1, not to exceed 10 pts for that round. The one who left gets no points.

At the end of the month, we have our end of month tourney where the top 16 on our leaderboard play four 100 pt rounds to determine the final 4 for the night. If anyone on the top 16 doesn't show, we go down the leaderboard in order to find substitutes and start promptly at 9pm ET. We have a grid we use to ensure no one plays the same player twice in the four rounds (if you really build this, I will provide specifications). After each round, the host assigns points just like the leaderboard points above (10-7-4-1) and keeps track through all 4 rounds. After the four rounds, the top 4 point getters advance to the end of month finals and qualify for the end of year tournament which follows the same format as end of month.

Sometimes we need a playoff in case of ties between wilds or 2nds on a normal night, or ties on the top 4 for end of month or end of year. We resolve those with social matches set to 100 pitting 2 people against each other with 2 bots, or in the case of a 3 way tie, 3 separate social games, each against 3 bots, with lowest human score winning. There are more rules to this, but you get the idea.

We admittedly have some complex rules that are unique to our tourney alone. We would not be willing to change our format of play, so if it is automated, it would have to do it this way. Perhaps there are some things that can be automated and some that it wouldn't make sense to, but this is the dream scenario which is to automate all the above that happens manually today.

yeah, I suppose folks have lots of their own leaderboard stuff. Its certainly possible to support that sort of thing. It would be nice to have a way to have a unified system as far as leaderboards go... especially for things like Multi-league events, but on a day in, day out we might be able to offer some custom leaderboard format that would only have relevance to the one room.

[FYREKRACKER]

I guess I am not communicating right. I don't want to ban from your room but in smoots when a player gets a two week ban they are banned from all for two weeks. My point is why let a player use foul language or abuse staff in one room knowing he can just go play in another league? It wouldnt be me banning anyone it would be lke the guides do they decide. I would send them the complaint chat etc. Then the punishment would be delivered. I am telling you the players that consistently pull this stuff it would stop. Almost everytime I host a big buxs tour such as last nite my 900th tour. Two players come in room with names of course we don't know they jump on tables when they are set and they are not in the tourney which means I have to stop calling tables go kick them tell them not to join games till they registered in tourney this continues a few times just to mess with the tourney then they poof. They know It would take a bit to get guide there . WE don't have guides available in the rooms very often and the trouble makers seem to know when the guides arent around and thats when they pull stuff. Or them come in a disgusting name and sit in lobby. Why should a td who gets mad about something be allowed to pull stuff in the league to smear it a bit then leave go to another league begin hosting there? No consequences means the behaviour continues and of course they always can justify why they did this.

[Sailing_Away]

FYRE,

You make a good case why for some offences it makes sense to have a ban apply everywhere if issued, just as a smoots ban would have the same effect.

The flip side of that is - in our tourney, we have rules on top of conformance with SCE rules, such as no game throwing and no quitting mid-game (exceptions made for unusual circumstances but not if someone quit in anger). We issue a 7 day ban for repeated or serious offences. I believe if this happened and it kept someone who was a regular in your tourney from participating, it might lead to hard feelings at the least if you thought our reasons were spurious, and likewise if you had a rule that we didn't have.

This would even be worse if the player we banned was one of your TDs.

We did have a trouble maker show up last night in TOP who disregarded our host, sat in every table, and left the tourney after seating was done. He may have been the same trouble maker, and I wouldn't hesitate to ban him for a period for his actions, and probably no one else would mind.

So, I think we might be able to agree that a ban for violation of an SCE rule that would receive a ban if the same violation happened in smoots might be acceptable, but a tourney ban for violating a tourney rule above and beyond SCE rules is a grey area, and there may be some conditions in which a tourney bans a player that the others won't accept.

[FYREKRACKER]

WEll i would expect my tds no matter where they are playing to conduct themselves as if they were in their own room. So if they were continuously doing something that shouldnt be tolerated I would want them banned for a certain amount of time. The only way to correct behaviour is to have a punishment not just a slap on the wrist. I have players who are banned or kicked for a good reason come sit in lobby and when a player asks them to pard they will say no I can't im banned. It is to try to put a bad mark on my room which is childish behaviour but it does happen. I dont want to make drama so don't say to the other players why they are banned. But if they keep up I do give them a warning if they continue a silence so off they goo when the silence is over back they come to make derogatory comments. If one of my tds acts up in smoots and gets a ban for a few weeks then its their punishment but I dont accept all that apply because I know the behaviours of the certain ones. They do go elsewhere and perform well but hopefully they have learned something from zero tolerance . Just would like all to respect each other and that involves the behaviour problems being dealt with. Also Jonas asked what guides do different that director. well they have the power to find out who the hider nics are that make crude rude comments in the lobby. The players feel intimidated when they see one and will usually poof because of the guide being able to ban them . Maybe we could have a bouncer like they do at the bar lol . Often a player will actout and come back and say I was drunk well they need to think before they get sloshed and come in room and make trouble. Anyway thank u all for the comments it really is helpful . WE donate lots of free hours so players can have fun and I dont get why adults can't respect and just play and enjoy the games. I tell players if you get mad dont take it out on your pard . You can yahoo me and vent and I will read it if not to bad or just delete it but then you have been able to vent. Fyrekracker

[Sailing_Away]

I do understand what you are saying. if your TDs act up in someone else's tourney that doesn't reflect well on them or the fact that they, in a way, are ambassadors of your tourney. The scenario you portray makes it quite reasonable that if one does something to deserve punishment, the effectiveness of said punishment is lost if they can just continue playing in other tourneys. The punishment would be more effective if the consequences were more severe.

I think we are talking about 2 levels of severity, though. If a player is banned for violating SCE rules, I have no problems with the discipline and enforcement as you propose and promote. Part of what I call banning, maybe I should use the term disqualification. If someone violates a TOP rule that wouldn't be seen as a problem anywhere else, and we wish to disqualify them from TOP for 7 days, I don't really want this carrying the weight of saying "by the way, you also may not play in smoots or any other tournament for 7 days". We are content to have the disqualification cover our tourney only. We also wouldn't want the player to play under a different nic in our tourney during the 7 day DQ. I think the head admin should have the power to disqualify all the players nics from a single tourney only, but that would be the extent of it.

For the scenario you are talking about, if a player violates SCE rules in our tourney rules, the TD or head admin should report said player to SCE where they will make the determination as to whether the player should be banned for a period of time (or relegated to Dark Horse). If they decide that, then I agree that this should also preclude them from any and all tourneys. Even the guides don't have the power to ban a player no matter what they see going on, and guides are more highly vetted that tourney admins. Consider the possibility that a tourney could be run by a rogue admin (obviously present company excepted), and to be mean, that admin bans the people who make other tourneys run in order to shut down the "competition". The potential for abuse is too great to place in so many hands that even the guides don't have.

As you can see, I am still holding to the idea that a DQ feature should exist that has no repercussions outside the tourney involved, while agreeing that there are situations where a global ban should apply and a sound policy as to how to do that should govern that.

There is a good solution that everyone can live with somewhere in there, I am sure.

[FYREKRACKER]

IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU COULD POST AN UPDATE ABOUT HOW LONG YOU EXPECT HARDWOOD TO BE DOWN? SURE WOULD HELP THANK U

[AKiss4Luck]

I have mentioned it before... I think a 'wake up' sound when your name is typed out would be awesome! This would really help in the leagues. Would be a nice tool for everyone tho to wake their friends up in lobbies. Mplayer used to have this feature and it really came in handy. Nic would have to be typed out exactly to hear the ' Wake up!'