DoS Madness Comments

[Billy]

With Madness finishing up this week, I was wondering if anyone had any comments, suggestions, or anything that we can improve on for next time.

[G]

Actually, I can't think of anything to improve other than duel scheduling. For example, My duels could only take place at certain times, and late hours on those times, which probably made it difficult for a couple of my opponents.

If I could have gotten permission to get an official DoS caller on any other day, like a Monday or Tuesday after the dueling week, or on a Wednesday before or something.. off hours dueling for an official duel would be okay. Keeping it to only official DoS hours was somewhat challenging for me. Doable, but difficult for opponents on the East Coast since I'm West.

I see no problems with the way the entries were recieved, even if there were "sandbaggers" in it. They didn't last long anyway and were balanced by lack of fancies.

The Seeding was a very enjoyable process for me, since I took part in it, but I know I don't always want to be a Number One seed every time these come up, so if there was a balance to it so that the same 4 people weren't always number one seeds would be ideal. Such as, "A duelist cannot be a Number One seed in Consecutive Tourneys" or something.

Another possible seeding would be to use some sort of dice rolling routine to choose. Some random number thing to seed duelists rather than having it subjected to opinions of those chosen to seed the tourney. There's options out there.

I'm sure I'll think of more as time goes on, but all in all, this Madness Tourney utterly, absolutely, undeniably, unequivically ROCKED!! I loved it!

[Sabastian GoldRaven]

the second one of these should be seeded alphabetically. after that have one that is seeded by entry order. another seeding method would be based upon the number of fancies that a person has in TDL and DoS at the time the seeding is determined.

I would recommend that this be a twice a year type thing. that way we can rotate between TDL/IFL/Madness with a short break between each. perhaps other special events like the Tour, Mega-Cast, Mega-Brawl, etc. could make once a year filler to help spread things out and keep things fresh.

[Tarl Cabot]

Personally, I would prefer if the seedings stayed away from being completely random. I mean, the idea behind seedings in general is that those who have the best chance of winning the tournament get the higher ranking. If we would start going completely random, or alphabetical, or in order of entry, etc. then sooner or later you're going to wind up with two people who would be considered favorites matching up in the first-round. It kind of take some of the excitement out of it if you have someone like Elijah scheduled to fight say Maria in the very first-round.

I would maybe consider changing the people who do all the seedings each tournament. Maybe say the top four from the years previous tournament get to do seedings in the following tournament? If one of them declines or is unavailable, then it falls to somebody in the top eight and so on. That way we wouldn't have the same people making seedings tournament after tournament. They wouldn't necessarily have to be in charge of the division, that could still be controlled by whoever the supervisors feel is best suited to keep a tournament like this on track, but changing the people who actually do the seedings could put a new spin on things each year.

Another thing that could be considered would be to take the results of the previous year's tournament and have that play a part in the seedings for the following tournament. For example, Gnort was a number one seed coming into the tournament this year, and he's in the finals. Whether he wins or not, I would think there'd be a pretty good basis for him being a number one seed next year. I like the idea of taking the entirety of someone's career into consideration when determining the seedings, but I agree with Gnort that you don't really want the same four people getting the number one ranking year after year. But, if somebody deserves to be a number one in back-to-back tournament's, I don't see why we should try to avoid that. If you've got a powerhouse college basketball team, they're going to be the number one seed any given year, it's just the way things work. But, if we have the results from the previous tournament play some sort of part in the seedings, it's going to make it much more difficult for someone to get a number one ranking in back-to-back seasons. Maybe Karen can't be anything above a number three seed next tournament because she did not go into the sweet 16 in this one. Something like that would make sure somebody is not penalize for not having played in a while, still takes their entire career into consideration, but makes it much more likely we will have different top seeds every tournament

Also, I think this tournament would be best as a once a year event. I think that running it twice a year might take away just a little bit from the buildup. I have thoroughly enjoyed the tournament. I imagine it is the largest tournament in the history of the game? I cannot ever remember having a warlord tournament with 64 characters in it! I also had a little bit of difficulty having to get every match scheduled during official hours, but that's partly because I had an unusually busy travel schedule the last several weeks. I can see the plus side in trying to keep everything during regular business hours, as it brings people into the arena when others are there to fight for whatever, so people are more inclined to wind up staying around and playing after their scheduled madness fight, not to mention others who may not heard of the tournament seeing something about it and becoming interested next year. So, while I can see where allowing the fights to happen outside of regular hours might be easier on scheduling for a lot of people, I wonder if it isn't better for the tournament as a whole to keep them during regular hours. Either way, I won't complain much

That's about it. All in all, fantastic event!

[Deluthan]

I think my only suggestion would be maybe to extend the second round of the tournament so that it lasts two weeks like the first round. There seemed to be a bit of pressure in getting all the duels done in just one weekend.

I was happy with how the seeding worked, although I might like to see more weight given to DoS accomplishments and less to TDL accomplishments, since it is a DoS event. I didn't like seeing forfeits, but I think they're unavoidable given how the tournament is set up.

[Grayson]

About the forfeit. It wasn't a decision I made lightly and I'd talked through options with a couple of people who's opinions I respect. The situation I was in is that pretty much the day after Horatio's elite eight duel my ship got underway. And while I have internet access at sea, we can't run instant messaging or flash programs for communications security reasons. So that left me with these options:

1. Throw my duel with Alyxz - This idea didn't last long. It wouldn't have been fair to Alyxz, his player, myself, or anyone else for that matter. I'm not in the habit of throwing duels and I wasn't going to start with this one.

2. Duel to win, but lose - This would've been the ideal situation, and it was what I was hoping for. Since I wasn't going to throw the duel, maybe I'd lose and it'd all work out.

3. Duel to win, beat Alyxz, have someone else play Horatio for the remaining rounds - I VERY briefly flirted with this idea, but ultimately decided no way. For one, there's no one here who can play Horatio as well as I can For two, it wouldn't have been fair to who Horatio'd be dueling in the last one or two rounds. For three, it's just out and out wrong.

4. Duel to win, beat Alyxz, withdraw from the tourney - This is ultimately what I decided to do. I wasn't happy about it, I certainly didn't want to have to do, but after consulting with a few people I decided it was the best course of action to take.

So that's that. For the tournament itself, like I said in Horatio's withdrawal post, it was an ABSOLUTE success. I honestly can't think of anything I'd change, except for time the damn thing so that I don't have to go to sea in the middle of it!

[Harris]

I wholeheartedly believe that this is probably one of the best events any of the sports has had in the past several years.

I don't generally consider myself a sore loser (though I'm sure some would disagree) but I expected my interest in the tournament to wane after I lost in the opening round. It didn't. Partially due to the unexpected "bracket busters" that moved through the rounds but mostly due to Kalamere's efforts on the Madness site, which I think pumped up the tournament significantly. I think it would be a boon to all the sports to run something similar for their cyclic tournaments.

Everyone praise Billy for his genius.

[Elijah]

I agree this event was one of the best ever for DoS. I'd like to seem some seeding adjustments made as well in terms of qualifying for the event and the seed to avoid no-name spoilers/ringers coming out of the blue.

As well as potentially allowing Madness duels if neccessary to be able to take place outside of DoS calling hours.

[Charlie Nausikaa]

I liked the seeding just the way it was. Random seeding would completely take away from the fun in the backet styling. Plus, it lends itself to some great roleplaying opportunities. For example an egotistical former baron who believes his four seed is a slap in the face then goes out to prove himself by demolishing everyone he faces.

I don't know if I'm a fan of the idea of letting duels happen outside normal dueling hours. It's hard enough to get callers during normal shifts. I'm afraid that callers would get so many requests during the week that by the time their shift rolled around, the would just be burned out. This isn't TDL where there's twenty-odd callers. Unfortunately, DoS has a very small, limited number of callers.

All in all, it was a great idea and very smoothly run! Thanks, Billy.

[Kalamere]

Thanks for the nod Harris.

I've really enjoyed the tournament as well as the website stuff thrown up to support it. As long as we don't rename or rearrange the division names, everything I wrote should work for the next one of these without a problem.. I just have to pop in a new list of seedings.

If there are any suggestions for items that could be added or done better, I remain open to suggestions.

[Napoleon Bonarat]

I loved Madness and agree that the Pool website really helped generate interest. I'm ready to play all over again!

I definitely like that anyone could enter even if that means we fight ringers/new characters played by established players.

Suggestions:

1. Play at least twice a year/every six months, even quarterly if ambitious
2. Select a new committee each time to do seedings. This should hopefully mix up the seedings so we don't see the same people in the same seeds tourney to tourney. This doesn't mean each new committee has to have all new members, just add some variety each time.
3. This not so much for the organizer(s) but for the players: do more betting and DZ Casino--this goes for all events. Betting Houses should advertise that their betting lines are open.
4. More ROH front page headlines as the tourney progresses.

Other ideas (not necessarily for Madness):

Another tourney could be smaller with qualifying parameters (e.g., no ringers) and it could be double elimination.

Another tourney could be even smaller than that and could be round robin.

[Elijah]

I believe what makes college basketball March Madness so successful is that you know it's not about the money for one like professional sports, and that every team has chance to be a cinderella. I root for Gonzaga just because I think their name is cool, but I always root against Cali and Texas teams regardless. Even if you are not in college or your alumni has a chance to succeed most casual sports fans though not neccessarily basketball fans get into the tournament.. Gambling is a big draw and "armchair coaching" is another big draw, but when it comes down to it I think the big fan draw is feeling like your predictions matter and gives you a reason to root for a team even though personally you are not asssociated with that college.

I believe DoS Madness should stick to once a year format, like between TDL and IFL seasons like this time. TDL has helped people keep up with DoS, and having some sort of league experience like IFL now when TDL is off I believe increases that.

I truly believe not only is DoS Madness the coolest event for RoH Sword ever that has happened, but I believe it truly gives players an interest in RoH DoS that is non-league affiliated for the first time in a long time.

The number one reason why I believe there should be some kind of qualifiers for duelers to even enter DoS Madness and the seeding they receive it to help generate DoS dueling outside of leagues and tournaments.

I admit that the seeding I got as Elijah was more past history than current qualifier, while I personally believe Joku is the strongest dueling character I have ever had in the duels. From the point this tournament started or ended I believe the slate now should be reset to zero so that come this time next year if what is usual holds true Joku should have a better seeding than Elijah next time.

The biggest debate we have ever had about RoH DoS or any sport in RoH is regular participation when there is non event to strive for. We talk about attracting new players like from the RDI, but our biggest frustration it seems is what to do to keep them playing regularly.

So why not set up DoS so that every duel is not neccassrily for a prize, but in some way effects how you can enter certain events, like the WLT, or Talon tourney, or DoS Madness.

So often the debate turns to challenge rules, but I think the debate should simplify to a more basic level in our current exsistence to give people more incentive to duel other than they are home on a Thursday night with nothing to do and bored.

Yes, some come for the role-play, but that is very cliqueish. I guess I am saying in compromise that there should not be a "NO" qualifier type of guidelines for any tourney but I think some sort of structure should be set up so that when entry and seeding come into play for any tourney being a regular dueler should give you the most benfit than anything else in determining eligibility and/or seeding,

[Sabastian GoldRaven]

I really like the idea of a round robin tournament but with a slight difference. Instead of each person fighting once per week the idea would be to fight as many of the other people in the tournament as possible. Much like in the Tour each win would net you one point.
After two weeks any remaining matchs could be scheduled. If someone withdraws before the end then all wins against that person would be nulified so that everyone has the same number of duels counted.
Depending on how many people entered you would likely end up with two or more people with the same number of wins. Rather than determining the winner based on who beat who you could have a finals match.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

I enjoyed the tournament very much (until the week I had to duel sober). I love the way it was set-up.

My only suggestion, and it is towards seeding, follows Napoleon's own suggestion:

Change up the seeding committees every year, otherwise you are going to be getting mostly similar seeds with always the chance for certain bias/etc to slip through. Also, perhaps define more specifically seeding qualifications in the future - history and longevity played a huge role in the seeding this time around, but I personally think that well-roundedness and recent performance could have played more (and if I were on the committee, probably would have played more). Just my few cents - it was a great tournament, and a great way to unwind after DoS, while managing to bring the TDL folks back to the Arena to help bolster its activity.

[Jake]

Whether or not it was an intended purpose, it seems like the DoS Madness event was good for drawing people into regular dueling nights. Given that, I think it would be good to avoid allowing duels outside of normal dueling hours.

Following up on Deluthan's suggestion, I agree that two weeks for round two might be a good idea.

Once a year seems often enough for me. It takes time to set these things up. An annual event leaves room for other events to fill in the gaps, like TdR, like Random's Duelmaster idea, etc. It's good to have room for other new events.

Seeding doesn't much matter to me, but seeing different people do it each year is probably a good idea. Having the previous year's winners do it however seems likely to be problematic. DoS Supervisor should tap some group to do it based on whatever criteria is appropriate at the time.

Would be totally against the tourney going to a round-robin format. Round-robin for this size of event is unmanageable. And no one likes to lose their wins when someone drops out of a round-robin event. Round-robin is only useful for smallish events where everyone will stay in the event. -- However, that said, Marx once ran a WLT or two in a Swiss format that might be worth trying again. Not necessarily for DoS Madness, but for some tourney.

Timing of the DoS Madness event right as TDL ended seemed very good. It was a good hook to bring the team duelers into DoS (like Napoleon).

And, in agreement with Napoleon, I'd be very happy to see more betting on the rounds at the casino.