Large-Team Tournaments & Director Changes

[Night Strike]

Hello again tournament folks. It has been a long time since we've had a major policy update/addition to the tournament forums, so here is one that you all knew was in the pipes. Almost 2 months ago I made the decision to put a hold on starting any new tournaments that dealt with large teams (basically any size of team that wasn't allowed in a single CC game). We did this because the large-team tournaments that were being announced were all a hodge-podge of different formats and intricacies that were only guided by the medals rule of "Any number of players on the winning team will still receive a tournament winner's medal". We saw it as problematic to rule up to half the people in a single tournament with a medal, but we did not like to arbitrarily state which tournaments were allowed and which ones weren't. So now we have designed a policy that should help clarify what we expect for large-team tournaments, especially to differentiate them from regular clan wars or the like.

Large-Team Tournaments Policy
Announced June 16, 2011

1. Large-Team Tournaments are tournaments featuring larger teams playing a variety of game settings toward a common goal. Every tournament must have at least 8 teams competing with each team carrying 5-12 active players. Tournaments that have teams of 13 or more players will not be allowed.

2. To be allowed to run a Large-Team Tournament the organizer must:

• Have successfully completed a minimum of 3 tournaments, including 1 standard-team tournament.
• Appoint another TO as co-host or assistant (see below).
• Provide a clear and comprehensive tournament description and explanation.
• Provide a summary of the above tournament description (key points).
• Establish rules for the replacement of players and/or teams.
• Design the tournament in a manner that another organizer with a similar amount of experience would be able to rescue the tournament without too much interpretation of the rules.
• Seek approval from the Tournament Director responsible for Large-Team Tournaments before posting the tournament in the Create/Join a tournament forum.
• The approval PM needs to indicate which tasks both organizers will be responsible for.

3.- The co-host or assistant of the organizer must:

• Have successfully completed 1 tournament as the organizer.
• Have access to, or copies of, the relevant tournament information such as spreadsheets and brackets.
• Be prepared, willing, and active enough in the flow of the tournament to take over the tournament if the organizer leaves for any length of time.

4.- To be eligible for a Tournament Achievement Medal a member of the winning team must:

• Have played at least one-third (33%) of the tournament games he/she could have played.
  
  i.e. If a player could play in a max of 6 games per round, then they need to average at least 2 games per round over the course of the tournament.
• Have participated in at least half (50%) of all rounds or phases of the tournament.
• Have won 1 game in the tournament.

Note: This rule is in addition to the existing rules about Tournament Achievement Medals.

Minimum Requirements Update

In April of last year, we made a substantial update to the Minimum Requirements to be considered a public tournament. We have been seeing an increase in the length of time it takes to complete tournaments, either through organizers not updating promptly or because the format is very long and/or complicated. As such, we would like every organizer to Design your tournament in a way that it should last no longer than 1 year in length. This is obviously a very subjective guideline as exact lengths are nearly impossible to accurately predict, but we have found that tournaments that last longer than 1 year tend to lose many players as well as the organizer. We are mostly asking organizers to be mindful of this target date for the length of their tournaments and design the structure and settings of the tournament to end in a timely manner. Longer and in-depth tournaments are invaluable to the CC Tournament environment, but we want to make sure they don't suffer from player attrition and organizer fatigue.

Tournament Director Changes

We recently found out that danryan needed to step down from his Tournament Director position due to becoming busier in his personal life. We thank him very much for the help he was able to contribute during his time as a TD.
Taking over his task of handling Abandoned and Rescued Tournaments will be tokle. And we couldn't just add 1 new TD, so we have also added sonicsteve to the group. He will be helping out when new organizers are needing assistance as well as helping us put together a new task that will be announced to the public in the coming weeks. Thank you both for your willingness to help make CC Tournaments a better place.
Also, the Tournament Director Task Distribution List has been updated, so be sure to check it for any issue you're needing help with in relation to CC Tournaments.


And thank you to everybody for your patience as we wrote the new policy and for your eagerness to expand the realm of CC Tournaments. This site would not be half enjoyable without your dedication.

~Night Strike
Head Tournament Director

[Leehar]

Intriguing update
And congrats again to sonic and tokle

[Swifte]

Design your tournament in a way that it should last no longer than 1 year in length.

Sounds more like a maximum requirement than a minimimum requirement Probably a good rule of thumb though. Thanks for the updates.

[flexmaster33]

nice work as always crew...good changes all around

[phantomzero]

Great updates. Should help keep the big tournaments from collapsing!

[IcePack]

There goes my tournament. How'd I know that would happen...yay for wasted time :/
waited two months for nothing

This is why I asked for an exception to the waiting period, for a tournament that was going to go out the next weekend....now it's unplayable.

As a side note for when I do redo mine or plan another does the 3 tournament rule include clan wars that a player has run?

IcePack

[Night Strike]

There goes my tournament. How'd I know that would happen...yay for wasted time :/
waited two months for nothing

This is why I asked for an exception to the waiting period, for a tournament that was going to go out the next weekend....now it's unplayable.

As a side note for when I do redo mine or plan another does the 3 tournament rule include clan wars that a player has run?

IcePack

Clan wars do not count.

And what was the issue with your tournament idea?

[IcePack]

Tournaments that have teams of 13 or more players will not be allowed.
Have successfully completed a minimum of 3 tournaments, including 1 standard-team tournament.
Appoint another TO as co-host or assistant

[flexmaster33]

nothing wrong with making TOs think through their tournament ideas before launching. I've seen too many that drag on based solely on poor design or game settings.

[IcePack]

nothing wrong with making TOs think through their tournament ideas before launching. I've seen too many that drag on based solely on poor design or game settings.

I spent a lot of time setting this tournament up. Ironically I spent all that time to ensure it went smoothly and wouldn't get screwed or stalled, and spending the extra time setting it up before posting it actually caused t to be axed.

Basically their saying if I wasn't as prepared I could had posted it a week early and they would be ok with it, but bcuz they don't want tournaments going to long, getting bogged down, or having issues (which is what I put all the work in to avoid) that I can't host the tournament anymore.

[patrickaa317]

12 players on a team.

6 games per round = 6-24 spots for those games. (6 singles games to 6 quads games)


If each player has to play 2 games, that means 24 spots are required to maintain medal possibility if there are 12 players on a team, which would allow no room at all for non-quads games as they only way to maintain this is to have ALL quads games.



EDIT: Realized 12 spots per team a possibility, updated above post.

[IcePack]

8 players on a team.

6 games per round = 6-24 spots for those games.

If each player has to play 2 games, that means 16 spots are required to maintain medal possibility, which would allow very little room for any singles or doubles games in a large team tourney.

6 doubles games = 12 spots. 4 players do not earn any medals at this rate.

Am I reading this as basically all large team tournaments must be dominated by triples and quads games. Singles play in large team tournaments is heavily discouraged now?

How tough is it to piggy back General Achievement Medals on top of Large Team tourneys?

I didn't even think about that

[Dukasaur]

Tournaments that have teams of 13 or more players will not be allowed.
Have successfully completed a minimum of 3 tournaments, including 1 standard-team tournament.
Appoint another TO as co-host or assistant

The first one might be a bit restrictive, but they had to draw the line somewhere.
The second and third are very reasonable:
re: the second. Just as you wouldn't let someone drive your tractor-trailer if he's never even driven a car, you wouldn't want someone running a big epic tournament until you've seen his track record running some smaller ones.
re: the third. The biggest problem the TDs have to deal with are abandoned tournaments. It's easy to rescue a small and simple tournament, anyone can do it. But to rescue a big and complicated tournament is a huge amount of work, and doubly so if you have no access to the original organiser's scoresheet databases and so on. The TDs want to make sure that someone has been preparing for this eventuality and has access to those databases, so if the original organiser drops out the understudy can jump in with very little prep time.

[IcePack]

The first one might be a bit restrictive, but they had to draw the line somewhere.
The second and third are very reasonable:
re: the second. Just as you wouldn't let someone drive your tractor-trailer if he's never even driven a car, you wouldn't want someone running a big epic tournament until you've seen his track record running some smaller ones.
re: the third. The biggest problem the TDs have to deal with are abandoned tournaments. It's easy to rescue a small and simple tournament, anyone can do it. But to rescue a big and complicated tournament is a huge amount of work, and doubly so if you have no access to the original organiser's scoresheet databases and so on. The TDs want to make sure that someone has been preparing for this eventuality and has access to those databases, so if the original organiser drops out the understudy can jump in with very little prep time.

Why does there need to be a limit on players? Well run tournaments, regardless of size, as long as they have appropriate sign ups and safeguards (ie reserve player policy) it should be able to be run. The line could very well be as long as they had a well designed format and allowed each players enough games etc.

The second is fine, I have less of a "problem" with it, but he asked what stopped me from doing mine.

The third - do you punish employees or using ur example, require truck drivers to had back up drivers before they've made a mistake? This is overkill. As long as the TO doesn't have a history of abandoning tournaments, why should they have to have an assistant? Den make a requimrent the sheets have to be emailed to a TD! Then u don't need an assistant and if it's abandoned they can email the sheets to the TO rescuing it.

Make a zero tolerance policy, I don't care. If I've had even one abandoned tournament then by all means make me get a helper. Otherwise I don't see the need for it.

IcePack

[IcePack]

There goes my tournament. How'd I know that would happen...yay for wasted time :/
waited two months for nothing

This is why I asked for an exception to the waiting period, for a tournament that was going to go out the next weekend....now it's unplayable.

As a side note for when I do redo mine or plan another does the 3 tournament rule include clan wars that a player has run?

IcePack

Clan wars do not count.

They won't count towards the 1 standard team tournament?

[Lindax]

IcePack, of course you can run your Large-Team Tournament. All you need to do is show us that you are serious about it. You're already running a few tournaments, so you shouldn't be that far away from meeting the requirements.

BTW: Can I ask you what happened to the "Epic Teams" tournament you were supposed to organize together with chapcrap?

Lx

[patrickaa317]

12 players on a team.

6 games per round = 6-24 spots for those games. (6 singles games to 6 quads games)


If each player has to play 2 games, that means 24 spots are required to maintain medal possibility if there are 12 players on a team, which would allow no room at all for non-quads games as they only way to maintain this is to have ALL quads games.



EDIT: Realized 12 spots per team a possibility, updated above post.

bump. Looking for a response from a TD.

[IcePack]

IcePack, of course you can run your Large-Team Tournament. All you need to do is show us that you are serious about it. You're already running a few tournaments, so you shouldn't be that far away from meeting the requirements.

BTW: Can I ask you what happened to the "Epic Teams" tournament you were supposed to organize together with chapcrap?

Lx

I'm more than willing to run it if I'm allowed, thank u for saying I can. Does that mean even if it doesn't meet every new requirement?

I have two ongoing tournaments, a 1 vs 1 clan war vs legion, and a tournament league in sign ups. It'll still be awhile before these "complete" seeing as they aren't tiny tournaments. I have no "team tournaments" as of yet. The 3 completed & 1 team means I'll still be months away from meeting even the capability to host it. I am serious about it, I've been here less then a year and I've been involved with a clan, tournaments, very active in forums, tournaments, and logged 1600 completed games. I'm here for the long haul. I've also done a "unofficial" tournament within KOA bcuz TD's said it couldn't be made a tournament due to 100% invites, and so they've all been private games.

I've updated my tournaments regularly and keep them moving. The tournament with chapcrap was always his tournament, I said I would help out. Unfortunately I had some personal problems, a unexpected move, and a surgery to deal with right when it was to start up. My job was to create games, which I could hav e done but I'd had delayed his start a bit so I stepped aside so that his tournament wouldnt be slowed down due to my issues. After those were sorted out I had my tourney nearly ready and healed the first week of surgery when I was posting it, but the new moratorium on large team games came into play.

I didn't like it, but it was suggested I should run some tournaments in the meantime as likely there would be a requirement for it. So even tho I only had interest in running one, I've started 3 others to show I was serious about it. It wasn't mentioned one would need to be a team tournament or I'd have started that so I would be "on the way" to started the only one I still really wanting to run.

Ive run similar ones at gaming conventions and other sites, I adjusted the set up to "fit" CC tournament games and set up. But I doubt I can fit it into the 12 man requirement, and it'll still be months away before I complete the 3 required tournaments.

The whole idea of my large team tournament was I couldn't do ANYTHING for two months after my surgery (couldn't walk) so id have all day and night in bed to run it. Now, ive healed up and am back to work so instead of giving 100% to it it'll actually slow the tournament down as summer is the busiest time of work for me. (summer). I could have gotten thru the first several rounds which would be the heaviest part of the work load, so that by summer it'd be less for me to handle. See, I HAD put a lot of thought into t and making sure it'd be successful.

Anyway, do whatever you like. I'll give my opinion and you can allow me or not, I'm just upset I wasted so much time preparing something for CC community that ultimately wasnt even able to get off the ground, and even if it is run t won't go as smoothly as it would have when I actually wanted to run it 2 months ago, and the stop to those tournaments actually preventing the very thing it was intended to ensure. Well run tournaments from people who would be actively pursuing it's timely completion.

If you have any other question about chaps tournament feel free to PM me, I won't give personal details here.

IcePack

[Lindax]

IcePack, of course you can run your Large-Team Tournament. All you need to do is show us that you are serious about it. You're already running a few tournaments, so you shouldn't be that far away from meeting the requirements.

BTW: Can I ask you what happened to the "Epic Teams" tournament you were supposed to organize together with chapcrap?

Lx

I'm more than willing to run it if I'm allowed, thank u for saying I can. Does that mean even if it doesn't meet every new requirement?

No, you'll have to meet every new requirement.

I have two ongoing tournaments, a 1 vs 1 clan war vs legion, and a tournament league in sign ups. It'll still be awhile before these "complete" seeing as they aren't tiny tournaments. I have no "team tournaments" as of yet. The 3 completed & 1 team means I'll still be months away from meeting even the capability to host it. I am serious about it, I've been here less then a year and I've been involved with a clan, tournaments, very active in forums, tournaments, and logged 1600 completed games. I'm here for the long haul. I've also done a "unofficial" tournament within KOA bcuz TD's said it couldn't be made a tournament due to 100% invites, and so they've all been private games.

If you're here for the long haul, why the hurry?

I've updated my tournaments regularly and keep them moving. The tournament with chapcrap was always his tournament, I said I would help out. Unfortunately I had some personal problems, a unexpected move, and a surgery to deal with right when it was to start up. My job was to create games, which I could hav e done but I'd had delayed his start a bit so I stepped aside so that his tournament wouldnt be slowed down due to my issues. After those were sorted out I had my tourney nearly ready and healed the first week of surgery when I was posting it, but the new moratorium on large team games came into play.

Sorry, but we can't really do anything about the "bad timing".

I didn't like it, but it was suggested I should run some tournaments in the meantime as likely there would be a requirement for it. So even tho I only had interest in running one, I've started 3 others to show I was serious about it. It wasn't mentioned one would need to be a team tournament or I'd have started that so I would be "on the way" to started the only one I still really wanting to run.

We didn't know the knew requirements at the time either. However, if you're here for the long haul it shouldn't matter that much.

Ive run similar ones at gaming conventions and other sites, I adjusted the set up to "fit" CC tournament games and set up. But I doubt I can fit it into the 12 man requirement, and it'll still be months away before I complete the 3 required tournaments.

Again, if you're here for the long haul it shouldn't matter. And that's exactly what we want to see, TOs being here for the long haul.

The whole idea of my large team tournament was I couldn't do ANYTHING for two months after my surgery (couldn't walk) so id have all day and night in bed to run it. Now, ive healed up and am back to work so instead of giving 100% to it it'll actually slow the tournament down as summer is the busiest time of work for me. (summer). I could have gotten thru the first several rounds which would be the heaviest part of the work load, so that by summer it'd be less for me to handle. See, I HAD put a lot of thought into t and making sure it'd be successful.

Trying to set up and run a Large-Team Tournament knowing you have 2 months with plenty of time on your hands is a bad idea. Usually the problems with this kind of tournaments start showing up after the first few months. You could have easily organized a bunch of short tournaments to get you through those two months.

Anyway, do whatever you like. I'll give my opinion and you can allow me or not, I'm just upset I wasted so much time preparing something for CC community that ultimately wasnt even able to get off the ground, and even if it is run t won't go as smoothly as it would have when I actually wanted to run it 2 months ago, and the stop to those tournaments actually preventing the very thing it was intended to ensure. Well run tournaments from people who would be actively pursuing it's timely completion.

This is not the first time you say "do whatever you like" or "I don't care". To me that doesn't seem like a TO who is convinced that he wants to really run a Large-Team Tournament.

If you have any other question about chaps tournament feel free to PM me, I won't give personal details here.

Thank you, but you more or less proved the point of our new policy already.


On a side note: I know I can sound arrogant and condescending sometimes, however, that is not my intention. What I'm trying to point out with my answers to you is that many of the points you bring up are exactly why we put this knew policy in place.

Lx

[Lindax]

12 players on a team.

6 games per round = 6-24 spots for those games. (6 singles games to 6 quads games)


If each player has to play 2 games, that means 24 spots are required to maintain medal possibility if there are 12 players on a team, which would allow no room at all for non-quads games as they only way to maintain this is to have ALL quads games.



EDIT: Realized 12 spots per team a possibility, updated above post.

bump. Looking for a response from a TD.

I'll give you a response if you give me a question.

Anyway, you can have any number of games per round and for a Large-Team Tournament 6 games per round doesn't sound like much. That said, even with 6 games per round all of the players could theoretically get a medal since you only need to play in 50% of the rounds.

Lx

[IcePack]

Well then again, the tournament won't meet wert requirement so clearly I cant run it as you suggested.
I never said I was in a hurry, I said it was annoying bcuz I had put all this work into it to avoid exactly what ur trying to avoid, and got screwed.
I did set up tournaments thru the 2 month break, that's already been brought up. The point was there was actually only one that I desired to run. Although with a lot of work done in the front side of things, I disagree there was much of a chance of it falling apart in a well run tournament.
Your kidding me right? Me saying I don't care doesn't I don't want to run my tournament, clearly I do. I've been trying to be allowed when you posted the break and the new policy! I'd have just given up if I "didn't care" about that. I don't care whether you do or not because you've already wasted my time, and I don't think you care about the time I've wasted trying to put on a CC tournament that was a lot of work. And therefore, as you've already so eloquently stated, won't budge on the policy and makes it unrunnavle anyway.

What you've done is confirmed my fear and what I voiced when the break was put in place, more than likely my tournament wouldn't e able to be run. And you've confirmed it with everything you've said. I don't see how what you've said or my points have "proved" anything about the new policy. But that's irrelevant and personal opinion.

IcePack

[Lindax]

and I don't think you care about the time I've wasted trying to put on a CC tournament that was a lot of work.

IcePack

This is where you are wrong IcePack. Do you really think that if I didn't care that I would spend several hours a day trying to make the tournament part of CC a better place for all of us?

I'm sorry for you that the timing of your tournament and us putting a new policy in place kind of screwed your plans, but don't ever tell me that I don't care.

Lx

[IcePack]

Ok, you may care - but you won't do anything about it. Policy is policy, duly noted.

I won't run the tournament, got the msg loud & clear.

[patrickaa317]

12 players on a team.

6 games per round = 6-24 spots for those games. (6 singles games to 6 quads games)


If each player has to play 2 games, that means 24 spots are required to maintain medal possibility if there are 12 players on a team, which would allow no room at all for non-quads games as they only way to maintain this is to have ALL quads games.



EDIT: Realized 12 spots per team a possibility, updated above post.

bump. Looking for a response from a TD.

I'll give you a response if you give me a question.

Anyway, you can have any number of games per round and for a Large-Team Tournament 6 games per round doesn't sound like much. That said, even with 6 games per round all of the players could theoretically get a medal since you only need to play in 50% of the rounds.

Lx

According to the original post:

4.- To be eligible for a Tournament Achievement Medal a member of the winning team must:

• Have played at least one-third (33%) of the tournament games he/she could have played.
  
  i.e. If a player could play in a max of 6 games per round, then they need to average at least 2 games per round over the course of the tournament.
• Have participated in at least half (50%) of all rounds or phases of the tournament.
• Have won 1 game in the tournament.

Note: This rule is in addition to the existing rules about Tournament Achievement Medals.

You have to play in 1/3 of the games you could play in to be eligible for a medal. With 12 players per team, the only way all players can qualify is if you all play only Quads games and every player is involved in an exact equal number of them. If you have 12 players per team, and there is one game that involves Triples, then at the very most only 11 players will be eligible for a medal. It is impossible for the 12th player to be able to meet the 1/3 minimum requirement at that point.

And the number of total games would have to be a multiple of 3 otherwise at least one player still wouldn't qualify. 100 games = 400 spots; each player has to play in 33.3 games to qualify. Since you can't play .3 of a game, you have to play 34 games to meet the minimum requirement. Players ABCD play games 1-34, Players EFGH play games 35-68, Players IJKL play games 69-100. Players IJKL only played 32 games and thus do not qualify for a team medal.

The math is the same whether it's 6 games per round or 600 games per round. And even though you only have to participate in half of the rounds, you still have to average 1/3 over the course of the tournament.

I understand the need for new requirements for Large Team tourneys but with this math it makes things tough to organize a tourney where all 12 players could all receive a medal.

Is that really what is desired? Where all 12 player Large Team tourneys are restricted to Quads only games? Perhaps there could be "medium sized" team tourneys (5-10 players) and then "large sized" team tourneys (11+ players).

And on a side note:
This new rule will completely eliminate tournaments like Tupence's 2012 Olympics which I have found to be very fun and a very unique layout. You could never have Singles games in large team tournaments unless you also incorporate 1 quads game for every 2 singles games to bring up the average game count; and that would restrict the maximum amount of players to 6 per team to ensure everyone is medal eligible.

[IcePack]

You also couldn't have regular eliminations, as anyone eliminated in the large team event early rounds wouldn't have played half the rounds minimum and therefore not receive a medal for help in the early rounds. Those eliminated in 1st round would be completely impossible, which I'm fine with they wouldn't get 1 win. But the next few rounds would eliminate several players as well, and if ur limited to 5-12 those teams will dry up pretty quickly. Most of the winning team might not even get the medal...