Demo Tournament

[countlieberkuhn]

The Magic Missiles put in a damn good effort! Glad to see it was much closer than the last one against SM7

But i'll read the logs later. I've been working on a programming assignment for 14 hours straight and just finished - not even a short youtube video as a break. Good old last-minute stuff. Time for a snooze!

[Bob]

The Consolation and Finals matches have both been simmed, so the entire tournament is now online! Check it out. Also, I really really recommend you read the Finals match without skipping to the score. Just skim through point-for-point. It's intense.

[wyvernxk7]

Wow, that was pretty exciting! Good to know the final match can be a blast to read through!

[Bob]

My thoughts on Blitzball thus far:

1. Both Wide and Center formation teams did well, so I actually do believe that formation is balanced.

2. Risk is also fairly balanced. Fleck: I checked Risk and it does work properly, so it must just be that the estimates were off. Remember there is a high level of randomness to shots vs shot predictions. I currently have Risk at 5 (low), 0 (normal), or -5 (high). I am thinking I could try to turn this into a percentage thing for a bit more long-term necessity. >20% (low), >0% (normal), >-20& (high). Lemme know what you all think.

3. Peeking at stats, it looks like the #1 determining factor for a #1 or #2 team is having one or more 5/5 forwards. Illua, Lightning, and Terra are all 5/5's, by which I mean 5 Jecht Shot, 5 Volley Shot. The question is, does this matter? On the one hand, we could all make a 5/5 forward to compete, but on the other, it means less variety among teams. Since the passing game is so much better in this version, it's pretty easy for teams to pass it to their all star. That was how The Nightshades did so well with only one power forward.

Personally, I like that the team build of The Nightshades was so effective and was likely built around the idea of "get the ball to Illua." It's a good dynamic, whereas Loveless was more "get the ball to any forward." Where The Nightshades will struggle is when Stamina comes into play and Illua needs to sit out, whereas Loveless has alternates.

I thought about changing the Sum Rule to be something like "no one skill can make up more than 1/3 of the level," but that's getting picky, restrictive, and we'd all just make 5/5's into 3/3/3's with Golden Arm now in the mix, so I've nixed that thought.

One kinda neat alternative that I think we should consider is "no two players are identical on any one team." That way, you can still build a 5/5 forward, but he/she WILL sit out one day. You can still have another player that's a 1GA/4JS/5VS instead, which is basically the same thing, but the two players ARE distinct. I really like this rule, honestly, because it means we can't just build the same alternate player and put the same exact build stamp on them. No swapping a 5/5 for a 5/5, y'know? If Tidus is replacing Jecht, they might be VERY similar, but not the exact same.

Anyway, would love to get your thoughts on this, but basically, I'm really glad with how the tournament went. I think we've really proven that all formations have their uses, as do risk levels and the shot bonus. What's also pretty remarkable is how close the Magic Missiles came to winning it, despite not having a 5/5 on the team. In fact, the Magic Missiles don't even have anybody CLOSE to a 5/5, yet they pulled in third place and narrowly lost to Loveless in the semi-finals. I is a proud little designer. I think we have near-perfect balance here, the only exception being that 5/5 is an ungodly scoring machine. The Stamina system should limit that, just so long as we have a restriction on 5/5's. Again, I totally pimp out my above rule change. I think it's a good 'un.

Remember, folks! You can completely revamp your players before the next league or tournament! This was only a test! I know I'VE got some changes to make, considering I'm the only player that didn't make semi-finals

[wyvernxk7]

I'm down with the no identicals. That sounds like a good requirement and it will make trading off players more interesting if it comes to that in the future.

Speaking of which, perhaps when a player is traded to another team, three bonus allocations are reset, with precedence given to the bonuses which have bee used most? For instance, if I get a player with a 4/3/2/1, the 4 and 3 stats would drop to 2 and I could choose where to re-allocate the three bonuses. Similarly, a 5/3/1/1 would become 3/2/1/1. That's jumping a bit into the future of course, but it's just something that occurred to me.

I like the percentage better than the flat #s for risk also. Makes risk have a more dynamic influence on gameplay.

[Bob]

I like the idea for reallocating some of a player's stats on trades, but I am not sure how important trading will be in the future. We might've nixed the idea and turned it into a "release and recreate" situation. Since we're just doing a "league level" across all players, I don't think it's terribly important to take specific characters from other players. But I guess we'll see. We do change the rules quite a bit!

[wyvernxk7]

True.

[Fleck]

I'm all for the "no identicals" rule, since like Bob said, it makes the stamina system more effective. Of course, this means I'll have to rebuild my teams, but I was going to do that anyway. Although, really, who would have expected Loveless to post 14 goals in three games? It's like friggin lacrosse out here. While I like that they won, that's not the kind of team I want them to be.

So how are we going to do this? Am I going to sim the next league or is Bob gonna do it? What's going on?

[Bob]

I think it's up to ya'll. I need a couple days to reconfigure my teams, but I can sim if you'd like, or you can sim. I'm kinda eager to try a new type of tournament on challonge.com: round-robin. Seems perfect for a league.

Fleck: If you'd like, I can sim and you can handle Stamina. That way one person isn't doing all the work.

[Fleck]

I'm fine with splitting the work. You seem to have a better handle on the program side of things anyway. I can keep track of stamina and whatnot.

But, unless I'm totally missing something, Round Robin wouldn't work. Well, I mean, it COULD work, but not with a 10 game league. Unless I'm doing the math wrong, doesn't 10 participants come out to a 9 game season for everyone (since you can't play yourself, obviously)? Ordinarily, I wouldn't care to drop a game, but it makes the long-term strategy of the stamina system a little bit less challenging, I think. All in all, I don't think it's a huge difference, but it's a difference nonetheless. Just figured I'd mention that.

Which reminds me, are we still including the Aurochs and Goers? Because I admit, I never got around to building them. I was waiting to see when the program was 100% done, and then I was going to test them for awhile and build them afterwards. But things did not go according to plan. I'm okay with dropping them, since it seems to mean less work and easier math and stuff.

[Bob]

I figure we can either make a 9 game league or create a team like the Goers to be that 10th team. Then we can just leave the Goers out of tournaments.

[countlieberkuhn]

I'm also good for the no identicals rule. It sounds pretty nice with the way the whole stamina system's gonna work. Also things do seem pretty balanced overall, I mean 5 volley/5 jecht was always going to be the obvious build for a dedicated striker, but the combination of stamina and no identicals should sort that out. I'm also glad that the Magic Missiles did so well in the end, considering they were my passing-based teamwork team, probably thanks to the passing bonus thing. Rydia got a pass bonus of 11 on her first goal in that consolation one!

Bring on the league - the program's ready to ship!