August Ladder League Results: Tex WINS!
A big round of applause for our ladder league winner, Tex, as he claims the top place with an impressive flawless victory!!
A very big and special thanks to all the FAF Live viewers; Tagada, harzer, and TheDuelist for giving hours of their days to cast, HintHunter for co-directing the event; and FAF Board for the prize money!
Top 3:
Full Standings Results (See Challonge: https://challonge.com/fi/23xvezia)
Rewards
Per the Legend of the Stars entry point system the following has been awarded to each player:
1st Tex receives 12 points and $100
2nd Nexus receives 10 points and $50
3rd Swkoll receives 8 points
4th Raider- receives 5 points
5th Blast_Chilled receives 4 points
6th AutoNoob receives 3 points
7th P0P0LIAK0V73 receives 2 points
8th JaggedAppliance receives 1 points
Feedback and Reflection
Overall, the event was considered to be fun and entertaining, yet it did not come without its own flaws:
- Tournament length: Exceeded 7 hours and we lost a player due to lack of time
- Swiss-Style BO3 left a lot of players with a lot of dead time.
- Map and faction veto continues to add a lot of time to event playthrough
- Faction vetoes are apparently NOT supposed to be used during this event (more later on why that happened)
- Audio and overlay issues with FAF Live
After a discussion with the players who participated in private, and other potential ones, it was decided that a format change should be used. It was planned to keep everything as-is since the year is nearly over, and the previous player council did a fine job setting up the architecture of the system (see this post)
In light of this, it has been proposed to use a format that is about 4-5 hours in length tops. This is difficult to precisely achieve, so it will be necessary to try something. The best suggestions thus far are as follows:
-
Double Elimination Format with BO3 for the "winner bracket," BO1 for the loser bracket. This should essentially allow for plenty of simultaneous progression and ease tournament length considerably. There will still be 4 BO3 rounds, but with much less players involved.
-
Swiss-Style with BO1 for each round, allowing a more simulated ladder experience where everyone faces off against each other. Since a BO1 format with 4 rounds might be too much shorter, the event would need to increase the amount of rounds from 4 to 5 or 6. The pro of 6 rounds is that it is still much less than 4 rounds BO3, and it has more players facing each other. It would be far superior in determining the best of the group.
-
2 GSL format groups with a playoff stage. This format is common among CS:GO and StarCraft 2, proven to give a similar tournament length much more consistently. The format does lack allowance of "everyone playing against each other," but it is an option that was raised.
-
Regardless of the format chosen for next time, it has been suggested to use seeding "by ladder rating" rather by "ladder league results." If that does not make sense, do know that ladder league tournaments are seeded in current based on the results of the monthly standings. Excerpt from the 1800+ here.
I will be leaving this post open indefinitely so that everyone can share there thoughts on the changes proposed
- What do you FAF Live Viewers believe to be the optimal length of time a tournament lasts?
Faction Veto & FAF Live Issues
Apparently, faction veto is not supposed to be used in the ladder league tournament. This is something I was not aware of and I must apologize for using it.
The transfer of knowledge from the previous player council did not happen due to some political reasons taking place. This is not me knocking on the previous player council as there are many reasons about, but do know that I have had to spend a lot of time teaching myself everything that was previously done. FAF Live had a bit of a painful knowledge transfer, and getting it set up properly did not happen. I began inquiring about it a month ago, should have pushed harder to get it set up properly. I assume full responsibility for the technical issues experienced, would like to apologize to the viewers.
Final Words
Once again, I would really like to thank the players, casters, board/association, HintHunter, and everyone who helped me set up and run this event. The devs also assisted in generating a shortened ladder league as we had to postpone due to severe issues (noted here).
Thank you everyone, and looking forward to the next up and coming events!