Duff wrote:This all seems like a lot of effort to fix a problem we don't really have. Like Gary said in the first post, its not very broke, so don't over fix it. Building an entire new system seems a bit unnecessary, and messing with the format (ie. Randomising the next round) is completely uncalled for.
Unless there is actually a strong negative argument for the randomisation of fights per round, I honestly don't see it as a problem. I really only see it as being either advantageous, or having no real effect whatsoever.
Duff wrote:I thought the antlog did an admirable job of at AWS 40, and all we would need is someone to manually split up a teams ants at the beginning, and have an easy way of telling who is up next. We were fine up until the end of the group stages, as people knew what group they were in and when a fight was coming up. It was only after the group stages that things got a bit confusing.
I don't think anyone is protesting that the Antlog, and other tournament management systems, arn't also great. However, this system is clearly one designed for a web-connected high-tech event, and for that kind of event I believe it would be superior if it ends up with the features that we're told it will. That doesn't mean Antlog etc. will become obsolete; just that there may be a better option depending on the scenario.
In addition, please keep in mind that some people enjoy programming. This sounds like quite a fun system to develop, and if I'd had more knowledge it's the sort of thing I would've looked into making myself for AWS39. Don't assume that he's putting a lot of effort in in the hope that it will become the de facto standard, anymore than he might be putting a lot of effort in because he's enjoying building it.
Dave26 wrote:I may keep the next one fairly primitive on purpose, just so we can show people that they don't all need to be high-tech, slick affairs and that we welcome anyone to have a go at running one, no matter what your limits. I think the last thing we all want is for some kind of universal design to AWSs that make them all the same. If that was the case, we may as well just book the same venue three times a year and get one person to run it all the time.
Yes, this echoes the sentiment I made earlier in the thread. There's nothing wrong with doing an event the "old-fashioned" way, it has it's own set of advantages and disadvantages just like everything else. I know what I want for events I run, because I'm just that sort of person that loves to go super high tech and overcomplicate everything. But that doesn't mean I expect it, nor even wish it, from everyone.
Dave26 wrote:Is there any way we could limit the computer stuff to a separate, more specific topic heading, rather than this one that was meant to be about more general ways of improving an AWS?
This might be a good idea. It's probably worth making a new thread for the new management system so we can focus on just that in it, rather than mixing topics as we're doing here.
Edit: Until we do have another thread, here's some more feedback.
I've been playing this morning by setting up a standard double elimination bracket and comparing how things proceed through that compared to through the software, and I've noticed an omission. When doing the draw for double elimination, there will almost always be byes handed out, dependant on the number of entries. However, these byes are in the bracket against an opponent, and lose automatically, meaning the opponent progresses and the bye drops to the losers bracket. The bye is then up against another robot in the losers bracket, which it (obviously) loses, and then drops out. The end result is that a bye always go 0-2; and that after the first round of winners and the first round of losers, there are no more byes because they've all been eliminated.
However, in this system, it appears that it biases giving people a fight at the beginning to not giving them a fight. What this means is that, in my tests with 13 entries, there are 6 fights with 2 players, one fight with 1 player and a bye, and 1 fight with 2 byes. Because of this, a bye technically wins the first round and progresses to the second. While this isn't a massive problem with these numbers, consider the situation where you have, say, 18 entries. You need to use a 32-man bracket, meaning you get 14 byes. This means you have 7 byes proceeding to round 2, 3 proceeding to round 3, and 1 proceeding to round 4, and you end up with byes that actually "win" more fights than they lose. It also means you could end up with a situation where some players end up having to do substantially more matches than others, if another player keeps ending up against byes for round after round.
So, to resolve this, the opposite logic needs to be applied, and the bias has to actually be towards NOT having a fight. Thus, if there are 18 entries, there's only 2 fights in round 1, and the other 14 entries get through round 1 with a bye. Or, to put it in a formula, (round 1 fights = players - (bracket size / 2)). I think that's right at least.
Please let me know if this is unclear. It probably is. I do love my double elimination systems.