Hey, I saw in the comments on the Balance Mod Cup that there seems to be a problem with the current "best of x rounds" system that has been in brackets on tournaments so far, but I have not seen anyone post about this issue so here I go.

I currently do not have any good solutions around this, but I wanted to open up the discussion and see if we can try to find something better.

The problem obviously is that Natural Selection is a very unique game in that each team plays two very different sides, and regardless of balance of marines and aliens there are a lot of factors that can make teams feel cheated if for example a match goes all alien wins that the side that got aliens first automatically wins.

The solutions I have would be to have it a "best of map" but this would lead to way to long matches for any reasonable tournament schedule, it would mean teams could tie again and again for who knows how many maps.

Another solution would be to play tournaments in a "group stage" style, where you play a set amount of maps, lets say two maps or 4 rounds and then you would have a scoring system, much like we have in the current NSL season.

This would mean that you would have group stages all the way to the finals and the finals them selfs could be top 3 or 4 teams in a group style manner compete with each other for points, the highest scoring team wins the tournament, for ties the teams would have to play as many maps as it would take to break the tie.

This seems more fair overall but might not be what we are looking for in the current world of "e-sports"

Anyway those are my 2 cents, feel free to throw in ideas and lets get a discussion going on if it is possible to come up with a reasonable system that fits the very unique game we all love:)

I've often wondered on drawn games if you could have a winning draw and a losing draw as such.

So for example:

0 points for a loss
1 point for losing draw
2 points for winning draw
3 points for a win

The "winning/losing" draw would be based on something like who killed the most hives during the rounds. This isn't an ideal one because people often lose track of lost hives. And without a caster there is no way of finding it out (shame really that its not on NS2 stats)

But I guess you could always use the "winning/losing" marker to be something like kills or resources gained over all rounds?

Thats an interesting idea but wouldn't putting artificial "point gainers" into a match change the meta-game and disrupt game balance unless really done right

Win by 2 rounds. But to keep things interesting maybe like a Bo7 but you have to win by 2 rounds or more.

This means that you have to have won a minimum of 4 rounds so you see a fair few games, but if it's 3-3 then the game is probably decided on a coin flip for choosing the side aliens/marines.

If you have 3-3 but need to win by 2 rounds, you need to win 5-3 meaning you have to play an alien and marine round again.

Penalty shootouts mod. NOW THAT WOULD BE!

This issue has been raised several times in the admin forums.

In NS1 what we always did was to play tie-breaker maps until someone comes ahead. Unfortunately this is extremely time-consuming and player-exhausting. It often meant that one team would just stop because it did not have enough players anymore, or one of their key players was missing for the second evening of ever-ending-maps etc etc. Obviously they are also the matches from which you have the most vivid memories. I clearly remember this sneaky Jiriki (:]) giving a win to an opposing team in the semi-final because of some scheduling conflict for the finals. But everyone also remembers the 2004 Nation Cup Quarter Final between France and Sweden which lasted like 10 maps (11-8 according to the clanbase website but it seems odd, more likely it was 10-8).

In any case, with such an asymetrical game, I am convinced this issue will never really get solved.

Well i am pretty sure ppl know that i am ALL FOR best of MAPS not Rounds.

But if you HAVE to stick to the best of rounds thing why not give it a little twist.

Like so:

I do not know who get which side in the scenario of a "tiebreaker" round.

Probaply just the first named team.

I would suggest actually having the ref flip a coin!

Then the winner team gets to decide if they want to choose the map or the team!
They most likely will choose team and aliens. But the other team then gets to choose the map! Which means they can take a map which they believe they can win on against the side the other team choose.

So basically:

1.)Coinflip
2.) CHoose if you want Sidechoice or Mapchoice.
3.) Winner chooses either their map or their Side.
4.) Looser(of the coinflip) chooses either their side or Map

I am sure there are maps that favour ALien over Marine and the other way around which means both sides still have some sort of chance if they CHOOSE WISELY !

Greets EisTee

P.S. I still think Best of Maps is the best !

P.P.S. Also .. Horrible Nubadmins for not even trying to get a better system then just PURE chance which it was up until now! 8P !

Every system has its flaws and the key seems to be whether you can accept the downsides. As such, I think its bests to start with identifying the potential solutions, their pros and cons.

1. Best of X
Pros
- Provides a known limit on the min and max number of matches played (e.g. between 4-7 for a Bo7)
- Limits the total length of a matchup
Cons
- The winner may be chosen based on a coinflip if evenly matched teams or one side/map being heavily imbalanced
- The matchup may not last as long as desired (see 3-0 or 4-0 wins for Bo5 or Bo7)

2. Win two in a row irrespective of map
Pros
- Winner is determined by skill of teams
Cons
- Matchups have the potential to last a long time
- Potential for semi-chance based wins by winning two consecutive matches on two different maps

3. Win two in a row on the same map
Pros
- Winner is determined by skill of teams
Cons
- Matchups have the potential to last a very long time

4. Tiebreaker by match length (e.g. team with quicker victory's win if a tiebreaker is needed)
Pros
- Number of matches is fixed and known
- Winner is determined by skill of teams
Cons
- Matches may be excessively extended as the losing teams drag out loses

5. Tiebreaker by team score (e.g. team with the higher team score wins if a tiebreaker is needed)
Pros
- Number of matches is fixed and known
- Winner is determined by skill of teams
Cons
- Players may try to manipulate the score via suiciding before dying, structure buildings/recycling/building, etc

5. Tiebreaker by resources gathered (e.g. team with the higher total res gathered wins if a tiebreaker is needed)
Pros
- Number of matches is fixed and known
- Winner is determined by skill of teams
Cons
- Winning team may try to drag out matches to gather the most res

Any other potential systems or other pros/cons that I've missed (my list isn't comprehensive).

Tiebreaker by match length

Haha. No. We had one night cup with that rule where I played in a team.

My tactic was to turtle marine base. Hilarity ensued.

p.s. Sneaky jiriki cannot remember this incident. :)

Someone said a shootout to be silly I suppose.

But honestly. What better way then some straight up fade vs shotgun fade vs lmg, lmg vs 2 skulks.

Imagine 5 different scenarios to be played on marine and alien to test the team in specific ways. Even a medpack drop one.

Again it seems silly and whatnot, but I don't imagine a better solution will be discovered for "Best Of" matches without making a match take hours and hours if the teams really trading rounds like that

We also had situation where we had combat tiebreaker in the last night cup after like 4 maps. I was kind of disappointed since we had tactical edge but then lost due to better fragging in combat. But I guess its better than trying to play a trillion maps.

Combat Tie Breaker was stupid .. we all realized that .. VERY quick did we not?

I mean it is a teamgame that is then decided by individual SKill .. nearly as bad as a coinflip XD !

I know I commented on the Balance Mod Cup, saying I wasn't a fan of BoX, but in fact I am simply not a fan of Bo3. I MUCH rather Best of 7, since this allows both team to play both Marines and Alien sides twice. Usually in a Bo7 the better team will always get to 4 wins before there is a tie. Yes it takes longer, but atleast its fair since both teams get to play each side twice.

So your Problem is not that the SYSTEM is REALLY BAD!

No you just whined that your team is either too good or too bad and you did not play as much as you would have liked to play?

I dont like you alrdy XD !

By that logic Bo3 is also fair because each side gets to play each side once. :)

BoX is shit even without inherent game based team imbalance, because every time is always going to have a stronger marine or alien game.

Just keep playing until somebody loses. This is how the real men in NS1 did it.

but how does someone loose?

They LOSE when the other team gets 2 rounds over them!?

Win or die trying.

p.s. NOT A SERIOUS A COMMENT

so a team could win after the first map already... woha... bad start and thats it for today.

i mean for a ladder its a real nice system!
but a league? better to play the whole pool every time
and count at the end of the season.

No walter ... Minimum of Maps played is usually 2 Maps!

It could be 4-0 or 3-1 either team.

If it is 2-2 you play as long as it takes for one Team to actually WIN an ENTIRE map.

Making it possibly 4-2 or 5-3 or 6-4 and so on!

Greets !

spastic

EisTeeAT

No walter ... Minimum of Maps played is usually 2 Maps!

It could be 4-0 or 3-1 either team.

If it is 2-2 you play as long as it takes for one Team to actually WIN an ENTIRE map.

Making it possibly 4-2 or 5-3 or 6-4 and so on!

Greets !

i like!

I'm pretty sure we are going to do the Best of X maps next season. I will at least do what I can to make it happen.

swalk

I'm pretty sure we are going to do the Best of X maps next season. I will at least do what I can to make it happen.

I think for the ensl seasons thats by far the best format since it is a league and takes a long time anyway!

a lot of people have brought up great points here in the thread, thank you all for participating, I will gather the ideas and see if I can make a solid list of the ideas and see what we have so far.

swalk

I'm pretty sure we are going to do the Best of X maps next season. I will at least do what I can to make it happen.

its your league.. what you want to happen is going to happen :)

...anyway

Well Walter sadly this "meal" has to many "cooks" or "cocks" ( i am never sure how to write that XD )

So now they have to discuss everything 300 times cause about 80 percent of our beloved Adminteam is VERY DUMB and also STUBBORN .. so... ENSL screwed itself XD !

Much LOVE "!

Yep, you're banned for the rest of the month.

Not directly on topic anymore, but why doesn't the ENSL play one map each week during the regular season?

Historically there were terrible maps which threw up ridiculous results. A solution is to play two maps so that the better team comes out with the win, whilst preserving some semblance of map variety.

I do not understand why we changed to BoX for NS2. It just makes absolutely no sense to me. Clans will ALWAYS have a preferred side be it CTs or gayliens. In general, because of poor balance, it tends to be the same side.

As a result, BoX just rewards whoever gets to play the favoured side first. DUMB.