Circuit Final Changes

The sooner we all realize nobody except all of us care about pinball the sooner we can keep having fun and stop chasing dreams. :slight_smile: There are literally over 1 million people watching people play video games on Twitch right at this second. There are zero people watching pinball at this same moment. Pinball is just not accessible to enough people for the big boys to give a shit. Its sad, and I wish it was not the case, but it is. We would have a better chance pushing virtual pinball.

3 Likes

I’m not one to throw out accusations, but I believe that you sir are guilty of humbuggery, curmudgeonry, and dare I say it…poop-pantsery.

8 Likes

We push what we like. I’m sure over a million people like anchovies on pizza, but I would just pass it to my cat.

1 Like

Bad day at work. Might have some poop in my pants. Still stand by my opinion :slight_smile:

3 Likes

From a different thread:

But can we all agree football should be played on grass and not artificial turf?!?!

2 Likes

No way! I’m tired of all the players tearing up their knees and playing on unplayable fields. Astro turf was really bad, but what they got now is good.

Money helps that problem. A lot.

4 Likes

I agree people spend all year qualifying. But over the course of 20 events, it feels like most people are indirectly competing with each other depending on which circuit events one attends. Having a “playoff” structure with more people over the course of numerous days brings the elite players together only playing against each other on the same bank of games. The closest tournament to having all elite players together on the circuit is probably Pinburgh, but round over round, players are not always playing the elite guys.

In terms of playoff structures, I keep going back to the similarities between golf and pinball. Players pay out of pocket to travel to events (barring sponsors paying), players have the ability to determine his or her schedule, each course/bank of games is different, the same people aren’t winning each tourney, etc. What golf has done with their playoff format has really made it fun to watch and it makes players really strategize as to how they want to build out their schedules for the year and peaking at the right time. The playoff format does a great job of making it very competitive year round to even qualify and then brings the top guys together over a few weeks/days in pinball terms to determine the champion.

I just don’t get the same excitement thinking about going to play a few games of pinball and being done if I finished last without nothing else leading up to that moment.

The March madness comment I don’t really understand from a pinball perspective. Those NCAA players are not paying out of pocket to travel however far they have to for the game. I played college basketball, and know that a game (even in a one and done situation) is long and has it’s up and downs throughout the game, which is usually around 2 hours long. A lot can change over the course of a game. Whereas, in one game of pinball that can last anywhere from 1-10 min or so, I would argue that ones strengths as a player might not ultimately be reflected in that time period. In my opinion, one game of basketball is probably equivalent to a best of 5 series or so.

I believe the current State Championships and National Championships setup is the perfect comparison to March Madness. If you’re not ready to go during your series, BOOM you are eliminated. The intensity has to be there from the get go.

1 Like

Ready for this… people spent 100,000 years just last Month on watching twitch…

And over 1 Millions years last year with much more expected this year.

Agree. Cap it. Take max 5 events so those who don’t have time or extra fundage to travel all over from east to west and visa versa No way i can travel all over. With Louisville not being an event this year and papa out that’s 2 events that i normally went to that were 7 hours or less drive time not in the circuit. All other events are way to far. only one in michigan and thats still far from me…lol
i personally don’t chase circuit events but if an event i normally go to is a circuit its a bonus. So if pinburgh, pinball at the zoo, chicago expo and cle pin get me in top 20, great! If not, im not traveling any further than i already do and with events like 24 hr battle that has cap and texas that doesnt help some players chances since both of those were sold out in moments and before this announcement.
CAP IT!!!
play in as many as you want but using your best 5 events max will show who perhaps better deserves to be in the top 20 rather than those who can go to a large number of events IMO anyways, esp if now only 20 people can make the cut…

  • players aren’t “scrubs” just because they cant chop at points going to a ton of circuit events-
    all 40 people at this current event all played great and had mad skillz as far as im concerned.
6 Likes

With all these changes…I’m surprised SPC finals isn’t a MAJOR yet.

It won’t be worth many WPPRs with the changes. Ladder format isn’t good for TGP. https://www.ifpapinball.com/menu/tgpguide2019/#ladder

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=8495

Yeah, and that was when the final four played 7 games if I remember correctly. TGP will be quite a bit lower with the current format.

The suggestion of an event cap sounds good at first but it’s short-sighted. It worked well under the old circuit points qualifying system (100 for 1st, 75 for 2nd, etc) but with WPPRs being using as the qualifying metric, the events vary so wildly in value that an event cap doesn’t make any sense.

As an extreme example just look at Pinburgh, worth 140 points. Some players who have qualified for the circuit final in the past aren’t eligible to play in it, @bkerins and @ScoutPilgrim off the top of my head. They would need 3 or 4 other events just to match what some players earned for Pinburgh alone. This would throw a 5 event cap way out of balance, and that’s just one example of why it wouldn’t work under the current WPPR qualifying system.

6 Likes

Participating in 20 events vs 5 throws things way out of balance too. Whether its 5,6,7,8 events that count it should be a certain percentile that is under 100 imo. Where did the number 20 come from for state events that count per year or 20 with decay over 3 years for your overall ranking? There are reasons for these caps and reasons why the numbers are what they are. (changed 30 with decay to 20)

Does anyone have data to show us the top 20 from last year and how many events they averaged?

Outside of Trent, how many even played in more than 5?

It’s best 20 for your world rank. I believe that’s why 20 was used for SCS too.

http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=212

Here are the rankings for 2018 SPC , For the Top 50 the average attendance was 5.9 events.

RANK NAME POINTS EVENTS
1st Steven Bowden 382.16 11
2nd Raymond Davidson 354.48 6
3rd Trent Augenstein 339.46 11
4th David Riel 339.06 11
5th Eric Stone 322.15 6
6th Keith Elwin 294.57 4
7th Jim Belsito 254.51 5
8th Adam Becker 249.96 4
9th Fred Richardson 242.82 10
10th Bowen Kerins 220.42 5
11th Jason Werdrick 215.69 8
12th Colin Urban 213.59 6
13th Alberto Santana 195.01 6
14th Escher Lefkoff 181.29 4
15th Alex Harmon 176.86 6
16th Josh Sharpe 176.43 4
17th Karl DeAngelo 174.64 7
18th Robert Gagno 170.51 5
19th Johnny Modica 163.79 7
20th Drew Cedolia 161.8 6

Average of 6.6 events. Median of 6 events. 13/20 played in more than 5.

And the 20 would be what if you only took top 5 events each?

It only makes sense to limit this too if everything else is capped. But like the others it might not make a huge difference.