So, I think my point was just proved. My last two post were hidden for “derogatory” reasons when I used the same type of communication that was projected towards me.
Not sure why it is OK to speak to me in those tones but for me to respond in the same fashion it’s now needed to be hidden?
Yeah, this is more what I was looking for in this discussion. I can see my idea was not popular, and I figured there was a reason. I shouldn’t have let it bog down the rest of the discussion.
I was more thinking of folks in the 4k+ range, but you’re not wrong either. That can be a vocal group. That said, I will push back just slightly on that, and say it’s probably isn’t a great thing either, to have folks feeling they’ve hit the peak and that they feel they don’t have a ton to play for.
For the record I don’t think it has to be the IFPA’s job to create winnable events for everyone. I think it would be capable of it, through various forms, but so am I. I mostly curious why the idea seemed not discussed on the board about competition. I don’t think it would be a good idea for the vast majority of events or even all communities. I have no issue with the philosophy behind it and it’s not like I’m gonna quit trying to figure out how to not just bring in new folks but retain the folks we have.
I wouldn’t mind if there is a world championship out there that I’m not allowed to play because I’m not highly enough ranked for it. As hard as I tried, they never would let me play in an NBA game either. It appears I’m way in the minority on that and I’m fine with that.
@pinwizj, I hope that over the past year or so of me emailing you and posting I hope that while I’m gonna speak my mind about things, defend my positions, that I respect all you do and everyone else does here. I think I’ve made it clear that my priorities are fairly narrow because I pretty much push for thing that I think could benefit the players in DC. Not give an unfair advantage, but an added bit of interest. Maryland and Virginia are doing just fine.
The more I’m looking at the numbers and the names of folks, it does seem that a lot of our B level players have moved to playing more of their events in those bigger states. So maybe that explains the disparity. If we are keeping a lot of our A players, and the casuals, and a bunch of B players have decided to play where there are more events and way bigger events. My hands are probably tied on that one.
Last I really do like that 3rd option you presented. It actually addresses what I’m talking about with out just saying play better.
Here is a tournament idea I’ve been dreaming up-
The Sandbagger’s Open
Any player with IFPA rank <= 1000 is restricted to A division
90% of the prize pool goes to the final 4 in B division
Any player restricted to A can play in B if they wear a sandbag or pillowcase with holes (size and location of holes at TD discretion) over their head for the entire tournament (including between rounds)
Absolutely! One of the biggest proponents of “WPPR’s for B” back in the day was @Adam, and he got on his soapbox a couple of weeks before PAPA every . . .single . . . year. As Lefkoff and Associates is known for, he had great arguments, spoke his mind clearly and intelligently, and some good discussion was had.
Ultimately I’m all for finding ways to motivate this player base you’re talking about. Using the WPPR system to do that just isn’t a tool that’s available in the toolbox for that kind of campaign.
The core argument I used 10+ years ago with Lefkoff holds true today. The WPPR system is a system used to rank the best players in the world. To be ranked against the best players in the world, you have to play the best in the world. These top ranked players need to have the ability to compete within these IFPA sanctioned events for the integrity of the “World Rankings” system to hold true.
In ninety five percent of the conversations i have with people who dont play pinball they at some point say “but isnt pinball just random”? and i have to convince them otherwise. Its pretty hard to convince people that pinball is skill based and not luck based if the prizes are luck based and not skill based. Mugs, shirts, swag etc as random door prizes is the best addition to our local league but i feel like random door prizes should only be given out as a way to make it easier to swallow the fact that the cash is gonna stay up top. So i agree that door prizes are an awesome way to encourage casuals to have more fun and keep playing but disagree with the notion of them replacing skill based prizes.
hopefully not too much of a sidetrack but here is a graph from almost exactly two years ago showing player retention. Thanks to @spraynard for this graph and maybe someone could update it with 2018 and 19 data to see if there is any change!!
Nobody projected any type of communication at you. Tell me where I used a ‘tone’
Edited out the part that Keefer highlighted, because I read it wrong.
You want to hear something interesting that doesn’t line up with your view? Jason Scheffelmaer was the lowest rated player and finished 2nd at the 1st IFPA Power 100. He finished ahead of 5 people in the top 10 world rankings at the time.
Like I stated earlier: There are plenty of formats and tools that TDs can use other than restricting players. Here are some more: Leagues that have more than one division. Pinburgh’s format. Non-WPPR events.
Here’s an “oldie but goodie” from Lefkoff & Associates 
The date: September 27th, 2007
The location: RGP2
The subject: Awarding WPPR points for “B” and “C” Division at PAPA
"ok Josh,
I know this topic has been discussed many times before, but as the
start of PAPA X is less than two weeks away now (woohoo!), I would
like to make one last appeal: Please consider awarding some WPPR
points for players who qualify and win in the “B” and “C” Divisions at
PAPA. I’m not talking about a boat load of points here, but rather on
a scale consistent with the point levels of the players competing.
Awarding WPPRs for a “B” and “C” division would certainly be an
exception to the rule since there is no other tournament where this is
done, however, PAPA is special, and if there was ever a case for
having an exception, PAPA would be the obvious choice. I appreciate
the argument that PAPA is an “open” tournament and that anyone can
choose to compete in A, and thus, that is where the WPPRs are, but
let’s be realistic. Because of the format requiring an amazingly
consistent run across all 5 chosen machines, there are only a few
select players in the world capable of qualifying in the “A”
Division. Period. To argue otherwise is ludicrous. And that’s all well
and good, but there are hundreds of other players in the world who
care about their WPPR standings, and many of them will be at PAPA
competing where they should be in the “B” and “C” Divisions. How about
a little something for the effort ?
I suppose the most compelling argument against awarding WPPR points to
“B” and “C” is a question of fairness; what about the people who
compete in “A”, but miss out on qualifying. Does someone who finished
17th in A deserve less WPPRs than someone who manages to qualify in
“B” (arguably around 50th place in terms of everyone there). I would
say “Yes”, they do. That would merely be the consequence for the risk
of competing in the higher division - but certainly the reward for
success there is also much greater. Qualifying in the “A” division at
PAPA is an elite achievement - arguably one of the hardest
achievements to attain each year in competitive pinball - and just
about everyone who is capable of doing it, gives it a shot. Great.
But for the rest of us mortals, the “B” and “C” Division represent our
own pinnacle of achievement, and I believe success at this level also
deserves WPPR consideration.
Most (not all, but most) players play in the correct Division at
PAPA. Sure, there are probably a couple of players each year who play
in “B” who should probably be playing in “A”, and the same could be
said of some players who choose to play in “C” when they are easily
good enough to be competing in “B”… But from what I’ve seen, that is
the exception to the rule, and that most players are in their
appropriate division. So it seems that awarding WPPRs in each division
(for the most part), would be perfectly appropriate for the level of
the competitors. Here’s what I would propose:
“A” - Qualifying 8 points + 4 points each round +
1st - 100, 2nd - 60, 3rd - 40, 4th - 20
“B” - Qualifying 2 points + 1 point each round +
1st - 5, 2nd - 3, 3rd - 2, 4th - 1
“C” - Qualifying 1 point + .5 point each round +
1st - 2.5, 2nd - 1.5, 3rd 1, 4th - .5
In this distribution, The top four finishers in “B” would receive 9,
7, 6, and 5 points, the top four finishers in “C” would receive 4.5,
3.5, 3, 2.5 points. These amount of points would have little to no
effect on a top 30 players (not that a top 30 player would consider
playing in "B"s anyway, would they ?), but for folks in the 50-250ish
positions, those number of points would be as relevant to them as 116,
76, 56, 36 would be to top 30 players… Plus, there is some wonderful
symmetry here - 1st place in “B” becomes somewhat equivalent to
qualifying, but not progressing in “A”… are they equivalent ? no.
But arguably actually winning any Division (and surviving three rounds
of four player PAPA-style-scoring, is a notable achievement). Winning
"B"s at PAPA would be equivalent to about 1/3 of winning a “normal” 25
point tournament… After being at PAPA last year and Cali Extreme
this year, that feels about right to me… Its WAY WAY harder than
winning a monthly 2.5 tournament somewhere between 10 other
players… What can I say, it adds more entropy to the overall
rankings, and PAPA deserves to have a more universal effect on the
whole WPPR rankings range - not just the elite pinnacle.
So what do you say ??
cheers,
Adam"
I do wonder what 2019 Adam would say to 2007 Adam
Here is some data from the IFPA website which shows that the amount of players who play for a year or two years straight is rising!!!
The number of players who have attended a tournament in the past year and those who have returned.
| YEAR | TOTAL PLAYERS | PREVIOUS YEAR | PREVIOUS 2 YEARS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 23082 | 11815 | 8425 |
| 2018 | 21322 | 9979 | 7275 |
| 2017 | 19398 | 8978 | 6502 |
| 2016 | 17227 | 7912 | 5330 |
| 2015 | 16484 | 6525 | 4580 |
| 2014 | 13364 | 5421 | 3523 |
| 2013 | 9834 | 4163 | 2834 |
| 2012 | 7648 | 3287 | 2276 |
| 2011 | 6178 | 2619 | 1849 |
| 2010 | 4684 | 2134 | 1250 |
[Edited for now-irrelevancy]
You got flagged. This seems to be a recent change in the software, I don’t think it used to happen automatically when someone got flagged.
If your only goal in entering a tournament is to win, I can see where frustration in the “same top players” winning coming from. If you’re shopping around for tournaments that you can win because other players aren’t there and your goal is to raise your ranking (presumably so you can say “I’m ranked really highly against these other top players”, despite never having played against them directly) - I don’t think the current system works for you. Eventually you will face those same top players, and you will lose (if you accept the premise of the same players always winning)
The thing about pinball competition that’s nice is that ANY player actually does have the ability at any time to beat any other player. It truly is a level playing field. If you don’t believe that, then you’ve already defeated yourself. It really does come down to who played better that day.
Now, do I think that I can with any consistency ALWAYS beat the better player? Nope. It’s still fun to try because the game itself is fun. (Unless they make you play Party Zone. That’s not fun.)
I also don’t expect my personal enjoyment/expectation to translate to other players, they’re playing for whatever they’re playing for. Go for it. Most of my main goal these days is to make it into the bracket, not necessarily go for the win, etc.
What I do find sad is when you’re playing someone in a match play format for instance, and they think because they’re the better ranked player, and you just happen to plod along and manage to beat them, they get upset (visibly so while the match was going on and I was putting more and more points on the board) - hey, it’s only pinball. I should throw the match to spare your feelings?
lol. Yup. I did 
I edited out the portion you mentioned.
This data suggests the we are not losing players at a rate any different than previous years. Total players is about double previous year, and about 3x previous 2 years.
i didnt think we were.
i knew we were gaining players for sure, just wanted to point out that the retention is better as well
Previous year 2 years
2017: 46.28% 33.51%
2018: 46.8% 34.11%
2019: 51.18% 36.5%
#PlayBetter
… And then 2007 Adam would be like “Why the hell did you use the number-thingy symbol ?!”…
Restricting A to 1000 or less (<) makes more sense to me for your proposed format.
Yes- that was the intention, just a typo. Thanks!
The Twitter hashtag was already a month old at that time. Weren’t you hip to new things.
I understood what you meant by context.
Curiously, it sort of works either way. Rank 1 is better (a “greater” achievement) than Rank 1000, so Rank 1 > Rank 1000, but numerically 1 is less than 1000.
To reduce confusion, the description could read: “Players with IFPA Rankings from 1 to 1000 are (fill in restriction)”
I don’t mind that much when the top players always win. What burns my biscuits is if I’m paying $$ per entry to compete and the vast majority of that is going to the A division prize pool. Divisional entries should fund their own prize pools, not be used to pump up a tournament payout for the same 20 people.
If you don’t have a B division, or if you don’t pay out based on player/entry revenue, or if you have top 1500 people winning your “novice” C division, I’m not going to waste my energy.
