How to deal with events that are too successful

You can have multiple divisions with no restrictions. For a few years, CAX ran unlimited Herb with three divisions. Modern, solids state and EM/ classics. There was no hard line as to which game went in which division other than for EM’s. You do need more games for this, but if you want everyone to have a chance to play everything, that’s one way to go.

After a couple of years, it became obvious that modern was the most competitive division. So players that thought they didn’t have a chance in modern could skip that division and stick with SS and classics, where they felt they had a better shot at finishing in the money.

I wonder what others think what an entry (single game) should cost these days. While in don’t think we should price anybody out, I’m thinking 3-$10 and 7-$20 should be about as low as you should go. $2 entries are too low IMO.

This is fixable though. Might have to pay Karl but in theory you could set how many spots ahead you want to get notified on.

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Typically what happens is if one person isn’t there then they blow through 4-5 names looking for someone that is lol

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I don’t know if I’d want to get in the business of sending out so many text messages. Gets expensive quick, plus eats up server resources and makes my webhost angry (INDISC 2019 outages!)

Bingo. No real way around this. I’ve considered adding a lockout period for players after so many missed games, or notify the player to go to the desk before being allowed to queue up again.

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You’d still get notified the same amount, just earlier (you’re three spots next in line!” And that’s it if you chose 3 as your number.

PAPA had the app that told you every time you moved up which was pretty nifty.

Ah, you’re saying earlier. Yeah, that can be changed of course.

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You’re still on edge the whole time though.

Just give me Matchplay and tell me where to show up to start.

Everyone finds a way to find more games to support Matchplay formats. Big time events will thank you for it.

I can’t see how a 160 person matchplay event would work either at that show, though.

Unless they had the games to support it, I agree. How many of that 160 were legitimately trying to win it though?

Who gets to decide who is a legitimate competitor or not? For now, pinball events aren’t invitationals. I like that its open to everyone.

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For sure. But the randos that play their free entries “just to see” aren’t really there to spend two days qualifying. That’s my only point. I’ve been them. Multiple times.

That 160 number might have only been 100 this past weekend. That’s all I’m saying.

That’s more manageable for a Matchplay event.

I know people for NYCPC for example that travelled to NYC, payed for hotel. Registered for the tournament. Played $20 of entries, volunteered a bunch and enjoyed the tournament. There wasn’t even a show. Were they their to win? No. Were they Randos? Also no.

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Limited format. They made a point to compete. They didn’t get free tries with their show entry.

Their reason for traveling was the tournament.

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I don’t feel Matchplay formats are the be-all answer either. It provides a fixed price system for everyone and solves the problem of uniform guaranteed number of games to play (assuming it is not a strikes format).

However, there are drawbacks to the system such as luck of the draw of games/banks and non-equal distributions of opponent match-ups.

The balanced or random selections cannot guarantee any uniformity and the Swiss system can only group those with similar results. No matter what, some combinations of players and games will be advantageous at times, and unfavorable at other times.

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100% agree. But they are better than pump and dump.

The biggest problem I have with pump and dump is that it allows too many people to play that don’t seriously intend to play.

Have a format, limit the entry. Use the waitlist as your gauge of what could have been to possibly expand for next year.

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Playing in Silverball Rumble this year, I really disliked 40 minute queues. I’d go do something else in the show, but I’d constantly be checking my phone to see how close I was getting. I couldn’t get into anything more involved since I knew I had a game coming up in half an hour.

Would much rather see time slot based. I block out part of my day and play a lot of games then, and after it’s over I forget about it and go do other stuff at the show.

Time slots or limited entries, you still run into the problem of ‘what do I do now?’ that Raymond mentioned, at least if it’s not a full on show. I don’t think there’s any other good solution for tournament only events besides get more games.

As to the ‘serious players’ aspect, I agree that that’s not a line you want to be defining, but the concept is there. Even at the height of qualifying at pintastic, the lines were at most 10 deep, and usually less. It seems like there couldn’t have been more than 50-80 people in all the queues combined at any point despite there being 150 players. Maybe some of those other 70 players were just taking a break, but it still speaks as to how many people you actually need to worry about at a time. Even just 2 more games would mean a shorter queue on every other game

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Why can’t we just have multiple different formats and people can play in the ones they enjoy? Saying things like “match play is better than pump n dump” is purely a matter of personal preference. Now, there may be improvement in how pump n dumps are run, but simply eliminating a style of tournament all together is not a solution to anything…

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Sounds good, but creates new concerns, and may not actually shorten queues. As the number of games increases there is more of a possibility that qualifying becomes harder.

If there are exactly N games (say best 5 of 5) and everyone plays the same N games, then to be in the top 16 for example, a player typically needs to be in the top 16 on average on each game.

If there are 2N games and count best N (say best 5 of 10), then there is the possibility there can be two people with perfect 500 scores etc. Now to qualify, the numbers will typically work out to top 8 scores on each game with a 1st or 2nd on something becoming almost a necessity.

Now suppose there are 100 games but only 5 count. There could be 20 unique players with 500 as a perfect score. Granted it is possible that there is never a queue more than one deep, but qualifying top 16 would be pretty hard.

The point is : more games doesn’t automatically solve the problem :slight_smile:

I’m all for different types of formats, but everyone knows that the quickest way to circuit status is pump and dump. That not a good thing imo.

As long as the circuit stays where it’s at, with a good mix of formats, I think that’s fine. But if one format dominates the circuit because of the current rules, that’s bad.

If the format remains the same and the cost remains the same, why not just increase the qualifying period and add a classics division as well to provide more options for the players?