First off, my apologies for those who had to miss softball tournaments to attend the TPF tournament. I know it can be tough that TPF is scheduled so hastily while college sports schedules give you several years’ notice.
As was mentioned previously, only 2 people who played in the Texas Pinball League finals qualified for the Texas Wizards Finals. They were also Tournament Directors and would have played just as much, if not more had they not played in the league finals.
The winner of the tournament did not get this extra “advantage”. I played two rounds of the Texas Pinball League and finished in the 100s. Many players in the tournament brought games. From their house. That they play all the time. Why didn’t they win the tournament?
It seems the only legitimate solution to these complaints would be to hold the tournament on 12 freshly unboxed Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle machines with absolutely zero testing.
As the TPF 2018 Champion, here are my two cents. In every tournament and every format, someone is going to have an advantage. The first time I went to Papa World Championships or Pinburgh I had never played any of those games. How many times has Keith, Josh, Zach, Adam, etc played some of these games multiple times over there years at these events before I even learned about competitive pinball? (Yes, I know things change on a machine when moved or set up differently but you still have a “feel” for that specific machine). In every tournament, you are using games from a location or private collection. Someone has the advantage. Just as I emailed Josh Sharpe about the Power 100 tournament at his place concerned about how much of an advantage is it for all the locals that play League there are going to have versus out of towners. It is even more amplified by the level of players in that case! You have to make a choice to travel and play better or stick to your local groups and tournament. In the end, the machines have to be testing. When I played Circuit finals last year, we played in the A division bank. Adavntage Circuit finalist and that is at the highest level of tournament possible so I don’t see the issue.
In the end, only 2 (just 2) of the players that got to play the league finals on the same machines made the main finals. That was Colin and Phil and no one IMO could deny they are top players and would have made finals either way. Phil was out in the round of 16 and Colin 8 so…what’s the big deal.
There is no way to solve this issue unless you have all NIB games (which still need tested) or you have quality play testers from outside the tournament play, tech, and prepare the games. For me, no thanks! I want the tournament TD or organizers that want to have a terrific event preparing these games so they are at top quality for their standards and no way I would deny them the chance to play just because they have a play time prior to the start of the event.
My focus is stepping up to the machine and telling myself “It’s time to play the game” and if I don’t make it, PLAY BETTER!
Here’s an outsider’s perspective. I didn’t attend TPF this year, nor have I ever, but I’m somewhat familiar with the event.
Was it cheating? No.
Was it advantageous to have extra practice? Yes.
Was it overly advantageous? I don’t think so. With limited entries, you still need to show up when it matters.
Is there a better way to play-test the machines to ensure good tournament quality? Maybe. Holding a league finals where competitive games matter probably isn’t the best option. Testing should be limited to looking for switches that don’t work, flippers that need attention, leveling issues - not actually playing the game for score. It definitely shouldn’t be used for dialing in skill shots or testing tilt levels.
Is all this a huge deal? Probably not, but it’s also doesn’t seem like nothing. As an outsider, this wouldn’t put me off attending and playing in the future.
I would suggest (for everyone) that organizers be clear and upfront about how the setup process will be done. If it was clearly described that this was happening, if players feel this is an unfair advantage, they can choose not to attend.
Sorta, but not exactly the same I think the distinction is availability.
Technically every single person that qualified for IFPA15 could show up to my place on April 14th and play if they wanted. (Which would be awesome and suck terribly both at the same time )
Similarly for @PAPA_Doug and his Fight Club that he runs to get ready for Pinburgh, anyone could show up at the events and participate.
The main point of contention seems to be around the exclusivity of the practice available and no option (regardless of how unlikely they are to actually take the opportunity) to participate.
Good point.
But the TPL is also open to all and is a single-day qualifying event. Anyone can show up. We’ve had non-TX residents compete in them in the past, and I hope that continues. And the “league” is more of a misnomer, in that it’s not multiple qualifying sessions that determine whether you make the finals. It’s a single-day open-to-all (as it must be for IFPA purposes) qualifying event, with qualifying events held in three different cities, and the finals held on a separate day. The only restriction is that each player is only allowed to play in one qualifying event.
It seems like most people in this thread agree that what went on Thursday night wasn’t good optics, regardless of whether there is data to support a “significant advantage” based on the qualifying standings.
If I walked into ReplayFX on Wednesday night and there was a private tournament being run on those machines, I’d be pretty angry about that…even though I’m aware that people get to play those games throughout the year.
There are a lot of potential ways to test games before a tournament, but holding a closed event on those machines, at the venue, won’t ever appear fair…regardless of the good intentions and level of trust we have in the organizers (which for me personally in this case…is very high).
My comment was intended to point out that attendees also make sacrifices to attend the tournaments, not to elicit sarcastic apologies. Thanks for your warm thoughts though.
I’m not sure why you are bringing this up again because as you stated it has already been mentioned (several times), but it seems like you are fishing for a response.
The end results do not negate the fact that several people had an advantage. If you leave the starting line early in a race but still don’t win, that doesn’t erase the fact that you started early.
I am happy to see that most of the posts on this topic are people that are working towards a real solution instead of just posting ridiculous comments for the purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response.
No I meant would you attend the event if it was public knowledge that they hold a private league finals event the night before the event to play test the games.
At TPF, they had a local finals of their league on the tournament bank of games. It’s my understanding this was done to put the games through the paces and get them adjusted and dialed for TPF.
I’m asking, if it was communicated in advance of TPF that this was occurring, would you change you’re mind about attending the event?
So, the games were put into place and finals began without any testing or checking? A tilt bob could of came off, the games could of been mis-leveled, lock bars were falling off?
What was being adjusted and dialed? Who knew this information?
Read this thread. Haha. The games were set up and adjusted. A league played their finals on them.
Based off observing this and reports from the players, the TDs readjusted the games to better suit the event they plan to run at TPF.
I thought Phil and Colin made that clear in this thread.
I Don’t mind in the tiniest bit they decided to do it this way.
What I was trying to ask Ryan and others that were upset about it was if they would’ve cared if they knew going in this was going on. Are you upset it happened or that it was unknown until it was too late for you to back out?
Yes, but this is the problem that can occur when 16 specific people are allowed to play a tournament on the bank of machines used for a much larger tournament.
I don’t know how many machines were used exactly, but it seems like 2-3 people could of played a game or two on each and called it a day.
I don’t see the problem. But I do understand something happening at a big tournament that is atypical and it not being communicated in advance upsetting people. That’s why I tried to clarify.
In an ideal world, of course, the latter. But in this case, where pins showed up between 1:30pm and the last two at 11:30pm due to some unfortunate circumstances, it was the former. Legs, switch tests, alter settings for competition, dipswitch adjustments, update software (TNA and GOTG – which was the kids tourney pin), level, tilt bob. And then it was deemed an available Arena for the TPL finals. IIRC there were only about 7 of the 18 pins available when we started, but we were able to add a few more by round 2. As games were being played, we’d make notes, and begin the work on pins that weren’t being played that round. The notes we got and subsequent adjustments we were able to make post-TPL were invaluable.
In an ideal world, I’d have easy access to all the tourney pins in one location where I can schedule an event(s) like Pittsburgh’s Fight Club to battle-test pins weeks ahead of time. But I had pins arranged from places as far flung as Oklahoma City, Missouri, and Beaumont, TX (near the border with Louisiana), where the first time I get to see them or touch them is mere hours before the weekend tournament begins.
To recap what was stated previously: This is how we handled it during the past two years, but I caught flak from people claiming that those few people (which included me) had an unfair advantage in getting to play the games prior to the event. The solution we arrived at was to spread that testing across a greater # of people so that those 2-4 people wouldn’t have the advantage of play-testing shots on all/most of the games.
For perspective, TPL finals of 16 finalists PAPA-style meant:
8 people got to play one game on 3 of the 18 pins (TPL finals included Classics side pins, too)
4 people got to play as many as 6 of the 18 pins.
4 people got to play as many as 9 of the 18 pins.
I still think it was a rather elegant solution to try to address prior years’ feedback while having greater ability to test more pins in a short time window. And I feel that having some games played on the TPF pins prior to starting TPF best-game qualifying via the TPL finals still did much more good than harm.
But I agree and understand that it looked bad and made some unhappy. Phil and I (along with the TPF organizers) will come up with a solution and communicate it prior to TPF2019 tourney tickets going on sale, so that everyone can make their own decision about whether to participate or not.
One last comment: to me, it’s understood that when you travel to an event, the people who are local to that event and have access to some/all of the pins that are being used will naturally have a “home court” advantage over those that come from out of town. The way to mitigate some of that advantage, particularly in a limited entry or match play event, is to hold an open practice session. That’s what I’m leaning toward.
Thanks again for the constructive feedback.
I’m very pleased with how the TPF tourney has evolved over the past few years, and I look forward to it being even better next year.
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