Great question!
YES it will be. It’s a ‘formula change’, so that then gets implemented and run across all tournament results in the database.
Similar to other formula changes, we will first lock in the 2015 rankings under the v5.1 system and create a separate table on our end to use for SCS, IFPA qualifying, etc.
For 2016 ‘stuff’ all of the points distributed in all events will be run using this new method.
Heavy hearts at Modern tonight.
I can’t lie . . . letting some of those guys know in advance how many points they will be losing has been kind of entertaining 
(We have a test site that ran the simulation using the new formula so it’s easy to compare/contrast because actual formula and proposed formula)
Loving the fact that 4 player games will get 2x of a head-to-head game. Only makes sense since those games take twice as long to play. Thanks you, thank you, thank you!
It seems like the 5.1 and 5.2 changes are penalizing new players?
How will this work with respect to players who weren’t rated at the time of a tournament but are rated when the formula change gets implemented? Will they count at that point or will the system remember their status at the time of each event?
It doesn’t penalize the new players . . . it really just penalizes the ultimate value of the whole tournament (for ALL players that participate in it, rated or not).
Those new players have the same opportunities to earn WPPR’s from every finishing position, including winning the tournament and walking away with the most WPPR’s.
Here’s a perfect example of this:
http://www.ifpapinball.com/view_tournament.php?t=9933#results
John Cambareri was (and still is) an UNRATED player, but still earned 33.92 WPPR’s and catapulted from being ranked 22,145th to 1743rd. He had no impact on the base value of the tournament, as he was one of the 8 unrated players that participated out of 67. The base value was based on 59 players, and next year the dynamic distribution of points is based on 59 players.
Does that hurt John? Well . . . it hurts him as much as is hurts anyone else at the tournament . . . the same way other grading elements of a tournament hurt all players.
I haven’t verified closely, but I’m pretty sure the group knockout with 3rd/4th receiving a strike will be the same has the 2-player brackelope knockout with 1 player getting a strike, because probability of someone getting a strike is 50% in each case, so field will dwindle at the same rate per round. It might be x2 because of the 4-player games.
Echa - Everything is about points in time. Those unrated players will be unrated in all results until they become rated.
In the John example from NWPC, he will ALWAYS be considered an UNRATED player at that point in time (unless there’s some older results he played in that end up getting submitted).
The database always builds results oldest to newest. Once that player has 5 events listed in their account, they become flagged as “Active” and get added to the “Rated player count” from the date of that 6th event and beyond.
Hope that makes sense 
Josh, please remind me to add my own crazy-ass NWPAS formats to the spreadsheet 
LOL . . . we do have “HERB Style”. Might be time for some “DAVE Style”
Total sense. Thanks!
Questions here:
What is a “direct play event”? I saw there were examples of indirect play. Is direct play one that only uses the intended multiplayer modes of the machines and has a qualifying round and a finals round, or are there other types of direct play?
What is a rated player? How does an unrated player become rated?
[quote=“haugstrup, post:14, topic:872, full:true”]I think California is in a bit of a special situation. Many states have one pinball center with the rest of the state complaining. In California we have two very active pinball centers 400 miles from each other. Most importantly: Super awesome! But also: A bummer that you can only really participate in the SCS every other year (unless you live in the Bay Area and can travel to SoCal in which case you can participate every year).
Or we can all meet in Fresno every year. Everyone will be sad that way 
[/quote]
The issue here, being a southern Californian, is that San Francisco has a bustling and busy pinball community (which extends to Alameda and Oakland), with many locations to play pinball with decently-sized collections in good condition. That is, pinball has a significant cultural presence there. The Bay Area also has a large, organized league that frequently has official PAPA and IFPA events.
Southern California, on the other hand, is much more spread out. You have 82, Pins and Needles, the Ice Palaces, Nickel City, Lake Alice Trading Company, Neon Retro Arcade, Family Amusement Corporation, Casa de Carlos, and the Santa Monica Pier Arcade. (Yeah, that’s probably the envy of a lot of places, but that’s besides the point. The point is active pinball within an area and ease of travel.) Of those, none of them have an organized league except 82, which is deliberately independent of any major pinball organization (nothing wrong with that, and in fact I like that we have one like that). It sounds like you tried to have one, but I’m not familiar with it.
All of the other locations are designed for people to come in, play pinball, and leave, as there’s rarely enough people in any of them to strike a conversation with. Outside of these places, pinball machines are predominantly solitary and in bad condition (and Family Amusement Corporation’s machines are dilapidated too due to not having a specialized repair person, with Santa Monica’s seemingly having no repair person at all), but they’re still there because passers-by will drop quarters into them.
In other words, in southern California, pinball is still a novelty. Most local operators just have the machines out there to turn a profit and have zero interest in other pinball players, let alone organized competition. They’re just there to collect the quarters each month. (And when I’ve asked for maintenance on some of these machines, it’s clear most don’t even play pinball. It’s treated like vending machines or claw machines.) The Los Angeles area also does not have an official event except It Never Drains, which is unusually small for a metropolis of its size. As a result, southern Californian pinball is very low profile and keeps to itself.
The Bay Area has a population of 7.56 million and 605 machines listed on Pinball Map (or about 12,500 people per listed public pinball machine). Southern California’s population is 22.68 million and has 477 machines listed on Pinball Map (or about 47,500 people per listed public pinball machine).
As for Fresno, well, the State Archery Championships is always set in Tulare, which is in the middle of nowhere and is otherwise only known for the Land-O-Lakes butter factory. It was chosen, apparently, due to it being geographically equidistant from the coast and the eastern border. Fresno is full of NIMBIs though, so anything brought over there is going to have to deal with a long and lengthy legal approval process.
Direct play consists of a game played by 2, 3 or 4 players where the scores on that machine are directly compared to one another (and not generally compared to all other players in ‘the field’). Typically this is seen as Head-to-Head matches, and 3/4 match play style matches. You can use golf scoring, wins, points, strikes, etc. as an appropriate way to score those matches.
A Rated player is a player that has played in at least 5 IFPA endorsed events ever. Players become Rated starting with their 6th event played.
Josh,
For clarity, you might want to add a note in the 5.2 description under the 4-player 2x TGP section, that INDIRECT qualifying or INDIRECT league competition that is simply played in groups of four players does not merit 2x TGP for the INDIRECT portion of the league or tourney. (This clarification is primarily meant for leagues)
Good point to clarify! Just added it.
I could only imagine Herb style qualifying where the TD asks players to play 4 players at a time so those games could be counted at 2X lol.
Hey, there’s a league at Lake Alice every Tuesday night!
Again We’ve got Pinball at the Lake coming up in October 
Agreed, my post was off. It does however still seem strange that a tournament that puts an effort into bringing new players into competitive pinball risk being “penalized”.
In Virginia we’re moving SCS to Richmond which is more central to Virginia compared to Northern Virginia on the outskirts of DC where the previous two have been held. It is important to try to balance out locations and how far people have to drive to attend.
TECHNICALLY they aren’t penalized for bringing new players into competitive pinball. The values of those are no worse off compared to those new players not being there 
The effort for the organizers is to turn those new players into returning players, and eventually becoming Rated players to impact the value of a tournament in a positive way.