WPPR formula change to v5.2 for 2016!

General
142

If it was only that simple . . .

First, this is only verifiable with results available online.

Second, this will only lead to tournament directors manipulating the format to get those players counted.

Super League could easily change to a format where they back load the games played, requiring only 4 games to be used for qualifying (thus making it far easier for those 250 participants to ‘complete’ their card), and then running a finals with the top X number of players to rack up the additional 21 games played needed to grade out to 100%.

End result . . . we’re in the same place we are now.

143

sports comparison:

DOTA: football
Street Fighter: boxing/MMA
Pinball: golf

144

What events are these? I can’t think of any besides possibly Texas, because its qualifying ticket was super weird.

The description you gave of a modified Super League with short qualifying and long finals would be a major improvement, as it would allow the current set of players who are not legitimately competing to have an equal chance of qualifying.

145

I know when we were investigating the “fully participating” thing I had checked out past Flip Out and LAX results and those numbers were huge. Pretty much any of the Project Pinball high score tournaments fell into that as well (play 25 games, but only 4 people out of 90 played more than 1 game).

The Super League thing ultimately doesn’t matter because those current set of players still have no interest in actually qualifying . . . they have an interest in entering the raffle for free shit. Most likely those players wouldn’t put up a score to land them in a qualifying position, and even if they did IMO they would be a no-show for whenever the ‘finals’ would be held.

At least with the 525 players that Francesco had for August, for next year it’s on him to run a finals consisting of a MINIMUM of 53 players. Should he not be able get 53 out of those 525 to show up for finals, Super League earns ZERO for that month as those results won’t be endorsed.

3 Likes
146

Interesting, and thanks again for looking into this deeply. Only one I could find was Louisville 2015 and that had 86/150 playing a complete qualifying entry.

147

We are in agreement!!!

Now to use your circular argument: What stops him from saying that 53 people showed up? Why wouldn’t he modify the finals to come out of 1 game they already played and just call it finals?

Your rules are not going to protect you from exploits. No system of rules is self governing. Check with any governing body! We protect the system not the rules.

My disagreement is not in your desire to improve the system but by avoiding your responsibility to tell people that they are exploiting the system and therefore NO. Dont eliminate current formats like Herb and pingolf because people can find away to exploit it. Tell them No.

148

Our league meets 6x playing 6 games. You are scored by how you finish against the overall field, 20 for first, 19 for second, etc., but you also receive a point if winning your specific group.

Our seventh meeting is a tournament in which players play head to head after seeding from their regular season finish. We play two qualifying tournaments and then a finals.
The value of the tournament is only 1/2 of a regular season night.

No longer IFPA endorsed?

149

How about the EPL or most European soccer leagues in which the winner is simply determined by how well that played during the regular season?

150

This has been brought up elsewhere if I recall. And it definitely seems as if the desire for playoffs in competitive sports is an “American thing.”

151

Sorry, I didn’t read all the thread. I’m just trying to find out if my league is dead to the IFPA. Yippee.

152

He can say that 53 players showed up . . . but that’s where the self policing typically renders itself useful. Should 53 players not actually show up, there’s a good chance that one of those finalists (typically one that plays like crap) ends up messaging the IFPA about the fact that there weren’t even 53 finalists there anyway. We contact the organizer, and it becomes an issue that we deal with.

As for modifying the finals to play 1 game, with 53 players it’s IMPOSSIBLE to do that and have it qualify as DIRECT play. At minimum he would have to do a 1-game single elimination bracket with 53 players, or 1-game group of 4 with winner advancing with 53 players. Either of which takes some amount of work and effort to pull off.

153

Submitting your results after the 6th meeting would no longer be eligible for endorsement. You would have to include the finals are part of your “season” for it to be endorsed.

In addition, if you have 20 players in your league, you can only advance 10 players to ‘finals’ (with the chance to win the league) in order for all of those league meeting games to count towards TGP. If everyone advances to finals those league matches are considered “seeding” and aren’t counted as meaningful.

An 8-player double elim, single game bracket will add 6 games to TGP for next year, so your most efficient WPPR maximization for your season would be to take your 20 players, have 3 meetings where you play 18 games total, and then have your ‘final’ with the top 8 qualifying to be part of it. That would grade out to 96% TGP for the full season.

154

Please excuse my slowness. If I ran @TaylorVA’s “7th meeting” (two qualifying head to head tournaments and then a finals) as its own tournament, it would be endorsed, right? Like, if I didn’t frame it as the 7th meeting of our league. So, the part that you’re saying is not endorsed are the prior 6 meetings, right?

155

Kind of :smile:

The prior 6 meetings aren’t endorsed on their own, but by including the 7th meeting in the season it does allow those previous 6 meetings to become endorsed (so those games played at the meetings count towards TGP) - assuming 50% or more of the participants are eliminated from winning the league season via the ‘indirect’ qualifying process.

You could just as well submit the “7th meeting” as a separate tournament and it would be endorsed on its own no problem. Only the games played in that meeting would count towards TGP.

156

Most of this discussion seems to assume the final must be the direct play component. Is that actually the case? Could someone randomly pair people and winner of the match qalifies for a pump and dump finals? I don’t want to do this (or take part) but is it endorsed?

Related, in the qualifying Taylor described does the 1 point for winning your group qualify those matches as direct play (they are both, which probably make them indirect).

Thanks for continuing to iterate and talking the time to listen to the community.

157

Thanks, @pinwizj! Makes sense. My confusion might have stemmed from trying to identify how @TaylorVA’s league was “dead to the IFPA.” But it seems pretty simple, given his league’s format, to keep it alive.

158

This is fucking awesome! Someone needs to try this :smile:

The fact it has a direct play component it would be endorsed. Portland guys? You run a tournament every 7 seconds out there . . . give it a shot!

Nope . . . I would close this loop hole before it had a chance to get started :wink:

159

Spent my Friday reading through this thread and I couldn’t be happier :D.

It’s very great to see the feedback from players who are not from the east coast/mid-atlantic area. A lot of feedback is coming from SoCal folks. I personally live in upstate NY and see that SoCal and not NYC are facing a lot of similar issues but for some different reasons.

Currently, 16th place in California is 78 WPPRs. Realistically, Zach Sharpe, Robert Gagno, and Kevin Birrell probably won’t be playing in states, so cutoff is 19th. Of these players, it seems like everyone has a top 3 finish in some Bay Area event or is named Jim Belsito, and that these players are typically competing in many unique events!
http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=83

Here are a couple of the players from the top 16 in NY (cutoff is 94 points).
http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=99
http://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?t=p&p=31221
http://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?t=p&p=30136

So while I do empathize with the SoCal folks who are pretty much out of the running due to lack of events like we are, I think this change is very warranted and necessary. LA, in theory, being the 2nd largest city in the country potentially has the resources to do exactly what SUPERLeague is doing now if we were to continue down this path.

Our solution in Upstate NY is two-fold. 1. Drive to Connecticut, Ontario, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania if you’re feeling really bold and compete there. 2. just have our own pity party with our own rules http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=147

Californians may have a tougher time getting to a place where there are pins to play in state, and within their own city where it takes 18 hours to drive 3 miles, but at least your State Rep is switching off the location of the finals every year. Our state rep does not seem interested in doing that :smile:

On a side note, I lived in Southeastern Pennsylvania until this year. Although the lack of events on our side of the state compared to Pittsburgh prevented many of us from qualifying, it still felt fair since the Pittsburgh people are purely interested in growing competitive pinball and did not do so in any way that felt exploitative. Eastern is catching up slowly but surely now with Pincrossing, and a new Harrisburg-area league.

2 Likes
160

The SUPERLeague is not in any way bending the rules and will not do that in the future. The SUPERLeague is purely a league designed to take the most it can get (in terms of WPPR points). The secondary goals include getting as many players as possible on weeknights to bring business for Modern.

The SUPERleague HAS NOT violated any current rule in the WPPR system. Has it violated the spirit of the competition? Perhaps, but that is not a very good justification to end it. The SUPERLeague does not misrepresent or falsify any scores.

The SUPERLeague is, however, designed based on the WPPR system, and the SUPERLeague will not exist as it does today starting January 1st, 2016.

161

I have a couple questions about the ladder format finals. First will 2 player head to head ladder matches (just as in the bowling tournament example you used where 6th plays 5th, winner plays 4th, etc.) not be endorsed for finals anymore? I don’t see that type of ladder listed in the TGP guide, but its unclear whther that means they’re not allowed or just that the number of matches would be obvious.

Also can you explain how the number of games for the 3 and 4 player ladder formats were derived? Were the game counts for larger player counts reduced so the format couldn’t be used to pump TGP with excessively long finals?