Maybe it’s TIME to make it about Both. And as Cayle said, maybe limit formats. I’ll be working on that; might take a while. I’m not a big fan of FF for counting towards ranking since it’s too easy to have extremely unbalanced competition - - repeat opponents and machines greatly different from your fellow players, different number of games played, etc.
Re location nerfing, a possible middle position would be to take only a player’s best N (e.g. 4 or 5) results from a WPPR Farm, just like only their best 20 are used for State or Overall rankings. That still rewards multiple good results while making the farming process less dominant. PAPA was just 3 or 4 before the few years it doubled with Pinburgh. Indisc is now 5. Maybe that’s where to draw the line. If you have a monthly league, okay, your best 4 or 5 months count.
I think my preferred outcome would be for the IFPA to figure out how to import D82 everywhere else. I want D82 near my home. Can we convince venues and players in other places that pinball tournaments, and lots of them, are fun and worthwhile events? Artificially limiting events has major “I’m taking my pinball and going home” energy.
Feel free to work through a “what things would look like” with your proposed changes and I’m more than happy to take a look.
Opening up certification to all events is a step in the Cayle direction, while still allowing non-certified events to get as creative and fun as they want with their formats.
I’m going to go with it’s NOT TIME to solve for problems that aren’t problems yet.
The time to solve for problems will be how things look after we’re back to 3 years worth of actual activity over 36 months, along with being able to see the impact of the v5.8 changes.
I don’t think people realize how significant the boosts are going to be when you have three years of v5.8 events on all the active cards of the top players.
The true “elite” players that have shown to consistently perform well at Majors/Certified events will see their WPPR totals increase up to double. Other players, that tend to perform well at non Major/non Certified events won’t see their WPPR total increase at all.
same argument from the state representation that got argued to death falling flat on Josh’s ears. The TIME you are valuing 2X is the time people spend waiting, not playing pinball. You are rewarding non-playing time versus actual playing time.
When they say “Play more pinball” they don’t mean “spend more time waiting to play more pinball”
Again, no one is saying this should be the only format and good old PAPA finals where you spend 3x more time waiting around than playing would disappear.
But to say that this format where the same number of games, same number of players and same number of balls are played but in a more time efficient manners where there is less waiting is worth less TGP (Tournament Grading Percentage) is not a logic argument in my opinion.
Again, i know there is not formal CAB process in the IFPA so once the “boss” mind is made up, there is no amount of arguments that would change it, i have been around big corp long enough to know how it works
I’m on the opposite spectrum. I want people to gather around and watch the awesomeness on display. I want it to be just like Pro Bowling now where the fans line the side of the lanes. Let spectators stand on both sides of the pinball machine! It’s more engaging. It’s more exciting. We need more excitement and flair in pinball.
So much this. I don’t think people realize that it takes a fuck load of effort to just do the organizing and running part of a tournament (forget about the maintaining a location part).
As someone who runs two weekend long events a year, it’s a giant pain in the ass. I used to run a monthly weeknight tournament here in Chicagoland, and was super thrilled when @abagwell85 took that over for me.
There are multiple locations in the Chicagoland area where I could run events every single week if I wanted to. There’s plenty of WPPR Farmland available right here in my backyard. I don’t do it because I don’t have the time or energy to do it at the level that @District82, @TomGWI and the other D82 volunteers do. They just keep trucking along at the pace that they do, and it’s ASTOUNDING. They should be fucking commended for the amount of effort they put into things.
Limiting the impact of the events they run out of their facility because the rest of the world is too lazy (or not as crazy) to run events at their cadence shouldn’t be seen as them taking advantage of this situation.
This was discussed in both IFPA forums (State Reps and Country Reps) as well.
Someone on the Country Director forum brought up a point that I agreed with personally, and that was the subject of the impact of what ‘not playing’ has on a 4-player match where all players are playing the same game. There’s an emotional impact when you’re actively engaged in watching the scores and play of the other players, the anxiety that builds as you wait your turn to step up and try to come back from whatever deficit you face in the moment. As someone who has played in both versions (as had this CD), there is definitely something lost in that ‘not playing’ period that does lower the quality of the format for Multi-Matchplay in relation to standard Match Play (IMO).
Just to make sure we’re clear though, the 2X bonus being removed has nothing to do with any of that. It was still purely a timing issue thing 100%.
Well not everyone can be like us or wear fur coats. I’m all for flair in pinball, but I do like my space. I’ve realized I’ve adopted a similar but not as long stance as @djriel but I agree that it’s a good rule/space. At least one Dj length away and not in peripheral.
Excitement is one thing, but that’s why I wear headphones to block out everything else. I personally have issues with it, but I don’t expect anything to change. I’m not trying to make the million dollar shot while spectators are partying.
Everyone suggesting some kind of location cap must’ve forgotten how the IFPA collects money, and that it’s (at least technically) a for-profit LLC. I don’t think it’s anyone’s retirement plan, but more tourneys → more rake → bigger prize pools → media coverage → new players → the pipe dream of big sponsors, etc.
…and for anyone concerned about how to get the “right” players atop a list that a few hundred people check, you can rest easy knowing that none of it really matters. More pinball is more fun.
I do hope that the IFPA has a diverse and inclusive process in place to review feedback and impact of any proposed changes, since they can have direct impact on players and locations.
As a for-profit organization, there are not requirements of transparency like a non-profit would be, so it often looks like it comes down from Josh the overlord mind.
It is not always clear what “suggested changes” root cause are and the weight of any of the non-IFPA feedback on their final implementation. It seems all the suggested changes i have seen so far just end up being implemented as they were in the end.
Don’t get me wrong, It is good to have a decisive leadership in organization like this, and people have to follow the rules if they want their event to be part of IFPA at the end of the day.
This is most definitely not the case for the v5.8 changes. We’ve gotten a ton of feedback both internally and externally that have moved the needle on what some of the original plans were.
I know it can be frustrating for people when a change THEY WANT isn’t supported or something we end up doing. I’m often blamed for “not listening” when that is the case but can assure you that I’m always listening.
I think it was @jay who suggested having some certified boost stuff without player minimums. This caused some additional internal discussion that morphed things into where we landed on this (Certified and Certified+ statuses).
As a person who runs a number of events and who isn’t a State Rep, I have to admit that this is my perception as well. I don’t know what goes on within the “walls” of the State/Country Rep forums, but given that Josh is both the President and the main person communicating these changes, the impression that I’m left with is that a single person has made a decision on behalf of the organization, a million words are written on TiltForums about it by people for/against, and at the end of the day there’s no change to the original decision.
I compare that to something like the Women’s Board, where the impression I’m left with is that you have a committee of interested individuals who are discussing/voting/making decisions and the output is presented as a unified front as decided by a collective of people as opposed to an individual.
Perhaps I’m underplaying the role of the State/Country Rep, but it’s just something I don’t have knowledge of on the structure and cadence of the group.
I’d argue that one. Without getting to in-depth to my logic I really only enjoy competing. So having something that shows some sort of caliber or progress is a thing I enjoy. I don’t really play for “fun” or go out with other friends to “play a game” that’s not fun for me. Increasing my rankings, skills and overall play is something that I prefer. Winning is what’s fun.
if I ever go to a major I’m bringing something to stand on.