Curiously, would anyone’s opinion of flip frenzy change if the queue and game selections were “balanced across the series” so to speak? So that the software strove to remove actual randomness and insert some form of balancing?
if you rank flip frenzy according to win percentage (instead of net wins) it actually incentivizes playing fewer games.
I do think a modifier to flip frenzy sounds interesting, let’s say a 30 person tournament. at tournament start all players put into 1-1 matches. After 4 or 5 games end (8-10 players queued), create new matches balanced as @jay suggests or even swiss. (Have we gotten far enough from FF to avoid the TGP nerf yet?) I’m not sure how you balance matches played though
anyways, the real victim here is not flip frenzy format, it’s @haugstrup having to receive requests for a hundred new formats which are as TGP-efficient as flip frenzy but distinct enough that they avoid the TGP nerf (please code my above format into next.mp)
Don’t worry, I’m good at saying no 
8 Likes
This is by far my biggest issue with Flip Frenzy. I have played in tournaments in which I strongly suspected people were gaming the queue and it really soured the experience for me. I now just don’t play in them.
1 Like
I just reviewed the results for the 15 or so largest frenzy events held in the past month. The distribution of finishing positions is comparable to that of other formats, i.e. the best players tend to be at or near the top with just occasional exceptions, and the lowest-ranked players finish near the bottom. None of the winners were low-ranked. Doesn’t change my opinion on the format, but does indicate that it’s no worse than other formats at differentiating skill in terms of finishing positions.
8 Likes
“Back in my day real players flipped both flippers at the same time!”
1 Like
Hey, don’t knock Kirkland Signature… Costco sources some good stuff! 
Actually, almost all qualifying formats have the top performing players play against each other during qualifying: Swiss, tiered Swiss, strikes, and due to the indirect nature of facing everyone, so do Herb and pin-golf.
The ones that don’t — when the field is large relative to the # of rounds — are Random and Balanced. Large field Balanced is still better than FF, because you don’t have repeat opponents — where in FF repeat opponents are common.
I feel the FF queue is far from random — there’s a tendency to face a similar set of opponents due to the nature of FF, with a high chance of repeats.
My main point still remains: using a metric for comparing players that uses unequal # of games.
I wrote a quick flip frenzy software package to do that, and then Monte Carlo’d it a few thousand times. Picking players from the queue that the opponent has faced the fewest times (and splitting ties by picking the player who has been waiting in the queue longest) does a fairly good job of balancing the spread of opponents. But the downside is that on occasion players can spend 30 minutes or more in the queue. And on other times they barely have time to get seated.
I felt that destroyed one of the greatest things people like about FF - the rapid pace, yet with a fairly consistent 10 minute or so break between rounds for refreshment. I never experimented with it in a practical test
4 Likes
Flip Frenzies are an awesome format to:
-
adhere to a fixed time frame
-
get new players into the scene and into competitive pinball in a friendly, less daunting way.
I always run a 3 hour frenzy, followed by an 8 person finals.
We ran a 44 person Frenzy last Friday - started on time at 7pm, done by 10pm, finals done by 11ish.
-
20.9 average games during the 3 hour frenzy. (Probably twice as many games for most people vs a normal 3 strike)
-
standings always hidden
-
No players are allowed to leave a machine until all 3 balls are played
-
if anyone even thought about gaming the queue they’d get an earful. But they’re actually running to the desk to submit results so they can play more games.
It’s a great format, when run correctly.
Maximum pinball in a fixed time frame.
It’s a shame it’s getting nerfed.
7 Likes
The way you are running it now with the new rules it is still 23/25 92% TGP. Instead of it being 33/25 132% without the nerfing in the new rules. Think it is pretty fair. Just because you have to play your balls doesn’t mean I have to try to play I can just let them drain. I agree that FF has its place I just don’t think it should be rewarded like other formats.
2 Likes
Step 1 to a quality format … Don’t you dare show the players the standings
6 Likes
It is like the old pen and paper pump and dump days when the high score board was hours behind play.
2 Likes
It’s Qualifying’s version of the covered-up scoreboard of Critical Hit! 
IFPA18 qualifying portion: no standings allowed! It’ll be more fun, they said.
2 Likes
Amen, brother. That´s a great idea. 
I just wanted to point out that this thread now has the most replies of any WPPR changes announcement thread, beating out even the infamous announcement of the dollar fee which peaked at 504 replies.
I kind of love that this community cares even more about tournament formats than money. Don’t ever change.
13 Likes
Like I always tell people… “there’s no money in pinball.”
2 Likes
Someone needs to reply to the dollar fee thread pointing out the global fee announcement for 2023 and the disaster that surely awaits . . .
2 Likes
For ultimate currency speculation chaos I think you should charge the global fee in USD and keep it in USD bank accounts. How big will the prize pool be? We will just have to wait and see!
3 Likes
and then the IFPA may have legal issues with that or run into exchange rates issues.
I knew these currency shenanigans would not sneak by the dragon.
4 Likes