I want to start running Dirty Bomb cups.

(RazielWarmonic) #1

Hey guys, some of ya’ll might know me by Raziel Warmonic and I am newer member to the Dirty Bomb community so I do not know all your awesome faces yet, but I am hoping to learn! I mostly make my face present VIA Twitch streaming/lurking, but I also lurk Reddit a bit and the forums.

With @potty not being able to do cups now, I would like to get as much feedback on how people would like cups ran, and how, as I would like to start doing them. I’m assuming I’ll need to get in contact with Splash Damage / Nexon for servers and see if they will fix the private server passwords, and an ETA on that. Maybe I can pick up where he left off?

I am currently an ESL Admin for Nosgoth, so I have a little experience running cups. I run one every Sunday that I set up, seed, pick maps, and define rule sets for. I take feedback very seriously.

Some of the things I notice people like/want are:
○Centralized servers, meaning that if there are both EU and NA teams signed up, we have both EU and US servers.
○Limit on mercs (1 merc per team.)
○Livestream/casters
○Friendly Fire

My suggestions (Feel free to give me feedback on this, please, I have so much to learn about DB):
○No team sign up limit, if there is odd amount those teams will get by’s.
○Random seedings for the first cup
○Make it into a weekly/bi-weekly series where the cups are seeded from

Suggestions for suitable prizes for a “fun-cup”? Can Splash Damage help us at all in this? Are credits a viable option?

Again, all feedback/suggestion are taken seriously. Even if you think I’m dumber then a rock and therefor not qualified to do this because I am new to the community and should fluff off. :slight_smile: I am particularly open on how to get teams to sign up, where they should register, and what platform to use for that, as I do not have a cool website like Evaczone to arrange it. My only restriction is that I will have to do them on Saturday as I have my Nosgoth ones to run on Sunday.

Cheers,
Warmonic

(elegantBattle) #2

My suggestion is to either have US EAST servers for all to play on OR have a bracket for Europeans and a bracket for NA and play separately until the Grand Finals. This would need a lot of teams for both though

(JPB) #3

Do it, I will play in it just need the servers to play on.

(son!) #4

FF is something to consider in the future, but seeing as we have no way to practice with it atm why do it?

Merc count too low to do pan/pick so I’d agree with 1 (of any) merc per team comp

We have 5 maps so you can credit one team a map ban in a BO3 game. Although cups I guess will be BO1 until later stages. 2 Bans per team mb for BO1s?

Tiebreaker conditions? I’ve never played ET/RTCW comp so dunno what’s a good standard here. But I’d guess for the sake of scheduling you don’t want to run a tiebreaker map (in either BO1 or BO3) so maybe team cumulative score? Dunno TBH but something to think about.

(adeto) #5

  • Servers
    At some point US and EU will have to split into seperate brackets, mostly because in every game the server location becomes drama. It’s simply never fair to either side, doesn’t matter how great the netcode is.

  • FF
    Should simply be on in competitive play. Spamming airstrikes/nades/shooting without risking your teammates lives is just too easy (and boring).

  • Mercs limit
    What exactly do you mean by 1 per team? As in 1 sawbonez 1 fragger 1 skyhammer etc? First off this is a ‘problem’ with only limited free mercs as it means teams thus have to force their roles around who has what merc available rather than what they prefer to play(thouhg I also feel that if a active competitive player still hasn’t bought his prefered mercs its a tiny bit their own fault aswell xD). Also in the current stage its really hard to enforce with 3 loadout cards, in the moment someone can quickly switch not thinking about the rules and if your opponent is a team of wankers they’ll claim forfeit instantly. Merc limits should come from ingame commands that actually control if people can switch or not. Until that is in place from within the game itself it’s a really vague and fragile rule.

  • Team limit
    Don’t care, really. But 16 or 32 team limit isn’t a bad thing with logistics so it doesn’t become too big for nexon servers to handle(:D)

  • System
    BO3, I would allow teams to pick their own map. Team A picks chapel, team B picks if they want to attack or defend first on A’s map. Team B picks Bridge, team a decides if they attack or defend first on B’s map. Teams both remove a map from the remaining 3(current mappool) and 1 map will be left as the decider. Team who won the 2nd map gets to pick first side on the decider.

  • Day
    Thursday? In the competitive community I come from (ET/RtCW) thursdays are a very common day to have matches/tournaments. Atleast definitely easier days than Saturdays (that said we never have tournaments bigger than 16 teams, 12year old game :smiley: but Saturday will feel weird to most people from that community)

(irisRenegade) #6

Do cups for each region. I’m not willing to play with a 90+ ping.

(phea) #7

Really confused on why anyone wants friendly fire, maybe that’s cause I’ve came from a game where friendly fire would be totally retarded. FF feels wrong to me, I mean out of 8 classes right now half have explosives as their ability and nader being the next merc just adds another to that list.

(Ceres) #8

Because friendly fire removes the retarded concept of shooting through your teammate’s bodies without being punished, it removes throwing nades where your teammates are without them dying, and also forces you to time your arties and airstrikes as to not kill your entire team. FF off is completely horrible now because everyone just spams without any thought.

(RazielWarmonic) #9

I agree there. I think that is something to look at in the long run though, the game is still closed beta with a limited amount of people or even teams signing up, so its best to bite the bullet at the moment I believe. I’ll definitely be monitoring this, but until we get at least a consistent 8 for both a US and EU cup, I think it would be dumb to have a 4 team cup when it could be more.

I can’t say I ever really got the chance to play the game with it on, but I have a couple birdies in my ears that say they’ll only play with it on. I think it overall implements more strategy (especially with mercs like Fragger, Skyhammer, and with Nader coming) where they actually have to think about their explosions, and will eliminate that “spray and pray” feel.

Yeah, I was afraid with now that you have to buy mercs, this can cause an issue. Like you said, you’d hope people who are participating in the cup have the mercs they want. This seems like the most controversial topic, so having everyone weigh in is definitely needed. The 3 loadout cards with the limited mercs we have at the moment is a very viable point. I intend on setting up a “Penalty Point” system very similar to what ESL has to discourage bad play and behavior however. I’ll ask around about this as well and see what people think (In terms of the merc limit rule, that is.)

Cool, honestly I just hate excluding people. We’ll see how many teams sign up I suppose before I accurately gauge if this is a good idea or not.

Ohhh, I like this a lot! Noted in my notepad of keeping track of thoughts and ideas.

Completely open to any day besides Sunday. I could potentially run it Sunday if everyone really wanted it, but it would probably be earlier in the morning for the US. I’d prefer to keep it off of Sunday however, as my Nosgoth cup does go from 2pm PST up to 6pm PST depending, and I have to actively monitor chats troubleshoot and the such so it takes a lot of my attention. :wink:

I understand. Ping makes a difference. I’m hoping to put a ruleset into place for the starting cups (I consider starting cups about a month) to test things out. So if you could just bare with me as we see how many teams sign up and if region cups are an option I would be grateful. The ruleset I have in mind is:
EU vs EU team: EU Servers
US vs EU team: US EAST servers (I believe EU pings anywhere between 100-150 to east?)
US vs US team: US EAST servers
I think this is fair for now. I wouldn’t mind hosting EU vs. US on EU servers, but as a fellow west coaster, I ping 180-200+ to EU and it gets a bit rough. If there is a problem, again, open to suggestions.

Hopefully we can set up a practice server or something soon!

[quote=“son!;15678”]
Tiebreaker conditions? I’ve never played ET/RTCW comp so dunno what’s a good standard here. But I’d guess for the sake of scheduling you don’t want to run a tiebreaker map (in either BO1 or BO3) so maybe team cumulative score? Dunno TBH but something to think about.[/quote]
Yikes, yeah, not sure how to do that one. It seems like a tiebreaker map would be the most logical option. I don’t like the concept of going off score, so if anyone else has an idea, throw in your two cents!

(Kroad) #10

not enough players, 90+ ping isn’t noticeable in games with clientside hit detection

(Zenity) #11

In general I would suggest that you poll the team captains about every important decision, because it’s their opinion which ultimately matters (also try to find out which options they would be willing to try, and then maybe try it out for one cup to see how it goes).

With regards to servers:

I think the ideal situation would be to alternate between EU and US focused cups each week. You can still allow both regions to participate, just default to EU servers one week, and to US (East) servers the other week in case of conflicts. This would also allow alternating between starting times which may be a little more suitable for EU or NA participants (though ideally they should still be workable for both in either case).

Friendly Fire:

If you can exert some influence on SD to get it done for competitive matches, that would be fantastic! :slight_smile: Just query the team captains about it, I bet a large majority would be in favour and this should give you a strong position with SD.

Merc limits:

I would suggest to use these cups to try different options and see how it goes. Pick a ruleset for each cup, make sure that most participants are willing to try it, then see how it goes. Once a clear favourite emerges, keep using it for most of the cups.

We’ve just had some discussion about this on the SD forums and opinions are pretty polarised, so it would be a good idea to experiment IMO. This should provide very useful feedback to SD as to what kind of rulesets could be worth implementing as a default option in the future.

As a frame of reference, I was suggesting these definitions for some basic rulesets:

Unlimited: No restrictions.

Limited (or perhaps “Restricted”): Only implement specific restrictions the community agrees on, like pick only one Fragger or two Assault classes per team. This would be the most flexible and could be adjusted constantly, but would also be the hardest to administrate.

Highlander: Every merc can only be used once per team. Whether or not to still allow players to switch between three mercs is another question, which would make this much harder to administrate. The easier option would be to force players to pick one primary merc and to stick with it, but that may be more controversial (or perhaps not).

Draft: Teams take turns picking mercs from the available pool, and players can only choose one. This isn’t possible until we have at least ten mercs of course… just putting it here for reference. Or we could “cheat” and say that each merc with a unique primary weapon is a unique choice, so we’d have 27 options to choose from (with Nader). :slight_smile: I could imagine this as a fun distraction, but probably not as a primary competitive mode (at least for the time being).

Also I guess there is a good chance that Execution mode will be released very soon (tomorrow?!), so that’s another option to consider. :slight_smile: A cup would be a wonderful way to quickly get an idea of how the mode will work out.

(Zenity) #12

One more thing: I think Saturday is a great choice. The problem with Thursday or another weekday would be that it would become a lot harder to find a time that works for both NA and EU participants.

(Sagan on Roids) #13

I’ve been thinking about running tourneys/cup myself after the evaczone thing fell apart. I’m a web developer by trade, so I was thinking of making a site where teams/players can signup with their Steam account. Maybe we could work together?

(RazielWarmonic) #14

Quick Update: Ordered a Mumble server for general DB pub/pug/scrim use. I’ll post info when the server is up and running. For now it’s only a 75 man server, but if needed we can up it.

I like the highlander thing. I’ll consult some people on their opinions on whether or not they want a lock in on mercs or be able to pick from their three load outs. Also thanks for the link, lots to read through!

Would love to work with you! I am generally smart enough to pick apart code, but god know I can’t do crap from scratch. I know Nej suggested here a website that also allows easy to do pugs, he provided the source code for it too, I don’t know how hard that is to do, so that’s totally up to your discretion but the more people aboard the less work for me! :wink: Feel free to add me on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/warmonic/

Keep the suggestions flowing guys! This is awesome!

(Fana) #15

Nice to see more people taking initiative. Some thoughts:

Regarding servers, I think one has to take a firm stance on whether a tournament is primarily, EU, NA or neutral, as each requires a different ruleset regarding server choice. If the tournament is primarily EU, then it should be played on EU servers unless the teams playing in a particular match agree to play somewhere else. The same goes for NA tournaments, but with NA servers. If the tournament is neutral, then the rules need a little more elaboration. Forcing US East servers is simply not fair. Consider the situation where a US East team plays against a Finnish team, for example. 50 ping vs. 150-200. Instead, you can do a coinflip. The winner of the coinflip decides which server to play on OR which map to play, the loser of the coinflip decides the remaining choice. This can also be used as a method for breaking ties in BO3 matches, where one map should be played on EU and one on US.

Bear in mind that it is very difficult to finish 9+ team cups on weekdays, and virtually impossible if both EU and NA teams are playing (due to time zone differences).

All of this is rather moot considering the current state of the game and community, though. The player numbers have gradually been decreasing, and are now down to less than 300 concurrent players during peak hours. The cup that’s “planned” for this weekend currently has 5 teams signed up, and getting practice matches is getting harder and harder every day, so the enthusiasm and interest in competitive play right now is obviously limited. Until the game gets to a state where people actually want to stick around and play it, which will probably coincide with the f2p launch in June, preparing tournaments is probably a waste of time.

(JBRAA) #16

Do a “Raziel DB Cup” #1.

Otherwise people will discuss till the end of time what is the “right” settings

Who cares if the settings are “wrong” on Cup #1. Then they can be changed for Cup #2.

Most people & players dont realise how much time it takes do admin a Cup, even a single match.

Be a boss, and do it your way. People will come anyway.

Bottom line is: Make it happen, without getting so tired that #2 wont happend. So keep it casual, quick and easy.

(RazielWarmonic) #17

[quote=“JBRAA;15783”]Do a “Raziel DB Cup” #1.

Otherwise people will discuss till the end of time what is the “right” settings

Who cares if the settings are “wrong” on Cup #1. Then they can be changed for Cup #2.

Most people & players dont realise how much time it takes do admin a Cup, even a single match.

Be a boss, and do it your way. People will come anyway.

Bottom line is: Make it happen, without getting so tired that #2 wont happend. So keep it casual, quick and easy. [/quote]

I agree, I will do 2-3 test cups before I start the series. The first cup will have no rules besides FF on, and the second one will have rules implemented and we can go from there. After that I’ll start taking on a more serious approach of a series where there will be seedings and possibly finals happening. :slight_smile:

(RazielWarmonic) #18

Good news, got the Mumble server running, and the info for that is:
dirtycups.murmur.nfoservers.com
10980

Feel free to pug, chill, and pub in it.

The working/temp name for stuff atm is “Dirty Cups”, but we’ll see if I can come up with anything better.

(MattjA) #19

If you need some help running them, I have been running cups and events for ESL for the past 2 years. I have quite extensive knowledge at your disposal. :slight_smile:

(RazielWarmonic) #20

What would be the ideal time for everyone?

I am leaning towards 10am PST (1pm EST/5pm UTC/6pm BST) for the cups. I don’t know if this is too late for some people; I wouldn’t mind moving it back an hour if the west coasters don’t mind, but 10am I feel like is pushing it.

For sure! I think we can have a cup up as early as next Saturday to test some stuff out.

In fact, after I get a concrete time that is fine for everyone, I’ll set one up for Saturday (02/March/2015). This’ll be a test cup with no rules besides FF. :slight_smile: