NAoC4 - Results & Feedback

[pumukel]

Results

[tbody] [/tbody]

• With respect to participants (96!), this was the biggest Noobs of AoC so far. After two german winners, the NAoC crown is handed to the netherlands neighbourhood:

1st Paladin League
FogHorn

+ winning a slam session

2nd Paladin League
tiago

3rd Paladin League
OliKing

1st Cavalier League
alberto_010
winning a Spaden session

1st Knight League
Julinse
winning a Spring session

FFA Event Winner
Flow
winning a TaToH session​

Feedback

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• • We had 92 out of 96 matches played in Group Stage and 86 out of 91 in Final Stage (all AWs in Ro32 or Ro16), mostly with smooth scheduling. So first of all, we want to thank all the participants for being part of this - thank you!
  • We also want to thank Cavin for the badges and slam, Spaden, Spring, and TaToH for their time by providing the prizes. Much appreciated!
  • And of course, smarthy's streaming was a big plus for our tournament. We were lucky! You find some VODs on here YouTube channel.
  Fails that should not be repeated:
  
  • The tournament design with 3 players groups and then conventionally seeded Single Elimination led to sudden deaths for many players, which was not our intention for this tournament. In this respect, NAoC3 was better, where first a playoff stage did the seeding and then groups with balanced levels were played.
  • The above misdesign was intensified by a poor replacement policy: By simply putting substitutes where the gap emerged, the seeding of the groups was disturbed, which resulted in more unfair Final Stage brackets.
  • The communication of the times of the two FFA Event qualifiers was suboptimal, some players missed their matches because they misread the announcement/info post. Sorry for that!
  Do you have any further feedback? Please post below.
  
  Note: Anyone is welcome the organize Noobs of AoC 5. The only person with a certain right for that brand is Philippe le Bon, who has a positive attitude towards trolling.

With regards,
Maiwingkos & pumukel​

 

[Flow]

Huge Thanks to all the admins.
Organisation was very good and overall the tournament went really smoothly.

 

[nimanoe]

Great tournament, thanks a lot pumukel and Maiwingkos for organizing!

Also thanks to everyone for their activeness, this was one of the smoothest scheduling I've had.

I really like that the scheduling was on a hidden sub-forum, I think it makes AoCZone more pleasant to use for people who don't want to read all the scheduling topics. It would be great if more tournament organizers could use this or if AoCZone could be edited so you can choose what topics you want under "View New Posts".

I really liked the settings as well (or lack of settings), you were free to do pretty much anything as long as you and your opponent agreed, which was great. The Mad Random Pack was fun to play with as well, even though it's not the most balanced mappack. I'm not too big of a fan of random civs tho, even at noob levels they can give quite a big advantage, maybe for future tournaments something else can be used.

The biggest downside for me for this tournament was the lack of real noobs, most people that played I wouldn't really call noobs, only the Knight League was pretty much at the real noob level (at least from my perspective). In most previous tournaments the highest rated players were around 1400, while for this one the max rating was 1600 with some people getting ratings even higher. I think some noobs didn't sign up for this because of this as well, which is kind of a shame.

 

[pumukel]

The biggest downside for me for this tournament was the lack of real noobs, most people that played I wouldn't really call noobs, only the Knight League was pretty much at the real noob level (at least from my perspective). In most previous tournaments the highest rated players were around 1400, while for this one the max rating was 1600 with some people getting ratings even higher. I think some noobs didn't sign up for this because of this as well, which is kind of a shame.

Yes, forgot about that point. It was an experiment to be so inclusive towards higher ratings, and it didn't work out that well. If I ever do another edition, I'll go for the lowest sign-ups approach again.

 

[smarthy_]

Fun tournament! I really enjoyed watching and casting some of the games!

 

[Jevo]

I had a good time playing in this tournament, people were nice and the games were fun. Everything went very smooth.

Personally I'm not the biggest fan of the Mad Random pack, and I prefer standard maps to that. It's of course a matter of personal preference, and I'm not against the idea of having some more 'fun' settings for a noob tournament, and perhaps Mad Random was the best choice for the tournament as a whole. I can't really say, but I'll explain why I wasn't a big fan of the map pack. One thing is that the pack is very large, so you don't really have a chance to learn the maps, which means most matches ends up being like Blind Random, which of course also has its charms, but can give an advantage if you are lucky enough to have played the map in an earlier game. The same is somewhat true for Full Random, since most people haven't played the majority of the maps, but Full Random has fewer maps, so you have a better chance of learning the maps. I'm not sure if this matters much in a noob tournament though, and most people might not care much about that. Another thing I disliked about the mappack, is that it seems like a lot of maps have no decent woodlines, just small patches of trees spread around the map. Something which annoyed me quite a few times. To the packs credit, there are quite a few maps which are very hard to full wall, because of the small wood lines and unbuildable terrain, which allows games to be more aggressive. Which is never a bad thing in noob games, which often end up being campy if the map allows it.

 

[Manu]

Thanks to all organisers, and players!
Made some friends in that tournament, and improved a lot by training for it
In my point of view the tournament was fun and the settings were ok for the knight league, but the 2 other leagues were really unfair i feel
Anyway, I was not a too huge fan of the map pack because i suck on water, but hell, was much fun to discover the maps tough!

 

[YoungPanda95]

Hello Guys and Girls who played in this EPIC NAoC4 tournament :wave: Give yourselves a :thumbup: + Without you it would not have happened, and a very big GG WP to all the various winners.

I would like to thank:

• Maiwingkos & pumukel for hosting this tournament (and giving me a spot in the KotH final, even though I finished last in the Qualifier).
• AlgernonR for completely demolishing me in the Group Stages, as well as the discussions on the FFA Qualifier map and what civs might be viable.
• MarxCorbain for walking over me.
• Blocth for not taking an AW after I picked the wrong settings for one game.
• enmipho for my best series of the tournament, I wanted to gg so many times but decided to grind it out (would love for smarthy to cast these games).
• TriRem thanks for the most irritating trush I’ve ever face, I knew you coming with it and didn’t try to adapt to it (I want a rematch grassPlz).
• Flow for letting me go vill bashing 10 of yours scouts for the low cost of
  Spoiler

  11 vils (BEST TRADE EVAR!?! Kappa)
  into the ground.
• smarthy for casting the games (I still need to watch the VOD of me against TriRem, but the cringe for watching my mistakes are still too high).
• OliKing for actually allowing this noob to play a few practice games before and during the tournament.

My complaints:

• All the higher rated opponents I had (going into this tournament I was a 1300 pleb and almost all my opponents, except Blotch, were 15++) (I'm still a pleb btw only a 1400 one now).
• smarthy for her map choice for the KotH final
• Henkdesupernerd for going to the middle so early on a LN start, and thereby giving me a 0.28% chance of winning that game with my planned Feitoria strat :evil: I think we all wanted to boom and have mega showdown for the middle.
• Flow for making me a Nomad in the Qualifier (33/5 pop is an OP strat for finishing last).
• AlgernonR and Flow (again) for no fighting each other in the Qualifier and being peaceful neighbors.
  IT'S A FFA FOR PETE'S SAKE. #RIGGED
• The amount of maps there where to remember (151 if I remember correctly). It would have been nice if there where a pool of say 25 of these maps.

My tiny RANT:
tl;dr: Give us noobs some love too Plezzzzzzzzzzzz

There was only one caster (smarthy) that made an effort into streaming these games. It would have been nice to have more casters casting this tournament. The level of play might not be the best always, bit the unorthodox strategies that us noobs can pull out from somewhere really can make these games fun and great to watch. Go watch this match http://www.voobly.com/match/view/16724547/Match-Details to see a pro playing a bad/suboptimal game (

Spoiler

nobody bashed him for reaching castle age or needing to Toplo his tc to get away from the pressure

). We all have needed to do this at sometime in our career as AoC players. This game was not made for a select few to play at a certain level, but for people to have fun and enjoy playing a game against strangers (me being the stranger mostly ) and friends (see the banter in the KotH final).

My MEGA rant:
Snippy for stealing 2 of my relics form underneath my tower I was building to protect them while waiting for my monastery and smarthy for not seeing this happen in the KotH final.

Spoiler

Yes, I did spent the last 3 hours writing and thinking some of this nonsense, and why did you read this? GO PLAY SOME EPIC AOC GAMES. :crazy: roblem:

 

[pumukel]

11 draxien level post thx panda!

 

[YoungPanda95]

11 draxien level post thx panda!

Thanks. I'm welcome 8-)

 

[Flow]

I would like to thank:

• Flow for letting me vill bashing 10 of yours scouts for the low cost of
  Spoiler

  11 vils (BEST TRADE EVAR!?! Kappa)
  into the ground.
  
• Flow for making me a Nomad in the Qualifier (33/5 pop is an OP strat for finishing last).
• AlgernonR and Flow (again) for no fighting each other in the Qualifier and being peaceful neighbors.
  IT'S A FFA FOR PETE'S SAKE. #RIGGED

You're welcome

I would like to second what most have said so far. While i liked some of the Mad Random maps, i feel like the map pool was too big. Maybe narrowing it down to 20-25 maps would be better for future tournaments, especially since some of the maps were pretty similar, with only certain aspects of the maps changed.

 

[smarthy_]

Lol Panda you do quite a bit of ranting there. I'm sorry to disappoint you!

 

[Toom03]

First of all big thanks for organizing the tournament was an amazing experience

regarding the map pool it was just madness... i played many practice games and played many maps several times but some like fortiefied island were just a pain to play... i would recommend a smaller pool of maps for the next one

 

[misafeco]

I had a lot of fun, especially in KO stage where the skill level between players were closer. I had a totally unexpected 2-1 win over pumukel after finishing last in group stage with 0 points. Mothump in the next round was clearly better than me, so that was the end of the line for me.
Map pack is fine, I like surprises. I never played Mad Random before so I went in completely blind into every game. I analyzed some of my opponents games though to search for their weaknesses. :D
Thanks for organizing and see you in the next tournament!

 

[YoungPanda95]

Lol Panda you do quite a bit of ranting there. I'm sorry to disappoint you!

You can make up for it by casting my games against enmipho

Spoiler

only if you are really bored/can't find pro games to spectate. :angel:

Spoiler

btw nobody disapointed me, I was just bored 8-)

 

[Socksyy]

Hello Guys and Girls who played in this EPIC NAoC4 tournament :wave: Give yourselves a :thumbup: + Without you it would not have happened, and a very big GG WP to all the various winners.

I would like to thank:

• Maiwingkos & pumukel for hosting this tournament (and giving me a spot in the KotH final, even though I finished last in the Qualifier).
• AlgernonR for completely demolishing me in the Group Stages, as well as the discussions on the FFA Qualifier map and what civs might be viable.
• MarxCorbain for walking over me.
• Blocth for not taking an AW after I picked the wrong settings for one game.
• enmipho for my best series of the tournament, I wanted to gg so many times but decided to grind it out (would love for smarthy to cast these games).
• TriRem thanks for the most irritating trush I’ve ever face, I knew you coming with it and didn’t try to adapt to it (I want a rematch grassPlz).
• Flow for letting me go vill bashing 10 of yours scouts for the low cost of
  Spoiler

  11 vils (BEST TRADE EVAR!?! Kappa)
  into the ground.
• smarthy for casting the games (I still need to watch the VOD of me against TriRem, but the cringe for watching my mistakes are still too high).
• OliKing for actually allowing this noob to play a few practice games before and during the tournament.

My complaints:

• All the higher rated opponents I had (going into this tournament I was a 1300 pleb and almost all my opponents, except Blotch, were 15++) (I'm still a pleb btw only a 1400 one now).
• smarthy for her map choice for the KotH final
• Henkdesupernerd for going to the middle so early on a LN start, and thereby giving me a 0.28% chance of winning that game with my planned Feitoria strat :evil: I think we all wanted to boom and have mega showdown for the middle.
• Flow for making me a Nomad in the Qualifier (33/5 pop is an OP strat for finishing last).
• AlgernonR and Flow (again) for no fighting each other in the Qualifier and being peaceful neighbors.
  IT'S A FFA FOR PETE'S SAKE. #RIGGED
• The amount of maps there where to remember (151 if I remember correctly). It would have been nice if there where a pool of say 25 of these maps.

My tiny RANT:
tl;dr: Give us noobs some love too Plezzzzzzzzzzzz

There was only one caster (smarthy) that made an effort into streaming these games. It would have been nice to have more casters casting this tournament. The level of play might not be the best always, bit the unorthodox strategies that us noobs can pull out from somewhere really can make these games fun and great to watch. Go watch this match http://www.voobly.com/match/view/16724547/Match-Details to see a pro playing a bad/suboptimal game (

Spoiler

nobody bashed him for reaching castle age or needing to Toplo his tc to get away from the pressure

). We all have needed to do this at sometime in our career as AoC players. This game was not made for a select few to play at a certain level, but for people to have fun and enjoy playing a game against strangers (me being the stranger mostly ) and friends (see the banter in the KotH final).

My MEGA rant:
Snippy for stealing 2 of my relics form underneath my tower I was building to protect them while waiting for my monastery and smarthy for not seeing this happen in the KotH final.

Spoiler

Yes, I did spent the last 3 hours writing and thinking some of this nonsense, and why did you read this? GO PLAY SOME EPIC AOC GAMES. :crazy: roblem:

11 nice post man and great points :D

 

[YoungPanda95]

11 nice post man and great points :D

Thanks, mostly when noobs games are being streamed we get bashed by someone (casters or their chat) for our brilliant game play and strategy.

 

[Julinse]

Hey guys,

Big big thank you to the admins, participants and price donors for this awesome tournament!

I never really had the courage to play on multiplayer and NAoC really hyped me into it. Organization was great, I had many fun games, made some new friends and the prices felt like something really worth fighting for!

To me the completely random setup was great, because it ensured you couldn’t take the games tooo serious and focus was always on having fun - which I feel is just right for a Noobs tournament.

I directly enrolled for another tournament and also saw some other NAoC participants on the sign ups - so it seems I’m not the only one who tasted blood

 

[Manu]

Hey guys,
- so it seems I’m not the only one who tasted blood

And you liked it :D Savage !

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

First of all I really liked this tournament and it was fun to play on such exotic maps.



I also think that the tournament should be <1600. I tried explaining to a roommate that I did a "noob" tournament on AOE while he knows how much hours I've spend the last years to get to the level I am now (1550 or something) and he was so confused. I told him that there is so many kind of "noobs" on aoe that real new players have to distinguish themselves from those who call themselves noob by putting "Ultra super noobs ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS ONLY (no smurfs!)" in their lobby-titles

I also liked the bonus of an FFA event which was great fun!

As much as I like FFA (especially KOTH) I don't think it really provides interesting games for a spectator perspective, especially the first 20 minutes when everybody is booming peacefully. Also during these games it is pretty much a gamble if you gonna succeed with your boom. If you are left to free boom you are almost guarateed to make it to the top, while if you are unlucky and someone goes agressive you are pretty much dead. I think a game mode like suddendeath or King of the hill fixes this problem, giving players the option to go agressive or to make an early move for the monument.

About the FFA KOTH map, I found that map really interesting but after seeing a practice game of this map I realised the first 40 minutes no real action would happen with one of the most awkward nomad starts :P Also it would have taken a while before the timer would activate. The gold in the middle normally would result in players going agressive early but on this map I think the players would already be far into castle age before going there and thus would make a stronger push onto the middle if they decide to go there with mangonels and castles, resulting in some players getting a really strong foot on the middle while others are starving on the outside.

Ofcourse I only speculate at this point because my attempt to go for the ballsy move to go middle so early and losing it to one of the strongest players completely changed the course of the game and might have made it much less exciting than a 40min farm-simulator but after that an epic showdown!

But if I could do some suggestions for cool KOTH maps I would bring forward maps like ghostlake or the map RoechelRochen made (with shallows in the middle) so the monument changes hands more often. Or maps with gold in the middle to promote agressive moves to the middle but with some other kind of disadvantage there (like golden pit)

If i'm still around playing AOE next year, and If I still classify as noob I'll definitely join the next event!

thanks a lot!

 

[YoungPanda95]

But if I could do some suggestions for cool KOTH maps I would bring forward maps like ghostlake or the map RoechelRochen made (with shallows in the middle) so the monument changes hands more often. Or maps with gold in the middle to promote agressive moves to the middle but with some other kind of disadvantage there (like golden pit)

I second Henk here :thumbup:

I think increasing the starting resources or beginning in Feudal Age or both might speed up the game more, and at least it might decrease the farming simulator to 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes.

 

[Digital_Shock]

Great tournament, thanks for organising.

Disappointed to have to drop out due to computer problems but hopefully I'll be back for the next one!