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[marco47]

I don't think that the time limit being too late is the problem. Yo would have won the game without time limit, no? It would have been unfair to punish him for that. After all, it was not an insta win for him. He stalled out, killed the trebs with bbc (in fact Liereyy should have probably made his own bbc), etc. The solution imo as discussed in the other thread is to nerf feitorias or ban them in islands.

 

[marco47]

Not gonna stone anyone but you ruined a possibly incredible final with your awful decision despite the fact that people ( not only me ) suggested lowering time limit.

Perhaps you can heed your own advice?

My friend, I understand your frustration as a fanboy

Life continues even when your idol loses

 

[Degaussed]

I will have to keep reminding myself that life will continue even tho Tatoh lost pepehands

 

[marco47]

I will have to keep reminding myself that life will continue even tho Tatoh lost pepehands

I still feel like he could have had a fair chance vs Liereyy if he had reached the finals. He also performed really well in HC4, even after not getting the best results in other recent events. He really thrives in maps where strategy is more important and I hope we have more of those in the future. After all, AOE is still a strategy game.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I will have to keep reminding myself that life will continue even tho Tatoh lost pepehands

He is lucky Hera didn't sign up properly :D The infamous record would have got bigger:D

 

[Lord_patito]

Not gonna stone anyone but you ruined a possibly incredible final with your awful decision despite the fact that people ( not only me ) suggested lowering time limit.

Not gonna do it, but I'll do it anyway

 

[amazing_knight]

I did. Now go ahead and stone me for making such a horrible mistake. If this is what you're looking for then - you were right. You were 100% right that the limit should have been lower. I was afraid of putting it too early where it could affect the competitiveness in the opposite direction. Obviously, I overshot by a fair bit.

It's fine, really. An error indeed but not that big a deal imo to overshadow the genuine feedback for the tourney.

Coming to genuine feedback which this thread is actually about: Really liked these things:
1. Classic maps: I loved Arena/Nomad/RF on map-pool.
2. Open tourney involving a large player-base: I don't like the invitational format. Open to all is better.
3. No compromise on rules: Appreciate how the Hera situation was handled by not compromising on rules instead of making exceptions.

Some things to consider:
1. I felt like we were seeing the same civs over and over again. For instance, Spanish vs Malians on Nomad in most games. This can be looked into. Perhaps a wider map pool would be better to get more diversity in civs.
2. Long hours and multiple games at a time: I understand that having the entire 128 player tournament within a weekend is bound to have this issue. Don't have any great suggestions, but maybe starting on Thursday could've been better.

Not sure if it is the case with others as well, but after watching aoe for 5-6 hours, the hype starts dwindling for me and that's generally when the finals are about to start 11. As a viewer, I'd love to see semis and finals on separate days but I know that's perhaps not possible.

 

[Nicov]

Civs/draft: I think having no bans is a flaw and the A player has a huge advantage in taking a first pick and a map uncontested. I also think it might have led to more of the same civs every round (china every single series first/second pick). So maybe mixing up the draft in later stages or just adding 2-3 bans before picking civs is a good way to avoid the A power pick and the civ repetition.

Seeding: Seeding players based on rating SUCKS. Like its 100% terrible. Please for top 16/32 players lets use tournament ranking or a list of 4-5 knowledgeable people (admins etc) to rank the players based on recent tourney results. After top 32 theres less tourney experience so then a mix of highest and average rating an work. Having larry be like 15 seed is just ridiculous

Maps: I love classic maps, but i felt like there were too little in the pool, would want to see a couple more options in there especially in the hybrid map department. Arena/hideout/RF are 3 closed maps which were kind of redundant for me personally.

All games at once: Maybe have casters organize to get coverage for different series? Wanted to watch specific ones at times but we'd have like 7 casters all casting Viper vs X player and no1 on lierey games for example. Not all tourneys had this problem, but weekend tourneys tend to have it.

Agreed with all of this.
A civ draft needs either a global ban or a civ-snipe
Seedings need to start using tournament elo + past performances instead of the useless ranked 1v1.
Kind of a monotonous pool having 3 maps fully walled from the start. Personally I feel that medi is another classic map that would have been a good addition.
Not banning flemish revolution and feitorias (I can't blame on viper or chrazini for this since both things are allowed in every other tournament too).

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I loved the quick weekend tournament format and the way it's been designed. I get to enjoy this kind of tournaments much more than the 2 months long ones. Just a personal preference though.
The open-casting was also a very good decision.
Chrazini has been awesome as always, replying any doubt you had on discord as fast as possible.

Huge thanks to him, to Viper and to all of his community for delivering a great experience. Hopefully there will be a second edition one day.

 

[The Bloodless]

Great tournament. Imo land madness in particular is not "classic" and is rather similar to Atacama, not really necessary for it to be there. But understandably compromises have to be made, hideout isn't exactly that "classic" either. Nice to have a no-gimmicks straight up tournament. And I have to put it in there that it's great to finally have Arena in a big tournament (last time that's been the case was nac I think). Imo while other maps are becoming more "StarCraft"-like with multitasking and high apm to send Hussar raids everywhere, arena remains highly strategic.

 

[Jean_souz]

Not gonna stone anyone but you ruined a possibly incredible final with your awful decision despite the fact that people ( not only me ) suggested lowering time limit.

Why do you post so much toxicity along the forum? I mean, the decision was not optimal, but it did not ruined an incredible final. Liereyy made mistakes during the game (as pointed out by Viper) and the situation could have been different. Additionally, Mr Yo won other 3 maps, hence he deserved to be in this position and totally deserved his victory. Being extremely toxic like that do not help the community at all. In fact, what did you do to help the community besides being toxic? Chrazini has been a fantastic guy and is one of the pieces that kept this game alive for so long.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

I don't have any complaints about the settings. Great work

 

[Lord_patito]

Amazing tournament. The only slight remarks is that i would have loved to see baltic/Mediterranean in it. Otherwise a 10/10

 

[doacid]

Thank you for including both Arena and Nomad, it doesn't get any more classic than this. Great idea and great work on the changes for Nomad. Both of this maps (specially Nomad) needed love in S-tier tournaments and you delivered.

Would this tournament lose its essence if it was played on two weekends instead of one? I'd argue it'd still be reasonably fast while allowing more time to polish minor problems such as casting overlap and viewer/caster fatigue. However I'd understand it if it was kept to just one weekend because it also makes sense. Alternatively it could also be played Wednesday-Sunday or something like that.

We saw the same civs on the same maps too many times. Although I understand this was more common in classic times (huns wars in Arabia lol), I'd argue we could do with more diversity.

The inclusion of other old classic maps might be a good idea. Megarandom perhaps? Although I admit this might be too much of a personal preference. There are many other maps to choose from.

I feel this tournament has become a fan favourite straight away in just one edition. It was certainly so in my case. The nostalgia factor might have something to do with that.
On a personal level it somehow scratched an itch I didn't even know I had about competitive aoe2. Looking forward to a second edition <3

 

[wincher01]

Not gonna stone anyone but you ruined a possibly incredible final with your awful decision despite the fact that people ( not only me ) suggested lowering time limit.

Dude... such disrespect...

 

[wincher01]

This tournament was really awesome, good job all and congrats to all players for great performances

 

[Rey_Fer]

I think Tournament ELO won't ever be good with elimination tournaments, as:

a)players falling in earlier rounds won't ever get enough games (and never against themselves) to provide accurate ratings
b)it's very slow to changes, I still remember RiuT being top 5 for ages

it would become better with other tournament formats, closer to leagues such as Round robins and swiss.

I think better ideas would be like the tennis ladder. Take some big tournaments from last year and give points depending on position.

 

[vrubson]

iSLANDS OUT - Baltic IN

 

[ltm]

The time limit was basically pointless for games involving Portuguese. I think with no Feitoria involved it would make a bit more sense, even though probably still a bit too late.

But normally there is no time limit at all, so just pretend it wasn't there. Not the organizers fault that the AOE devs thought Feitoria was a good idea. Tournaments shouldn't have artificial time limits just because there is one stupid building winning games. Also i don't think we really should have time limits, Liereyys win con being camping for score lead wasn't exactly amazing as well.

That being said Liereyy could've easily easily won the game properly, he just threw it honestly. He wasted his whole advantage with the Imp time when he forgot 2nd building and only built it with 1 vil, he didn't punish Yo by surrounding him when he had double the ships, he continued to fight under castles etc.

Unfortunate that this was the final game, but it was avoidable for Liereyy. It's not like he simply couldn't do anything against the Feitoria.

 

[ltm]

Thanks to everyone involved, the tournament was a blast. Honestly i think it produced some of the best games i've watched in a long time.

Maps:
I really enjoyed seeing the classic tournament maps, not that new maps aren't enjoyable but always finding new gimmicks for them to be unique gets a bit tiresome so this was a welcome change.

Maybe the pool could've been slightly expanded or altered somehow because Fortress, Hideout and Arena taking up like half the pool isn't ideal. Otherwise i really liked the chosen maps, especially the inclusion of Nomad, Arena and Island because i feel like even though a lot of people dislike them they are historically part of the game and it needs good all around skills to master them alongside the more open land maps.

A lot of talk about the Islands situation in the final...and well i think the issue is just Feitoria being stupid in exactly that kind of situation. Don't really think a shorter time limit is a great solution because while it solves the Feitoria issue it might create games where one players just camps for score win what also sucks to watch. I think it was the 1st RBW with short timer where we had games go down like that i think? Watching a player stall and research useless upgrades isn't any better than a Feitoria win.

So either not include Islands in future tournaments (would be a shame imo, it's THE standard water map after all) or ban Feitorias...or live with it. Maybe having draft with civ ban could be an option so it's up to the opponent to eliminate that possibility, but that's not really a fix to the issue itself.

Draft:
Not having civ bans was an interesting decision, but not sure how to feel about it. I think on one hand it's good to give players the opportunity to play their best civs, on the other hand it leads to a lot of repeated matchups. Also one player basically gets to pick a map + civ totally uncontested if i got the system right? That can be pretty strong in case of like Nomad+Spanish for example.

Maybe a civ ban/snipe wouldn't hurt there, would also mean players need to adapt their draft even better or in case of a snipe at the end maybe lean more towards flexible civs instead of just straight up picking the best for each map.


Schedule:
It was nice to have no downtime and back to back action, but it also sucks to miss that much. The tournament produced so many great games/series but it was pretty much impossible to keep up.

Maybe stretching it for one more day or on 2 weekends would be better, i feel like the "all at once" is fantastic for like the RBW qualifiers or in this case the very early rounds but once we reach the top16 i would like to catch more games. Also most casters will naturally focus on the same games so some might get little to no attention what is a bit sad for maybe some lesser known but still amazing players.

---

Congratulations to Yo for taking it, the final game kinda sucked because of the Feitoria but i think he deserved it and the tournament once again showed the level of competition. Viper and Tatoh both were super close to taking out Yo, the final was amazing, and i feel like even with the other semi being more one sided Joadn was able to put up a fight as well, Daut-Liereyy was also fantastic and we got many more great series. Shame Hera missed the check-in, but it was still very competitive.

Overall i really enjoyed watching this weekend, i was hoping for pretty much exactly this type of event for quite some time and it delivered! I hope we see another edition of this in the future, might actually be my favorite kind of tournament so far.

 

[siestes]

How can ACCM be below Bruh when he reached the quarterfinals of the latest S tier event he played before TOC (RBW 4, where Bruh did not qualify) and beat Bruh himself in their recent confrontation in TOC, meaning ACCM had a better finish? His tournament performances have also consistently been higher than Nicov's and especially Vivi's, for example.

AoE-Elo is great but it's a real problem that it takes every tournament into consideration with the same weight to calculate the rankings. It means you can either inflate or deflate your actual real elo by playing many events.

For example Yo took a 3-0 beating from Running in Masters of Arena 6. While this is undoubtedly a great performance by Running, I think we can agree that this result should absolutely not impact Yo's seeding for non-Arena events.

Group stage events also have a disproportionate impact on players' elo, because the elo is updated after every single game.

If you take real world examples of using elo, the most famous is Chess. Chess does not update elos after a single match. In fact, players' elos are updated every month taking their tournament results into consideration, so it's an averaged reflection of the player's performance in a given timeline. This would be more representative.

An accurate way of seeding would be to make a point system equivalent to what the ATP has in tennis. There, having many tournaments of diverse importance is a benefit, as you can properly reward players participating in minor events without inflating the rankings.

Bruh has literally stomped fire, stark, classicpro, valas (all top ~30 players or even higher) in visible cup, beating them all 3-0. He lost only 3-2 to vinchester (a top 10 or close to top 10 player) in collection cup. He also lost to ACCM only 3-2 in a very close set in toc, showing that they are basically on very close level as of now. Them being only one elo point appart is not really a stretch in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, having an ATP style seeding would also work, but I think the difference in seeding between that ATP style seeding and tournament elo would be very small, and tournament elo is readily available for anyone to use while ATP style thing is still to be made. So in the meantime why not use it for seeding instead of (or complementary with) the ranked ladder? Also, tournament elo might even slightly more accurately seed up and coming players than an ATP style thingy, even if, again, they would be very close

I'm also wondering in what way rbw (s tier tournament) is more important to take into consideration that moa6 to seed for TOC for example ? Toc is not empire wars and has arena (as well as hideout and RF) in the mappool

 

[Tarsiz]

Bruh has literally stomped fire, stark, classicpro, valas (all top ~30 players or even higher) in visible cup, beating them all 3-0. He lost only 3-2 to vinchester (a top 10 or close to top 10 player) in collection cup. He also lost to ACCM only 3-2 in a very close set in toc, showing that they are basically on very close level as of now. Them being only one elo point appart is not really a stretch in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, having an ATP style seeding would also work, but I think the difference in seeding between that ATP style seeding and tournament elo would be very small, and tournament elo is readily available for anyone to use while ATP style thing is still to be made. So in the meantime why not use it for seeding instead of (or complementary with) the ranked ladder? Also, tournament elo might even slightly more accurately seed up and coming players than an ATP style thingy, even if, again, they would be very close

I'm also wondering in what way rbw (s tier tournament) is more important to take into consideration that moa6 to seed for TOC for example ? Toc is not empire wars and has arena (as well as hideout and RF) in the mappool

Please.

Let's take the only tournaments that truly matter - S tier.

RBW3: ACCM top 4 / Bruh RO16 qualifiers (~top 28)
Hidden Cup 4: ACCM top 8 / Bruh RO32 qualifiers
RBW4: ACCM top 8 / Bruh RO8 qualifiers (~top 20)

Bruh is definitely one of the most improved players of the year and he's super exciting to watch, seems on the cusp of making a top 16 appearance, but comparing him with ACCM who has been a fixture of the top 8 for more than a year is ridiculous.

 

[siestes]

the only tournaments that truly matted - S tier

Super weird statement to begin with but ok

Also, not necessarily fair to just look which round they reached without looking at their opponents

Maybe ACCM has had better results and should be ahead in ranking but it's not like bruh is huuugely overrated. Elo rate the probability of winning for either player in a direct matchup, I feel like currently ACCM bruh is a close matchup as reflected by the elo. I'd maybe slightly favour ACCM but it's also personal bias at stake

Let's say if ACCM is considered around rank 10-15 and bruh around rank 15-20 I think it would be more accurate but it's not like it's a huge difference. Not like having viper #9 and liereyy #15

By the way some time ago people were saying the same about vinchester that he was overrated because he played a lot in aoelympics and such but since that he consistently performed well in tournaments, did well in rbw etc

 

[DracKeN]

What I loved:
1) Arena, Nomad in the map pool. I never got why 2nd and 3rd most played AoE maps kinda disappered from tournaments and were replaced by mostly gimmicky HM maps that weren't played before the tournament.

2) Format, single elimination, everyone had a chance to play, no invitationals. Giving everyone the same starting conditions was great for a change. Also I believe check-in is necessary for weekend tournaments, we were reminded multiple times players have to check in during the period when it was open (let alone in the rules). In the end we got what? 1 AW for like 128 matches? Can't see a better argument for check-in to be part of the tournament in the format it was there.

3) Open Streaming, payout structure, easy rules, great admin work. Well done!

What I think could be improved:

1) Seeding - the first issue is with a mix of current/highest rating which gives major advantage to players having multiple smurf accounts. If rating should be the way for seeding, it should really be based on highest achieved rating exclusively. Other than that I believe experts seeding like top16 players proved to be great seeding method in the past. Tournament ELO or whatever system giving players points for past major tournaments should bebetter for seeding than rating only aswell.

2) Laming - generally dunno why it stays as a part of S-tier tournaments.

3) Bo3s in the first and especially 2nd round. I didn't like it since the start, especially in a tournament which focus on a variability with HM choices - first 2 rounds were mainly who's the better Arabia player. Together with giving higher seed uncontested nr. 1 civ pick in the draft you really made it tough for lower seeds to make it into top32, even when they could have wider map skillset than the higher seeds. Again, for a tournament focusing on variability of classic maps, that's not optimal.

Still loved the event and I hope to see more similar events like this in the future!

 

[R0ca]

Thanks to the organisers and players it was a fantastic tournament.
I really appreciate all of the time and effort in to put on a great show.

 

[Miral]

I enjoyed that tournament because of the very high level of gameplay and the great casting but, as a viewer, I cannot stand 20min before the game truly start (Arena/Hideout/RF/Island suck so much). Especially after RBW where the pace is incredible, going back to such slow pace maps is not watchable.