[Complete] The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

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jb
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by jb »

I'm very interested in getting new 2v2 maps into the pipeline. Doc and I recently considered doing a new map contest, but I'm not sure that is the right direction at this time. It takes a lot of energy and I don't want to limit it to a single winner.

There is always room for improvement to the current maps and its time to have a good dialogue. I'll open a dedicated topic to it when I get home.

When discussing maps, it's important that we are speaking of the 1.9 versions of the maps. For example, Loris River has already been altered to nerf drakes a bit by hampering their ability to cross the center lake, now all leader types can reach ally keep in 2 turns, and there was a village descrepency that soul_steven already pointed out to me.

Also let's remember that even though the maps can be made better they are not broken. I don't think any team would say "we lost that game because of a map imbalance". So lets avoid over the top hyperbole and keep the conversation respectable.

As for one player taking all the villages, I have mixed feelings on this and I'm not sure there is a good solution. My personal opinion is that I don't like it. But I can't call it a cheat, since both sides can do it. It's not always easy to do, it takes good teamwork and a smooth transition to perform effectively. It does put a level 2 unit in the field of play, but it also limits your recruit power to a single location and in most cases a single faction type.

We're not going to change the way the game works because that would be disaster for SP campaigns, not to mention well out of the range of my authority. So please don't even offer up options like having ally rest on village doesn't take control. I have a few options in mind that I'll detail later.

As for actual TGT changes. One change that I think is very important is an alteration to the time limit. One size does not fit all where the timer is concerned. Not all maps are created equal. Some maps like PoD take longer turns that clash. In most cases the time limit actually hurts the team that is winning, since they have more units to address in the same amount of time. Additionally, I think any game 3 sudden death tie breaker should be given a bit more time. I understand the importance of a timer, it's value can't be understated in long tournaments, but it should be an engine to push the game along rather than forcing players to hurry. I recall nani at one point in the final game saying he had ended turn with 00:01 seconds left. The very next turn Tekelili ran out of time.
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Faello
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Faello »

@Doc, jb

It's great that we have your attention :) I'll gather my notes and post them during the weekend (hopefully already in the fresh, dedicated thread :mrgreen: ), I guarantee that I'm aiming mostly for slight balance tweaks that will upgrade the maps (I never meant anything else). I'm aware that soul_steven already provided some valuable feedback so it's possible that some of the ideas will be repeated.

In the mean time, I advise everyone that thought about some valuable changes regarding 2v2 maps, to use the given opportunity and propose them.
jb wrote:As for actual TGT changes. One change that I think is very important is an alteration to the time limit. One size does not fit all where the timer is concerned.
I agree with that. Generally speaking, time limit in the 3rd Edition was the same as it was in TGT 1st Edition and the basis of 5:00 - 6:00 of TGT 1st Edition timer settings was a marriage of 2 ideas:
1)to give players enough time for advanced planning
2)to make sure that players won't get bored by a long opponent turns

Considering that it was first edition of the tournament, I put more pressure on point 2. I agree that 5:00 to 6:00 timer puts more pressure on the best players because their real strenght is limited by the time limit more than weaker players for which 6:00 or 8:00 is basically the same thing.

I think that TGT established itself enough to pursue the quality of the games in the future edition = there should be more time given per player turn.

There's also one more thing that I need to adress:
jb wrote:Good work by Dauntless and Faello with the organization.
alpha1 (again) put a lot of efforts as a co-admin/vice-admin in TGT organisation, I just have to make it clear. More than once he managed it alone because together with Dauntless we had to focus on irl matters. Considering that (+the fact that it will be his turn to be the admin in TGT4 and do most of the job...) I need to stress his deeds once again ^_^

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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by alpha1 »

jb wrote:Also let's remember that even though the maps can be made better they are not broken. I don't think any team would say "we lost that game because of a map imbalance". So lets avoid over the top hyperbole and keep the conversation respectable.
I wouldn't say map imbalances are the main problem of 2vs2 games. Apart from usual Wesnoth-RNG... peculiarities, 2vs2 games suffer most from certain faction combinations having advantages over other (double lawful/(chaotic)/mixed over 2x neutral, loys/ud over anything with drakes, loys/ud over loys/orcs just off the top of my head). Which in worst cases can lead to a gg before the game actually started, unless the team with superior faction-combination makes some serious mistakes. Map imbalances only increase those already present problems. However i'm not sure if those problems are possible to solve without major rebalancing of factions, which may cause new problems in 1vs1...

economy unifying
It's certainly not cheating. I, for one, consider it an advanced strategy that takes a good team work/good timing to pull off effectively, which only strong teams can accomplish. Ofc some factions/leaders gain more from this strategy than others, but such is wesnoth (see my previous post). Any artificial rules introduced to fix this "issue", would be equal to TGT-admins directly intervening into games and basically telling players how they should play in certain situations. Which is exactly not our task to do.

timer
I'm not sure if the winning team suffers from timer the most, cause you usually spend more time thinking over the difficult situations than actually moving units. And since the losing team has arguably a more difficult situation than the winning one, it will need more time. Also if the winning team runs out of time it only means that the losing team might have a chance to come back and make the game equal again. The losing team running out of time though, risks jeopardising the situation even further and eventually losing the game.
Basically i would argue, that timer favours the stronger team, since stronger players think faster and need less time to think about their moves (I am talking about the current strength, not about a hypothetical top-form a player might have had in the past/has potential to achieve in the future). This way timer actually serves the goal of the tournament, being one of the factors that helps us to determine the strongest team. However i would not object a slight increase of timer in general (clash particualry is very difficult to play with standart TGT-timer).
Faello wrote:alpha1 (again) put a lot of efforts as a co-admin/vice-admin in TGT organisation, I just have to make it clear. More than once he managed it alone because together with Dauntless we had to focus on irl matters. Considering that (+the fact that it will be his turn to be the admin in TGT4 and do most of the job...) I need to stress his deeds once again ^_^
Thanks Faello, ofc a duty fulfilled is sufficient reward, but i would still appreciate my name being connected with this duty :P
Alas i couldn't read the small text... my eyes aren't as good as they were when i was a young grashopper, like you and dauntImage
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by The Black Sword »

I'm not sure if the nani's save from our final game contains the chat at the end of it but there was a good discussion regarding the "loyal army" then.
Clearly it is not cheating and is a valid strategy for teams to use. You can even argue it has some significant drawbacks and that there are situations where opposing team could punish the team using this strategy I think.

However I(and others in the chat) feel its not a "fun" strategy for the game. In the long run, it really increases the likelihood that 1 team member will be killed off. Should a 2v2 game encourage a fairly common strategy that amounts to killing one of the team-members off and turning the game into a 1v1 in the long run?
I feel 2v2s would be "better and more fun" (pretty imprecise :P ) if such a strategy was not so prominent.

It's understood that we can't change the basic rules of the game but it was brought up in the chat that we could create an add-on specifically for TGT or 2v2's in general if a change of some sort was decided to be a good idea.

In general, I disagree with the idea that 1 double-faction combo is better than another. Obviously there is some overlap between map and factions but I see it as more a map issue than a faction one. The closest example I can think of to a "gg before the game began" is the Tentacles vs RNG final game. That was a combination of map, faction and leader problems though. Also because the main 2v2 maps are relatively pretty small, differences in leader power can have a large effect(example above).
The style of most 2v2 maps with no easily definable team 1/team 2 vills make it hard to balance for all possible combinations but it is quite interesting and I wouldn't like to change them all to something like clash.
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Dauntless »

Hi there,
concerning the loyal army problem, I wouldnt say that , it doesnt have to be out of out bound to prevent players from using this strategy.
The chat from the Final TGT game wa very inspiring there, I agree with TBS, that the all-vills-one-side usually helps the team significantly, but that this strategy really isnt "fun".
If at least a partial consensus regardidng this problem was reached, I dont think it would be a "moral" problem to enforce it, supposing it were not technically impossible.
the TGT Crew makes the rules, such as playing random races or so on, so a rule concerning the loyal army could also be ímplemented.

As to the maps, Terra-Dwelve did seem to fare quite well, so at this point I have no problems with implementing it in to next mappack (thx to Rirors rigorous pressure ;) )
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by nani »

To Whom It May Concern:
The in-game chat after the Final TGT Game:
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alpha1
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by alpha1 »

The Black Sword wrote:I'm not sure if the nani's save from our final game contains the chat at the end of it but there was a good discussion regarding the "loyal army" then.
It's not there. And i wasn't there during the last rounds of the game either. Per se i am not opposed to this idea (i'm not it's supporter either), what i was saying is that it would be absurd to try and implement it via special rules from admin side (like "a player is not allowed to take more than 3 villages of his partner"), cause it would obviously disrupt the game flow.
EDIT: ok i've seen it now thanks to nani, well don't know, i'm not sure if the arguments brought forward were really convincing, i'll have think about it.
The Black Sword wrote:However I(and others in the chat) feel its not a "fun" strategy for the game. In the long run, it really increases the likelihood that 1 team member will be killed off. Should a 2v2 game encourage a fairly common strategy that amounts to killing one of the team-members off and turning the game into a 1v1 in the long run?
I feel 2v2s would be "better and more fun" (pretty imprecise :P ) if such a strategy was not so prominent.
pfff what has "fun" to do with anything, soldier?! In war there is only victory or defeat, you win you have fun, you lose you don't. Whoever says anything else is spreading enemy propaganda in order to undermine the moral of troops!
also you make it sound like us not forbidding one player to take all the villages of another, means that we are encouraging 2vs2 games to turn in 1vs1, which is not really our goal :P but even if it would happen in some abstract "long run" situation (which were really uncommon in this tgt btw ;)) it still would be 2vs2, since i assume, in good teams both players would be involved in decision making, and the game would be similar to a game where both players have same factions with only difference, that only one player would be able to move units.
The Black Sword wrote:Obviously there is some overlap between map and factions but I see it as more a map issue than a faction one.
Those are two sides of the same coin actually: In an unbalanced match-up you can either try to fix the map and make it more balanced, or fix factions to make them better playable on the map(-type). Now i was basically saying that on medium sized maps (which, being most popular "serious" 2vs2 map-type, i suppose we were talking about) some faction-combinations have advantage over others. And that map imbalances (which do not include the OVERALL map design/size) are not as troublesome compared to faction-problems. Ofc you can do it other way round and say: factions being imbalanced are not the real problem, but the maps not supporting the current balance...
Perhaps your approach is better, in the way that map changes are more likely to happen than faction-changes. However, since im not a map maker i can't really offer any specific ideas on what should be changed, to make maps balanced without completly redoing their design/turning them into clash clones (that seems to have less balance issues than other maps of the same size), which, i agree with you would not be something positive ;)
The Black Sword wrote:The closest example I can think of to a "gg before the game began" is the Tentacles vs RNG final game. That was a combination of map, faction and leader problems though.
Frankly i had a feeling luck played a prominent role in your game (i by no means want to diminish nani's & peace's efforts, but at some moments it felt like it could have gone either way depending on who would have luck).
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by tekelili »

First of all, congrats to all organizers, developers and players that made possible another gret TGT edition. :)
Of course congrats to TGT3 champions: Tentacles of the Deep. I want advise Nani and peace that TGT ceremony has statues of previous editions champions. You guys have earned right of chose yours :D No hurry, you have time unitl next edition to cominicate me your unit election to inmortalice your victory in marble.
And last but not less, thanks a lot to my mate The Black Sword. His skill and friendly behavior allowed us a great team job even with my lack of English and slow typing on ally chat as handicap. Was a plaesure have so many great fights next to him on TGT3.

I have some thoughts in mind for next editions:
- Seed strongest teams is a very good idea imo. It improves quality an emotion of tournament and makes more desrved reach final rounds for every team.
- Even when for organization management 16 teams looks maximun handable, it is a shame a team lost chance to participate in this great event. A compromise solution would be desirable.
- Reality has shown that there are always some rotten apples between newcomers (quiters, team members disagreements, etc). Veterans that showed good behavior on previous TGT editions should have preference over sing up order.

Here are my humble proposal for these thoughts. It is wrotten as official rule just to explain it clear, but is just an idea:
Spoiler:
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by alpha1 »

So basically, we have some kind of rules and ranks, but TGT admins can always overrule them? 8) I think we should rebuild all the current rules basing on this principle! Muhaha all hail God-Emperors of the TGT and their ...

also:
Ducks of Doom: rank 8
CDeath: rank 14
The distance between teams is already correct, now you only need to move up their positions ^_^
Last edited by alpha1 on December 1st, 2011, 11:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Dunno »

hm, now that I think of it, it might be a good idea to give someone responsible the power to choose teams that can participate and teams that go on the reserve list... we had some very good players disqualified just because they signed up too late (I'm mainly thinking about Huumy, his how-tos are awesome and he proved himself in other tournaments). Maybe we could go a step further and include bonus points for teams with members that participated in other tournaments, and are generally known for their skill?

I also remember that idea neki mentioned somewhere for 24 teams. I really like it, it would give me and my teammate a chance to play with fellow newbies first, instead of getting crushed by champions in 5 turn blitzkrieg :oops:

Thanks!
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Horus2 »

alpha1 wrote: pfff what has "fun" to do with anything, soldier?! In war there is only victory or defeat, you win you have fun, you lose you don't. Whoever says anything else is spreading enemy propaganda in order to undermine the moral of troops!
also you make it sound like us not forbidding one player to take all the villages of another, means that we are encouraging 2vs2 games to turn in 1vs1, which is not really our goal :P but even if it would happen in some abstract "long run" situation (which were really uncommon in this tgt btw ;)) it still would be 2vs2, since i assume, in good teams both players would be involved in decision making, and the game would be similar to a game where both players have same factions with only difference, that only one player would be able to move units.
Exactly what i thought. Personally, i would sacrifice myself happily anytime when victory is prognosticable, and even after that i can act as the twisted inner self of my teammate with more time to give amazingly homicidal suggestions. :lol2:
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Rigor »

yeah. i can take care of the more suicidal part myself next time. its just good to know how 2v2s are supposed to be played. you all keep talking about the finals, but in fact the fun with loyal army started for us in the semis already.

ah yeah coming back to the maps: is anybody so free as to make screenshots of the updates in the 2v2s? id like to see what improvements you are talking about exactly. terra dwelve is also improved in 1.9, just saying, and you can actually look up something i wrote one year ago in the 2nd ed of the TGT:
and right now i realized theres a 2v2 thread about 2v2 maps which i havent read at all but found that it exists: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 54&start=0
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by alpha1 »

Sorry Rigor, i think we will stick to mainline maps for the time being. Which doesn't mean ofc you can't set-up a KoTF-kind of a tournament or something...
Dunno wrote:hm, now that I think of it, it might be a good idea to give someone responsible the power to choose teams that can participate and teams that go on the reserve list... Maybe we could go a step further and include bonus points for teams with members that participated in other tournaments, and are generally known for their skill?
Well don't worry about that, the TGT-admins know which players (of those that already participated in TGTs/other tournaments) are reliable and which aren't and will modify their behaviour according to that ;) I would however be very cautious, in showing a cold shoulder to teams/players who didn't participate and whom we don't know yet, only because there is a possibility of them being unreliable.
Dunno wrote:Huumy
He actually wasn't too late looking at how he posted on the 2nd day after daunt started the thread (next day after the official TGT-opening). The problem was finding a partner in time. And i can't really stress enough the importance of taking a pro-active stance in finding a partner. Ofc its sad if strong players can't participate, but it would be also unfair to kick (move to reserve list) "no-name" players who made an effort to find a partner, come up with a team-name, register in time and are enthusiastic to play, only because we want some "pro" to participate.
Dunno wrote:I really like it, it would give me and my teammate a chance to play with fellow newbies first, instead of getting crushed by champions in 5 turn blitzkrieg :oops:
Yeah this was unfortunate, but that's the reason why we use a randomizer to build our tournament tree, so that people would blame the RNG and not us :mrgreen: However i believe Faello had some thoughts on how to make the initial rounds more "casual" players friendly, so lets wait for him.
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by Dauntless »

How dare you blame Team RNG for the tournament tree trouble alpha1??? :P
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Re: The Grand Tag! 2v2 Tournament - 3rd Edition!

Post by alpha1 »

lol shouldn't have written rng in capital letters... although in that case both RNG and rng were to blame! :D
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