Community needs to adopt 3 out of 5 for tournaments...

Blackstar - You said someone winning by "randomness and shenanigans" does not deserve the win. You can look at it the other way also - if you lose by "randomness and shenanigans" then you don't deserve to win. If a player completely wins a tournament by "randomness and shenanigans" against all the "good players"...maybe, just maybe that person deserved the win and all the "good players" have some weaknesses.

I will mostly just re-quote, because we are just regurgitating the same thing over and over.

If you catered your tournaments to the "good players," why should the "weak players" go participate? If you catered tournaments to the "weak players" why should the "good players" go participate? So, in my opinion, that is the wrong way of thinking. One should organized a tournament that is supposed to be fair and non-biased.

 

Tournaments are inherently fair and non-biased, point blank. If it wasn't, you wouldn't join. People that enter a tournament that is non-seeded are entered randomly and without bias into a bracket of other players and are expected to win of a similar amount of matches to win the tournament. Everyone is allotted the same amount losses before getting kicked out of said tournament. Every one is given the same rules (which is why any of us bother to enter any given tournament). So I don't know where you're going with that point, tbh.

The difference is the result of said tournament reflects more meaningful results in longer sets. (more games==more likelyhood skilled player will win) Again the reason any of us enter any tournaments at all is to measure ourselves against other good players (in a non-bias manner).

Once again the reason any of us enter any tournaments at all is to measure ourselves against other good players in a non-bias manner.

The more skilled player is SUPPOSED to come on top more often than not (doesnt always happen, but it does the vast majority of the time), otherwise the tournament is absolutely meaningless and a complete waste of time.

Now we were both at EVO playing VF this year, knowing full well that not only players like GT, Flash, LA Akira, etc would be there, but also the Japanese would show up. Our chances of winning were almost none, so why bother even entering the tournament at all? The answer is, while we came to EVO to have fun and meet people and all that jazz, we SIGNED ourselves up for the VF tournament to measure ourselves and our skills against top players (win or lose).

 

Tricky - the people I am referring to are talking about offline events. I posted something related to the VF Circuit, because the general message is the same: I found 3 out of 5 matches as unnecessarily from a tournament competition point of view. If people want it to be 3 out of 5 or what else to get their money's worth, go ahead.

As I stated before, whoever is organizing the event can decide whatever format they want. In my opinion, making the tournament format longer to just compete against other fighting game time on stream is a bad idea.I prefer your alternative of having more player matches on stream then.

 

There are two overlapping issues being discussed in this thread, but I think it's important to separate them because they're the source for a lot of disagreement and confusion. Before I get into it things, I want people to ask themselves this question:

What is the purpose of a tournament?​

To determine a "winner"​

or​

To determine the "best player"​

​

I'll give you my answer at the end, but keep your answer in mind as you read on.

Firstly, I still stand by my original post that has been quoted in this thread but I feel that the context has been lost. So let me remind everyone that my post was a suggestion for how the regular online tournaments (the VF Circuit), and not necessarily how every tournament should be run.

So, to BLACKSTAR, your first two points (re: attracting new players, and being easy or organise) aren't applicable to the context in which I made my post. I was specifically hoping to make the VF circuit as inviting to new players as possible, and as painless as possible for someone like akai to run and organise.

As for your third point:

No, it doesn't mean that the winner is "the better player". All it means is that the winner is the winner.

And, just to digress for a moment, I don't buy all this "shenanigans or randomness" crap. If you lose to something you're not prepared for, or haven't experienced, it's nobody's fault but yours. The "better player" will learn from it and do their best to ensure it doesn't happen again. People are often quick to point the finger or lay blame to other factors like "shenanigans or randomness" for their loss instead of their own inability to deal with what was thrown at them.

But anyways...

Again, no, it doesn't mean you're a "better player" than Denkai. It simply means that you beat him. Is there something wrong with that? Is it really that laughable?

You're associating "winning" with being a "better player" but these are not strictly the same thing. Try to change your mindset and separate the two. Another way to put it, is:

The better player may not always win, but they'll win most of the time.​

Does this make your win over Denkai less laughable now? If you take a broader view of the VF Circuit then you'll see that the "better player" will perform better than the average player. As akai already mentioned, Denkai's overall result in the bracket was better than yours, so that's probably a more accurate measure of the "better player". The result of one game determines a winner, but overall performance determines who's better.

And this brings me back to my original question:

What is the purpose of the tournament?​

To determine a "winner"​

or​

To determine the "best player"​

My answer: It depends!

For major tournaments, with high stakes (usually money) and high barrier to entry, you generally want to determine who the best players are, according to their skill. That is, reward those who are most deserving.

But for a minor tournament, with nothing at stake and no barrier to entry, what's wrong with simply determining who can win? And when you run enough samples you will naturally determine who the "better player" is anyway. But the point behind the suggested format was, and I quote myself again:

"it provides the average player a better chance at winning, they're easier to manage, quicker to run, and in the longer term we'll be better players for it."

In my opinion, I think all of these points are more important than determining who has the bigger... joystick.

 

What about exposure though? Outside of anything between the players and deciding what is better for them, isn't it worth considering what people watching streams and things like that are seeing? Or is it better to just run the best format for players even if that means less main stage time for the game?