WS Winner Tournament- Comments/Questions
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@apba-go-jeremy thats correct…shows as 2-2 score…and both tabs are “greyed” out on that game as well
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@backstreets Guys…done deal…I went back in and now those tabs were red…i was able to reset both games…thanks
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@backstreets So just to wind this up:
- I erroneously assumed the games ending was caused by the game server triggering a forfeit scenario based on a player timeout. As it happened, we had no working reset functionality for this user story, and we fixed that with our last release. Yay! But this was not actually the problem.
- The games ended with a successful completion before they should have and without generating errors to indicate why. This is the actual bug we should have investigated and solved. The investigation is on the to-do list, but so is enabling reset functionality for completed games. I initially wanted to avoid resetting completed games because I thought there should be no reason to do so, and the result could be unfair to players in some scenarios - but this bug proves me wrong.
- In the short term, should this happen again, we can change the game status to forfeit which will allow Hosts to use the existing reset functionality to reset the affected games.
Thanks to all involved for helping us get on the right path. I hope you continue to help us make tournaments better!
Jeremy
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@apba-go-jeremy Any thoughts on providing the ability to host more than 1 tournament at a time. If you create a long one then you cannot do anything else until it is done.
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@backstreets The initial discussions around letting hosts control more than one tournament ended with the belief that allowing it would result in there being a bunch of tournaments running that never end, as interest wanes and people move on to the next tournament.
Ideas included putting a time limit on tournaments to encourage people to finish their games, but that was countered by available play time being different from user to user.
So what’s needed is a balance between tournaments created and tournaments ending.
Another aspect is if there are people who want another tournament to play in, why aren’t they starting a tournament? Five active tournament players = five potential tournament hosts. So what are the reasons and what can we do to make starting tournaments easier. Have we not given hosts enough tools to manage them?
Finally, I am reluctant to make some changes before v2.0, as the ability of new tools like the shared chat might make running tournaments easier, and over compensating without those tools might do more damage than good.
TLDR; Thought about it, not sure I want to pull the trigger yet.
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@apba-go-jeremy Jeremy…great thoughts and comments. I have been thinking about some of those as well. We did hit one tournament topic that is coming down the pike…how do we end them if people do not play all the games…it appears that the current answer is…Tourney Host posts a messages that outstadning games need to be played and if that does not happen the Host can “forfeit” the games to end the tourney…I think that works but it raises the next question…when you forfeit a game does it go away as never played…or does one team get the win ?..if you have a player who is not playing their games you of course want them to get the loss and not the player waiting for them to play. My guess is "how to end " a tourney is going to be an important component.
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Ok new topic…we have a game that froze in the 9thining and the players are ok with me forfeiting the game and giving one of them the win. I went ahead and did that and it shows as forfeited on my listign of games…but is is not showing up in “collections” as a game completed or in the win/loss standings. The game is Arfpco(19 cincy) vs Ejmny ( 61 yanks)…gm 1
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Starting a Tourney game functionality…So I tried to join a game in the Generic Tourney…I clicked join game tab…my opponent was online but had not join yet joined the game…the screen told me …" My opponent has gone inactive"…and gave me 2 tabs/choices to click…1) Do I want to wait ( each time I would click that it added 5 min to the wait time) or 2) Do I want to forfeit the game…I then noticed my opponent had signed off so i new he was not going to join the game…but I had no option to “leave/exit” the game my self so I just waited for the time to expire…(during this time strangely my first batter ( I was away) got on first base so it would seem that maybe my opponent did sign on for a moment but my screen never changed)…but when the time to wait timed out the end game screen came up and only left me with the option to end the game…which I did and now the system is treating that as a game played. On my player tab for tournament games to be played it no longer shows up.
So couple thoughts if the above is typical.
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On the first screen where it says “player has gone inactive” …he seemed to still be online…and this statement leaves me with the impression that he is gone and their is 0 chance he is going to join the game so why would I wait?..would it be better to say…“Player has not yet joined the game”
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If the above is typical it seems we need to have a tab giving the option to “exit” the game and hopefully return to it “in progress” or at least start it over upon returning. Otherwise it seems that when ever someone joins a game…if the opponent does not join it there is no way to get out the game and it looks like the system is going to treat it as a completed game.
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I am not sure the “forfeit” tab should be an option…should that be a player option?..maybe this should only be the option of the tournament host if players are not playing their games
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@backstreets Jeremy…just wanted to follow up onthis to make sure it was on the list. As tourney host I forfeited the game but the win ans loss are not showing up in the “standings” in collections. Thanks…see below
Ok new topic…we have a game that froze in the 9thining and the players are ok with me forfeiting the game and giving one of them the win. I went ahead and did that and it shows as forfeited on my listing of games…but is is not showing up in “collections” as a game completed or in the win/loss standings. The game is Arfpco(19 cincy) vs Ejmny ( 61 yanks)…gm 1
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@backstreets Yup, we’ve discussed it internally and it will be in with other Tournaments 2.0 stuff. It’s somewhat complicated because we have to change the forfeit process to preserve certain data and discard other data, whereas today it’s mostly discarded.
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Ok as we are nearing the half way point in the World Series Winner Tournament I want to throw out some thoughts/comments/observations/suggestions. I am sure most and maybe all of this has already been discussed and some under consideration.
Tournament Functionality
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Would be good to have the ability to see box scores.
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On the collection list of games it would be helpful to show “when” the game was played. Currently that column is the same date for all games which is when the tournament started. So when running a long tourney it is very difficult to determine which games were just recently played.
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For the host…on the screen listing all the games the default is to show 15 per page. Would prefer the default to be the max number of games. If the host is going to that page you almost always need to see the max number of games on the page.
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Would be helpful in the setup of a tourney to have an “option” to allow players to pick who the home team will be,i.e what if a tourney was simply a World Series replay of 2 teams…the players would want to customize who was home team to match the WS.
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Would be good for the host to be able to “reset” a completed game…not just one that was forfeited.
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I would vote for the Host to be able to have more than 1 tourney up and running at the same time. Maybe there is a limit. One thought is that I think the majority of people do not want to Host a tournament and have the extra responsibility. As a host you should try and make sure you are online often…be available to answer questions…trouble shoot issues etc. Most people do not want to do that…they just want to play. So the number of people willing to host might be the minority and if a Host can only operate 1 at a time it may limit tournaments or also limit the size/length.
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Related to an issue of multiple tournaments…how do we end tournaments that do not naturally end on their own? Looks like current option is for the host to forfeit the un played games. I would add one more option that is needed in case the Host is no longer managing the tourney…say if a game has not been played in the tourney for 30 days the site administrator can forfeit all remaining games and end it.
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Collections…I do not know the visibility of the collections any maybe this is in place but if not I would suggest the non tourney players have the ability to see the Tournament collection. Also what happens once the tournament is complete…tournament players at a minimum I think would want to be able to see the collection…or save it to their own collections.
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Chat room…a big logistic issue for tourneys is coordinating with your opponent on when to play the game. A separate chat room may go a long way to help this…you would want the ability to see all prior messages easily so someone could post the group when the are available to play etc.
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Obviously various formats/structures are of interest. Beyond the traditional NCAA structure one idea is a format/structure to allow for the playoffs of a particular year to be replayed.
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Ability to replace a player…this is a big one…what if a player signs up but never plays any of their games? That has a material effect on the tournament and all the other players. So the current option for the Host is to forfeit all their games and that works…still a negative for the tournament experience. So with this in mind it would be nice for the host to have an option to “replace” a player with another…that may be a tough one from a software standpoint but I wanted to throw it out as this may be a common issue going forward.
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I think I saw a post about some nominal points etc being awarded to tournament winners based on games played etc. That is a fantastic idea. It may be a nice motivator to join and participate and help grow tournaments and various tournament formats may create the desire for people to purchase additional teams.
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Ok this may be off the wall and probably very very difficult to implement…but what about the ability to watch another game being played…in a face to face tournament there is always a group watching the championship games.
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@backstreets Great feedback, thank you!!!
My quick take on your points:
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Easy, will do (2.0)
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Easy, will do (2.0)
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Easy, will do (2.0). Will still have a max number of games per page, just larger. A thirty person 5x round robin has a ridiculous number of games so we still have to break it up
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Good idea, will investigate
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This could be done, but I am curious as to why a host would want to. There is a danger here that a malicious host (I know, not likely, but it is a possibility) could mess with participants. Would need some good reasons to do it, so please fire away!
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Will consider and investigate. Probably not for 2.0 (3.0?); if we execute it’d have to be a db/back end/front end change with ramifications to running tournaments.
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Will come up with a solution for 2.0. In addition to better manual ending of tournaments, perhaps a timed tournament type/option (play all games by x date).
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Quick run down on Collections - Visibility: host + participants; Expiration: none, Collections stay under the Tournament tab on the Collections page indefinitely for host + participants. Regarding sharing Collections with non-participants, could investigate some sharing methods for 3.0. Would it be just standings or the full Collection (all tabs)?
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Easy, will do (2.0). To see what it will probably be like, start a private forum chat with another user. The chat would be created when the tournament starts (participants must be known in order to invite them to the chat), so the chat history would be available for all participants, regardless of when they look at it for the first time. Users receive a forum notification when a new chat is available, and we’ll try to have that notification display on the main site (to be investigated).
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“Two stage” tournaments is something we will investigate/implement for 3.0. Also, being able to set up a ‘World Series’ tournament is also a goal, but there are other considerations outside tournament structure, such as whether we create a system that restricts usable teams, etc. (i.e. is this a replay tournament or a free for all that uses the WS structure).
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Currently investigating, not sure it will make it into 2.0. Need to finalize the various user stories and how they are handled. For example, participant leaves with no games played vs. some games played, requiring the same team or not, etc.
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Will do (2.0). Still working out the anti-exploit details though. We’ll come up with something that works and meets the goals you outline.
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It would be difficult for us to implement, but we wouldn’t even try, I don’t think. There are services like Twitch designed to enable the live stream of games, and if we did any kind of implementation, it would be an integration with one of them or at least guide users through the process. You could do a Twitch stream of a game today, if you wished. John and I have discussed this as something we might try doing at a future convention, tied into a tournament that leads up to it (hopefully with a nice prize). Lots of planning to do for that, yet.
You’ve been a great help so far, and I hope more of the community speaks up about what they want from tournaments, too!
Thanks,
Jeremy -
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@apba-go-jeremy…thanks so much for the response/input. Trying to respond by listing my post and then response in italics /bold below.
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On the collection list of games it would be helpful to show “when” the game was played. Currently that column is the same date for all games which is when the tournament started. So when running a long tourney it is very difficult to determine which games were just recently played. ( Would also be helpful to be able to sort the games by the column headings…i.e time/day the game was played…then you could easily bring up/see the most recent games played)
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Would be good for the host to be able to “reset” a completed game…not just one that was forfeited…( I am thinking of when the system freezes or whatever and treats a game as completed that is not really completed)
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Related to an issue of multiple tournaments…how do we end tournaments that do not naturally end on their own? Looks like current option is for the host to forfeit the un played games. I would add one more option that is needed in case the Host is no longer managing the tourney…say if a game has not been played in the tourney for 30 days the site administrator can forfeit all remaining games and end it…( not sure I like a “timed tournament” It is difficult to judge how long is reasonable and as long as games are being played at a reasonable pace I think it should go as long as needed…and the tourney host always has the option to bring it to a conclusion by setting a date at some point and forfeiting games not played…but one issue does need address and that is what if the tourney host is no longer managing the tourney and no games are being played…need a way to end that situation from the site administrator…which could simply be a rule…if no tourney games played for 30 days?..all unplayed games get forfeited and the tourney is completed )
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Ability to replace a player…this is a big one…what if a player signs up but never plays any of their games? That has a material effect on the tournament and all the other players. So the current option for the Host is to forfeit all their games and that works…still a negative for the tournament experience. So with this in mind it would be nice for the host to have an option to “replace” a player with another…that may be a tough one from a software standpoint but I wanted to throw it out as this may be a common issue going forward. (Will see how much this is needed. If a lot of players join but do not play of course it effects the tournament experience for the other players. The good news is we do have a current solution…the host can forfeit games…and with the bug fix you guys are working on the win/loss for the forfeit will get into the standings)
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Ok this may be off the wall and probably very very difficult to implement…but what about the ability to watch another game being played…in a face to face tournament there is always a group watching the championship games. (That is very interesting…watching the convention championship on twitch. Whoa !)
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Random thought…re Tournament Rules…would be convenient to have a tab/drop down box…what ever… for Tourney players to quickly see the rules…especially if they get more detailed for certain tourneys…so under current format i guess you would see all that under the tournament description…but would be nice to be able to access that under your own tournament tab listing the games you need to play
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Had a bug in the tourney tonight…for some reason about 7 games randomly showed up as forfeited or complete with 0-0 score. As Host I was able to reset them but the tourney shows 38 gms played on 1 screen and 45 played on another screen
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@backstreets So related to this…fyi the “in progress” tab shows 38 games played while the top of the tournament collection shows 45 played…and the standings show 37…this is after I reset all the games that I think for no apparent reason showed up as forfeited
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@backstreets Ok, thank you. That list keeps getting longer. ;)
Also, we have no idea why those games forfeited yet - we’re not working on it over the weekend - but the common thread for a few of these problems seems to be Arfpoc’s account. I don’t know if that’s because he’s one of our top players, and by virtue of playing more he’s exposed to more issues, or if there is something wonky with his account in particular. We’ll investigate.
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@apba-go-jeremy Yes I noticed arfpoc games…but there were a couple that did not include him fyi
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yes arfpoc and i have one more to play
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So when a new tournament is launched and is looking for players to join how do people know this is happening? The best I can tell right now is you have to click thru a few screens starting with play ball and get to the tournament tab and then the tab showing tournaments starting up. If that is the only way I would suggest there be some kind of notification on the main screen alerting people a new tournament is being organized. This can take over a day to get players and it would be best that when players sign on they can immediately see a new one is being organized as I would doubt many people click through those tabs to find out very often.
