Tournament Preference Discussion

[BananaHarambe]

Hello Everyone,

There have been many new Vale of Eternity tournaments starting over the last few months. I would like to open the discussion to player's preferred tournament settings and hear feedback on what's good and what's bad so we can create some excellent tournaments for December and into 2025!

Repeated Tournaments:

Monthly 2 Player Single Elimination, up to 15 day game duration - I have added up to March 2025 copying the existing format. It now has a dragon family logo.

Monthly 2 Player Open Swiss, 5 day game duration, maximum 64 players. November tournament is a simple Swiss, December Tournament is a "Group Stage" swiss with a stage 2 single elimination for top cut (1 loss or better).

Upcoming/ Emerging Tournaments:

"Fast Run" 2 player single elimination with 5 days game duration, Maximum 32 players

Multiple different 2 player double-round-robin tournaments, "The Round", "8x8 Double Robin", and "Fast Run" either ongoing or starting soon

Quarterly (3 month) 2 Player 300+ ELO Swiss+ Top Cut SE, 5 day game duration, maximum 32 players. Next one planned for December, players with 1 loss or better advance to next stage (assuming full tournament).

Ideas:
What is the preferred tournament size and settings for 2 player double-round robin? It could make sense to do one "large" one each month with up to 15 per group, but then one or more smaller tournaments with groups of 8 or less. How long should the game duration be when all matches start at once? Is 15 days for the maximum 14 games enough? Is 7 days for 7 games enough?

How is 5 day duration for the Swiss tournaments? It allows a 6 match tournament to end in 30 days, just in time for the next one. If players need more time to finish games we could adjust to 7 days duration so each match starts on the same day of the week (assuming at least 1 timeout).

Any requests for 3 player or 4 player tournaments? I personally don't play outside of 2 player online often so I don't have much experience. 3 player game durations should be at least 50% longer and 4 player games should be 100% longer to avoid timeout.

What are the best tournament settings for casual players to join? What will be the most enjoyable and help grow our player base? We should have a variety of tournaments for different types of players.

[rosenbot]

Thanks for setting up the new tournament!

These big 7 or 8 game simultaneous draws are pretty intense for me. Takes me an hour or two to clear off all the games. So they are ok once in a while but I might burn out if they are too often. Maybe I shouldn't join all of them

I would be up for a good 3P or 4P tourney. Maybe set the speed pretty fast and make it multiple rounds of top N-1 stay, so anyone who doesn't play just gets kicked out in the first round and the rest of the tourney goes faster

[BananaHarambe]

Great idea rosenbot! I've set up a 3 player tournament called Last One Standing which has the 3rd place player eliminated. Anyone who times out will be eliminated without spoiling the existing game results for others. Game duration is 10 days total, which plenty of time, similar to 7 days for 2 player. I limited it to 27 players because it will take a LONG time to finish. Up to 9 matches, 90 days.

The Group Stage Round Robin tournaments get quite insane at high player count, which can be overwhelming for sure. Players will need to be careful not to sign up for too many at once, especially if they make finals. Sadly these double RR tournaments have no way to stagger the game starts. Players should always check the tournament settings and start date. I am keeping the double RR maximum tournament sizes moderate/low on purpose to keep it reasonable.

There will be plenty of Swiss and Single Elimination tournaments for players that only want 1-3 games at once. Double RR tournaments are set up for players that WANT a lot of games at once.

I will also set up a "slow" single stage RR that has staggered match starts.

[BananaHarambe]

There have been some new improvements to Vale of Eternity on BGA thanks to the developer Moof. Game speed animations are now faster on many cards, in particular Boreas, Freyja, Valkyrie, and more.

With the animation speed improved games can now be completed faster. Testing is underway for a "Blitz" tournament format similar to chess where players have to play very fast. We have been able to complete some recent games in under 10 minutes with under 5 minutes time for each player.

Look out for any new fast tournaments with Blitz in their name. They will be REAL TIME with either 10 minute or 15 minute game duration, which is low think time. We will start 8 person single elimination to start and if they're full make them bigger. The idea is to have "lunch hour" tournaments.