New Tournament Matchmaking Options

[RazorOz]

Noticed today one of my tournaments said Players dispatching system "Typewriter". Went to test a new tournament, and see the following options.

Serpentine "Alternate table order each pass to better balance strong and weak seeds"
Typewriter "Always assign from first table to last table"
Random "Shuffle players before assigning them to tables"

Not clear if these options then apply to the entire tournament, as previously the typewriter method was only used for R1, and the rest would be random (or in group phase tournaments, the first round of each phase would use typewriter method, then random), but now does it apply to the entire tournament?

Also the tournament links not being links if you copy to send as DM is fixed too.

[RazorOz]

I can't confirm until I see it in a tournament created post-update, but looking around it seems this only applies to the first round, and thereafter it's random, which I think is a good thing, because the one concern I would have with Serpentine seeding is it's a bit lame saying the #1 and #2 cannot meet until the final, I know sports work that way, but this is gaming, I feel like there should be some luck of the draw to it. This does fix one of my main gripes with the previous system that if you use groups, under the typewriter method it was always silly how group 1 would be much higher ELO than say group 12, and not really fair matchmaking.

[BananaHarambe]

Wow this was one of the requested tournament changes in the bug reports from a long time ago and featured on my lengthy most wanted updates!

Glad to hear it has been implemented. Even the idea of random seeding has its merits for some situations.

I believe this only applies to organizing the groups for Group Stage tournaments. However, I see you are doing 2 stages of multiplayer elimination.

The intent of Serpentine System was for setting up the groups in Stage 1.

[RazorOz]

Wow this was one of the requested tournament changes in the bug reports from a long time ago and featured on my lengthy most wanted updates!

Glad to hear it has been implemented. Even the idea of random seeding has its merits for some situations.

I believe this only applies to organizing the groups for Group Stage tournaments. However, I see you are doing 2 stages of multiplayer elimination.

The intent of Serpentine System was for setting up the groups in Stage 1.

Applies to all multiplayer elimination tournaments, see https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=536378 as another example.

In group stage you get to pick the matchmaking option twice as you can see here https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=536804. The effect is also biggest on groups, because it directly impacts more than 1 round, because I've since had it confirmed by support that it only applies to the first round (but I prefer it that way).

I think Serpentine is going to be best for most situations, I am planning a much bigger tournament soon (486 players, which would be higher if the limit wasn't 512, and I'm hoping they get rid of soon), and Serpentine does seem the way to go where you get reasonably balanced Round 1, and then random thereafter.

[dschingis27]

But this only influences how the multiplayer tables are set up, not how the groups are distributed.
Please BGA, make it available also for groups distribution!

The effect is also biggest on groups, because it directly impacts more than 1 round, because I've since had it confirmed by support that it only applies to the first round (but I prefer it that way).

I don't understand any of this. Why is the effect biggest on groups? Why does it impact only the first round? Particularly, if it only applies to the first round, how does it "directly impact more than 1 round"?

"it directly impacts more than 1 round, because I've had it confirmed that it only applies to the first round" ???

[RazorOz]

But this only influences how the multiplayer tables are set up, not how the groups are distributed.
Please BGA, make it available also for groups distribution!

The effect is also biggest on groups, because it directly impacts more than 1 round, because I've since had it confirmed by support that it only applies to the first round (but I prefer it that way).

I don't understand any of this. Why is the effect biggest on groups? Why does it impact only the first round? Particularly, if it only applies to the first round, how does it "directly impact more than 1 round"?

"it directly impacts more than 1 round, because I've had it confirmed that it only applies to the first round" ???

Because groups are directly impacted by Round 1 matchmaking. So I will give you an example of my own tournaments. I run a 300 player split into 12 groups of 25. Under typewriter it will work so that table 1 is #1, #61, #121, #181, #241, and table #60 is #60, #120, #180, #240, #300. And group 1 will have effectively tables 1, 13, 25, 37, 49 while group 12 will have tables 12, 24, 36, 48, 60. This leads to significant discrepancies in ELO across the groups, and because you are then confined to your group for however many rounds affects the matchmaking for longer.

[dschingis27]

I think I have to disappoint you. I don't think the serpentine will solve the problem as much you like it to be solved. Because I am pretty sure the serpentine only applies to the tables within a group. The groups distribution is still done with typewriter. Why do I think so? Because the tournament creation option you found is only available for multi-elimination, it's not a feature of groups stage tournaments, it is only a feature of multi-elimination. (As soon as you put max players to 2, it vanishes.)

That's also why I was so confused when you wrote "The effect is also biggest on groups", no it's not. It has an effect on multi-elimination tournaments (also if they are not further structured into groups) and if your groups stage tournament has multi-elimination groups, then it happens to apply there in the groups.

But if you have a counter-example, let us know. Other than that, we can hope that the new options will get implemented for groups stage tournaments in general eventually.

[BananaHarambe]

They are slowing rolling out minor updates so I am hopeful for some more minor adjustments.

I can see the value of distributing the skilled players in a multiplayer elimination to make it more like single elimination brackets (which do this automatically), rather than the default total random pairing. This will likely fall apart after a few rounds of "sorting", but it is good to have in the beginning. Start with initial Elo to sort, then it should pivot to tournament performance after the "sorting" games ideally IMO.

I am hoping someone can spend the time to track the group assignment for a tournament to see if it still distributes the groups by typewriter. The discussion here makes me far less sure than anything has changed as we are talking about multiplayer elimination.

Still hoping for single group group stage option with all these minor updates.

[RazorOz]

I think I have to disappoint you. I don't think the serpentine will solve the problem as much you like it to be solved. Because I am pretty sure the serpentine only applies to the tables within a group. The groups distribution is still done with typewriter. Why do I think so? Because the tournament creation option you found is only available for multi-elimination, it's not a feature of groups stage tournaments, it is only a feature of multi-elimination. (As soon as you put max players to 2, it vanishes.)

That's also why I was so confused when you wrote "The effect is also biggest on groups", no it's not. It has an effect on multi-elimination tournaments (also if they are not further structured into groups) and if your groups stage tournament has multi-elimination groups, then it happens to apply there in the groups.

But if you have a counter-example, let us know. Other than that, we can hope that the new options will get implemented for groups stage tournaments in general eventually.

I think you are right unfortunately. See this that just started, https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=536804, the groups themselves look typewriter method. For this tournament in particular it doesn't matter, because this is the same one I wanted to run 2 groups if the system would let me (a bug which they acknowledged so hopefully should be fixed soon, if it hasn't already in today's update), so the groups end up fairly balanced anyway, but it makes a big difference if you run a tournament with a lot of groups, so hopefully they give the option to do groups this way soon.

I put up a suggestion to apply this to groups here: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=209802.

[tbhp]

I can't confirm until I see it in a tournament created post-update, but looking around it seems this only applies to the first round, and thereafter it's random, which I think is a good thing, because the one concern I would have with Serpentine seeding is it's a bit lame saying the #1 and #2 cannot meet until the final, I know sports work that way, but this is gaming, I feel like there should be some luck of the draw to it.

I don't really see the problem with that. Recently in Harmonies there was a single elimination tournament of 512 players, and the 8 players that were in the quarter finals were, more or less, the best 8 current players at the game.

I understand that it can be nice to shake things up and make things more random, but I also really like when a tournament ultimately comes down to the best players meeting each other.

It's like in football I prefer it when the final stages are a big showdown between the historical teams, rather than when some surprises invite themselves in. But at the end of the day, it's personal preference.