{Tournament} Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

July 21, 2009, 12:38:12 AM

#71

Limewirelord

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

I'd be very interested in a tournament at Tilt. I still haven't been able to go to GK though, and from the looks of it, the DDR machine doesn't seem to be doing well at all.

July 15, 2009, 12:29:45 AM

#70

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: DancingTofu on July 14, 2009, 11:13:23 PM

Sounds like they need new sensors at this point.

Would be nice, prbly won't happen for a while :/

July 14, 2009, 11:13:23 PM

#69

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Sounds like they need new sensors at this point.

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 14, 2009, 08:24:20 PM

#68

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

best pads ever

July 14, 2009, 06:27:32 PM

#67

Angus

i shoot fireballs out of my dick

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: Iori241 on July 14, 2009, 01:36:40 PM

no li, kyrandian and I were just there to blow the winning on a coupla games, and ddr was unplayable

oic. nigga flakes

July 14, 2009, 03:19:31 PM

#66

Schlagwerk

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: Iori241 on July 14, 2009, 01:36:40 PM

no li, kyrandian and I were just there to blow the winning on a coupla games, and ddr was unplayable

Heck, 2P's up arrow was unusable by the evening after the tourney. BBH went to play a credit that someone left on the machine and ended up walking off mid-song because of it

July 14, 2009, 01:36:40 PM

#65

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: BlackWarGreymon on July 14, 2009, 01:26:13 AM

y u li

no li, kyrandian and I were just there to blow the winning on a coupla games, and ddr was unplayable

July 14, 2009, 01:26:13 AM

#64

Angus

i shoot fireballs out of my dick

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

y u li

July 13, 2009, 09:20:54 PM

#63

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

pads are dead again, UA Rside is tweaking like crackfiend. LA and UA Lside is having issues with dolling out random misses.

July 13, 2009, 03:02:17 AM

#62

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

The next Nonstop tournament I run will definitely be double elimination. Swiss just doesn't seem like the right format for nonstop. I would like to use Swiss format again though. It's a nice way to have a tournament where the style is like round-robin but not quite as exhaustive.

I prefer paying by the hour because it's more upfront; it shows the arcade how much money they're earning off of us as a clear figure. The tournament should have only lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes, including qualifiers, but there was a lot of dilly-dallying and I forgot my calculator which slowed things down a lot. Ultimately, it actually would have cost $22 including the mulligans if we had paid per game, and warmups wouldn't have been free, so that would have been another $8 or so. Everybody paid for five rounds, and got at least five rounds (25% of the pot went to GK, aka $2.50 per person).

Having the machine on event mode also makes the tournament run more quickly because people aren't taking the time to put coins into the slot. Ultimately, it's very much worth it to pay by the hour instead of per game, especially with a format like Swiss.

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 13, 2009, 02:39:25 AM

#61

Foti

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

double elim with 8 people is 15 rounds. The swiss we did with 4 matches each was 16 rounds, and that took us about 3.5 hours (1:00-4:30pm) I think it's easily done in that time frame.

Also, it would have been cheaper to just pay for our own rounds rather than the $5 per hour to have it on freeplay. Even including mulligans and screw ups it's much cheaper. (plus then you could allow people more mulligans but they have to pay each time they do it haha)

July 13, 2009, 12:23:20 AM

#60

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

i think the main issue with double elim is that we won't have enough time before GK kicks out minors :<

July 12, 2009, 10:53:58 PM

#59

Foti

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

I think double elim would have been a good format for a nonstop tourney. It was a pretty fun day playing DDR with old friends. Hopefully we can arrange something again soon.

July 12, 2009, 10:11:15 PM

#58

Iori241

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Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: DancingTofu on July 12, 2009, 09:01:50 PM

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I'm not sure Foti necessarily won because of seeding, but I think that it shut Derek and I out from the top 4 positions. Foti, Ethan, Sean, and Wes all seeded within 1 point of each other, so I think it was more of a lack of rubber band effect that held Wes back.

I'm not sure about how accurate the 1/10 figure is, but I do agree that Marv timing is an extreme skill, which is what I like about it. I don't think that the gap between Marvs and Perfects should be as huge as a 7:3 ratio, but perhaps a 7/4/2 ratio would be a little more balanced and still put the appropriate emphasis on MA. Granted, it's really a matter of opinion as far as how much emphasis should be put on MA, and I think that perhaps I differ from you in that I think that perfects should still be worth enough to make a difference, and that greats shouldn't be completely ignored. Anyway, I do want to continue exploring different algorithms until I find one that feels just right.

I see. I didn't plan on entering the tournament except to make the numbers even, and I stated beforehand that I didn't intend to take any prize I might win. As for practicing the qualifier, I hope it was clear from my terrible score that I didn't do so. The last time I played 4 seasons was over two years ago, so I don't think it really gave me an advantage at all. I can definitely see the controversy there though, and I will keep that in mind.

Random Caprice can be weird like that. That's why I had the X-mulligan option. There were quite a few courses where people simply opted not to use it. The only time it was used was when 20, November and Across the Nightmare came up in the same set. I considered it with my second match against Derek, but ultimately I wanted to see how well I could do on Max 300. (I did terribly on it, and basically just gave up after losing track of my pad-misses on Afronova)

ITG2 is looking pretty feasible at this point. If you think that Tilt! would be a good location for a tournament, could you possibly hook me up with some contacts there with whom I could work with to organize it?

1/10 is because the hardware delay is variable from somewhere around 15 to 20 ms, where the marv window is 16.7ms. I think it was Taren from AIJ tested this theory and came up with 1/10 marvs on average being a perfect due to hardware delay. common sense would tell you that in order to be safe you would have to step earlier than late if you want to land within the hardware delay's limits and get a marv, so that is the basis for my argument. ITG games deliberately have a bigger marv window to compensate for any variation of machine lag, therefore have their FA window set at above 20.

With tilt I would recommend you approaching them personally in a professional manner.

July 12, 2009, 09:01:50 PM

#57

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I'm not sure Foti necessarily won because of seeding, but I think that it shut Derek and I out from the top 4 positions. Foti, Ethan, Sean, and Wes all seeded within 1 point of each other, so I think it was more of a lack of rubber band effect that held Wes back.

I'm not sure about how accurate the 1/10 figure is, but I do agree that Marv timing is an extreme skill, which is what I like about it. I don't think that the gap between Marvs and Perfects should be as huge as a 7:3 ratio, but perhaps a 7/4/2 ratio would be a little more balanced and still put the appropriate emphasis on MA. Granted, it's really a matter of opinion as far as how much emphasis should be put on MA, and I think that perhaps I differ from you in that I think that perfects should still be worth enough to make a difference, and that greats shouldn't be completely ignored. Anyway, I do want to continue exploring different algorithms until I find one that feels just right.

I see. I didn't plan on entering the tournament except to make the numbers even, and I stated beforehand that I didn't intend to take any prize I might win. As for practicing the qualifier, I hope it was clear from my terrible score that I didn't do so. The last time I played 4 seasons was over two years ago, so I don't think it really gave me an advantage at all. I can definitely see the controversy there though, and I will keep that in mind.

Random Caprice can be weird like that. That's why I had the X-mulligan option. There were quite a few courses where people simply opted not to use it. The only time it was used was when 20, November and Across the Nightmare came up in the same set. I considered it with my second match against Derek, but ultimately I wanted to see how well I could do on Max 300. (I did terribly on it, and basically just gave up after losing track of my pad-misses on Afronova)

ITG2 is looking pretty feasible at this point. If you think that Tilt! would be a good location for a tournament, could you possibly hook me up with some contacts there with whom I could work with to organize it?

« Last Edit: July 12, 2009, 09:03:48 PM by DancingTofu »

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 12, 2009, 07:01:10 PM

#56

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Quote from: DancingTofu on July 12, 2009, 06:07:19 PM

Yeah, it did seem that the qualifier scores were a bit too heavy. If/when I run another swiss tournament, I think I'd instate a rubber band effect which would close the gaps a lot quicker and prevent the scenario where there's a 3 point gap between 3rd and 4th, and again between 4th and 5th, and 2 between 5th and 6th, et cetera.

Part of the issue; a large part of it, in fact; was trying to find a way to make swiss format feasible with nonstop. In a normal swiss format, I would have just used win-loss-tie, where every match is 3 songs (not just a race to 2). Using nonstop makes Swiss a difficult format to adapt to. If I run a nonstop tournament in the future, which I would certainly like to do, it will probably be double elimination.

I'm not really sure I agree with you regarding announcing quals 2 days before. Some people I have talked to have insisted that I don't announce the qualifier until the day of, while others feel it's fine to announce it 2 weeks in advance. It's a difficult subject to really reach a conclusion for. If it hadn't been pertinent to my scoring algorithm, I would not have used a qualifier for this, because the first round in Swiss format typically serves as a qualifier anyway.

EDIT: How does DDR Magic work with Marvs? Could you either PM me the algorithm or a link where it is shown? The -1 for goods and boos seemed kind of pointless, so I doubt I'll use that again, but 4/3/1/0/0/0/0 seems pretty balanced to me.

I did notice the AA problem as we started the tournament, and unfortunately I forgot my calculator, otherwise I would have been able to just reset some values in my score calculator program and I would have just calculated the score percentage assuming no freezes. Fortunately, there were only two occasions in the tournament where I actually had to use the calculator to determine whether scores would be AA's, so it wound up turning out fine.

I noticed that there weren't a ton of mulligans during the tournament. Did people feel that the terms were too restrictive, or were they just satisfied with the songs that came up?

Yeah, Foti won because he seeded higher. Wes lost to Ethan even though he beat him during the tourney in his sets. In other tourney games seeding bad doesn't necessarily fuck you over in the tourney, it just makes you play against a more difficulty opponent earlier on.

The thing is Marvs are about half the size of perfects. It takes extreme skill to MA because you have to step early within the window you're stepping to get a marv due to the hardware delay. 1/10 marvs are perfs in EX due to delay, so if someone knows how to step correctly within a window early they should be rewarded for it.

The quals thing has to do with you entering the tourney. Normally the tourney organizer cannot enter their own tourney. You basically hd all the time in the world to practice the qual. Whether you did that or not I don't know, but the point stands that if the organizer is entering quals should be known. Classic tourneys always announced quals.

DDR Magic had marv to perf like 7/3.

Everything is so offsync that it's really hard to choose which courses to strike or not. Getting a fast song early and a slow song that's late is the worst thing and that came up with that set with burning momo.

IMO next tourney should be run on ITG 2 so syncing isn't so stupid.

July 12, 2009, 06:07:19 PM

#55

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Yeah, it did seem that the qualifier scores were a bit too heavy. If/when I run another swiss tournament, I think I'd instate a rubber band effect which would close the gaps a lot quicker and prevent the scenario where there's a 3 point gap between 3rd and 4th, and again between 4th and 5th, and 2 between 5th and 6th, et cetera.

Part of the issue; a large part of it, in fact; was trying to find a way to make swiss format feasible with nonstop. In a normal swiss format, I would have just used win-loss-tie, where every match is 3 songs (not just a race to 2). Using nonstop makes Swiss a difficult format to adapt to. If I run a nonstop tournament in the future, which I would certainly like to do, it will probably be double elimination.

I'm not really sure I agree with you regarding announcing quals 2 days before. Some people I have talked to have insisted that I don't announce the qualifier until the day of, while others feel it's fine to announce it 2 weeks in advance. It's a difficult subject to really reach a conclusion for. If it hadn't been pertinent to my scoring algorithm, I would not have used a qualifier for this, because the first round in Swiss format typically serves as a qualifier anyway.

EDIT: How does DDR Magic work with Marvs? Could you either PM me the algorithm or a link where it is shown? The -1 for goods and boos seemed kind of pointless, so I doubt I'll use that again, but 4/3/1/0/0/0/0 seems pretty balanced to me.

I did notice the AA problem as we started the tournament, and unfortunately I forgot my calculator, otherwise I would have been able to just reset some values in my score calculator program and I would have just calculated the score percentage assuming no freezes. Fortunately, there were only two occasions in the tournament where I actually had to use the calculator to determine whether scores would be AA's, so it wound up turning out fine.

I noticed that there weren't a ton of mulligans during the tournament. Did people feel that the terms were too restrictive, or were they just satisfied with the songs that came up?

« Last Edit: July 12, 2009, 06:11:52 PM by DancingTofu »

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 12, 2009, 03:02:38 AM

#54

Iori241

Restricted

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Tournament seemed to be well organized and smooth running. A few things though:
1) Quals are weighted too heavily.
2) Quals should be announced 2 days in advance so *everyone* gets a chance to practice them.
3) DDR Magic scoring should be used.
4) Make sure to adjust the AA rule you made, because if you turn freezes off you miss out on valuable points Wink

There are a few other comments I have but I'll reserve those for now because I need to sleep.
Other than that you had a great turnout/etc.

« Last Edit: July 12, 2009, 03:08:28 AM by Iori241 »

July 11, 2009, 11:20:21 PM

#53

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

That's pretty understandable. DDR + illness = bad idea. I hope you're feeling better/have a speedy recovery.

The next tournament I'll be running will probably be Dance Dance Overcast at Kumoricon on Labor Day weekend. I might potentially run one in early August/very late July, but that's not looking too likely at this point. However, I think I might start scheduling for some casual get-togethers again since I'm going to be fairly free for the next 6 weeks or so.

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 11, 2009, 10:50:32 PM

#52

marx!

I like computers

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

Sorry I wasn't able to show up. I really wanted to go but just two days ago I got a really bad flu/cough and coughs kill my DDR performance. I was uber-bummed, hopefully I'll be able to show up next time. :\

July 11, 2009, 05:59:50 PM

#51

Lavos

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

It was a lot of fun! I'll definitely try to attend future events.

I also think coming to a tournament has motivated me to get out and play in the arcade more often. Almost all of my experience is on the console versions, and I don't think that's really helping my game anymore. I wasn't really expecting to do very well in the first place, but at least I have a good reason to try to improve now. =)

Thanks for organizing the event!

July 11, 2009, 05:20:24 PM

#50

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

1st : Foti
2nd : Ethan
3rd : Wes
4th : Sean
5th : Derek

Alright, so, first of all, thanks to everyone who showed up! It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing you all and getting a chance to hang out. The machine certainly wasn't in perfect working order, but it held through and certainly didn't ruin the tournament in my opinion. A few notes:

Ethan, thanks for calculating scores, taking names, and helping out in general.

Aaron and Max, thanks for participating and being good sports. I hope that you felt like you learned some valuable techniques or perhaps found some inspiration and will both continue to hone your skills and come to future gatherings and tournaments.

Derek, thanks for bringing in Pop'n Music and adding a little extra fun to the event.

Foti, I did not catch your friend's name, but please give him my thanks to helping out by taking note of which songs were being played and what songs were FC'd.

Ultimately, 8 people showed up to compete and about that many came as spectators. The attendance wasn't ground-breaking, but perhaps that number will continue to grow and future dance game tournaments in Portland will be well-enjoyed.

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

July 11, 2009, 01:44:44 AM

#49

BBH

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

oh shit tomorrow/today is Free Slurpee Day too, yeaaaaa

July 11, 2009, 12:20:52 AM

#48

derek

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

so what's going on tomorrow?? is the tournament happening?

July 09, 2009, 10:35:35 PM

#47

ChilliumBromide

...has trouble with "slow songs"

Achievements:

Re: Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme

I do agree that the new machine location is suboptimal. It's not awful, however; you still get about 8 inches between the pads and cab if you just scoot the cabinet back (it's often further away from the wall than it needs to be)

HOWEVER, the pads were in awful shape. After hearing the same thing from 4 different people, I did go and check out the machine. Fortunately both Mark and Art were there today so I talked to both of them. Mark was aware of the problems and, when I talked to him, said he'd be opening up the panels and seeing what he could do. The P2 up arrow will hopefully at least go from hopelessly stuck (failed Graduation on light wtf) to very rarely somewhat stuck and entirely mendable. The P1 up arrow just has a weak inner sensor, so I told Mark to just swap the left and down sensors in there and it should work fine. As for the P1 left arrow, that's the arrow that's been giving us hell for two years now. Sometimes it's too sensitive, sometimes it's not sensitive enough. I tested all of the sensors individually with my toes and they all seemed to do fine, and the problems didn't seem like sticking (I couldn't get it to stick outside of gameplay), so I'm somewhat baffled. I just hope the I/O board isn't fucked up.

In the case that we get there Saturday, Mark does his final check-up, and it's still not working right, does anyone else have any ideas? I'd say just go over to Avalon and play there, but...well, you know. :/
Tilt!'s machine is too expensive to just do an impromptu tournament there. Would their staff potentially let us put the machine on Event for a couple hours if we just gave them $20 and told them we were running a tournament?

I'm going to see if I can stop by there tomorrow to check the machine again. If it's still in the same horrendous condition tomorrow, should we just scrap the tournament, or wait to see where it's at on Saturday?

Practice makes perfect. But I'd rather be great. ;]

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{Tournament} Don't Stop! 07/11/09 nonstop swiss; DDR Extreme