Serious thoughts about Tournaments

[neugey]

With watching my daughter in multiple softball tournaments this summer and just thinking about how tournaments could operate in OOTP, I have formed some definite opinions ...



1) I am thinking/hoping there is no "home field advantage" during tournaments. Most IRL tournaments are played on a neutral field. Now I'm not saying all park factors should always be 1's ... perhaps some tournaments are played at a hitter's haven like Coors Field, others in a cavernous pitcher's park. But whatever the tournament/field is, the park factors remain consistent for the duration of the tourney and should be known ahead of time so you can prep your team.


2) In conjunction with #1, I'm hoping that batting first or last for tournament games is not dictated by schedule/bracket/seeding. IMO it should be decided by coin flip at the beginning of each game. Give each team a 50/50 shot at batting last per game.


3) One really nifty format that was used in some of the softball tournaments is a split tournament. This is how it works ... the first part of the tournament was pool play where all the teams played X number of games against various competitors. The Win-Loss records and point differentials are then used to compile a final standings for the pool play portion. The teams in the top half of the standings go to Group A, the bottom half go to Group B. Each group is then seeded per order of finish in standings and placed into a double elimination bracket. The double elim games are played and then you ultimately have two champions - a Group A and a Group B champion. This format would be really cool for the open tournaments in OOTP ... most killer whales would likely end up in Group A and duke it out there. The teams with lesser talent or that struggled go into Group B, but they get a fresh start to prove themselves and win a championship against competition that isn't as overwhelming.



Not sure how hard a split tournament like this would be to program ... if it's a complex addition then maybe it could be considered for a future OOTP version. But I think it would be an ideal format ... just would probably need to be more strict about roster changes in this split format, because you don't want people tanking to get into Group B and then turn around and put a bunch of perfect cards onto their squad before the double elimination phase starts.


4) Tacking onto my last point, I wouldn't be opposed to prohibiting ALL roster moves once any kind of tournament is underway. I think the focus of the tournament is to setup your team for a particular tournament based on the field and rule sets and what you think might work and then stick with your decisions. Shuttling guys in and out during a tournament, even between rounds if there are multiple series, seems like it could lead to trying to out-weasel your opponent with eccentric or massive roster changes and wouldn't resemble anything that would or could be done in real life team sports.



Just my lengthy 2 cents ... feel free to comment or add yours.

[Goliathus]

1. I say we go for varieties. There's no reason to force interesting things into a "pick one" scenario. For instance, I always find the console war to be stupid -- just buy all consoles and have fun. With that same thinking in line, I propose to just make a parameter in the tournament: "neutral field" and "home field". Neutral field tournaments are played on a neutral field of whatever setting it is. For home field tournaments, players are free to set up their own field, but they set it up and lock it in in the register process and it cannot be changed at all. This give players of different preferences what they want, like I think I would enjoy both, and having just one of them available, to me, is a disservice.

2. I think this depends on the tournament structure. If the tournament has a league into playoff structure, I think seeding has to be a thing. You have to reward good performance the league portion in a structure like that.

3. Sounds interesting, I have no problem with this setup. But I do see a lot of potential "tanking for group B" strategy. When being the top of the group B is better than middle of group A, people are going to do that. I think this is a flawed structure and can and will be abused in video games. While I have no problem with the setup, I am doubtful of it being executed well here.

4. I always thought tournaments are "please enter your 30 roster squad(assuming 25 + 5 in reserves) and you cannot change them at all after the registration". We will see how it goes in the actual setup.

[CrazyWR]

if EVERYONE advances out of pool play, where is the incentive to try in pool play? Just throw a bunch of scrubs and save your top arms for the elimination games where it matters and everyone elses arms are tired. I've literally done this when I played AAU state tournaments, not sure why it even exists. Pool play should be done like in the World Cup where the top 2 teams from each group advance and from there you get Winner of A vs Runner Up of B etc single elim (or best of 3/5/7 for baseball, whatevs). Everyone advancing is a recipe for wasting people's time, especially when it has been mentioned there is a possibility you can only enter X amount of tournaments at a time.

[Findest2001]

IF they happen it won't be until September or layer I imagine. I hope sooner but I highly doubt it or we would have gotten more info by now. It's after the all star break already.

[humboldt1498]

I am really looking forward to this feature in OOTP 22!

[SpacePope]

1 - I'd like to be able to tailor my park to my team. The whole appeal of tournaments to me is to create specialized teams I think will do well in different formats. Having a mix of neutral and custom park factors tournaments would be cool too though.

4 - I agree to some extent. On the one hand, not being able to make any changes is appealing because I wont to be able to compete even if the times of key games don't line up with my schedule. On the other hand, people are likely to get a little annoyed when they see they're getting baited into starting the wrong lineups and they can't do anything about it.

[Dogberry99]

While it would be pleasant to have separate tournaments with different rules such as home field vs neutral field, this will not be the primary differentiation between most tournaments. We're not going to see every single type of tournament duplicated with both a home and a neutral field variant. It is highly likely that the devs will have a single set of default settings for tournaments that feature far more interesting and significant deviations.

[LansdowneSt]

The park is actually a fun way of distinguishing tournaments imo. How hard is it to make the 80s tournament in 1984 Tiger Stadium and then have one next week in 1982 Busch Stadium etc. Or if all Bronze, just pick a random park (park stats and dimensions are not hard to uncover) so one week you are in Ebbets Field then the next is week is Camden Yards. As long as it is all the same for all teams, that seems best.

[CrazyWR]

I like that idea

[bailey]

There is room for lots of formats. Since there is a limit of 3 tournaments at once, it is my fondest hope that there will be plenty of single elimination type tournaments, similar to playoffs now. I don't want to be stuck in a week long tournament where my team has no chance after losing too many games on the first day. Kind of like the regular season is now for most teams.

[elutz31]

Allowing park changes is for leagues and season mode and shouldn't be allowed for tournaments. At no point in a tournament is there going to be a best of 2, 4, 6 or 8 game series to allow both sides equal home games if parks are adjustable. There will always be an advantage for the home team in a single elimination, 3, 5 or 7 game series. There is no fair way to determine who gets the home field advantage and I'd hate to have coin flips be the deciding factor for tournaments.

Parks shouldn't be adjustable and roster moves shouldn't be allowed. Pick your team based off the preset tournament rules. Pick your l/r lineups and rotation. This should be locked once you hit submit to a tournament. This will prevent any tanking or sandbagging in the event of pool play.

[One Great Matrix]

I noticed on the momentum charts that another advantage the home team gets besides setting up your park the way you want is on those momentum charts...the momentum begins somewhere 6.25-12.5% in the home team's favor...so I don't know if that's just to represent the fans behind the team and the familiarity with their own ballpark, but that's another way the home team gets an advantage as far as I can tell. Even without park factors there seems to be an accounting for homefield advantage.

[Threnodas]

Historically, the home team wins 54% of MLB games, so regardless of why that is (teams tailored to the home park, getting the last at-bat, or the same "home cooking" that benefits home teams in every sport with identical fields) the win probability should slightly favor the home team a priori.

Also, my two cents: I think rosters should be fixed after tournaments start, but lineups probably should not, and I would personally favor a common neutral field for tournaments but I wouldn't get up in arms if custom home parks were allowed (fixed after the tournament starts, of course).

[Goliathus]

Lineup definitely should not. If people want to tinker every 15 minutes, they should have that right.

[elutz31]

Originally Posted by Goliathus

Lineup definitely should not. If people want to tinker every 15 minutes, they should have that right.

I'd agree with this. However my previous post was in regards to the hypothetical pool play idea by the OP. If that was an actual tournament style they would have to lock the rosters to prevent people from sandbagging to get into the easy side. Regardless I'm sure whenever they finally roll out tournaments there will be many different types to satisfy most people. If we don't like the style of 1 we'll join 1 we do.

[neugey]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Good discussion. Especially with the new missions coming out today, now I am really craving the tournaments! Deciding to keep a few 60 OVR's with nice ratings instead of selling them, anticipating the salary cap tournaments.

League play is what it is; I see myself getting more engrossed into tournaments even if there are a few bumps and trials.

[PocketsAintFull]

I keep picking up odd cards on the AH thinking ahead to tournaments, really want them now