Amateur Bracket

-Ran · Aug 23, 2010

As with any game, Smash needs to work on getting new members into the competitive fold. As I wrote in another thread:

-Ran said:
But really, this is what happens when a new person enters the scene for their first tournament:
1) Gets bracket ****ed. You're the new guy, so you get to play our best player!
2) Three stocked by the best player who is warming up.... Twice. If you're lucky, the best player will switch to a low tier and embarrass you.
3) Has one honest shot at a match against an even skilled opponent in Losers. If they lose, they're done for the day.
4) For most of the matches the player has, being socially stunted like most gamers, they are done wordlessly. With sparse conversation and salt on fresh wounds, the new player leaves after being there for an hour.
5) They never find out that Brawl is 10% tournament and 90% social.

Now the above doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that we chase off new players. Beyond that, we have individuals that are constantly playing at a low skill level in every community that eventually, despite their best efforts to become better, stop playing due to lack of success. We need to create a 'farm league' for lack of a better term to get new talent into our communities without crippling their desire to play.

I have started to do an Amateur tournament during my events in Louisiana, which has worked on getting new, fresh players to enter. Essentially anyone that entered the tournament and failed to place above top ten [or where ever the skill divide is evident] get to play in a free tournament where first place gets their entry fee back. On paper, this seems like a great idea, but it still creates the issue of new players giving up ten dollars against players they know they can't beat just to compete with players at their own level.

Rather than do that, I have begun to think that the best way would be to have the event take place before the main 1vs1 bracket. Have it run concurrent with the side events, and charge a dollar or two for each entry into the bracket. The players that would place in the bracket, would then use the money [ie, auto-entered] into the 'pro' bracket. This would avoid anyone walking away from the tournament with money, unless they entered and succeeded in the professional bracket.

In order to be admitted into the amateur bracket, players would have to have not been power ranked in the previous two secessions in our state. This would ensure that no one attempts to get 'free entry' to the tournament. If fail to place top ten in the actual 'pro' tournament, then they are free to enter the amateur bracket again.

Unfortunately, time is always an issue. For this to be successful it would be crucial that side events be available at the tournament that would take place otherwise. For example, the Amateur Bracket would be a great component to run along side a team event, low tier, or even Melee. There is also the option of doing a single elimination bracket for the sake of speed, the reduction of both stock and time, and the removal of 3/5s for finals.

Now, players that win money aren't necessarily be pleased with this idea because it takes away from the pot of the singles events. Even if you give everyone a chance to enter the 'pro bracket,' if they didn't succeed in the amateur bracket, why would even bother? Compare this to having no other option but to enter the main event, clearly pay outs would drop somewhat in the favor of increasing the player pool and thus the potential for more money in the future.

If the goal for your tournaments is to grow the Smash scene, then the adoption of Amateur brackets is ideal; however if the goal is to fill the coffers of the best players in the area, then you might as well continue having twenty person tournaments.

At my tournament next month, I'm going to be doing the follow:
Amateur Bracket with 3 dollar entry. [2 dollars for the venue, 1 for the pot.]
Best out of 3, no matter the set.
2 stock, 6 minute timer.

I'm going to heavily advertise it as such, and hopefully I'll see a ton of new faces.

-Ran said:
Bump for Great Justice.

I ran the first true Novice Bracket last weekend, but I didn't have much of a chance to advertise it due to a busy month of work. Even better, I had a few new players that had never attended a tournament before that showed up just because they had heard about the Novice Bracket. The rules that I elected to follow were a slight deviation from the standard Brawl rules, in order to save time for the actual tournament. Stocks were set at 2, the timer to 6 minutes, and finals were played as best of three, instead of being a best of five.

I had 13 players enter into the Brawl Novice tournament, which brought in 13 dollars [one dollar per entry] to be used to bring the top player into the bracket, and pay three dollars for the second place. Utlimately, the top two players decided to split which allowed both of them to enter the tournament. When I questioned the new players their enjoyment level, they all resounded that they enjoyed the chance for a competitive field of play, rather than being blown out of the water by the best players in the state.

Contrary to worries of various posters, seven of the players from the Novice bracket opted to enter the ten dollar bracket despite where they placed in the Novice bracket: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 5th, 9th, and 9th. Furthermore, the player that won the Novice Bracket placed last in the main bracket, while the player that 9th in the Novice bracket placed 5th in the actual bracket.

Seeding for the Novice bracket was done randomly without any level of skill attached to the individual players. The bracket was merely edited to prevent friends from playing against each other.

metalreflectslime · Aug 23, 2010

I like this idea.

LLDL · Aug 23, 2010

I **** the majority of my opponents in friendlies at my first tournament until I got to bracket. Left always wanting to come back for more.

Vts · Aug 23, 2010

What i do if its a good turn out and it requires pools or if the people who get 2 loses in bracket (if we do bracket only).

make another bracket called novice bracket.

a lot of people enjoy it though there isn't really a prize since you lost 2 times already its just to make people who are out of tournaments early on still get there money's worth by playing in there own bracket with people similar in skill.

maybe even like money back to first place if i had to cus a lot of people from pools (16+ being removed for pools)

but i also say they only get like 1-2 TVs to do there matches so the tournament can still go on.

just an idea i like to try and enforce if its a good enough size tournament (30+) and we have enough times and set ups but if we don't then sad day.

your way would be cool with the not being on power ranks.

i think as a community we need to come together and set new standards to allow new people to come in and try the game and encourage them to enter tournaments even if they do bad with the novice bracket it gives them an idea of what to except from people around there skill lvl and its better matches (most the time).

At little rock gamecon i talked the people hosting it into thinking about it and they said that they love the idea so thats going to be a big arkansas tournament with like 20 different games so it might not happen due to time limits but i'll keep supporting it.

Winnar · Aug 23, 2010

Novice bracket sounds awesome. I like your original novice bracket idea a lot more than the newer one. Keep us posted on how the newer version goes over after your next tournament.

Nike. · Aug 23, 2010

You stole this from San Antonio meanie D:<

We call it Redemption Bracket lol (so that everyone gets a chance to "redeem" themselves.) Everyone who doesn't place top8 gets seeded into it (four 9 seeds get the byes, and so on for everyone else).

We've done about 8ish Redemption Tournies in 2010 and it's been VERY successful and received nothing but applause. I highly recommend this to any TO's.

Damage Points · Aug 24, 2010

Great idea man.

shadowboii · Aug 24, 2010

If events like this existed, the entries for the real events would drop dramatically.

Just let them play more friendlies.

-Ran · Aug 25, 2010

Would they? So far for the two tournaments that we've done in my state with Amateur brackets, we've actually gained more entrants into the main bracket that wouldn't have occurred without them coming for the Amateur bracket. The regular players that drop money for the tournament bracket are going to continue to do so. This just provides an avenue for new and bad players to get hooked into competitive smash.

Really, you just have to ask yourself... Are you in it for the money, or for the competition? Understandably, money allows you to go to tournaments out of state, but constantly seeking higher pay outs only results in lowering the player pool. Only a select few members in an area ever make money on Brawl to begin with, and so I'm looking out for the 50 other players in the state, rather than the top five players.

By creating a larger tournament scene, you can leverage your novices to have large quarterly tournaments. If you have 30 Novices in your area, and you tell them, "Hey if you guys all show up in three months for this tournament, and pay 15 bucks, you'll get to play with some of the best in the nation!" Then suddenly, your pots go from having 20-30 dedicated players to 60 players.

cutter · Aug 26, 2010

I fully support amateur brackets, because they help to fight against the biggest threat to the community as a whole -- lack of new players.

I find them to be especially important for the more smaller regions. While no region is fully immune from it, sparsely populated regions obviously suffer the most from lack of players. That region then starts to shrivel up and die due to the lack of fresh blood, and as a result the bigger regions take a hit as well. It's a lose-lose situation.

Korrupshen · Aug 26, 2010

But really, this is what happens when a new person enters the scene for their first tournament:
1) Gets bracket ****ed. You're the new guy, so you get to play our best player!
2) Three stocked by the best player who is warming up.... Twice. If you're lucky, the best player will switch to a low tier and embarrass you.
3) Has one honest shot at a match against an even skilled opponent in Losers. If they lose, they're done for the day.
4) For most of the matches the player has, being socially stunted like most gamers, they are done wordlessly. With sparse conversation and salt on fresh wounds, the new player leaves after being there for an hour.
5) They never find out that Brawl is 10% tournament and 90% social.

Same text quoted above happened to me in NoJohns a few days ago, except I wasn't embarrassed with a low tier character and I didn't feel bad after the ****. I actually found it fun getting destroyed instead of getting upset and pissed off like some players. I'm willing to get better, but I just wanna know where can I find someone to play whose better than me on a daily basis....First I gotta switch my lcd tv back to my old one since I heard it lags.....so yea.

-Ran · Aug 26, 2010

The issue then becomes after a few tournaments if you don't find yourself progressing, will you still be willing to throw down money at a tournament? Will you be able to justify spending 20 dollars in food, gas, and entry fee at a monthly event that you aren't going to see success in? Obviously, everyone has different levels of acceptance for what success is. For some, placing top ten makes it worth it to continue going to events, but most want to strive for more.

Most of the observations I make about the Novice crowd come from my room mates who have played Smash with me a considerable amount, but only one of them has attended tournaments. The tournament experience actually turned him off from Smash since due to his seed [ie none] he was forced to go against Lee Martin in his first tournament.

I then noticed that eventually during the tournament days, that he would migrate towards the other Novice level players, and begin to play in various modes with items, or contrived stages through the custom stage builder. Some players have the natural tenacity to continue to play against stronger opponents regardless of the outcome. I routinely get beaten down by Lee Martin, but I'll never stop playing him. Regardless, my room mate's experience of throwing down money only to get knocked out quickly resulted in him not wanting to play Brawl competitively. It also doesn't help that he can easily look at me and see that I'm not making money at tournaments, but I can soundly defeat him with any character in the game. It's hard to justify going to a tournament, when your room mate is the fifth best in the state, but you know that he isn't making money, and you are fully aware that you aren't on his level.

Due to this evident skill divides, the player base of Smash is greatly hampered. There are simply some players that won't come out to Smash tournaments due to simply looking at their usual partners and their performance against them. Many people that do go to tournaments have friends that they actually play Smash with, who won't come to tournaments because they are intimately aware of their skill level. These are all players that would no doubt become better if they were exposed for a long enough duration to the scene. Constantly playing against one player hampers the growth of an individual, and without watching how better players beat their friend, they won't reach a tournament viable level.

Rather than try and trick these players into coming to a tournament to get a quick ten dollar entry from them, we should attempt to open our arms and make everyone better by association through competition. With the more players a region has, the easier it is for individuals to get together and throw tournaments/events/smashfests with each other.

Winnar · Aug 26, 2010

-Ran said:
The issue then becomes after a few tournaments if you don't find yourself progressing, will you still be willing to throw down money at a tournament? Will you be able to justify spending 20 dollars in food, gas, and entry fee at a monthly event that you aren't going to see success in?

This is the exact reason why I stopped going to brawl tournaments.

Redemption bracket sounds better, btw

rPSIvysaur · Aug 26, 2010

I definitely support the idea of amateur brackets.

shadowboii · Aug 27, 2010

-Ran said:
Would they? So far for the two tournaments that we've done in my state with Amateur brackets, we've actually gained more entrants into the main bracket that wouldn't have occurred without them coming for the Amateur bracket. The regular players that drop money for the tournament bracket are going to continue to do so. This just provides an avenue for new and bad players to get hooked into competitive smash.

Really, you just have to ask yourself... Are you in it for the money, or for the competition? Understandably, money allows you to go to tournaments out of state, but constantly seeking higher pay outs only results in lowering the player pool. Only a select few members in an area ever make money on Brawl to begin with, and so I'm looking out for the 50 other players in the state, rather than the top five players.

By creating a larger tournament scene, you can leverage your novices to have large quarterly tournaments. If you have 30 Novices in your area, and you tell them, "Hey if you guys all show up in three months for this tournament, and pay 15 bucks, you'll get to play with some of the best in the nation!" Then suddenly, your pots go from having 20-30 dedicated players to 60 players.

I'm not arguing whether this program would attract newer players or not, but how effective it is and how it would affect the tournament scene.

When you create an alternative outlet that offers players similar experience, with reduce cost, it is more likely for the player to choose the option with the lesser cost.

Like you stated, newer players are usually more comfortable playing other newer players. When you create an environment with easy entry (reduce cost), similar experience (opportunity to play with the pros), and higher incentive (higher chance of making into bracket), it is more likely that the newer players would favor these amateur bracket over the main event. Also, considering that it isn't very likely for newer players to actually win these amateur brackets, there's little incentive to join the actual brackets. This merely creates an outlet for players to test out tournament scenes, but it doesn't guarantee that they will enjoy the experience.

Then lets talk about the placement of the amateur bracket within a tournament. Like you sated, the whole point of this event is to capture the interest of casual players, so it is fairly obvious that this event would take place before the real brackets. In this case, some players might not have the incentive to join another bracket since they already have their fill of competitive play, and will choose not to join the main bracket.

I'm sure some will peak the interest and decide to join the tournament scene, but I'm more sure that players that has no monetary incentive will most likely only join the amateur bracket. As there's no real incentive for t he new players to play outside of their comfort zones.

Then lets talk about the effectiveness of this program. I really don't see how effectively your incentive (to allow players to see the social aspect of smash, not only the competition) will be solved with an amateur bracket. If that is your goal, why not just hold a smashfest? Just offer casual players a free ride to a local smashfest. Let them get to know some of the competitive players and give them a chance to improve before introducing them to the tournament scenes.

This way, there's a chance of introducing newer players to competitive smash without hurting tournament outcome, and the chances of these players to learn about the community will increase. If you want to grab the attention of casual players, start from the social side, and I believe that smashfests is a much better outlet to introduce newer players to.

sneakytako · Aug 27, 2010

Amateur brackets seem better at keeping mediocre players around longer, rather than pulling more newbies. I like this idea, but it should only be done in larger tournaments imo (but not too large lol). The only problem I foresee is people good players sandbagging in brackets to **** amateur bracket because too many top level players are in their bracket. If payouts of bracket is to top 5, why wouldn't the potential seventh place people just sandbag and win amateur bracket?

If we really want more people to play smash, we need more exposure.

Bones0 · Aug 27, 2010

shadow, I think you are juts misunderstanding how it would work.

1. You have to enter the regular bracket to even be allowed to enter the amateur bracket.
2. It would not take place before the actual brackets. The regular brackets is what determines who is allowed to participate in the amateur tournament.
3. No one's saying all new players are guaranteed to enjoy this experience, but getting destroyed two games in a row because of your seed and then going home simply does not work as a means for attracting new players. You can't change that without screwing the top players, so amateur brackets simply give a side tournament with the bottom half (or w/e division is chosen) of the players a chance to get some tournament matches where they aren't get 4-stocked by someone warming up with a low tier.

And sneaky, a lot of people are worried about the sandbagging issue. Until someone comes up with a solution, I don't think the side tournaments should be payed out to. They should just be free since newer players won't want to spend more money anyway. They just want some good, close tournament matches.

sneakytako · Aug 27, 2010

I think the sandbag issue should be left under the TOs discretion. They should be able to DQ people in the top 16 if they feel that there was obvious sanbagging rather than a real upset. Although that would mean the TOs would have to watch every top 16 match...

But payouts would motivate middle of the pack players to do better and give them a better indication of where they stand in regards to other players (because they would play harder).

-Ran · Aug 27, 2010

The sand bag issue is simple. You don't allow power ranked players in your Novice bracket. If they have been power ranked in the previous two seasons, then they aren't allowed to enter the novice bracket. As a tournament organizer, you should know the individuals in your state well enough to know who is sand bagging. If they attempt to circumvent the system so as to deprive its purpose from occurring, then you just have to utilize your pull as the creator of the tournament and kick them out. Beyond that, the goal is to avoid making the money for Novice brackets to be substantial. It should be a matter of only recovering their losses to get into the main bracket. There's no profit to be made.

Beyond that, someone brought up the suggestion of doing Smashfests instead of amateur brackets. Unfortunately, it's a tough sell to get someone that has never gone to a tournament to randomly show up at someone's house so that they can play smash. Aside from that, I'm not in the business of trusting strangers into my house that I haven't met a few times. I've already had a full bottle of Adderall stolen from my house by someone in the smash community. A tournament environment allows for the community to safely gather intelligence on new players to see if they are decent human beings.

Bones0 · Aug 27, 2010

MD/VA Melee doesn't have PRs, and as far as telling who is sandbagging and who isn't, that works as long as no one improves. If someone wins a local amateur tourney handily several times in a row, do you just randomly tell them they can no longer enter? I really don't see how paying out can work though. I guarantee there will be people who would rather sandbag and get their entry fee back than actually try and end up going home with $10 less than they could have.

-Ran · Aug 27, 2010

Bones0 said:
If someone wins a local amateur tourney handily several times in a row, do you just randomly tell them they can no longer enter?

You, as the tournament organizer, deny them entry to the events after that. You get to pat them on their back and tell them that they are a 'big boy.' It's easy to tell when someone is sand bagging, and if someone is dominating the playing field of the novice bracket it will be clear that they don't belong there. Unless you're saying that your tournament organizers are complete idiots, I don't see the problem.

In Louisiana, we have about fifty people that play Brawl that show up to events. Since I've been a member of the scene since Brawl started, I'm aware of everyone's limitations. Because of that, I can confidently tell someone that they aren't allowed to enter the novice bracket. The goal isn't to hand out free money, but to increase the pool of players that come to events. Venues aren't cheap, and by having more people show up you can expand your events.

-Ran · Sep 29, 2010

Bump for Great Justice.

I ran the first true Novice Bracket last weekend. Even better, I had a few new players that had never attended a tournament before that showed up just because they had heard about the Novice Bracket. The rules that I elected to follow were a slight deviation from the standard Brawl rules, in order to save time for the actual tournament. Stocks were set at 2, the timer to 6 minutes, and finals were played as best of three, instead of being a best of five.

I had 13 players enter into the Brawl Novice tournament, which brought in 13 dollars [one dollar per entry] to be used to bring the top player into the bracket, and pay three dollars for the second place. Utlimately, the top two players decided to split which allowed both of them to enter the tournament. When I questioned the new players their enjoyment level, they all resounded that they enjoyed the chance for a competitive field of play, rather than being blown out of the water by the best players in the state.

Contrary to worries of various posters, seven of the players from the Novice bracket opted to enter the ten dollar bracket despite where they placed in the Novice bracket: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 5th, 9th, and 9th. Furthermore, the player that won the Novice Bracket placed last in the main bracket, while the player that 9th in the Novice bracket placed 5th in the actual bracket.

Seeding for the Novice bracket was done randomly without any level of skill attached to the individual players. The bracket was merely edited to prevent friends from playing against each other.

Inui · Sep 30, 2010

I see one problem, and that is lack of time. I most certainly can't fit that into our events in NY/NJ. They are too large and most people want side tournaments like Brawl- or low tiers over a second bracket only for those that got *****.

-Ran · Sep 30, 2010

It's true, time is always an issue in tournaments. My goal is to have the Novice bracket start immediately while the best players are still getting over their hang-overs and calling me about running late to the tournament. Since no seeding is applied, the event is setup the moment that the tournament entries cease to be taken. I will admit though, this works better in an area with a smaller player pool such as Louisiana. Running a 16 man Novice Bracket takes very little time, but we also don't run side events at our tournaments. No one ever wants to do teams, and attendance is horrible for any other side event that I have run.

The solution would be to cap the Novice bracket at a larger tournament so that it can be finished by the time that the normal tournament would start and go under way. A sixteen man Novice bracket shouldn't take more than an hour and a half. 10 minutes average match would, assuming six setups should take less than an hour and a half. This time can be used to make the bracket and wait for other entrants to the main event.

Espy Rose · Sep 30, 2010

Nike 20 said:
You stole this from San Antonio meanie D:<

We call it Redemption Bracket lol (so that everyone gets a chance to "redeem" themselves.) Everyone who doesn't place top8 gets seeded into it (four 9 seeds get the byes, and so on for everyone else).

We've done about 8ish Redemption Tournies in 2010 and it's been VERY successful and received nothing but applause. I highly recommend this to any TO's.

Quoting for great justice.
Ran is a mean 'ol man that steals San Antonio's ideas.
</3

-Ran · Sep 30, 2010

The Redemption bracket was inspiration for it, since I initially tried it out in Louisiana. However, I felt that the experience wasn't necessarily helping out the players that I wanted to target, and so it eventually evolved into the Novice bracket. I found that the redemption bracket allowed players to sandbag to hit the 'sweet spot' to get into the bracket, so that they could make their money back, or the skill divide was substantial between the tenth ranked player, and the rest that had entered the tournament due to a randomly poor performance, or just the strength of players there.

Espy Rose · Sep 30, 2010

We usually opted to not inform the players of where the cutoff was, since it changed from tournament to tournament based on attendance and whatnot. It isn't until the main tournament finished that we announce who made it into the Redemption, so purposely placing at one spot was not only reckless, but stupid.

Still, regardless, it's always a great idea. SA's Redemption Brackets always get praise from the players, so I have no doubt that your version will be just as successful.

Inui · Sep 30, 2010

It sounds like a good idea, but it's not plausible in my region. That's all.

Espy Rose · Sep 30, 2010

That's a shame, Inui.
If your region ever DOES have the chance, I'd say to give it a whirl.

I've actually had a lot of fun watching Redemption here in San Antonio.

~ Gheb ~ · Sep 30, 2010

It's probably better suited for smaller tournaments. I actually use it at my tourneys because with smaller attendance doubles becomes somewhat less popular. Instead I do A-class and B-class brackets and triples or low tiers as side events [or both if there's enough time].

ngfc_0 · Oct 3, 2010

I would like to know if eliminating the stage striking would work for the amateur bracket. Cause everyone who is not used to play competively automaticaly wants to play in Final Destination and probably won't know the matchup advantages some chars have there.
This could save a lot of time i guess...
btw, Gheb_01, how does triples work?

-Ran · Oct 3, 2010

Though it would be possible just to reduce it to the five stage starters and throw it on random, it is better for the Novice players to learn the mechanics behind competitive matches so that they can grow as players.

~ Gheb ~ · Oct 3, 2010

ngfc_0 said:
btw, Gheb_01, how does triples work?

It's a special modification of a crew battle where you play in a bracket / round robin with teams of three players each. There are two common ways to play it:

- Crew Battle Style: Played like a regular Crew battle. Player 1 of team A fights Player 1 of team B. The winner plays Player 2 of the opponent's team and removes all stocks lost in the previous battle at the beginning of the next fight. Once all players of a triples team are eliminated the other team wins.

- Traditional Fighter Style: If you beat the opponent you will start the next battle with 3 stocks again. Otherwise it's the same.

ranmaru · Oct 4, 2010

Well, let's look at why new bloods might not be interested in continuing.

They want to get BETTER, BUT:

PRICE, DIFFICULTY, and FUN are an issue.

New bloods want to have fun, at the most. They aren't thinking about OH I HAVE TO PRACTICE MY TECH LIKE 1000 TIMES TO GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Neither are they acting like smash warriors or nothing... They just probably want to see how a tournament is like. They probably wouldn't want teams as a side-event. Maybe they would rather play Free-for-all as a side event... It's like this. It goes from wanting to play with items on and playing super sudden death mode with all falcos or something. Then, it goes to free-for-alls, and thinking "I want to be the best out of my regular smash circle". Then, it goes to playing to win, and WINNING after that = fun. : ]

So, we can't really **** the living hell out of them. We have to let them have fun, and see just the borders of the competitive scene. Warm them up for the pool water.

So, how about we have seperate tournaments? A, B, and C tournaments.

Why seperate tournaments? Because people wouldn't lower the price for AM brackets, since they need money for the pot. They just want new bloods to fill the pots. That's just not gonna work, folks.

And also because they should compete within themselves. OMFG there is so much skill in this game. They won't have a drive of getting better unless they start in a pool of kiddies their age. Meaning kiddies of their skill level.

So let's have A=Low price+skill, B=Medium price+skill, and C=High+skill.

(A) would have a lot of novices who would like to get better at the game. They won't mind losing if they only drop $5 or $10 for venue and singles. Maybe Singles should be done first, so that they can just focus on a total of $10 for the tourny. I'm sure teams wouldn't be important here because they would just want to get better. I'm sure that we'd see four people per tv, but it wouldn't be for teams friendlies. It'd probably be for free-for-all friendlies. That's not bad at all, it's just so that they can have fun. Although, TEAMS could be done as a side event. It wouldn't be too hard for us mid-level players to beat a few teams. If they would rather do free-for-all as a PAY TO WIN side event, it should be ok to do. But don't make the pay out like really good. We don't want it to be TOO serious. Maybe it could be $2 per person, or $3 for highstakes lol. (A) Only needs a low price (and good location) for new player interest. You know, farm them up.

Also, at something of this level, we may have the Whiners. You know, WAAAAAAHHHH.

Heres a dumb excuse you probably wouldn't expect "Hey you two are so good that's why you are winning"

Now, this person would be mad that you ARE that good enough to win the free-for-all. He wouldn't understand that we spent years practicing the fundamentals and basics, to be able to use techniques to beat him while he was just doing dumb ****.

Or the dude that's like "FIGHT ME MAN FIGHT ME, BE A MAN"

Why would he be saying that? He wanted you to NOT block and take it like a man, so that he can accrue some damage to kill you. Like, countering is bad to some casuals.

You KNOW that there are some things that casuals will come up with. Even to NOT playing with people who wavedash or something. "OH YOUR CHEATING".

Some people just can't play this game. So you will need people to quell the babies and the whiners. I'm sure you wouldn't see that baby in that tournament again or even in a (B) tournament. It would be funny to see that baby winning a (C) tournament though.

===================================
(A) > (B) Would need some time. It took me like a semester of playing and obsession to get a LITTLE better. Still, I didn't block much, and I couldn't wavedash nor L-cancel. a few months after I was getting better at wavedashing. So maybe after a year, there would be More (A)'s at a (B).

Also, remember, that as a novice, we always LOVED free-for-alls. WE would want to have fun with our original circle of friends. BUT, we also wanted to get better at the game so we can have some friendly competition! So make sure to have ALOT of fun at novice tournaments. Maybe there would need to be a free-for-all side event... Maybe they'd like that more than a teams side event. (But at a low price)

Its always about fun. But you always will want to be the best at the same time. Then eventually it'll be funner to become better and win.
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(B) would need (A) To have had a few tournaments so that novices could learn and evolve into MEDIUM level. Once they get to medium level, they KNOW that they are progressing. They have practiced wavedashing and maybe L-Canceling and gotten a little better at it. Hopefully they don't smash attack as much. Without (A), (B) wouldn't have as much medium tourny goers.

===================================
(B) > (C) Would take a long time as well. Maybe a year as well. They would have been able to get wavedashing down, and MAYBE L-Cancelling. They probably don't do it as well in battle, though. At this time, they might be finding out that they are only playing in a certain way... Meaning that they might just be doing there own thing. They might just think COMBOS COMBOS COMBOS and not be THINKING at all. I have learned myself that I have to observe my opponent and try to think of what they want to do. I can't just FORCE my attacks onto them. I have to manuever smoothly and then just strike them like a ninja.

By this time I'm sure intermediate players would rather play teams then free-for-all. Free-for-all would just be a way to play if there isn't enough time and theres alot of people. Maybe by this time they might incorporate PLAY-TO-WIN strategies.
=====================================

(C) wouldn't have ALOOOT of intermediate smash bros players if (A) and (B) didn't exist. (C) would just have the same old players with dedicated NEW players (new as in been playing for at least 2 years) who really want to become the best but have to work at it for REALZ to get to anywhere near the middle. (A) and (B) would help with incouragement, and not driving people away due to ****-EGE.

Err...

So yeah. Sure there would be smashers who would stay at A or B just because they like to stay there. Like this one guy, says he is on honorable mentions, but doesn't play smash that much anymore because he feels thats a good place to be and retire. Like that's all he needs... he was a jiggs.

But yeah, that's how the system would be.

But this way, we wouldn't really be hurting the novices. And top players wouldn't go to the (A) tourny, but I'm sure mid-level players would. ****. I would. Maybe I'd win like... $25 bucks. Hey that would be like 5 times the single entry fee. That's pretty ****.

NEW IDEA:

Novices should be required to enter (A) and (B) tournaments, (in that order) so that they can have fun and get a little ***** at the (A) tournies. (They have fun and play people near their skill level)

Now, after that one, they should go to a (B) tourny, and enter. They would probably get *****, but not super hard. They'd know that theres ANOTHER level of smash. Plus, they would be getting ***** and LEARNING.

Then they could go to their (A) tournies and probably do MUCH better lol.

Then, they could go to a (C) tourny (after A and B though) just to see the PROS do their work. They probably shouldn't enter though... just friendlies and money matches with their fave players.

ALSO

Intermediate players can get fans from novices too! Think of that!

Right? All this work and we get no **** praise.

Also, we must remember that some beginners may want to have top level players there so they can meet them. But the sad truth is, don't most top level players play for money? Would they go to an (A) Tournament? I am not sure, you tell me.

I mean I hope it really isn't like that, where the most **** player wants to play and leave like in ten seconds.

-Ran · Oct 5, 2010

In most scenes, the top players are going to attend a tournament regardless of how much money they stand to gain as long as they break even to pay for gas. Tiering down tournaments into three subsets simply wouldn't work. The spirit of this system is to provide a buffer for the newer players to get used to how the game is played, and to give them tangible goals so that they can measure their progress. Hence, it's just meant as a gateway into the bigger bracket. Running even more tournaments has an even greater demand on the tournament organizer and the venue constraints.

NeoBatou · Oct 8, 2010

-Ran said:
In most scenes, the top players are going to attend a tournament regardless of how much money they stand to gain as long as they break even to pay for gas. Tiering down tournaments into three subsets simply wouldn't work. The spirit of this system is to provide a buffer for the newer players to get used to how the game is played, and to give them tangible goals so that they can measure their progress. Hence, it's just meant as a gateway into the bigger bracket. Running even more tournaments has an even greater demand on the tournament organizer and the venue constraints.

What's going on Ran, long time.
Yes as you can see I am the only Captain Falcon main in Texas and yes I know you wanted me to try Marth or Wario but I enjoy playing CF enough to where losing doesn't matter to me. I'm a double's player at best...Denti and I come close to top 3 all the time.

Anyways, I agree with this method.

If you think about it, if they try to do the novice tournament and they "still" don't approve of it, what more can you do about it?

However it's important we explain to them that we do this so they can a better grasp of the tournament scene. You can go to a HOBO or a local tournament and play friendlies all day but you still won't have that sense of urgency to really try hard, stage strike effectively or things of such nature. This is why I think that they encourage money matches, crew battles, things of that nature as well to try and stimulate a bigger turnout even if the novice players do bad at the tournament....we want them to stay and play friendlies, we want them to ultimately have fun in the process as well.

This is just what I think. I didn't read all the other pages simply because I gotta get ready for HOBO this morning but I like the direction to where this Novice tournament is going.

Raziek · Oct 8, 2010

I actually really like this idea, but I have a couple of questions about it.

The Nova Scotian Smash Scene has ABOUT 30-35 people, currently, so I'm wondering if this kind of idea will work well with our scene.

1) This is run with, ideally, 16 players, correct? Entry is granted to those who aren't power ranked twice, and pay the minor entry fee. ($2 to the venue, $1 to the bracket?)

Are these players also REQUIRED to enter the big boy's bracket, and the winner gets their entry into it for free?

This is something I feel like we could probably implement, since we're NOT REAAAALLY big enough for pools play, but I want to make sure our players have the best experience they possibly can.

ranmaru · Oct 8, 2010

-Ran said:
In most scenes, the top players are going to attend a tournament regardless of how much money they stand to gain as long as they break even to pay for gas. Tiering down tournaments into three subsets simply wouldn't work. The spirit of this system is to provide a buffer for the newer players to get used to how the game is played, and to give them tangible goals so that they can measure their progress. Hence, it's just meant as a gateway into the bigger bracket. Running even more tournaments has an even greater demand on the tournament organizer and the venue constraints.

Yeah well, still. I thought it would be nice because the skill meter in smash is soooooo deep. It's sort of like a mesh... You want them to have fun and not as much difficulty at first, but then you still want them to experience the top player ****** them experience. But, again, it's easy to deter new bloods from smash. It's not like we don't intend to transition them to the real scene. Plus I'm sure when smash started there was some sort of novice setting because everyone needed to learn how to play it, I guess.

NeoBatou said:
What's going on Ran, long time.
Yes as you can see I am the only Captain Falcon main in Texas and yes I know you wanted me to try Marth or Wario but I enjoy playing CF enough to where losing doesn't matter to me. I'm a double's player at best...Denti and I come close to top 3 all the time.

Anyways, I agree with this method.

If you think about it, if they try to do the novice tournament and they "still" don't approve of it, what more can you do about it?

However it's important we explain to them that we do this so they can a better grasp of the tournament scene. You can go to a HOBO or a local tournament and play friendlies all day but you still won't have that sense of urgency to really try hard, stage strike effectively or things of such nature. This is why I think that they encourage money matches, crew battles, things of that nature as well to try and stimulate a bigger turnout even if the novice players do bad at the tournament....we want them to stay and play friendlies, we want them to ultimately have fun in the process as well.

This is just what I think. I didn't read all the other pages simply because I gotta get ready for HOBO this morning but I like the direction to where this Novice tournament is going.

Well, like I said, they can go to which ever event. They can even enter, it's just that higher ranked players shouldn't enter because that would disrupt the whole purpose of dividing the tournaments into subsets. We are trying to give them some room to breathe before getting *****. Plus, if we have 3 divisions, they won't feel as if it's two divisions, noobs and the pros. We don't want that.

Sure it would take more effort, but how else can you get new players? Plus it's fun for them. I'm pretty sure the scene now is pretty intense for new people. Don't act like it isn't.

You can do just novice tournaments and regular tournaments... if you don't have the time or effort, but we wouldn't want people to look down on novice tournaments and pressure them to come to regular ones...

Rubyiris · Oct 8, 2010

funny thing is that what got me into competitive smash was getting my face ***** in by someone LEVELS UPON LEVELS BETTER THAN MYSELF.

~ Gheb ~ · Oct 8, 2010

Raziek said:
I actually really like this idea, but I have a couple of questions about it.

The Nova Scotian Smash Scene has ABOUT 30-35 people, currently, so I'm wondering if this kind of idea will work well with our scene.

1) This is run with, ideally, 16 players, correct? Entry is granted to those who aren't power ranked twice, and pay the minor entry fee. ($2 to the venue, $1 to the bracket?)

Are these players also REQUIRED to enter the big boy's bracket, and the winner gets their entry into it for free?

This is something I feel like we could probably implement, since we're NOT REAAAALLY big enough for pools play, but I want to make sure our players have the best experience they possibly can.

30-35 people is perfectly fine for pools actually. Assume you have 32 people at your tournament. You can make 8 pools of 4 people then have the two best of each pool progress into the A-Class / Pro-Bracket, where they play for the pot in a 16 player Bracket. The other 16 playes will go into the B-Class / Amateur-Bracket, where they play in another 16 player bracket. You can use the pools to decide who goes into A or B Bracket and to seed each player for their Bracket they go into.

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