ShadyAK

CTF Tournament Format Ideas - by ShadyAK

Baldur has suggested a format of the classic "league" structure that House of Quake CTF has. He is an experienced CTF player so is a fair representation of the CTF community and its (non-sexual c: ) wishes. I personally liked his idea, as it's interesting to try new concepts, but only when knowing in theory, what the chance of success is. I've listed a few alternative cup-formats, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. We should agree what sort of format would fit a HoQ league best, based on factors such as "ease of implementation", "potential complaints/whine from our userbase" and "easiness to understand the system". There are a couple:

1) Division-Based Group Stage followed by Knockout Stage
This is the same system as the one used on clanbase, each division is divided into an even number of groups (given the current popularity of CTF based on the previous HoQ season (nobody mention kuh3liga CTF, as "it didn't happen, everyone involved was on holiday") 2 groups of 4 per division seems most reasonable. Teams play their groups to achieve who qualifies into the knockout stage (normally the top2, although any numberis  possible, see below). We could do a number of things with this system, with variety coming from the number of qualified teams from the groups: Top2 would be the industry standard for gaming portals, however top4 is also possible (with the groups acting like a seeding system) as well as top3 where winners of group get bye into the semi-final, and A2vB3 & B2vA3 play to establish the other two semi-finalists.

Pros: Established and easy to use system with success in previous leagues. Shows (minor) variety that would seem exciting to the CTF public.
Cons: Exactly the same system that is used on clanbase, so it would show variety to a HoQ CTF league, it would not be a new process. (also the original post asked to decrease longevity of cups, however that is not a solid point since that should not be a major concern, as 1) as a league it is just as good to organise one long and good one, as a series of short ones. Also one can not imagine the giant clusterfuck of a league that listens and implements _every_ suggestion)

Verdict: A tried an tested, easy to grasp system that's already in basically every long-term tournament that does not just start with a division.

2) Knockout Series
This is akin to NBA Playoffs, where instead of playing one game(one clanwar in our case), the clans play a set of bo3/bo5 with CWs rather than maps. It is an exciting system, completely new in the eyes of QL, and it will provide every clan with at least 2/3 (depending on agreed number) wars prior to being knocked out. To keep interest for knocked out clans, it is possible to also do 3rd/5th/7th place playoffs, however that is a concept which might not succeed since certain teams play to win and would not be interested to see whether they finish 7th or 8, resulting in WOs in some lower-place playoffs.

Pros: It is an exciting new system within QuakeLive, and might generate a lot of interest.
Cons: This cup would require perfect (not near perfect, but perfect) group/match drafts, as even in a bo5 tournament, if you are drawn against an imbalanced clan then your chances of progression have been nullified. In kuh3liga, a top-grade player joined the lowest division (div2) which changed the outcome of the league, and similar things may happen again as sometimes clans have friends/recruits that may inadvertently change the quality of the team, with their opponents suffering. If this has happened after groups have been finalised, could cause problems. There seems to be a lot of room for error.

Verdict: an interesting concept that would raise a few eyebrows, however too risky to take on its own, without some sort of safety net for clans, and combining this concept with either qualifier groups or with Double elimination brackets would give a much more stable system.

3) Double Elimination Knockout Series
This is subject number 2, with an added Loser Bracket, meaning clans have to lose two series to be knocked out.

Pros: The same as the pros for number 2, with the improvement on the original system with an addition of a safety net, meaning clans still have a chance despite losing the first round game. In order to win or lose however, clans
Cons: Potential longevity. In a division of 8 clans, in a round robin tournament (everybody plays everybody else in their division), a total of 10 operational weeks are needed from the finalisation of groups (one week for warm up, one break week for an individual clan per round, seven clanwar weeks, and an additional week for wildcards). This system would require 2-3 gameweeks per round, depending on whether it's a bo3 or bo5 series, and a total of 5 round cycles (so ideally, same 10 weeks, however in practice, potential delays almost every game cycle are possible, and no clear schedule is possible, so it could potentially take up to 13-15 weeks.

4) Division Based Groups, Followed by Knockout Series (single elimination)
A combination of proposition 1 and proposition 2: Clans play each other in subdivision mini-groups, then have a knockout (bo3) series of wars. The cup deadline should be raised to 2 weeks for the knockout stage, to give time to clans to arrange 3 wars (since you need to arrange the wars with the same clan, communication channels should be already established and 2 weeks for the potential 3 clanwars seems like a reasonable deadline).

Pros: this seems to take the pros from its parent propostions 1 and 2, and dealing with all the strong negative points (clans play at least 3 other clans before the knockout stage, so fair match ups can be expected. Longevity should not be a problem, since 1) it does seem to drag on and 2) the potential hype of a new style would ideally overweigh 2 weeks per knockout stage.
Cons: Groups are still vulnerable to troll/imba joins
Verdict: this seems like a fair compromise between concepts/eccentricity and tried/tested systems.

5) Division based Round Robin
This is the default system, that has previously been used, and only mentioned here in case it goes to a community vote, which should have a votable option for the default system. Nothing match to say about this really. X amount of teams in a league, end up playing everyone else in their division, having x-1 clanwars in X+2 amount of gameweeks (warmup week, individual break week mid-tourney, wildcard week at the end to tie up loose ends)

Pros: Tried and tested system which can cater to any amount of clans per team, not needing a multiplier of 2.
Cons: Bland system which can be seen in a lot of tournaments.
Verdict: should be picked only if other propositions are disregarded.

6) Meta-Matchup Double Elimnation.
This is a system where clans play one war on a bo3 basis (rising to bo5 in the semi-finals) with either randomly or seed/based system, and no divisions, so one layout for the whole tournament. Expected signups are somewhere in the 24-32 region, which would require a similar amount of gameweeks as a round robin tournament (seems that almost every propostion has a similar running time of 10-15 weeks) with 10 ideally, but given time for delays, it should be expected closer to 13-15.

Pros: a completely different approach that doesn't rely on drawing up groups, and gives clans which were knocked out, have a chance to progress in the loser brackets. The winner of the cup has a lot more credibility as a Champion of All Men.
Cons: a lot of imbalanced matches in the first WB bracket final. The winenr of the cup can be guessed from 3-4 names out of the 24-32 that sign up.

This completes the potential list. I have left out completely batshit insane tournament systems for this type of tournament (King of the Hill, Taiwanese Revenge, Stab The Hooker (I kind of made the last two up, and I personally think "Taiwanese Revenge" could make a cool title for a Steven Seagal film)), or any tournament concepts for shorter (one-day,one-week) tournaments as it would not be a good decision to stray away from the season-long tournaments which are all excellently done on HoQ.