Cup of Harmony 88 Bid - Tumbra

[Tumbra]

Tumbran Bid for Cup of Harmony 88
yes, really.

The Twist: Let’s get this out of the way first; there will be two twists.

1. Rank will only be used for seeding on the group draw. After that, rank will be discarded and everyone will start from 0. I believe that by evening out the playing field it will reward people who consistently RP even in a short group stage. It also increases the chances of a dark horse run, which I personally believe to be sorely lacking in recent Cups of Harmony. RP bonus will be adjusted accordingly to compensate.

2. One nation per user. What I mean to say is that I only wish to have no puppets within the Cup of Harmony. If a user has two nations, and one qualifies for the World Cup, the other will still be eligible for the Cup of Harmony. If a user has two nations which both don't make it, only one of those two will be invited. Shared puppets will be judged on whether either of their mains make the World Cup, allowing for a very narrow exception to the rules. (i.e. if one or both mains make the World Cup, the shared puppet will be eligible; if both fail to make the World Cup, the shared puppet will not be eligible). This is to ensure as broad a playing field as possible, encompassing users rather than nations. This “twist” will only be rescinded should I find there to be not enough high-quality entrants to the Cup of Harmony (which I doubt will happen, but I could always be forced to make a frankly embarrassing U-Turn).

2a. Users with two nations which would be invited will be given the chance to choose which nation they wish to be invited to the Cup of Harmony.

Invitation Criteria: I will endeavour to work together with the elected hosts — whomever they are — to produce a list of users who have posted at least a roster and roleplayed in any two cutoff windows throughout the qualifying cycle, playoffs included. Consistency will also be taken into account. This criteria is a lower bound, and I expect it to be much stricter than that in reality. Should the hosts not wish to work with me, I will grade the roleplays on the thread myself. A roster will not be required to accept the CoH invite; a simple “Yes” reply through telegram will suffice.

I prize roleplays that interact with other players’ roleplays, or at least show that you’ve read or respected other people’s RP permissions. Roleplays that also show good etiquette are a plus. Roleplays do not need to be too long. In the scenario where the World Cup hosts choose to work with me, I will largely trust World Cup hosts' grading criteria and decisions, but will make tweaks and alterations where necessary.

Plagiarised works will automatically exclude a nation from CoH contention. If a work is found to have used AI in terms of generating text, it will be treated as a plagiarised work.

Format: Anywhere from 32 to 40 nations. Formats appended below; nothing too special. All group stages will be single round-robin. I have appended here three formats should we get less than 32 nations; but my preference is for 32 at a minimum.
24: 6 groups of 4; group winners and runners-up (12) + 4 best third-placed teams proceed to knockouts. 7 cutoffs total.
28: 7 groups of 4; group winners and runners-up (14) + 2 best third-placed teams proceed to knockouts. 7 cutoffs total.
30: 6 groups of 5; group winners and runners-up (12) + 4 best third-placed teams proceed to knockouts. 8 cutoffs total.

32: 8 groups of 4; group winners and runners-up (16) proceed to knockouts. 7 cutoffs total.
35: 7 groups of 5; group winners and runners-up (14) + 2 best third-placed teams proceed to knockouts. 8 cutoffs total.
36: 6 groups of 6; group winners and runners-up (12) + 4 best third-placed teams proceed to knockouts. 9 cutoffs total.
40: 8 groups of 5; group winners and runners-up (16) proceed to knockouts. 8 cutoffs total.

In a 35 and 36-team format the brackets will be re-seeded, so that 1 v 16, 2 v 15, etc., with group stage rematch protection. 32 and 40-team formats will see A1vD2, etc.

In all cases cutoffs are 48h away from each other. Extra day between group stages and knockouts. 3PPO and F scorinated on the same day.

RP bonus guidelines
See the second paragraph under “Invitation criteria” for how I grade roleplays. But, to reiterate: Doesn’t have to be too long, interactivity is good, respecting other players’ RP permissions is good.

RP bonus will be generous (to encourage roleplays), cumulative, and non-degrading. Rosters will not be graded unless posted in the CoH thread itself (but, and I will emphasise, they will not be required to be posted to accept the invite and I will link the WCQ roster should it not be posted). Max roster bonus = one MD’s worth of bonus.

The RP permission “Choose my scorers = N” will not be enforced unless there is a valid IC reason, preferably highlighted within your roster.

Tiebreakers
Points > GD > H2H > H2H GD > IC coin flip (I score a match, but with draws turned off)

Formula
xkor 0.3.3, NSFS with additive mods and style mods from -5 to +5. One style mod change permitted per team as long as it's roleplayed. Maxrank will be set at the highest rank any team has achieved that cutoff.

Timeframe
I aim to synchronise somewhat with the World Cup. Scorination days would ideally be on days where the World Cup isn’t scorinated. Because a majority of formats will have more than 7 cutoffs, I offer no promises on whether this will finish before the World Cup ends.

Tumbra
will not be attending the Cup of Harmony if they fail to qualify for the World Cup. This will eliminate the need for a third-party scorer.

Experience
Football-relevant: BoF 77 with Graintfjall, CoH 83 with Mertagne, WC93 with Chromatika. Campionato Esportiva 36, Under-18 World Cups 15 and 20, Eagles' Cup 16, International Confederations Cup 1, solo. Thirteen scorinated seasons of a domestic league.
Others: WGPC season 20 with Aboveland, WGP2 season 6, solo.

TL;DR:
No ranks except for seeding.
Only one nation per user; puppets will be thrown to the back of the line. One nation in WC + One nation in CoH = OK. Two nations in CoH = Not OK unless there really aren’t any other eligible nations I deem high-quality enough.
32-40 nations. Min criteria: Roster + 2 roleplays.

And to make it absolutely, unequivocally clear: this is a serious bid. Comments and questions welcome.

[Tikariot]

While I obviously hope I won't need to experience it, I can get on board with the rank reset. It's a radical approach that will reward active RPers, especially since the invitation criteria are based on, well, RPs.

[Oberour Ar Moro]

The invitation criteria at offer is very generous, which I very much in favor of. So generous that there might be more than 40 nations that meet the criteria. How will you decide which nations get invited and which don't if there are over 40 potential invitees?

[Legalese]

Similar question to OaM: At what point would you consider going over 40 participants? If the answer to that is no, then would you give a hypothetical example of the best body of work you could imagine someone having, and yet still feel comfortable leaving them out?

[Tumbra]

The invitation criteria at offer is very generous, which I very much in favor of. So generous that there might be more than 40 nations that meet the criteria. How will you decide which nations get invited and which don't if there are over 40 potential invitees?

Oh, yes, I agree — which is why I did mention that I expect the actual qualifying criteria to be a bit stricter than just a roster and two roleplays. I will be looking holistically at a roleplayer's level of contribution and quality when determining who to invite and who not to. Two roleplays and a roster is, again, a minimum criteria; I am deliberately casting my net wide in case we do see an RPocalypse with unprecedentedly low numbers of roleplay.

Similar question to OaM: At what point would you consider going over 40 participants?

I find myself agreeing with both myself and Delaclava over the size of the CoH in recent cycles. Going over 40 would be a very last resort that I would employ if the volume of quality roleplay this cycle truly exceeds anything during the past few cycles. In that scenario, the maximum number of participants I would entertain would be 48.

If the answer to that is no, then would you give a hypothetical example of the best body of work you could imagine someone having, and yet still feel comfortable leaving them out?

Please return with a concrete case study and I will endeavour to answer your question.

[Graintfjall]

Although it's not likely, what happens if you get fewer than 32 eligible nations: would you be more likely to cave on the criteria, or on the 32 team lower bound? (Ignoring the bit about puppets.)

[Tumbra]

Although it's not likely, what happens if you get fewer than 32 eligible nations: would you be more likely to cave on the criteria, or on the 32 team lower bound? (Ignoring the bit about puppets.)

The 32 team lower bound; I feel that the criteria is sufficiently lenient enough to encourage participation without turning the Cup of Harmony into a participation trophy.

[Cassadaigua]

This question is a little more of along the lines of a Devil's Advocate type question.

I like the intent of awarding RPs, but if everyone starts at zero, and everyone in a group is roleplaying to a similar level to the point where Margaret doesn't really care about the minor differences in KPB, isn't this really just a random type tournament with the results that will be produced? I could see this working if we had a longer format, such as a double round robin but in a single round robin, this just to me, seems like it doesn't really award RP, it just becomes a very random thing overall.

Example, Pre MD1 in a four team group, these are the values in xkoranate:

A: 2.5
B: 3.0
C: 1.9
D: 2.6

From my experiences with xkoranate, it's a complete random toss up (to where the impact of randomess is major. Yes, I know, randomness is always a factor) between A, B, and D while C is close enough to A and D to be random with them. Have nations really been rewarded for RP here, or have we just created one giant cluster?

In a double round robin, I think you're idea can work as some worthwhile for Margaret separation will be created in the entered values, but in a single round robin, I don't think we're getting the intent here to reward roleplays, we're just letting Margaret have fun with it.

[Independent Athletes from Quebec]

'No ranks except for seeding' sounds reasonable enough. Some will send full-strength squad right after quals, others not so fast.

In last several CoHs I have been around as a top pot, sure. But I also tend to purge significant number of players from senior NT, or ICly grant them a summer off before re-evaluating their respective situation before the following WCQ. May sound extreme, but poor performance by team should come with major IC consequences is my stance, so I could live with that fine.

Not to mention that no ranks part isn't that unusual or bad, especially with how the age-side competitions such as DBC and U18WC do not use them and both competitions seem to have no issue(s) generated out of it. Neither does WJHC, where there has never been official rankings, or NSCF where the rank only amounts to a matchday/roster's worth and could easily be catched by the users. All of those competitions may have an oddball or two make it to QFs or so, but for most part those in the semifinals and final have either roleplayed most consistently, quite well, and/or both. This has not always been the case with CoH.

This bid looks sound enough from my end.

[Audioslavia]

I like the bid. A one-nation-per-user rule for the CoH is very welcome.

1. Rank will only be used for seeding on the group draw. After that, rank will be discarded and everyone will start from 0. I believe that by evening out the playing field it will reward people who consistently RP even in a short group stage. It also increases the chances of a dark horse run, which I personally believe to be sorely lacking in recent Cups of Harmony. RP bonus will be adjusted accordingly to compensate.

If the WC hosts share their RP Bonus data with you, would you consider using that Qualifying RP Bonus as each team's base ranking, rather than having everyone start on zero? Farf mentioned this idea to me a couple of months ago and I immediately fell in love with it.

If not: You're using NSFS with a system which will likely see each team's 'rank' figure on xkoranate be a pretty low number. What figure will you be using for Maxrank? Too high, and as Cass says above there'll be little to choose between teams. Too low, and it'll have to be adjusted every matchday. (I think? Scorinators are probably the part of NS Sport I know least about)

[Tumbra]

This question is a little more of along the lines of a Devil's Advocate type question.

I like the intent of awarding RPs, but if everyone starts at zero, and everyone in a group is roleplaying to a similar level to the point where Margaret doesn't really care about the minor differences in KPB, isn't this really just a random type tournament with the results that will be produced? I could see this working if we had a longer format, such as a double round robin but in a single round robin, this just to me, seems like it doesn't really award RP, it just becomes a very random thing overall.

Example, Pre MD1 in a four team group, these are the values in xkoranate:

A: 2.5
B: 3.0
C: 1.9
D: 2.6

From my experiences with xkoranate, it's a complete random toss up (to where the impact of randomess is major. Yes, I know, randomness is always a factor) between A, B, and D while C is close enough to A and D to be random with them. Have nations really been rewarded for RP here, or have we just created one giant cluster?

In a double round robin, I think you're idea can work as some worthwhile for Margaret separation will be created in the entered values, but in a single round robin, I don't think we're getting the intent here to reward roleplays, we're just letting Margaret have fun with it.

While I understand and accept that this may make things too random, I don't think I'm willing to add extra cutoffs to a tournament that has a big chance of being longer than the actual World Cup (3/4 of my proposed formats already have more cutoffs than the World Cup's — I'm assuming — 7) because of RP burnout. It is true that this will make randomness more of a factor in this tournament; I simply feel that the greater impact is an acceptable trade-off for what I feel will be a fairer tournament than if we'd just kept rank around. Would it be as fair as something which I'll talk about next in this post? Probably not. But I'll explain why I'm starting from 0 then.

I like the bid. A one-nation-per-user rule for the CoH is very welcome.

If the WC hosts share their RP Bonus data with you, would you consider using that Qualifying RP Bonus as each team's base ranking, rather than having everyone start on zero? Farf mentioned this idea to me a couple of months ago and I immediately fell in love with it.

If not: You're using NSFS with a system which will likely see each team's 'rank' figure on xkoranate be a pretty low number. What figure will you be using for Maxrank? Too high, and as Cass says above there'll be little to choose between teams. Too low, and it'll have to be adjusted every matchday. (I think? Scorinators are probably the part of NS Sport I know least about)

To get the easy question out of the way first: I'd be okay with adjusting maxrank every day, and would probably just set it at the highest raw coefficient that day.

Now for the other idea: I like it, and my first instinct was wow, why didn't I think of that first, I should really talk to Farf more as he's a really cool guy; and maybe I'll look to see if I can co-opt that for a future Cup of Harmony bid if it isn't already being done or in the works already. But for this edition, I think I'll be sticking to everyone starting on zero, mainly to see how a CoH completely bereft of rank would actually go (and to see if my hypothesis that this would be better for lower-ranked nations is true). I also want to see a tournament where the only thing that determines skill within said tournament is roleplay level during the tournament itself; with no carry-over from qualifying or otherwise.

tl;dr: I think not having double round-robins are a fair tradeoff to not have a tournament so long that it burns people out; and I want to have a tournament where the only thing determining rank is activity level within the tournament itself.

[Legalese]

Going over 40 would be a very last resort that I would employ if the volume of quality roleplay this cycle truly exceeds anything during the past few cycles. In that scenario, the maximum number of participants I would entertain would be 48...

Please return with a concrete case study and I will endeavour to answer your question.

I think the above answers what I was trying to get at -- where the threshold lies for you in terms of inclusivity (balanced against your concerns over logistics, more or less). I appreciate the response, and like what I see in this bid, generally.

[Sarzonia]

I understand the logic behind the rank reset, and it probably would've helped me last time out, but I can't help not liking that aspect of the bid.

I like the fact that you gave a general floor for the amount of RP required to earn an invite. I REALLY like the specification that plagiarism is disqualifying. However, I'm not clear how you'd be able to detect AI use outside of the possibility that an AI RP could be starkly different in style from the user's normal fare.

Edit: I'm not a fan of the one nation per user thing or the shared puppet not qualifying thing you mentioned, but compared to the rank reset, I could overlook that aspect of the bid.

[Tumbra]

I understand the logic behind the rank reset, and it probably would've helped me last time out, but I can't help not liking that aspect of the bid.

I like the fact that you gave a general floor for the amount of RP required to earn an invite. I REALLY like the specification that plagiarism is disqualifying. However, I'm not clear how you'd be able to detect AI use outside of the possibility that an AI RP could be starkly different in style from the user's normal fare.

Edit: I'm not a fan of the one nation per user thing or the shared puppet not qualifying thing you mentioned, but compared to the rank reset, I could overlook that aspect of the bid.

May I ask what exactly you dislike about both of the twists?

[Tumbra]

A change that I find important to make known: the requirement for "at least two roleplays" has been changed to "roleplayed in any two cutoff windows throughout the qualifying cycle." The difference is subtle and is intended largely as a tightening of phrasing. Most roleplays will be unimpacted, as most users submit one roleplay per window anyway, if they submit at all.

[Valanora]

As the curator of the DBC which employs a single round robin with no ranks, which this format is emulating, it is as Cass says and the group stage is a toss up. The idea of using the WCQ RP bonus as ranks I think has merit but as it is not going to be utilized for this bid, I can't support making the CoH a Rand() only tournament during the group stage.

[Valentine Z]

Something I would like to ask - how big of a part will it play from a factor such as collaboration with other players? Of course, I do try my best to read through the other RPs (at least the ones in my bracket) and respond to them accordingly, but what of those that were mostly making worldbuilding / storyline RPs?

[Tumbra]

Something I would like to ask - how big of a part will it play from a factor such as collaboration with other players? Of course, I do try my best to read through the other RPs (at least the ones in my bracket) and respond to them accordingly, but what of those that were mostly making worldbuilding / storyline RPs?

Those will be fine. I don't feel like limits on roleplay contents would be good. I'll elaborate more on what, I feel, makes a quote-unquote "good" roleplay in a hypothetical OP should this bid win; but you can rest assured that worldbuilding/storyline roleplaying is fine.

[Valentine Z]

Something I would like to ask - how big of a part will it play from a factor such as collaboration with other players? Of course, I do try my best to read through the other RPs (at least the ones in my bracket) and respond to them accordingly, but what of those that were mostly making worldbuilding / storyline RPs?

Those will be fine. I don't feel like limits on roleplay contents would be good. I'll elaborate more on what, I feel, makes a quote-unquote "good" roleplay in a hypothetical OP should this bid win; but you can rest assured that worldbuilding/storyline roleplaying is fine.

That's a very fair answer, thank you for the answer! ^^

[Tumbra]

I have added three additional formats in the (quite unlikely) scenario that we fail to hit 32 willing participants, either due to declinations or not having enough nations to meet the criteria. I will stress that my ideal format is for a tournament with 32 participants and up; these additional formats are safeguards in that unlikely event.