The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Nephara]

If any tournament host has to cut puppets to keep numbers up, then please send out a DM to the nations primary nation letting them know if their puppet has been cut off

This has happened to me twice in three cycles now, It's simply good etiqute to warn people. especially if they had long thought ideas for their secondary nation.

What do you mean 'warn'? It makes no difference. The puppet will be cut either way.

I was in the same boat as you; ASU wound up being cut from the CR. This was entirely open and transparent, both in the signup thread;

The five puppets will be excluded. IC thread will be posted soon!

, and of course in the IC thread itself, with its full list of sides having no Askari Union or, indeed, Qaz. The signup thread OP even says that all puppets are 'conditional signups'. It isn't bad etiquette. Hosts shouldn't have to track down nations to give them information they're perfectly capable of finding out themselves, through posts they should be checking anyway in both relevant threads. Sure, it sucks that you had plans, but a 'warning' makes ... literally zero difference, they aren't getting posted either way.

I suspect that one matchday in, final signup Mytanija's already posted more RPs than the five puppets would have produced together, anyway.

[Graintfjall]

I'm sorry if you're disappointed by the outcome, but it's always been my understanding, as long as I've been hosting things, that primary nations take priority over secondary nations, and I was clear from the get-go that a 32 team primary nation cup was the format I would undertake if there was not a 33rd main nation signup.

I don't really understand what a PMed warning would accomplish. Whether or not you had been informed, the nation would have been cut, and if it were your intention that your puppet should take priority over your main, you could have said so (as you did with the IBC).

[Graintfjall]

Further to this gonna try a little NT manager search, with no guarantees. OOC requirements:

• style modifier in the -3 to 0 range
• willing to have me RP their character for stuff like basic post-match press conferences and interviews
• willing to put up with my silly sense of humor.

[Sarzonia]

If it's a situation where a host nation is voted upon by the membership or by a governing body, then it's understood that once a host has been chosen for a tournament, it's the host's discretion what to do about puppet sign-ups.

If the numbers point toward cutting a puppet or multiple puppets to get to a workable number, then it's really up to the host how to get there.

While I'd like to see a policy spelled out by the host, be it automatically cutting the last puppets to sign up or the first, or to slavishly follow directions from players (like "this is a numbers puppet, feel free to yeet if needed), that's really something we've always held to be up to the host to decide.

I'm sorry if you're disappointed to have a nation out of a tournament it sounded like you wanted that nation to be in, but that's an administrative and communications issue.

[Ethane]

Well folks, looks like the World Cup is coming closer and closer. Here's a fresh bid for you to observe.

[Starblaydia]

For those of you with a very long memory (seven years, I reckon) - the Meerkats are back.

It has been 12 years since these were created, for instance (we have got better at them since):

Welcome back!

[Valanora]

The DBC OP is now updated with the draw, fixtures, and schedule. Good luck to everyone.

[Valanora]

Another bid appears

[Zwangzug]

This is more broad than Ethane/Taeshan's bid so I've moved it here: on roster penalties.

If I understand correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong), the primary goal of roster penalties is not so much to incentivize people with existing rank "you better get your post up, or else," because (as discussed in the thread), people who are sufficiently checked-out that they don't post a roster anyway are probably not going to change their behavior in response to incentives. Rather, I suspect the intent of roster penalties is to decrease the cases of actively participating mid-to-low ranked sides being like "geez, I'm actively participating, and I lost to someone who hasn't even posted a roster, boo." Is this true? If so, then I think it makes sense to apply the penalty as a scaling rather than flat value.

I don't think that a flat "rosters will just have a high bonus applied to them, so everyone who at least posts a roster gets a boost" has the same mechanical effect as a scaled penalty. In particular for systems such as NSFS where everything is scaled as a maxpoints value, giving the #2 a high roster bonus and having that be the global max could have a trickle-down effect on score distribution vis-a-vis scaling down #1's points.

(Hosts could say something like "roster bonuses will be higher for lower-ranked teams, so an unranked side with a highly detailed roster gets more of a boost than a highly-ranked team with that same roster" to encourage a leg up. I don't actually hate this plan, but presumably it would need to be made public in a hypothetical bid.)

Agreed with Ethane that locking the penalty in place after a roster has been posted feels unfairly punishing.

As regards schedule-based swinginess--I don't think that roster penalties are considerably less fair than "sometimes you face the active RPing newbie on day 1, sometimes you get them at halfway when they've built up a considerable bonus in a cumulative system." In both cases the results can be swingy, but the group outcome will depend on every matchday, not just that one.

[Equestrian States]

Host Bid Deadline:

With bids for both tournaments received, the deadline for World Cup and Baptism of Fire host bids will be Monday, December 7 at 11:59 PM EST, or approximately one week and 4 hours from the time of this post.

[Farfadillis]

Re: the fairness argument. If you were to choose a random second seed and give them 100$, I'm sure the ones that didn't get the 100$ might feel like there's an unfair luck imbalance there but, simultaneously, I'm sure all of them would've agreed to carry out this mini-lottery without knowing the winner. None of them are worse off at the end of the day. I'm not inclined to call this "unfair" since the only nation with a disadvantage in this scenario is the rosterless nation, which is fine provided we're working under the assumption that that's what they get for daring not post a roster.

EDIT: Also, yes, I sometimes like to use unnecessary, not particularly illustrative analogies.

[Newmanistan]

This is more broad than Ethane/Taeshan's bid so I've moved it here: on roster penalties.

If I understand correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong), the primary goal of roster penalties is not so much to incentivize people with existing rank "you better get your post up, or else," because (as discussed in the thread), people who are sufficiently checked-out that they don't post a roster anyway are probably not going to change their behavior in response to incentives. Rather, I suspect the intent of roster penalties is to decrease the cases of actively participating mid-to-low ranked sides being like "geez, I'm actively participating, and I lost to someone who hasn't even posted a roster, boo." Is this true? If so, then I think it makes sense to apply the penalty as a scaling rather than flat value.

The catch-22 with the roster debate is that it implies someone who posts a roster is actively participating. In the Campionato Esportiva, I lost in knockouts to a nation that has copy and pasted their roster for the last four CE's and has done nothing else. They posted that roster at the beginning of the competition, so if this were the World Cup, that nation does not get any sort of penalty, but they certainly did not participate. I honestly would have rather lost to a rosterless nation.

In World Cup 86, Drawk and I went the route to reward those posting rosters with highly generous roster bonuses. The roster penalty that we applied for late rosters was a percentage of the value they would have got for their roster, had it been posted on time. Those who did not post a roster put themselves in a situation where they were impacted from MD1, as others in the group may have got that bonus.

Re: the fairness argument. If you were to choose a random second seed and give them 100$, I'm sure the ones that didn't get the 100$ might feel like there's an unfair luck imbalance there but, simultaneously, I'm sure all of them would've agreed to carry out this mini-lottery without knowing the winner. None of them are worse off at the end of the day. I'm not inclined to call this "unfair" since the only nation with a disadvantage in this scenario is the rosterless nation, which is fine provided we're working under the assumption that that's what they get for daring not post a roster.

If I were to give each second seed $100/# of second seeds, instead of $100 to one, many would opt for the sure thing.

[Farfadillis]

Re: the fairness argument. If you were to choose a random second seed and give them 100$, I'm sure the ones that didn't get the 100$ might feel like there's an unfair luck imbalance there but, simultaneously, I'm sure all of them would've agreed to carry out this mini-lottery without knowing the winner. None of them are worse off at the end of the day. I'm not inclined to call this "unfair" since the only nation with a disadvantage in this scenario is the rosterless nation, which is fine provided we're working under the assumption that that's what they get for daring not post a roster.

If I were to give each second seed $100/# of second seeds, instead of $100 to one, many would opt for the sure thing.

I mean, sure, but I fail to see what that would entail in this analogy. If you can come up with it, I'm sure Tae and Ethane will quickly switch to your system.

[Audioslavia]

Both bids have mentioned that the SQIS formula offers a '30% chance' for a zero-ranked nation to take points from a larger ranked nation. This isn't true.

If you run a simulation of 1,000 matches between a big team (50kpbs) and a small one (0kpbs), the small one wins 34 of those 1000 games, and there are 155 draws. This comes out to an 18.9% chance of the big team dropping points.

In NSFS, this is 1% losses + 2.6% draws = 3.6% chance of the big team dropping points, if you have maxrank at 50 and the big team's rank at 50.
If you up the maxrank beyond the rank of the big team (to 66kpbs in my test) then you get 2%+6.9%=8.9% chance of the big team dropping points.

The latter may seem more desirable to some, but it comes at a cost. The cost is, well, the other 170 teams in the World Cup.

Using the NSFS system, a team with 10kpb points wins only 43.5% of the time against a team with 5kpb points.
Using the SQIS system, the 10kpb team wins 60% of the time against a team with 5kpb points.

People say SQIS is 'too random'. It isn't, and it's about time this myth was put to bed. NSFS is far more random for the majority of World Cup nations.

You can recreate the above with a copy of xkoranate. Uncheck 'home advantage' (home advantage is broken on NSFS, but not on SQIS, so this keeps the comparison fair) and scorinate 1,000 games by selecting 'round robin' and writing '1000' in the 'number of legs' bit.

[Nephara]

The catch-22 with the roster debate is that it implies someone who posts a roster is actively participating. In the Campionato Esportiva, I lost in knockouts to a nation that has copy and pasted their roster for the last four CE's and has done nothing else. They posted that roster at the beginning of the competition, so if this were the World Cup, that nation does not get any sort of penalty, but they certainly did not participate. I honestly would have rather lost to a rosterless nation.

While a roster alone might not necessarily mean genuine 'participation', it does mean you can mention their players and write about the match. Doing so with a rosterless nation requires either digging into past WCs, doing some unrealistic, forced workaround ('their number 7 crossed to the striker for the first goal ...') or just shrugging and writing about something else. I'd like to decide what I RP myself, not have it decided for me by someone else's genuine inactivity, inattentiveness or laziness.

[Northwest Kalactin]

You can recreate the above with a copy of xkoranate. Uncheck 'home advantage' (home advantage is broken on NSFS, but not on SQIS, so this keeps the comparison fair)

Just a quick note on this. We have likely fixed this in Xkoranate-CE.

The fixes can be found here (in Osarius’s branch), or in my branch. (My branch has some updates to the Qstring::null references, which had not been updated for the last version of xkoranate, although the changes have not been tested yet.)

[Equestrian States]

A friendly reminder that anyone wishing to host the World Cup or Baptism of Fire has a little over 24 hours from the time of this post to submit their bid.

[NSWC Signups]

World Cup/Baptism of Fire Host Voting & Presidential Nominations are now OPEN

[Equestrian States]

For any E/WCC members who have not already done so, there are just under 48 hours remaining to cast your votes for the BoF and WC hosts, and to submit nominations for the next WCC presidential term.

[NSWC Signups]

Results

[Equestrian States]

Alright people, we narrowly dodged a massive bullet in the World Cup vote.

Earlier today, the vote was completely deadlocked in both first and second choice votes, which the current WCC Constitution doesn't actually provide a solution for. Thus, I'd like to see a constitutional amendment proposed which would provide a clear way for a true deadlock to be broken. Once we have a solution and have discussed it within the community, I will put it up for an immediate vote, ideally before the Cup of Harmony host vote is held.

[Strike]

we narrowly dodged a massive bullet in the World Cup vote.

This statement is a little extreme and could be interpreted wrongly . I dont see a vote being 'nearly tied' as akin to 'dodging a bullet'. Worse case we could have vote again with more discussion considering its clear the voters had split feelings on the two similar bids.

I think if the vote is tied in an unbreakable fashion at the deadline, then you just extend the deadline. Certainly there is enough wiggle room in the constitution to allow for this.

If something "official" needs to occur then you could have a tiebreak among EWCC members.

Ultimately though the President as presiding officer has to make a determination as there is always going to be the possibility of an 'unbreakable' tie with options for breaking it such as waiting for more votes or, if the Prez has not voted, casting a vote at that time.

[Equestrian States]

Worse case we could have vote again with more discussion considering its clear the voters had split feelings on the two similar bids.

That's probably what I would have done. However, I would still like the constitution amended to at least provide clear direction as to what should be done in the event of an unbreakable tie, rather than leaving it up to the discretion of the President.

[Legalese]

Alright people, we narrowly dodged a massive bullet in the World Cup vote.

Earlier today, the vote was completely deadlocked in both first and second choice votes, which the current WCC Constitution doesn't actually provide a solution for. Thus, I'd like to see a constitutional amendment proposed which would provide a clear way for a true deadlock to be broken. Once we have a solution and have discussed it within the community, I will put it up for an immediate vote, ideally before the Cup of Harmony host vote is held.

Keeping in mind that this doesn't happen often, but otherwise could be a pain, I'll start with this proposed amendment (EDIT -- tweaks made to the language for clarification):

Add to 4.2 i) ("4.2 Definitition of: "The (E)WCC may vote..."):
a) In the case of a hopeless deadlock in the voting process where the President determines a winner cannot be decided, the President will extend the vote by 24 hours. If the votes collected in the extended window do not break the deadlock, the President shall consider only the votes of EWCC members in determining the winner. If this does not resolve the issue, the President shall cast the deciding vote; should the President be a bidder, the Vice President shall cast the deciding vote; otherwise, the tie shall be broken by the vote cast by the user who would be the interim President in the case of the President and VP offices both being vacant, per the terms of clause 1.3.1(v), and voted in a manner that would break the deadlock.

Logically speaking: 24 hours gives us a chance to fix the problem without resorting to tiebreaks; if that fails, the EWCC is the logical group of votes to consider in a deadlock, and if that doesn't work, the President/VP/whoever is the nearest to being such that isn't bidding would be the easiest way to resolve it. One alternative would be to let re-open bids win if the deadlock is between a bid and re-open, but more likely that doesn't solve much either.

As for why to include: to minimize the squabbling/hard feelings/desire to let personal interest influence how it's handled, by having how to deal with it decided before it actually happens. Again, not that it's a huge issue, but a decision now at least cuts the acrimony a bit when it eventually happens.

[Commonwealth of Baker Park]

I think Legalese has struck a good balance with the proposed amendment. If the EWCC should have a function other than just the BOF vote, this seems like the proper place.