The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Savigliane]

What you are describing there is literally how we used to score Calvinball.

Perhaps its time for another Hobbes Trophy?

Did someone say Hobbes Trophy?

I'll get the badminton rackets...

[Barunia]

Did someone say Hobbes Trophy?

I'll get the badminton rackets...

Given that this is the World Cup Discussion Thread, perhaps we should take this conversation
here instead?

[Farfadillis]

I've done my best Audio impression and figured out the longest qualification streaks of each nation (don't worry about my mental health; I didn't do this manually), but at the moment I don't really plan to RP about it or anything, so I thought I'd just drop it here: link. The file doesn't include this current cycle, but it's not very hard to update it manually.

The most interesting fact I stumbled upon is that ESF's run of 38 consecutive qualifications is not the longest. Also, there's heavy early-WC inflation, because of course there is.

EDIT: Squornshelous' run should be longer, but the SRS sheet has a typo in World Cup 40 which ended their run when I ran my code.

EDIT2: I've gone ahead and manually corrected the problem (the SRS sheet should be corrected by someone who has access to it). With this, Squorn's run is tied with Eura's for fourth place.

[Alasdair I Frosticus]

I've done my best Audio impression and figured out the longest qualification streaks of each nation (don't worry about my mental health; I didn't do this manually), but at the moment I don't really plan to RP about it or anything, so I thought I'd just drop it here: link. The file doesn't include this current cycle, but it's not very hard to update it manually.

The most interesting fact I stumbled upon is that ESF's run of 38 consecutive qualifications is not the longest.

I could have told you that!

Otherwise, fascinating work, thank you.

Though I somehow doubt I'll ever come close to equalling that streak; indeed, I may need to restart again in WC88 depending on results later today.

[Squornshelan Remnant States]

Some day a cycle will go by without me being misspelled.

[Audioslavia]

I can confirm that typos and teams having different names from cycle to cycle are a pain. Squornshelous is possibly the most misspelled team, but much worse are teams with apostrophes or diacritics that seem to be in a new place and style from cup to cup. Total 'n Utter Insanity , Ad'ihan, Jasiyun etc.

And then there's Eura and Free Republics who spent a few cycles here and there under completely different names. All throwing databases through a loop before a mass group of find/replace.

Then with the UICA database there were *three* different clubs called Dover City...

It's almost as if NS Sport went 17 years without expecting and idiot to suddenly start trying to document everything..

[Saltstead]

Some day a cycle will go by without me being misspelled.

*chuckles nervously*

Given the Saltsteadish experience, I have little hope on that front for the two Squornshelouses. (¬_¬")

[Sarzonia]

Edit select, edit copy, edit paste has long been my friend.

Less so since I do most of my RPing on my mobile these days, but still.

[Krytenia]

And then there's Eura and Free Republics who spent a few cycles here and there under completely different names. All throwing databases through a loop before a mass group of find/replace.

Then there's the crazy idiot who changed his main nation's name for the finals phase for a cycle, entered renamed main into the next cycle with the previous main entered as the renamed main's puppet, before changing the name back just before the final match they played in that cycle.

Krytenia: Giving Audio headaches since 2008.

[Sarzonia]

And losing on penalties since 2004

[Audioslavia]

Krytenia: Giving Audio headaches since 2008.

I wasn't even here in 2008 but Kry... Kry finds a way.

[Yue Zhou]

TJUN-ia 5–6 Siovanija & Teusland (8-8a)

...

[Independent Athletes from Quebec]

TJUN-ia 5–6 Siovanija & Teusland (8-8a)

...

Oh my....

[Krytenia]

TJUN-ia 5–6 Siovanija & Teusland (8-8a)

...

Go home, xkoranate, you're drunk.

[Cassadaigua]

We still have some people to accept their invites, but I can say with a little more confidence that the group draw for the Cup of Harmony will be on Sunday, 2/7, at 2:30PM Eastern USA time, on discord. It will be the first half of a group draw doubleheader on Sunday.

[Audioslavia]

I've been bouncing this idea around my head for a few days. I thought I'd share it here.

Currently, the KPB formula doesn't account for matches played in a second phase of qualifying. The teams entering World Cup 83's six-group second phase or World Cup 87's two-legged playoffs didn't earn any KPB points for any draws or wins they may have picked up.

I have a proposal that addresses this.

Currently, a team that qualifies for the World Cup is awarded three bonus points to their KPB ranking. This stays the same.

My proposal is that any team making it through to the second stage of qualifying would also get bonus points. Their bonus points would be points divided by games.

For example, if a team plays a home-and-away playoff, loses the first leg 3-0 and wins the second leg 1-0, they'd be awarded 1.5 bonus points. 3 points for the win divided by the two games. If the second phase of qualifying is a single round-robin four-team group, a team that gets eliminated on two draws and a defeat would get 0.6̅

For the teams that progress via the playoffs, their KPB bonus would be 3, as it is currently. Any points they get in the playoffs would be discarded in favour of the three points they get for qualifying for the World Cup.

Cons:

• Not every World Cup cycle would have the same amount of KPB points on offer. A World Cup with a second qualifying phase would have more points on offer. How many more points, and to how many more teams, would depend on the qualifying system used. The theoretical maximum KPB points would not be altered by this, but the gap between the 32 finalists and a small fraction of non-qualifiers would be narrowed slightly.
• This is a half-measure between 'it's fairer just to not offer KPB points in playoffs' and 'let's use maths to work out system that includes second phases and is also makes each WC offer the same amount of points'
• Losing both legs of a playoff would still give you nothing, but it'd feel like *double* nothing.
• It makes a gallant playoff defeat plus a deep run in the Cup of Harmony more valuable, though you'd still have to have an almost perfect run in order to get as many points as one solitary victory in the World Cup.
• It's five more minutes added on to the workload for the person maintaining the ranks. Having previously done this job myself, I can confirm that an extra five minutes would be something I would have occasionally grumbled about.

Pros:

• It's the chance of a minor reward for finishing 2nd/3rd in your group but not quite getting through to the finals.
• And by 'minor' we mean minor. I'm not sure what the hypothetical maximum would be, but the average would be quite low. In World Cup 83's secondary group stage the average would have been about 1. Juvencus and Saltstead, in second place with two wins and a defeat, would have had two bonus points. The next highest were Busoga, Abanhfeft, Krytenia and Barunia with 1.33 each. The other eighteen teams would have got one bonus point or lower each.
• It makes a gallant playoff defeat plus a deep run in the Cup of Harmony more valuable, though you'd still have to have an almost perfect run in order to get as many points as one solitary victory in the World Cup. I've listed this as both a pro and a con because whether this is good or not varies from person to person.
• Second-phase qualifying is normal in both NS and RL. They're official World Cup matches, so it makes sense to have KPB points on offer for them.
• The change can be implemented quickly and painlessly in the rankings spreadsheet.
• Two-stage qualifying could open the door for shorter qualifying stages in terms of matchdays, which would be good for anyone who doesn't like double-matchday scorination. Having a reward for playoffs makes more groups of fewer teams more palatable.

I'm not submitting this as a proposal yet, so no need for any seconds, thirds or panic. I'm just curious as to what we think of either this idea, or a general idea to incorporate playoffs into the KPB formula.

[PotatoFarmers]

1 question and 1 comment.
Question: Do these points count as bonus under the Qualifiers, or bonus under the World Cup? (3/2)*(8/7) is quite different from (3/2)*(4/18). Or will they be calculated differently under a completely different formula?

Comment: I am worried that this might accidentally lead to an arms race where people vote for a qualification format with more playoffs. For instance, preferring 18 groups with playoff stage to a format of 15 groups. Or just spinning out playoffs out of nowhere. Maybe I am overthinking this. But just throwing this comment out.

[Audioslavia]

It goes into the 'bonus point' section of the formulas, which according to the rankings get added to the WC Finals points. As such it'd degrade from *(8/7) to *(4/7) *(2/7) along with the WC finals calculation.

I hadn't actually realised this. I was under the impression that the 3 bonus points for making the World Cup were separately. It appears it's not 3 bonus points for qualifying for the finals but rather 3.428, meaning the hypothetical 1.5 above, from winning one of your playoffs but getting knocked out, would instead be 1.714. Still, ratio-wise it works out the same.

As for your comment: The WCC has only voted for two S*IS tournaments over the past three RL years despite the S*IS formula narrowing the gap between the majority of teams and the top teams. I don't think we need to worry about a turkeys-voting-for-christmas situation, and I'd be reluctant to call 'about 1.1 extra KPBs for a handful of teams every other cycle' Christmas in the first place

EDIT: Editing my comment to add: A World Cup 54-style playoff wherein half the teams progress to the second qualifying round would stretch the formula. I'd be fine with placing an upper limit on how many teams we'd allow into a second phase. "No more than 20% of entrants" for example. If we have another '50% progress' idea that'd probably entail an overhaul to the formula, rather than an addition to it. In any case: WC54 qualifying was, from what I gather (having not been here for it at the time) not particularly popular

[Banija]

I generally am not a fan of this proposal.

I think it's actually well thought out and we'll done by Audio... But the principle I think that it gives more available points to those who finished behind the automatic qualifiers.

For example. Pasarga finished one point behind S. Newlandia, and then won a pair of playoff matches. This proposal would give Pasarga a KPB advantage over SNL for finishing behind SNL in the table.

That's mostly why I assumed we didn't give KPB points for playoff matches, we don't want to make winning your Qual group, or qualifying directly, a slight KPB disadvantage.

[Sarzonia]

You might want to address that by giving a bit of a boost to the teams that qualified automatically, whether they be group winners or second placed sides that didn't have to go through a playoff to advance.

Then there's also the matter of ensuring that hosts aren't penalised for not playing World Cup qualifiers since they get automatic bids as hosts.

Unlike some proposals I've seen (and in a recent example, posited with the World Lacrosse Championships), this one is actually dealing with a concern that needs to be addressed in my opinion.

[San Ortelio]

For example. Pasarga finished one point behind S. Newlandia, and then won a pair of playoff matches. This proposal would give Pasarga a KPB advantage over SNL for finishing behind SNL in the table.

That's mostly why I assumed we didn't give KPB points for playoff matches, we don't want to make winning your Qual group, or qualifying directly, a slight KPB disadvantage.

I believe that this example is not fully correct.

Currently, a team that qualifies for the World Cup is awarded three bonus points to their KPB ranking. This stays the same.

In the example above, SNL gets the qualifiers points + 3, as does Pasarga. The difference between the two remains the same, because Pasarga qualified.

For me, this is a quite balanced proposal but I might be slightly biased. It does give the play-off games which are - in my mind - qualifiers a more 'full' recognition.

[Farfadillis]

Personally, I'm in favor of the proposal. A play-offs "arms race" is, in my opinion, a ridiculous scenario. As it stands, play-offs seem to be a necessary evil for lots of people here. Some of us despise them, and I'm sure most of us don't want to see them proliferate, especially not over just a couple of KPB points. I also think the proposal fits quite neatly considering we already have the qualified-for-the-WC bonus points, so we might as well have the oh-I-almost-made-it-there bonus points.

For example. Pasarga finished one point behind S. Newlandia, and then won a pair of playoff matches. This proposal would give Pasarga a KPB advantage over SNL for finishing behind SNL in the table.

That's mostly why I assumed we didn't give KPB points for playoff matches, we don't want to make winning your Qual group, or qualifying directly, a slight KPB disadvantage.

Audio has accounted for that by saying that if a team qualifies for the WC, they get the usual bonus instead (and the play-off bonus, by design, can't surpass it).

[Banija]

You guys are both correct. I thought they'd get the +3 for qualifying for the World Cup, plus the extra points for whatever was earned in the Playoffs. But this is just for those who made the playoffs and didn't make it.

In that case, I do think this is a rather intriguing proposal.

[Audioslavia]

I think the proposal fits a system where some teams qualify for the World Cup automatically and others go into a playoff to whittle X teams down to Y. That's what I had in mind, anyway.

I don't know if it fits a system whereby zero teams qualify for the World Cup automatically from the first stage, and instead progress to a large-ish second stage to whittle X teams down to 30 WC qualifiers (see: WC54's two group-stages and WC68's staggered double-playoff). While those two qualifiers had plenty of detractors, I'd like to make sure we have a system that accommodates them regardless of how unfashionable they are right now. I don't have a suggestion for this. I'd rather leave it until after a few more voices are heard regarding the first idea, unless anyone has a two-bird stone.

[Audioslavia]

You might want to address that by giving a bit of a boost to the teams that qualified automatically, whether they be group winners or second placed sides that didn't have to go through a playoff to advance.

Then there's also the matter of ensuring that hosts aren't penalised for not playing World Cup qualifiers since they get automatic bids as hosts.

For the first point, I can see an argument for making the last-32 bonus 3.5 rather than 3.

For the second point, the proposal doesn't affect hosts. Hosts already get the full three points for making the last 32, and these days their lack of involvement in qualifiers is addressed by assuming they'd have gotten around 2.3 points per game, up from the 2.0 they used to get.