The Even Frostier Cup [CoH80 bid] Krytenia/Græntfjall

[Graintfjall]

This is a bid to host the Cup of Harmony by Krytenia and Graintfjall (Græntfjall). While Krytenia and I have discussed this bid, any mistakes in the OP and the somewhat crappy presentation thereof are my fault alone.

Invitation Criteria

The absolute minimum criteria will be:

• Posted a roster for the World Cup by MD9.
• RPed at least twice during the first half (MD1–9) and at least twice during the second half (MD10–18).
• Accepts invitation by posting a roster.

This will naturally lead to a very big field: at present count over 110 nations have RPed at least once; even assuming 29 or 30 of those qualify and some of the remainder do not accept invites, it would leave a “big” field rather than a “small” field. We are prepared to involve up to 64 teams. Should there be 65+ teams meeting the criteria then a value judgement of the most deserving invitees will be used based on both quality and quantity, with those missing out waitlisted in case those invited do not accept. We consider a big field for the CoH appropriate given the spirit of the competition. As many people as possible making a legitimate attempt to RP should be invited so long as the format remains manageable. One limiting factor will be the requirement to post a second roster in a relatively brief window. Host puppets will be included/excluded to fine tune numbers.

Format & Scorination

Dependent on final numbers, of course.

• Base format: single round robin groups of equal size, leading to a single elimination (+3PPO) bracket.
• In the case of a 32 team competition the bracket will begin at the Ro16; in the case of a 64 team competition at the Ro32.
• Otherwise, the single elimination bracket will begin with a play-in or "Round of 24" stage: byes for the top 8 teams, to meet the winners of 9v24, 10v23 etc. in the Ro16.
• Actual group sizes will be arranged based on the number but the preference is for smaller groups. If the full 64 teams are invited, 16x4 groups will be used. (The top 8 group winners earning byes in the Ro24, the next 16 teams playing one another.)
• The bracket will be structured such that all teams stay in the same country for the play-in round through to the semi-finals. There may be some teams moving between group stage and play-in stage, and obviously for the final (to be held in Krytenia) and 3PPO (to be held in Græntfjall).
• One MD every 48 hours.
• If possible the aim is to have the tournament concurrent with the World Cup proper, with scorination staggered to off-days (e.g. if NSWC is on Monday, CoH is on Tuesday, NSWC on Wednesday, etc.).
• NSFS, additive mods ± 5.
• RP bonus available every cutoff (even, in the event of odd group sizes, on bye days), plus a roster bonus. No roster penalties. Well, not being allowed into the tournament is a roster penalty, I guess.
• Tiebreakers: group position, points, GD, H2H results, H2H GD, IC coin-flip [OOC scorinated game]
• Co-hosts scorinate each other’s games (inc. puppets).

RP aspects

Information will be provided about the host nations and stadiums.

Fitting the "Frostier Cup" theme, the tournament will take place during the Græntfjaller winter (some stadiums have domes, some heated pitches, some are just bollock-witheringly cold). However, as it is -- thanks to the quirks of interregional geography -- summer in Krytenia, the reward for teams winning their way to the final will be a much warmer venue to compete for the grand prize.

Although both countries have election storylines planned these will not feature as part of the hosting. (I did so a little bit during IBC30 and in hindsight it was a mistake, not everyone enjoys political commentary intruding on their sportsball!)

At the end of a long WC campaign, many people are tired and their RP ideas spent, so to provide additional inspiration a small optional prompt will be posted each day. On the Græntfjaller side, we have chosen to interpret the "Harmony" theme somewhat literally and the prompts will be of a musical nature e.g. "Blues: what is the lowest point in your NT history?". These are to stress optional and max RP bonus is still available for those who ignore them and RP their own stuff.

Finally, there will be a tournament-long Goal of the Tournament competition, ending before the semifinals (reaching the semifinals is reward enough!). Each user can submit one goal, however they interpret that: a snippet of radio commentary, a description from a match report, a fan's eye account, the scorer of said goal's emotions as it goes in. A shortlist will be selected and a voting element included to decide it. Again, those choosing to refrain from participating in this will not be penalized and full RP bonus is otherwise available.

Experience

Both of us have hosted a couple tournaments before.

Questions/comments welcome.

[Flavovespia]

A question about the Round of 24 idea, is there a particular reason this has been proposed even with a 16x4 group stage ?

[Sarzonia]

This is mainly for Krytenia since it involves Atlantian Oceania and the RP about its potential split.

Will a nation's involvement/lack thereof in that RP have an impact on whether or not you invite it to the Cup of Harmony? Will you respect a player's decision to not get involved if the situation between the would be regions escalates?

[Krytenia]

This is mainly for Krytenia since it involves Atlantian Oceania and the RP about its potential split.

Will a nation's involvement/lack thereof in that RP have an impact on whether or not you invite it to the Cup of Harmony? Will you respect a player's decision to not get involved if the situation between the would be regions escalates?

The AO/Anaia IC situation will have no impact on invites; after all, half the competition is in Rushmore anyway.

All invitees have the option to decline, regardless of reasoning. We respect the decision of any nation that declines to participate, whether that is because of the AO/Anaia situation or other reasons (time, burnout, etc). If anyone wants to participate and ignore the situation, that's fine too.

[Graintfjall]

A question about the Round of 24 idea, is there a particular reason this has been proposed even with a 16x4 group stage ?

That's a mistake on my part, apologies; I misinterpreted something that came up in conversation about the bid. I wanted to include a Ro24 as I felt the jump to Ro16 in the recent WCoH I hosted was too brutal, but I got that a bit mixed up with the overall format.

The aim as origininally intended was:

• 32 teams: Ro16
• 33-63 teams: Ro24
• 64 teams: Ro32

So the Round of 24 stuff is there only for if we include fewer than 64 teams.

[PotatoFarmers]

Does the bid have a list of numbers that you would prefer to have, as well as their group stage formats?

[Graintfjall]

No real preferred size: we will invite those eligible, up to a max of 64. The preference is for small equal groups, so ×4 for a multiple of 4, ×5 for a multiple of 5, ×6 for a multiple of 6, in that order. That allows a timeframe most consistent with the World Cup proper.

[Xanneria]

Theoritical question.

What happens if a person RPs 4 mildly compitent Rps and posts a roster all after MD9?

[Krytenia]

Theoritical question.

What happens if a person RPs 4 mildly compitent Rps and posts a roster all after MD9?

Then it doesn't meet the criteria stated. There may be some leeway re numbers, but they'd be low down on the invite list.

[Electrum]

Can I ask what the rationale is behind the requirement to roleplay across the two halves of qualifying?

Surely it would be fine that if people have roleplayed an acceptable amount, it doesn't matter when the roleplaying takes place?

[Graintfjall]

Can I ask what the rationale is behind the requirement to roleplay across the two halves of qualifying?

Surely it would be fine that if people have roleplayed an acceptable amount, it doesn't matter when the roleplaying takes place?

The aim is to reward consistent RPing. Rather than someone who RPs at the start (some users had posted 4 RPs prior to MD1) and then flames out when results don't go their way or, in particular, waiting to see if they're not going to coast through and then hurriedly RPing at the end. Which, perhaps, is a case of me imputing bad motives to those who genuinely suffer from fluctuating availability/desire, and I know users such as Ethane have had RL time constraints that have counted against them RPing in their first half despite their desire to do so in the second half. Splitting it down the middle seemed a reasonable way of demonstrating ongoing commitment.

---

Current numbers:

103 teams have rostered and posted at least two RPs; 12 have a single RP; 29 no RPs; 1 has RPed but not posted a roster. This excludes 1 CTE and a couple whose RPs were below the minimum standard. Of those 103, 33 are 1st or 2nd in their group, with the other 3 having either 1 or 0 RPs posted.

[PotatoFarmers]

Another question, may the host bidders explain how they will handle multi-way ties? How will the tiebreakers be used in the event one of the earlier tiebreakers has determined an order for a subset of the tied teams, but there is another subset of teams that remain tied?

[Graintfjall]

If 2 teams are tied through points and goal difference, then H2H, and if that match was a draw, then the IC coin flip comes into effect.

If 3 teams are tied through points, then sort on goal difference. If they're still all equal, then a mini-table to determine H2H standings. If two are tied on goal difference, then the H2H for those two is considered, ignoring the other.

If there's a worked example you'd like us to consider we'd be happy to.

[Sannyamathland]

I have just one problem with your format, the requirement of RPing twice in each halves. It is just not fair for some people. Let me explain to you why;

Suppose there is this player A who was a bit busy in RL during the First Half, yet managed to post one decent RP during this period. Subsequently, his RL constraints was over when the second half started, and he regularly posted decent RPs there after.

Now there is another player B who has posted 3 RPs in the first half and 3 RPs in the second half, but most of these are below average, and far below the quality of RPs posted by player A.

Now, inspite of player A posting quality RPs, he fails to receive an invitation simply because he has failed to post 2 RPs during the first half, while player B receives an invitation in spite of posting below-average RPs, simply because he has posted 3 RPs each in both the first and second halves.

Both have posted their roster before MD 1.

Surely you understand that this system is unjust, and might prevent several quality RPers from participating in the CoH, because of their RL constraints. I suggest you should rework your qualifying criteria.

[Ethane]

I have just one problem with your format, the requirement of RPing twice in each halves. It is just not fair for some people. Let me explain to you why;

Suppose there is this player A who was a bit busy in RL during the First Half, yet managed to post one decent RP during this period. Subsequently, his RL constraints was over when the second half started, and he regularly posted decent RPs there after.

Now there is another player B who has posted 3 RPs in the first half and 3 RPs in the second half, but most of these are below average, and far below the quality of RPs posted by player A.

Now, inspite of player A posting quality RPs, he fails to receive an invitation simply because he has failed to post 2 RPs during the first half, while player B receives an invitation in spite of posting below-average RPs, simply because he has posted 3 RPs each in both the first and second halves.

Both have posted their roster before MD 1.

Surely you understand that this system is unjust, and might prevent several quality RPers from participating in the CoH, because of their RL constraints. I suggest you should rework your qualifying criteria.

While I disagree with the way they're approaching the invitation criteria (for obvious reasons, which they've highlighted as well), I do think this is a solid bid and each bid does have merits going for it which made this a slightly difficult decision.

I believe, Sannyamathland, that their reasoning for that decision is well-lined out here:

Can I ask what the rationale is behind the requirement to roleplay across the two halves of qualifying?

Surely it would be fine that if people have roleplayed an acceptable amount, it doesn't matter when the roleplaying takes place?

The aim is to reward consistent RPing. Rather than someone who RPs at the start (some users had posted 4 RPs prior to MD1) and then flames out when results don't go their way or, in particular, waiting to see if they're not going to coast through and then hurriedly RPing at the end. Which, perhaps, is a case of me imputing bad motives to those who genuinely suffer from fluctuating availability/desire, and I know users such as Ethane have had RL time constraints that have counted against them RPing in their first half despite their desire to do so in the second half. Splitting it down the middle seemed a reasonable way of demonstrating ongoing commitment.

---

Current numbers:

103 teams have rostered and posted at least two RPs; 12 have a single RP; 29 no RPs; 1 has RPed but not posted a roster. This excludes 1 CTE and a couple whose RPs were below the minimum standard. Of those 103, 33 are 1st or 2nd in their group, with the other 3 having either 1 or 0 RPs posted.

I have a few questions myself:

Why have you decided to cap at 64 teams, if there are more RPers that could make, or get close to, the grade for invitation?
Why are you suggesting byes instead of top X amount of y played teams in the group stage also proceed?
Would you be willing to explain or provide an example of what would count as a good RP that would make the grade versus one that would not?

Thanks, and good luck in the voting!

[Graintfjall]

Sannyamathland, the problem with having qualitative over quantitative criteria is that the WC RP thread is over 600 posts long. By the end of qualifying it could be over 1000. To qualitatively assess that would require reading and consistently grading every single RP in that thread. A huge task for Chromatika and Cassadaigua, but they knew that when they bid to host WC. Krytenia and myself are not WC hosts. I like NS but I'm not going to RP grade up to 1000 posts for a tournament I'm not even hosting! We could use C&C's RP grading, asking them to share it, but (a) they might say no and (b) if they say yes, it's then not really our Cup of Harmony any more, we're just inviting people chosen by the WC hosts. As to some people missing out, it's unfortunate, but the field of actively RPing WC participants is now about as large as it has ever been. Keeping the two halves requirement seemed one way of cutting down the numbers, by limiting historic cases (admittedly, very few and far between) where users waited until the final MD to get their RP(s) in.

That said, the two halves requirement does seem to be inspiring some concerns that users who haven't RPed twice in the first half will now give up. It would never be our intention to stifle or discourage RPing, whatever else. So, we'd encourage everyone to keep RPing and consider the two halves requirement the softest of the criteria.

Ethane, we decided to cap at 64 as the largest number that could guarantee a workable format. Any larger and it's either groups larger than 4 or a situation where there are more than 32 teams finishing 1st or 2nd in their group, requiring yet another play-in level. Either seemed difficult in light of the secondary aim of maintaining a complimentary schedule to the WC proper. 64 is already among the largest CoH fields.

Suggesting byes is to try to make sure the same number of teams progress from every group, to smooth out the impact randomness of group stage draw can have.

As to specific posts, see my thoughts above on why a truly qualitative approach is hard. I also dislike calling out specific users. That said, as Malandrin would not be invited anyway (their entry being illegitimate), I can safely say that even had they not broken the entry rules, their RPs would not have met the minimum required standard.

[PotatoFarmers]

Let me give a hypothetical situation:

Say in the end, 58 teams accepted their offers. 58 isn't the best of numbers, since 58 is 29 * 2. You could cut it to 56 with 14 groups of 4. Or up it to 60 (by throwing in 2 puppets, inviting two more guys, etc.) to make 10 groups of 6. For a bid that is proposing a play-in round, these numbers are particularly awkward. What would be your preference? Or might you even create uneven groups to deal with this situation?

Also, will the host use the same metric to determine if puppets (including the host puppets) deserve an entry into the CoH?

[Graintfjall]

By "uneven groups" do you mean groups with different numbers (e.g. x groups with 4 teams, y groups with 5 teams) or groups with odd numbers (e.g. z groups of 5)? This has been a point of confusion before in bid discussions.

If the former, no. If the latter, yes. There's no difference between a 10×6 and 12×5 in terms of group stage length.

We'd rather go up (to a max of 64) than down. So if we're stuck on 58 we'd try for 64, and if we still can't reach 64, then 60 is preferable to cutting down to 56.

Re: puppets, I would leave it to Krytenia to determine whether Græntfjall/Montaña Verde deserve invites, and I will decide whether Krytenia/Ibixa do. We'll use the same criteria as for all other nations. The exception would be if we're at ideal number + 1 of invites, in which case I'd advocate cutting Montaña Verde (my puppet).

[PotatoFarmers]

By "uneven groups" do you mean groups with different numbers (e.g. x groups with 4 teams, y groups with 5 teams) or groups with odd numbers (e.g. z groups of 5)? This has been a point of confusion before in bid discussions.

If the former, no. If the latter, yes. There's no difference between a 10×6 and 12×5 in terms of group stage length.

We'd rather go up (to a max of 64) than down. So if we're stuck on 58 we'd try for 64, and if we still can't reach 64, then 60 is preferable to cutting down to 56.

Re: puppets, I would leave it to Krytenia to determine whether Græntfjall/Montaña Verde deserve invites, and I will decide whether Krytenia/Ibixa do. We'll use the same criteria as for all other nations. The exception would be if we're at ideal number + 1 of invites, in which case I'd advocate cutting Montaña Verde (my puppet).

1) I wanted to mean some groups having more numbers than others, but guess I am happy you clarified on odd numbered groups anyways.
2) thanks for the information regarding puppets.

[Krytenia]

As an aside, as I have not yet RPed with Ibixa, I intend not to enter them unless we're absolutely desperate for numbers.

[Graintfjall]

Sorry Potatoes, I guess I missed a part of your question. You were asking about puppets in general, not just host puppets.

I'm not in favor of a big distinction. If someone consistently RPed two, they get two invites. The WC proper doesn't discriminate there, after all.

[Srednjaci]

Hmmm, for now, you guys have better arguments and conditions.
But I can't vote because I'm not a WCC member.

[Zwangzug]

I appreciate you guys taking the time to spell out the thought process behind the first half/second half criterion, I think it's a reasonable metric to consider. :thumbsup:

Recognizing that this is a subjective question, was there anything particular behind your choice of NSFS as formula?

[Graintfjall]

Not really Z. I drew the up the draft bid and had noticed that Krytenia had generally used NSFS in their bids, so assumed that'd be what they'd prefer to use here, though I don't think either of us are absolute fanatics for either version of the formula. While I am not the biggest fan of NSFS for WCQs I have no problem with its use for smaller neutral-site tournaments, like this.

[Krytenia]

Not really Z. I drew the up the draft bid and had noticed that Krytenia had generally used NSFS in their bids, so assumed that'd be what they'd prefer to use here, though I don't think either of us are absolute fanatics for either version of the formula. While I am not the biggest fan of NSFS for WCQs I have no problem with its use for smaller neutral-site tournaments, like this.

Neither scorinator is perfect; I've tended to go with NSFS when given the option out of essentially being an old git in NSS terms who's used to the foibles of the formula. I would have been fine either way though.