Cyan and Cyanea: KRY-DEL World Cup 86 Bid

[Krytenia]

Cyan and Cyanea: KRY-DEL World Cup 86 Bid

It never ceases to amaze how long this little tournament has been going on. World Cup 85 was the most RPed tournament in history, and it's clear that enthusiasm for the World Cup is more than healthy. That being said, we think there's some room for experimentation.

Who are you guys?
Delaclava made their return in WC85 after a hiatus, and intend to carry on where they left off; their co-hosting of the most recent Baptism of Fire being a case in point. They've also co-hosted World Cup 55, two Cups of Harmony, an AOCAF Cup, the International Basketball Championships, and are currently finishing off hosting their third gridiron World Bowl.

Krytenia have a World Cup hosting history second only to Valanora. Five World Cups, four Cups of Harmony, three Baptisms of Fire, seven AOCAF Cups, and one of each flavour of the Olympics are all on their resumé.

I hear you have an opinion on signup length.
Indeed. Signups, ideally, would be closed three weeks after opening. Obviously this isn't completely in our hands, but we hope this part of the bid is taken into account.

What qualifying format will be used?
Groups will be between 6 and 10 teams. All nations signing up - with the exception of nations explicitly signed up as "making up the numbers" - to be included regardless of numbers, up to a maximum of 202. Uneven group sizes (either 7/8 or 9/10) to be utilised if numbers require it. Group winners will qualify regardless of format; depending on final numbers, second place will either qualify automatically or be placed in a playoff. If there are uneven groups, results against top 6 (if 7/8) or top 8 (if 9/10) will be used to seed teams for spare autoqual spots/playoffs if required. Tiebreakers for sides level on points will be goal difference followed by H2H results, H2H goal difference, and RP bonus accumulated. Lots will be drawn if still tied. Goals scored will not be used to prevent bias towards positive style mod teams.

How long will qualifying take?
Qualifying shall take no more than 21 days, including rest days and playoffs. If 9 or 10 team groups with two-legged playoffs are required, MD8-9 and 10-11 (either side of the mid-qualification break) will be double scorination matchdays.

Which scorinator will you be using?
Xkoranate with NSFS, additive style mods.

How will RP bonus be calculated?
Will be set with a "floor", a minimum RP bonus for posting something of substance (as opposed to a single sentence or just stats with no prose content). We've calculated RP points for qualifiers as 14.5KPB at 80% of max; this means that we expect high-RPing teams to collect this many KPB points in RP over the course of qualifiers. It also means a "ceiling" of 18KPB total. Points available per MD will be 18/total number of MDs. Roster bonus will have a max of 3 KPB separate from this calculation. Roster bonus will carry over to the finals; RP bonus will not, as we will be using the post-qualification KPB ranks.

Is that a penalty?
Yes it is. A penalty of 50% of rank will apply to teams that have not posted a roster during the cycle in either the WC Rosters or (if applicable) BoF thread, and will remain in place until such time as that team posts a roster. The penalty will apply to scorinations 10 days or more after the opening of the Roster thread or from Matchday 4 onwards, whichever is later.

I have a question you haven't answered yet!
Ask below and we'll answer.

Changelog:

• 14 July, 0830 UTC: added full tiebreaker tree re Mriin's question.
• 14 July, 1605 UTC: added rosterless penalty.

[Mriin]

Quick tiebreakers Q--just GD and H2H results seems a little skimpy, and especially in a finals three-way tie could prove insufficient. Is there a particular reason for leaving out H2H GD and/or a failsafe like coin flip/rp bonus/a rugby match?

Rest of the bid looks good at first blush!

[Cassadaigua]

Why do you feel it is a good idea (in as much as you are willing to do it) to have uneven groups? Why not just look for formats that can keep group sizes the same, especially since you are willing to have the playoff among second place teams?

[Krytenia]

Mriin: The remaining tiebreakers had been discussed but were omitted in the OP. This has now been changed, with H2HGD and RP bonus as additional tiebreakers. Nice catch, thanks!

Cassadaigua: The idea behind this is numberical flexibility - that is, we can work with any number up to 202. First preference is for a number that's easy to deal with, but on the flip side of the coin we don't want to artificially keep signups open or encourage non-RPing "numbers puppets" just because the number of entrants doesn't divide conveniently.

[Krytenia]

OP has been updated with rosterless penalty. This was discussed and agreed by myself and Del a fortnight ago; I just omitted it from the OP.

[Ethane]

Hi, can you explain to me the reasoning behind having a penalty for rosterless teams? Just wondering why you think this is needed? (Not for or against, just interested).

[Krytenia]

Hi, can you explain to me the reasoning behind having a penalty for rosterless teams? Just wondering why you think this is needed? (Not for or against, just interested).

We feel that the lack of a roster is detrimental to the RPing of others; as such, the lack of one makes it much more diffficult for RPers. Hence the idea of a penalty.

[Graintfjall]

I do not have a vote. Krytenia, forgive me for asking this twice but it’s a feature of both your bids.

In my experience the vast majority of rosterless teams are those that sign up but lose interest (in some cases CTE). I have been guilty of this myself, because the WC period lasts so long that sometimes the interest you had three months ago isn’t there by the time qualifying rolls around. While it has happened that highly ranked teams coast through qualifying without posting rosters, it’s not so common. So what purpose does the rosterless penalty really serve? Won’t it just penalize teams that have already basically given up, plus occasionally hurting those who want to put together detailed rosters but aren’t able to by the first day? Some players put an awful lot of detail into their rosters and won’t want to post a short or incomplete one just for the sake of avoiding a prohibitive penalty.

It is annoying to play a rosterless team but I am not convinced a rosterless penalty will make that much difference to new players or those who lose interest.

(Amazingly, as I write this, I’m realizing why these words sound familiar: I recall a similar argument eleven years ago!)

[Krytenia]

(Answer is same as in KRY-LGL bid thread, but reposted here for transparency.)

In regards to hurting teams with detailed rosters, there will be a large gap between the opening of the roster threads and the implementation of the rosterless penalty - which, I must reiterate, is not MD1. In regards to new teams, BoF teams that have posted a roster in that competition are exempt from the penalty, and those who have given up to the point that they haven't posted a roster are a) not going to notice, much less care, and b) if new and not in the BoF, going to have a KPB of 0 anyway - and half of 0 is 0.

The purpose of the rosterless penalty is to try and address one of the biggest complaints currently in the WCC community - having nothing for an opponent to work off - whilst at the same time attempting to ensure there is no "coast" from a high-ranked team by bringing them into the clutches of the lower seeds KPB-wise. Lower ranked teams will actually be less affected, as their KPB points are lower anyway.

[Delaclava]

(I will just reply in one thread to cut down on waste!)

It is really one of the biggest complaints? Looking back through the WCDT, and I will grant I have not been back that long nor ever that interested in the perpetual meta-drama the WC generates, but it mainly seems mixed in with standard grousing about results. Even posting a roster only helps one specific type of RPing, that of match reports. If you want to RP a different kind of story a roster is irrelevant. There are plenty of stories you can write without knowing the name of the opposition reserve left back.

I am not hostile to either of your bids but when I look through WC84 [WC85 did not link rosters] virtually all of the rosterless teams were un/low-ranked newbies who had probably given up already, and as we both seem to agree, a rosterless penalty would not matter to them anyway.

A response to the above post in the KRY-LGL thread (I would've just left it there but didn't want to hijack an opposing bid with a longer response):

The rosterless penalty not only directly addresses the complaint about the lack of information from opponents, but also touches on one of the biggest issues raised by respondents to Kelssek's survey, that it is too difficult to rise up the KPB rankings. The survey, as well as the general WCDT discussion, covered a wide range of issues and there are not necessarily simple fixes to it all - but this is one of our ideas.

I personally wouldn't minimize the role of the "match report RP". Whether it's a news article, play-by-play, POV take, or some other format which recaps the match, it is perhaps the most common RP style. Even with many other options for RP style, the match report RP takes up the largest share of posts. This makes sense because the results that are posted are typically at least a prompt for the RP, if not the outright topic.

So for the other kinds of RPs, sure, the opposing rosters are not necessary, but for the most common and basic style, it is immensely helpful. Even a bare-bones starting lineup can give the names as well as a sense for tactics/strategy (partially in the form of a style modifier) and even an idea about the background and culture of the country itself, based on naming conventions or apparent RL inspirations. The issue of rosterless importance is of particular annoyance to newer nations, who typically write a higher proportion of match reports and are not necessarily as inclined to explore other styles.

None of this is to say the match report is the right way to RP, but it is certainly a prevalent style which can be greatly enhanced with at least a roster input from their opponents. Combining this desire to facilitate RP along with the attempt to decrease coasting - as Kry already said, that is the purpose of the rosterless penalty.

[Graintfjall]

Thank you, that’s a good response. And thanks for the link – I’d seen mention of Kelssek’s survey but it must have happened just before I returned so I didn’t know quite what people were alluding to.

Frankly I don’t think a rosterless penalty will really change KPB inertia that much, particularly because, as I keep saying, most of the rosterless teams are very low ranked.

That said, it’s entirely fair to point out most people choose match reports. Looking back through my own posts, I’ve started to realize I relied on match reports heavily at the start and only developed other styles later on. So I will retract that particular objection.

I don’t think a rosterless penalty is a big deal, for good or bad, so I’m not opposed to your bid on its principle, and thanks for answering.

[Krytenia]

No problem. As I said a couple of weeks ago, it's good we have some variety and diversity in the bids, and I'm glad people are asking questions and running the rule over more unusual aspects. It helps people make an informed decision, whichever way that happens to be.

[Sylestone]

The only problem I have with the roster less penalty is that it comes into play after Matchday Four. This would mean that if you were a non-roster team, then the first four teams you would be playing would have a disadvantage.

Not sure whether this has been mentioned yet. If so, then just ignore.

[Delaclava]

The only problem I have with the roster less penalty is that it comes into play after Matchday Four. This would mean that if you were a non-roster team, then the first four teams you would be playing would have a disadvantage.

Not sure whether this has been mentioned yet. If so, then just ignore.

This is a possibility that we are aware of, and while Krytenia touched on it in his bid with Legalese, I'll repeat the sentiment here. We're aware that these situations will sometimes occur - a "luck of the draw" scenario if you will. Our primary objective with the penalty is to incentivize the roster post itself and allow the teams who do participate to be rewarded for that.

[Sylestone]

The only problem I have with the roster less penalty is that it comes into play after Matchday Four. This would mean that if you were a non-roster team, then the first four teams you would be playing would have a disadvantage.

Not sure whether this has been mentioned yet. If so, then just ignore.

This is a possibility that we are aware of, and while Krytenia touched on it in his bid with Legalese, I'll repeat the sentiment here. We're aware that these situations will sometimes occur - a "luck of the draw" scenario if you will. Our primary objective with the penalty is to incentivize the roster post itself and allow the teams who do participate to be rewarded for that.

Thanks for the response. As I don’t have a vote it doesn’t really matter, just thought it should be brought up. I am fine with luck of the draw, it gives a realistic aspect.
I’m guessing that if you post a roster in, say, MD6, then your rosterless penalty will be taken away?

[Delaclava]

Thanks for the response. As I don’t have a vote it doesn’t really matter, just thought it should be brought up. I am fine with luck of the draw, it gives a realistic aspect.
I’m guessing that if you post a roster in, say, MD6, then your rosterless penalty will be taken away?

That is correct, once a team posts a roster, they get the full benefit of their KPB.