Handball World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC Thread,Version II)

[Graintfjall]

There's definitely a sweet spot towards the end of the WC cycle but before the IFCF deadline and the non-WC events kick into gear when a smaller tournament has a chance of being well RPed. I hope we don't go the way of constitutions and committees and all that, though.

[Sarzonia]

Handball probably doesn't need a constitution or a committee yet, but let's not say never.

[Bollonich]

I agree with Sylestone that we should attempt to run the Handball World Cup 2 to 3 times a year and usage of ranks if we run it with a good frequency.
As of when the tournament I think this time, i.e. at the end of WCQ and before the start of the WC Proper and CoH seems fair and will provide time to RP.

[Ethane]

Yeah, I'd agree we don't need a constitution yet; keeping it informal will keep it flexible while we move forward.

I think it might be good then to perhaps have signups open during the next WCQs with the aim of starting it towards the end of qualis/during this period we are in now, between WCQs and the WC.

We can also discuss ranks; do we want last handball world cup's performance included in ranks (a year ago now), or do we want to start with this edition? (I'm of the opinion we should start with this one, but what do people think?)

[Graintfjall]

I'm happy to keep updating the ranks but I think it should be down to the hosts what they use. If people really want ranks they'll vote for hosts who promise to use them, if they really don't they'll vote for hosts who don't!

[Sylestone]

Personally, I am of the opinion that we should be restarting ranks from this edition onwards as before this one, HWC's have been very infrequent. I can put my hand up to be the rankkeeper, too, if you want, although there would certainly be more experienced people out there than I and Graentfjall has already offered.
I like the idea of signups opening for the next one in World Cup 89 qualifiers, although we may want to aim for a little bit earlier if we are to exploit this current gap to its full potential.

Best of luck to the final four participants!

[Sarzonia]

If we're going to do this tournament on a more regular basis, it doesn't make sense to carry over the ranks from prior editions.

I also like the timeline of starting the next one during WC 89 qualifying.

[Kotzellach]

A very hearty congratulations on the conclusion of this very well-run tournament, a congratulations to the winner, and a congratulations to EQS to successfully inducting a new host into the community; and to Bollonich, who has now successfully hosted his first (of hopefully many) tournaments.

[Sylestone]

Aye, what this guy said.
Congratulations to the winner, commiserations to the runners-up and everyone else. I would also like to send my congratulations and thanks to EQS and Bollonich for hosting a successful tournament, especially to the latter as it was their first time hosting. I thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and look forward to many more!

[Bollonich]

A very hearty congratulations to Sarzonia on winning the 23rd Handball World Cup, secondly I want to thank everyone who has helped me in this process of hosting this tournament, especially EQS who has been there to guide me whenever I had questions or problems. Hosting this tournament has been a lot of fun, and I hope to have many more experiences like this.

P.S. you guys are too kind

[Graintfjall]

Thanks to both hosts and especially Bollonich for a great job on your first tournament.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Likewise. Thanks to both cohosts for a well-run tournament. Additional shoutout goes to Bollonich for a smooth running of the tournament.

[Sarzonia]

Thanks to Equestrian States and Bollonich for running the tournament smoothly and well. If I hadn't known this was Bollonich's first tournament, I wouldn't have guessed it!

Commiserations to Kotzellach on losing such a heartbreaker in the final! It was fun taking ideas from your worldbuilding posts and working those into my RPs here.

And thanks to everyone who participated and made this Handball World Cup as active as it was!

[Bollonich]

Thought I'd get the ball rolling on this so here is the HWC 24 signup thread.

[Ethane]

Thanks for getting this all running Boll

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

I am still thinking a bit about this, but a possible consideration for future HWCs or WCHCs is to go with an adjusted modifier for handball function of Xkoranate.

For now, here are just some thoughts I have with this in mind:

• At least on surface, the handball scores from xkoranate seem to be too low scoring (mostly on the winner's end) or just having not enough of scoring margin. The former is less of an issue than latter, especially considering that
• While it may also be on what's the max skill in general, and I am not too familiar with it, but there appears to be fairly high likelihood of upsets. This may require adjustments, especially if we wish to keep the scores closer to RL circumstances.
• For those who have watched handball via olympics (usually the best way to receive exposure for many), you may wonder why this could be problematic. Yes, there are plenty of close matches and group stages in the olympics handball - and I assume handball function of Xkoranate is based from scores generated back in 2008 Beijing, when both women's groups and men's Group A was relatively close - but olympics is more of an outlier than norm IMO. In regional championships, quite a few so-called thrashings, where score margins can be ridiculously high, and world championships sometimes see quite a few scores with 10+ point margins as well. Heck, even in Olympics those cases do happen - China men back in 2008 and both Great Britain men and women in 2012 were simply outclassed and their goal margins were...something. If you want a slightly more realistic but still drastic example, Argentina women back in 2016. That was a group of death where 5 teams were closely in contention and then Argentina suffered as a result.
• What does this mean for NS? Straightforward. In the HWC, where top 8 sides are likely to face against UR sides (many often un-rostered), this actually works against realism aspect of handball. It's similar to how adjusted SQIS formulas were proposed for rugby union function on RUWC30, especially because scores are lot higher than what we'd routinely get under default. So that's where the realism aspect comes up, and it would probably make sense in comparison to others.

So for now these are some of the thoughts I have with handball function of xkoranate, and what could be done to possibly make the scores more realistic. Not much for now, but I will probably have to tweak around and trial versions of it in future. If I'm be able to replace my Macbook in a couple of weeks' time, I can probably try this for upcoming WCHC. If not, I'll at least try it with my domestic leagues in a cycle after that.

[Sarzonia]

Since my time is up in the Handball World Cup, I wanted to congratulate Sylestone and Quebec for a job well done as hosts and wish best of luck to both Sylestone and Bollonich in the final!

I guess I've done OK for someone who doesn't know jack shit about handball!

[Sylestone]

HWC rankings!

Massive congratulations to Bollonich for their win, certainly a more deserving victor than I. We have the updated rankings which look relatively realistic at a first glance, but I have a bit of an issue with the large gap between third and fourth. I messed around with formulae, but this was the best I could think of, with 1.5 points awarded for a win in the second group stage instead of the usual two. If anyone has any better ideas, I am, of course, all ears.

Looking forward to the 25th instalment!

[Bollonich]

That was unexpected! Commiserations to Sylestone who would've been an equally worthy victory. Also I would like to thank Quebec and Sylestone for providing us with a wonderfully run competition.

On the topic of ranks, not really sure what can change which would help in closing the gap. A possible solution could be to wait for some of our better cycles to degrade. Also since these ranks have only been collated over two editions, I think it'd be up to future hosts to decide how to balance the ranks to make it relatively easy for an active RPer to negate the rank of an inactive nation.

[Graintfjall]

Congrats Bollonich, thanks to Queb & Syle for hosting, and apologies for my own lack of RP -- just came at a bad time.

Ranks based on a small number of tournaments will have big gaps in them, that's just the nature of the beast. I think we should look at how they play out over 3 tournaments, or 4 once the old one has dropped off, before any radical changes are needed.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Thank you everybody for making this Handball World Cup yet another excellent one. In particular, thanks to Sylestone my cohost for his great cohosting of the tournament.

As for the ranks, it makes sense that there is a clear top 3 established with Syle, Sarz and Bol all having roleplayed consistently on 23 and 24, Taxnonomic Kingdoms and Graintfjall not far behind either.

But after that, there's a layer of about 8 nations, most of them having roleplayed to some degree (my two nations included), who can also challenge the rest with solid RPing come their time in 25. To me it's a good sign.

That said, yes. I agree with what Graintfjall said in that ranks in smaller competitions often have those gaps. If anything, handball's gaps aren't as big as some of those I've seen in volleyball or even (Ice) hockey where I recall seeing some massive leads by the number 1 nation! That is at least a good sign. Still, we should wait a bit to see what we get after 25 or even 26. There's plenty of time for that.

[Sylestone]

Hi all!
I'm planning on using my domestic handball season as RP fodder for this upcoming World Cup, similar to how Bollonich did theirs last cycle. If anyone is interested in sending me over a few players (no more than, say, four or five), then please just hit me up with a TG or Discord DM.

Thanks!

[Sylestone]

Updated rankings! Congratulations for Bollonich for their successful title defence, and thus moving ahead of the field in the number one position. If anyone has any queries or concerns, please don't be afraid to hook me up and I'll get back to you.

[Sylestone]

And once again, we have our updated HWC rankings!

[Sylestone]

I apologise for my lack of activity on the HWC front over the past year or so - I'm thinking of opening up signups sometime soon. So we can maximise activity, when works best for everyone?