AC XII

[Daze]

TNT sending out nmails about the AC.

[Siniri]

And the response to the bug reports is that "this is not a glitch, don't send us evidence, we don't care, you may or may not get unflagged and be able to earn rank points again." (How you're supposed to find out you're unflagged is beyond me...) Basically another big "Eff you" to loyal players.

A considerable number of players across all teams and ranks are caught up in it. I noticed an anomaly with NST when I visited Snowager, so I wonder if maybe there's an issue with the server clocks being out of sync (which happened once quite a while ago with Viacom and caused a number of site issues). Regardless of what it is, JS's cheat-detection system is once again ridiculously broken, and they're punishing people for playing their game the way it's meant to be played. Meanwhile, one of the ACGs continues to go seemingly unchecked.

I really need to leave this site already. JS has killed it, and we're all just riding the dead carcass down to the bottom of the bubbling pit of Maraqua.

P.S. It's nice that they reference their rules in that NM but neglect the very important rule change that only appeared in the NT last week (and not in the official rules) about multi-gaming.

[Daze]

BE AWARE!! Bye Days (now called Practice Days) do not count towards ranking up.

This year, there will also be three practice days within the tournament.
The first two practice days will happen on the 7st day and the 14st day from Day 1 and the third practice day will be at the end of Round 1.
New match-ups begin promptly at 12:00:00 A.M. NST every day

* 7th and 14th

[Siniri]

It's weird, I haven't gotten the e-mail Daze did. (I'm playing on a new account this year; I switched mains a week before the Cup in case JS got freeze-happy again.)

[Pickles]

Well, that's totally uncool (about practice days not counting). I must've missed that in the FAQ, but I know it's there. I was planning on ranking based on a 25 day plan, but if there's 3 practice days, I'm not really sure how I'll make it. Especially since I'm not likely to be able to play hardly at all on the 10th-12th. Ugh.
This does, however, mean that you can't reach All-Star based on SOSD or MSN games alone.

Oh well. I needed a break today anyways.

[Daze]

An interesting thought about having 'no play' bye days.

It seems that team scores are being adjusted behind the scenes. Roo Island has dropped to sixth place.

The news is very light with the notice that BTY and PPL will be updated soon. It may be that TNT has placed everyone they can to double check and then remove those scores that would be considered suspicious.

[Siniri]

The problem is that a large percentage of the active user base (I've heard estimates between 10 to 25%) are currently flagged. While some people may cheat and feign innocence on the boards, I believe the vast majority of those professing to be anti-ACG who are currently flagged are probably innocent (whereas the actual cheaters mostly lie low and stay off the boards). With so many false flags (and one of the ACG members claiming that their own shells are currently not flagged), the scores are absolutely meaningless. It doesn't matter which team wins the Cup since it's obviously rigged.

Apparently some people who were flagged have had their ranks restored to where they should be and can earn rank points again, so that's good news if you're flagged. The bad news is that TNT isn't interested in any evidence. I know people who tried keeping records of every single score they sent in Excel, and another who videoed his playing style, and TNT told them in their ticket responses that they're not going to look at their evidence. It's ridiculous; they assume guilty until proven innocent, and even if you try to meet that impossible standard, they won't look at your proof.

People were already scared to play after last year's innocent freezings. After all these false flaggings, I'm not sure the AC can survive. Many people come back to Neopets just for this event (why, I have no idea...), and I've seen several posts from these types that say they're not coming back again next year. Year-round users are also nervous and have changed their play style, and wondering if they should skip it entirely, too.

[Daze]

Staff Tournament:
Forwards
Agog 844
Cherry Blossom 1886
DJ Sally 462
DJ Skellington 1166
Enigma 682
Gingersnap 1220
Senor Malo 1230

Defenders
Axe Bond 860
Dark Lord 1710
Kakarot 868
Kikocat 1883
Max Mutant 1290
Scrappy 2080
The Clash 1029

Goalies
Beast Master 951
Binary Supagoo 2030
Ehlo Froyo 2270
Ppod 506

Highest Possible score Round1: 9349


My results:
Round 1
1886
1230
1290
1883
2030
Total: 8319
4159 Neopoints

Interesting post Flagged Perspective
From the post, explaining how the data was found:
(You put the username of the person you want to check after the username= part.
You can run a thing to check everyone's UN and compare their stats day to day much faster than any human could)

http://www.neopets.com/altador/colosseu ... e=USERNAME

Last edited by Daze on Fri Jun 09, 2017 2:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Siniri]

Okay... so that's... times 4... carry the 7... ah! Given your chosen team's performance, you've earned yourself 4481 Neopoints!

I had 8963 points in the Staff Tourney. Not bad for my all-women team! Dropping Agog for Senor Malo, but keeping everyone else. Go, girls (and Senor)!

[Pickles]

Round 1: 7277. Switched out a 3 of my team for ones that did better. I was disappointed in some that had a history of doing much better than they did this time!

[Daze]

Updated Standings Page

Altador Cup Team Standings

Throughout the tournament, you can keep track of how your team is doing overall by checking the standings. This year's tourney is divided into two rounds:

Round 1 (Round Robin): consists of 17 days where each team plays against every other team once. A win for the day's match is determined by which team won the most game categories as seen in The Match Schedule.
Win Example: Team A has Win, Win, Win, Loss in the 4 games respectively. Since Team A has 3 wins to Team B's 1 win clearly Team A won the day's match and the round robin point for that day's match.
Tie-break Example: Team A has Win (6 to 5), Loss (4 to 5), Win (8 to 5), Loss (4 to 7) in the 4 games. So equal wins and losses.
We sum and compare the non-rounded version of the game scores to determine Team A wins the Round Robin Point by a narrow margin with 22.4940 game points vs Team B's 22.3905 game points.
(It breaks down to (5.3919+4.6613+5.4666+6.9742) 22.4940 team A game points vs (6.0842+4.3536+7.8212+4.1315) = 22.3905 team B game points)
The Finals Round consists of the 18 teams being divided into 3 brackets where each team plays against other teams within their respective bracket. The final cumulative point totals will decide who takes home the cup (and who takes home a heavy heart).

[Siniri]

Fun fact: I know someone who got 5k for the staff tourney even though they got fewer points than I did. He said he picked his team right when it came out. (We confirmed that his points were fewer than mine.)

[Blue]

I Okay... so that's... times 4... carry the 7... ah! Given your chosen team's performance, you've earned yourself 4314 Neopoints!

My team managed 8629 points overall. I plan to do the "easy" and keep the same team.

[Siniri]

I actually decided to choose an all-women team again, replacing Senor Malo with Gingersnap since they were in a statistical dead heat (given the variability in the staff tourney).

I wish they would actually livestream the staff tourney. It would be fun to see TNT playing the AC games.

[Blue]

I wish they would actually livestream the staff tourney. It would be fun to see TNT playing the AC games.

That would be cool. I might actually watch some of that...

BTW, my current Round One staff picks are were:

SeniorMalo
DJ Skellington
Kikocat
Scrappy
Ehlo Froyo

ETA: I dropped DJ Skellington and replaced him with Cherry Blossom. She did great first round and DJ was my weakest player.