Altador Cup [split #5]

[Katy]

Last year, after the rounds of the AC were over, people could still play for a while against the practice team (Jelly World). I really hope they'll do the same this year so that players for teams that aren't in the finals can still improve their rank and earn points.

I hope they do that, but I'm afraid that what they're going to do is close YYB but leave SS and MSN open. Those ratios are too depressing to try and do major ranking with.

[Raza]

The neoboards are never to be taken seriously, but considering the intelligence penalty an 'us vs them' mentality inspiring team event like this inflicts on the average poster there, no one should be feeling ashamed for the acts of anyone there. Whether you share a team, country or just a species... this is a good time to appeal to pure individualism.


As a Darigan player, I wanna give some props to Senkuu for their major comeback. I was quite amazed when I saw they'd pulled into the top 4 (and even 3), and their draw vs us was probably well enough deserved (after all, we drew with lower ranking teams like LD and MI recently).




As for the team rankings though, I personally strongly suspect that they'll add up the team's total points (goals) rather than assign point values for wins/draws/losses. Because during the double robin's mid-term calculations they put LD before MI, which was ahead of them by most ways of counting wins and draws. Besides, it makes more sense because it's partially what they did last year, and it'd pretty much rule out draws.

[metalmario]

I wish they'd update our damn scores already. I have no idea if I'm anywhere near a new rank or not, because I don't keep track of how much I play, and now I have two unknown days worth of points to be added to my total I wouldn't normally care this much, but today's probably my last day to get any more wins in, and I don't want to end up 2 wins short of a new rank or something.

[gingernut]

So according to the news, supporters of teams that have been knocked out can switch to support one of the four finalist teams, and our scores after that will count towards that team. I didn't know that, I've had a ceremonial "last" game, only to discover I can still play for four more days!

Now, which team to choose?

[draconis]

Now, which team to choose?

Oh, that is not a good question to ask. People will, naturally tell you to join their team (SHENKUU!), so you'll probably be told to join, eh, practically any of the teams that make it into the finals.

I wonder, if you join a new team, will you get that team's background to add to your closet? If you do, will it be in addition to your original team's, will the new team's completely replace the old?

[gingernut]

I think I'll still be a member of my original team (go Faerieland! ), but I'll be able to choose to help out one other team. So I'm assuming I won't get the extra background, but I like my Faerie one anyway! It will be nice to be part of a winning side after all this time...

It seems a bit unfair on the final four teams, that loads of really rubbish players could end up hampering their final games.

[Katy]

I have to know if this is just me... it looks like I've gotten credit for all the games I played yesterday, but not for any of the ones I played the day before. Grrr!

[afyapardess]

While remaining members of their original teams, members of eliminated teams will be permitted to sign up as supporters for one of the 4 finalists in the Altador Cup. After becoming a supporter for one of the 4 finalists, your game scores will contribute toward the finalist's final score. Make sure to pick the team you want to see win!

So it looks like there's a difference between a team 'member' and a 'supporter'. This makes me wonder, though. Last year, your trophy was based on whether you were a 'devotee' or a 'supporter' of the team you supported in the final. Hmmm. They'd BETTER use the rank shields that we've been able to see, because I reached my 600 win target yesterday, and finally have the shiny bronze shield I coveted back in split 3 or something.

Four days, though! Four days of finals! With that, I might just be able to squerch in another 200 games, and make it a red-gemmed shiny bronze shield...

[gingernut]

I have to know if this is just me... it looks like I've gotten credit for all the games I played yesterday, but not for any of the ones I played the day before. Grrr!

I think that's the same for me. I haven't been keeping track so I can't be certain I'm missing all of Tuesday's game, but I am certainly missing quite a few even though my totals have been updated since yesterday.

[shapu]

Same for me.

Slushie Slinger and Make Some Noise have also been taken off of my games list. Did that happen to everyone else? I'm assuming so.

EDIT: Wait, nevermind. I'm a dummy. Just read the news.

[Matrinka]

I know that I'm missing games too. I played enough yesterday to put me over the level 10 hump to level 11. (I hate that yellow stone.) Unfortunately, my calculations on how many games I needed to play were correct but I wasn't credited for them. I'm 10 YYB games shy. I'm missing more than 10 games, but those are the easiest to notice.

[Pickles]

I have to know if this is just me... it looks like I've gotten credit for all the games I played yesterday, but not for any of the ones I played the day before. Grrr!

I checked mine this morning: all of my games from yesterday were added in, but none of the ones from Tuesday. When I tried to submit a bug report, the site slowed to a crawl and refused to load the bug report page before I had to leave for work. Maybe (since the neoboards are crawling with complainers) TNT will have it fixed by the time I get home? I hope so, because I should have a nice and (semi)pretty Rank 18 shield (with the unfortunate ugly yellow stone) once those get added back in.

I'm *so* happy that we have 4 days of finals! This means I can go from 100 points a day down to 75 (if I want to cut back that is- I may still put in the 100 to cover if some scores don't send) and still get to the top rank. My husband is glad, because he has a shot at getting a gold one now, too, even though he's still missing some 50+ points from the weekend that have yet to go through. We're both hoping that maybe they'll just completely re-run all of the score calculations for the whole tourney, and that maybe that'll bring back the missing scores for not only Tuesday, but the previous days. Odds of this happening: not good. Oh well. So long as they credit us with Tuesday's, I'll be happy enough.

I'm really not sure of how I feel about people getting to join up with the finalist teams. This irritates me on several points:
A) We were told we would not be allowed to change teams at all during the tourney. Now they're letting people?
B) Who's going to want to join the teams that are in the 3rd/4th play-off games?
C) The top two teams will be dealing with lots of "deadweight", like gingernut mentioned. This could COMPLETELY change the way the finals turn out, which I'm not sure is very fair to those of us who have been working hard for our teams to win. Does anyone else on a team likely to be in finals feel this way about it?
D) Backgrounds: All I hafta say is this: I sure hope they do not hand out second ones to the teams who don't make finals. If they do, that'll be unfair to those who were devoted to the team and don't get a second one, and will also depreciate the value of that particular background item. Double slight for devotees = bad.

I think I would've been a lot happier if they'd let all of those who didn't make it to finals play Jelly World for the 4 days (like afyapardess suggested), and let that count towards their points.

Anyways, grumping aside, I can't wait to see the actual results, and who made it!

[Kuri]

I have to know if this is just me... it looks like I've gotten credit for all the games I played yesterday, but not for any of the ones I played the day before. Grrr!

Same here. I really hope they end up updating with those score and that they didn't lose them. I played a lot that one day in hopes of going up a rank.

[metalmario]

There will be no dead weight, TNT has stated that you cannot hurt your team. If you send 9 points, that's 9 points to your team's grand total. If you draw, it's 0 points, and if you lose, it's also 0 points. If anything, the #1 team will have an advantage because of the sheer number of points being awarded to it. But that's not new, the most popular teams are in the top places, while the less popular are in the bottom places. (pirates, evil mutant things, asian styled things, the devoted chat group vs. medieval, prehistoric, etc.)

I think I'm going to go ahead and join Roo. Both Darigan and Krawk have too many braggers (no offense to the nice people on those teams), and Shenkuu is what knocked LD out of the running so I can't bring myself to root for them. Roo generally keeps to themselves and has a good attitude overall.


PS Yeah my scores for Tuesday are still MIA, and I'm missing maybe 5 from yesterday. :/

[Pickles]

There will be no dead weight, TNT has stated that you cannot hurt your team.

Heh, sorry, I keep forgetting that they're not weighing it the same way they did last year. That makes me feel better. Sorry I'm so grumpy this morning...I guess I wanted my holiday to last longer .

I do feel bad for the 3rd/4th play-off teams. If it was me making the rules (which it's not, but this is all hypothetical), I would do something along these lines:
Get a full list of rankings for teams and number them 1-16. Top 4 obviously would be in the finals. This leaves 12 teams that are not. I'd let the next 6 teams (who came in 5th-10th) sign up with one of the top two teams, and the last 6 teams (who ranked 11th-16th) sign up with the 3rd/4th place teams.
This may seem unfair, but here's my reasoning: if your team didn't make the top 4, you now have a shot at getting a 1st or 2nd place "supporter" trophy. What about the people whose teams made 3rd/4th? They may have a "devotee" trophy, but it's still not 1st/2nd, like all those who were "supporters" because their team didn't make it. If I was on a team that finished the finals in 4th, and got a 4th place devotee trophy, but someone whose team originally finished dead last but joined the team who won as a "supporter", I'd think I'd be a little upset. Now, since I'm not currently in that position, I suppose it doesn't matter, but I feel for those who might be.