[Dox]

There are a few things with the current ACL format that I may need to adjust in order to improve the overall fairness & enjoyment of players.

1) Online rounds
For our first league, we had 1 online round. It was there to support people like yang, EdgE, YoonYJ and other such players who are unfortunately disadvantaged by geographic location. We applied a bonus modifier to the participants who were unable to attend a regional, helping them keep up with the rest of the pack.

For our second league, we broke the online round into three separate components, which yielded less individual points than the regionals, whilst rewarding participants who competed in all three. So it still encouraged people to attend regionals if absolutely possible, but there was a fallback.

So why do I want to change it again?

• The scene is actually pretty heavily saturated right now. Anyone who has taken a glance at my schedule knows this. It would be practically impossible for me to squeeze in 3 online rounds before ACL Melbourne with all the things that are going on.
• Being forced to attend more and more events and give up more and more weekends just to ensure you can participate is not healthy. We're putting too much pressure on players, and I'm having trouble justifying the positives here.
• At the end of the day, people like yang still aren't benefiting from this system because the people who are attending the regionals are also participating to sweep up whatever points they can.

So my ideal "solution" in this circumstance is to schedule a single online round somewhere around the 28th/29th of June. This event would only be open to participants who have not competed in a regional event, and reward just as many points as the regionals. Of course, the Brisbane regionals are a week later, so that opens up another whole can of worms. This is also terribly inconvenient for the winner, since you have less than a week to book flights/accommodation if you win. So essentially this event would be for people who intend on coming to ACL Melbourne regardless, and looking for a means to bypass the Open Bracket. Thoughts?



2) Swiss Style
There's not much for me to say here. It's a cool system, it gives everyone value for money no matter what league they're in, and it's a more stable, rewarding experience. However, we've seen people get screwed by it a few times too - and this may only be due to the way Challonge manages matchmaking. We've seen two people advance to a round with 4-0, and for some reason they don't get matched. Instead, it matches one guy with a 3-1, and the other with a 2-2. So - do we ditch the Swiss system entirely? Or would you prefer we run it manually to ensure fair and correct match making?


3) Open Bracket
At ACL Gold Coast, participants who successfully advanced from the Open Bracket to the Championship Playoffs (Group Stages) were automatically placed into pre-determined groups before they had even completed the bracket. And although the weighting was technically sound (we put the Open Bracket winner and Runner up into the "lightest" groups) - this isn't necessarily rewarding to the player. They might prefer to pick the group full of Zergs because they only want to play 1 matchup. They might prefer to pick the group which doesn't have a teammate in it. Whatever. There's a billion reasons. But the point is, there were flaws in this system.

So at ACL Sydney, we changed the format. We allowed the Open Bracket successors to pick which groups they would join, starting from 1st through to 8th. We even broadcasted this group selection live, making for a more enjoyable viewer experience. Personally, I thought this was a hit. But there is of course - a downside. Why go to the trouble of competing in the Regionals/Online rounds, if you're confident that you could just breeze through the Open Bracket and pick your ideal group? Now keep in mind that when the groups are created, we do so by ensuring that the average weight (ie. overall ACL points) is distributed evenly. But problems occur when an extremely good player decides to make his debut with 0 points. So how do we manage this? Do we continue allowing people to choose their groups? If so, should we just limit it to the top 4 - whilst 5th through 8th are automatically placed? Personally, I'd like to extend this concept even further. See below.

Let's use Sydney as our example. If we refer to this list, we can see that our top 8 players were MaFia, mOOnGLaDe, Rossi, Ninja, deth, tgun, SenSei, and Light. So what if we allocated 9-16 into groups automatically - whilst keeping them as balanced as possible, and then invited our top 8 to pick which groups they want to join, (live broadcast) GSL style? This SLIGHTLY resolves the whole issue of "I won my regional, but I still got stuck with a bullshit group", but could potentially create groups which are horrendously and statistically disparate.

So what are your thoughts and suggestions? Keep in mind, that stuff like this requires more resources, more overhead and demands more time and effort from a very busy and limited number of individuals. But at the same time, we aim to please, so if we can bring more enjoyable content to the players and fans, then we're happy to do it.

That's pretty much everything I'm focused on at this stage, so please - take the time to read carefully, and respond to the suggestions I've made. If you dislike the original format, or the suggestions I've made, please also ensure that you make suggestions of your own. It's fine to acknowledge that you're not happy with something, but you need to be prepared to suggest alternatives as well. Be part of the solution!

Also, if you're happy with the current format - please, say so! Otherwise we can only assume that the silence is a good thing.

Quick Comments

	Another:	more tournaments need to be run by people like dox <3
	VoxMSI.Rogue:	<3 man how do you even exist, you are a god among men sir!

[Baldie]

Originally Posted by Dox

2) Swiss Style There's not much for me to say here. It's a cool system, it gives everyone value for money no matter what league they're in, and it's a more stable, rewarding experience. However, we've seen people get screwed by it a few times too - and this may only be due to the way Challonge manages matchmaking. We've seen two people advance to a round with 4-0, and for some reason they don't get matched. Instead, it matches one guy with a 3-1, and the other with a 2-2. So - do we ditch the Swiss system entirely? Or would you prefer we run it manually to ensure fair and correct match making?

Having experience with running a 7 week Swiss Bracket system with SASL Season 3 - the major drawback is how the system has potential to be abused. For example when the first round is complete, the entire pool is split in half - those who have won a game and those who have lost a game. For round 2 the system logically will match winners vs winners and losers vs losers. Someone could purposely lose/tank their first game or so and be placed in the bottom 50% - then achieve easier wins until the system catches back up pending how many times it occurs. The amount of skew will obviously depend on how many games are played and the feasibility of someone doing this is also dependent on total games.

Although this didn't occur with our SASL Season, we saw it as having potential to occur. A manual match making system would ensure no 3-1 2-2 matchings but could not avoid human manipulation. Other than that it is a cool system indeed.

[Dox]

I don't think anyone would ever justify the risk of throwing a match and losing their opportunity to qualify.

Quick Comments

Baldie:

Of course - just food for thought

[syfChadMann]

Originally Posted by Dox

ACL Sydney, we changed the format. We allowed the Open Bracket successors to pick which groups they would join, starting from 1st through to 8th. We even broadcasted this group selection live, making for a more enjoyable viewer experience. Personally, I thought this was a hit. But there is of course - a downside.

Possible to allow the Pro bracket qualifiers the ability to pick their grounds in rank order?.. then have the Open bracket players pick from there?.. could also make for some good trash talk and hype to match ups...?
I think it is a good idea. should do that..

In addition.. I'd bring in some rules about using PC's when your not supposed to be playing - like a ban from PC area to spectators or potential removal from the tournament to players and penalties for players stuffing around and not playing their games in time.

[Loach]

Open Bracket
I for one am extremely happy with the way ACL pans out.. As a player that is not in GM, I go to ACL and other tournaments with the mentality of "go as far as you can and have fun", so the Open Bracket at Sydney was great for me! I won a few matches and then lost a few matches and was out, but I took games off ppl I thought I never would. The main thing that convinced me to go to ACL Sydney's Open Bracket was the BO3 from round 1 (I think everybody hates bo1's) and that there was a losers bracket.. i have a guaranteed 4 matches, even if i lose all 4 (which can happen, but I still get to go to ACL :P)

Top 8 from Open Bracket choosing groups: I always thought this was a little strange... I mean, the people that are already in groups didnt get to pick theirs.. and now people that weren't able to get to the pro-bracket right off the bat are able to pick and choose? Seems a little un-fair to me in that way, but I can see the appeal, to make the end of the open bracket a little more interesting... can i suggest 2 barrels with group numbers in one and the 8 players in the other? or 2 gigantic wheels of fortune? let's race snails to see who's leaves the circle first, they get group A, 2nd Group B, etc etc until full.. But then the time constraints.. DARNIT... i'd watch that though.. and then Frogmite can eat the snails after... crazy french people..

Swiss Style
It's tasty.. I love this stuff... put it in a sammich with some ham and then toast it so it melts... mmmm.....
To be honest I hate it.. the first time I ever heard of it was at SGL last year where the pro-bracket ran it.. it seemed confusing and although they got more games out of it, there were people playing till all hours in the morning just because there were so many matches to go through... Time constraints are a big issue I feel, ACL Sydney speaks for itself.. Swiss style is also not to viewer friendly as far as casual viewers go anyway..

Online Rounds
Unfortunately I haven't been able to compete in any online rounds as of yet. But intend to soon.. I prefer the 1 online round, although having 3 allows players to select which one/s they wish to enter, it again comes down to a time constraint - if you can't make the online round.. well.. sorry, show up for regionals perhaps? this isn't always an option but unfortunately everything cannot be accommodated to everybody's best wishes...
As far as the time between the online round and the tournament itself, that doesn't bother me too much.. players know their skill level, if it's a possibility that they will get thru the online round and get to play in the next ACL, then they should be prepared to go to that ACL! If you are competing in the online rounds just for points, let it be known so that you can immediately give your ACL spot to the next person in line..
Brisbane, I don't have a solution for you or any thought out ones anyway... put a disclaimer on it, if u compete on the online round u cannot compete in the regionals?




Hope I was able to shed some light on it.. haven't read over it so excuse any "retardism" throughout.. and this is only from a scrubs opinion anyway, lol..

See you all at ACL Melb, where I hope to cast with some handsome dread-locked man, if u can find one

Quick Comments

mGGSouth:

snails

[Fenner]

dox with that acl system are you allowed to just play online even if you live in one of the places with regionals?

from chatbox:

Dox: try to keep it in the thread fenner, otherwise people will probably end up asking the same questions, or there's a very good chance i'll miss them in the chat box

Dox: but to answer your question - we don't have an established format for the online round yet, that's the objective of the thread. if we went with that design, then that would be the case, yes - you would forfeit your opportunity to play in a regional by

Quick Comments

Dox:

love your work

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by ToRBaldie

Having experience with running a 7 week Swiss Bracket system with SASL Season 3 - the major drawback is how the system has potential to be abused. For example when the first round is complete, the entire pool is split in half - those who have won a game and those who have lost a game. For round 2 the system logically will match winners vs winners and losers vs losers. Someone could purposely lose/tank their first game or so and be placed in the bottom 50% - then achieve easier wins until the system catches back up pending how many times it occurs. The amount of skew will obviously depend on how many games are played and the feasibility of someone doing this is also dependent on total games.

Although this didn't occur with our SASL Season, we saw it as having potential to occur. A manual match making system would ensure no 3-1 2-2 matchings but could not avoid human manipulation. Other than that it is a cool system indeed.

In addition to Dox's comment, this also affects your tiebreaker quite badly cause if you finished tied with someone who won a few rounds against good opponents (rather than people who lost first round) you could miss out. Losing games early really hurts your ability to place high in a swiss bracket.

[syfChadMann]

Yeah Re: Swiss bracket - I'm a strong supporter of it.. but if possible add a round to boost the accuracy of the results, I understand that the day is already pretty tight, but I'm sure most would be happy to arrive at 9:30 and start at 10 - sharp.. and even go a bit later to get a better result..

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Loach

let's race snails to see who's leaves the circle first, they get group A, 2nd Group B, etc etc until full.. But then the time constraints.. DARNIT... i'd watch that though.. and then Frogmite can eat the snails after... crazy french people..

I like it, let's lock this in.

Swiss Style
To be honest I hate it.. the first time I ever heard of it was at SGL last year where the pro-bracket ran it.. it seemed confusing and although they got more games out of it, there were people playing till all hours in the morning just because there were so many matches to go through... Time constraints are a big issue I feel, ACL Sydney speaks for itself.. Swiss style is also not to viewer friendly as far as casual viewers go anyway..

Just to expand on this - we don't use Swiss at the Nationals, we only use it at the Regionals. We haven't encountered any issues with scheduling - I think more often than not the regionals are finished by 6:00PM, leaving plenty of time for dinner. The only issue has really been results not being as transparent as they should be. Don't let SGL impact the operation of ACL's swiss brackets.

Quick Comments

Loach:

Ah righto, makes sense then ^^

[ROOT`iaguz]

1) Online rounds
For our first league, we had 1 online round. It was there to support people like yang, EdgE, YoonYJ and other such players who are unfortunately disadvantaged by geographic location. We applied a bonus modifier to the participants who were unable to attend a regional, helping them keep up with the rest of the pack.

For our second league, we broke the online round into three separate components, which yielded less individual points than the regionals, whilst rewarding participants who competed in all three. So it still encouraged people to attend regionals if absolutely possible, but there was a fallback.

So why do I want to change it again?

The scene is actually pretty heavily saturated right now. Anyone who has taken a glance at my schedule knows this. It would be practically impossible for me to squeeze in 3 online rounds before ACL Melbourne with all the things that are going on.
Being forced to attend more and more events and give up more and more weekends just to ensure you can participate is not healthy. We're putting too much pressure on players, and I'm having trouble justifying the positives here.
At the end of the day, people like yang still aren't benefiting from this system because the people who are attending the regionals are also participating to sweep up whatever points they can.


So my ideal "solution" in this circumstance is to schedule a single online round somewhere around the 28th/29th of June. This event would only be open to participants who have not competed in a regional event, and reward just as many points as the regionals. Of course, the Brisbane regionals are a week later, so that opens up another whole can of worms. This is also terribly inconvenient for the winner, since you have less than a week to book flights/accommodation if you win. So essentially this event would be for people who intend on coming to ACL Melbourne regardless, and looking for a means to bypass the Open Bracket. Thoughts?

Whilst the online qualifier does help out the people who don't live in Sydney, bris or melb, also consider that these places have very difficult competitions themselves and outside of these three the competition is not particularly steep. I can see players not playing in regionals because of that, and that would be really shitty.

My main qualm with the qualification process is that a points system is kinda unnecessary and frustrating, it's very difficult to really know how much you had to compete in to ensure you qualified, having a higher position was only for bragging purposes seeing as groups were randomised anyway, and it can lead to players playing in a shitload of events when they really ought not to, kind of skews the results and makes things a bit tricky for other players.

You want to find 16 players for an ACL, well, get top 4 from each regionals then have one online round, top 4 from that. Anyone who top 4'd in a regional cannot play in the online round (so obviously play it after regionals) because they're already qualified and don't have to. People like Yang, yoon, edge, Jazbas or who ever are always going to be disadvantaged geographically and there's not going to be a clean solution for that.

I don't care enough about 2) or 3) to have a proper opinion about either. Swiss was really shitty that one time we did it at SGL (though there was a lot of crappy things about that particular event, just ask Glade. Or better yet, don't) and I tend to not play in the open bracket, though goddamn have I gotten close.

Quick Comments

Fourby:

I like the part where qualified from regionals cant play in online, and how they qualify etc

[Dox]

Something I probably should have made clear in the OP was that ACL will always operate on points - it's an important part of our core. They serve more purpose than just to determine who gets invited to nationals - it also rewards players with seeds at regional events (although City Hunter has operated independently so this hasn't had any impact in your region), and allows us to establish who gets invited to the annual event (and any other special events we decide to host) at the end of the year (which has no qualifying event).

[dippa]

Swiss play

Always been a big fan of this back from CS days, mainly because it gives greater value to the 50% of people who statistically will not get anything out of the standard single or double elimination formats.

People had problems at SGL with Swiss - largely because Glade got knocked out, even though I think it's silly to complain that the system is unfair when there's an inherent degree of unfairness in any format that isn't a full league - but it actually resulted in a lot of great matches in the group stage. HuT wasn't able to practice much beforehand, and if he'd played his first two games that traditionally would have been the end of the day for him.

Swiss ensured that not only did he play more games than that, but the system paired him up against rather difficult opponents, all of which he performed well against, so he walked away with a stack of replays and a good boost to his confidence. Normally you'd get one or two tough matches in a group stage then a couple of easier games.

I think seeding in the first round will qualm concerns that one person got a "free" point while others were made to work harder for their win (even though this is ridiculous, since if you play someone who absolutely tanks it then they are basically ignored for the sake of tiebreakers whereas better performing opponents are always factored into the equation).

But I'm pretty alone in liking this, so meh. Also, I don't think you should bother trying to do Swiss manually - you'll end up killing yourself.

Online Rounds

I actually liked the multiple online rounds, but I understand it's too time intensive to run them again. That's fine.

There's all sorts of ideas running around in my head, but they'd honestly take too long to work through, and I remember it being quite nice showing up to the online rounds to find out one or two people hadn't shown up (because it meant I could go back to bed).

Not that a single online round would help that at all; everyone will show up and I'll get drilled harder than a cheap Liverpool hooker - but still.

I don't know how I feel about the exclusivity thing for the online rounds/regionals. I think most people would prefer online - it's smoother playing at home than it is at a netcafe for a lot of people. There could also be situations where people are going to get utterly jewed because they draw a ridiculous group and that's pretty much the end of their tournament unless they can make the open bracket.

I think, overall, I'd prefer the older system of applying a bonus modifier to people who haven't participated in a regional event (x2) and maybe expanding the online round into a broader second day with a 32-player bracket instead of a 16 player bracket.

Basically, this would allow you to invite and seed some players directly into the second day of the qualifiers. (Perhaps 8 or so, and have 8 groups of 5 where the top 3 from each qualify.) The first day can then be freed up as a group stage for the rest, but they will still have to win a round against someone more capable on the second. The second day's seedings would be sorted by ACL ranking points. (Clarification: top 8 invites sorted by ranking points and then the remainder seeded by their finish in the group stage the previous day.)

Open Bracket

Top two players in the upper bracket should have a say in what groups they want, irrespective of whether players who have already qualified get a vote. (So if the top 8 qualified players get to choose, then you have 10 people selecting groups, or you just have 2.)

This is more of a practical measure: means nobody in the lower bracket gets a say, so there's no value in playing out those games, which the competitors and admins prefer (don't have to show too many builds vs top-notch players when everyone is paying attention, and everyone gets to go home a little earlier).

[syfChadMann]

Originally Posted by xGKingiaguz

just ask Glade. Or better yet, don't

Poor GLaDe - gets dicked by the swiss bracket alot..
him tho.. shrugged it off like a champ.

Also, I really like the idea that the Online round is openly available to all, otherwise all the mid tier Sydney players will not be going to the Sydney regionals. I agree that top four (or more?) from regionals can not play in Online round (or something like that) ensuring it is a chance for other players and second chance for those that live in a town with a much stronger scene.

[ACL VaNzR]

I'd just like to point out my 2c here. While it was always in my interest to let Dox run rampant with the SC2 structures to get the approval of the community here, there have always been some constraints as to how far we bend from our original structure. It's at this point I explain to a few of you who don't know our typical structures and ethos behind the way we do things at ACL.

SC2 is the first game format we've allowed 'flex' with how we run things. All of our console games follow a largely similar system that just seems to work. This doesn't necessarily apply to a 1v1 community (though it has for Fifa somewhat) and I felt it best for Dox's capable management to shift into autodrive for SC2.

ACL's Tournament Ethos:
To be the most competitive league while ensuring everyone gets a 'good go'.

This basically means that we want to have structures that define without a doubt the best player on a day. No bo1s, no random brackets & no surprises. The winner of an ACL tournament should be able to say without a doubt that they won because of how they played, and no external factor (structure wise) should be used as an excuse for why someone lost.

The flipside of this, which I am amazingly passionate about, is that every single player who enters an ACL event feels welcome and accommodated. Too many times had I heard of someone paying entry, playing 1-2 games and getting knocked out straight away. This is a huge no,no for me and our organisation and we will never stray from looking after the casual players as well as the most hardcore. This is in fact why every other title incorporates pool play & THEN a double bracket elimination. This is something we just can't do with 60+ competitors and only 20 machines. Mark my words however (quote me now) that the day we see the support from vendors & sponsors to have enough machines (40-50) and a 3 day comp that I would indeed love to look at that kind of structure for a game like SC2.

Imagine with me for a second... starting an ACL on a Friday night, knowing exactly when your pool commences, either a Friday 6pm or Saturday 10am time slot, then progressing to double elimination on a Saturday night and continuing on Sunday. Ie - Lots of smaller groups, zero waiting around.

With points, this is a hugely important part of the competitive system. It's allowed us to provide a fairly bang on seeding structure for seasons to come and it ensures that players who put in the hard work are rewarded. I for one despise the attitude of "I'll just sweep open bracket". Those players who choose not to compete in our online & regional events aren't supporting us, the organisers who slave away to put these events on for you. In general they just see the cash associated with the bigger events and want to do as little as possible to get to it. The flipside of this is of course the saturation of events we've seen lately. It's ridiculous to expect a player to compete in so many events just for the sake of points, so we're looking to change that, but I still maintain passionately that the system is their for good reason, and we will never stray from that.

Anyway, all I'm saying in this post is to rest assured that regardless of what changes we make to the system, we'll always strive to stick by our ethos and some of our mandates.

Quick Comments

	syfChadMann:	Love your work.. <3
	Dox:
	FvRelimzkE:
	Baldie:
	Champi:

[iM MaFia]

I really like the idea of having top8 seeds getting to choose which group to get into, it seems much fairer and rewarding for the players with seeds. It encourages people to play more and accumulate points to be given more beneficial chances come ACL event. I also think its fair to change qualifiers from open bracket getting to choose which group they go in, that's very advantageous and you don't want to have people purposely just playing the open bracket to get easier groups

Quick Comments

	dippa:	always remember tgun saying he was seriously considering going through the open bracket just so he could pick his group.
	Asrathiel:	Agreed
	iM tgun:	I'm not joking when I said I'd do it for Melb ACL -- I also considered doing it for Syd ACL.

[Benji]

I have quite a few suggestions, but one that I feel should be implemented is to do with the open bracket and streaming.

On day 1, most of the games being streamed are open bracket games, this does a few things, but most importantly it slows down the bracket. My suggestion is this, you had 4 computers at the last event dedicated to stream games, I'm going to assume you will have a similar setup at the next event. You should run the group stage games all day on those 4 computers and only those 4 computers and stream them. Have every other computer dedicated to powering through the open bracket as fast as possible, but those 4 streamed computers are for the group stages.

There are many benefits from this, firstly your open bracket will run faster, the loss of 4 computers will be more than offset by the gain in people not having to wait for anything besides a PC. Second, the best 16 players should be in the groups, and thus the level of quality of games on the stream is higher which should lead to more retention of viewers. Thirdly it gives more exposure to the players that deserve it, the guys in the group stage should be getting the spotlight until the open bracket is finished as they have qualified through various means. This allows you to run the open bracket and the group stage completely separate, making the open bracket more efficient. Also it means your group stage games are slowly creeping along, and it gives you the opportunity to highlight specific match ups (Light vs Glade anyone?). Once the open bracket is completed, you can run your group stages as normal, but with the benefit of it already being half completed, and having streamed the best games all day.

[inFeZa]

I quite like the current ACL ways of doing things. Few minor things i'd like to see.

Not use challonge for the swiss tournament, Somehow i played vs targa when there was other players with higher scores than me playing people who had lower scores than me. Not too great when it could mean the difference of placing and not (GC Melb quals). It should be done manually, this way its more fair.

The Open bracket needs to start earlier and complete by the first day, thus allowing all the group stages to be completed by day 1 so day 2 is all about the championship bracket and we can spend more time on it having a smoother bracket where more people can be streamed and interviewed without worrying about time.

And one kinda more for the players side of things.
A time limit for warming up, no ******* ladder games.- if you want to play ladder get there EARLY and play before the event STARTS. i swear if you're holding things up because you're playing joe schmo for 4 ladder points im going to come over and f10 n your game. 5-10min warm up time. want more? get in early.

and for gods sake *dont* sit on a computer watching streams or playing games when you're out of the tournament. there are limited computers. don't be jerans.

Quick Comments

syfChadMann:

don't be fkn Jerans!!

[Peleus]

Not perhaps with relation to the running of the event itself but personally I'd like to see a solid summary page of what the ACL organisation is about with relation to SC2, how it works, point structures, events throughout the circuit etc, all on a single condensed page*.

For example I know I can hop onto ACL's website and find information about each event individually, but I'm looking for something more general.

I.e. Produce the equivalent of this - http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft...1_November.jpg for how your tournament / pro circuit works.


*Sorry if such a thing exists, I haven't found it.

[ToR.Arnor]

1) Agreed I think 3 Online rounds is alot for both the players and for ACL to actually fit in to an already busy schedule, I think 2 is a nice number im not sure whether it is even feasible for ACL Melbourne though, Online Rounds could be more flexible Swiss format run over several weeks (run it like SASL runs their leagues) however in relies heavily on the players getting their shit together and organizing their own games, perhaps its like SEACL where the designated time in x time weekly (lets say 9pm Thursday) player 1 set a week for x weeks (lets say 6) That way you can easily navigate it around the countless other online events happening.


2) Works well enough for regional qualifiers, yes it seems challonge's coding maybe be a little off, but I suppose its a free service so we cant complain to much, have you looked into other websites that run swiss brackets as well? a quick google search comes up with a couple programs you can download as well, Im not a fan of things been done manually because a) it takes up time for the admin and b) I prefer things to be 100% transparent to cover the admins arse

with 2 WCS slots on the line I feel it is more important to either find a program that can run Swiss correctly or test a new format (something I wouldnt suggest to do this late into the ACL Season).

3- ill include ACL Nationals in this part) The Open Bracket players being able to pick their groups is fine provided the Group Stage Games dont start until Open Bracket ends OR results are hidden (which is extremely hard to do/more work on your part), I really enjoyed seeing the open bracket players come on screen, get a little insight on how they were feeling, hear a little trash talk etc etc

I would also suggest dropping it back to only the top 4 from the open bracket, with all the other events going on you'll find players will skip regional/online rounds and just do the open bracket (particularly when they can pick their opponents/ all but guaranteed to qualify through),

One thing i'm not a fan of is the whole "weighting Groups equally" thing, it goes back to an earlier point of not being totally transparent I prefer the standard format (I Believe MLG uses?) of having Seeds separated like so

Group A- Seed 1, 16, 9, 8
Group B- Seed 2, 15, 10, 7
Group C- Seed 3, 14, 11, 6
Group D- Seed 4, 12, 13, 5

Yes some smart cookies will try and cheat the system in order to find themselves matched with more favorable opponents but with two dozen other players doing the same thing I say good luck to them! it also will make players feel as if they are picking their group (as they can have some level of control on how they perform/place) and dissolves the issue of "open bracket players having the advantage"

Ill try and add more suggestions / insights later (alot on my plate atm ) All and All loving ACLs work

P.S. I know where you guys live now mwhahahaha

[syfChadMann]

I understand what your suggesting Benji - but I want to see the Open bracket more than some of the pro-bracket. Sure it's great to see Light v GLaDe (as you've suggested) but there are other matches in the Open bracket I want to see also. Furthermore, I want to see the big 'stories' of the day powering thru open bracket surprising everyone then performing in the pool play (ala yang and Gold Coast or JazBas at Sydney). Moreso, I want to see the un-sung hero's and players I don't always get to see streamed in tournaments. Everyone deserves their time in the spotlight on streams, don't just reserve it for the tip top best matches.

Finally, if Open bracket players are picking their group for pool play - Ideally, there should be no group stage games played, at all. If the pool is mostly completed the open bracket players gain an even stronger advantage in picking their group based on the results already recorded. Now while I understand this is absolute best case scenario and not always attainable - it may be possible to play group stage games during the open bracket but not release the results until after players have selected their group.

Regarding the groups - I would love, love lovee!! to see GSL style group slections, top 4-8 seeds pick their group, then pick someone to join them - who then picks someone till everyone has a group, would make for some great rivalries and hype for the matches!..

other than that - I love you work ACL and Dox..