New format thoughts

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Anka

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Hello,

Before I start, I'll just say that this is MY own opinion, not a team opinion, or general one, this is just MINE.
I also want to mention that I write this topic after seeing the google form linked by MKU staff a few hours ago,.

Ok so, what you guys thininking about this new format ?
The season isn't ended yet BUT a lot of matchs have been already played and I think we already have a good overview of the new format now.


So why imo this new format is bad :

1) 16 teams / division :
Now we have 16 teams for each divisions which means being D1 is meaningless, before the D1 was kinda like a grail, everyone was like "wow look at this D1 team they godlike at the game", obviously the same goes for D2, D3 ect ....

2) The matchs schedule :
Basically we have seeding phases with 3 matchs (hell that's a lot, especially for low player base teams), but then you have some weeks with only 1 matchs, sometimes 2, the general organisation for the MKU became realy hard now, before you had 2 matchs and that's it. And you know before playing which team is against yours, which lead to strategical preparations (tracks TT, line-ups, ect ...).

3) The consistancy isn't rewarded :
The old format has a lot more reward by being consistant, you had 10 matchs to get into playoff, then prove that you deserve your spot for it. So you can have some bad weeks and not being hard punished for that (except for playoff), now any bad week is instant punished.

4) The seeding :
It's imo a fake problem and everything was fine with the old format (with only a few exceptions), the only problem was the low divs seedings but that's mainly because we lack of informations for these players, so maybe keep the tournement thing for low divs or maybe recruit some "seedings helpers" with this player base representant and do the old seeding version.


Not gonna lie, I don't find any pros for this news format, I just want the old format back, most of competitives games use this kind of format this is maybe for a reason. I probably missed fews things, but I just want your opinion about this and if you have some ideas, just bring them here.

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I agree with you on points 2-4. Personally, I've enjoyed the 16 team divisions.

Below is my twitlonger I made not too long ago about how to combine both formats. Realistically, the conference format needs to be the key component, with an interchangeable playoff system.

The one thing I really enjoyed watching (trust me, not playing this season) was the promotion and relegation system which I enjoyed. Having a transparent path to move up / down the proverbial MKU ladder is very interesting and removes some subjectivity.

The group stage made or broke the season for several teams. If you're interested in reading my full twitlonger, click below.

First off, I would like to start off by saying I have really enjoyed this current season of MKU as a spectator. It's been clear there have been mixed reviews of the current format, and many individuals are looking to potentially revert back to the original conference format.

First, I really enjoy the transparency in this format of how you can get promoted or relegated. The playoff section is MUCH more interesting, and you have a clear path of how to maintain, gain, or lose your divisional status.

On the other hand, your group really dictates your path, and I have seen many examples where teams have gotten some circumstances to align with little effort to advance into an upper group to safety (I'm looking at you ph1 in the second phase). There are other examples as well especially in tighter divisions such as D3, but rather than being critical of these specific instances, I think we can all agree that the group stage is vitally important and sets you up for the remainder of the tournament. You have to be on in all 3 races, which more work than being on for a traditional 2 hour stretch in the conference format.

Additionally, while I am all for the wheel of death and randomization, the current system has proven in multiple groups in certain instances two teams relegated down from an upper division were paired with two weaker teams in the same group which can really throw a team's season off entirely if they are not prepared for that doomsday scenario. To be fair, there was a reason why teams were relegated, but so much weight is on RNG that it does make me want to consider taking a look at leveraging the regular season similar to the conference format.

This format can be modified or altered in any way. It is not perfect. However, entertain this idea for the future.

First, the number of teams in the division really dictates how this can be modified. In this example, I'm basing it off of 16 teams which is the current number of teams in a division in Season 15. You can even have a deeper regular season / conference format if you shrink the number of teams.

To start, just like in this season, teams are placed into 4 tiers based off of their finish in the prior end of the tournament. Unlike the Felix format which has 2 phases, cutting it back to one phase would be more simplified and really raises the stakes on jumping or being relegated in a division.

For this example, I'll be using S15 division one. Rather than 4 groups, teams will be assigned one of two conferences to start the season which can be done at random.

Conference A
MainClan (Tier 1)
PIKE Florida State University (Tier 1)
Midnight Wasps (Tier 2)
SecretX (Tier 2)
Sweatyzard X (Tier 3)
Arcadia Sky (Tier 3)
Ataraxia (Tier 4)
Les Lions de l'Atlas (Tier 4)

Conference B
World Friend Star (Tier 1)
High Definition (Tier 1)
Banana Legion (Tier 2)
World Friend Moon (Tier 2)
Kira Team 2 (Tier 3)
Jean Messiha (Tier 3)
Difference (Tier 4)
Jean Pierre Papin (Tier 4)

In the regular season, each team will play their conference opponent once, which is a total of 7 games. This is where this middle ground format gets dicey. If you shrink the number of teams in the division, you will have more room for INTER-CONFERENCE format matches. It will increase the time spent in the regular season phase, but also slowly shrink the amount of time spent in playoffs. This is one of the ways the format can be modified.

Now... assuming all things are equal, that is 7 matches that would be played over 4 weeks. The 8th match can be one of two variations. First, it could be a random opponent from the other conference. Second, it could be an opponent from the other conference at a similar record level (ie: 7th overall faces 7th overall of the opposite conference, etc.). Lastly, in a more transparent alternative, it could be one of the 2 teams from the opposite conference that is in the same tier. You can even make it so the top tier 1 team faces the top tier 1 team of the opposing conference if necessary. Some unique options here if you wanted to add an 8th match. Without an inter-conference section though, this is essentially a glorified round robin.

After facing each of the 7 teams in your conference once, you could add on a potential week to the tournament to have 2 additional inter-conference matchups. Logically, it would make sense to play the other two teams from within the assigned tier for those, and the inter-conference match the week prior could be done at random. Another alternative if you added an additional week would be to play 1 match against one team from each tier that your team is not currently within. (ie: MainClan gets a tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 inter-conference matchup) done at random. This would make the regular season be a total of 10 matches, which is exactly the total from the conference format.

Here would be a mock schedule look at MainClan for example. Keep in mind, you can shuffle the schedule so the top tier teams are not first:

Week 1:
Pike
Midnight Wasps

Week 2:
SecretX
Sweatyzard X

Week 3:
Arcadia Sky
Ataraxia

Week 4:
Les Lions de l'Atlas
Kira Team 2 (Random Inter-Conference Match)

Week 5:
World Friend Star (Tier 1 Interconference)
High Definition (Tier 1 Inferconference)

It is also important to note that these interconference matchups do not have to be at the end of the schedule, they can take place during any week!

Regardless of if the season has a 4 week long or 5 week long regular season, the playoff format is exactly the same... except there is ONE phase only.

The top 4 from each conference will advance into the playoff bracket. This is where Felix's format is EXACTLY THE SAME. The top 8 will duke it out in a pro bracket (double elimination), with the top 3 teams being eligible to move up a division. For the consolation bracket (double elimination), same thing. The bottom 3 teams will get relegated.

This will remove the confusion of the halves in the season, streamline the transfer process, and solve a few more logistical issues.

The only thing that this format really raises questions on is the inter-conference portion. The last 3 MKU seasons were either 6 or 7 weeks long. Having 1 Inter-Conference match would mean you would stay within that window with a 16 team division.

If you wanted to add 2 more interconference matchups, it would make MKU 8 weeks long.

Just some food for thought!
Feel free to message me if you have questions.

I explored a lot, and may not have been clear. But if it was me, I would make MKU 2 months long and get the best out of both formats:

4 to 5 Week Long Regular Season
7 Conference Matchups
1 to 3 Interconference Matchups

3 Week Inter-Conference Playoffs (exactly the same as Felix format)

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and not the opinion of MKC in any way, shape, or form.
 
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Joswald7

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This has been my first season in competitive kart. I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but too often there have been situations where either I personally have underperformed or my team has been significantly outmatched. Frankly, I believe that the promotion and consolation/relegation brackets haven't really been representative of the potential of each team (see SX winning MKF but failing to finish higher than 6th in MKU).

This is due to the lack of competitive matches available. While I understand why this needs to happen (for scheduling and availability purposes), it doesn't represent where teams truly stand in each division. Unfortunately, I don't think conferences do this either; the difference between the old MKU format and professional sports is that the pros play a season that lasts a substantial portion of the year, allowing for results to follow a relatively expected distribution (see: English Premier League (soccer)). Additionally, in professional sports, conferences are generally done along geographic lines to reduce wear and tear on players and staff. This isn't really necessary for something like competitive Mario Kart when we all play as a team online. (Disclaimer: I am not asserting that kart should become a professional sport. Rather, I am just using this as a comparison for statistical and logical reasons).

Let's assume, for simplicity's sake, that there are 16 teams in each division (like this past season).

Here's the idea:

1. Follow a system of promotion and relegation used in professional soccer in Europe. Keep the divisions the way they are (without implementing groups or conferences), but promote/relegate 3 (or 4) teams between the end of the season. This also incentivizes low div teams which want to improve to do so, or have individual players who want to improve attempt to stand out so that higher div teams can recruit. Conversely, if a high div player wants to help a low div team improve, they can make informed decisions about which team(s) they want to help improve.

2. Have each team play each other at least twice, if not more. I think the current MKU format suffers from having a season that is too short. It means that mismatches happen too quickly and teams don't end up where they believe they should, affecting self confidence for both the team and individual players. Scheduling-wise, if we assume 16 teams, each team plays at least 30 matches in the season (one team plays the other 15, so 15 teams x 2 matches per team = 30 matches played). This allows for more time to play and more opportunities to play against teams with similar skill levels. The schedule could even be condensed so that it's not played over 10 weeks! Having two matchdays per week (instead of the current single matchday) could allow the entire season to be run in five weeks.

3. Promote/relegate the top/bottom 3 (or 4) teams at the end of the season. Placements are determined using current MKC rules and tiebreakers. This system incentivizes teams to improve while also ensuring that teams eventually work their way into divisions that are more appropriate for their skill level. For example: a div 9 team is, in reality, a very good div 8 team. The promotion and relegation system works so that eventually, this team consistently plays teams of their skill level, resulting in fair and competitive play for all teams. It results in teams in MKU following a distribution that makes sense from an objective competitive standpoint rather than using a (frankly subjective) tier placement system.

While I think that the format used in MKU S15 has some advantages, I think the flaws significantly outweigh any benefits it has. I think the above system would minimize the number of mismatches experienced by all teams each season and give players more competitive experience, overall. It also motivates teams and/or players to improve or try to put in more frequent standout performances each season. Ultimately, I think a system like this will better serve the community for subsequent seasons in a way that will strengthen and motivate the community to grow even more than it already has.
 
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A few comments based off what I've read so far.

In the first season of change, there's likely going to be growing pains. I think there's 2 things that definitely should've been implemented earlier that would've massively improved reception.

1) Placements should've been done differently, because how they're affecting reseeding right now is not ideal. In the past it made sense for the D2 champion to outplace the last place team in D1, because there was quite literally nothing else they could do better to get ahead. In this format however, that's not true, because the 8th/9th place teams currently both had the same opportunity to advance to the premier bracket in the group phase. By treating the consolation champions as a tier-2 team in the next seedings, I think we made the seedings more imbalanced for the 2nd leg.

However, this change imo is not as important, especially as you get into lower divisions with less knowns. The next point affects every team's motivation dramatically, in my opinion.

2) Classifying divisions as 16 teams was a very big mistake, and I actually thought it was the wrong call well before the season started. We currently have the following format:

W1: Group Phase
W2-4: Bracket Phase
W5-W8: Rinse and Repeat

Instead, it should be seen as the following:

W1: Placement Phase
W2-4: Divisional Phase
W5-W8: Rinse and Repeat

It's essentially the same format, but the context of everything is incredibly important. The whole selling point of this format was how progressions were more quickly rewarded, because the S7-14 version of MKU was quite frankly, reliant on staff seedings each season over teams being rewarded on their improvement. The objective of Weeks 1 and 5 should've been seen as a measuring stick for teams. You play a wider variety of teams, and the goal should be to see how you stack up. Instead, teams are seeing bad week 1s as failures and season enders and if the goal of MKU is to allow each team a chance to compete for something meaningful to them, thrusting them into a "consolation bracket" is simply seen as a participation award.

Half of the entire league is entering Weeks 2 and 6 now feeling like their season is over, when a simple change in context could quite literally change everything. For instance, take a current D4 consolation team for example. They go into Week 6 feeling like their season is over, when with a simple change in context, they could be going into Week 6 with aspirations of winning Division 8.

So what I'm saying is, Sz should really be seen as Division 3 champions who moved up and were given a chance to compete for Division 1. If they couldn't make the push, they instead still get to move up into Division 2 and compete to win that title. Especially in lower divisions, when a team rapidly improves, this would've been huge for them in terms of natural progression. Division winners who completely dominated a division would get a chance to move up 2 divisions following a win, but if they weren't ready yet, they'd still move up the traditional one div. It's worth noting that the entire league is used to 8 team divisions. This really could have been very similar to what we've expected of MKU in the past, while fixing some of the flaws that Felix pointed out.

Instead, we now stand at a crossroads where I believe one thing is clearly inevitable, and this format will sadly never be fully realized.

Before concluding, there were some other things to note about previous posts.

The word competitive was used quite a bit in one. I think our definitions are different. One may say a tournament is more competitive when the skill levels of teams are closer I guess. For me, I believe a tournament is more competitive when people are trying their best to win every match. Wins are supposed to be good, and losses are supposed to be bad. Typically speaking, there is supposed to be consequences for winning and losing league matches. They are league matches, not scrimmages. I think people are not diagnosing the real issue here: it's not a bad thing for matches to have consequences, good or bad. It's a bad thing when those consequences are that after 1 week teams feel they have nothing to play for anymore. I think I've already highlighted the solution to this. In a tournament like MKU, it makes sense that you should be trying each week. It is weird to me that we just prefer to only have matches mean everything in the last 2 weeks of this season, because it is pretty much collectively admitting that we prefer it when Weeks 1-5 don't matter as much.

One post also mentioned not rewarding consistency. SX won Frontier and got a lower placement in MKU was cited as an example of this. I think it's worth noting that variation is how tournaments quite literally are supposed to work. If the same team doesn't win, it doesn't mean the tournament was bad or that the seedings were bad. We quite literally play tournaments because we don't expect things to stay the same forever. There'd be no point in playing if we had all the answers already. Sometimes different teams show up to play on different days. Sometimes team improve. It's why things are interesting.

Conclusion

I personally loved this format and I'm really sad that it's not going to ever be improved upon. There were a lot of things in earlier seasons that I felt were just annoying. A few of the highlights to me were:

- The division where one conference went like 15-1 in interconference play, but only 3 can make the playoffs of course
- Beating wf multiple times in the regular season just for it to ultimately be meaningless in the context of bracket advancement
- Going 8-2, still playing wf round 1, and then watching xi come just a game shy of having a chance to win D1 with an 8-8 record in that same season

I mentioned ways I would recommend improving it, and I've seen another question come up:

"Wouldn't this format make a great team tournament, like Agility or Velocity though?"

Despite me saying I like this format, the answer is no imo. This is because there's not much of a reason to run this over a tournament like Frontier again. This was very much an MKU take on a team tournament, which is ironic given that everyone seems to believe it's nothing like MKU.

The site team tournaments have some similarities:

- Direct consequences for winning or losing a game
- Larger brackets, sometimes varying amounts of games per day
- "Group phases"

But the big distinction between these tournaments and MKU is that everyone is on the same playing field before the tournament starts. There is nothing stopping any team from winning them if they just don't lose. That's not MKU, or this new format.

In a sense, MKU is a really good tournament for new teams because it's somewhat protective toward teams getting an opponent that they are just not ready to handle whatsoever. This style has its pros and cons. This imo, makes MKU a fantastic starting place for new teams trying to find their footing. However, it definitely is a much more casual approach. Important note: there is nothing wrong with a more casual tournament.

I think the gray area here though is that we don't know what MKU is trying to be. The format is just objectively more casual than a tournament like Frontier, and there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever; it even has its own advantages at times. The thing is though, the community treats MKU as the gold standard of MK8 team competition, and for that reason, I believe we have some of the top level teams in the community craving something they see as a more competitive tournament. And that's why this format felt like a compromise in a sense, because it allowed MKU to maintain its identity as a tournament great for new players and teams via division restricted formats (including rapidly improving teams too!) while also trying to maintain itself as the top competitive team tournament for the community.

The reality is, I think we all want MKU to be different things. If we're going back to the older format (looking that way), I think it'd be best if we made an effort to have MKU be the perfect entry level tournament that it is and use it as a selling point for people to join the community, and to start treating tournaments like Frontier (Amplify too coming up?) to be the more hardcore competitive events of the site. In summary Frontier does a better job as a tryhard competitive tournament than the new MKU format does, so if MKU goes back to what it was the last few seasons, I think the format should just be scratched completely. The only real sad thing to me is not getting to see the format be improved upon, really. I just don't think we need more divisional tournaments than MKU; it feels like a step in the wrong direction.

S15 Format Flaws

While I'm clearly a fan of this season's format, I'm not going to pretend that there aren't some things that seem to not be super solvable.

Forfeits are the big one. One of the D2 groups just got decimated by a double format, which made the group phase useless. Yikes. I guess this can still happen in the older format, but maybe there is still stuff to play for here I guess. In fairness, I think double DQs like this are incredibly rare.

The Australian community was shafted here and I still hate that. I feel like we could've made something work, but there are undoubtedly complications to it. It would be better and maybe easier to swallow if there was another (major) teams tournament that was friendly to them, but most of your most competitive events just don't work well for them. You need something.

Primetime was a mess this season. Just too much seemed to be going on, and the bracket presented a lot of what ifs. The actual matches being more important at the end of the season feels dumb to me, but when it comes to the casting team, you can reasonably setup a team for just 2 weeks at the end of the season even under tougher conditions. When bracket is most of the season though, it becomes a little nightmarish sometimes.

So yeah, I'm sad that I think this format will not ever get improved upon and thrown in the garbage after just 1 season. Season 7 demonstrated some actual structural problems to us also, but we worked through it and were better for it. I just think that the motivation to try is way lower now. I think it's ok if we change back. But I do think the next question is deciding what exactly we want MKU to be in the future.
 

ApG77

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The Australian community was shafted here and I still hate that. I feel like we could've made something work, but there are undoubtedly complications to it. It would be better and maybe easier to swallow if there was another (major) teams tournament that was friendly to them, but most of your most competitive events just don't work well for them. You need something.
And the Japanese community. You forgot Air and BP would have participated in this season if the format didn't shaft them.

Regarding the rest, I enjoyed reading this, and I believe you have summarized the overall situation pretty well. However I don't think the d2 double dq that happened ruined the group. Actually it gave ARC2 a shot in top bracket (if a triple 2-1 tie happened they were out) and if I'm not mistaken they are still fighting for winning d2 right now, so I'm confident in saying it made the division more interesting.
 

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And the Japanese community. You forgot Air and BP would have participated in this season if the format didn't shaft them.

Regarding the rest, I enjoyed reading this, and I believe you have summarized the overall situation pretty well. However I don't think the d2 double dq that happened ruined the group. Actually it gave ARC2 a shot in top bracket (if a triple 2-1 tie happened they were out) and if I'm not mistaken they are still fighting for winning d2 right now, so I'm confident in saying it made the division more interesting.

To be honest, maybe it was a case of good luck then. Regarding the Japanese teams, sure, but I think it's not as urgent of a matter since the Japanese community on its own seems to be as large as our playerbase if not larger and frequently runs their own competitions for Japanese only players
 

Auré

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Hi there,

If I can add my opinion about this:

1) Division Size

Basicly, a 16-team division format seems logical seeing the expansion of the community at the moment. I'm not completely sure a MKU landscape with 20-30... even more divisions in the future would be as much challenging for the most of players. Also, so many teams are getting closer to each other in terms of level, especially in mid-low divisions. By those points, I don't really see the idea of larger divisions as a bad one.

In another hand, yes, I concede I still wonder about D1 with 8 or 16 teams. With 8 teams, the division would be still tight, with tough matches every week-end, and the sensation that playing for a D1 team feels like an accomplishment. But I would also say that a 16 team format could allow some other teams who play in D1 for their first time to have the chance to take on the greatest teams at the moment and gain experience.

2) Current Format

I think this is the main issue I have with the current MKU format, on many points.

First, placements phase (First phase) is somehow the best bait for some teams to for example lose every war on purpose if they didn't agree with their current seeding. Unfair for the others, and for competitivity besides. This same phase is also not at all rewarding since the goal of all of this is to decide how will look like the stage for the second phase, which one is in fact the only real interest of this season.

Then, the format in itself suffers from many flaws in my opinion. When after only one week, half of the registered teams see their season already over by seeing themselves in consolation bracket. You'll tell me that the challenge is to not getting demoted in the lower division, sure, but what's next ? What is the point of winning a consolation bracket in MKU ? Maybe it makes sense for some teams in high division, but I really don't think it does lower. Then, some teams this season also ended their group stage in a 2-1 ratio and still got drafted in consolation bracket. I completely agree that things like this happen everywhere, but when it happens after only one week, in the main competition of the community, besides, it surely is frustrating.

In addition, I think one of the reasons why MKU is praised and challenging so far is the clarity of its format until now. Before, the "Conference stage + Play-offs" format was a sure value. And I'm conviced it still could be with 16 teams with few readjustments to not make the season too much time consuming. Right now, the current format is illegible, very complicated to understand. To be honest, I don't even know exactly which rank my own team ended at during this season, and I really don't care. Because in the big lines, if people look for a team's rank this season, they would mostly look for their division, if they won it or not, and which bracket they were in. It feels like getting deeper is useless, when in the former format we could quickly see which rank each team reached.

To finish this point, playing 3 wars of 12 races in a row, in the same evening is really a bad idea. The competition must remain fun to play, not overwhelming and exhausting like this.

3) Visibility

I already in the bigger part explained it in 2), but even from outside, the current format seems way less attractive. Why ? For example, I'm writing this few days before divisions finals and hype about it has almost vanished. Before, we already knew which teams are facing each other in division finals, people talked a lot about it. Not now, because bracket and schedule decided so. We still have to know the names of half the finalists, and I really think that counter productive to keep the community attracted to the competition, and to motivate newcomers to be a part of this in next seasons.



Of course, I'm not meaning at all by saying this I could do things better than staff does at the moment. Only, the path we've taken right now with the new format seems to lead us in a wasteland in my opinion. I just brought my own ideas, in case it could help.

Thanks for reading :)
 
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Jazzy

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Going to add my own personal thoughts on the shortcomings of the recently used MKU format. Some of these have definitely been touched on already, but I'm going to elaborate.

1. The format is confusing to new players.

It should be our goal to expand the community, attract new players, and keep players active as much as we can. I'm confident that there were many new players who enjoyed their experience, especially if this was their first dip in competitive MK, but i think it could have been a lot better for them. Let's start with players who may not even be members yet, and are just casually watching Primetime on twitch. (I won't even get into the fact that primetime suffered this season because of the format.) The issue is that someone who has no familiarity with the format will have no clue where in the grand scheme of things the match they are watching comes into play. If they see that a match is the 'semi-finals' or 'finals', or better yet, realize that it's a best of three, this is pretty obvious what the stakes are, and what they are playing for. But instead, we have a format that has two sets of playoffs, so an uninitiated viewer may come to the conclusion that "this is it" when there is a whole other half of the season remaining.

The best formats for tournaments aimed at new players, are those that somewhat resemble some sort of familiar sports event. The old MKU format closely resembled an American sports league, with two conferences, a regular season, followed by playoffs. Even if you're European, this would probably still make sense. Tournaments that follow a quick group stage followed by an elimination bracket are immediately familiar to players as resembling international team tournaments (FIFA world cup, IIHF ice hockey tournaments, some Olympic events, etc). Of course, that's not to say we can't play with these standard, common tournament formats to make them better for our purposes. Using double elimination instead of single elimination is a prime example, as well as introducing consolation brackets for teams that don't make the cut. Unfortunately, MKU's most recent format went way too far, to the point that it doesn't resemble anything anyone knows. (Honestly, that in itself should have been a red flag that it may have been a bad idea to begin with.) The fact that MKU is the main draw for new players to our site, having a tournament that just confuses them is a shame.

Not only that, but new players may not understand whats going on every match day, other than what the schedule has said. Instead of seeing some form of continuity, and understanding why they are ending up where they did, they're nearly blindly playing match by match having fun and hoping to win, but not seeing the big picture. It's closer to playing scrimmages for fun and trying to rack up win counts, or grinding MMR in lounge even, than an actual competitive tournament where you want to have the title in sight, if you don't know what is going on very well.

2. Teams didn't try their hardest.

There are many indications that some teams didn't try their hardest, and that's a problem for MKC's flagship event. I'm going to go into detail why I think this is.

- Splitting the season in two was a bad idea.

The idea with a split season was that it gives teams a chance if they are mis-seeded. What actually happened in a lot of cases, is that teams who tanked day 1, may have not really tried to perform their best in weeks 2-4. The reason, I think, this happened, is pretty simple: if you know you're struggling in the division you're in, it would seem like a good idea to just bomb the rest of it, especially knowing you'll go down a division, and honestly, if you knew you were better than you are actually performing, you'd probably have a better time in the lower division in the second half, with a legitimate shot at a banner. And that's one thing with our community, to a lot of teams, the banners matter more, even if you could get a better placement by performing better (despite not getting a banner). The banner gives teams a lot more clout than a +2 or +3 placement higher, even if on paper it's a better result. Now, in traditional MKU this isn't possible. If you got a banner, you got the best placement you could possibly get, automatically. The "new" format presented two distinct options for many teams: a chance at a banner or a chance at a higher placement. Unfortunately, I think many teams went for the former option.

- Consequences aren't important if they're not understood.

Rookie made a good point that it's important for matches to have consequences. In theory, each match having a consequence drives teams to try harder. In addition to what was stated regarding this issue in the last paragraph, I also go back to the fact that this tournament format is confusing. It's important for teams to be able to envision a clear path to success, so they know what they need to do to get there. If teams, especially new teams, can't see that path, they also don't see the consequences of winning or losing. As a result, they don't try their hardest, which defeats the purpose of having a tournament format with bigger consequences of each individual match. Instead, results that weren't representative of the teams' skill levels get "amplified" (no pun intended), and teams get pushed further away from where they should be on the ranks. This is obviously a bad thing, since we now are left with results that are not indicative enough of the teams' potential.

Honestly, given these points, I'm not sure it was a good idea to publish placements for the first half of the season, especially if many teams weren't trying their hardest. I'd say the first half results are even less accurate to teams' actual skill than the second half, and this was almost by design, as the whole point of the first half was to establish better seedings for teams. Unfortunately, even that didn't go as planned, so we're left with broken first half results. It may be too late to remove those placements, but I wouldn't repeat that idea again.

Where to go from here?

As for MKU, I think we need to revert to something more traditional, maybe with some minor tweaks, but nothing more than just "minor". Even if the old format wasn't perfect, it was still better than the season we just had. I almost feel like Season 15 will be seen as a joke to some in a while, and once that fades away from recent memory, it'll be seen as a bizarre oddity in MK history, like we look at some stuff that's happened in sports many decades, or even over 100 years ago. That's actually not the worst end result, cause having history with lore is a good thing in the end, but it doesn't mean we should repeat our mistakes.

There was the idea of running this format, maybe with some changes, as a "side tournament". To second Rookie's opinion, I think that would be a mistake. Not only does that inherit many of the issues I just described, such as teams not playing as hard as they can, and also the format being confusing, but also, it goes against the original philosophy of side tournaments vs MKU. This discussion was originally had when planning MKC before launch, and has come up countless times again. Rookie mentioned that any team should have a chance to win a side tournament, even if the likelihood may be extremely miniscule, but the difference is that having that chance motivates teams to push themselves, even if they are destined to fail. There's something different about going into a tournament knowing you have a possibility of getting 1st (or even 2nd, 3rd, etc), even if it would take several flukes to pull it off--vs having your placement capped right from the start. Good examples of this would be in MKWC 2018, where Mexico pulled off narrow, unexpected wins vs USA and Germany, only to lose against Japan, while still taking home Bronze. Another good example is iF in Amplify VI, where they had an extraordinary loser's bracket run, winning 6 matches in a row, even against some very tough opponents, culminating in a win against wf star--who seemed untouchable at that time--only to lose against wf in the bracket reset. But they still got silver, which was more than I think anyone expected. It's possible that team Mexico and iF, if placed, at that time, in a format like MKU just used, would be placed in division 1 anyway, but there are definitely examples in history where teams have pulled off extreme upsets and outplayed the division they would have been placed in. And I can see this most happening at the bottom, where some new teams improve rapidly over the course of the season, more than even a perfect seeder could predict.

Speaking of seeding, I think we will eventually need something better. MKU relies extensively, more than any other tournament, on proper seeding, and was the motive behind the Season 15 format, which turned out to not work as intended. When the community was smaller, and players were more familiar with other teams and players, this wasn't as much of an issue. Seeding was a lot more clean cut and obvious in most cases, which it isn't now, especially at the bottom with tons of new teams joining each season.

I'm going to bring back to mind our Power Rankings, which a lot of people don't care about or hate at this point, and I think the reasons are somewhat justified. The idea with it originally was that it would encourage teams to try harder, and we have some evidence that originally, this worked in many cases. Unfortunately, the view shifted over time, and we've fallen back into a state where teams aren't trying their hardest in some tournaments, and this past MKU season is a prime example of this.

There are a few problems with the PR as currently implemented. First of all, they're updated way too infrequently. It used to be every 4 months, then it was every 6. When many teams don't even last that long, or you're planning on retiring your team before the PR evaluation period ends, the Power Rankings don't provide much motive, if at all. Not only that, restricting the PR to the top 30 or so, removes 75% of teams out of the equation of having any sort of reasonable chance at making the list. It also takes a lot of debate to decide the exact rankings, which is a source of human error, and at this point, it just got delayed so much because of being unable to come to a proper conclusion on how to rank the teams the last season, to the point where a lot of staff just stopped caring.

What we need is a PR system that automatically updates after every tournament automatically, and lists all active teams. This solves all 3 issues stated above: infrequent updates, excluding all but the top teams, and having to update manually. Having an exact numerical formula published would provide transparency into the workings of the PR for those who care, and wonder what they have to do to get where they are aiming. I see this as similar to how the AF rankings worked on the Players' Pages, for those who remember, since it made it clear what players needed to accomplish in order to rise in the global rankings.

There is one more benefit to such a PR system, which ties into my point from before. It can assist tournament staff in seeding teams, since they'll have more objective numbers to go by. The PR doesn't have to be used as the official seeding list one-for-one, but it would help, and I honestly think that with refinements over time, and maybe at some point taking into consideration individual match results (this is way down the road), it could eventually be just the official list for seedings, if it gets to the point where everyone trusts it enough. Having an objective determinant for seedings is a very good thing, not only because it prevents bias and mistakes, but it saves everyone work, and it also makes it easier to understand and predict what division your team will be placed in, and what it takes to make the cut.

There's one more thing with that, and that is that down the road, in many years from now, it opens up a fair method of offering cash prizes to teams in D1 MKU. Currently, it's tough to justify that, because you might be completely ruled out of winning any prize just because the MKU staff chose a certain team over you to be placed in D1 vs D2. Having a completely objective seeding formula removes this issue, to the point where you can say if you did or did not make a certain division, there was a solid, unarguable reason for it (other than claiming the PR formula was flawed, but then again, everyone is playing against the same meta here). While we had some team tournaments in the past with cash prizes such as Amplify and an affiliate tournament, MKPL, these ones were easier to justify because every team had some chance of winning. With MKU it's different because of seedings, but when you have a method of making clear how the seedings work--with an objective formula--in such a way that everyone understands and isn't hidden behind the closed doors of staff, you can now open the doors (at some point down the road) to offering these prizes for MKC's flagship event.

I'd like to add that MKU is an interesting tournament, because while it aims to be the pinnacle of team competition anywhere (D1), it also is meant to be the easiest for new players to get involved in. This provides a tough challenge, because it aims to be super competitive at the top, and quite casual at the bottom. Is it even possible to create a format with these characteristics? I'm not really sure. While I still advise going back to the older format for now, it may be wise to consider, at some point down the road, when we have even more teams than now, instead of having like 30+ divisions, using MKU as a major league for the top teams, and having smaller minor tournaments/leagues that serve as qualifiers for MKU, much like we did with MKWorlds. This isn't as bad as it sounds, seeing as MKU is already composed of a bunch of divisions for teams of different skills. The only difference would be instead of just divisions as separators, we'd have other tournaments too. I don't think we're ready to make that change yet, but it might come to that at some point, and if we go that route, we'll of course have to make sure that the lower ranked teams still have fun and enjoy the competitions we offer.

This past season was an interesting experiment, but it should be seen as just that--an experiment. We've learned a lot of lessons from Season 15, and I think we can use this experience and knowledge to our benefit in the end. Although constantly experimenting isn't really a good thing--we need some form of consistency--I don't think it was the biggest mistake we could have made. We just need to learn from this, and move forward, and try to be smarter in the future.

I'm looking forward to the future of MKU, MKC, and the community at large!
 

Anka

Member
Hey !

From what I red so far :

- I agree that 16 teams for each divisions (except for D1 & D2 and maybe D3), is pretty balanced.
- The promotion / relegation wasn't a bad idea at first, but only one week for it is too short.
- Kinda bias opinion, but I'm glad that Australian couldn't play the season, just because of schedule issues.
- A PR to assist seeding is pretty bad imo, the stability of a team (line-ups and disband after a season) would make things way too hard to make.
- I'm pretty hype to see "2 MKU competition" in a future.

I think we should just ajust the old format as it was before.

I cannot wait to see how the MKU will evolve with in long term.
 

Jazzy

8va ~ Going the octave higher
Staff member
Administrator
Amplify Staff
Site Supporter
Founding Member
- I agree that 16 teams for each divisions (except for D1 & D2 and maybe D3), is pretty balanced.
I would probably lean towards 8 for the top X divisions, and 12 for the bottom Y, if we were to split formats like this. However, I don't think that the formats should vary considerably. There are many reasons for this, but the most important to keep in mind is that the length of the season for all divisions should be the same number of weeks. It doesn't make sense for some divisions to end earlier than others, you could argue that one week is not the end of the world (even if not ideal), but more than 2 weeks difference is pretty rough.

- The promotion / relegation wasn't a bad idea at first, but only one week for it is too short.
I think in theory it's a good idea, but we have no good way of making it work for now. Extending it to 2 weeks may help a little, but we still suffer the same issue as I stated above: chiefly, teams intentionally tanking in the first half to get an easier shot at a banner in the second. Like I mentioned, teams having to make a decision between a chance at a banner and a chance at a better numerical placement likely indicates a flaw in the format, because the incentive towards different teams to perform at the top of their skill level may be tarnished. As I said above, traditional MKU formats automatically award the best possible placement if you are to receive a banner, which a intra-season promotion/relegation system does not satisfy.

- Kinda bias opinion, but I'm glad that Australian couldn't play the season, just because of schedule issues.
I didn't bring this up in my previous post, but this logic is flawed. The schedule issues are only problematic because the S15 format isn't as flexible with scheduling. Previous formats allowed for flexibility in scheduling, allowing Australians to play easier. (This also applies to Japanese as well, which is a much larger, untapped audience--having team tournaments for that area of the world on MKC should be in our sight, especially seeing the success of Summit recently.) Basically the flaw with the argument you present here is that Australians cause scheduling issues, but it's not really a problem with timezones, it's a problem with the format. The format can be adjusted to accommodate more timezones, but would need careful planning. WCL format MKU did the best job at this, and conference format was decent also. It's important to expand our global reach, and we should aim for our biggest team tournament to be as inclusive as possible. It's a shame if people from that area of the world can only play minor events and not a big one.

- A PR to assist seeding is pretty bad imo, the stability of a team (line-ups and disband after a season) would make things way too hard to make.
This is a very, very interesting debate that you need to account for all things. Like any new technology, there are always a lot of doubters. Of course, not all new technologies succeed, but we only have advancements because of "crazy" ideas that many were skeptical would work. Basically, we can't know unless we try.

What I was getting at above, to clarify, is that an improved PR cannot hurt, even if it's not used for seeding. The PR was originally intended to motivate teams to improve, not to serve as a basis for seedings. That's a very good thing if we can have a functional system that does that. The main reason I brought up PR in that post was to highlight just that: suggest some improvements to PR so that we can go back to seeing some teams try harder to gain ranks like they used to when PR was just launched (we have plenty of evidence, despite public opinion now, many top teams had interest in the PR then.) I basically presented a suggestion to improve the PR (automatic updates after each tournament), which I think is better than what we have now, so it can't hurt us if we went that route.

The arguments about seeding etc. were only supplementary and not as important in the discussion of MKU format. That being said, it doesn't hurt to bring up these topics, the whole point of threads like this are to advance debate and gauge public opinion on topics--and that's exactly what we're doing now--so I was successful in bringing it up, no matter which side people side with. Now to go back to the original point I made on seedings and PR. Seedings as currently done rely on plenty of data in order to arrive at a decision. Like, a lot of data. Having some sort of summary of teams, will not be perfect at first, I know that as a fact. But neither will any other subset of data relating to a team present the full picture. It's just an additional metric that could be used as a guide to preparing seedings, whether it's a starting point or a caution that something may be way off and deserves some more investigation. For new teams or teams with drastic roster changes, such a ranking would not help determine seedings, and I'm aware of that.

Now fast forward a few years into the future, where our site may be significantly more developed. Suppose we have some sort of integration with all tournament results, all match results, all indivs, all FFA data, all lounge data, etc, and we have not just a team PR but also a solo PR. In addition to the fact that such wealth of data would be amazing for the community, the more data we have to reference, the more accurate a PR could become. It will never be perfect of course, but it would be vastly superior to any sort of PR that could possibly be developed at this point in time.

In the future, there's a chance we'll have plenty more players and teams in the community. We have no idea what the next console MK will bring in this regard either. Hypothetically, imagine a community with 500 active 150cc teams in the game, and 10,000 players. At this scale, any attempt at human seeding starts falling apart. Seeding worked well in the early days of MKU (back to 8U era) because the staff were familiar with most of the players and teams (the community was small). Teams with new players probably got placed in the bottom division or two more often than not--there weren't a lot of new teams each season, nor were there many divisions. Of course, there were exceptions, but with a community of that scale, it paints a picture on what was involved. In 2021, we have many more teams and players, and I think a lot of them aren't known enough by any staff member, especially new members, to give an accurate picture at first glance (or with minimal investigation) as to where they belong. This is a good thing in theory, because it forces investigation into match results and so on, which reduces bias or unintentional human error. That being said, there are just too many match results to go through at this point in a completely thorough manner, so staff focus on what they figure are key results. That's good, but in the case where some results may be missed, the seedings can be flawed. I have a hard time believing that all the match results which would result in a reconsideration of a team's seed will be noticed every tournament, because there are so many. If we see sustained growth into the future, this will become a more and more important problem. There are two solutions here:

1. A computerized seedings system. There will be a lot of skeptics about the viability of such a system, I have no doubt. Like I said above, even with skepticism, good ideas will never be proven to be good ideas unless they are tested first. In my previous post, I explained how a PR system is a good candidate for testing a system, without having to commit to it. At first, it would be a casual competition, which may not take all things into account. The more data incorporated, into the formula, and the more refinements we make to it, the more people will trust in an its accuracy. This is an evolutionary process, not a "big bang" process that we throw out there and trust it will work. Now, it will obviously never be perfect, and I don't want to claim that it will be. But I think it's established that human seeders are not perfect also. The reason we trust them now is that they can do a far better job than what we can do now with a computer. But those roles could eventually be reversed (and is the basis of automation in our society). The more teams and players we have, the more data humans will need to go through, and the risk of missing important data points or making small mistakes in judgement due to the amount of work becomes more problematic. On the other hand, enhancements in our technology will improve over time. We have opposite trends here: the humans' work becoming tougher, and the computerized work becoming more accurate. Despite neither ever reaching perfection, at some point there may be a valid argument that a computer can do the work better and more efficiently.

2. A split tournament structure. This idea is far more likely to get public acceptance in the near term, due to clarity and trust in its system. That being said, there's no reason why it can't also be used in tandem with point 1 above, other than it makes things more complicated. The idea here is that, for example, MKU consists of just 4 divisions (this number can be anything, it's just an example.) On the other hand, all teams must play in smaller tournaments to earn a spot in one of the four divisions. Placements in each of these smaller tournaments could contribute to a point score for a team, which could be used to qualify for a spot in one of the divisions in MKU, say it were run twice a year. Alongside MKU twice a year, we could have a minor tournament, maybe not division based, but still seen as a "major" event that occurs twice a year that the less skilled teams value. Now we should be careful here, as this shares a lot of resemblance to MKWii's MKPS, which didn't go so well. The issues with MKPS is the long term (1 year) commitment for teams, and teams just not surviving all year long. A 6 month cycle definitely would help, and I'd argue, gives the top teams incentive to stick around longer, which is healthy for our community. It's not a big deal when lower ranked teams constantly form and dissolve, but it's an indication of health when higher ranked teams stick around longer. Not only that, but a casual audience will find more entertainment when they recognize a team as opposed to having never heard of it. As much as I said this system bears resemblance to MKPS, it also bears resemblance to MKWorlds. For those who remember, MKWorlds basically invited teams who placed in certain qualifying tournaments. And this system worked for us--which gives me hope that a similar system if implemented for the top teams in MKU every 6 months also has a chance at working. It's definitely a big change to make, but it solves a lot of problems too. Consider what I said here:

I'd like to add that MKU is an interesting tournament, because while it aims to be the pinnacle of team competition anywhere (D1), it also is meant to be the easiest for new players to get involved in. This provides a tough challenge, because it aims to be super competitive at the top, and quite casual at the bottom. Is it even possible to create a format with these characteristics?

Having MKU as the 'premier' league for the site and smaller leagues and tournaments for other teams, would get rid of this issue altogether. Even if it were still all under the MKU brand, with different names (such as MKU Invitational, MKU Summer/Winter Classic, even MKU Apex :p -- a lot of room for creativity here), having a split system with different tournaments all leading up to a semi-annual finale would allow the top divisions to be competitive, while still providing casual competition for newer or more casual audiences. Not only is the variety good and provides less fatigue, but it would solve a lot of the problems we get with scale--including having to rely so extensively on seedings.



I encourage you all to keep presenting ideas and opinions on what I or other people have said. This debate and discussion is very good for us and helps us understand the community's interests much better, I'd argue far more than a tally on a vote can represent. Looking forward to a continued discussion here!
 
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Ensy

Member
Site Supporter
As a very frustrated Aussie, I'm extremely happy we are moving away from this format and back to conferences.

The fact that the premier tournament completely barred entire regions from participating feels very wrong. I understand we are very much the minority, with what 20-ish players in AUS, but I (and I'm sure all V2/JPN teams) genuinely felt super disrespected that there was nothing put in place to at least allow us to play, and not be forced to play 3/4/5am on a Monday. We (V2) had initially voted in favour of the new format, assuming that there would a system in place for eastern teams, considering we've worked with staff in previous seasons to sort out times for our matches, but alas, nothing. Minor region problems am I right.

Double Elimination bracket with 2-3 matches per week, for me, just does not work nicely when there can be such a drastic time difference. This format kills us, and I don't really see that changing without an insane amount of prior planning. Our presence in a DE bracket has a flow on effect to other matches we either may be apart of, or matches the need to be played far earlier in advance in order for us to potentially have an opponent. That match time uncertainty isn't good for both sides playing, considering teams may go to bed not knowing if they need to get up early to play a match or not. I'm not a huge fan of DE to begin with, I always preferred SE/AFL-style brackets so you could say I'm biased, but let's be real, DE won't work nicely, SE Bo3s will.

If anyone is looking to propose new formats, please keep that in mind. Make the format friendly for all regions, it'd be greatly appreciated.

What was really tough this season, was sitting on the side-lines, finding it really hard to be motivated, knowing you can't even play in the premier tourney. We weren't to know if this format was gonna be permanent or not, so our MKU future was in serious doubt. We don’t have all these other tournaments that the rest of the world can play, like Frontier for example. We had MKU and AC, and the bigger of the two became just like every other site tourney, unplayable, it sucked.

Knowing that we are going back to what worked, we are looking forward to competing again. See you in Season 16, appreciate you all.
 
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