Seriously, why is this whole thread even a thing???

And now we are here.

Now if a player had done 1. they probably would still be pissed when an event they do go to takes extra time, but they'd probably place the blame correctly on the venue. And if then venue had done 3. then maybe they wouldn't have ran a 17 hour event as a Store Championship.

Starting at 11 am

This is your first problem.

The TO is the second.

running a tournament over 2 days is a really bad idea people cant always find the time for 2 days of gaming. If I told my wife I was playing mutable X wing SC that took 2 day to play she would change the locks on the door while I was away

Sometimes I wish I was gay. Guys like to play X-Wing and would understand. It just seems so optimal.

Etc etc etc

Ha - speaking from experience it isn't really like this - my partner dislikes starwars (and by proxy Xwing) so, I'm in the same position as a lot of you though my wife is 6ft and wears a beard...

As to all this talk of 2 day tournaments - no thanks (especially the idea someone had of 2 days over several weeks...) the store championship I went to recently had some problems with the ffg enforced matching programme so, out 6 match day ran from 10-8 (with an hours lunch) so, it was a long day, it FELT like a long day! But thoroughly enjoyable all the same.

Starting at 11 am

This is your first problem.

The TO is the second.

running a tournament over 2 days is a really bad idea people cant always find the time for 2 days of gaming. If I told my wife I was playing mutable X wing SC that took 2 day to play she would change the locks on the door while I was away

Sometimes I wish I was gay. Guys like to play X-Wing and would understand. It just seems so optimal.

Etc etc etc

Ha - speaking from experience it isn't really like this - my partner dislikes starwars (and by proxy Xwing) so, I'm in the same position as a lot of you though my wife is 6ft and wears a beard...

And here I thought there was hope.

If I have to drive 6 hrs just to get to the closest tournament, and have to pay to join it, I expect hours of game time. So no, I actually think they don't go on long enough lol. But that's just me

It all depends on the organiser. I'll try anywhere once but if we start late and have 30 minutes between rounds then I won't go back. Simple as that. I pay my money for an event to run properly. I've walked away from tournaments after making the cut as we were 2 hours behind schedule.

Some tournaments are too long and some aren't. Just don't go to the badly run tournaments.

here is a time table for our local Regionals later this year

Round timing should look like this:

Round 1: 9:30am

Round 2: 10:50am

Round 3: 12:10pm

Round 4: 1:30pm

Round 5: 2:50pm

Round 6: 4:10pm

Quarter Finals: 5:30pm

Semi Finals: 6:50pm

Finals: 8:10pm

that's how its done people

Dreamers are cute. Let us know how reality works out for you.

Seriously, why is this whole thread even a thing???

Well, you have a poster unwilling to recognize that it wasn't the event structure that created the issue, but the venue running it. So he keeps restating how long that event took, ignoring other posters that are highlighting how it shouldn't have taken that long. Then you have some other posters that were in attendance and/or are affiliated with the venue stating the event wasn't poorly run, but not disputing that it took 12 hours to run 6 rounds. So then you have others pointing out that that fact does mean the event was run poorly, because again the structure doesn't dictate the event take that long.

And now we are here.

Now if a player had done 1. they probably would still be pissed when an event they do go to takes extra time, but they'd probably place the blame correctly on the venue. And if then venue had done 3. then maybe they wouldn't have ran a 17 hour event as a Store Championship.

here is a time table for our local Regionals later this year

Round timing should look like this:

Round 1: 9:30am

Round 2: 10:50am

Round 3: 12:10pm

Round 4: 1:30pm

Round 5: 2:50pm

Round 6: 4:10pm

Quarter Finals: 5:30pm

Semi Finals: 6:50pm

Finals: 8:10pm

that's how its done people

Dreamers are cute. Let us know how reality works out for you.

The Badlands Tourney (4 rounds and cut to the top 4) I went to started first round at 11 with the championship game ending before 8. There was one 30 minute break during the day and about 5 minutes between rounds. It was run pretty tight add in a 9:30 start time you would have ended around 11 with 6 rounds plus 3 rounds of cut play.

From playing in other system tourneys though I have to say playing in this kind of tournament this is a no contest the best style of tourney I have played in.

9 games in one day is going to be 12-13 hours of gameplay when factoring in everything, barring any glitches.

So far every store championship and regional I have gone to the final rounds were not over until 2-3am the next day, This tournament for the number of players followed suit. 6 rounds at 75 minutes is 7.5 hours by itself add 20 minutes between rounds because 10 minute break to gives players a breather between rounds and 10 minutes for match making/setup adds another 2 hours, 1 hour lunch break which the TO did because at least a third of the players at the tournament asked for a lunch break, and a 30 minute dinner break before finals. you are at 10 hours and the finals did start around 10 pm. You have 2 more rounds at an hour 15 is 3 more hours and an "untimed" final game. Other than starting 45 minutes late which the TO already apologized for the rest of this tournanment ran on par with every other store championship/regional I have gone to in Florida. I went knowing I would not be home till early morning Sunday, anyone who was planning on making final table and did not plan on being there after midnight was fooling themselves.

Not true at all. This has nothing to do with a particular event.

It absolutely does. With due respect to the TO who posted upthread, two meal breaks and 20-30 minutes between rounds is too much when you know you're running 9 rounds of a game that takes 75 minutes a round.

6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is too much for a one day tournament. So thanks to this discussion I've realized that x wing isn't a good game for large tournament structures. If you can play 9 x wing games in one day without mental fatigue and having fun the whole time more power to you. But I know I can't and there are many others as well. So keep your attacks up that doesn't change the truth.

You have 31 posts in total, and 13 of them are in this thread. You've spent more than a third of your time on this board attempting to convince everyone else that their experiences--which are generally that a Store Championship is a long but tolerable day--aren't real.

So maybe smooth your hackles down and realize that your experience isn't universal, no matter how strongly you feel about it.

There are alot of X-Wing SCs run, large ones even, and they don't take as long as the event being discussed.

They start on time. They don't allow 10+ minutes between rounds for players to have a "breather" (since you know the majority of players have already been standing around because thier games didn't go to time), they don't take an hour lunch break at an event that is already woefully behind schedule. Those are things you just don't do when you are running a large event, or any event.

The venue clearly let the event run it rather then the other way around. It happens, hell FFG themselves is notorious for poorly running thier own events at Cons. But that doesn't mean an event taking that long should be the norm, expected, or acceptable.

I'd rather have a tiring yet fulfilling 1 day event over a tiring yet fulfilling 2 day event...

Gw's big event were 2 dayers and they were fun, however as a non driver I had to spend more on travel and overnight sustainance and accommodation... Give me one day of flying aby day! (also, I found I got better as the day went on - more focused on what I should be doing)

Or you could just date another nerd. Problem solved! Though watch out for the dice collection getting out of hand. Any relationship, gay or straight, does NOT need more than one set of platonic solids per partner. That's all I'm gonna say.

Oh, and boo-urns to poorly run events, uncompromising players, and decaf. Has anyone ever run a large event before? Or even a small one? It's not easy, especially when you're not compensated! It's even harder to run these types of social events in the future when people don't recognize the effort involved. Maybe your TO will say screw it and then you won't have an SC to go to next time? Or maybe instead of going online and bitching about the TO, offer to help? Or just, you know, continue to pay your good money and play X-Wing at a more prestigiousiousnessy run event?

Seriously, why is this whole thread even a thing???

Well, you have a poster unwilling to recognize that it wasn't the event structure that created the issue, but the venue running it. So he keeps restating how long that event took, ignoring other posters that are highlighting how it shouldn't have taken that long. Then you have some other posters that were in attendance and/or are affiliated with the venue stating the event wasn't poorly run, but not disputing that it took 12 hours to run 6 rounds. So then you have others pointing out that that fact does mean the event was run poorly, because again the structure doesn't dictate the event take that long.

And now we are here.

Now if a player had done 1. they probably would still be pissed when an event they do go to takes extra time, but they'd probably place the blame correctly on the venue. And if then venue had done 3. then maybe they wouldn't have ran a 17 hour event as a Store Championship.

Not true at all. This has nothing to do with a particular event. 6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is too much for a one day tournament. So thanks to this discussion I've realized that x wing isn't a good game for large tournament structures. If you can play 9 x wing games in one day without mental fatigue and having fun the whole time more power to you. But I know I can't and there are many others as well. So keep your attacks up that doesn't change the truth.

This has nothing to do with the game itself. This is all about you being unfortunate (lucky) enough to be in an area where you can draw 50+ people to a Store Championship. Toss out the title of the tournament. Do you think a 50+ tournament should last as long as a 20 or 12 person tournament?

Championships level events (Store, Regional, Worlds) are going to be long. I too feel like the casual events often go past the point of fun. 3 or 4 games is a manageable amount of time. My area is starting to have league nights. Ever Wednesday you play 1 game. Best records/MOV at the end of the month gets prizes.

Not true at all. This has nothing to do with a particular event.

It absolutely does. With due respect to the TO who posted upthread, two meal breaks and 20-30 minutes between rounds is too much when you know you're running 9 rounds of a game that takes 75 minutes a round.

6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is too much for a one day tournament. So thanks to this discussion I've realized that x wing isn't a good game for large tournament structures. If you can play 9 x wing games in one day without mental fatigue and having fun the whole time more power to you. But I know I can't and there are many others as well. So keep your attacks up that doesn't change the truth.

You have 31 posts in total, and 13 of them are in this thread. You've spent more than a third of your time on this board attempting to convince everyone else that their experiences--which are generally that a Store Championship is a long but tolerable day--aren't real.So maybe smooth your hackles down and realize that your experience isn't universal, no matter how strongly you feel about it.

Never said it was universal, but the fact is for those with a life which I now realize most hard core gamers do not have, 6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is to much for a normal person in one day.

Finished second on a SC this weekend, i am not sure if it was the recommended number of rounds since i think it is one more, it was 4 rounds with top 4 cut. We started at 9am and finished at 7pm with half an hour to eat. Thats 10 hour for 6 rounds, the more people the more time they'll spend between rounds to get ready, some extra turns were freaking long.

Someone is replying that this is not the game if you want shorter games, well this game is good and thats why it is haveing so much success. What happens when you cannot accomodate so much succes? people loose interest on it. Thats why when people complain about fat turrets they nerf them, thats why when everybody sees phantom as a problem they fixid. They never reply "Well, you know, this is the game if you dont like it then you should consider leaving".

I still think the game should evolve to a faster pace, with upgrades and modifications forgetting the untimed games mentality which is fine to play a friendly casual game in which no matter what the competitive aspect enforce you can still take 10mins to think about your moves or play with double the points.

Seriously, why is this whole thread even a thing???

Well, you have a poster unwilling to recognize that it wasn't the event structure that created the issue, but the venue running it. So he keeps restating how long that event took, ignoring other posters that are highlighting how it shouldn't have taken that long. Then you have some other posters that were in attendance and/or are affiliated with the venue stating the event wasn't poorly run, but not disputing that it took 12 hours to run 6 rounds. So then you have others pointing out that that fact does mean the event was run poorly, because again the structure doesn't dictate the event take that long.

And now we are here.

Now if a player had done 1. they probably would still be pissed when an event they do go to takes extra time, but they'd probably place the blame correctly on the venue. And if then venue had done 3. then maybe they wouldn't have ran a 17 hour event as a Store Championship.

Not true at all. This has nothing to do with a particular event. 6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is too much for a one day tournament. So thanks to this discussion I've realized that x wing isn't a good game for large tournament structures. If you can play 9 x wing games in one day without mental fatigue and having fun the whole time more power to you. But I know I can't and there are many others as well. So keep your attacks up that doesn't change the truth.

This has nothing to do with the game itself. This is all about you being unfortunate (lucky) enough to be in an area where you can draw 50+ people to a Store Championship. Toss out the title of the tournament. Do you think a 50+ tournament should last as long as a 20 or 12 person tournament?

That is why there needs to be a cap on premier events. Again, it isn't fun to torture yourself no matter what the level of the event is.

Store Championships are glorified locals. The more important the event, the greater the need for a lack of player cap. Worlds should be a slog to determine the best player.

Not true at all. This has nothing to do with a particular event.

It absolutely does. With due respect to the TO who posted upthread, two meal breaks and 20-30 minutes between rounds is too much when you know you're running 9 rounds of a game that takes 75 minutes a round.

6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is too much for a one day tournament. So thanks to this discussion I've realized that x wing isn't a good game for large tournament structures. If you can play 9 x wing games in one day without mental fatigue and having fun the whole time more power to you. But I know I can't and there are many others as well. So keep your attacks up that doesn't change the truth.

You have 31 posts in total, and 13 of them are in this thread. You've spent more than a third of your time on this board attempting to convince everyone else that their experiences--which are generally that a Store Championship is a long but tolerable day--aren't real.So maybe smooth your hackles down and realize that your experience isn't universal, no matter how strongly you feel about it.

Never said it was universal, but the fact is for those with a life which I now realize most hard core gamers do not have, 6 rounds cutting to a top 8 is to much for a normal person in one day.

oit! i resemble that remark! Seriously though, It really depend what you consider to be a "life"...

you say that most hard core gamers don't have a "life", I say it is more about priorities... I have a "life" that is, I work full time, Study part time, socialise with friends, read and play computer games on top of playing xwing... all these things are important to my "LIFE"... if A store championship comes along (yes, even if it is 6+ rounds in a day) I will attend it, that is my "life"...

I think what you mean is, you feel you have other things in your "life" more important than Xwing, which you would rather do over playing a day of xwing to which I say

Go rot in a bush you filthy casual

EDIT:

Incidentally, I'd have no problem with them shortening rounds to 1hr would speed up the game I'd think - I'm happy either way as long as I'm flying ships pew pew pew

Dreamers are cute. Let us know how reality works out for you.

Last year the FFG event center hosted Regionals. There were 84 people there and 6 rounds of swiss.

It opened at 10 and started at 11, IIRC. I was home by 7pm, and it's an hour drive from the event center to home. So that's how reality works with a well run tournament.

It's been proven by any reasonable definition that what you had was a fluke, and not typical of a well run tournament. The fact that you keep debating seems to strongly suggest you're simply a troll.

oops. Errant post

here is a time table for our local Regionals later this year

Round timing should look like this:

Round 1: 9:30am

Round 2: 10:50am

Round 3: 12:10pm

Round 4: 1:30pm

Round 5: 2:50pm

Round 6: 4:10pm

Quarter Finals: 5:30pm

Semi Finals: 6:50pm

Finals: 8:10pm

that's how its done people

Dreamers are cute. Let us know how reality works out for you.

The Empire Games Store Championship in Phoenix was basically exactly this. Started at 10:00am. Final started at 9pm. lost 20 minutes to this scheduling over the course of the entire day, and that was with a half-hour dinner break for the top 8. So, actually made up 10 minutes.

Dreamers are cute. Let us know how reality works out for you.

Last year the FFG event center hosted Regionals. There were 84 people there and 6 rounds of swiss.It opened at 10 and started at 11, IIRC. I was home by 7pm, and it's an hour drive from the event center to home. So that's how reality works with a well run tournament.It's been proven by any reasonable definition that what you had was a fluke, and not typical of a well run tournament. The fact that you keep debating seems to strongly suggest you're simply a troll.

7.5 = 6 rounds + 1 hour to drive home = 8.5 without no breaks what so ever.

Wow. Very ambitious. 75min rounds with 5 minutes in between to finish all of the rounds that go to time, have the people tally up the results, submit the sheets, input the sheets into whatever software you're using, generate the next round of pairings, have everyone pick up their stuff, figure out where they're moving to, and setup... that 5 minutes ain't going to be enough. Perhaps for <16 players you can get it done like that, but for regionals, which I would expect would almost all surpass the 64 player mark this year (let's go with an average of 96), that's a different story. 15 minutes between rounds would be a more reasonable yet still ambitious time frame. So let's take a look at that again:

Round 1: 9:30am
Round 2: 11:00am
Round 3: 12:45pm
Round 4: 2:15pm
Round 5: 3:45pm
Round 6: 5:15pm
Quarter Finals: 7:15pm
Semi Finals: ~8:15pm
Finals: ~9:15pm

Conclude: ~10:15pm

With this still ambitious schedule, you have 15 minutes between each round. For those that take the full 75 minutes, that gives them ~5minutes to finish the round, ~5min to pickup/setup the next table, and 5 minutes between to use the bathroom / take a breather. Meanwhile, the TO gets the results 5 minutes late, and gives him 5 minutes to record all the late breaking results. And then everyone has 5 minutes to see the results and get to their table and setup. Furthermore, there's actually 30min between 2 and 3 to allow folks to eat. Since >75% of the games end before the 75min limit, they will have even longer, but it should still give the ~25% that go to time about 20minutes to shove some grub down. This is where the players need to come prepared (I bring a sandwich with me), and the store needs to help facilitate. Our stores all have deals with the local pizza and sandwich places for deliveries. Better yet, our local store hosting a regional this year is going to have food trucks outside all day long. Finally, there's a full 45minutes between swiss and the top 8. This gives the standard 10minutes to figure out rankings, 10minutes to hand out prizes to the top 16 and announce the top 8, and then 20 minutes for the top 8 to grab something to eat. I've also only allotted 60 minutes for each round in the cut - they tend to go much faster than the rest of the matches since as soon as all players are done the next round basically auto begins.

So, that would be the most efficient way to run up to 76 players. And the only change up to 148 would be cut to top 16, pushing the conclusion back to 11:15. Beyond that you have to add a 7th round, which the cut start time out to 8:45pm, and the conclusion out to 12:45am. 16 hours of X wing might sound like a lot, but again, this is best case scenario for 150+ players.

So, if we're saying that it's still too long, we're left with 3 choices - have less people, change the round timing, or change the format. Having less people would be bad for the game. I suppose this could be accomplished by making more events, but at least locally, this year we have about 50% more store championships, and they're all about 50% more populated than last year. And restricting participation is never a good thing. So then we approach the same option - shortening the rounds. Pulling 15 minutes out of each round would save 1:45min in a 7 round tourney, ending it then at 11pm. But FFG extended what was basically common practice for 60min rounds to 75min rounds due to this issues with too many matches going to time and players begging for longer matches. Going back to 60minutes doesn't sound like a good change in and of itself.

Which leaves us with the final option - change the format. Many have suggested a multi-day format and many have argued against it. Personally for SCs I'm against it, Nats and above already do it. Which just leaves Regionals in the gray area. I'm kinda torn on how I feel about regionals going to multi-day. On the one hand, it's only 16 players, but on the other hand, I would hate to stay the night just to lose in the first round and then go home when I could have done that the previous night. With the timing I laid out above, I would prefer to just go to 1am than make it a two day event.

However - what if the entire format was to change? What about if it was to switch to double elimination for the majority of the tourney. At the conclusion of Round 7, you're left with the same 16 players that you would cut to at the end of swiss. At this point, I would recommend going to a top 16 single elimination. This will maintain the same 11 rounds that the event would take normally (if you played the double elimination all the way out, it would take potentially 14 rounds). The main advantage to this comes to those not playing for the win.

So this allows the store to run side events for those eliminated earlier on in the day (let's say R2 and R3) allowing people to still play X wing all day, but it also quickly cuts down on the time requirement for most players. And it even comes with its own advantages to winning all of the matches. Therefore, if you're more of a casual player not gunning for the acrylic trophy, you can play 3 rounds and be done by 1:30. Or if you decided you really wanted to play X wing all day, you can enter a side event - perhaps 8 player pods for the chance to win the "top 64" prize (which would have to change from top 64 to "those who made it to round 6" (48 players) or something like that). Which works out perfectly - if all 128 players that got eliminated from the main event played in the side events, there would be 16 8 player pods, and each winner would receive a top 64 prize, plus the 48 who weren't eliminated, and therefore 64 players receive it. There could be potential issues for those who lost in R4 or R5 as they wouldn't be participating in the side events since they made it too far, but didn't make it far enough. I didn't say this system was perfect. Though I suppose you could have those 80 players opt to play in side events (which would take it to Round 8, well with in the regular tourney, so it's definitely doable) which would mean that up to 74 players would receive what was previously the top 64 prize. No big deal.

But back to the main point - a double elimination tournament allows the majority of the players to conclude their games earlier. The following are the total number of players eliminated at the end of each round:

R1 - 0

R2 - 64

R3 - 128

R4 - 176

R5 - 208

R6 - 228

R7 - 240

To make it work perfectly, I would keep the elimination at "those remaining after round x" (in this case 7) instead of a "cut to top xx" (this case 16). Therefore, if you have 200 players, and you have 11-12 players remaining at the end of round 7, you don't pull in the top 4 2 loss players from round 7. Instead, you give the top 4 players first round byes in the elimination. Therefore, your MOV and how well you won still comes into play (two of those byes will be 7-0, the other two will be the highest 6-1 players).

And there you have it - a tourney structure that basically allows players to choose how long they wish to play for in any event. If this is scaled down to 128, you either play 8 rounds to a top 8, or 7 rounds to a top 16 (with the top 2 players on a bye) - either way it's the same length of time as a 256 player tourney. Scaling down further to 64, it becomes a 6 round w/ top 8 cut. And down to 32 is 6 round w/ to a top 8. The smaller it goes, the less sense it makes since it becomes longer overall than the standard system. But it still maintains the benefit of allowing players to make it however long they basically want it to be.

Edit: formatting