Hello, We organised our first tournament with the application yesterday and had an issue.

There were three rounds and on the third round we had two players who were already paired together in the first round matched against one another.

Is it a standard behaviour ? As we understand Swiss tournament it shouldn't happen.

Thanks,

Hi Jeff,

I found a few bugs in the GEM software.

1) I just ran a 4 person tournament and the pairings for Round 3 didn't make any sense.

We had 1 person on 2-0, 2 on 1-1 and 1 on 0-2.

I used GEM to pair round 3, and it duplicated the matches from Round 2 despite having valid pairings (swapping Willow Rosenberg and Alexandru Chidu, both on 1-1) that didn't duplicate a game. The system should prioritise non-duplicate games based on the tournament rules as published (page 7, first paragraph under Swiss Rounds).

I was able to cheat the system into giving different pairings by changing the results of Round 2 to give me the rounds I was supposed to run under the rules, but then it gave even weirder pairings where it paired the person on 0-2 against the person on 2-0.

2) But then, at the end, when I needed to fix the results to upload the correct information, I found 2 more bugs.

(a) The first one comes in the "Re-pair?" Dialog (photo attached). The "Re-pair" and "Do Not Re-pair" buttons do the OPPOSITE of what they say (which is to say, the Re-pair button leaves the rounds as is and the Do Not Re-pair button Re-pairs the round); and

(b) In mid-tournament rounds, if all games have ended and reported scores and you go back to a previous round and change a score, nothing happens. However, if you have completed the final round of the event, because it doesn't give you a new screen with the completion of that round, making changes to previous rounds' scores resets the round, whether you re-pair it or not (it shouldn't actually even give the option to re-pair since the round is over and it doesn't let you re-pair already played games in any other round when changing scores in previous rounds).

Thanks for your help!

On 2/2/2019 at 6:55 PM, Gwiizzy said:

Having a bit of an issue locally and our FLGS employee is at a loss.

We're trying to set up Chain Bound events but the store can't figure out allotments, where to define them or any such stuff.

I've been working with them to figure out the GEM software and scanning but they seem to be lost about what their retailer portal is how to access it or where to go to set up events so that they'll appear in GEM.

Is there a direction I can point them for answers? (they have discovery and triumph kits just no clue on allotments)

Same problem here

On 2/1/2019 at 5:47 PM, Rabbitball said:

Have you checked the time zone settings in the software? In the Western Hemisphere, evening events will show up as next day events if the settings are for GMT or anything after that. It may even be that your computer is on the wrong time zone so it thinks you're in Uzbekistan or something like that. If your setup is correct, though, then the problem is beyond my "quick fix go-to" troubleshooting skills.

First thing I checked.

Is there a way for a player to NOT have an account and play in a chainbound tourney? We had three brother come in and two of them had phones, but the little brother did not. We tried to double up someone else's account to no avail. We ended up setting up an account for him but mom was not pleased that that was necessary for the kid. Is there a manual workaround?

I cannot figure out how to set up an elimination tournament. All I can figure out is how to do a Swiss tournament.

(I think I posted this in the incorrect spot at first)

When I go to the website to download GEM, I get this message:

Your Asmodee.net account is not connected to any Specialty Retailer accounts. To connect it, you need a sign-up link. If you are a specialty retailer and did not receive a personalized sign-up link via email, contact [email protected] to request one.

What now? I emailed and got no answers.

Do you know if FFG is planning on releasing any video tutorials on running Chainbound events or anything like that? I've been surprised by some things that when you stop and think about it make sense, but aren't really evident at first. For example I'm running (as I type) a chainbound sealed deck tournament but some people were very eager and scanned their decks into their app making them invalid. I had to go to the website and cancel the event and redo it as an Archon event to get everyone able to play again.

Hi,

We successfully ran a Chainbound tournament last week, with everything going smoothly but this week when I click on the button to open the scanner it refuses to do so, doing nothing but turn the mouse pointer into the circle with a line through it. Help needed please.

New issue - the Upload button is gone! Ran a four-payer tourney and after round three no upload button is shown. We've done a four-round in the past with no issues. Anyone else seeing this issue?

8 minutes ago, I'm Board Games & Family Fun said:

New issue - the Upload button is gone! Ran a four-payer tourney and after round three no upload button is shown. We've done a four-round in the past with no issues. Anyone else seeing this issue?

Ahhhh I'm wondering if the tournament organizer didn't pull the event form the dropdown, but entered their own info into the setup screen. (Which by the way is SUPER easy to do - needs a check and balance). Would that cause the event to not be able to be uploaded...?

There needs to be a way to get back to the dashboard from this screen. Right now the solution seems to be close out of the program and relaunch.

Just to confirm, can Chainbound events be run in the Adaptive variant, or only in Solo?

On 2/3/2019 at 5:05 AM, Ludotrotter said:

Hello, We organised our first tournament with the application yesterday and had an issue.

There were three rounds and on the third round we had two players who were already paired together in the first round matched against one another.

Is it a standard behaviour ? As we understand Swiss tournament it shouldn't happen.

Thanks,

Yup! We found that too. Let me guess, you had 4 players, right? The Swiss pairing algorithm that we used was kinda shaky at 4 players and honestly, to be perfectly safe, you have to have a minimum of 6 players rather than 4 - but we want to have intimate settings so we took a risk that didn't pan out. In the meantime, I have modified the algorithm to make it far less likely (and probably impossible unless the wrong person drops or you DQ them with a Brobnar's Ban Hammer). What hurts is when you can look right at it and plainly see what it should have done if it wasn't a silly computer. In any case, after our next update you should see this go away in all but the most extreme circumstances - the alternative is a premature and abrupt end to an otherwise fun-filled tournament, and we prefer to fault on the side of fun.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

On 2/3/2019 at 8:34 AM, willowr said:

Hi Jeff,

I found a few bugs in the GEM software.

... I was able to cheat the system into giving different pairings ...

Hi back to you!

Gotta say - I love people that find bugs! Find 'em! Smash 'em! (done in my best Brobnar voice).

I just turned this one over to the team. My QA guy lives for this too.

In the meantime, if you are in the midst of a tournament, just go ahead and let GEM do what GEM wants to do and don't confuse him. Things could turn out badly. You know how things get in the Crucible.

Thanks again! Truly!!

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

On 2/2/2019 at 7:19 PM, jonboyjon1990 said:

So is it correct that stores have to run one event first, for verification purposes, which won’t track results, award aembershards and give chains?

My local store ran our first Chainbound event using the GEM on Friday and this is what we were told.

I won, with 3 wins out of 3. So on the one hand I’ve ‘missed out’ on 3 shards, but then again I didn’t gain chains that I ‘should have’

@OldAmber Hi Jeff, I wondered if you could shed some light on this?

hi,
yesterday we did a chainbound event with 13 players with this final ranking:

PLAYER A 4 - 0
PLAYER B 3 - 1
PLAYER C 3 - 1
PLAYER D 3 - 1

The players B,C received a bye in first and second round instead the player D lost only with player A in the last round.

It's fine that tha player play less game have a better ranking ?

There is a option in GEM software to change the bye behavior?

5 hours ago, gvilla said:

hi,
yesterday we did a chainbound event with 13 players with this final ranking:

PLAYER A 4 - 0
PLAYER B 3 - 1
PLAYER C 3 - 1
PLAYER D 3 - 1

The players B,C received a bye in first and second round instead the player D lost only with player A in the last round.

It's fine that tha player play less game have a better ranking ?

There is a option in GEM software to change the bye behavior?

Ties should be broken by Strength of Schedule, then extended Strength of Schedule, so it would depend on other results, but that seems like a legit result to me.

The bye should be assigned to a random player in the first round, then the lowest ranked player in subsequent rounds.

14 hours ago, gvilla said:

hi,
yesterday we did a chainbound event with 13 players with this final ranking:

PLAYER A 4 - 0
PLAYER B 3 - 1
PLAYER C 3 - 1
PLAYER D 3 - 1

The players B,C received a bye in first and second round instead the player D lost only with player A in the last round.

It's fine that tha player play less game have a better ranking ?

There is a option in GEM software to change the bye behavior?

It happens sometimes that people with byes get better rankings. The first tiebreaker (Strength of Schedule) averages the winning percentages of each person's opponents. As a bye isn't an opponent, it's taking the average of 3 people as opposed to the average of 4. This means that when the byes happen early, as happened here, they might drive the players' SoS up, as they are now playing people who actually won their rounds.

So although D's only loss was in the last round to the soon-to-be 4-chain deck, it's possible that their first three rounds were against people who didn't do so well. The Mons Johnson shortcut seems to have failed here (the person who loses the latest in an X-1 situation usually wins the tiebreaker), but the shortcut isn't a rule, but a quick estimate that pans out most of the time. Or maybe it came down to Extended SoS, where things get really weird.

On 2/5/2019 at 4:44 PM, ChezGeeks said:

When I go to the website to download GEM, I get this message:

Your Asmodee.net account is not connected to any Specialty Retailer accounts. To connect it, you need a sign-up link. If you are a specialty retailer and did not receive a personalized sign-up link via email, contact [email protected] to request one.

What now? I emailed and got no answers.

Could we get some help on this issue. My store is having the same problem. Thanks.

After running a couple Chainbound events I have some feature requests for GEM:

1) It would be really useful if it showed somewhere in the software how many chains are on a given deck without having to print Match Slips for each round. For weekly events I'm never going to be actually printing those and having to go into them to find starting chains is incredibly clunky; and

2) It would also be great if the final leaderboard printout listed the player's deck alongside their name and stats so people can look up the decks that did well when the results are posted.

Thanks again for everything!

On 2/2/2019 at 2:19 PM, jonboyjon1990 said:

So is it correct that stores have to run one event first, for verification purposes, which won’t track results, award aembershards and give chains?

My local store ran our first Chainbound event using the GEM on Friday and this is what we were told.

I won, with 3 wins out of 3. So on the one hand I’ve ‘missed out’ on 3 shards, but then again I didn’t gain chains that I ‘should have’

I think there is an misunderstanding here someplace. If a retailer has been given an allotment of events, and that retailer defines a Chainbound event out of that allotment, then runs the GEM Client and properly chooses that Chainbound event to run (such that the GEM Client shows that it is not a Casual event), we really and truly want to make sure that the players who participate get their awards and the decks that earn Chains get them attached so that Power Levels are properly computed and the game maintains balance. That does not matter if this is the retailer's 1st event or 20th event. Every event is important to us.

What has happened a few times is that a few retailers accidently ran the wrong type of event (Casual rather than Chainbound) and we are getting them all in line to fix those events - this may be the source of the delay - and for now, this is an arduous task for us (which takes time). That said, again, we want to make sure that players and decks get the awards they deserve.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

On 2/6/2019 at 2:57 PM, I'm Board Games & Family Fun said:

There needs to be a way to get back to the dashboard from this screen. Right now the solution seems to be close out of the program and relaunch.

The solution is the currently desired behavior. At the end of the tournament you can upload and close. That is a nice clean expressway to a clean environment. By the way, that is how you create multiple tournaments too. Just open as many GEMs as you need and your computer can handle - one for the main event, one for each side event. As they finish, just close them. If I give you a button, that is pretty much what it will do - close everything and start fresh. I may still do that.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

On 2/6/2019 at 2:51 PM, I'm Board Games & Family Fun said:

Ahhhh I'm wondering if the tournament organizer didn't pull the event form the dropdown, but entered their own info into the setup screen. (Which by the way is SUPER easy to do - needs a check and balance). Would that cause the event to not be able to be uploaded...?

I love that making the events is super easy - but yes, it is so easy to create an event that the special setup for Chainbound sometimes gets missed and the event will get run as Casual rather than Chainbound. We are trying really hard to get those fixed, but it is very time consuming for us right now to manually repair the tournaments in error. Since we want you to run both, it is hard to stop those errors, all we can do is warn you better - so that is what we are doing.

Take solace that this will be harder to do after the next release. Nothing like a nice red bold warning to get your attention.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead

On 2/6/2019 at 6:39 PM, blinkingline said:

Just to confirm, can Chainbound events be run in the Adaptive variant, or only in Solo?

Chainbound events are currently Solo only.

Jeff Brower
GEM Client Lead