^ thank you guys.

Edit: thanks to all who put in there time. I had a lot of fun.

Thank you Bimmy and guillavoie for running this whole thing. I had a blast this week facing off against this year's best. I developed a new appreciation for DK Jr. and realized how fun it really is. Then I barely scraped by in Rush N' Attack. I think I dislike that game even more now. This final round introduced me to Stinger which quickly became one of my favorite NES games. Now I want to play some Twin Bee and Parodius.

You guys rock.

Congratulations, Red.  I assume this is you.
 

Congrats to all the winners, especially Red. That score was insane in the membrane.

Congrats to all the grinders. It certainly was a suprising last week. Thanks for letting me compete, sorry I finished so weak. Honestly, by the third week, I didn't have much passion to grind on Stinger for a high score. Got my final score on tuesday, and just kinda quit.

Nice scores everyone!

It's a single-elimination tournament, so this is typically how that sort of thing works.
It doesn't make "the whole championship about the final game", though, because you still have to get there to even have a chance of placing.

I will say, that this time around having larger tiers (and two slots eliminated per round) looks to put a little less weight on the best competitors for the first two rounds, though.
In 2014 I think we did one-loser-per-round and fewer competitors, so the 5 or 6 people that started in your tier provided stiffer competition from the beginning.
(that is, position 1 and 2 on the general leaderboard really can be threatened by position 5, but are unlikely to face a real threat from position 7 or 8, in general)


Dominating the leaderboard, or an individual genre, already has dedicated awards, though, so I don't think there would be a reason to handle the tournament TYPE differently.

 

I am editing my own post. I said that "No score is a true measure of there gaming ability" and that is misleading, and people may have taken it wrong. Let me be more clear what I meant was that EVERYONE could have showed off there ability more if they rules were different. I am not saying that if you had a high score and looped that your not great gamer, you are. I hope this makes more sense, I did not mean to bring anyone down.

We've had contests in the past where endurance was the decision-maker, combined with sufficient skill to stay alive indefinitely.

We've had contests in the past where scoring optimization was the decision-maker, combined with sufficient skill to one-life a single loop of the game.


Both require extreme skills to come out on top, but both require DIFFERENT skill-sets.

It's accurate to say we would have seen a considerably tighter point-spread if this was a one-loop contest, though.

 

I mean no disrespect to anyone but just want to mention that I snuck into tier one tied for the last position. I placed no lower than 4th in any of the three games, placed higher in one of the games than the two that placed above me in stinger and ended up earning a spot on the podium. I think we all were skilled enough gamers in tier one to have a shot at the end. Like you mentioned the endurance run is a skill. I did very well in the SMBIII week witch was endurance as well. The stinger rules ended up working in my favor although I believe I would have had the same chances had it been a one loop or one life competition.

IMO a one loop for stinger would have come down to who could get every bonus stage within the first loop. Which I believe may be random.

I don't know that I agree, some of the reasons relate to points you made. Not a big deal, just a suggestion.

Also, eliminaion type tournaments many times are done when you are playing the same "game" round afer round. The general ability does not vary much fron round to round, only who you are matched with. When you change the game with each round, it does come down to luck of the draw on the last game, especially when you face off against 4 other people in your bracket. Just my opinion, doesn't really matter either way. I still had fun.

That's a valid point, of course, since last year I would have come in first or second of Tier 1 if DD2 had been the opener and the pinball game had been the final.  But instead I made it to the finals but got stuck in the elimination slot (4th out of 4) rather than placing.

I think the "luck of the draw" works both ways though, no? If ballon kid would have drawn stinger (no matter what the rules) I believe he would have made the final round.

I understand I was very fortunate to even podium, nearly every chip fell my way. Still I could have been knocked off. I think if you incorporate a points system into the final tournament someone could still win it all by having a better average finish than someone who actually won a round or perhaps even two.

I don't think that you not being as good at DD2 is any fault of the tournament.

Edit: also yes it's crummy to dominate the first rounds of the tournament to eventually lose to a lower seeded opponent but that happens all the time in tournaments of any kind. The #1 seed doesn't always win the final four. Sometimes the short stack wins the whole pot. I think if your good enough you have a chance to win against anybody on any given day no matter what field your playing on.

Part of the trick, I think, is to get good, but less played, games into the finals so that something like DD2 (where some people might have exclusively  played that game for YEARS as a kid) don't distort the results.

That said, it really just came down to me not devoting enough time earlier in the week to truly perfect the flying knee execution and ending up with too many uppercuts to get the kind of score that was required.



I don't think a point-system solves the problem for the tournament, though.

There have been bracket-system discussions in the past that might change the flavor of the tournament.
Also I think a double-elimination was discussed at one point.

But as neodolphino points out, part of the "problem" is that most tournament systems are predicated on participants playing the same game each round of the tournament rather than different games at each round, making them less order-sensitive.

 

I get that the different games each round makes it a lil more (unpredictable?) and easier for a player who has dominated most of the tournament to get knocked off at the end by getting a game that she/he isn't as good at. But it is what it is. We all knew that possibility exsisted when we started right? I guess to many of the better players fell like they have been snubbed a victory by drawing a game they didn't excel in for the final. understandable. I'm just a newbie here.

I think your right less known games might make a more equal playing field but there's always the possibility that one of us had played the shit out of it before.

I had never played any of the three games in the tournament this year. I did what I could. I played as hard as I could. You can't always control the way the ball is going to bounce/roll/whatever.

Bingo.  That was my exact point, put much better.  

That's why my "solution" was to make it elimination in the first two rounds (you could place 1st in round 1, but still get eliminated in round 2, etc), but have some other factor determine the overall winners at the end.  This displays that a player is not only good enough at each game to dodge elimination round after round, but is also consistently a top performer.  It rewards the player's ability on more than one level.  It may be a crummy solution, but it is what came to my mind.
 

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining about the tournament format, I was simply acknowledging neodolphino's point about "game selection luck" as being valid.

I think my 2014 spring and fall season icons speak for themselves that I enjoyed the hell out the contests, and since I've acted as the leaderboard keeper for a couple of seasons, I have a healthy respect for what goes into these things to keep them running.

It's not so much about getting knocked off.  It's more about the final result.  If you do so bad in the second round that you can't make it to the top 5, then sure you should be eliminated.  However, if you place 1st in round 1 and 2 and then place 2nd or 3rd in the final round when someone who placed 7th and 5th in the first two rounds gets a lucky break, I can see how people could be sore with the end result (not saying that is what happened here).  I'm not.  I can just see how it is an issue.

We all knew the rules going in, was never begrudging that.  I was making more of a suggestion for the future, as so many people seemed to be unhappy with how things turned out.

 

I respect what you've done in the part and thank you for what you continue to do for the competitions.

Edit: past*

I have been beating in the championship game of my fantasy football league, more times than once, by another player who barley got into the playoffs and one that I had beaten twice in the reagular season. I'm not sure if it's a good comparison but I know the feeling of getting beat in the final (that way). To me it was hard to take but that player got in and earned that shot at the title no matter what there past record or performance was.

I happened to be that player in this particular tournament. I've seen it from both sides. I think it's just as fair as any format you could have.

BTW I also respect you as a gamer I've not been here that long but it's not hard to tell you are skilled. I mean no disrespect like I said before.

I guess that I have to shoulder some of the blame for this since I suggested the new rule set after the potential flaws with the original set were found. I had no idea that multiple people would be able to loop the game enough times that their runs would last over several days or I would've suggested that it be limited to a single loop as well. I'm as frustrated about how things turned out as anybody, but after having time to cool off and think about it, I don't really think there was any way to expect this as being a potential issue going in.
 

Yeah

 

 

I think the big problem here was that Stinger ended up being a very easy game to stay alive in. I'm not bragging, but I didn't die at all from having around 5 million points to where I had 50 million (I think, it's a little fuzzy now). I only played three times. Once to try out the game on Sunday. Once Monday morning where I got half a million and then just shut it off so I could go to work, and then I left my NES on all week and played less than an hour a day and then way too much on the weekend. Even after I died, on purpose, I got through three more levels just shooting whatever was in my way, and losing my 20 lives. After playing Monday morning, I realized this game is way too easy, and this is going to come down to whoever has the most time to play. Looking back, I guess I should have said something...

Okay everyone, it's time to announce the prize winners.  Starting with Tier 1, here are the trophy cart winners:

1st place: Red
2nd place: bertsampson
3rd place: skinnygrinny

LukeAF24 will be making the trophy carts, so please be patient with him while they are being made.

As you all remember, these are the prizes for the top 3 finishers in Tiers 2 & 3.



Here is what you all have won:

Tier 2

1st place: acromite53 - The Legend of Zelda: Shadow of Night
2nd place: neodolphino - Goal 2
3rd place: Thundercat08 - Tiny Toon Adventures 2

Tier 3

1st place: dropkickorange - Sunset Riders
2nd place: ninjistar - Crystalis
3rd place: zobber - Bionic Commando

Congratulations to all of our winners!   I will be contacting all of you tonight.  Coming up, the drawing for the elimination prize.