Mana Games

[Blacky]

We'll continue here...so that everyone can see it, it's kinda hard to find that discussion in preovious topic


my 1st post
That Idea came from thought that season is too long.
We must realize that this is not RL tennis, that this is not something that will keep us here all the time. And that we must do some changes. Are we all really going to play this elbow in the next 6-7 years (6-7 seasons in old system or 12/14 in new), we have to make some dynamics that will make this game even more interesting in present.
Even thought of playing next season for 11 months, is not appealing for anyone I think. So we discussed about this month ago and came up with this idea, that has its pros and cons...so here it goes. (Of course this is still just an Idea)

So...positive things of that Idea are
- season is shorter
- season is more dynamic
- we are able to play 4 seasons in 2 years, instead of 2 season in 2 years
- we would be able to create History of Tennis Elbow tournaments quicker, that would make game even more interesting
- less number of smaller tournaments which we don't need
(that would affect rankings...ok, Imagine, we have about 50 players and about 25 small tournaments, of which only 5 counts for rankings...so its kinda stupid because in time of one year everyone will max. or almost max. points from that tournaments, so at the end of the season it would be like we didn't played them at all because every one will have them maxed) - new system will took care of that

- less affected by leaving players
- new players that show up, have a chance to get good ranking sooner, 1 whole RL year sooner
(Imagine that some good player shows up at the end of the season, in old system he must wait 1 whole year for next chance to participate on perhaps Masters just because he found out about this game little later, in new system his "waiting" time would be shortened by 2 times) - (Most likely that he'll just give up, then play over again for another year)

- we would have a chance to defend our titles, ranking points sooner
- it would be more appealing to new players who raised their skill over time

Negative things
- We wouldn't follow real ATP
- Some of the tournaments of RL tennis would be ignored
- season is shorter (if that's negative thing for someone)
- little tighter schedule

That's it, I really can't remember any other thing...

So there is one question that you must answer, are we going to be faithful to ATP and some minor tournaments, and make this game more boring and longer, because of big number of small tournaments even pointelss, or are we rather going to kick some of them out and have more dynamic tennis season?

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ALGO's post

at least for me it wouldn't be boring at all to have a year long season
i have some questions about the 2 seasons per year idea:
how many tournaments would have those 2 seasons?, they'll be the same tournaments at the two seasons or it'll follow the calendar?,
how many of them would count for the ranking?
the final ranking would be made at the end of the season or the year?, if after the year, it doesn't make sense to have two seasons a year
it'll be two "masters cup", one per season?, how many GS and masters per season?,
would be have a pre-season or something between the seasons?, cuz if we dont have it, it'll be almost the same as having one season
and the most important, for me, the points per round it's gonna change?

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STUEY's post

how many tournaments would have those 2 seasons?, they'll be the same tournaments at the two seasons or it'll follow the calendar?

most likely same tournaments for each season, so we wouldn't follow the calendar.

how many of them would count for the ranking?
the final ranking would be made at the end of the season or the year?, if after the year, it doesn't make sense to have two seasons a year

all of them would count for the ranking. final rankings would be made at the end of the season which means that in june(july) we would start a new season and reset race rankings.

it'll be two "masters cup", one per season?, how many GS and masters per season?

most likely two masters cups, one at the end of each season. we would probably fit all 4 GS and about 6 or 7 masters in one season.

would be have a pre-season or something between the seasons?, cuz if we dont have it, it'll be almost the same as having one season

this is one of the things that is yet to be finalized (if we choose this option) - the calendar. not sure yet.

and the most important, for me, the points per round it's gonna change?

the points will most likely be the same as they are in the real ATP tournaments. so winning GS will now be awarded with 2000 entry points etc.

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TTENNISFAN's post

it sucks... our goal is to follow RL tennis dumb
As I said before try to fix the current system before adding a new one (like updating the site, forums sometimes and not once/month)
We're getting an ext. of players and want to play 6 months of all big tournaments so the 100 ranked players won't be even able to enter to the main draw. my only goal here is that ur idea is really really boring

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ALGO's post

ok... now i'm sure im against the idea
if we have less tournaments per season, it could be worse if the idea was to minimize the difference between players...if you miss 3 or 4 tournaments, you're almost out... but if we have a longer season, you get 3 or 4 good tournaments and, even if you were really behind the positions you could get there again. I think is funnier and even more dinamic to have a longer season because it's a bit more "dramatic", i don't know if i explained myself well, but whatever, the point is that i don't support the 2 seasons idea ...

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BLACKYM's post

You are not seeing a big picture here...25+- weeks of small tournaments every season is too much, specially because only 5 of them are counted.

Here on elbow is situation that every good player apply to almost every tournament, soon they max their points, and then or still play every tournament which is pointless or game becomes too boring for them because they overplayed it and they or stop playing it, or stop applying for tournaments. Then what happens is, that most of the other players find their chance and max the points...and that is not what happens in RL, in RL you have hundreds of players who play those small tournaments and those points got distributed between them...but here in elbow we have about tops 30-40 players active at one moment, often even less!

Best of us (all players) will max their points in first 5-8 small tournaments!

About dynamics...Shorter season doesn't means that season is short.
Season has 6 months ...
(normal season has 10 months + masters, difference is 4 months = 18 weeks, so what we'll done with this idea is removing most of the small tournamens, which will left us 7 +-1 weeks (there will be sometimes 2 at the same week) of them during season of which 5 or less will be counted)
...that is a long time. Losing of some of the unneeded tournaments won't lose game dynamics or dramatics, it will boost it even more.

it sucks... our goal is to follow RL tennis dumb
As I said before try to fix the current system before adding a new one (like updating the site, forums sometimes and not once/month)
We're getting an ext. of players and want to play 6 months of all big tournaments so the 100 ranked players won't be even able to enter to the main draw.

And you, please stop giving a false information, We don't have 100 players, we have it 80 for now, and barely 30 active ones, and from that number, 15 play their matches on time (if even that much)
And let's just assume that we have 100 active players...then we can easily put 2 or even more tournaments per week, challengers or futures and that kind a stuff.

And why should our goal be to follow RL tennis, Isn't it better to create something unique that works for us instead of copying other just because we are afraid of changing things.
Following RL Tennis did not had any influence on our tournaments last season. Did we discussed about them? Did we mentioned winner or results of RL tennis at every specific tournament? Well no, barely even anyone mentioned anything about it.

my only goal here is that ur idea is really really boring

You see, instead of just trying and giving your best to destroy this idea, you could try to make suggestion of how we could improve it, or give some normal critical opinion with normal informations that has nothing with us throwing you down from mod spot.
This kinds of comments are pointless and won't help anyone.

PS. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to push this idea through like its only thing that is good and like it has to be done. Nope, that's not my goal at all, I'm just trying to underline and explain even more pros of it. And pls, give it some time and try to look it from different sides and angles, not just one that you think its good and only at the moment.[/quote]

if you miss 3 or 4 tournaments, you're almost out... but if we have a longer season, you get 3 or 4 good tournaments and, even if you were really behind the positions you could get there again

No you are not out

Lets say that we have 7 weeks of small tournaments, and that we count 3 of them for rankings. If you miss even 5 of them (which active player probably won't), you can still collect nice number of points. Big points are still on masters and GSs

If you miss some of the masters or GS, well, then you are in the same position like you would be in longer season. Because those points you can win just once!

[TTennisfan]

Why do u want that new stupid rule?

[Togtdyalttai]

I have an idea for a compromise, and I'll let you guys decide the specifics if you like it. Instead of shrinking the season down, why not just change the rules? Blacky, it seems to me like the biggest problem you have with the current schedule is with the small tournaments and getting the points from them maxed out. I for one kind of like the small tournaments because they let the field not be all together all the time and allow more people a chance at winning tournaments.

Anyway, I think a possible solution would be to allow more small tournaments to count for rankings. It might be good to change around how small tournaments work altogether, adding some kind of points/small tournament component. Hopefully this represents some sort of middle ground: as Algo (correct me if I got the wrong person) said, why not change the current format before getting rid of it?

[stuey]

adding some kind of points/small tournament component

What exactly did you have in mind when you said this?

To count more small tournaments is one solution, but I'm not sure how it would affect the scoring system.
What do you think of allowing people to participate only in a certain number of small tournaments? For example, there are 15 small tournaments, and let's say that best 6 of them count for the rankings, and that people are allowed to participate in 9 of them?

Because anything else would lead to certain amount of saturation. And if we want to avoid that and make things more interesting with all this stuff, we again get back to 6 months idea.

[Blacky]

@ TTennisfan

Your post is edited because yelling is forbidden on forum...and if you don't want it, it doesn't mean that everybody don't want it. Most of the other players did not even saw this so...
We will explain our idea at the best possible way no matter what you think as long as most of the users do not see it.

And again, Its not my rule...I'm not trying to present this idea as "it must be like this", but just trying to explain why we mods (including me) think that this is better. Final decision is on you, players, and not just 1, or few more players, but all.

[Tscott415]

Ok, so i think the main problem is with the ranking system of the ATP. How bout you can either:

Count every tournament for the rankings, which eliminates the problem of confusion with the rankings

or

Count a lot more small tournies (like Tog said, they allow for more people to win them and so its not just the same people over and over) but lower their point value slightly so someone can't just get a really high ranking by just winning small tournies.

How much you should lower their value? That's up for discussion, because they still need value for people to play them.

[Eronakold]

I don’t like this idea in any aspect, blacky you have a very long list of positive aspects but I think the half off it doesn’t make any sense. Like we would have a chance to defend our titles sooner, you have to defend them sooner or later so wtf does it matter when, the season will be shorter? In which way? If we have finished or first season that year the 2nd would start immediately so if you take those two together the season would be as long or even longer. Also you say that new players have a better chance, but I think that if new players have to apply on these big tourns because the smaller one are going to disappear they have a good chance to face a seeded player soon, so how big is the chance if you play your first tourn and immediately face a seed. Not very big I guess, instead of playing smaller tourns first to improve etc.
Then you say that we don’t need the smaller tourns because they don’t count for the rankings, so we will only be playing tourns that will count for rankings rite? So that will mean that we have to play kind off all tourns to have a good ranking, but don’t you think if you have to play every week without any break that you’ll get tired of it sooner then when you skip one smaller tourn and take a week off. Then you’ll be much more motivated in the bigger tourns I guess and what would be special about winning a master or a GS if you only play those, it’s like just winning a normal tourn then.

[Togtdyalttai]

TScott's idea makes sense to me. The system needs to be changed somehow, and lowering points for small tournaments but making more count seems like it would balance out. It gives more people a chance to do well, but at the same time it adds to the importance of larger tournaments.

What I said about having points/tournament meant this: the average amount of points you get from entering small tournaments. I don't think this could count for the whole ranking based on small tournaments, but the ranking system needs to be changed in some way. We're not traveling around from continent to continent and working hard physically to win each match, and that is the point of not allowing so many small tournaments to count. If we can play more than the ATP players can, then why not let those tournaments count?

On the other hand, if we wanted to change it to be more realistic, we could add in a fatigue factor. This would be pretty complex, but it'd be interesting. Say Simon makes the final of the US Open. He's not gonna go halfway around the world to defend his title in Bucharest next week, is he? Just a thought, this idea is probably too difficult to implement. I still put my backing behind the first one.

[Elikian]

I havent played with you guys yet, but I intend to from coming January, and I know some of my friends (who are better than me) are interested as well.

Speaking for myself here, I know none of my friends mind the fact that the season is long. To us it just adds a sense of realism that you are on equal time as the ATP tour. As Eronakold says: you have to defend your title anyway, sooner or later. It's likely that more people will play only temporarily (say couple of months) and then leave, so there will be less actual 'title defenders', but is that a real problem? I don't see that.

I aswell would also go for counting more non-mandatories. If you just skip a lot of them to shorten the season, what you basically do is diminish the feeling of "this is a TMS / GS", because they almost all are.
Last season there have been 22 non-mandatory weeks on the ATP tour. Ofc for real-life players, they dont play 22 weeks, and for us we can, and most likely the active players will. I ran a similar game parallel to the real ATP tour this season and we opted for 10 non-mandatories to count. In practise top players *will* maximise them, so it doesnt really matter if you put 2, 5 or 20 nonmandatories. If you make the number too large though, the influence of the Mandatory events will become too small, and to prevent that we opted for 10, and I think it worked well. (ranking file: http://home.hetnet.nl/~elikian/tennispoll.html ... but in this game there was not that much difference in skill, so hard to max out. But we took 10 to create more interesting weeks. The orange numbers are the "10th results" (And yes, I sucked, tyvm :p ))

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Anyway, I would like to introduce maybe a totally new concept for deliberation.. just a hunch:

Another solution could be in the form of possible "elite" tournaments. If you have maxed out your non-mandatories, you can enlist for those events. Only players who can no longer gain non-mandatory points in that current week can enter, and therefore you only meet the really good players. Winning in there actually DOES give you bonus points for your ranking. This leaves a nice competition for the really strong players who have otherwise nothing to gain by playing.
Additionally it gives the players just below that level a chance to actually compete for titles again, and if they continue to shine, qualify for the elite tennis group. Ofcourse, once in every while the elite players must return to the non-mandatory events to make sure they keep their elite status, and the other players have a chance to have a go at these players too.
(These elite tourneys will in practise only be played by really active and strong players, and there wont be too many of them, so maybe some Round Robin format is needed here, else there isn't many matches for them in these event.. that is to be decided.

(in the weeks of "500" events I guess everyone still has points to gain in non-mandatories, so the whole concept will only be applicable in the 250 weeks.)

[Togtdyalttai]

Elikian: Good to see a new person who wants to be active on the forum and in tournaments. I take it you're from the Netherlands? And do you have MSN? You have some good ideas. This thread has produced a bunch of new ideas as alternatives to the 2 seasons/year idea. I'm not even sure which one to support now. Guess the mods will have to sort that out.

[Blacky]

I saw all your posts, and found out that many of you got me wrong (partially because my explanations were little clumsy and partially because Its hard to express my slef on English). So as words can hardly explain something like a picture. We decided to show you example of calendar that Stuey and me made month ago. We couldn't post it sooner because Stuey had problems with net. Today I found him finally, we edited calendar a little bit.

And here it goes:
http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... perge1.png

I already showed ti to few players, and reactions were positive...so I expect to hear your thoughts as soon as you see it.

[Elikian]

Blacky, I think I understood your point/problem, but I just don't think your solution is the right one

Again talking for myself:
Looking at that calendar, and I see 8 normal weeks, 8 Masters, 4 Slams and the Masters Cup.
3 of those normal weeks are the first 4 weeks, ... after that its basically all Masters and Slam tournaments.
I feel this greatly diminshes the idea of a Masters tournament as an important tournament, as they virtually all are. And to me this feels this is really tailored to the players who think that that the normal tournaments will be boring after 3 weeks. If that is based on maxing out points, there are different ways to solve that.
Therefore I would personally propose a different way to go as an alternative to this, and I proposed two in my previous post. Personally I really like that 2nd one, although it may need some finetuning at points. I just wrote that as a idea fresh from my mind.

To me the only really thing that shortening of the season would help with is that new players take a while to build their ranking. But personally I don't see that as a problem. Shortening the season would make this game lose a lot of it's realism, and playing 8 normal weeks in contrast to 13 masters/slamscertainly does.

just my 2 cents.
(And Tog, yes Im dutch and I do have msn.)

[stuey]

Hi ppl.

Talking to Blacky, we came to couple of conclusions. Some of them are these:
we could pop in more smaller tournaments as second tournaments in weeks where Masters Series tournaments are, as well as shorten Grand Slams' duration from 2 weeks to 10 days and pop in smaller tournaments into second week of those GS tournaments.

Let me also add this idea we came up with: we would have total of 12 smaller tournaments. People could play maximum 9 of them, and 6 of them would count for rankings. This is because we thought that middle would be most appropriate.

Also, if someone applies for tournament, and then doesn't appear on it (or gets disqualified for some reason), the total number of tournaments he can play is decreased by one

That's it for now

[Blacky]

Here is example of new update calendar (still not final version, still has some things that needs to be discussed and changed, specially points of tournaments which I messed up accidentally)

http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... onefl0.png

Main Idea of this calendar is shortening GSs to 10 days, and putting smaller tournaments on their 2nd week, That won't effect nothing because even in RL, semifinalist and finalists of GSs, almost never play next weeks tournament.


My comments about Elikians suggestion. First one about counting 10 out of 23 tournaments, well if we do that, then Its the same thing as counting 6 them out of 12. But what we get from this is more dynamic game with more pros than cons.

Second Idea about Elite tournaments...well that won't work, as it is complex, as it is unneeded but mostly its unfair to some players.

[TTennisfan]

So this stupid idea has been accepted ?