GTTSC 2019 – Discussion

LiquidCode said:Dark Siders 3 and Man of Medan were both great games. I still need a partner for Man of Medan, and have to clean up what’s left of Darksiders

D72shadow said:You can have 10th, I just want to make the final period. After that I'm tapping out

Congrats to everyone still in the competition and thanks to the people running the show.

Here's some things I'd like to see looked at for next competition if we're taking feedback:

Eliminations More Consistent
This seemed to be an accident judging by the forum posts / changes in the last couple weeks. But there were some weird side effects due to suddenly spiking in the number of teams eliminated each period. The major one was that bonuses suddenly became a lot less important because almost everyone popped their bonuses to stay in the competition (and then were knocked out anyway by the people still in the competition now).

TrueTrophy value vs. TrueTrophy difference
This seems to be a pretty contentious issue and I think a lot of personal opinions come into play here. I know speaking for myself, I'm never going to play POWGI games or region stack. It's not for me. We knew what we were into going into the competition, so it's not like I'm mad my team eventually got eliminated because of it. It just seems like TrueAchievements have already fixed this problem by using the difference instead of the raw value. If the people running the competition want to support both styles, I'd also be in support of running both versions of the competition at the same time (though that might be a lot to juggle).

Competition Runners in the Competition
I don't really have anything against the people running the competition. I think they did/are doing a pretty good job. But I think they have unnecessary advantages by being in the competition. They objectively have the advantage of knowing bonuses ahead of time. But even if there was a way to mitigate that, they would still have a personal bias in any decisions they have to make over the course of the competition.

Weird Quirks in Scoring: Decay
Example: I had unlocked the Tetris Effect platinum in Feb 2019, before the competition even started. Someone else got the platinum during the competition. I received like -400 points for something completely unrelated to my actions during the competition.

That's just one example. This happened over and over to our team with various trophies (Super Meat Boy, Wolfenstein II). I believe that the decay system is important to the competition, but I'd really like to see a way to not impact people who got trophies outside of the competition. Ironically, the easier games/platinums are more immune to this kind of decay because they can't decay lower than their base value. So people who typically go for rarer platinums get screwed over in raw score for each week AND get hit by this decay.

Weird Quirks in Scoring: Scanning
Example: This was more of a problem on the team side. But essentially if you're above the elimination line, you hold off scanning your trophies in so you can count the score for the next period.

This was brought up by someone else pretty early on and most people thought that it was a risky strategy. Personally, I'd like to see it eliminated. The trophies have timestamps, they should be used to ensure they were achieved in the period.

PMD_E1337Pete said:I think scoring offline is okay to an extent. I did a few when my teammate and I were trying to stay at the same trophies the one week and I really wanted to play games...however I think there should be a threshold of how much. Someone who drops in 15k in the first day from withholding points compared to someone with let’s say maybe 600-1200 (a full game) makes a difference between ill intent and just not having internet or something.

Just told my daughter im not going to reach the final.

Good job guys.

She's crying now.

PMD_E1337Pete said:I assume your talking about my teammate AtsumaKarin since he was the only organiser to take part in the competition. I can tell you now it seems like he was struggling with some of the challenges only completing them the night before the next period. On the one where we both had to score the same i had to stop playing games a few days before the end so he could catch up, and now on the last team challenge im still waiting for him to finish it.

Im not saying he isnt a good gamer because he is, and he is a good friend. Its just that if he did have any 'unnecessary advantages' towards the bonuses then it didnt seem apparent to me.

It's fair to say that the competition has been a bit of a shambles, i don't think that anyone can deny that. And it all stems from the decision to not put any importance on TT difference.

I can tell you from personal experience, that winning a True Trophies competition means a lot more when you don't resort to playing 10 minute games designed to prey upon the addiction some people have to trophies. And it certainly means a lot more when you don't resort to playing those same games three or four times across different regions.

I think that the answer is to actually ban those games and their regional variations. I propose this is done by adding a new badge/genre to games, called something like 'non-game/paying for trophies'. We all know the games that they could be applied to, and it would result in a winner that could feel proud of their accomplishment.

Like me, when i won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

Any rules against 'hoarding score' needs to be all or nothing. Either it is okay, or it is not. Under the current rules, a day's score could reasonably be 50k if someone plays Ratalaika and Powgi.

I don't think that there should be two versions of the contest - one that does adhere to the founding principles of the website and takes into account TT difference, and one that doesn't.

Also - from the Playstation user agreement.

Transaction Records.
You may make transactions only with a designated Sony regional company that is determined by your country/area of residence. Your country/area of residence may be verified by your credit or debit card number and may be rejected if the information does not match. Please retain any transaction related communications we may send to you. Your transaction history is also available in your Account management areas.

LICENSE RESTRICTIONS AND CONDITIONS
Except as stated in this agreement, all content and software provided through PSN Services are licensed non-exclusively and irrevocably to you for your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use on a limited number of devices in the country in which your Account is registered.

With this in mind, i shall recalculate the scores based on disallowing regional variations.

Okay i've done the maths, and if the contest was scored in accordance with the Sony terms of service, the Platstreet Boys win.

MrCreepingClown said:Icecream!

btw do you have Joes Icecream outside of Wales? its lush.

LiquidCode said:I was just planning on putting her in the Chokey until she quit her needless whimpering, but i suppose icecream could also work?

I think the closest Joe's to me is about 225 miles away :')

Nelson-Hellier said:Without doing the math and just looking at team The Sting of the Daemon where i dont think either of them are using regional variations wouldnt they be higher than the Platstreet Boys?

Nelson-Hellier said:I agree with this. Adding a badge for those games or banning them outright may be too much work for the event organisers to implement though (and up to debate as some are games like Sound Shapes are legitimate games with easy trophies). I suggested on one of my friend's blogs that there should be a round bonus based on the TT ratio of the trophies earned. Something like a tier (such as 2x for 1.5-2 TT and 3x for 2.0-2.5 TT, etc). That way it will deter playing easy games. But maybe that issue has already been solved over at TA? I'm not aware of how their version is run.

Nah.

Okay, maybe. Looking into it properly, the top ten should look like this due to disqualifications

TrophyStriker
Stingx2
Daemont
LiquidCode
D72Shadow
hroar100
Millicxan
hipshman
Nelson Hellier

PMD_E1337Pete said:Please note, although I am Game Info Manager, I have no input on how this was run. Just providing feedback to these points. I will skip points if I don't have input. I numbered yours for easier response.

1. Eliminations should be corrected for next time. I agree

2. Competition runners in this case was just one person. Atsuma. Without him, the competition would have run fine, but had no bonuses. Next time, I believe the code will be in place for the bonuses to be applied in the back end without a site member having to manage them. In a way, Atsuma was also at a disadvantage in the competition. As well as having to work a normal day job, he also came back to TT and had to manually calculate everyones bonuses before he could start scoring. At times, this took many hours to do. This was thankfully automated for the last few weeks.

If you are worried other staff like myself had an advantage, I can confirm, we knew nothing of each bonus until we got the PM, and we had no input on any decisions either.

3. The weird quirks affect most players. It is the nature of the competition. I think it adds an extra layer of challenge to it personally.

4. I am not sure how easily this could be addressed due to how it works with decay and such. If this was fixed, the point 3 would also need fixed most likely. It would make the decay trickier too. If the decay is only calculated within the competition, as in point 3, what would happen with the decay to games you scored in, but didn't scan within the previous leg. It may make more sense to allow the scanning quirk and then people can plan for it.

Nelson-Hellier said:This being a potential for people violating Sony's agreement, has nothing to do with a TT competition. If you feel strongly about this one, you could report the gamers to Sony. Although unlikely, it is possible for a gamer to travel to the different countries and make the relevant purchase when there. There would be no way for TT to prove otherwise and therefore couldn't exclude them.

Mayadome said:Sound Shapes is an amazing game - i love Becks' levels - and it's quite a quick game but death mode is at least testing.

Every round should be like that, in my opinion. If that were the case, last week i would have been challenged to finally get the platinum on Rocksmith 2014 - but instead i ended up playing Energy Cell twice, just to stay competitive.

The current set up definitely discourages challenging yourself, and glamourises buying the same game three times.

BeardedScot86 said:Just to put everyone at ease - i am not going to report anybody.

I just think it would be good if in future there was a way to limit everybody to one console version of a game + the Vita. I'm fairly certain i can prove that most people here did not travel to Asia to buy Powgi Sudoku.

I feel i should be excluded from any regional debates.

My mother is from a Ningxia in china, my dad was born and raised in the big apple, they both met and fell in love while on holiday in London. They decided to move to london and that is where they gave birth to me. I have Tri nationality and have a US passport, a Chinese passport and a UK passport.

I have Also been living in PS VIta land for the past 7 years and have managed to be recognised as a citizen and i am just waiting for my citizenship documents to come through.

Thanks,

MrCreepingClown

Or as my friends know me by,

R(us)s H(eu)bert Fant(asia) De(Vita)

PMD_E1337Pete said:Organizers definitely don't have an advantage in the competition. Atsuma was the main head behind making up bonuses and shipping them out to people, and as liquid said, even Atsuma struggled at points in the competition.

I'm not a main organizer but I've had a part in this competition, and look at me, I got absolutely destroyed and thrown out, even with my bonuses in use! Though granted I hardly earned any.

The way bonuses work if Atsuma would make them up for the new period. He wouldn't have a list of pre-determined bonuses so that he can work towards them easier. It kept everyone on their toes, including himself.

I think the only staff member still in this competition is Atsuma himself but that's because he has enough ratalaika games to save earth from extinction.

and like Bearded said above. Atsuma had to work his busy day job, even on weekends some times, and spent a good day or two calculated bonuses to give out to the correct people earlier in the period, all meanwhile still attempting to play games of Apex and chilling, and also earning points to keep himself in. It's safe to say he worked his absolute ass off

Not having a go by any means, but I feel like people need to stop worrying about staff members/organizers being in this competition. It's a competition for the whole site and even we want to take part and have fun. There's no hidden means of us cheating or having an advantage. Heck, look at all the staff members who were in this and got kicked out super early because they couldn't keep up. Tiawyn, Slayer, Bearded I think, and myself.

As for everyone wanting score difference rather than score as a whole -

There's always next years GTTSC ;)

Najinceil said:So if this information it will be happening again next year? Or are you being a tease to us trophy whores.

MrCreepingClown said:Like one of TGN's managers said This is a very first for TT, so ofcourse it'd be a more simple version with just score as a whole, and be wonky. As for next year, we can definitely hope. I know I am hoping for a score difference. God knows my RPG's will assist me.