Millennium Series : Prizes for Novice teams please

[Liz]

I've been out on the beers...

Originally posted by manike


Eureka! I've been drinking and it's amazing how a few guinness can solve the worlds problems even if they lose me the ability to spell and type...

I have the answer Niall All teams pay the same entry to start with, but depending on what division they end up in during each event they get a voucher for a certain amount off the next Millenium event that they enter.

For instance, every team pays 1000 Euros to enter an event if it's the first Millennium that they have attended. Then if you get seaded in Div 2 you get a voucher for 100 Euro's off the next event that you enter. If you are seeded div 3 you get 200 Euro's off the next event and if you are seeded div 4 you get 300 Euro's off the next event.

This means people in the lower divisions will end up paying less for a full seasons play. It also means that teams have a huge incentive to play more and more Millennium events, since as soon as they play the first they are getting discounts for subsequent events (if they aren't div 1 that is ) (Niall if the takings go up I want my cut ) and futher events for teams that aren't Div 1 are subsidised.

Only 1 voucher can be redeamed by a team per event.

I think those numbers should work out. Taking into account that the costs at the moment are:-

Pro: 1 250 €
Am: 1000 €
Nov: 700 €

Ok so now I need to pass out from alchohol abuse. I'll read Baco Loco's comments tomorrow when I am a little more sober

manike

Presumably this voucher would be able to be carried over from one season to the next? I'm thinking of a) teams that only do one or two Millenniums a year & b) teams that are in the lower divisions for the last event of the year, currently Campaign.

 

[rich_overlord]

How about having a 4th division which will be an open class, specifically to cater for those teams who only play one or two events in the series.

You can then leave Divisions 1-3 for those interesting in playing for the various league titles and promotions to higher leagues. These could then have a maximum number of teams eg 25 Pro, 25 am, 50 Novice. To play in divisions 1-3 a team would need to commit to at least 3 events.

 

[markh]

a voucher is extra admin for the organisers. What happens if you only ever play one event ? how do you get the money back ? Vouchers could be lost, forged. You would need to keep a single database of all issued vouchers as these vouchers could be redeemed at any event.

Having a single price is also problematic, many nov teams have trouble paying normal tournaments, increasing the fee would put teams off, thus reducing prize money and profit to organisers.
On the other hand, if a team is seeded to a higher division, then having to pay out more money for a higher div would be unwelcome.


rich_overlord: problem with an open div 4 is say a pro team only plays once, then they will beat any nov teams in that division, not fair! You would need 3 open divs, split by playing level. this would mean only the rich teams would ever play each other (in the top 3), and not allow a good but poor team a chance to win a tournament.

I'm not being negative !

 

[rich_overlord]

I don't see that as a problem, as a novice team one of the thrills of playing a major event is coming up against Pro teams, you can learn of lot from them and occasionally one of the novice teams pulls off of a win against them. Not often but it can be fun to watch.

Most major Pro teams would be more interested in playing the series and not a one off event so I would imagine it would be more of a amateur/novice league anyway.

 

[Liz]

True the majority of US teams do play the series, but ISTR last year a certain "new" team called Image at the Campaign Cup........
I agree that most teams like to have the odd game against higher level opposition, but in this situation the division win would be virtually guaranteed to the Pro team. Wow, BIG incentive - second is the best you can expect! (Note sarcasm intended here). Then you have all those novice level prizes; apart from them not being worth the while for a pro team to win them, that's another novice team deprived of what might have been their route to doing a second or third event the next year.
Taking out the possible extremes above, we also get the problem that most 1 Millennium event a year teams go to their local event, e.g. UK teams go to the Campaign Cup, German teams To Max Masters etc. So you end up with near enough everyone in this 4th division playing the same teams they've been playing all year, which takes away a lot of the fun of doing a Millennium event.

 

[markh]

I agree overlord, the current system where novs play a couple a Pro and an Am team is good, ok you may get spanked off the field, but you may not and you learn that Pro teams are not gods, they are beatable. I saw Jaguar(nov) beat Avalanche(Pro) at Portugal. Strangly, we beat jaguar but were hammered by Avalanche! Thats part of the fun of paintball, winning is currently still reachable for a nov/am team over a pro. You cant imagine in football say Bristol Rovers beating Man. U

However, in the current system, the Pro team is in the pro div, so the pro game you play is just for fun, and perhaps bonus points! If the pro team was actually in the 4th division, it would clean up and win the prize which the nov. team would benefet more from.

Having played 3 Millenium events this year, I must say I have enjoyed playing foreign Nov teams, some were very good, but only played one event so if they were put into a 4th division, their true skill at that tournament would not be reflected in their position as they would not be guaranteed to be playing against teams of a similar level.

 

[goose]

Mark...

Actually that is one one of the problems I have with the current system. I agree that it is fun for the lower division teams to play the higher - however it is not really fair for the higher teams. As you yourself said:

However, in the current system, the Pro team is in the pro div, so the pro game you play is just for fun, and perhaps bonus points! If the pro team was actually in the 4th division, it would clean up and win the prize which the nov. team would benefet more from.

What this means is that the 2 teams are not playing on the same footing, if one team can play it "just for fun" and the other can't. Yes you can say that Pros should win all the time - but we also know that there are many Am teams (hell some novice teams in the States) that have at least a 50/50 chance of beating any given pro team. When the Pro cut is so high - sometimes 1 or 2 losses puts you out - and there is not proper seeding of teams based on playing level - there is nothing worse for a pro (or even an Am playing a good novice team) who has nothing to lose. This allows the "lesser" (and I only use this term in describing their division) team to play "balls to the wall" and use perhaps a little less caution than if they where playing someone in their own division.

Just the other side of the coin - same as when the Rushers play novice teams such as the Wikings (last year).

goose

P.S. did'ya get may mail & map

 

[markh]

goose this is mostly true. But... We (Katz now Shockwave 3) beat the Ton Tons at the Polish Open 5 man last year, ok they made a big mistake, lucky for us, but it cost them the game. They were very unhappy about it . However this can also happen with novice v novice, one big mistake and you lose against a team you normally beat. If a Pro is really so good, they should normally beat the nov, in my experience this generally happens. It works both ways, the odds are stacked in favour of the pro, its free points for the pro if they respect their opponents. For the nov they will probably lose, but a few mistakes and good play could save the day.

This is kind of the issue that XBall addresses, you play the same team over and over, at the end you have a winning team (do they habe draws in XBall?), not a possibly lucky-this-time-team.
Of course this doesnt help us will Millenium, as we only have 3 days to play a large number of games.

 

[goose]

Hey Mark,

There is no arguing that Pro's should always be on their game etc.

As far as odds stacked in favour of the pros - I disagree. Sure they are free points, but when the 2 teams are not vying for the same place in the semi finals, I feel the odds then change a little. When it comes to playing better teams (where the divisions are different) some good Am/Novice teams just try some crazy stuff - because a loss won't really effect them - don't forget a loss to a pro teams doesn't mean that a team in your division will get more points than you - it just means that you get less. BTW I speak from experience - when the Berserks played pro teams, we had nothing to lose and went right at them. When we where playing against other Am teams where a win by the other team over us might be the difference we where a little more careful.

There is also the disadvantage that occurs when the top 4 or 5 Ams (or novice when you talk Ams playing novice teams) are strong and the rest tend to drop off. What this does is give some pro teams a lot harder games than other pro teams. I know many pro teams last year who dreaded getting stuck with NBK, the Worms or the Rushers in their pools when others got "no-name" teams.

X-Ball is a different animal all together - and as far as I know they don't have draws - it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Again, there are good things and bad things about the way things are done now. If one wants to talk about what is fairest for all - then proper divisions and no "cross-over" games is what is fair - at least in my mind.

goose

P.S. That's wht I like manike's ideas - teams seeded based actually on how well they are playing - who even would have thought of that