Don't Change Elimination 2024 (Too Much)

Update

It seems like the 'likely the last elimination tournament in its current form' comment actually meant a rework of the code base and not the core aspects of the event.

From Chedburn on page 4:

Elimination has to be rebuilt from scratch, from the ground up. The code is too old and the system is too complicated, which has caused us nightmares in the past, that's what bogie meant.

I have no plans to change the core structure of Elimination, but I'm certainly open to ideas. As I said, Elimination is Elimination, I can't even imagine what else it would look like? Teams fight against each other, with each team being eliminated one by one. How else would it work?

I'm definitely open to trying many more teams, as long as we don't have to invent brand new ones every year. Regarding leadership voting - I don't imagine that will work, it'd be just as easy to manipulate team voting.

At least that was clarified and we're having had a good discussion on possible tweaks and changes before the thread degenerates into nonsense.

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The original post

I have had a blast with Elimination this year despite 70k stats and a survival rate outside of hospital of a couple minutes at best.

With a ground up rebuild on the horizon for 2024, there are some core aspects that hopefully will be preserved:

• Massive, cross-factional (or non-factional) teams
• A relatively short but very intense team competition
• Ability to compensate lack of stats with tactics and timing

These three aspects combined make Elimination a very unique and engaging event within Torn.

I think it is the last point though that both makes the current version of Elimination unappealing to some newer players (because of hospital hell) but also really appealing to others (learning to hit and turtle effectively under intense conditions).

Every ticket being equal to each other (unlike RW respect) and a very wide pool of targets means that it is possible to be as valuable at say 60 days old than it is at 6000 days old - as has been demonstrated in many teams over and over again. It does take learning a little bit about lining up targets and turtling, but once that's done, one can compensate for years and years of missing stats just through activity and engagement alone. That's an incredibly unique and rewarding aspect of Elimination that I personally found very engaging.

It also creates the imperative to reach out to and mentor newer players across the whole team (if one desires to win), something which we have done in Hivemind and other have done too - a wonderful community building opportunity if done in an non-toxic way, which our Slacker Patrol has aimed for. Many people I've worked with and talked to have found this organisational and team building aspect even more enjoyable than the game mechanics itself, including myself.

I think we can do better in terms of mentoring, education and outreach inside our teams in the coming years to make the experience more enjoyable to all - and to make players who bumbled into Elimination but don't enjoy this aspect aware of there being an instant leave option.

However, it'd be a shame to have Elimination's core altered too much if it ends up taking away the competitive intensity and the need to form very tight teams in response.

So whatever the changes are, me and many other players would like to see these aspects maintained.

On the other hand, a more prominent leave button would be great along with more educational newspaper coverage. The ability to send in-game teamwide messages would also be very valuable.

TLDR: We can improve the reputation (and experience) of Elimination as 'hospital hell' for newer players without needing to take away the fun, competitive, and teambuilding nature of the event. It's been a blast for so many of us this year and we'd like to have the same special experience in 2024.

Edit: I'll add in other problems that do need to be addressed from replies:

Rigging/ Not having a chance to win due to diplomacy

Inside baseball diplo does go a long way to spoil the event for those who don't happen to end up on the 'chosen' teams who then get to have a fun finale. Since I was in one and took no part in diplomacy, it didn't come to mind straight away, but it's a very important point. Team randomisation helps but it's probably an inherent problem as long as the event is a free-for-all rather than a tournament.

That said, the non-Monarch-led teams not being able to maintain a united front was a shame and things might have been more fun if they did. A challenger (or challenger group) to Monarch domination might potentially emerge in 2024 - if someone gets to work on it early enough.

It has been suggested that a larger number of teams would help with this issue.

Slackers/ Freeriding

A number of people are upset about players joining and then dragging their team down by not hitting and accumulating a huge net loss of tickets. Even some very high stat players managed to accumulate a decent number of net losses for the team - very few people can just join and never be hit.

I've found engaging with low hitters a fairly interesting aspect of building up and tightening the team. Some people were joining opportunistically for tokens, but others did genuinely have a hard time or needed support. Excluding a certain percentage of the bottom of the hit list from getting any tokens at all might fix the first fairly easily.

Overall, I wasn't too bothered by the unflinching freeriders - every team had a certain percentage of them so it didn't particularly help or hinder anyone. Especially given that the zero hitter rule didn't apply anymore when it came to the calculation of the the top 5%.

Being able to kick would probably be a very bad idea, a committed core could winnow down the team to very small numbers and win that way. A one person Elimination team could almost automatically get the second place just by turtling all the way.

Not to mention the game experience of the people being kicked.

Elimination was terrible. A complete overhaul of this event is needed to keep key players like me engaged. The 100% random team selection process was stupid, leaving players like me to get stuck with a bunch of losers. Watching members in Monarch dictate the order in which teams were eliminated was likewise discouraging. Maybe it’s time to retire this event.

I think a war base would be great, where folks can add supplies meds drugs and weapons that get returned at the end of the event with maybe a prize fund for biggest hitters that is automatically paid.

This.

I specifically liked random allocation and the connections it helped create between unrelated people. It's also the main anti-rigging mechanic at the moment, at least only the leadership can be couped. A single high performing team would make the event completely uncompetitive.

I like the idea of random teams to create fairness, but I think there needs to be something to reward high performers on worse teams, and punish low performers on all teams. I’ve been toying with the idea of almost like a bracket style elimination where it’s essentially a mini ranked war, but with random teams. If you win, you take say the top 20-40% of the team and add it to your own. Then you move onto the next round, and the lower 60% of players on the losing team get eliminated.

I’m not sure what the teams sizes would start as, or how many teams there would be, but I thought something like this could preserve the elimination idea, while incentivizing activity (since you can still move on even if the rest of your team is full of shitters)

That's awesome that you had fun.

I have some bad news for you, other than about 3 key moments in the competition, your attacks meant nothing.

The first 4 teams were eliminated purely on politics alone, as 4 prominent Monarch leaders ended up on 4 separate teams. Allowing them to take over leaderships and band together. If you were on 1 of the 4 non-monarch teams, you had 0% chance of winning.

Once final 4 hit, it was still a lot of politics, attacks mattered only in certain spots, and for a limited amount of time. Trust me, if nothing changed and you join next year on a bottom 4 team, you'll see what I'm talking about.

That's a good point, I edited my original post.

Elimination needs a MASSIVE change.
But I love the idea behind elimination, and the way it's meant to run in theory. But it isn't working in its current state.

I do hope for a similar, but less rigged event next year at the very least though!

Make 16 teams, with either 25 lives/30 min ticks or 50 tickets/15 min ticks.

250k tickets each ticket is a life once a team goes to zero they are eliminated

You noted in your edit that "A challenger (or challenger group) to Monarch domination might potentially emerge in 2024"

There's always been someone who "rigs" it, and creates a strong pre-made alliance. Monarch is just the latest, they are the 2023 challenger.

Some years it was Stretch grabbing people from around NS/allies.
Some years it was MeanMike grabbing CR and allies.
This year it was Monarch.

It will always be someone, and my point is that if you're not in the group, or luck on prominent team, all your effort as a singular player just trying to have fun means nothing.

I guess TWO challengers, yeah. From what I have seen, it doesn't take that much to fund a team effectively so NW isn't a terrible barrier. Just need to want to do it, probably, and some strategic and organisational skill. The leadership bid within Hivemind was completely uncontested this year for instance.

There is no solution to that though is there. People are going to have friends. Friends are going to work together. That’s totally unavoidable. If it wasn’t monarch it would be another group. The random team selection is the most fair method by far - way better than letting committee rig shit like Pink Power. That was truly unfair.

If the goal is to only make small changes, I think more teams could solve it. Maybe 30 - 50 teams (they have the names/graphics/banners). (With a full random placement too)

That way, early on having a huge amount of teams you could weed out any huge collaboration naturally within the community.

The only collaboration left, would be an earned victory, rather than knowing you're final 4 an hour into it.

I imagine that would help, if not quite 50.

Fantastic suggestion. I agree entirely.

Monarch managed to take control of 4 teams because they were ready. The put in the work, had discord servers ready to go and assumed control of their teams. Anyone could do that, but they did. Fair play to them.

The only counter to that (if it’s even a legit problem) is more teams.

"what is likely the last, elimination tournament in its current form."

[image: i.imgur.com]


Are you changing it, or not changing it?