Dear Elimination participants,
With just a few days remaining of Elimination 2017, I wanted to spend a little time explaining the current circumstances and our thought processes surrounding the actions taken. But before that, I'd like to announce that the top five teams this year will receive the 'top three' award, and that next year's Elimination will include some large changes.
This year it seems with the score changes, the lag around elimination time has been greatly reduced which is a good sign. We'll likely reduce it further next year by using 'team lives' which are reduced hourly for the team in the lowest position (instead of instant elimination at a specific time). We'd also like to try adjusting the scoring system to a swap / steal mechanic: All teams start with 1,000 points and those points are just transferred back and forth - with no points being created or deleted in this fixed economy. Of course, removing 'gender specific' teams (and adding more new ones available to anyone) will also be important in order to prevent any unfair team stacking / grouping up - providing an unfair advantage. Reducing team capacity limits and preventing new players from joining is also on the table.
All of this combined should result in a more competitive, balanced, fair, and hopefully lag free Elimination event.
Regarding the events that have transpired this year, let's begin!
It started with a group of players attempting to join 'Pink Power' by changing their gender before entry started. Last year, the team was available to a fairly high percent of female players, but not all, which resulted in the team ending up with fewer members than the other teams. This year it was adjusted to allow all female gender players to join it, this was not communicated outside of the development team, certainly no committee members / non-developer staff. I believe those who changed their gender in order to join Pink Power were gambling on a likelihood that it'd be available to them, and I don't think any of them knew the actual scale of non-female players involved who'd have it available to them.
This loophole in the entry system was made aware to me during the entry period, although at the time I was unaware of the scale: I assumed it was only 10-20 people rather than entire factions, and I failed to investigate further.
Once entry concluded, the scale of the operation became clear, just over 200 people had falsely qualified for entry into Pink Power which allowed groups of friends on Torn to join the same team. We had several options - for example removing the 'gender changers' from the competition or nullifying their score gain. But at the time it was very unclear how much of an advantage such a situation would create, and making a decision before seeing the results felt premature and hastey. It was clear that the other teams felt strongly about the situation and I wanted to see if it could be self-policed by the players - creating an 11 vs 1 battle. As we saw last year, teams can band together to eliminate a single team that has a power advantage, but here I certainly underestimated the organisational advantage that was achieved.
As the competition rolled on, it became clear that the organisation and power of the 11 other teams combined was simply not strong enough to turn the tides, which came as a big surprise for me. Several teams had already been eliminated so taking administrator action was also no longer plausible. The morale of the remaining teams was at an all-time low, and the majority of players were beginning to lose interest in the event. It was determined by the players that the results would be clear - Pink Power would win due to their unfair advantage and they should no longer bother competing.
Since Elimination is an event that only happens once a year, and this is only its second time running, that would be a pretty upsetting result for everyone involved and would tarnish the spirit of the competition in the future. The event would have continued as predicted, players would have stopped competing and it would have been known as the least interesting event in Torn's history - a failure.
We could have halted and restarted the competition entirely, which would have been quite a huge ordeal and a game-wide embarrassment for us - and what about all of the attacks / energy / effort that was used by those actively competing? It's impractical to determine all of the energy used and simply credit it back - not to mention the devaluing of Torn's core fundamentals, and the effect that the credited energy would have had on the proceeding rerun.
So we were left with a competition that was quickly becoming stale, with a team that was already predetermined to win due to their unfair advantage. Direct admin intervention was already off the table due to the progress that had already been made. We had to find a gameplay method to bring clear observable balance and reignite the fire. This is where Duke comes in!
Duke was instructed to join the weakest team and barrage the 204 participants in Pink Power who changed genders before the entry period of the competition. We decided that if they could maintain their score and overcome the other teams despite Duke's intervention, their potential victory could be justified by all. We were not trying to determine the results of the competition ourselves - only to give them a chance to prove themselves to the greater community once some balance is reintroduced. It was an impractical method, but perhaps the only method of bringing balance to a competition that was already fully in progress.
I understand this situation has been super unenjoyable for some, and I'd like everyone to know that we're already taking steps to ensure something like this never happens again. Duke's intervention does not help the competitive player to player nature of Elimination I wanted to achieve and would never be considered under usual circumstances, it was an attempt to keep things relevant and interesting during a competition that was quickly fading away.
I'd like to particularly point out that the move with Duke was not in any way meant to punish players for their play-style or efforts and was not meant to remove them from the competition - but instead to present a unique challenge. Players within Pink Power kept saying its about standing up and fighting, I put them in the same position where they had to stand up and fight or be knocked out. To their credit, they did stand up and fight.
Based on the metrics we're seeing, Duke alone won't make or break Pacifists so I think this was the right team to place him on.
I hope we can bring you something great next year and I am very sorry to any players that feel slighted by the decisions made. It was not meant in a malicious way, but as a way to restore some of the competitiveness in the competition.
Although Elimination's mechanics are very simple, the process and quality of the event is completely determined by the players and their actions. It is impossible to predetermine how something will play out when hundreds or thousands of players start acting differently compared to expectations, the battleground can change so unexpectedly as the meta changes and teams adjust their tactics. All we can do is estimate to our best efforts, and let things play out. Watch closely and gather lessons for next year. Elimination's biggest weakness is the morale of the teams involved, if they decide that they're outmatched and give up instead of banding together for survival, the results can become predictable and disheartening. This is something we don't have much control over, but can try to mitigate as much as possible by creating a fair and even playing-field for everyone involved - which I've failed to achieve this year.
Thanks.