Vector War XIII – Preparations & Discussions

[hcmffm]

- Threshold scores and game mode have been added (see initial post).

- ZIP archive with all binaries available for Vector War XIII for including Count Vecula is available, now.

- Prize list got another update: Steve (minsoft) donated a copy of his excellent Vyrzon. Thank you very much, Steve!

Note: My webserver is still on http (not https) - most likely you'll get a security warning before downloading.

[D-Type]

Oct 27, 2023 11:02:25 GMT -5 playvectrex said:

If there is a draw, I would propose extending the number of games counted beyond 6 until the tie is broken.  This has always been a way to get higher scores anyways, being able to play more games well. 
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If you judge it by the VW score, 2nd place for one might be 96% and it might be 94% on another one because more or less players qualified with that one (forget which)... but 2nd place is 2nd place... there shouldn't be a score associated with it to try to determine which 2nd place was better. 
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In my opinion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd place values should be fixed, and should require at least 3 players in that game to award any points for 1st 2nd and 3rd. No default 1st place for a game because you were the only one playing it, etc..

As this format is basically my pinball tournamant system that I tweaked over several years for events with 5 to ~200 competitors (which also happened to have ~12 pinball machines and people playing ~6 of them, but once only!) I can offer some insight as to why it is like it is.

I designed this system after playing in the 2007 European Pinball Championship in Sweden, which had a fixed number of points depending on your position.

I was a newbie to tournament play and finished 4th-last out of ~150 people. Because there was a fixed number of points available per ranking and I wasn't very good, on most of my games I didn't get any points at all. This is totally demotivating for newbies^##. 
Solution: Scale the points between 1 and 100, so everyone always gets some points for playing, it's not all about the top guys.

Pinball tournaments existed with fixed points previously and they also produce ties and, from experience, more than with scaled points. A particular problem was someone with three 2nd places getting the same points as someone with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
Solution: Add a power function to the scaled scoring calculation so the gap between 1st and 2nd is bigger than the gap between 2nd and 3rd, which eliminates the 2 2 2 vs 1 2 3 tie. This works all the way down the field of competitors, meaning game selection tactics count too.

Another problem can be that often top players put some very high score on games early on and no-one else will bother to play it because they don't think they can beat them and halfway through the tournament it all goes stale, not so many scores are getting updated and the end becomes an anti-climax.
Solution: Scaled scores mean additional players on a machine can affect the scores of all players above and below them, right up until the last minute, which makes the conclusion tactical and very exciting, as it's not only massive scores that can affect the final positions.

Fundamentally, I don't agree with a 2nd place always being a second place and always getting same amount of points. IMHO, a second place that beats 20 people is better than a 2nd place that beats 2 people, and especially because it resolves ties . 

Unless >1 person gets 6 max scores, adding a decimal place may fix the tie issue, as will taking the scores of more games; the latter will require more play time, but of course that's up to the player. The core problem is the balance of games, especially regarding those that can be played forever vs making all the games playable and not too hard for casual gamers.

Maybe for next year we can hack some games, for example, to have one life only or other such tweaks. For pinball tournaments, it's common to turn off all extra balls, disable randomization and remove playfield posts so the ball drains, else some players play for too long and the playoff finals don't get started until 2am in the morning.

FWIW (and unless Helmut has changed it), the formula for working out the points is:
POINTS = (RANKING ^ 1.5 / #COMPETITORS ^ 1.5) * (RANGE - 1) + 1
Where range is typically 100, but you could make it 1,000...or 10,000... 

No tournament system is perfect, there's usually someone complaining it's unfair (usually just after they didn't quite make the cut into the finals playoffs!) and you only find out about the downsides after you've change something  .

^## I wasn't a newbie forever, four years later I won a Swiss tournament (my only win ever) and beat the world number 3 at the time in a four-player final.

[hcmffm]

Thank you for your suggestions and explanations regarding scoring and resolving draws, Brett and Philip. Some years ago I've changed the scoring to the system that Philip (D-Type) has described in the previous post. Calculating a score got a bit complicated and you need a calculator and/or the point table (see initial post) to manually calculate it. But as Philip pointed out this scoring system has various advantages.

You (Brett) asked for measurements to avoid draws. I did address this by adding rules for resolving draws. I'm 99% sure that these additional rules will resolve draws. And I'm 100% sure that I won't change the scoring system a few hours before start of Vector War.

[playvectrex]

I'm curious how you will score Tee Time. Is there a max score?

[hcmffm]

Oct 27, 2023 20:38:04 GMT -5 playvectrex said:

I'm curious how you will score Tee Time. Is there a max score?

Good point, Brett. Minimum number of hits/tries or whatever you call it is the score you submit. The less hits/tries the better - there will be some calculation rule (e.g. "200 - <#hits/tries>" * 10). Please make a photoproof of the score card which displays all scores; and post it together with the sum of all your hits/tries (right, you have to sum up hits/tries yourself).

[Peer]

Only ten minutes till Vector War. And counting 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 ... But no, better count upwards! Anyone got the pun?

Good luck and great fun to all players!!!

[playvectrex]

I see some scores submitted with VecFever. I think we should not play the built-in games on VecFever since they are emulated and tend to run faster than normal, and are obviously different. They are modified in various ways (to make them run faster, and have high score save tables). If you play on VecFever, only load games from your user files section. Even then though, I'm not sure if those are emulated like PiTrex on the cartridge's processor. To be transparent about VEXTREME, VEXTREME only emulates an EEPROM containing the data that a normal Vectrex cart contains, and allows the Vectrex to read that data and execute it itself... whereas VecFever and PiTrex emulate the games and then control the screen and read the joystick inputs of the Vectrex. VEXTREME software is also open source, so you can see exactly how the EEPROM emulation works and know that nothing funny is happening behind the scenes.

[hcmffm]

Thank you, Brett, for raising this issue. Until now I thought that cartridges like PiTrex and VecFever would be just means to store and run binaries but it seems to be a wrong assumption. With a different timing and/or framerate a game is changed significantly and thus not 100% identical and not comparable with the "normal" game. This is indeed a problem. Second problem: When photographing the highscore list stored by the VecFever, you cannot really say whether scores have been achieved during Vector War or (long) before Vector War.
I'll think about it; most likely I'll post a note asking people not to use PiTrex and VecFever within the Vector War until this is clarified.

[Peer]

A related question, which I ask out of curiosity, but which could also be relevant for tournaments:

Do cartridges like VecFever, Vextreme, Vectrex32 etc. give you the ability to save the current state of a game at any time during gameplay, and then later resume that game from that saved state (for as many times as you like)?

It is not that I distrust anyone in Vector War. Such a feature would come in very handy for development and debugging purposes, and that is why I am interested. 

[fruktodlaren]

Isn't it as easy as to say that on flashcarts one should run the rom files provided in the zip.

Clarifying that no V4E files are to be used if using vecfever.

[fruktodlaren]

Nov 1, 2023 0:54:18 GMT -5 Peer said:

Do cartridges like VecFever, Vextreme, Vectrex32 etc. give you the ability to save the current state of a game at any time during gameplay, and then later resume that game from that saved state (for as many times as you like)?

No, not at the moment. There is/was a pause function on some carts I think. But pause does not equals save states.

[hcmffm]

Nov 1, 2023 0:54:18 GMT -5 Peer said:

... Do cartridges like VecFever, Vextreme, Vectrex32 etc. give you the ability to save the current state of a game at any time during gameplay, and then later resume that game from that saved state (for as many times as you like)? ...

FAIK, ParaJVE let's you pause and load and save a specific state of a game. But sure enough ParaJVE isn't the real thing (=Vectrex console). But maybe this info helps in your case.

[hcmffm]

Nov 1, 2023 5:20:04 GMT -5 fruktodlaren said:

Isn't it as easy as to say that on flashcarts one should run the rom files provided in the zip.

Clarifying that no V4E files are to be used if using vecfever.

Would be great if it was that simple to solve this issue for the VecFever. And question is, whether same applies for Pitrex.

Would be good if someone who has insight and profound knowledge of the VecFever could confirm / explain this. Malban ?

[Peer]

Nov 1, 2023 5:33:06 GMT -5 hcmffm said:

FAIK, ParaJVE let's you pause and load and save a specific state of a game. But sure enough ParaJVE isn't the real thing (=Vectrex console). But maybe this info helps in your case.

Thanks! I was indeed looking for a way to get this on a real console.

[hcmffm]

Phew, my announcement regarding the usage of PiTrex/VecFever has caused quite some echo and irritation - I'm sorry for this false alarm. At the moment, there is a lot of speculation about the way, PiTrex and VecFever work and run the games. My understanding is that if you upload binaries onto a VecFever, VecFever will run that original binary - no emulation that would change the behaviour in any way. And I guess this also applies for PiTrex.
So: For playing, please use the binaries provided in the ZIP archive and load it onto your cartridge (VecMulti, VecFever, PiTrex, VExtreme, ...) and everything is fine. At least for this year's tournament and at least until somebody provides good arguments and detailed and reliable info why and how binaries of PiTrex and VecFever are emulated and how the behaviour of the games are affected.