Hidden Cup 4 Stats

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
102

I thought a bit how the Hidden Cup could be adjustet to the new, more competitive mindset.

First I think, the Playsers should always know whom they are playing against.
For several reasons. Tournament Planning, Server selection, Communitcation…
It also makes no sense, because most of them will know after the first round anyways. Secondly, and more important: If they now who they fight they can more confidently try to “trick” the audience. If there is a chance the very first map is viper vs hera, they just can’t propose to be something different.

Then the torunament should be spolit in three parts: Qualification, League Phase and Placement rounds with live casting.
Whilst the first two phases are preplayed and casted in “re-live” for the viewers, the last Is indeed live. The vote for the players is made after the qualification and after the league phase casting, so in the deciders most viewes actually pretty sure whom to cheer. The final reveal should still be after the final, but the counting votes are from before the deciders, so the decider games are as competitive as possible.

The pricepool is factorized after both placements in “guessed place” and “finished place”, so the player who is guessed least gets more money from the pool then the one who is guessed most.
An Example could be:

  • 1st : 4 x
  • 2nd : 3 x
  • 3rd : 2 x
  • 4th : 1.5 x
  • 5th : 1.25 x
  • 6th : 1.15 x
  • 7th : 1.05 x
  • 8th : 1 x

Both results are multiplied and the total pricepook is then split by the sum of all earnings. So if for example Hera wins, but is also the most guessed Player, he will earn 4 x. But If JorDan is second and is also the 2dn least guessed player, he will earn 9 x. Yes, he lost the tournament but because he tricked the community the most, he would get 2.25 more than hera.

To avoid the Home-Map situation, the solution is quite easy: Both players have to pick one of the new maps as one of their homemaps first. This makes sure that the new maps are played and no player has a disadvantage with this setting.

Lastly I would also like T90 to change the additional content a bit. Hidden Cup is a great chance for lesser known players to get some “Fans”, too. He shoulF make “confirmation” videos for all participants and not focus on cheating things líke boar lure or something like this. This is literally lame.

this are my thoughts how hidden cup could stay entertaining, even if AOE becomes more and more competitive.

Just my thoughts on it.

103

Each player gets the same amount of their home picks?

Drat. Here I thought you might have been coming around. Lots of words, none of them address the joke of a Semis we had. I wish I could be excited for Hera pulling it off. If he had done it in a straight BO7 especially from that bleek 2-0 deficit it would have made waves in the competitive landscape. Instead, every reasonable person is left to wonder how things would have went if the settings were reasonable.

Hera may have been denied credit he would have rightfully earned, and Viper may have been denied a chance at a four-peat. Hell, maybe even Jordan missed his shot playing the finals with meta familiarity against a training partner. We’ll never know. All we know is that the settings were absurd and they shouldn’t be next time.

Idk about the rest of your post. seems irrelevant to the quality of play within the tournament, which is what we should care about.

104

How could Hera have 3 home map picks? How was that logic even possible?

105

They had 3 fixed maps which came in 2 times when viper should have picked his home map.
That’s why I think it’s better to give each player 3 homemaps each, but at least one of them must be one of the new maps, to make sure they are played.

If you don’t have rules like this, some players won’t train for the new maps whilst others would almost exclusively to get “free” victories there and no competition. So it’s important to make a rule which forcest players to train for the new maps.
But the solution with map 4 and 7 is fixed just doesn’t work and led to this really unfortunate situation.

106

I actually think that it’s a nice idea that maps 1,4,7 are “fixed picks”. This can introduce the audience into entertaining maps that players perhaps consider too risky to pick for themselves. Who would like Game 7 to be decided on Islands by Portuguese Feitorias? :joy: Also, when long series are played with too many home-maps from each player, people start complaining that the tournament was decided by silly traps invented by one player, instead of a brave skill contest.

However, I think that each player should pick 2 home-maps after the maps 1,4,7 are revealed. It doesn’t make any sense that Viper (or anybody for that matter) lost his chance to pick 2 home-maps for the semifinals.

107

Here’s how it works: The player with the losing record picks the next map on g2-3, g5-6. So Hera was down 1-0 after arabia, picked his first map, lost his first map, picked his second map, won his second map, won the second neutral map (now it’s 2-2) and Viper gets to pick since he lost the last round even though the score is tied and wins (3-2) now Hera is now losing in total record and picks his third map (3-3) leading to a 7th fixed map. Ergo, seemingly normal set turns utterly ridiculous.

The setup simply makes no sense, the format explicitly benefits the player who is down in the set and weighs the set towards an upset. Worse yet, it crumbles in the face of the obvious hypothetical. The rules state that map choice goes to the player with the losing record. Back up a minute and think about the possibility that Viper wins G1, G2, and the fixed G4 map (he won g5 in the real world but the point will be made clear rapidly). Now Hera (down 3-1) is going to have two map picks because he’s down two games… and he’s only got one map left.

There was an actual possibility that if Viper had won the Neutral Map in G4, the rules would state that Hera would get two more map choices with one more map in his pool. Obviously they would have had Viper pick a map (because they’re totally out of alternative options) but can you believe this absurdity? The rules honestly don’t even make remote sense if you think about it for practically four seconds.

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108

The simplest way to make it fair and keep the fixed maps is to let the players use 2 home maps each… if Hera used his 2 HM and lost a 3rd one, he should not have the posibility of picking the third HM

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109

True in 1v1.

False. If we simplify things and have just 3 civilizations, and all of them are relatively balanced so that they have a winrate of about 50%, then if you add those up, you will get to about 150, which is not a multiple of 100. What was your reasoning for thinking this?