Feedback for the Scroll Masters 2 vs 2 Tournament

Hello Fighters,

The 2 vs 2 Scroll Masters Tournament is finally over. While it may not have been the greatest tournament experience for all users, we hope this will pave the way to a better tournament experience in the future. After long battles and commitment, It all came down to one final team who took the title of Black Out Master, Tour & beni! Please also give a round of applause for the moderators who had a huge part of making this tournament happen.

The Black Out scroll was a popular choice in this tournament, primarily for it's carat renting option. We did not want the tournament to be behind a paywall, so we picked 2 Carat Scroll options & 2 RC Scroll options. We did not pick other scrolls as they either had a bugged combo yet to be resolved or were way too overused in the current game meta. There are a total of 8 Scroll Master Titles : Black Out, Darksider, Destroyer, Kenpo, Rage, Shoot Boxing, Soulless & Viper.

Now that the tournament is over, we wanted to gather feedback, express our thoughts, and evaluate how we will conduct ourselves in future tournaments. We will use your feedback to provide smoother tournaments with clear-cut rules in the future. As a token of appreciation for our mistakes early on, all participants will receive an Orichalcon stone on top of their qualifying tournament prizes.

All users who successfully complete the short tournament survey will also be given an Orichalcon Stone shortly after the survey closes. The survey will close on February 16th, 2020 at 11:59PM PST.

Short Tournament Survey:
Participant : https://forms.gle/ZqYxCHmoShEiJATT6
Viewer : https://forms.gle/aNPeYiGBZhyDgz8t9
If you would like for your feedback to be anonymous, please enter "N/A" as your IGN (In-Game Name).
Limit : 1 Orichalcon. You will not get additional Orichalcon for submitting both feedback forms.

Want to watch the tournament from start to finish to relive the moment?
Thread Link : http://forums.playredfox.com/index.php?threads/tournament-archive.49542/

What We Thought:
As a result to participants' personal schedules and tournament scheduling overall, a lot of players did not show up for their scheduled match. Our team understands that not all players can make room in their schedule to dedicate themselves to the tournament alone. However, we would appreciate that players inform our team of their reason(s) prior to their appointment so that we can schedule appropriately. Those who did not communicate with us prior to their match time will have their prizes revoked. Based on a report, one of the participants decided to skip his/her job shift for the tournament, which resulted in the participant being fired from his/her job. Please don't prioritize Rumble Fighter for your job, it is not worth the risk and never has been.

Tournament Issues:

• The rules initially stated : best out of X instead of first to X. We wanted to mimic similar round score rulings similarly to our last held Demolition Tournament. Due to some miscommunication on our end, we caused confusion to participants. This issue was fixed early on in the tournament.
• Participants often referred to moderators as their actual names and spoke to moderators without respect. Our team is here to moderate and spectate this tournament. As a result, zero favoritism was and will be provided, even if players share a personal connection with one of our moderators.
• Trash talk boiled down to petty insults and overall poor sportsmanship towards fellow competitors.
• Participants did not have the appropriate scroll in their inventory that they signed up with, asking moderators to provide a copy of the scroll.

Introduction to Discord Integration:

• In this tournament, we wanted to shift away from the older style of having your match details e-mailed to you (as not every player has access to their e-mail address). We decided to request users for their Discord Tag so that we were able to deliver your match details up front and personal.
• We wanted to explore prize options and offer Discord related rewards, so that participants can show it off in the Discord server.
• If your Discord was not added by our representative shortly after the sign up period ended, one of the following issues occurred :
  • Incorrectly capitalized (ex: redfoxgames#0001 instead of RedFoxGames#0001)
  • Improperly spelled (ex: redfoxgams#0001)
  • Had "custom" text or emotes, which was not specified in the sign up form (ex: ᖇEᗪᖴO᙭GᗩᗰEᔕ )
  • The friend request was either rejected or never accepted.
  • Discord Tag was not provided in your sign up form.

What Happened:

• There was an instance where a team announced another team player's location, identity or other information meant to distribute "hate" or "flamebait", so the team was warned. We understand that the competition is fierce, but we will no longer tolerate comments like these.
• In the early stages of the tournament, there were certain instances of DDoS attacks against specific participants. Due to this, our team conducted an internal investigation and took action. Our team also took these incidents very seriously, and disqualified participants who were found leaking or requesting information regarding both their match and the opponent’s match.
• There was an instance where we allowed a certain team that was eliminated to rejoin back to the tournament. The reasoning behind this one-time exception was primarily due to the fact that there was a team who's opponents could not show up. As that team has yet to play an opponent in the tournament, we paired them with an opponent.
• Tournament participants that did not receive re-entry thought it was incredibly unfair and targeted against them. They also thought it should not have happened in the first place.
• Due to the implementation of Team Chat, participants had some communication trouble with our moderators by not typing "/team off" at the beginning of the match.
• True Battle Mode crashed a good number of times, but made minimal impact to the tournament matches.
• The original plan was to have participants in multiples of 16 teams for an even tournament, however extra teams were allowed. Therefore, a team had to fight a second time in the Semi Finals. This team was chosen by their PICK Score in the tournament.
• If your opponents were hit by a Marang Ninjitsu projectile (by our moderators) or were accidentally hit by the opposing team, moderators either chose to :
  • Have the damaged opponent hit back a player on the other team to have equal HP bars.
  • Have the player who damaged jump off to have equal HP bars (from True Battle Mode penalty).
  • Not count that specific round.

Tournament Scheduling:

• Our team was very flexible with the tournament, offering reschedules (within reason) if the opposing team agreed to the proposition.
• The schedule was fairly tight. Moderators were often late to the next scheduled match in the First Round due to underestimating the time required for each match.
• Tournament Moderators made it possible so that the tournament was not strictly limited to business hours.

Issues with Tournament Ambassador (TA) & Tournament Moderators (TM):
The Tournament Moderators (TM) played a crucial role in this tournament, allowing simultaneous matches to be held without RedFox employees having to take a step back from their day-to-day responsibilities. Select matches were live streamed to showcase to our users in real time by the Tournament Ambassador, while the Tournament Moderators recorded the other portion of matches.

• The Tournament Ambassador did not answer to a lot of users who had inquiries on Discord & Twitch during tournament times.
• Lack of experience from moderators lead to questionable decision making, which occasionally led to questions asked over via Guild Chat OR In-Game PM to the Tournament Ambassador.

DDoS Issues:
DDoS issues have been an issue for the gaming community and Rumble Fighter is no exception. We have looked into these issues and have worked with authorities to report any DDoS threats. We have taken down a number of "services" used for DDoS, however the fact remains that we are not your Internet Service Provider. This means, we cannot prevent DDoS attacks from happening to your connection because we cannot control your home connection. If you require additional DDoS protection, please consult with your Internet Service Provider.

For DDoS reports to the authorities to be successful, we need your router logs or evidence from your Internet Service Provider that your home connection has been maliciously attacked during the time and date you claim. From there, we will file an IC3 report with as much information as possible.

We take DDoS threats very seriously, and even implied threats may receive a temporary to permanent ban on the game.


Moving Forward:
Tournament Details:

• Participants that do not fight within 20 seconds after all moderators suicide will be warned as this is considered a tactic to "skip" maps. Multiple attempts will result in point deductions, disadvantages to future matches or disqualification.
• If players do not have a VPN, please see the following thread for VPN suggestions : http://forums.playredfox.com/index.php?threads/vpn-suggestions-for-rumble-fighter.49541/

Substitution:

• Substitute entries will only be considered if a participant in the tournament match forfeits their placement at least within 12 hours after they receive their match details.
• We will only consider substitutes from people who have signed up for the tournament and will not take late sign up requests.
• Substitutes will be first come first serve, in the order of sign up data.
• Substitutes will only be considered in the first round and only if there is an applicable spot available.
• Substitutes in team tournaments will only be allowed if all team members are absent.

Re-entry:

• Re-entry will no longer be allowed in any circumstances unless the tournament is formatted as a double elimination bracket, having both a winners and losers bracket. (Example bracket from Super Smash Bros Ultimate: https://smash.gg/tournament/genesis-6/events/smash-for-switch-singles/brackets/500501/865127)
• Future tournament(s) will specifically label if they are single or double elimination.

Tournament Moderators:

• Tournament Moderators will be further trained to provide a better experience for future tournaments.
• Tournament Moderators may be featured in future Fisticuffs events in order to grasp a better understanding of managing environments where they must be focused at all times.

Lag Issues:

• If two users are lagging with one another, unless the defeat was due to game breaking lag ("Teleportation" or "God Mode"), the match will continue. All lag judgements will be issued at the end of the match as to not distract any of the tournament participants while the round is still being played.
• If there is a lag judgement being made, the next round (if applicable) will not be played until the moderators have announced their judgement. Lag judgements are usually indicated by the moderator(s) saying "Pause". Users are expected to suicide during this round.
• Tournament participants will take full responsibility if they decide to type in chat or suicide while a tournament match is still going on without explicit permission or direction from the moderator(s)

The moderators and myself would like to express our dearest gratitude for all tournament participants! I hope that with this feedback, we can strive together to provide a better tournament experience for everyone.

Thank you,
Starberry / [TA]Fang
Tournament Ambassador