H2H7 / H2H7 Public Service Announcement

 

Head to Head 7. A new round to the biggest contest in RCT history.

CONTEST CHANGE

 

A change has been made to the playoffs. This has come about after I witnessed how they could play out with the current situation the 4 final teams are in. We have also taken into account the popularity of spectating and the history of the tournament to make this change.

 

Every team in the final 4 looks to struggle to make both a semi-finals and a finals park in the remaining time available. In previous H2H contests, the contest always dwindles towards the end, with the semi finals being more impressive than the final. This is probably something that needed to be addressed before the start of the contest, however we were confident perhaps this year would be different, but it seems to be heading in the same direction.

 

With this being said, we are doing away with the Semi-Finals and Third-Place Playoff and implementing a 4-way final round. This round is due on July 12th. Unfortunately you will have to wait a little bit longer for the next batch of parks, however the next batch will be 4 incredible, and more importantly, finished parks, each worthy of taking the crown. We have agreed this collectively as admins and captains that this is for the good of the contest, it means we will go out with a bang, and will also help us inform how to mold future H2H seasons to keep the contest fresh and exciting.

 

With this new round comes a new way of voting. There will be a single 4-way match, however the voting will be split into 6 polls, each one putting 1 park up against every other, much like a miniature Round Robin. The voting average will then be taken and the team with the highest voting average will be crowned champions. We think this makes the contest even more exciting than it has been previously as each park is independently judged against one another.

 

We hope this is well received by the community as we have made this decision with good intentions and are trying to make the contest the best it possibly can be.

 

Good luck to all teams.

A very fitting final mic drop to signal the end of the season

Well, as far as my team is concerned, either this 4-way or having a semi/final would still give us a good chance to win. Yeah, our semi might have been a bit rushed for Sunday and our finals park was behind, but were on track to finish strong.

 

I have been a part of two very awful endings to H2H seasons. In H2H4, we had a best of 3 final and my team won game 1. We had our second park done on time and were waiting on WME to send his in. He would not send it in, even after we gave him an extra day and in the end he said they would not be able to get their park in soon, so they got DQ'ed. In H2H5 gee's team was 6-0, but then there was the infamous K0NG hard drive crash and we won by forfeit. It's about damn time the Hurricanes win a H2H final the right way, so when Louis mentioned the 4-way idea I was never against it, tho did push for my usual wish of removing all limits on building

 

Really looking forward to how the 4-way turns out. This should be one of the greatest releases in the history if NE, right up there with multiple spotlight parks being released in a single day. It has been far too long since the site has had an event like that.

Good idea to go out with a bang rather than fizzle out. Will be amazing to see 4 great parks released together. Unfortunately it's in the middle of my holiday you absolute bastard

This is both really good and very bad news. On the one hand we'll have some more great parks, on the other hand we'll be missing out (for the time being) on some great parks from great builders.

 

Really hope to see those dropped (semi-)finals parks get send in soon, rather than having to wait years for them to vanish of the earth.

I hope we can arrange some mock matches after H2H with all the leftover parks by all six teams. Would be fun.

I think you didn't consider that 40 people from the site can't vote on the finals now. Thats more than 60% of the active community. Giving teammembers the right to vote on the 'matchups' their team isn't involved can distort the actual outcome when deciding upon the winner by average voting result.

We did consider that and had a lengthy discussion about it. W decided to trust the community to vote honestly and emphasize fair voting in a format that would make it easy to monitor.

So it will be the second case that members of team 1 can vote on matchup team 2 vs team 3?

All 40 players can vote, they just cannot vote on a match up of their own. There are 6 match ups, 3 of these matches teams will not be able to vote on as they involve their own team, the other 3 they can vote on as they don't involve their own team, and we trust that people aren't pathetic enough to cast 'political' or tactical votes.

I think that's a logical step seeing the amount of dedication and work that goes into those park to make it truly finals-worthy.

It's not 2006 anymore.

 

"MFG"

This is a step in the right direction. The playoffs/finals have been lackluster for the past 2-3 seasons and I think a change is needed. It has felt like anything after the round robin is deflated for the teams left participating. 

 

I think a change to make a big final round of 4 park will be an interesting change to plan for at the start of a season, especially with a new set of rules where any member of a team can participate on the map. The finals park could/should feel like a representation of the best a team has to offer. It would be something people work on between round robin matches and is organized that way from the start. I think that would be very cool.

Maybe for next season we could allow 4 builders per park and possibly implement a 3 week gap in between matches. With the detail of today's parks these deadlines simply aren't possible if we want top quality matches.  But that is a long way off so who knows.

Also I've been thinking about this for a little bit, and have a suggestion for the next season I thought I'd share to get some ideas going. Maybe 3 round robin parks next season with the same amount of time to build them as each team had to build 5 round robin parks this season, if that makes sense. I think that would help rushed/unfinished bits and parks. I haven't run the logistics on how that would affect the way the matches would have to be handled though, so I'm not sure this would even work. Just throwing ideas out there.

the basic idea of a round robin is that everyone plays everyone. We could definitely do seeding in a different way, and we've already been throwing some ideas around about how that might work, but we obviously can't promise anything until H2H8 actually happens.

H4H

If we could keep suggestions for the next H2H out of the way that would be great. This season hasn't even finished yet, we haven't even thought about the next contest whilst this one is still going on, let alone the next season of H2H.

 

It's great that people have ideas for it, but H2H8 is a long way off and H2H7 should be the talking point.

^Why quash discussion? There is nothing much to comment on about H2H7 because things have just been shaken up and delayed for 2 weeks...

 

I've never understood this attitude that the membership is going to work themselves up into a lather just by discussing things. It shows a complete lack of trust in the community not to get worked up and get unrealistic expectations. Anyone who gets worked up about H2H8 before the final round of H2H7 is done is an idiot. But I don't see that happening. It's one thing if things go completely off topic but any contest discussion is completely tangential in a good way. At least people are posting.

 

It would be best if admins stepped back and stopped trying to micromanage the mindset of the community by constricting information.

 

Relating to H2H7, I'm excited for these finals parks, I believe this change was done for a reason. I plan on participating in the polls and look forward to the outcome.

I'm just trying to be realistic. Talking about future H2H's is nice, and I'm glad people have ideas for it, its just counter productive, as right now, I don't want to think about it in any shape or form, for me discussing it just adds unnecessary stress.

 

I don't believe the community would work itself up either, it is not about micro managing you guys, it is more about the fact I don't want to have to discuss or take on board or respond to any suggestions right now when I'm still organising and have work to do with this H2H. When it is over, then yes, I'd love to listen to everyone's suggestions on both future H2Hs and future contests.

 

But, it's not like I'm gonna ban people for talking about it, go ahead and do so, I just think the discussion is pointless and distracting and would rather have discussion about the current contest. And if people would rather I stepped back and left the site to it, then I will do so.

I want the discussion too, but not here and not now... Let's see how this thing unfolds, evaluate it, then discuss possibilities for a hypothetical H2H8 or a new similar contest.