Proposed New Tournament Format: The Quadrille

jbejarano

New member
Jul 6, 2012
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There's an interesting alternative tournament format I'd like to propose to FarSight. It wouldn't replace the current tournaments, but would provide an interesting new, additional alternative type of tournament.

The new format is called The Quadrille. On a given table, to participate in a Quadrille tournament, an individual will play a four-player game where they play all four players. They may (and are encouraged to) take advantage of any table dynamics of multi-player games that they can (e.g. one of their players stealing locked balls from another to start multi-ball, etc.)

At the end of their game, the individual will be judged on five scores. The highest of their four games is their "A" score, the second-highest is their "B" score, the third-highest is their "C" score, and the lowest is their "D" score. Finally, the fifth score is the sum of the scores of all four games, and is designated their "Total" score.

When an individual submits their five scores for a table to the tournament rankings, their "A" score is compared to everyone else's "A" score, their "B" score is compared to everyone else's "B" score, and so on for all five scores. For each score, the individual is given 100 tournament points if their score is the best in the tournament, zero tournament points if their score is the worst in the tournament, or a number of tournament points between zero and 100 that represents the percentage of other participants whose score they beat (i.e. if your "C" score beats 80% of the everyone else's "C" scores, you'll get 80 tournament points for your "C" score).

As there are five scores ("A", "B", "C", "D", and "Total") for each table, and each can earn an individual up to 100 tournament points, a perfect score for a table would be 500 tournament points. To get to 500, your "A" score will have to be better than everyone else's "A" score, your "B" score will have to be better than everyone else's "B" score, and so on for your "C" score, "D" score, and "Total" score. NOTE: Your "D" score would not have to be better than everyone else's "A" score. Different types of scores are never compared in this tournament.

For a given Quadrille tournament, the maximum number of tournament points would be 500 times the number of tables (i.e. a perfect score in a four-table Quadrille tournament would be 2000 tournament points). The winner of the tournament is the individual with the most tournament points from all tables combined.

ONE OTHER WRINKLE: In most conventional tournaments, your best score is kept and used to judge your performance. In a Quadrille tournament, since you have five scores for each table you play, and some might be better than previous scores, and others might not be, only your most recent four-player game is kept. If you wish to play a table again, your new "A", "B", "C", "D", and "Total" scores for that table will replace your previous values. That is to say, if you decide your performance on one table is not good enough and you want to play that table again, you risk getting an even lower score. Of course, you can then play again to try to get your scores back to where they were or better for that table.

If you wanted to adpat this Quadrille format to a "head-to-head" version for, say, a bracket-style tournament, then you would compare each player's "A", "B", "C", "D", and "Total" scores, and whoever wins a majority of them wins the head-to-head matchup. If there's a tie, the "Total" score would be the first tie-breaker, then the "A" score, then the "B" score, and finally the "C" score.

I like this format because it rewards consistency. Sure, it's nice if you can score really big on one game, but let's see how you match up on multiple games. High "C" and "D" scores are indicative of supremely consistent players. Conventional tournaments are great, but sometimes a few lucky bounces can really propel someone further than they otherwise should be. The only downside to the Quadrille is that it may be a bit time-consuming on some tables to play all four players of a four-player game. But, if you're a pinball fan and have some time to play, it shouldn't be a big deal.

What do you think of Quadrille tournaments? Crazy or intriguing?
 

Sean DonCarlos

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Staff member
Mar 17, 2012
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While interesting, I think the PAPA qualifying format would do the same job while being easier for players to understand and for FarSight to implement. In addition, it has the value of being a "real" tournament format, which goes along nicely with the "real" tables.

Also, several of us on the forums here can go 4+ hours on one single-player game of Twilight Zone. For us to play through a four-player game of TZ would literally take an entire day.
 
N

netizen

Guest
another problem is only certain tables allow for locks to carry over from one player to the next. This would severely limit the tables that could be used.
 

mpclemens

New member
Jun 26, 2013
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another problem is only certain tables allow for locks to carry over from one player to the next. This would severely limit the tables that could be used.

On PHoF, all the tables had "equitable multiball" whether or not their real-life counterparts did.

EDIT: And after trying it, it appears that TPA reverts to the "real table" method. I was just able to have player 2 start multiball from the lock set up by player 1. I agree, though, that PAPA tourney rules are probably the most easily understood, and have the advantage of being tested in real life.

A PAPA-tuned table would probably prevent those four-hour TZ marathons. :)
 
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jbejarano

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Jul 6, 2012
893
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It's true that if a table doesn't offer any opportunistic advantage from player to player like that (balls locked for multi-ball or letters lit in a sequence or whatever), then no advanatage can be taken for that table. And that's fine. But, if there is such an advantage, then it's fair game.
 
N

netizen

Guest
Is there a page at the papa site that describes the papa style tourney? They have specific pages that describe the rules at each event:

http://www.papa.org/pinburgh2013/rules.php

Pinburgh is a match-play format.

Had I not glazed over TomL's comment I might have seen the link to the Pinburgh rules. Yet Sean as usual has a nice concise description.

I did find this neat little blurb in the rules however:
Certain machines have been designated as single-player games, even though they may support multiple players. This helps minimize the effect of features such as jackpot carryover and lock stealing. These machines will have signs on them, and will be marked as such on score sheets.
 

Bowflex

New member
Feb 21, 2012
2,287
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I would love to see a no nudge tournament. Only issue with that is I always accidentally hit the nudge on the iPhone screen (which ends up with a drain anyway)
 

superballs

Active member
Apr 12, 2012
2,653
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I was thinking more about this Quardrille format thing and I was thinking that if the tables were tuned as hard as they could get, it would actually be a pretty good idea.
 

jbejarano

New member
Jul 6, 2012
893
0
I was thinking more about this Quardrille format thing and I was thinking that if the tables were tuned as hard as they could get, it would actually be a pretty good idea.

I think that sounds right. With the length of some games, extra balls would have to be eliminated if the software of the table allows it.
 
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