Take into account though that Lorina had been holding the hamster before Tarken managed to pick it up and she was flung through no fault of her own into Serenwilde Forest, a territory that was PROGRAMMED that if the hamster holder was inside it for any reason it would result in the hamster leaving them. If the area had been properly flagged as a place that was not a viable teleport location, it was ENTIRELY possible that Lorina could have held onto the hamster for the remaining time and emerged the victor.
Never put passion before principle. Even if you win, you lose.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
In the last 3 minutes, I wasn't teleported to Serenwilde. I was teleported waaaay before the end, like at the 30 minute mark, so I wasn't that torn up about it. I couldn't have held it for 30 minutes anyways. Always next! I'll get a seal eventually!
I was going to leave it at my first post, but I decided to add a little more.
There has never, ever been a year of Ascension where at least one seal event didn't leave people walking away feeling utterly cheated based on some circumstance or mishap of some sort. Never. Not a single one. If you insist this is not the case, you need to think back and reflect more thoroughly.
This has also never been isolated to one "side" or city-state. It's been felt everywhere at one point or another.
Sometimes the circumstances are ones I can sympathize with more than others, but regardless, they're going to happen. If you don't understand why, all you need to do is look at Ascension and what it really is.
It is a highly competitive series of events. Arguably, the most competitive available in a game that heavily pivots on city-state versus conflicts.
It is only once a year.
The ultimate prize has no compare to what can be obtained via purchase, and only goes to one person.
Now compare to any competitive sport and how the average stock of people behave on referee calls and the like. What, really, you're surprised still? Well, I don't know how to help bring you better clarity. But at least I tried.
Point being: it's a part of the beast, based on what the beast itself is. Don't fret over much about it.
In the end, we ended up having to make a decision. Either nullify the decision and redo the event, or call it. The decision to call it was based on two factors - the winner having veil up, and others being in the location with him at the end of the event.
...
Obviously, I wasn't around (damn, Ascension has started already, huh) but from reading the responses, I've pieced together a rough idea of what happened. However, I'm curious to hear a bit more about the two factors that went into the "decision to call" the event.
I can sort of guess at the supposed rationale of what the second reason contributed (there were people with the winner, so if they didn't get him dead/dropped by the end, that means there was a fair chance to get him dead/dropped but they didn't succeed. Win therefore goes to him fairly.) to the decision, but even reading the responses, I'm a little confused about the first. Could you share what was the rationale for veil being quoted as a reason for the decision, Ianir?
P.S. Just to make it clear - I wasn't around, so obviously, I'm not saying that the current result is fair or not fair or whatever. I don't know anything about the specifics of what happened. Just asking about the rationale behind the reason of quoting veil as a reason for making the decision what it was.
For my own part, I found the random teleport mechanic preferable to the fortress meta of previous years, so lockout some areas and hopefully it's a proper goer in future runs.
Other than that, would like to see return of normal teleport speed, have hamster drop on serpent, and go go gadget a world emote when the current holder loses the hamster?
As one of the people that had said things were running the same course each year, it was really nice to see effort put into mixing things up. I personally like the changes that were made to it and I'm confident in the admin staff that the things that were wonky this year will be ironed out and made better for next year!
I agree with the few mentions of normal teleport speed, and I think Ushaara brings up an awesome point of broadcast message if someone loses the hamster. If someone else mentioned this before, my fault that I missed it.
I'm glad I decided against waking up for this event.
People are invested in these events more than anything else in Lusternia. This is the cumulation and end-goal of any player who plays for the competition. These things happen and Chaos has always been like Mario Kart towards the end. People have already hashed over the problems (and they have been recognised as problems) with the event and they have been addressed for the next iteration. I hope the remaining events go closer to plan.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
People are invested in these events more than anything else in Lusternia. This is the cumulation and end-goal of any player who plays for the competition. These things happen and Chaos has always been like Mario Kart towards the end. People have already hashed over the problems (and they have been recognised as problems) with the event and they have been addressed for the next iteration. I hope the remaining events go closer to plan.
I agree with this bit about how invested people are in the events and I think it can
sometimes be a detriment to the game as a whole. I personally think
people put too much focus on ascension at the detriment to the rest
of the years play time. We have folks who will sacrifice or mold
their entire play time around waiting or setting up for ascension,
we've got folks who wont explore new things because of worries about
ascension etc. To be it seems a bit backwards. Why put so much focus
on whats essentially a few hours of gameplay a year when you have
high near over eight thousand other hours across the rest of the year
to enjoy.
That side point said I really do like the idea of totally new features in all the events overall. A big shake up of every event so what we are going into it new and learning how to do it as opposed to simply copying last 10 years plans would be the most interesting thing to me.
Maybe war is no longer 3v3 its 5v5. Death isnt about kills its about putting corpses into the seal so you can steal them before the enemy gets there etc. Just idle thoughts but I am curious and hopeful to see new changes come into play to keep it fresh.
Could I get a recap on what happened? I missed it and am only getting bits and pieces
My understanding of what's going on: The Admins changed how Chaos Seal works this year such that it included random teleportation of the Hamster holder. This was intended to stop people from building a bunker around the hamster (good!) but had the unintended side effect of sometimes teleporting the hamster holder into areas like the Inner Sea where all the rooms look the same (okay), into areas that cause you to force-drop the hamster on entering them (bad) or into rooms that aren't yet released and were only accessible via teleport (very bad). The force-drop bug was fixed part way through the event, but the inaccessible room bug wasn't fixed until after the event. The people who didn't winA few players are now asking for a redo with the bugs fixed, but the Admins have declined to do so, since the bugs don't seem to have impacted the results too badly. Various people disagree with this decision.
E: As Falaeron has pointed out below, most people have accepted the decision not to have a redo. While phrasing it as 'the people who didn't win' is technically accurate, it implies things which are both unkind and inaccurate about the motives of those asking for a redo. Mostly, they are motivated by a sense of fair play.
Could I get a recap on what happened? I missed it and am only getting bits and pieces
My understanding of what's going on: The Admins changed how Chaos Seal works this year such that it included random teleportation of the Hamster holder. This was intended to stop people from building a bunker around the hamster (good!) but had the unintended side effect of sometimes teleporting the hamster holder into areas like the Inner Sea where all the rooms look the same (okay), into areas that cause you to force-drop the hamster on entering them (bad) or into rooms that aren't yet released and were only accessible via teleport (very bad). The force-drop bug was fixed part way through the event, but the inaccessible room bug wasn't fixed until after the event. The people who didn't win are now asking for a redo with the bugs fixed, but the Admins have declined to do so, since the bugs don't seem to have impacted the results too badly. Various people disagree with this decision.
People are complaining about the way of how Tarken won, simply put I don't really care who won, just how the victory was achieved. I'm a simple person, if there is PK, then I'll PK, but I for one do not like how the victory was met with almost three minutes of Tarken in an inaccessible room and the last minute in an accessible room via teleport only at the time. So don't assume people are who lost are complaining about it because they simply lost. If I'm misinterpreting your comment, then might wanna clarify and not state "the people who didn't win".
Could I get a recap on what happened? I missed it and am only getting bits and pieces
My understanding of what's going on: The Admins changed how Chaos Seal works this year such that it included random teleportation of the Hamster holder. This was intended to stop people from building a bunker around the hamster (good!) but had the unintended side effect of sometimes teleporting the hamster holder into areas like the Inner Sea where all the rooms look the same (okay), into areas that cause you to force-drop the hamster on entering them (bad) or into rooms that aren't yet released and were only accessible via teleport (very bad). The force-drop bug was fixed part way through the event, but the inaccessible room bug wasn't fixed until after the event. The people who didn't win are now asking for a redo with the bugs fixed, but the Admins have declined to do so, since the bugs don't seem to have impacted the results too badly. Various people disagree with this decision.
People are complaining about the way of how Tarken won, simply put I don't really care who won, just how the victory was achieved. I'm a simple person, if there is PK, then I'll PK, but I for one do not like how the victory was met with almost three minutes of Tarken in an inaccessible room and the last minute in an accessible room via teleport only at the time. So don't assume people are who lost are complaining about it because they simply lost. If I'm misinterpreting your comment, then might wanna clarify and not state "the people who didn't win".
It's a statement of fact... The people who didn't win are asking for a do over. And that's fine and natural. People usually don't complain if they won. Now, if Moi were attributing some motivation to this then you might have something to argue against, but s/he isn't. Don't assume what people are assuming.
Actually, from what I've been hearing discussing this with quite a few people, the "people who didn't win" mostly just accepted that there wasn't going to be a do over as soon as Avechna announced the winner. Keep in mind that the "people who didn't win" could easily have been another group of people.
It is more that the admin stance is that there is nothing to apologise for beyond the coding-related issues. Bugs happen and what actually matters is how issues are handled when they surface. Ascension is a big deal and many of us changed real life plans to take part. The winner is never guaranteed in any event, but an ending like that just sours the entire thing and I don't think it is unfair to want a proper explanation that doesn't try to attribute the decision to two factors that are quite simply invalid as has already been explained in a few fairly objective posts.
This all being said, I think it is worth considering how the rules for ascension have been refined over the years and the trend I have seen is for players to want rules clarified ahead of time (just search the forums). Throwing in new elements is all well and good, but surprises are not always the best idea, especially in competitive events. I am sure that this particular issue would have been brought up as a potential problem by someone if we had been given the full details ahead of time and maybe we would have saved ourselves this thread.
I will also throw in that the best way, in my view, to handle it that would have been fair for everyone is for a re-do with the hamster starting in Tarken's hands in a random room with the amount of time remaining when he first got teleported to the havens. For what it is worth, I think Tarken would still have won had this not happened, but we can never know that and his victory will always be soured by the fact that this occured and there was really no real chance to compete in those final minutes.
Three minutes would have also saved us this thread.
You can blame me for any issues with this event. I'm sorry I'm responding late to this, but I was out of town and just got back early this morning.
Testing was completed, we looked at both the average teleportation time and where it teleported you. In our testing, we didn't run across any of the room issues. We obviously didn't check every single one of the 29k+ rooms on Prime, but we ran enough simulations to feel confident that we were in a good spot, given the simulations and 9 years of weird rooms being a non-issue in previous years or even in other random Chaos hamsterhunts that have been done. The main point being is that us admin are capable enough to consider issues that may have cropped up, and we took steps to avoid these issues. It's pretty easy to forget that hindsight is 20/20, the full details could have been given and we probably would have still ended with the same result.
That said, we obviously didn't take enough steps, and for that, I'm sorry. We understand that Ascension is important. We understand that it's the culmination of hard work, wins, losses, politicking, practicing, reading, learning and perfecting. It's not a simple show up hoping you get lucky that day (though Chaos, in particular, is to an extent.) This wasn't something we hastily threw together, and we'll strive to make future events less prone to such errors.
As far as a re-do is concerned, when you're at the point a re-do or an extension is on the table, people's feelings are going to be hurt - no matter what is decided. There are numerous factors to consider. It isn't simple to restart a worldgame in a specific setup with a certain person holding the hamster in a random room. There's the fact that @Tarken may have won regardless and it certainly wasn't his fault for what occurred. The fact that it could have occurred to anyone that grabbed the hamster, so in the end, everyone was playing by the same ruleset. Even the fact that we can't replace insanity on everyone who held the hamster during the event, which may be minor, but enough insanity on someone can drastically affect how effective they are. And yes @Maligorn, because it's cHaOs!
TL/DR - there are numerous factors in running an ascension event, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sorry, we'll work to do better in the future.
Not really blaming anyone for the coding related issues, as I said already, but I do recall that the hamster has teleported randomly into non-accessible rooms in the past couple of years so I think if it was made clear to us that it would just use the same subset we could have pointed this out. It was just never an issue in the past because it just teleported the hamster and not a player so everyone just had to wait for the next teleport which is not a big deal.
I just think we would have much more successful events as far as the number of issues like these in ascension challenges, all of which are already stressful enough, if the playerbase's collective knowledge (and ingenuity when it comes to minmaxing in competitions) was trusted and relied on more. For example, we got many things banned from Justice last year well in advance because the first draft of the rules was given early. It would have been a much worse event if people turned up with all of the OP buffs on the day and the admins had to make those difficult decisions then.
We wanted this to be a surprise. There was a discussion on how much we should say ahead of time, and it was decided to give out the information that was given, that a change was in the air. We want things to be more spontaneous, have players think on their feet, and adjust to the situation. I don't think that's a bad thing.
The playerbase IS trusted and relied on, but it doesn't need to be trusted and relied on for every last thing that happens or occurs. Surely you can agree that surprises can be good?
As I said already, we tested to see if it would teleport it to rooms it shouldn't be going to, and combined that with previous knowledge that it wasn't an issue in the past, settled on the state we ran it in. I don't think releasing the full details would have prevented this, but as was pointed out in an earlier post, we'll never know.
And sorry, @Maligorn - I was just using it as an example because you brought it up!
Slinging rad to force magical movement on others while forcing the hamster to drop seems like another huge advantage that isn't available to everyone across the board. I understand it has been available for a long while now, but is this intended and should everyone just try to play with Runes in future Chaos events?
"Oh the year was 453CE, how I wish I was in Serenwilde now... aletter of marque come from the regent to the scummiest aethership I ever seen, gods damn them all...I was told we'd cruise the void for auronidion and dust, we'd fire no turrets, shed no tears.. now I'm a broken man on a Hallifax tier, the last of Saz's privateers."
Yeah, the hurt isn't over the fact that it happened, but over the resolution chosen. And I get where you're coming from, but the original rationale stated was highly disagreeable, and still hasn't been very much clarified (veil? org territory??). So now one side feels cheated and the other side is applauding a decision mostly based around random fortune ("it could have happened to anyone"). The alternative of a shortened re-do probably would have been better swallowed by the whole.
To offer some constructive advice since changing the events are on the table, I'll suggest that the outcome should not be dictated by the last one minute. As it stands, we spend hours in preparation (politics, securing bases, establishing transportation routes); run frantic for the next hour; and then have all of that effort boil down to whoever happens to grab the hamster at the very end. In a tournament like Ascension that is intended to identify the best of the best players to represent mortalkind, I feel like the Chaos trial has never truly delivered on its intent. There are plenty of ways to capture the spirit of chaos without it coming down to some toss up of circumstance.
Slinging rad to force magical movement on others while forcing the hamster to drop seems like another huge advantage that isn't available to everyone across the board. I understand it has been available for a long while now, but is this intended and should everyone just try to play with Runes in future Chaos events?
Runes isn't available to every mage/druid typing?
The Divine voice of Ianir the Anomaly echoes in your head, "You are a ray of sunshine in a sea of
Availability to classflex/skillsflex into Runes was what I meant. I still have the skillset dormant, but not every single participant that decides to join the Chaos might not afford, if we were to agree on the impact of having access to rad. Because I can't honestly think of many forced magical movement equivalents off the top my head. That'd also steer the direction of event into... Dull places. Imagine a rad fest, with things starting to factor like Cement Socks and immovable people versus the ones with mediocre rooting. Rooting... Disgusting really.
"Oh the year was 453CE, how I wish I was in Serenwilde now... aletter of marque come from the regent to the scummiest aethership I ever seen, gods damn them all...I was told we'd cruise the void for auronidion and dust, we'd fire no turrets, shed no tears.. now I'm a broken man on a Hallifax tier, the last of Saz's privateers."
-Kilian
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Availability to classflex/skillsflex into Runes was what I meant. I still have the skillset dormant, but not every single participant that decides to join the Chaos might not afford, if we were to agree on the impact of having access to rad. Because I can't honestly think of many forced magical movement equivalents off the top my head. That'd also steer the direction of event into... Dull places. Imagine a rad fest, with things starting to factor like Cement Socks and immovable people versus the ones with mediocre rooting. Rooting... Disgusting really.
People have and will always pick optimal skillsets for events, and those skillsets may not be their favorite or most frequently used. Forever and always. There will always be healers during the Ascension Trial. There will always be melders. There will always be optimal builds. Punting rad out of the equation does not change this, it just shifts it. Given that rad is universal, while other things like beckon are not, it's about as equitable as you can get.
I think it's awesome they're finally shaking up the Ascension events to some degree. The mishaps sound unfortunate, but ultimately it's an argument about the "legitimacy" of the RNG gods, and given that fact, I think the admin made the smart choice.
I don't necessarily agree with Kelly. Most (all?) of the seals are subject to a lot of preparation and politicking, and that edges an extraordinary amount of the playerbase out of contention (read: most). It's nice that one of the seals can be an upset for anyone. A lot of players participate, and the majority get bupkis. The majority don't even have a chance at more than bupkis, they are generally just along for the ride to win X seal for Y player Z org decided to back. A wildcard in the mix is a cool way to get people invested, IMHO.
I mean, the seals are competitions as to who is the most or best at X. Most war-like, most knowledgeable, etc. I can't think of a not stupid way to see who is the most chaotic.
Chaos is arguably the one where preparation can do absolutely sod all.
Going back to 2014 when everyone set up a series of fortress zones, only for Malarious to end up on Icewynd with everything done on the fly.
It's also the seal that has the most bug causing "what if" scenarios. Each year people have had to swallow it and just accept, while the admin use the power of hindsight to fix it.
As Ianir said, those final 3 minutes can't be replicated properly with insanity levels and such, so even a redo wouldn't be without controversy and consequences.
Ultimately while planning is responsible for a large majority of Ascension, there is always an element of luck. Whether it's immediate circumstances, political shifts or rule changes favouring one person more than another, every org not Serenwilde has benefitted at some point from these small changes over the last few years.
Looking at individual incidents in a bubble, isn't a fair evaluation of how they balance out over time.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The real tragedy here is that I prepped the last six months for death seal. Fml.
If they are changing games up the way they did Chaos, that prep might be worthless
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
2
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited January 2018
I'm still advocating for Beauty Seal to involve throwing all the non com designers into an arena and forced to emote violent fights with their designed object as their only weapon.
Wielding naught but gelatinous spires of Hallifax molded from tapioca, the designer suddenly regrets their choice of medium.
I don't necessarily agree with Kelly. Most (all?) of the seals are subject to a lot of preparation and politicking, and that edges an extraordinary amount of the playerbase out of contention (read: most).
First, there are many seals where [combat] preparation and politicking are not involved: Justice, Nature, Knowledge, and Beauty. If you add Chaos, then that's actually a majority of the challenges.
It's nice that one of the seals can be an upset for anyone. A lot of players participate, and the majority get bupkis. The majority don't even have a chance at more than bupkis, they are generally just along for the ride to win X seal for Y player Z org decided to back. A wildcard in the mix is a cool way to get people invested, IMHO.
Second, the difference between Chaos and all of the other seals is that there is actually some skill involved over a measurable period. Also you've presented Chaos as if anyone can win, but that's not really true. It is proven that there are those who perennially do "well" in Chaos, and they are those who have a script to autowalk to the hamster location (or have a friend to do it for them). So ultimately it is a footrace in the very last seconds of "competition", and no Joe Schmoe is going to outpace the bots with bixes.
I mean, the seals are competitions as to who is the most or best at X. Most war-like, most knowledgeable, etc. I can't think of a not stupid way to see who is the most chaotic.
I mean, if we're being literal, influencing isn't really a metric of being harmonious. I'm sure we could come up with some meaningful competition that embraces chaos, but still forms a better evaluation of player performance within the event. Even changing the placements to who holds the hamster the longest (i.e., the actual event score), introducing new hamster effects on the holder (and maybe mitigating the insanity aspect)... I dunno. I'd like to see it become an actual competition instead of a script race.
3
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited January 2018
I would say an autowalker competition is a much more open field than the majority of the Seals. You just need an out of the box auto walker and some really really remedial coding capability. Not open to literally everyone in the most practical sense, sure, but the bar for entry in Chaos is a lot lower than say...war/death/knowledge/etc.
All I'm saying is a lower bar for entry rather than a higher one on at least one of the seals is, IMHO, better for Ascension involvement. Script race it may be, that's still more involved than a lottery, but it's at least something everyone can do without a ton of extra effort. As the winner of the Most Boring Ascension Ever, I think the biggest challenge to interest in Ascension events is the "I mechanically can't win, why bother," experience. At least chaos bridges the gap between the unlikely and the impossible. At least, I always tried in Chaos, long before War was even a distant dream (given I never won but I did touch the hamster a couple times).
People have more of a puncher's chance to win Chaos, than they do a majority of other events. Especially as the admin add more random factors to it, in an attempt to stop any "control" of the event (I'll remind everyone at this point the utterly boring Elanorwen win of 2013 where one side had the whole thing on lockdown)
It's certainly going to have more chances of an outsider winning than other events. That said, if other events also have changed this year to open the playing field (I don't see War and Death losing their high investment advantage) I can only applaud this decision. The last few years, seal contests, and even final ascension, have become a coronation, as opposed to a contest.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Comments
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
There has never, ever been a year of Ascension where at least one seal event didn't leave people walking away feeling utterly cheated based on some circumstance or mishap of some sort. Never. Not a single one. If you insist this is not the case, you need to think back and reflect more thoroughly.
This has also never been isolated to one "side" or city-state. It's been felt everywhere at one point or another.
Sometimes the circumstances are ones I can sympathize with more than others, but regardless, they're going to happen. If you don't understand why, all you need to do is look at Ascension and what it really is.
It is a highly competitive series of events. Arguably, the most competitive available in a game that heavily pivots on city-state versus conflicts.
It is only once a year.
The ultimate prize has no compare to what can be obtained via purchase, and only goes to one person.
Now compare to any competitive sport and how the average stock of people behave on referee calls and the like. What, really, you're surprised still? Well, I don't know how to help bring you better clarity. But at least I tried.
Point being: it's a part of the beast, based on what the beast itself is. Don't fret over much about it.
I can sort of guess at the supposed rationale of what the second reason contributed (there were people with the winner, so if they didn't get him dead/dropped by the end, that means there was a fair chance to get him dead/dropped but they didn't succeed. Win therefore goes to him fairly.) to the decision, but even reading the responses, I'm a little confused about the first. Could you share what was the rationale for veil being quoted as a reason for the decision, Ianir?
P.S. Just to make it clear - I wasn't around, so obviously, I'm not saying that the current result is fair or not fair or whatever. I don't know anything about the specifics of what happened. Just asking about the rationale behind the reason of quoting veil as a reason for making the decision what it was.
For my own part, I found the random teleport mechanic preferable to the fortress meta of previous years, so lockout some areas and hopefully it's a proper goer in future runs.
Other than that, would like to see return of normal teleport speed, have hamster drop on serpent, and go go gadget a world emote when the current holder loses the hamster?
I agree with the few mentions of normal teleport speed, and I think Ushaara brings up an awesome point of broadcast message if someone loses the hamster. If someone else mentioned this before, my fault that I missed it.
People are invested in these events more than anything else in Lusternia. This is the cumulation and end-goal of any player who plays for the competition. These things happen and Chaos has always been like Mario Kart towards the end. People have already hashed over the problems (and they have been recognised as problems) with the event and they have been addressed for the next iteration. I hope the remaining events go closer to plan.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
I agree with this bit about how invested people are in the events and I think it can sometimes be a detriment to the game as a whole. I personally think people put too much focus on ascension at the detriment to the rest of the years play time. We have folks who will sacrifice or mold their entire play time around waiting or setting up for ascension, we've got folks who wont explore new things because of worries about ascension etc. To be it seems a bit backwards. Why put so much focus on whats essentially a few hours of gameplay a year when you have high near over eight thousand other hours across the rest of the year to enjoy.
That side point said I really do like the idea of totally new features in all the events overall. A big shake up of every event so what we are going into it new and learning how to do it as opposed to simply copying last 10 years plans would be the most interesting thing to me.
Maybe war is no longer 3v3 its 5v5. Death isnt about kills its about putting corpses into the seal so you can steal them before the enemy gets there etc. Just idle thoughts but I am curious and hopeful to see new changes come into play to keep it fresh.
E: As Falaeron has pointed out below, most people have accepted the decision not to have a redo. While phrasing it as 'the people who didn't win' is technically accurate, it implies things which are both unkind and inaccurate about the motives of those asking for a redo. Mostly, they are motivated by a sense of fair play.
Right now you're tilting at windmills.
It is more that the admin stance is that there is nothing to apologise for beyond the coding-related issues. Bugs happen and what actually matters is how issues are handled when they surface. Ascension is a big deal and many of us changed real life plans to take part. The winner is never guaranteed in any event, but an ending like that just sours the entire thing and I don't think it is unfair to want a proper explanation that doesn't try to attribute the decision to two factors that are quite simply invalid as has already been explained in a few fairly objective posts.
This all being said, I think it is worth considering how the rules for ascension have been refined over the years and the trend I have seen is for players to want rules clarified ahead of time (just search the forums). Throwing in new elements is all well and good, but surprises are not always the best idea, especially in competitive events. I am sure that this particular issue would have been brought up as a potential problem by someone if we had been given the full details ahead of time and maybe we would have saved ourselves this thread.
Three minutes would have also saved us this thread.
Testing was completed, we looked at both the average teleportation time and where it teleported you. In our testing, we didn't run across any of the room issues. We obviously didn't check every single one of the 29k+ rooms on Prime, but we ran enough simulations to feel confident that we were in a good spot, given the simulations and 9 years of weird rooms being a non-issue in previous years or even in other random Chaos hamsterhunts that have been done. The main point being is that us admin are capable enough to consider issues that may have cropped up, and we took steps to avoid these issues. It's pretty easy to forget that hindsight is 20/20, the full details could have been given and we probably would have still ended with the same result.
That said, we obviously didn't take enough steps, and for that, I'm sorry. We understand that Ascension is important. We understand that it's the culmination of hard work, wins, losses, politicking, practicing, reading, learning and perfecting. It's not a simple show up hoping you get lucky that day (though Chaos, in particular, is to an extent.) This wasn't something we hastily threw together, and we'll strive to make future events less prone to such errors.
As far as a re-do is concerned, when you're at the point a re-do or an extension is on the table, people's feelings are going to be hurt - no matter what is decided. There are numerous factors to consider. It isn't simple to restart a worldgame in a specific setup with a certain person holding the hamster in a random room. There's the fact that @Tarken may have won regardless and it certainly wasn't his fault for what occurred. The fact that it could have occurred to anyone that grabbed the hamster, so in the end, everyone was playing by the same ruleset. Even the fact that we can't replace insanity on everyone who held the hamster during the event, which may be minor, but enough insanity on someone can drastically affect how effective they are. And yes @Maligorn, because it's cHaOs!
TL/DR - there are numerous factors in running an ascension event, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sorry, we'll work to do better in the future.
I just think we would have much more successful events as far as the number of issues like these in ascension challenges, all of which are already stressful enough, if the playerbase's collective knowledge (and ingenuity when it comes to minmaxing in competitions) was trusted and relied on more. For example, we got many things banned from Justice last year well in advance because the first draft of the rules was given early. It would have been a much worse event if people turned up with all of the OP buffs on the day and the admins had to make those difficult decisions then.
The playerbase IS trusted and relied on, but it doesn't need to be trusted and relied on for every last thing that happens or occurs. Surely you can agree that surprises can be good?
As I said already, we tested to see if it would teleport it to rooms it shouldn't be going to, and combined that with previous knowledge that it wasn't an issue in the past, settled on the state we ran it in. I don't think releasing the full details would have prevented this, but as was pointed out in an earlier post, we'll never know.
And sorry, @Maligorn - I was just using it as an example because you brought it up!
-Kilian
To offer some constructive advice since changing the events are on the table, I'll suggest that the outcome should not be dictated by the last one minute. As it stands, we spend hours in preparation (politics, securing bases, establishing transportation routes); run frantic for the next hour; and then have all of that effort boil down to whoever happens to grab the hamster at the very end. In a tournament like Ascension that is intended to identify the best of the best players to represent mortalkind, I feel like the Chaos trial has never truly delivered on its intent. There are plenty of ways to capture the spirit of chaos without it coming down to some toss up of circumstance.
-Kilian
I think it's awesome they're finally shaking up the Ascension events to some degree. The mishaps sound unfortunate, but ultimately it's an argument about the "legitimacy" of the RNG gods, and given that fact, I think the admin made the smart choice.
I don't necessarily agree with Kelly. Most (all?) of the seals are subject to a lot of preparation and politicking, and that edges an extraordinary amount of the playerbase out of contention (read: most). It's nice that one of the seals can be an upset for anyone. A lot of players participate, and the majority get bupkis. The majority don't even have a chance at more than bupkis, they are generally just along for the ride to win X seal for Y player Z org decided to back. A wildcard in the mix is a cool way to get people invested, IMHO.
I mean, the seals are competitions as to who is the most or best at X. Most war-like, most knowledgeable, etc. I can't think of a not stupid way to see who is the most chaotic.
Going back to 2014 when everyone set up a series of fortress zones, only for Malarious to end up on Icewynd with everything done on the fly.
It's also the seal that has the most bug causing "what if" scenarios. Each year people have had to swallow it and just accept, while the admin use the power of hindsight to fix it.
As Ianir said, those final 3 minutes can't be replicated properly with insanity levels and such, so even a redo wouldn't be without controversy and consequences.
Ultimately while planning is responsible for a large majority of Ascension, there is always an element of luck. Whether it's immediate circumstances, political shifts or rule changes favouring one person more than another, every org not Serenwilde has benefitted at some point from these small changes over the last few years.
Looking at individual incidents in a bubble, isn't a fair evaluation of how they balance out over time.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Wielding naught but gelatinous spires of Hallifax molded from tapioca, the designer suddenly regrets their choice of medium.
Second, the difference between Chaos and all of the other seals is that there is actually some skill involved over a measurable period. Also you've presented Chaos as if anyone can win, but that's not really true. It is proven that there are those who perennially do "well" in Chaos, and they are those who have a script to autowalk to the hamster location (or have a friend to do it for them). So ultimately it is a footrace in the very last seconds of "competition", and no Joe Schmoe is going to outpace the bots with bixes.
I mean, if we're being literal, influencing isn't really a metric of being harmonious. I'm sure we could come up with some meaningful competition that embraces chaos, but still forms a better evaluation of player performance within the event. Even changing the placements to who holds the hamster the longest (i.e., the actual event score), introducing new hamster effects on the holder (and maybe mitigating the insanity aspect)... I dunno. I'd like to see it become an actual competition instead of a script race.
All I'm saying is a lower bar for entry rather than a higher one on at least one of the seals is, IMHO, better for Ascension involvement. Script race it may be, that's still more involved than a lottery, but it's at least something everyone can do without a ton of extra effort. As the winner of the Most Boring Ascension Ever, I think the biggest challenge to interest in Ascension events is the "I mechanically can't win, why bother," experience. At least chaos bridges the gap between the unlikely and the impossible. At least, I always tried in Chaos, long before War was even a distant dream (given I never won but I did touch the hamster a couple times).
It's certainly going to have more chances of an outsider winning than other events. That said, if other events also have changed this year to open the playing field (I don't see War and Death losing their high investment advantage) I can only applaud this decision. The last few years, seal contests, and even final ascension, have become a coronation, as opposed to a contest.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!