Funding FAF Events and Cultural Concerns

[Morax]

Earlier - maybe about 2 or 3 years ago now - I wanted to take the FAF community to the next level by hosting a tournament with a large sum of money involved on top of the Legend of the Stars events. It seemed like FAF was starting to really suffer due to a lack of "raising the bar," and LoTS helped a ton as there is a community-wide feeling of something to look forward to for each year.

So, I created the 3v3 "Trident of Power" tourney that helped generate a massive showcasing of casting by Yuri, Brink, and a few other top-level players. It brought together a lot of talent, and it was wonderful to see so many people fight in a competitive 3v3 format, which is hard to bring together.

As time went on, I felt the need to "raise the bar" and decided to involve experimenting with different types of tourney formats and prizes. It was pretty quick to see that $ made the most difference over things like avatars, so I decided to fund some more. This led to the "2v2 Master Cup" round robin that held a invite-only format and qualifier. The qualifier actually went fairly smoothly and everyone within gave a great effort, although there was a hick-up: a 3-way tie which made the format frustrating in length. I made a mistake in judging this as an outlier, and continued on to the main event using the same without a regard for rating of players, as it just seemed unfair to assign more value to beating certain opponents: everyone was an equal.

Side story: The 2v2 Master Cup was postponed as word spread that, due to administrative actions within the Developer Slack, members who were removed from that felt less inclined to play the game, and I would have suffered by losing 1-2 teams in what was planned months in advance.

Back to the 2v2 Master Cup, I increased the total payout from $500 to $600 as it was my fault that it was postponed and no one dropped from the tourney. That was my error in judgement alone and I paid for it accordingly.

What transpired next was really unsettling: a few 3-way ties occurred in the actual event and people were starting to lose patience. I did not know what to do but giving payouts per "predicted results" kind of annoyed me, so I kindly asked participants to continue on until a break. Controversy aside, I received approval from most of the players to keep going spare one team that were quite upset they had to keep playing. I kindly asked them to play and keep the event going as it was something that would help me decide what to do in future events, and not to mention, $600 of my own money was put up for grabs and I liked the games thus far. Legend of the Stars pays a nice $500 for this, too: keep FAF events funded and get to watch some nice games.

So what happened? I continued to receive a lot of harsh feedback from the team composing of Blodir and Nexus, I asked them to suck it up, calm down, and I would make it worth their while. Rather do what I asked, like every other team did because they enjoyed the games as well, they kept on doing what they did: complain and point my errors.

In the wake of this, I told them to please not bother participating in my events going forward. This was a serious concern and I did not intend it as a joke; I am fully holding to my word and in the future will not allow them to play in any event I hold nor fund because of this terrible attitude.

That is the story in a nutshell (lengthy and philosophical, but eh...).

I now ask: why do people in FAF think it's okay to bitch out at a person who donates their own money? Like, I get it if it's not perfect, feedback is welcome, but actually refusing to be grateful such a thing exists, is just really frustrating.

I am at a weird point where I wonder if I should continue to fund events. I want to throw the first $1,000, $,5000, and $10,000 tourney because I can, but based on the results so far we have the following issues:

1) FAF lacks a competitive culture and the people who run it do not seem to care:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15548&hilit=faf+competitive+scene

2) This post, that generated a lot of good feedback in the early posts, has mostly gone unanswered by Sheeo and the rest of the FAF administration:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13006&p=133576&hilit=stop+playing+faf#p133576

3) The rudeness of participants in events has largely gotten worse in my mind; no one really shows appreciation and seems to expect it is something they deserve.

4) We allow people who don't play the game much to run things. Experience is king, and saying otherwise is just not acceptable anymore.

5) Diminishing returns of fun and pleasure, eg, the game is getting less and less interesting to play due to catering to a broken rating system. No one respects it, and if they do, they are not really seeing how it reflects on "WHY IS GAME BALANCE NOT 90%+?!?!?!" as if it matters.


In Conclusion:

Maybe Blodir and Nexus are right in being upset with things, and their frustrations are misplaced for the overall feeling the community has in regards to events and competition. I don't know, but what they did is going to stick in my mind for a long, long, long time.

I offered to them, that I would forgive them if they helped me list out and rationalize how to change the attitude of people who think it is okay to complain so harshly to people who donate and run events like this.

Open to the community to their thoughts on the event and how to proceed. I want to fund and generate great events for us, but not if this does not get resolved.

Good day, all...

[Resistance]

it all makes sense,as far as i know,this is personal funding and has nothing to do with FAF administration,that should mean,none should bitch about money,however,you've got a good point,it's a pain to try and get things running smooth,especially when you are alone or there're a few guys that are working hard upon changin the community.it's true that ranking system works quite bad and can be abused by anyone,still people get to know eachother and that's where the real ''ranking system'' starts.
community shall always be respectful with people that giving them the opportunity to truly enjoy the game.Considering that this was true and blodir with nexus were not patient,i can just write down some words,but in fact,it's affecting both players and TD's,yeah,money HAVE a value in real life,and this is the main trouble so far with pretty much everyone,but let's try and keep good relationships between us,humans,i know it sounds stupid but everyone in here wants to have a good timing.
i was not present at the previous torunaments,but they were great as i was watching some casts,and i WAS really pleased with the games.
So far,i can only say that you did a great job,Morax,most of society are grateful for your investments,but it's not your obligation to do so and you don't have to make excuses.you did well in the past,and that's a valuable act.

[Louvegarde]

Hi

Your side of the story is understandable, however it is hard to judge of the situation without getting Blodir's and Nexus'.
By looking at the title and bullet points, I can also tell that it looks like you are mixing up points from the problem you're describing with some more personal frustrations - which again is understandable in your position, but doesn't necessarily constitute a great start to kick off a discussion like this one. You probably don't want what you have to say to be lost in a rant.

That being said, I agree you have a point that the format and overall direction of tournament needs some more thinking to go further forward, and that funding tournaments with increasing cash prize is not necessarily a good thing if some of those points do not find solutions. I'm particularly concerned about liability and the consistency between official tournament, personally.

[Morax]

Fair warning: this is not a call to get official moderation support from FaF to resolve player behavior.

Stand ground in this one, please. If moderation needs to force kindness then it's no better then it was before.

[Resistance]

we are not speaking as mods,as mods,we are taking actions,here and now,we are just expressing ourselves as players.part of community.

[nine2]

feedback is welcome

i look forward to the future evolutions of your generosity - where prizes are determined by the outcome of matches.

[keyser]

feedback is welcome

i look forward to the future evolutions of your generosity - where prizes are determined by the outcome of matches.

what a lovely comment. I'm really proud of what kinds of person gets into the mod team.

[Petricpwnz]

feedback is welcome

i look forward to the future evolutions of your generosity - where prizes are determined by the outcome of matches.

While I disagree with the prize witholding, even tho it was already compensated by efforts of ftx and sheeo, morax is one of the largest if not the largest tournament director/sponsor FAF has ever had and has done A LOT to make tournament scene more alive. These sarcastic remarks are misplaced. I, as a frequent participant in the tournaments don't want half the FAF tournament scene to go down because some unrelated people start throwing shit at people most involved for having done something controversial.

[Resistance]

feedback is welcome

i look forward to the future evolutions of your generosity - where prizes are determined by the outcome of matches.

he is not supposed to sacrifice his time and personal money for FAF,that's only his deciession and whatever it is,we have to accept it,building something great based on money is not an option and it never was.

[nine2]

These sarcastic remarks are misplaced.

no sarcasm bro, I'm just saying one day Morax will go all the way with his generosity and that will be even better! He said himself it's not perfect. Relax!