« Beneath The Hat: Tournament Seeding & You! »

I got into an Internet argument recently about seeding, so I am just going to vomit words about it.

Seeding in the fighting game community is largely a joke, since it's based on largely arbitrary factors and sometimes based on nothing at all. It's not the fault of the tournament organizers; rather the fault lies with the fact that the FGC is so segmented and lacks unified structure. The most common way a tournament is seeded is by perceived skill. You put a relatively equal amount of top players into each pool and then just let them play it out. This totally disregards results, and results should matter in regards to seeding.

"But Honzo, I am mega tournament organizer I seed every tournament ever ur stupid blasdhskdh."

First off, you don't account for all tournaments because it's literally impossible to even track every weekly with good players in the nation/world at the moment. There is no site that records every event, and you are not God. Also, there is an overemphasis on big streamed weeklies such as Wednesday Night Fights/The Runback and Next Level Battle Circuit. TOs will account for their local and totally disregard a weekly in Florida, Georgia or even Texas that's just as hard competitively. Now, it's not the fault of the TO that they are not omnipotent and don't watch every tournament or dungeon crawl the Internet for results. I understand you having a life and shit, but you just don't account for weeklies evenly and that leads to flawed seeding.

"Honogono I eat ur milkshake nerd, I seed only for majors nerd haha I win."

Seeding for only majors is also flawed when it really shouldn't be. Major is an adjective for all events now for whatever reason, so it inherently causes problems when you consider such events for seeding. Is Apex a major? Is Final Round a major? Is SoCal Regionals a major? Is Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament a major? Some of these might seem like easy questions, but people will tell you different answers based on different criteria. So, for the sake of argument let's identify two undeniable majors: Final Round and NorCal Regionals. Both are long-running tournaments, both have had international as well as out-of-state competition consistently throughout the years, both are very competitive for a majority of the games and winning one or placing top eight in one is seen as a great accomplishment.

Well, obviously you would count the results from FR and NCR as the same if not close right? I guarantee no one would ever say that sentence, because the first thing you thought of when I started comparing them was "BUT BUT BUT FINAL ROUND IS LIKE DA BIGGGERST TOURNEY EVAR." If you say that then you are completely disregarding the skill of the players that visited and are basing it on amount of entrants. Why does more players denote that the tournament was more competitive? There is no way to track how many good players enter any specific tournament, so you are comparing them based on incomplete information. What if NCR had 150 really great players enter a 256-man Marvel tournament and Final Round had 100 really great players enter a 512-man bracket. Why do Final Round results matter more? You can't answer that without committing a fallacy. And again it's not the TO's fault, you have to seed by something, but it largely is being done wrong because no one has the correct information since there is no unified point/score system.

"Honzo I am Evo u are dumb."

Evolution is the closest thing the community has to a body trying to achieve actual seeding, but it is still flawed largely because they award points to majors that are incorrectly seeded in the first place. What if Joe Blow—through bracket luck—has two top players to play on his way to top eight while another player has to play five. Inherently, the tournament was skewed and Joe Blow got an EVO point for less work than someone else. This is why we see some random players just getting EVO points while some very good players have none. It is also because some of those very good players actually fucking suck and are not consistent, but regardless the system is still flawed.

"Hongo ur tiny privates, how am I suppose to seed then if I am doing it not good."

Let me state once again that the incorrect seeding that goes on in the FGC is largely not the tournament organizer's fault. Most tournaments try to seed to make the tournament fair, but they are working off incomplete information and varied weight of importance based on arbitrary factors. Seeding in the FGC is a joke not because it's fucking terrible, but because how else is anyone supposed to do it? There is seemingly no correct way at all.

"Gongohongo I think two top players is fair in every bracket eat shit haha nerd."

If you believe the way you currently seed is correct there is nothing I can do to convince you it's not. As a tournament organizer you can seed the tournament as incorrectly as humanly possible and say this is the most fair tournament you can make. I can't stop you, nor can I convince you otherwise. Since the whole concept of "fair" is in itself subjective it's hard for anyone to agree on a seeding method based on arbitrary factors.

"I am smahs housegouse we use points yay."

Point-based systems are the closest thing you can get to seeding in an objective manner, since you are just going by player placing. Now there are some faults in point-based systems going back to subjective importance of some tournaments over others, but you can design a system that takes into account how objectively hard a tournament was. It's not perfect mind you, but a unified FGC result tracker that used a point system and weighted things consistently, while flawed, would be a better way to have an acceptable amount of information in order to seed. Seeds do not need to be EXACT 100% of the time, but there needs to be an acceptable amount of traceable information in order to seed objectively.

That's just what I think though, so I could be wrong. I'm not that smart.

Beneath The Hat is an editorial series by Honzo Gonzo. This piece doesn't reflect the overall views and opinions of IPLAYWINNER.

got into an internet argument today about seeding so I am just gunna vomit words about it.

Seeding in the fgc is largely a joke, since it's based on largely arbitrary factors and sometimes based on literally nothing. It's not the fault of the TOs; rather the fault lies with the fact that the FGC is so segmented and lacks unified structure. The most common way a tournament is seeded is by perceived skill. You put a relatively equal amount of top players into each pool and then just let them figure it out. This totally disregards results, and results should matter in regards to seeding.

"But Honzo, I am mega tournament organizer I seed every tournament ever ur stupid blasdhskdh."

First off, you don't account for all tournaments because it's literally impossible to even track every weekly with good players in the nation/world at the moment. There is no site that records every event, and you are not god. Also there is an overemphasis on big streamed weeklies such as WNF/TRB and NLBC. TOs will take account for their local and totally disregard a weekly in Florida, Georgia, or even Texas that's just as hard competitively. Now, it's not the fault of the TO that they are not omnipotent and don't watch every tournament and dungeon crawl the internet for results. I understand you having a life and shit, but you just don't account for weeklies evenly and that leads to flawed seeding.

"Honogono I eat ur milkshake nerd, I seed only for majors nerd haha I win."

Seeding for only majors is also flawed when it really shouldn't be. Major is a cohesive adjective for events for whatever reason, so it inherently causes problems when you consider such events for seeding. Is Apex a major? Is Final Round a major? Is SCR a major? is UFGT a major? Some of these might seem like easy questions, but people will tell you different answers based on different criteria. So, for the sake of argument let's identify two undeniable majors: Final Round and Norcal Regionals (NCR). Both are long-running tournaments, both have international as well as out-of-state competition consistently throughout the years, both are very competitive for a majority of the games and winning one or placing top 8 in one is seen as a great accomplishment.

Well, obviously you would count the results from Final Round and NCR as the same if not close right? I guarantee no one would ever say that sentence, because the first thing you thought of when I started comparing them was "BUT BUT BUT FINAL ROUND IS LIKE DA BIGGGERST TOURNEY EVAR.” If you say that then you are completely disregarding the skill of the players that visited and are basing it on amount of entrants. Why does more players denote that the tournament was more competitive? There is no way to track how many good players enter any specific tournament so you are comparing them based on incomplete information. What if NCR had 150 really great players enter a 256-man marvel tournament and Final Round had 100 really great players enter a 512-man bracket. Why do Final Round results matter more? You can't answer that without committing a fallacy.

And again it's not the TOs fault, you have to seed by something, but it largely is being done wrong because no one has the correct information since there is no unified point/score system.

"Honzo I am Evo u are dumb."

Evolution is the closest thing the community has to a body trying to achieve actual seeding, but it is still flawed largely because they award points to majors that are incorrectly seeded in the first place. What if Joe Blow—through bracket luck—has two top players to play on his way to top eight while another player has to play five. Inherently, the tournament was skewed and Joe Blow got an Evo point for less work than someone else. This is why we see some random players just getting Evo points while some very good players have none. It is also because some of those very good players actually fucking suck and are not consistent, but irregardless the system is still flawed.

"Hongo ur tiny privates, how am I suppose to seed then if I am doing it not good."

Let me state once again, the incorrect seeding that goes on in the FGC is largely not the tournament organizer's fault. Most tournaments earnestly try to seed to make the tournament fair, but they are working off incomplete information and varied weight of importance based on arbitrary factors. Seeding in the FGC is a joke not because it's fucking terrible, but because how else is anyone supposed to do it? There is seemingly no correct way at all.

"Gongohongo I think two top players is fair in every bracket eat shit haha nerd."

If you believe the way you currently seed is correct there is nothing I can do to convince you it's not. As a tournament organizer you can seed the tournament as incorrectly as humanly possible and say this is the most fair tournament you can make. I can't stop you, nor can I convince you otherwise. Since the whole concept of "fair" is in itself subjective it's hard for anyone to agree on a seeding method based on arbitrary factors.

"I am smahs housegouse we use points yay."

Point-based systems are the closest thing you can get to seeding in an objective manner, since you are literally just going by their placings. Now there are some flaws in point-based systems going back to subjective importance of some tournaments over others, but you can design a system that takes into account how objectively hard a tournament was. It's not perfect mind you, but a unified FGC result tracker that used a point system and weighted things consistently, while flawed, would be a better way to have an acceptable amount of information in order to seed. Seeds do not need to be EXACT 100% of the time, but there needs to be an acceptable amount of traceable information in order to seed objectively correctly.

That's just what I think though, so I could be wrong I'm not that smart.