DSP Top Spin 2 Pros Tourney

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:04 pm

Would anyone like to get some practice tonight? Say around 22:00 eastern time?

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:08 pm

I should be up still. Add me to your FL.

I'm cool with all men or a mixed (seperate) tournament, the women are fun to play with (sometimes more so).

I guess the only issue is that we wouldn't get a "true" tournament champion that way, you'd have a women's and men's champ. With 16 total, all men, you'd just have to make sure that you don't have duplicate pro's on the same side of the draw (which would be easy enough to control). Even if you did, no biggy. No different than taking the same team in any other sports game I guess.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:57 pm

jondiehl wrote:I should be up still. Add me to your FL.

I'm cool with all men or a mixed (seperate) tournament, the women are fun to play with (sometimes more so).

I guess the only issue is that we wouldn't get a "true" tournament champion that way, you'd have a women's and men's champ. With 16 total, all men, you'd just have to make sure that you don't have duplicate pro's on the same side of the draw (which would be easy enough to control). Even if you did, no biggy. No different than taking the same team in any other sports game I guess.

Good game jon. Warning: This guy has his risk serve pretty good.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:20 pm

10spro wrote: Good game jon. Warning: This guy has his risk serve pretty good.

GG. I played Sportdan right before you and was only able to get a handful of risk/power serves in. For whatever reason, I had it down pretty well in our game. Moya was booming it.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:08 pm

Well, OK. In the absence of much opinion, I think we go with Jon's idea.

There are I think 10 male pros that are reasonable to choose from. Some are better than others, one is Federer, and two have fewer than 60 skill stars. I say we lop off those bottom two, and pick from the ten, including Federer. It's good to have a favorite going in, no?

What I think we should do is somehow randomly, or arbitrarily I guess, separate the field into two groups of 8, to make up the two sides of the bracket. Each of these groups of 8 will have a Pro randomly assigned to him from the ten in two separate draws. This way any doubly represented Pros would only be able to meet in the final.

My problem is I don't know how to do random outside of digging up some funny shaped dice. Anyone up for the task?

One more thing:

Are we going with the default 3 sets, 3 games a set? Or do we want to do 3 6-game sets for this thing?

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:06 pm

Zep -

You can use this website instead of dice:

http://www.randomizer.org/form.htm

First thing would be to list the two groups of members here (maybe alphabetically), they would all be assigned a number 1-8

Then run the randomizer thing. For instance, I just did it and got this:

Research Randomizer Results

2 Sets of 8 Unique Numbers Per Set
Range: From 1 to 8 -- Unsorted

Job Status:

Set #1:
5, 4, 3, 6, 2, 1, 7, 8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Set #2:
1, 5, 8, 7, 3, 2, 4, 6

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, for the first grouping, whomever was 5th on the list would get the first pick, then the #4 guy and so on. You could either do a draft (based on the order it spits out) or just pre-rank the pro's and assign them based on that (Fed, Roddick, Hewitt, etc).

I'm okay with any length of set (3-6 games), best of 3 sets though, not 5.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:20 pm

OK, I have done some randomizing and this is the restult:

Bracket A

1. sportdan - Grosjean (59) v. 2. Slumberland - Blake (54)

3. marino - Roddick (71) v. 4. XboxJon - Moya (62)

5. Spooky Oooky - Haas (55) v. 6. Vader29 - Coria (65)

7. dbdynsty - Henman (61) v. 8. nyisles - Federer (75)

And then:

Bracket B

9 AtXj - Roddick (71) v. 10 Rally Monkey - Mirnyi (57)

11 Webdanzer - Hewitt (67) v. 12 JamesE - Henman (61)

13 BTK The Truth - Blake (54) v. 14 CP Zeppo - Haas (55)

15 Leebo33 - Federer (75) v. 16 seminole - Coria (65)

And there is it. We have 2 brackets, out of each of which one player will emerge for the Final. This way, the only time two of the same Pros will meet is in the Final (any bets on a Fed. v. Fed. Final?).

10spro is an alternate in case anyone decides he can't continue for any reason, or if someone ends up AWOL after a while.

We will play best of 3 set matches, each set first to 6 games . 1st serve (or whatever you call it) is up to you guys, it makes no difference to me. Flip a coin, play a hand of Poker, do a round of Robotron, or just decide between yourselves who will create the game and invite the other.

This being the first DSP Pros tourney, I think we should play at the Arthur Ashe, I mean, why not? US Open venue is the choice (they don't have a night setting for that place, do they?).

Any questions, comments, criticisms, witty observations, bad puns, or anything else are welcome at this time, as they are at all times.

Remember - sets are first to 6, not the default 3-game sets; matches are first to 2 sets. I don't think we have control over tie-break rules.

I will post the brackets up in the top post, and try to keep it updated up there. Go ahead and post scheduling requests and results (complete with whatever accounts and descriptions you wish to relate) here in this thread.

Good luck everyone!!

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:26 pm

Awesome, thanks Zeppo.

marino -

I'm pretty flexible with my schedule (work from home) so just let me know what works for you. If you have MSN, my info is in my profile. Also, your XBL friends list is full, I tried to add you and it gave me that message. So please add me after deleting someone:

XBoxJon

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 5:17 pm

Web can you do it Monday night sometime? 10pm Eastern?

RallyMonkey · Post by **RallyMonkey** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:22 pm

Not only do i end up with the only guy i've never heard of, but he's a 57 and i draw Roddick in round 1. Well boys, it's been fun but it looks like one and done for the ole Monkey and Mr. Mirnyi (????)

On a serious note, thanks for the work Zep. Even with my soon to be ousting this should be fun.

Atx, let me know when you can play. I may even be able to play tonight if you're around later.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:51 pm

RallyMonkey wrote:Not only do i end up with the only guy i've never heard of, but he's a 57 and i draw Roddick in round 1. Well boys, it's been fun but it looks like one and done for the ole Monkey and Mr. Mirnyi (????)

On a serious note, thanks for the work Zep. Even with my soon to be ousting this should be fun.

Atx, let me know when you can play. I may even be able to play tonight if you're around later.

No doubt, no doubt. I know how you feel, looking at Federer if I happen to get lucky and get by round 1.

I really do want to do a created player tourney, with one complete season or two seasons as a limit. I like the idea of people maybe not completing the training, getting silvers or not in tourneys, etc.

But this should be a fun taste. Too bad the excellent online tourney functions (and NHL Rivals-style multi-Xbox multiplayer) didn't make it out of XSN with this game. But we can do this pretty easily ourselves, so no big deal.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:07 pm

Zeppo wrote: I really do want to do a created player tourney, with one complete season or two seasons as a limit. I like the idea of people maybe not completing the training, getting silvers or not in tourneys, etc.

I'd like to do a created player tournament as well, especially after we do some of these pro tournaments to see everyone's interest.

It doesn't take much to max out a character though, I'd say limit it to ~20 stars (not based on number of seasons), or zero stars (which would lead to more creative player faces/body types since it wouldn't take much time to build a few with zero stars).

ie. I just finished by 2nd season (winning the Masters Tournament) at #2 and had 54/60 stars (all are at least silver, most are gold). Week 1 of Season 3, I added 5 more stars with the training before the Australian (which I just saved my progress before taking on Federer in the semi's). So, you don't have to invest too much time to build up a good character to play with online.... although it would be easier for people to jump right in if we did it with 0 star characters (nothing to tinker with that way either, everyone has the exact same skilled player).

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:25 pm

I think zero stars makes for too uninteresting a game of tennis. I really like the idea of making the limit an amount of time in the game, since the game works it that way. Yeah, someone could reboot and reload if he doesn't succeed in the training, but I trust those here to be straight and honest. A start limit is tougher to do because of the silver and gold stars, and there's only the one place, the 'my stats' area, where you can see how many stars you have. If we limit it to one season (or two), then guys can build unique players that reflect their preferred style, so that the customization isn't limited to the look of the player. I mean, a star limit makes sense, but I just don't see how it would work in this game with the silver and gold star bonuses, etc. Like, what if you have 59 stars, do you do a training and deliberately tank it so you only get one star? Seems like too much work to get it right, whereas if we do a limit based on the game's calendar, it's pretty idiot proof.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:32 pm

Zeppo wrote:I think zero stars makes for too uninteresting a game of tennis. I really like the idea of making the limit an amount of time in the game, since the game works it that way. Yeah, someone could reboot and reload if he doesn't succeed in the training, but I trust those here to be straight and honest. A start limit is tougher to do because of the silver and gold stars, and there's only the one place, the 'my stats' area, where you can see how many stars you have. If we limit it to one season (or two), then guys can build unique players that reflect their preferred style, so that the customization isn't limited to the look of the player. I mean, a star limit makes sense, but I just don't see how it would work in this game with the silver and gold star bonuses, etc. Like, what if you have 59 stars, do you do a training and deliberately tank it so you only get one star? Seems like too much work to get it right, whereas if we do a limit based on the game's calendar, it's pretty idiot proof.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Playing with 0 star guys is pretty brutal, and I haven't tried it online. I forgot about the silver/gold stars and how you would could those, good points. Just keep in mind that some people will have their character maxed out if you limit it to 2 seasons (I would have but I failed probably 4-5 trainings along the way where I got only 1 star, and even so was only 6 short).

BTW, I think if you're at 59 stars, even if you pass your final training (and earn 3-5 stars) you'll still only get the one. I'll know for sure shortly, just beat Fed at the Australian and will be doing my last training (sitting at 59) tonight early in season 3.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:50 pm

Ah, well i was using 60 as an arbitrary limit - let's change that to 30 for the argument's sake.

Anyway, I think one season is probably the best way to go. It's enough for people to get some diversity among the characters, yet short enough for all who want in to be able to get leveled up to. I'm wary of making that level too high, as many here barely have time to enjoy online tournaments at all, much less enough time to really put in the work offline.

It's also why when we run ToCA series, we do no setups; the DSP gang is a very casual gang of online gamers on the whole.

But hey, let's keep discussing, and I'd love to hear some other opinions!

And of course, I would be very much into doing a women's Pro tourney after this one, and on a different surface, too. So we still have options once this one is done.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:56 pm

Zeppo wrote: And of course, I would be very much into doing a womens' Pro tourney after this one, and on a different surface, too. So we still have options once this one is done.

K, now I follow you on what you meant with 59. If you're at 29 and the limit is 30, you wouldn't want to waste a training mid-career to get it right at 30. I'd say, the less stars the better, since whatever limit is going to be set, you'll have to create a seperate character just for that league (since your other one you'll want to continue on and get the 60 max stars for playing ranked games online and finish your career).

A women's pro tournament would have closer ratings for the pro's. I don't think there is as big of a gap between the 1st and 8th rated characters like there are with the men. Good ideas.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:14 pm

And for anyone that can't make it, I can take a spot this coming thursday only as I wind down my travels.

nyisles16 · Post by **nyisles16** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:22 am

hey db.. im good to go Tuesday if ya want...

vader29 · Post by **vader29** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:58 am

Spooky, I can play just about anytime after 7pm eastern anytime during the week, let me know what is best for you.

marino · Post by **marino** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:05 am

Jon

I can go tonight or tomorrow at 10pm eastern.let me know

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:30 am

vader29 wrote:Spooky, I can play just about anytime after 7pm eastern anytime during the week, let me know what is best for you.

How 'bout tonight (Monday)? I could play anytime after, say, 9:00pm CST. Is that too late for you? If not, let's shoot for 9:00pm CST (10:00m for you right?).

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:09 am

marino wrote:Jon

I can go tonight or tomorrow at 10pm eastern.let me know

Busy tonight already. Lets schedule for Tuesday, 10pm EDT. Don't forget to make a spot on your FL for me.

TheTruth · Post by **TheTruth** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:28 am

Zepp...I can usually play anytime around 10pm central. Let me know what day/time is good for you.

Also, I don't know if I like the idea of using created players that have only completed one or two seasons. The number of stars each player has could be a lot different than another's based on if they did mostly training or a mix. My created player has a couple events on the calendar left before closing out my second season and he is already maxed out on stars and most of those stars are gold. Still have a few gold stars to get. I say simply use our maxed out players or do a set number of stars that we could achieve farily quickly (do we include silver and gold, or keep it at bronze?). Of course, we could play some tournaments using both to see what we liked best.

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:09 am

James_E wrote:Web can you do it Monday night sometime? 10pm Eastern?

Tonight is actually bad for me, James, and that time is just a wee bit early.

Can you do Tues or Wed at 10:30 Eastern?

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:13 am

Regarding the 'Created Player' tourney...

Oh how I wish this game was set up like Fight Night R3 with their created player otpions where you can have BOTH a career one that you build up gradually and then ones that you just build with a set limit of stats at any time. Although, I don't like that you can give your created player all maxed our stats in every catagory in FN. If Top Spin just had that option of creating players at anytime with a set limit of 60 total stars, that would have been so nice and would solve all our problems with 'created player' tourneys.

Why, oh why do they not think of this stuff in development!?!?!?