Thank you everyone who attended or watched The Big House 4. We set records for attendees and spectators this year, and obviously it was a learning experience for the entire TO staff. While I think the tournament went very well overall, I'm already thinking about some things that could be done better. I take feedback seriously and always aim to improve for the future; I'm sure players who have attended multiple Michigan events can attest to that. With that said, I want to open up the lines of communication and provide an opportunity for everyone to give us feedback.
Here's how you can help. Let's do this EVO-style: we want to hear your MOST favorite things and LEAST favorite things about The Big House 4. Pretend you have $3 to spend on investing in your MOST favorite things, and $3 to spend improving your LEAST favorite things. You can put all the money into one thing or distribute it, but please limit it to three things each. I'm interested in hearing from both attendees and spectators, so please don't hesitate to post.
Example:
Most favorite
* Tons of setups at the venue, $2
* RR pools format, $1
Least favorite
* Lack of food options at the venue, $1
* Sunday ended two hours late, $1
* Teams had to be set two weeks early, $1
If you thought something was really good or really bad, be honest, that's what this thread is for. I will try to address as many talking points as possible in the next few days, as I read about the feedback, and answer below.
--
Topics of interest:
Project M pools downgrading from top 3 advance to top 2 advance
Project M 3 stock ruleset
Friday night power situation
Here's how you can help. Let's do this EVO-style: we want to hear your MOST favorite things and LEAST favorite things about The Big House 4. Pretend you have $3 to spend on investing in your MOST favorite things, and $3 to spend improving your LEAST favorite things. You can put all the money into one thing or distribute it, but please limit it to three things each. I'm interested in hearing from both attendees and spectators, so please don't hesitate to post.
Example:
Most favorite
* Tons of setups at the venue, $2
* RR pools format, $1
Least favorite
* Lack of food options at the venue, $1
* Sunday ended two hours late, $1
* Teams had to be set two weeks early, $1
If you thought something was really good or really bad, be honest, that's what this thread is for. I will try to address as many talking points as possible in the next few days, as I read about the feedback, and answer below.
--
Topics of interest:
Project M pools downgrading from top 3 advance to top 2 advance
This was a result of not enough setups being brought by the PM community. According to registration numbers, 55 PM setups were committed by attendees. We only got 30 PM setups by the start of the tournament, which is unacceptable and cost several attendees the $20 penalty charge for reneging on committed equipment.
We estimated that 40 PM setups were required in order to run the entire Day 1 on time. When only 30 PM setups showed up, we had to adjust accordingly. Keep in mind there has always been a clause in the code of conduct that states the TO staff reserves the right to modify the ruleset or tournament format in the best interest of the event. This is an unfortunate necessity when crowdsourcing equipment to run a tournament.
While Phase 1 ran on time, it would have been extremely difficult to do the same for Phase 2 without the necessary 40 setups. We could have ran it anyway and forced everyone to stay until 2am, but that's not what we're about. So we decreased the Phase 1 PM cutoff from top 3 to top 2, which meant the number of players in Phase 2 was decreased from 192 to 128.
We estimated that 40 PM setups were required in order to run the entire Day 1 on time. When only 30 PM setups showed up, we had to adjust accordingly. Keep in mind there has always been a clause in the code of conduct that states the TO staff reserves the right to modify the ruleset or tournament format in the best interest of the event. This is an unfortunate necessity when crowdsourcing equipment to run a tournament.
While Phase 1 ran on time, it would have been extremely difficult to do the same for Phase 2 without the necessary 40 setups. We could have ran it anyway and forced everyone to stay until 2am, but that's not what we're about. So we decreased the Phase 1 PM cutoff from top 3 to top 2, which meant the number of players in Phase 2 was decreased from 192 to 128.
Project M 3 stock ruleset
3 stock PM was in the best interests of this tournament. It's not necessarily what's best PM overall (I'm not qualified to speak on that), but I can assure you it was what's best for TBH4.
Several factors contribute to the running time of a tournament:
#1. Number of setups
#2. Venue size, floor plan efficiency, etc.
#3. TO staff manpower
#4. Average gameplay time
We had #1 and #2 taken care of, to the greatest efficiency that anyone could reasonably expect. Those areas essentially couldn't have been improved very much. #3 was a bit of a concern because most of my own recruited TO staff was working the Melee side, but it still ended up very good thanks to Strong Bad and Rat and others. The only factor left was #4, which really had to be addressed in order to ensure that PM finished each wave on the Day 1 schedule in a similar amount of time that Melee finished (and it did). Multi-game schedules contain a huge number of constraints and requirements that must be met.
People will complain about 3 stock PM in hindsight, claiming that it was a cop out, but that couldn't be further from the truth. We could have run bracket pools on Day 1 and stream significantly fewer matches on Day 2 under the 4 stock ruleset. Or we could do what we did, which was run round robin pools on Day 1 and stream significantly more matches on Day 2 under the 3 stock ruleset. To me, the choice is obvious given the boost in both in-person attendee experience and stream viewer experience. It wasn't a cop out. It was a necessary ruleset adjustment based on the Day 1 tournament schedule.
Several factors contribute to the running time of a tournament:
#1. Number of setups
#2. Venue size, floor plan efficiency, etc.
#3. TO staff manpower
#4. Average gameplay time
We had #1 and #2 taken care of, to the greatest efficiency that anyone could reasonably expect. Those areas essentially couldn't have been improved very much. #3 was a bit of a concern because most of my own recruited TO staff was working the Melee side, but it still ended up very good thanks to Strong Bad and Rat and others. The only factor left was #4, which really had to be addressed in order to ensure that PM finished each wave on the Day 1 schedule in a similar amount of time that Melee finished (and it did). Multi-game schedules contain a huge number of constraints and requirements that must be met.
People will complain about 3 stock PM in hindsight, claiming that it was a cop out, but that couldn't be further from the truth. We could have run bracket pools on Day 1 and stream significantly fewer matches on Day 2 under the 4 stock ruleset. Or we could do what we did, which was run round robin pools on Day 1 and stream significantly more matches on Day 2 under the 3 stock ruleset. To me, the choice is obvious given the boost in both in-person attendee experience and stream viewer experience. It wasn't a cop out. It was a necessary ruleset adjustment based on the Day 1 tournament schedule.
Friday night power situation
TBA
Last edited: