After putting 9 hours of training in with Kookiee and a further 5 hours competing during the event we had worked our way to a tie breaker situation with 9 teams of streamers all tied for 4th place and the top 8 places going through to the playoffs, however the handling of the situation and poorly handled and incorrectly calculated automated system of the gaming stadium caused a lot of drama and controversy, and any attempts to resolve the situation at the time and explain how their calculations were wrong resulted in streamers being banned from their event discord.
The problem arose that in their opinion the tournament was structured that you would “face weaker opponents early” which is clearly a lie as our team only faced strong opponents, and due to the luck of the draw we faced off against the overall 4th place and 6th place challengers in our second and third races, and while we took them to close races forcing them to a third tie breaking round each, and only losing to scuff like being bounced off a cliff by an invisible object and not being able to see clearly by a slow camera obscuring the path while our opponents caught a lucky baloon pickup from behind to take over (which seemed very unfair to report and demand a reset because they had caught a lucky pickup) https://clips.twitch.tv/CogentBraveFerretPraiseIt-KPBC1Z4uBZhM-YOj?tt_content=channel_name&tt_medium=embed
<center><iframe src="https://clips.twitch.tv/embed?clip=CogentBraveFerretPraiseIt-KPBC1Z4uBZhM-YOj&parent=www.example.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" scrolling="no" height="378" width="620"></iframe> </center>And while we had very close races in each instance very close even at the end of those races, and in one instance I even choked and froze under the pressure of my first ever tournament during a climb we could have caught up and won one of these races, and in the other instance my teammate was invisibly being scuff killed on a lazerbeam she wasn’t touching and then we died for nothing respawning part down the road and this lead to a block causing a further hazzard and further scuff respawns, all on a map with an average time of 1.45 minutes. https://clips.twitch.tv/OilyPolishedMeatloafCorgiDerp-JLVFlEi3TDJAZhfH?tt_content=channel_name&tt_medium=embed
<center><iframe src="https://clips.twitch.tv/embed?clip=OilyPolishedMeatloafCorgiDerp-JLVFlEi3TDJAZhfH&parent=www.example.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" scrolling="no" height="378" width="620"></iframe></center>Of course we didn’t raise these issues as the game does have some desynch issues and these weren’t entirely game breaking and we figured we could still come back from this and get into the finals, which indeed is what we did, from here we rallied and got our determination down, not making any more errors, working our hardest to avoid the scuff of invisible hazzards and setting literally the best times of the tournament and breaking all of our own records by miles, all which you will know if you see our training was avoiding anything dubious or deemed unfair and only playing in ways avoiding major skips and things outside the rules of the tournament avoiding even bending them, where we could have done some other things to be even faster on these maps, and we came back hard.
By their own tournament standards they claim the early races must be “easier opponents” even though the final standings show we were unlucky and faced the stronger ones which we held our own with on close races, and in many instances were ahead of both opponents until things happened, and this therefore states that the later opponents are the “harder” rounds by their own logic, however their system states if you lose your early rounds youv’e lost to “easier opponents” therefore those who beat their easier opponents gain more kudos in the automated tie breaker system. This is completely backwards as those who therefore lost to their “harder” opponents later got more points than us in the tie breakers where we not only defeated our challengers, but we set the fastest times of the entire tournament and defeated them 2,0 and therefore unchallenged wins which should count for greater points for us in a tie breaker situation
However the tournament dictated that those who lost early regardless of forcing them to a third race and regardless of how close or any scuff involved were deemed to have lost to an easy team and therefore must be weaker, but those who lose to stronger opponents must still be strong and those who win the “harder” rounds must be weaker, which is entirely backwards. This lead to teams who won easier rounds against literally easier opponents lower on the leaderboards than us going through to the finals, even though they lost their later races and they lost 2,0 not even taking their opponents to tie breaker situations, so everything was handled backwards.
Any attempts to raise this to the gaming stadium at the time on the discord resulted in several streamers being banned from their discord, claiming that requesting this looked into while the event was still live and there was a chance to put things right was “disrespecting the mods” and therefore got them banned even though all they were doing was raising fairly how the system was completely wrong and how we deserved a chance to play for our position and pointing out how backwards their calculations were.
I then went to email the gaming stadium with a fairly balanced and well noted email on the situation
Their response was quite clearly intended to offend, claiming firstly that my email was difficult to read, which may be associated with differences in language between the uk and the event organizers however it does seem intended to offend and suggest I lack any literacy; and their very short response as with in the discord lacks any care or attention to the situation, claiming they will discuss it with their team but (might) in the future make changes (if necessary) and do nothing to address the clear and apparent failures which arose in this situation, nor make any apology or to put right the loss of both attention to our smaller channels we would have got for rightfully earning our place in the finals in a challenging tournament but also no attempt to make payments for money we would have earnt through our winning positions in the tournament.
It has been two weeks since this email where I requested any attempt to put things right to address the situation and they have chosen to ignore the situation and put nothing right therefore I am forced to raise this issue publicly. You can see for yourself how backwards their calculations were punishing those who got unlucky to lose to strong opponents early while rewarding those who got their 4 wins against weaker ones and then lost to strong opponents later, compared to our team who forced the strong early opponents to tie breakers then still faced strong opponents later and won convincingly, so there were severe flaws with the system and calculations yet they refuse to put anything right nor acknowledge the situation and are happy to brush it under the carpet rather than ever admit to the failures or put anything right.
You can see the full gameplay of the tournament and decide for yourself if this was fair at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1212366428
If you like the look of the game and want to get it for yourself head over to Fling to the Finish on Steam (steampowered.com)