I have up to one random finger raised towars Plato

Day 2,873, 13:52 • Published in Latvia Latvia • by Tutenis


Greetings!

As you can tell by the title of this article, I`m quite dissatisfied by the way this tournament is done. To be clear, I`m not dissatisfied that Plato gives additional PPs, I`m just disgusted by the way this tournament is constructed.

Before I start, I would like to share the approach I have taken in this tournament. FRAG is the biggest and strongest Latvian MU, we are TOP15-TOP20 worldwide in weekly damage. We have many gold buyers, and even more stash buyers, but we have many nonVISA players, so I had to adjust my approach to this tournament to give everyone an opportunity to have some profit. That brought me to having two +2PP missions(4th and 5th) as cornerstones, while the first 3 missions with +1PP would be as a fillers for those who can`t make to the appointed times for the two “missions of the day” or to hit out excess energy. Sadly dealing with Plato is like preparing a plan for playing a slot machine.

The first major letdown was the poorly done tournament announcement. The tournament itself is a major test for MU commanders[organizing 50 players is no joke], so I think it would be appropriate to at least make the rules clear and understandable, so you know what are you mobilizing your players for. The main phrases in announcement are basically “up-to”, “random”, “secret formula determines that”. I can tell you one thing, I have “up to” one “random” finger raised towards Plato, and I`ll further give you a chance to guess which it is.

OK, the prizes and requirements to complete the missions are not published, let`s assume its normal that commanders are tearing their arses to coordinate 50 players for missions which requirements for completion or rewards they don`t know. “Objectives can`t be deployed after 60th minute”/”Objectives can`t be deployed in epic battles”. Luckily for me, epic battles don`t occur in Latvian battles very often, and even more rarely do they occur before 60th minute. But still, even Guerilla Fights can be started later[below 1400 points, which at MIN means 1:15h into battle], so these rules are clearly based towards not gaining any additional Weekly Challenge income. But WC is not the problem. Everyone who has ever had a need to plan a battle knows, that battles are unpredictable. After 60th minute you can get another 60 minutes of battle[+5 minutes between rounds], which in terms of this tournament, makes objectives quite impossible to accurately plan and coordinate.

First day passes, you think you got this thing under control?

Just when you thought you have everything under control


NO! All of a sudden it turns out that the objective prizes change by each day. On Thursday first 3 missions were with +1PP, today[on Friday] first 4 missions were with +1PP. Whining about additional PP? NO! Whining about the fact that you are planning for a cat in a bag – you don`t know what you are getting.

Plato can make tournaments to contest TOP MUs, but it`s just dumb that everything is hidden in clouds of mystery. Ok, first day is lost because you don`t know how hard objectives are or what are their rewards. Even mechanics of this tournament can`t be fully learned after first day. Cooldown period? We had 3+ hour one this morning.

My point is that it`s just stupid to ask for few people to organize 50 people when you are basically given 0[zzzeeeeerrrrroooo] ground to plan upon. Once again this tournament is built for those who have the capability to start missions as soon as they are deployable. If you want to plan to give your player the best opportunity to profit, you can forget about it – when you will fully understand the rules of this tournament, it will have already ended.

The idea of this tournament was nice, but it was crushed by the greed of Plato. This thing really had the potential[in my eyes] to be the best community tournament ever.

Thank you for your attention!