When is that WPPR Rating challenge thing going to be implemented? Is that still on track for 2018 as well?

Challenge Matches are now available through the MatchPlay Events software.

Here was the announcement from back in October:
https://www.ifpapinball.com/ifpa-partnering-with-matchplay-events-for-ifpa-challenge-matches-and-more/

Get yourself a MatchPlay account and you can go to the Challenges section here:
https://matchplay.events/live/challenges

As you record the Challenge Matches through the MatchPlay software, you'll be updating your MatchPlay Rating. We'll be pulling that data over to the IFPA site at some point once things settle down a bit for us this year.

Not sure I follow -- aren't the January 2018 numbers all for forthcoming "$1/player" tournaments? So those numbers should reflect Whysnow and others that have discontinued their IFPA tournaments this year based on dissatisfaction with the new pricing scheme, right?

Assuming that this holds:

we could then expect the final number for 2018 to be 335 tourneys held (271 US/Canada), still up from 2017 when the $1/player fee wasn't being charged.

Also, http://projectpinball.org/charity-challenge

need to then subtract the approximately 50 events related to SCS (and add-ons associated with them) which were bumped to Jan this year from Feb (previous years).

~221 US based events which is down from the 227 of previous year.

No matter, it will take a few months or more likely a whole year to see if there are any impacts.

I would say even a flat year is a pretty sizable impact from the previous YOY growth trajectory things were on.

First indicator from the public non-IFPA event I hosted is that people want either free beer or IFPA (most would likely appreciate both), but few will turn out just to play pinball for the fun of it...

I have been asked if I would be willing to continue running my events but allow them to be OPT-IN, where a different TD does all the IFPA submission and only takes money from those that want to pay the extra buck and count for that.

At this stage, I will give it a few more events as non-IFPA and then re-evaluate.

that's depressing . . .

I still don't follow the "it will take months/a year to see impacts" point, since any groundswell of anger over the new fees should be manifesting itself already now that the fees are being charged. But I missed the thing about SCS -- so you'd say check again March (since Feb. data will be skewed in the other direction) to see a more accurate picture of year over year changes in events held?

It would be interesting to see the month to month and year to year delta from past years as well, I'm sure IFPA is looking at that since they seem keen on data.

I dont think things like this change are as simple and an instantaneous reaction.

Some people stopped running IFPA. Others see this as a potential space for them to fill in. Some that stopped may eventually re-start. Some that jump at the opportunity may realize it is not worth the time/effort.

I think it will take at least 6 months to see things pan out, and more likely a year since pinball follows a weather dependent annual cycle in most places.

I also think number of events is just the initial # to measure, you should also look at number of players in those events.

There are 2 questions:
1. Are TDs running more/less events?
2. Are more/less players participating in each event?

Does it really matter if event count drops but total player count increases? I think that is likely to happen as many places may realize the effort of running an event for 10 people to play is not time well spent. You could cut your event count in half and draw 2x the players to each one you do run, for a net zero impact and less time spent. PLayers also tend to hunt out the events with a higher base value so the net could be a greater positive player count with decreased event count.

Good point.

You sure think a lot for a Homer!!

homer simpson brain xray (resized).png

Ok... don't get upset. I agree with many of your points.

My main change in events to fund 2018 tournaments is that all games in finals are now quarter drop instead of as previously I did free games for finals.

When is the site going to update with the 2018 state info? Just curious to check out the look with the cap at 20/state, etc.

https://www.ifpapinball.com/nacs/standings.php

We had to re-write the entire process of how the standings are calculated, related to both the dynamic prize pool breakdown that's being calculated on the fly as well as the fact that we're now limiting qualifying to a player's top 20 events.

In prior years it was a simple "Custom Filter" that we manually created and then pulled into the player profiles.

It is on our to-do list for the standings status to show up on the player profile pages at some point. We just have to update how that gets pulled into those player profiles.

In the meantime Steve's link is correct:

https://www.ifpapinball.com/nacs/standings.php

Thanks!

Lol, Wisconsin player #28,,
1 event
Congrats on that dollar Josh!
Get it framed.

Thank the lord

Makes almost zero difference in the actual results. Documented ad nauseam by Josh over on tilt forums.

Perception is a powerful thing

I expect a huge shake up in standings for Michigan in 2018 due to the 20 event rule. Many thanks for implementing it.

It's quite of bullshit I agree. The real problem are in places like Wisconsin were it's illegal to.......

You are the OP. Notice was given when you originally posted about it ten months ago.

i think you missed the

Douche Bag

I dont care about paying the $1 myself.

Funny part is that you are so dense you still cant seem to figure out that I dont agree with charging OTHER people/ new people/ a barrier to entry.

Granted I am playing way less tournaments because I also dont care to donate or host events just so the same top 4 people in the state get an end of year prize pool of 5k. Seems stupid to just add money to their wallet when the top 4 is pretty much already determined.

I’m trying to figure out how to ask this without it coming across as a complaint. Ok... probably won’t succeed. But has it already been discussed how the top 16 in each state get a BIG head start on standings against the rest of the field for the next years SCS? They get points for the SCS that anyone outside the top 16 can’t compete for in the current year. I understand that on the macro level (i.e. multi year standings) that everyone competing in any tourneys has a chance to go for those points... and it makes sense to me that they should get points in the overall standings in some fashion to help rank them in their overall WPPR standing. But, when you are looking at the points in a certain year it would seem to me to create an unfair uphill battle for those not in that group to work against. Maybe this is the wrong thread, but I just noticed it when looking at the initial standings by state for most states that only have the SCS and maybe 1 or 2 more events submitted. Should those points maybe count toward overall WPPR standing, but in the prior year for the yearly standings? Just curious...

"Playoffs" for last year should not count for next year .

Yes been talked about before.
You could hold an event the same day as SCS and gets points. In fact, you could have more players, grade out to 100% and get more points than the players playing in SCS.

Weren't you top 4 last year?

It’s no different than if you hold a closed tournament so I’m not sure if I understand your position fully.

The IFPA allows you to hold a closed tourney with just 16 people at any time and not open it up to the public or disclose the tourney address...in such a circumstance, 16 people would be competing in a tourney and getting points that no one else would be able to obtain. This is the same as the state championship with regards to not allowing it to be open to the public.

"Playoffs" are not the same as not allowing it to be open to the public. just saying.

I don’t run tourneys... but I thought all IFPA tourneys had to be “open” and announced on the IFPA calendar 30 days in advance. I realize address doesn’t have to be disclosed (for protection of people’s basement/home). But I was told you couldn’t cherry pick the participants in a closed fashion. If this is true, it changes a lot. Josh ifpapinball , can you confirm... as I thought you told me differently in a private email.

nope. Did not participate last year.

I think my best finish was tied for 6th place, but that was a few years ago?

You are correct. You cannot host any sort of invitation/Private/reserved event. The only thing we allow is that ADDRESSES are listed as “private” with the understanding people have tens of thousands of dollars of games in their house that they may not want to advertise.

The events however must still be open to anyone and signups must be on a first come first served basis.

Well that’s interesting. I think your first come first serve rule isn’t be enforced in a uniform manner everywhere; I’m not saying this is yalls fault by any means but you should look into it at small events that limit the number of participants to the minimum but are fully committed before they are even listed on your site.

We leave it to the players to self police this rule in their respective areas and have pulled our sanctioning plenty of times (even after the event has been held) if we find out TD’s are not following our rules properly.

If anyone is aware of this happening in their area please contact me about it.

As someone who runs just these types of events in a hot player base area I must say that it is a balancing act, and very difficult to monitor. Obviously I tell people about the tourney and word spreads and things fill up. Sometimes it’s all people I know, sometimes it’s not. Last year I had three people randomly reach out to me via event website who were from another country and who came to compete.

It is a word of mouth thing in a large way, and I’m not sure there’s a way around that without completely restricting these types of events.

I’ve tried doing no sign ups, but the problem you run into there is - not enough people show up because they can’t be guaranteed a spot.

I realize I’m not offering a solution here - just a viewpoint from someone on this side of things.

That makes total sense. That’s awesome you got people from out of the country to show up.

We never limit the number of participants when we host a tourney. The more the merrier. I want to get to 32 at our next event.

Back to the $1 fee, it doesn’t seem to have impacted Louisiana at all thus far. We have more events planned this year than we did last year.

It was really cool they came, shared my games and had a good time.

I don’t believe the $1 will affect anything around here - it’ll just come out of the prize pool from entries.

For the small stakes, larger weekly, the bar owner has decided to pay that out of pocket due to the increase in revenue.

The SCS events aren't worth very many WPPRs as they are limited to 16 people. 1st and 2nd place get decent WPPRs, but after that it's worth very little. Most of the top players won't even have that event count in their top 20 for 2018.

Really? you seem to get a bit worked up over it.

The Oregon State “Chumps” tournament yields more wpprs every year than the Oregon State Champs tournament

They’ve been doing it for three or four years now, same date and time as the SCS playoffs.

How many players qualified for this past SCS based on points from the previous one?

That is not just outright qualifying, but also from beating out someone in 17th.

I took a general glance and quite a few of the less active pinball states, this appeared to be the case.

It is still a very valid point that SCS points for one year should not accrue in the next.

Is that so? I know I would have qualified in 2017 if the 20 event thing had been in force. Even though I had only ten events, I averaged five points per event, versus others who qualified with 40+ events but only 1.5 or two points per.

For a majority of states there's no impact outside of a few seeding changes among the top 16.

For the less active states we still have states that don't even fill all 16 players in their field, so literally ANYONE in that state that wants to play in the SCS Final can.

I evaluate this every year, and while it is possible that someone can leverage their SCS final towards qualifying for the following year, there are a ton of 'Pros' for us that outweigh the impact of that 'Con':

1) It allows us code wise to keep things simple including ALL sanctioned tournaments from a given state, without exception. This includes the endorsement fee dollars that also automatically pull in from 'all events' within a state.

2) This rule is consistent with how we handle the other Circuit/Series that we sanction (PAPA Circuit Final, various City Championships, Nationals, IFPA World Championship, various IFPA Country Championships). These other Circuit/Series offer far more valuable WPPR-tunities compared to the SCS.

3) The fact that there is nothing stopping a much larger group of players from running an event at the same time, same day as the SCS finals actually gives all the other players a chance at a bigger jump start on the SCS standings for the following year (if you assume that the toughest 16 players in the state don't compete in this 'other' tournament). For example Jon Jacob out in Oregon is currently in the top 16 by winning that Chumps tournament where he got to avoid all those top Oregon players in that competition.

We'll continue to revisit these Pros and Cons every year and make changes when we feel it is appropriate.

Sorry to say you are incorrect. The top 16 qualifiers for Wisconsin were exactly the same 16 players in either a capped or uncapped system.

Here's the data:

UNCAPPED:
1 Ryan Spindler 261.74
2 David Daluga 200.49
3 Timothy Enders 176.19
4 Hilton Jones 145.57
5 Bryon Schmitz 145.3
6 Tom Graf 142.34
7 Luke Nahorniak 131.29
8 Paul Okruhlica 130.74
9 Eric Strangeway 121.21
10 Nick Stanton 114.97
11 Matt Ennocenti 111.22
12 Art Dodd 110.96
13 Jimmy Leingang 102.97
14 Jim Radovich 102.61
15 Chris Frame 92.75
16 Ian Seidler 87.71

TOP 20 CAPPED:
1 Ryan Spindler 215.93
2 David Daluga 194.49
3 Timothy Enders 151.23
4 Tom Graf 137.64
5 Luke Nahorniak 131.29
6 Hilton Jones 128.28
7 Eric Strangeway 119.79
8 Bryon Schmitz 111.69
9 Paul Okruhlica 111.05
10 Art Dodd 110.96
11 Matt Ennocenti 109.75
12 Nick Stanton 104.51
13 Jimmy Leingang 96.62
14 Chris Frame 92.75
15 Ian Seidler 86.72
16 Jim Radovich 85.36

Oh that's right, I didn't know what their averages would be for just their top 20 events. Just went by all their events, incorrectly. I just should have made a few more tourneys! Thanks for clarifying, I feel a little better now.

Sadly I'm out for this year...

How long do these credits take to post? I submitted my shakedown money for the tournament and it's still saying I have zero credits. I have a transaction ID and it hit my card.

You're not alone here . . . this is the most popular way that people seemed to translate what the standings "would have been"