2020 OCS FEEDBACK

[gogolen]

Time for some annual feedback about the event.

What do you like?
What do you wish was different?


Thanks to everyone who participated this year, and I am sure plenty of you are already wishing it was February .

[Jnapolit31]

Lower clocks - 40:00 per side.
5 months w/ 3 qualifiers each + 1 season-long at-large (still start w/ February)

[rsersen]

Lower clocks - 40:00 per side.
5 months w/ 3 qualifiers each + 1 season-long at-large (still start w/ February)

Agree with both of these. Especially if TMW may still be a thing next summer, or even Nationals in July....be nice to have OCS wrapped by June. And less work for the folks doing foils/prizes as well.

In that scenario, playoffs could then be held between Nats and Worlds in that August/September timeframe. Then fill out the post-worlds winter with stuff like Outrider Cup, Jawa event, etc. before the calendar resets.

[arebelspy]

I also like both of those suggestions.

[TacoBill]

Definitely want shorter clocks. Did we ever get timing data from the Gemp team? It sounded like that was a thing we could get. At least game start/end time.

I figured with Worlds pushing into December this year that we might push back the start date of the OCS, and with that in mind wanted to suggest two OCS mini-seasons (March-May and July-September) where 2 winners/mo and 2 at large qualify. Then you could either combine them into a top-16 or just play them as top 8s.

[Wokling]

I also like shorter clocks, shorter season.

I don't think it's feasible because of the ability to share replays, but I'd be very curious to see what would happen if an entire month of OCS games were private.

[CoffeePass]

For sure shorter clocks; 40 minutes would be amazing.

Kind of indifferent on shorter season -- I really enjoy knowing there is always some competitive SWCCG to play on demand and I enjoyed every month and game of OCS, but I also understand why people prefer it be less.

I would not start later than February; a six week breather between the end of Worlds and the start of competitive play seems like enough. Over 2 months seems like it might kill some excitement. I'd do mid-January.

I like the idea of two mini-seasons with at-large bid standings restarting; more exciting and gets more players who might have a bad month in the first season re-engaged.

Not a fan of private tables, but honestly watching OCS games is one of my favorite things, so I might be a little biased haha.

[arebelspy]

I also like leaving the games open.

The two season idea and resetting for a second at-large bid encourages people to jump back in even if a bad early month tanked them, that's a cool idea too.

[gogolen]

I was thinking if we did 7 months again, then for the At large bid we would drop the lowest score.

So only 6/7 months would count.

[Wokling]

Not a fan of private tables, but honestly watching OCS games is one of my favorite things, so I might be a little biased haha.

I'm curious to see whether that would impact the meta, if at all.

[Hazardville]

Depending on scheduling for the year, I could see doing a more blitz-style OCS with fewer months as suggested. Main reason for that is, if we're getting back to being able to do live majors again, I agree it would be cool if, say, July was Continentals Month, August was Euros, September was MPC, October was Worlds, or whatever, and have OCS be all done before all of that to reduce burnout.

More practically (and sustainably going forward into hopefully more normal situations for the world), I'd prefer to see a long 6 month OCS event broken up into two 3-month seasons with an at-large winner from each, rather than the current breakdown of two-at large winners for the whole thing. 7 months dropping the lowest works fine also (and gives 16 players at the end, which is better for the championship), but it felt like a huge drag trying to get through all 12 games in August when I'm already stone dead for an at-large bid and took my 3rd loss of the month. I think there'd be less of that if we had it broken down into seasons.

Alternatively, if you really want to push people to play a ton, make it 1 winner from each month and fill the rest of the 16 with at-large. That sounds kind of awful to me, personally, given that SOS would decide virtually all the winners, but would be another alternative.

[Echo Base Trooper]

Definitely want shorter clocks. Did we ever get timing data from the Gemp team? It sounded like that was a thing we could get. At least game start/end time.

There isn't data about individual player clocks currently, though we can see if a player times out. Here is some data on the total time taken each game.

Average minutes per OCS game by year:
2018 - 61.8
2019 - 58.4
2020 - 56.2

Percentage of games where one player timed out:
2018 - 1.2%
2019 - 2.2%
2020 - 1.5%

Count of OCS games based on duration in minutes:

Spoiler

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[CRG]

What do you like?

High-level competitive play with stakes (season-long) and incentive (foils, nice that its tiered). But also no judgment if I roll in with something not T1 or otherwise off-meta.

What do you wish was different?

12 games is a lot, perhaps prohibitively so, month after month, to get them in. Would support 8 or 10 as cap. Twelve competitive games in a month, that may not fire off immediately, is two games/five days, which doesn't seem like a lot, but in practice with life, kids, etc. - it's a lot.

[CoffeePass]

Not a fan of private tables, but honestly watching OCS games is one of my favorite things, so I might be a little biased haha.

I'm curious to see whether that would impact the meta, if at all.

Yup, I get that and if it worked out that way, I wouldn't even be opposed to the idea. The problem is I think one month of private games would be too nebulous to know how it impacts the meta as opposed to the very clear cost me losing free entertainment, haha. (Also, as you mentioned, it's just going to empower teams who can share replays even more.)

[rhendon]

Lower clocks - 40:00 per side.
5 months w/ 3 qualifiers each + 1 season-long at-large (still start w/ February)

Agree with both of these. Especially if TMW may still be a thing next summer, or even Nationals in July....be nice to have OCS wrapped by June. And less work for the folks doing foils/prizes as well.

In that scenario, playoffs could then be held between Nats and Worlds in that August/September timeframe. Then fill out the post-worlds winter with stuff like Outrider Cup, Jawa event, etc. before the calendar resets.

TMW was likely a one shot thing online to fill a need for the community. In a normal year with events, I don't think it would be needed.

I was going to check, mainly for Schoenthal since he kind of has a man crush here, on Hunter Pence's game store in Houston and maybe doing an in person event post COVID there.

But I wasn't planning on making this a yearly online thing originally. I'm glad people enjoyed it and if there is a need for another online event, I'll see if I can help run it. I just didn't want to overload a schedule with in person events looking like they'll be back.

[Wokling]

12 games is a lot, perhaps prohibitively so, month after month, to get them in. Would support 8 or 10 as cap. Twelve competitive games in a month, that may not fire off immediately, is two games/five days, which doesn't seem like a lot, but in practice with life, kids, etc. - it's a lot.

Definitely this. 8 or 10 games would be great.

[Kessling]

I agree with shorter clocks and I'm fairly indifferent between 10-12 games but I'd lean 10 games if forced to pick.

I'd push to have the OCS move to a year round event with three or four seasons and a year end championship that is held in January or February. We could tackle this in lots of different ways but I'd argue for having competitive events available year round on GEMP.

[flaminmonkee]

well speaking as a player who has no hopes of qualifying for the playoffs, below is my feedback.

- Wouldn't vote for having any of it be private games. Really enjoy watching other's games and don't have any reason to want mine to be either.

- My vote would be for as many months as possible as long as they all had foils for prizes. I like the prize support... Managed to get all 12 games in every month this year to get all the loot. haha.

- As for shorter clocks whatever is decided is okay with me, but if it is shortened I will probably lose more. I really need to learn to play faster though and I did lose several games because my timer ran out this year in OCS.

- I like having the OCS games to play every month and kind of miss it since it ended. They seem just a little more exciting when playing them, so definitely looking forward to having them back. So I would vote for keeping 7 months.

- Any start time Jan/Feb seems fine to me.

[TacoBill]

Would it be too weird to break the OCS up around other major events? If in a normal year we have 5 majors (Endor in Jan, MPC in April, US Nats in June, Euros in September, and Worlds in October) that leaves 7 other months for the OCS. It just means that the top-16 would need to played during a month of a major, or the season would need to be shortened to 6 months.

[gogolen]

Would it be too weird to break the OCS up around other major events? If in a normal year we have 5 majors (Endor in Jan, MPC in April, US Nats in June, Euros in September, and Worlds in October) that leaves 7 other months for the OCS. It just means that the top-16 would need to played during a month of a major, or the season would need to be shortened to 6 months.

I had a similar thought during my lunch break today.

Feb, mar, may = season 1
July, aug, nov = season 2
Playoffs = dec and January.

Maybe Nov could instead start mid October after worlds so its not as big of a gap.

Just spitballing some ideas here