There's already been a thread about a bug with rocket start where it applies to people who weren't there at the beginning of a tournament that was addressed. I have a simpler complaint: rocket start exists. Why? It's never been how the tournament point system works. Getting 4s has always mandated winning at least 3 games in a row and I hate the idea of letting players bypass that by joining at the beginning. It makes the scoring based on something other than just how well you play, and I don't like it. Can we have an explanation for this change?
At the very least, this is an annoying change to a very nice point system for tournaments. At worst, it's an active threat to the part of the lichess mission statement that says "no premium features." Rocket Start uses tournament scoring as an incentive to spend as much time on lichess as possible, and to play the tournaments from start to finish. It's an unfair penalty to people who (for example) don't have the time to play a full tournament, and now that there are tourneys with prize money, you could even argue that there's a financial incentive to spending *time* on lichess (aside from there simply being a financial incentive to win chess games, as it was before).
What are other people's thoughts on rocket start? Do others dislike the idea as well?
I think rocket start is a decent idea. Let me explain:
-A big problem of arena tournaments has always been people that join right after the tournamet start. This is to avoid having a tough pairing. With the new system, this is discouraged, because winning gets you less points.
-The first game has always been the least important one, because it doesn't interfere with any streak. Well, now it does. If you join in time, at least.
I think your definition of "premium features" is a bit dubious. The idea of premium features is that you have to pay pay to be able to use a feature, not that you have to invest some more time to be able to get money.
I disagree with rocket start. Sometimes, there is a tournament I want to join but I get there a couple minutes too late. Now, I have a smaller chance of winning because I was a couple minutes late.
To me it seems like overkill, at least in tournaments with few games. If you don't win your first game, why keep playing?
Thanks for the input. I agree with your first reason, regarding people influencing their pairings by joining late, completely, and that's something I hadn't considered at all so thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I don't agree with the second one. First, it's not that the first game is the least important one, it's that any game that doesn't follow a win (whether it's the first game, or the game after a loss) is less important than one that does, because it doesn't interfere with a streak. It's not something that's specific to the first game of a tournament, and it's not something that goes away fully because of rocket start. Second (and more importantly), what's wrong with the first game being less valuable? The fact that you're not risking a streak encourages berserking and aggressive/risky/sacrificial play. It encourages exciting styles of chess that being on a streak discourages, and I think it leads to the start of tournaments being more exciting for both spectators and players.
Perhaps "premium features" isn't the most accurate term for it because it connotes having to pay, but what you described (having to invest more time to be able to get prize money, or even to have an equal chance of winning the tournament) seems to go against lichess ethics as well. Joining at the beginning of a tournament basically gives you the chance for 4 free points (4s instead of 2s for the first two games). If we say for the sake of argument that the average tournament has a winning score of 40 points and that typically a player who would win a tournament would win their first two games, that would mean that your chess performance is responsible for 90% of your result and joining at the beginning is responsible for the other 10%. I think it should be 100% based on your chess, as it was previously. "Premium feature" or not, it's not a nice route to go down.
The argument really boils down to whether preventing people from influencing their pairings by joining late is worth making the tournament result dependent on something other than wins, losses, and berserks. To me, the answer is still no.
thx for the advice.
That comment was in response to what MessyAnswer said; sorry if that was unclear to anyone involved :P
Being the couch potato I am, I was there when thibault was looking for advice for this in a stream. Some of the other ideas were not as appealing, and there was definitely a pretty strong consensus among the people present that there was a problem that needed solving.
Maybe it seems a little overkill now that it's in place, but I can definitely understand why it was done - even if joining a few seconds late doesn't *actually* increase your chances of winning significantly, if people believe it does, it messes with the entire point of pairing people by rating at the beginning. I'd suggest making on-time joiners start their first streak with 2-4 instead of the regular 2-2-4 or the current rocket-starting 4, but I'm not sure if that would really sink in enough to be effective. Just in case by some weird happenstance that actually happens, though, I'm going to go ahead and dub it the Acme start. You know, because it's like a rocket but slightly crappier.
Also, I think that the argument against it based on that it threatens the winning chances of people that can't attend the whole tournament is... dubious, at best. If anything it makes your chances better if the part you join is the first part. I'm pretty sure that if money is involved, you're not going to win anything by only attending part of the tournament anyway. Not unless you're a good several hundred glicko points better than the #2 rated player on the site - very popular tournaments, those.
rocket start deserves rocket finish.
rocket start is free points for early starters as a reward but if you lose please give them back. better give 2 pts to everybody.
rocket start does not bother me much as at least deciders didn't choose to prevent late join, which I abuse.
Rocket start does seem too strong, and can create its own problems. I joined a tournament early this morning so I could get the rocket start, but then got distracted and missed the start by about 30 seconds. My opponent then got 4 points and a streak starter without even having moved a piece!
I think a decent compromise might be to have the first game worth 4 points but that it doesn't start a streak. So someone who wins the first 3 games would earn 4-2-4.
