Difference between revisions of "Tournament preparation overview"

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Introduction

Properly preparing for the alliance tournament is a lot of work. At the same time, this is a game and should be about fun and not about working hard. Our competitive nature will drive us to put in a lot of effort, but that can only carry us so far. This is why keeping the preparation fun and get maximum participation is important. In the end, getting a good result while burning out the corp is not a good thing, nor is having fun but making a fool out of yourself in competition ... at least, not in Agony. After all, we're not Goons.

To meet those two sometimes perpendicular goals, it helps to be organized. This overview is intended to help those organizing the tournament preparation get organized en become efficient and effective at it. It does so by describing processes and roles involved in organizing the tournament while warning them of important pitfalls and passing along any useful information from tournaments past.

This guide and others are mostly written for people active in the tournament organization, but could be useful to others involved to understand why things are done the way they are done.

Phases

The road to tournament glory can be divided up in several distinct phases.

Will we or won't we

As soon as the announcement of the next Alliance Tournament goes up, this phase starts. It phase is run by senior corp leadership. The main objectives are:

• Understanding the Alliance Tournament rules and timing and its implications on current corp / alliance state and activities
• Getting feedback from the corp to see if there is enough corp wise support to participate in the tournament
• Assembling a core group of individuals that will take charge of the preparation effort
• Making a go / no-go choice based

Fleet development & testing

As soon as a decision is made to go ahead with the tournament, a tournament kickoff should be organized to set the wheels in motion. This phase is ran by the tournament leadership with the fleet organizers. The main objectives are:

• designing a large number of possible setups
• testing the developed setups
• refining fleet setups that show promise while eliminating fleet setups that don't

This phase is a critical one. It is important to have a large of number of people involved, both in designing setups and in testing them. It is also important to keep things fun by being efficient (short but useful test sessions) and not to argue too much during testing. Discussion of setups is done either during on the forums or perhaps on vent during other times. It is also important to keep intensity low enough that people still actively PVP in this period of time to prevent people from burning out or getting segregation in the corp between tournament people and non-tournament people. It will pay off later when you need people to show up.

Fleet practice & refining

Once a good number of potential tournament fleet setups have emerged, it's time to switch gears. I think at least 5 setups should be pretty well developed for this phase to start. This phase should be run by tournament leadership combined with the fleet designers and FC's. The main objectives are:

• selecting good candidate pilots for the fleets
• getting FC's / EWO's / pilots used to their fleet capabilities and weaknesses
• refining fleet setups
• defining / refining match strategies: order or primaries / ewar targets, identifying greatest threats that could change those, etc.

This phase is all about maximizing the utilization of a strong setup. There will always be a paper to your rock, but it is important to understand that. This can only be done through extensive practice, getting the execution flawless. Part of this process is blind testing: getting an opponent setup that you do not know until you're in the field, having to adjust to it without changing setups or hours of time to rethink things.

It is a good idea to keep developing the non-selected fleets if you have good ideas about them, since they might still be needed as opfor fleets or perhaps alternative fleets if things go south. It should however not be the main focus anymore unless things change.

The tournament

Once the tournament kicks off, things should already be pretty stable. At least 3 but preferably 5 good setups should be ready to go, pilots and reserve pilots should have their calenders open, ships should be bought for the next weekend. There should still be some time to do some practice if required, mostly to adjust to things coming up during the tournament. This phase is run by the tournament leadership and the FC of the team per match. Some tasks can be delegated, but it should be really clear who, what and when to EVERY fleet member preferable days before the match. Last minute screw-ups are a killer, and whatever can be done to prevent them should be done.

Organization

The complex process of preparing for the tournament can be made easier by setting up a good organization. Having well defined roles helps people focus. Having a structure helps people use the right channels of communication. Together, that creates more efficiency and less "noise". The following roles and structure are one possible way of organizing things.

• Corp leadership: They need to be on top of getting the tournament organization started and participation
• Tournament manager: He is in charge in making sure all things tournament get done.
• Tournament assistants: This is a pool off dedicated people who the tournament manager can delegate organizational task to.
• Tournament guru's: This is a group of experts on PVP in general and Tournament PVP specifically and help the tournament manager make choices.
• Fleet designers: These people design a fleet and drive their development.
• Tournament FC's: These people are looking to FC in a tournament match and need to become involved with the fleet development to learn to use it effectively.
• Tournament pilots: These people are a pool of potential tournament pilots that have signed up for that, so they may get selected as primary or spare pilot in specific roles in specific fleet, and also can get involved with fleet design, development and testing.
• Practice pilots: There people want to be involved in the tournament, but are not specifically looking to fly in the tournament itself.
• Non-tournament pilots: These people have chosen not to be involved in the tournament activities.

It's important to note that people can have multiple roles within this organization, since most are not mutually exclusive.

Processes

The preparation for the tournament consists of a lot of processes, many of which are too trivial to mention. However, there are a couple of processes that deserve special attention.

• Fleet design
• Test / practice sessions
• Tournament match preparation

Important Pitfalls

A list of important pitfalls and how to avoid them in general terms.

Other useful tidbits

Other useful stuff.

Dealing with espionage

Oh noes! SPAI!