Board 8 > It's quite unfortunate how some brackets still do match-ups the wrong way

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you have 16 seeds, for example, it shouldn't be arranged this way:
(1) vs. (16), (2) vs. (15), (3) vs. (14), ..., (8) vs. (9)

Rather, it should be arranged as such:
(1) vs. (8), (2) vs. (9), (3) vs. (10), ..., (8) vs. (16)

That way, lower seeds actually have a chance and not get obliterated by the first match.

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it seems to me you are unclear on the concept

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From: CherryCokes | #003
it seems to me you are unclear on the concept

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It should actually be 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4, ...., 15 vs. 16 so each match will have a close competitor.

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what is this i dont even

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You guys are just amusing.

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Is this a joke.

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I know it would make the first round so much more unpredictable instead of a snoozefest.

pjbasis posted...
I know it would make the first round so much more unpredictable instead of a snoozefest.


You're joking, too, right.

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or not

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I'm not really invested one way or the other in seeding, so it's all good to me. I'm just wondering when we'll see people explaining their opinions in this topic.

I guess since the goal is to get to the winner, they figure eliminate the weakest characters fast as possible? But yeah, that is a bit less interesting, and its fun to see underdogs go far, which they won't against Link.

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1/9
5/13
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3/11
7/15
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2/10
6/14
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4/12
8/16

Much close R1 matches than the traditional and still gives top 8, 4 and 2 seeds in the quarters, semis and final respectively. The benefit the usual format gives is that the #1 seed has the easiest path through every round (before upsets), this gives closer matches.

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Seems good to me.

You go, nintendogirl1!

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Oh, I am one yet many.

The above looks good on paper, but it also assumes that every seed is a perfect match for said seed, which isn't always the case.

1/16
2/15
3/14
4/13

Yeah, those may be blowouts, but

5/12
6/11
7/10
8/9

In theory are all much more interesting matchups. If you're going with the theory that the seeding is perfect, then in your idea, all 8 matchups are going to be equally as entertaining... But never have anything standout. With the traditional, while four of the matchups may be easily predictable, you also have four matchups that are LESS predictable than the 8 in your proposed scenario. And as for entertainment factor... The first four can even prove to win out there, too. What's more exciting... A 16 potentially giving a 1 a run for its money, or a 9 potentially giving the 1 a run?

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Link vs. Saki Konishi
Link vs. Squall Leonhart

Hmm, I wonder...

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Oh, I am one yet many.

Raka_Putra posted...
Link vs. Saki Konishi
Link vs. Squall Leonhart

Hmm, I wonder...


You don't comprehend what I'm saying.

Assume both do well against Link. Which is more exciting to see happen? Obviously, the less likely one. I mean, in your scenario, Link is going to win either way... So why not hope for the bigger upset since it's more exciting?

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Wait, Saki would probably get like 14 seed or something.

Maybe someone much more obscure...
Uhh...Girardot? Nope, must think of an obscure game...
Rekareka, perhaps.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

Because there's significantly less chance of an upset.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

The point is pretty simple. Whether against a 16 or a 9, the 1 is going to win more often than not, anyway. But why sacrifice the excitement of the 8 vs. 9, 7 vs. 10, 6 vs. 11, and 5 vs. 12 matches to have much less exciting 8 vs. 16 and so on? Just to say "Hey, the 1 may win by slightly less?" The 1's probably going to win, anyway, so I'd rather have other exciting matches and hope for a 16 over 1 upset, because those are just insanely awesome when they happen.

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The miracle never happen! Your resistance is futile, bro.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

Oh, you're not being serious.

Maybe ngirl will at least reply and have a reasonable debate, then.

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In a single elimination tournament with no bye's that's statistically the best way to assure the strongest participant is victorious.

That's the point of this particular format.

I'm serious!

What psychward said. I've participated in a debate competition who uses this system instead of the (1) vs. (16) and so on nonsense.

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Seeding isn't about giving lower seeds a chance.

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Then what it is about? Propelling the first seeders to win so you can get money from lottery or something?

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We could do a losers bracket alongside the winners like they do in Street Fighter tournaments. Might be a bit too complicated though.

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Single Elimination tournaments are a flawed method of determining a champion regardless of the matchups.

Although I will say gamefaqs character and game battles work pretty well. The obvious favorites are almost always in the finals barring hardcore vote rallying/stuffing.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Well...
I should have mentioned that I'm referring to tournaments held by GameFAQs users here...

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From: Raka_Putra | #001
Rather, it should be arranged as such:
(1) vs. (8), (2) vs. (9), (3) vs. (10), ..., (8) vs. (16)

(8) goes up twice huh

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So basically what you're asking is, since we already have a pretty good idea who's gonna win these things why not make the rounds in between a little more interesting by playing around with seeding and matchups?

If that's the case I have no idea. You'd have to ask some of the people on here that have followed these contests more closely.

Maybe that's what cokes was hinting at with his initial response

From: Raka_Putra | #026
Then what it is about? Propelling the first seeders to win so you can get money from lottery or something?

In most situations it's about giving the highest seeds the best chance, because they earned that spot.

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kurtfisto posted...
From: Raka_Putra | #001
Rather, it should be arranged as such:
(1) vs. (8), (2) vs. (9), (3) vs. (10), ..., (8) vs. (16)
(8) goes up twice huh
Whoops, should've been
(1) vs. (9), (2) vs. (10), (3) vs. (11), ..., (8) vs. (16), thanks for pointing that out.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

It basically comes down to... 1 vs. 9 and on gets the low seeds out while providing a mildly entertaining first round.

1 vs. 16 gets the low seeds out while giving us more likely exciting matches in 8 vs. 9, etc.

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From: CherryCokes | #003
it seems to me you are unclear on the concept

I mean really, the way you have it set up, you're better off underperforming and getting an 8 seed intentionally. Not much point in going for a higher seed if it gives you a more difficult opponent.

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From: Rad Link 5 | #037
I mean really, the way you have it set up, you're better off underperforming and getting an 8 seed intentionally. Not much point in going for a higher seed if it gives you a more difficult opponent.

Yeah this is definitely a concern when the gap in strength between one seed and the next is not uniform.

1 vs 9 and 8 vs 16 sounds fair, because every upper seed faces a lower seed 8 places below them, so the gap between the upper seed and the lower seed is uniform. But suppose the top 10 are all very close in strength, and there's a huge gap between them and the bottom 6. Now #1 and #2 are facing a bigger challenge than #3 through #8, because their opponent is closer in strength.

This punishes the upper seeds for being the best and encourages them to throw whatever competition the seeding is based on so they get a lower seed and draw a weaker opponent. If the should-be-#1-seed intentionally underperforms to get the #8 seed, but the other competitors don't then they get ranked higher and face tougher opponents.

1 vs 16 and 8 vs 9 ensures that the bigger strength gap favors the higher seed in all situations, thus ensuring honest competition at all levels.

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Well, I guess I kinda see the point.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

It also encourages the lower seeds to perform well. You would want to avoid ending up as the 16 seed if at all possible under the normal seeding system. Under your seeding system, the 9 seed faces the 1 seed instead, while the 16 seed only faces the 8 seed. You run into a position where everyone would rather get the lowest seed they could get while still making the tournament so long as they don't get the 9th seed.

8/16 would be the most desirable spots. Followed by 7/15. Then 6/14, 5/13, and so on. Not only does this not really make sense, since seeds are supposed to reward performance, it creates a situation where since people aren't striving for the top seeds, and would rather underperform and get lower seeds, making the seeds utterly meaningless.

Further, if we throw all that out, and pretend competitors would still strive for the top seeds even though it wouldn't benefit them, there's still another problem. It's much easier for a 16 seed to pull a fluke against an 8 seed than a 1 seed. So the 16 seed makes it out of the first round, even though they may not necessarily be more talented, and they're faced with higher seeds now. This lowers the level of competition in the later rounds. Whereas the first round was perfectly balanced, with everyone facing a seed 8 spots lower or higher, we could end up with gross mismatches from the second round on, potentially making the first round the most exciting. Worse yet, it's much more possible in this format to have a large number of upsets in the first round, which could lead to the rest of the tournament featuring lower seeds, probably competing at a lower level. A tournament should, ideally, get more competitive and exciting with each round.

To make a long story short, your method of seeding encourages anarchy rather than honest competition.

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I'm to used to seedings that are decided by the amount of people who nominates it.
tl;dr I don't watch sports.

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Oh, I am one yet many.

I suppose it is worth noting that Major League Baseball actually uses Raka's scheme. However, there's more to it than that. Only 4 teams in each league even MAKE the playoffs, so there's not a huge benefit to underperforming to get a lower seed. At best, in the first round you will face a team seeded 1 position lower than you otherwise would have. Usually, competition for playoff spots is fierce enough to keep everyone honest; no team will risk missing the playoffs to obtain a seeding advantage. Plus there is home-field advantage, which goes to the higher seeds and is significant enough to outweigh any advantage that could be gained by gaming the seeding system.

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It would admittedly be different in GameFAQs Contests where we're all blindly nominating people and have no idea where anyone will land seeding-wise. But it could still create a problem with weaker entries filling up the later rounds and giving us a lot more late tournament shut-outs than usual. Also seeding is atrocious in GameFAQs Contests anyway. Plenty of people end up way over or underseeded, making any attempts at balancing the match-ups pointless.

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There's a much simpler way to justify the way that each seed is placed. Imagine we start with a blank tournament bracket, and the highest seed remaining chooses it's "slot" in the bracket. The 1 seed doesn't care since they're all the same when the whole thing is empty. But when the 2 seed picks, are they going to pick to go up against the 1 seed in round one, and potentially be bounced from the tournament immediately? Probably not. So they take the position that is farthest away from #1.

When #3 picks, they have to be on the same side of the bracket as either #1 or #2. Given that, they'll side with #2, but still go to the opposite end to avoid them for as long as possible. When #4 picks, they take the last remaining part of the bracket that keeps them from running into a higher seed before round 3.

As 5-8 pick, they will have to deal with the top four seeds in round 2, but they're going to choose the best match-up for themselves along the way, so the 5 picks the position near the 4, so 6 takes near 3, and 7 goes by the 2, and 8 is stuck next to the 1. But at least they get one good match, right?

And then 9-16 take the same logic as 5-8, except they're choosing the best first round match they can give themselves.

From: Dauntless Hunter | #042
I suppose it is worth noting that Major League Baseball actually uses Raka's scheme.

This is not necessarily true. The wildcard is always going to face the top seed not from their division. So yes, while 1 can face 3 instead of 4, it's not really up to them.

Further, if 1 is facing 3 instead of 4, dropping from the 1 seed to the 2 seed would still pit them against the 3 seed.

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Pro sports playoffs aren't really comparable. Many of them do it very differently from a standard elimination tournament. Hockey repairs the 8 teams based on seedings so the highest seed remaining always gets the lowest seed remaining. (Was pretty amusing a couple years ago when the 7 and 8 seeds got to the east conference finals since 8 had to go through #1, #3, and #5, while 7 had to go through #2, #4 and #6, or something like that.)

In football, the top two seeds get a bye in the first week. The seeding is also determined strangely since the top four seeds are automatically the four division winners, while the 5 and 6 seeds are the two wild cards. Last year, this meant the Seahawks were a higher seed than the Saints or the Packers, who had substantially better records, because they were in a pathetically weak division.

In baseball, I'm not sure of the exact policy, but I believe the wild card gets the team with the best record, while the other two division winners face. The winners advance to face each other. I honestly couldn't care less about basketball, so I have no idea how they do it in the NBA.


It's also worth noting that in each case except for the NFL, the match-up is determined by more than one contest. They're best of 5 or best of 7 matches. In our vote-off tournaments, official GameFAQs or user-run B8, there's little point in rerunning a match 5 times since they'd come out the same each time.

Basketball does standard elimination.

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Ew, the NCAA tournament would be such a mess with this seeding setup.

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From: Rad Link 5 | #045
This is not necessarily true. The wildcard is always going to face the top seed not from their division. So yes, while 1 can face 3 instead of 4, it's not really up to them.

Further, if 1 is facing 3 instead of 4, dropping from the 1 seed to the 2 seed would still pit them against the 3 seed.

Yeah I saw that as I looked back at more seasons.

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I wouldn't necessarily call the MLB system flawed for always making the wildcard the lowest seed, either. MLB's system is meant to put an intense focus on winning your division. There wasn't even a wildcard for the longest time, and once it was added, it was controversial for making winning your division less crucial.

Now Major League Baseball is considering adding a second wildcard, and a lot of people would only accept it if the second wildcard had to play the first wildcard in a one/three game playoff, just to ensure it doesn't further diminish the importance of winning your division.

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