Some thoughts after reading through the rules for the scoring system again. It's too late for this now, I guess, but in case you want to do something similar in the future and be it for another game:
- There are only 4 batches of points to award per category (3x10, 1x20). Expect to see draws...
- Subdividing into categories and then picking map with the most points as the overall winner has an obvious drawback: It's very likely that not the best map overall will win, but instead the one which is only better than the other in its category.
As an example: In category A we have maps 1, 2 and 3. Now, 1 might be okish, but 2 and 3 are clearly worse. It's likely that map 1 gets all points in this category. Now, in category B maps 4 and 5 are brilliant while 6 is still pretty good. So, points might be split between 4 and 5 while 6 won't get any. The overall winner then is the mediocre map 1, even though it might be worse than map 6.
I guess it would be better to have one list only. Problem then is that you have only 4 batches of points to award, so the list won't be very meaningful. So, instead, why not having everybody award 1-10 points (or 1-20 for the tournament finalists) instead of the fixed 10 for their personal choice?
Figure that the subdivision is meant to increase diversity in the mappool, assuming that e.g. urban maps will have a hard time competing with rural maps. However, even with the list you still could give out prizes or include the best maps for each category if that's a concern.
- The popular vote and the tourney is nice, but wouldn't it be better to close the community vote only after the tournament? Let's face it, there will be very few players that actually take a look at all 10 maps or even a fraction thereof. However, during the tournament (which will be casted, right?) they might at least get an impression of them and thus have a potentially better basis (and more incentive) for their vote.
There's some good feedback here for both now and for future events. Thanks for taking the time.
Say if Category A is super competitive and splits the vote between community, expert panel, and Relic Judge, each map would have 10 points before accounting for the tournament vote. If Category B is not as competitive and one map claims victory in all categories, it would have 30 points before the tourney vote.
We are going to remove the "20 points per category" aspect of the tournament finalist vote, and just have the top tourney players vote for their favorite overall map. The overall favorite map would receive 20 points.
In the event of a tie after all voting, we would allow our expert panel to pick their overall favorite map, deciding the winner. We'll update the rules accordingly.
Regarding the community vote, I tend to agree. However, to play devil's advocate, part of me thinks people watching a stream would place too much emphasis on map visuals. I'm also not sure that people watching a caster flicking around the map would be able to form a decent overall evaluation. I'd be interested to get other people's opinions on this point.
For what it is worth, we have had a decent amount of community feedback so far, but more would certainly be better. We will also reach out to people who provided feedback during the supply event and ask them to vote if they haven't done so already.
Thanks very much,
Andy