Altador Cup XV

[Kat]

Pre-tournament press. To those who haven't collected their prizes from last year, better grab 'em real soon!

Also making this thread because it's been ten years since I last properly participated in the Cup. TEN. YEARS. (I was too busy learning the ways of the lawyerbot to play Yooyuball, among other things.) Has anything changed since then...well, apart from the inevitable team shuffling? Have the prizes gotten better?

Am I going to join Meridell AGAIN this year now that I'm alive again?

[Herdy]

If the last Cup you took part in was ACV... well, bad news for you I guess Kat. ACV was effectively the pinnacle for the Cup, a lot has happened to it since then and the vast majority has not been positive.

ACV was the year they introduced achievements to the games. This was a massive improvement in terms of stopping the grind. Unfortunately, they never returned in ACVI and haven't been used since. ACVI also changed the way Yooyuball works -- initially with a massive control scheme difference, but that was eventually walked back. They changed the way the Staff Tournament worked then, also (this was a good change), so you now pick a weekly 'dream team' from staff and get points on how they do, rather than just picking your favourite.

After that, in ACVII, they completely scrapped the AC scoring system, replacing it with a wildly unpopular brackets system that lasted years. They finally walked back on that in ACXII, but only partially. The Cup format is now back to a single round robin (compared to the original double round robin), but the finals system is still based on the shoddy brackets system. In terms of positives, they included numerical scores on daily results when they switched to brackets, and these have been kept (although they are a percentage across all teams for a day, so are misleading).

Outside of that, captchas have now been introduced on side games to try and curb cheaters (organised cheating groups for a number of years effectively decided the podium). It has mostly worked, but unofortunately captchas make bulk playing side games very annoying/time consuming.

Prizes are okay, but not really worth the grind to get them now. To get top prizes, you are now expected to go well beyond All Star ranking (All Star in itself has been made much easier to get). Trophies are now also largely based on your personal stats rather than your final team placing, which is a plus.

[Kat]

Whoof. The times, they are a-changing. *sits down* (Kat, what did you expect from ten full years?) Thanks for the recap, Herdy. Yeah, my last real participation was in ACV based on my lookup and I couldn't even reach All-Star because college was beating me into the ground.

I vaguely remember signing up for ACVI (or another subsequent season) and not being able to adapt to the new Yooyuball controls so I didn't play at all that year. At least they walked back on that one. But wow, that's a lot of crazy changes. ACV was fine the way it was (except for the part where it was grindy but the AC is generally pretty grindy anyway) but at least I don't have to worry about how my team places in the end and I can be a bit more chill with playing.

Ugh. Why do cheaters have to ruin everything with their cheating. Captcha on side games...SMH.

Guess we'll see what the prizes will be this year, might just wind up buying them from sellers if I'm interested in some.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Of course, with the Yooyuball update (even with the walkback to using mouse controls), probably everyone now despises the Darigan Yooyu. Why? Well, mainly because it goes off in a random direction when firing the Yooyu instead of going in the opposite direction. If you get one, good luck trying to score a goal because it's near impossible with the mechanics (and giving the Darigan a reputation as a time killer).

[Liou]

I'll take a DariYoo over a Snow Yooyu any time!
At least the DariYoo is only up to me to score as the other team can't score with it either.

My least favourite thing about Yooyuball as it is now is the "charging" mechanic of enemy players basically tackling the Yooyu out of your hands. (Maybe that's done in your Murican sportsball but that is improper and unacceptable in European sportsball!)
And as soon as they "charge" there's smoke everywhere and I can't even see who has the Yooyu anymore, and if you try to take it back from them they... steal it again immediately? Scoring goals is rewarding, wrestling for the tiny ball against a team that can move all its members at once is no fun.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

For anyone who would like to practice Yooyuball before the season starts, you can play the mirror game here: www.neopets.com/~AnnEstelle

My trick to scoring with the Darigan Yooyu is to take the ball, move into this position and then just stand there and let the other team steal it:



Once they steal it, move up slightly so you're out of the way. Keep doing this until they eventually kick it backwards into their own net. I haven't found any other reliable way of scoring with the Darigan Yooyu lol.

[Kat]

During ACV and earlier, I tried to reverse whatever I was doing with the Darigan Yooyu or something. Doesn't always work, but I do keep the other team from scoring with it.

But yeah, since when did tackling become part of Yooyuball? Pretty sure it's not based on 'Murican sportsball with all the HIKE-ing and the lines in the field. Granted, I used to try and score a goal as soon as I could, tackling or no, but that's going to add an extra layer of pressure.

Holy cannoli, I really miss ye olde days now.

[Twillie]

How long has tackling been a mechanic in the game? Goes to show how much I play Yooyuball, I never even noticed that before xD

[Herdy]

Tackling is the weird exhaust trail effect that happens when the enemy steals the Yooyu.

YYB is meant to be a fusion of lacrosse and soccer, so it makes sense for there to be tackling. I think it has always been in the game? Just without the special effects going on in the original versions.

[Liou]

I noticed the tackling a few years back (can't remember when) as it suddenly became so bad that I had to change my way of grabbing the new Yooyu at the start of a round. If my player grabs the Yooyu first, the opposing team player is definitely going to charge immediately and steal it and kick up a cloud of dust and waste plenty of time, whee. The only way to play now is to wait for opposing player to grab the Yooyu and then tackle it from them, and it didn't use to be that way back in the good old days, no, kids! *shakes cane*

My way of dealing with the Darigan Yooyu is to have my player move vertically up or down in front of the goal, like, parallel to the goal and perpendicular to the direction you'd normally be shooting in.

Then I shoot towards... uuuh. I think I throw the Yooyu straight ahead of my player?
And it has a high chance of going diagonally behind me just at the best angle to pass the goalie.

I'd say this works 40% of the time, and is easy to try several times in a row since the opposing team can't pass the Yooyu between themselves and usually just shoot it into a corner from which I can pick it up unimpeded.

And honestly,

scoring with a Darigan Yooyu on your first try is

extremely satisfying. C:

[Kat]

I thought the stealing was really only stealing like in basketball or something. Goes to show how much I know about sports. I need to make a mental note of that in case my screaming inspiration decides to slug me in the face with an AC-related story. I only ever wrote one and that was when everyone was speculating on which team the Techo Fanatic supported.

+1 on scoring with a Darigan Yooyu on the first try though.

EDIT: Nice to know Meridell's doing fine and Windelle is still around. I used to be a huge Windelle fangirl. (Kat, you fangirl way too many Meridellians. Stop that.)

[Liou]

I was curious, so I did a bit of casual, amateurish counting.

Out of the 90 players of the 18 teams in total, we have 26 ladies and 64 fellas, for 28.89% and 71.11% respectively.
Out of 18 team captains, we have 5 ladies and 13 fellas, respectively 27.78% and 72.22%.
We have 3 teams with a 4M/1F distribution, 7 teams with a 3M/2F distribution, 3 teams with a 2M/3F distribution, and 5 all-M teams.
Out of the 3 teams that have 3 out of 5 female players, one also has a female team captain.

(This is based on last year's team rosters, so this may change if a roster change is revealed after the press tour!
This is also based on genders that were explicitly assigned to players in team bios.
In this year's press tour, Kiko Lake's Meela Kitah was referred to with a "she" pronoun despite having been a male-assigned bubblegum-pink orb of kickbutt previously, not sure if this is a deliberate change.)

[Allison]

Last year, I didn't sign up in time, which means I've lost any "consecutive years" awards, and since I normally do well to get to level 1, I'm not sure if I'll worry about it this year either. *shurgs*

[Herdy]

The reward isn't for consecutive years, as far as I remember -- just total years you've participated.

[Kat]

May 22, 2020 14:54:21 GMT -5 Herdy said:

The reward isn't for consecutive years, as far as I remember -- just total years you've participated.

Sooooooo we can all imagine where that leaves me.