Time Trial format changes

[tif]

For me the thing that needs to be cleaned up is the 'cheating' that is so evidently going on during the knockout rounds of TT with players actively going round and checking others times before starting their runs. My personal preference would be to get rid of the big group knockout rounds and make the time trial knockout rounds seeded 1v1 matches like all the other modes in a best of X tracks format.

I don't disagree with the need to stop people from checking other players' times however making 1v1 knockout rounds for a TT competition -regardless of the game- doesn't really make sense to me as the point of the mode is to perform on a track with no in-game interference from your opponent, something that contradicts the very essence of a 1v1 confrontation. I think Lafungo's idea is the way to go as it solves the problem at hand without creating a new one at least none that I could think of.

[KVD]

I'm in favour of the Last Man / Person Standing system that Lafungo has proposed. I also feel that some of the points that have been raised against it have some merits though. If we're really going to expand the KO stage by that many rounds, it will allow (and even stimulate) top players to play more safely through the first ~75% of that. Only one person will get eliminated anyway and you'd need to do very badly at first to be that one. In a way the entire group stage is like that too though, so it's not a huge problem.
Perhaps a system can be devised where at least more than 1 person per round drops off (and perhaps not 1 track but 2 per round?). A bit like a mix of the LM system and the current one, trying to combine the best of both worlds. Though then the next track would need to be started instantly to avoid the screen cheating thing.

i'm not fond of a 1vs1 playoff system though... TT is not a versus mode, so i think it's more logical to compare your perf against all other players (like in group stage)

Agreed with Tif and Cedric here. TT is the opportunity to really have a global competition that allows direct comparisons vs everyone. Doing 1 v 1 systems in TT to me would feel like an attempt to increase variance in an artificial / forced manner.

About the cheating thing, that can very easily be resolved. Just let each KO player have a dedicated timekeeper/referee, exactly as in group stage, and let all players start at exactly the same time. Done. We did this at ASMKC and it worked fine.