Changing Multi BLD format?

[omer]

Wait, what? Have you ever seen a multiBLD scrambler randomly throw every cube up in the air individually? I mean, sure, you could do that, but it's extra work for no real reason, and that risks damaging a cube. It's much more likely to have all the cubes in the same orientation, and that orientation is most likely to be white top green front (or white top blue front if the competitor sat on the opposite side of the table).

IMO cubes should be oriented randomly. Having a cube oriented a specific way means the solver knows what orientation it is in which means he can quickly rotate to fit his orientation. This is an unfair advantage, when you solve a cube it should be completely random, you shouldn't know anything about how it's scrambled and how it is oriented.

Regarding the fact that orienting the cube takes some time: if it's such a big problem for a competitor, maybe he should try to become color neutral, otherwise he'll have to rotate the cube.
Becoming BLD color-neutral is crazy, but this is just how it is, that's just how it works. We shouldn't change the rules because of that, cubes should be random.

The only option you thought about to rotate the cube randomly is throwing it up in the air? really? we could have a computer generate a random orientation, just like we do with scrambles, this is really not the problem.

[Mike Hughey]

Regarding orientation issues, I've often received my cubes for multi in an envelope or wrapped in a towel, so that they were fully covered before my attempt. In those cases, I certainly had a random orientation! That happened at US Nationals this year, for instance.

It was a bit of a pain having to remove them from the envelope or the towel, but given that I had a whole hour for the attempt, I really didn't mind the few seconds at the beginning arranging the cubes.

[CarlBrannen]

I don't do this, but if you're going to make such a radical change to the time, I think you should give it a different name. "Fast Multi-BLD", for example, and use the 10 minute time limit. Some meets might include both 10 minute and 60 minute limits.

As far as reducing speed cubing to eliminate stop watches (so as to have all competitions under 10 minutes), I think this is misguided for a number of reasons:

(1) New timers will likely be able to go over 10 minutes.
(2) This puts a limit on how big a cube you can solve in speed competition.

Just because it's "speed" doesn't mean it has to happen in under 10 minutes. A marathon is also a speed competition but takes a lot more than 10 minutes. The bigger cubes are legitimate competitions. I'd like to see 8x8, 9x9 and 10x10 competitions. Heck we should try speed solving the petaminx.

[qqwref]

I've already showed there's nothing wrong with a 60-minute event, but if you guys really want to make a 10-minute multi category, how about this: we add it as a NEW event, alongside the 60 minute one. Yeah, this is also a bad idea (I mean, do we really need another BLD category when speedsolving categories are disappearing?) but at least it's less dumb than scrapping a perfectly fine endurance event just because some people don't like it.

Having a cube oriented a specific way means the solver knows what orientation it is in which means he can quickly rotate to fit his orientation. This is an unfair advantage

Unfair to whom?

Regarding the fact that orienting the cube takes some time: if it's such a big problem for a competitor, maybe he should try to become color neutral, otherwise he'll have to rotate the cube.

Great idea! And hey, if cutting multi from 60 minutes to 10 is such a problem, maybe competitors should just learn to memorize each cube in 5 seconds. Oh wait, no, that's totally unreasonable, just like your suggestion.

We shouldn't change the rules because of that, cubes should be random.

Except that competition rules have *never* been to put all the cubes in a random orientation. Sometimes scramblers randomize the orientation, and it's good practice to expect any orientation, but it's certainly not a rule. Go to a competition sometime and you'll see what I mean. I'm not suggesting we change the rules, you are.

Heck we should try speed solving the petaminx.

Very few people have even bothered doing that unofficially. And the problem with events like that is that it's too hard to get a good puzzle - maybe one company produce it, and if their puzzle is bad, there's no alternative. Even for Gigaminx there is only one acceptable brand - and only a few people have gotten reasonably fast at speedsolving it.

[A Leman]

I've already showed there's nothing wrong with a 60-minute event, but if you guys really want to make a 10-minute multi category, how about this: we add it as a NEW event, alongside the 60 minute one. Yeah, this is also a bad idea (I mean, do we really need another BLD category when speedsolving categories are disappearing?) but at least it's less dumb than scrapping a perfectly fine endurance event just because some people don't like it.

I suggested this Idea 2 pages ago but it was at the end of the page so people missed it. I am glad to see that someone else considered doing this before planing to get rid of an established event.

[Escher]

I'm surprised to see the discourse here is ruled by 'adding events is generally bad' and 'modifying things is bad', when I think adding them should be among it's highest priorities. Diversify and survive, or end up with a pool of stagnant events that are fought over by a small number of hyper-experienced cubers, leaving no room for newer people to catch up.

I don't think I can contribute much that hasn't already been said, but I think adding the 10mins x 3 attempts format would be really good fun, stretching BLD talent in a slightly different direction to what has been done before. Execution stage would be really exciting for a large attempt

I don't think 60min multi should be dropped since it is our biggest and most obvious gateway to other memory sports. Thinking of it, I'm actually somewhat surprised that there hasn't (publicly) been much contact with any memory sports associations.

Besides that, it would be good if this was introduced. The more the community grows and the greater the availability of competitions, I think the more demand there is for a diverse event list.

[cubecraze1]

But is it really needed to have another mbld? This would make it five blind events. It would be more useful to add a more 'wanted' event. If we have spare event spots I think they would be happily replaced with something like skewb. I honestly for the time being we don't need another event. This may happen later on though.

[Ranzha V. Emodrach]

If we have spare event spots I think they would be happily replaced with something like skewb.

There's no such thing as a "spare event spot".
An event's removal does NOT mean that there is a spot to be filled.

The 10m x3 idea is cool. I'm still wondering why a lot of the current official events are even official (like 6x6, 7x7, Clock, 5BLD, and maybe even feet). What separates these official events from the multifarious and already discussed unofficial events? What makes these official events worthy of being official, and what makes the unofficial events unworthy?

[thatkid]

don't change the format

if a competitor really wants to do multi then make them give up their lunch break. That's what I did for 4bld at the last competition I went to

[Ickathu]

I'd be good with us adding a 10minute x 3 thing, but I don't want to get rid of 60min MBLD, since, as already stated, it's the largest connection that we have to memory sports. I think 10min x 3 would be pretty fun, actually.