Teams solving 2 questions and not qualified: You seem to be the ones bitching the most. Let's get real. This contest is meant for choosing the best Indian teams we can find for world's, and not to appease your egos. While ICPC does try to maximize college participation (which is why the first 2 questions even exist. What? Were you feeling very accomplished after solving those?), the overall goal of the contests is to identify the best possible teams. Any decent team would have probably solved atleast one of the last 3 questions Yes, people have bad days sometimes, but please be realistic. ICPC is meant to be a team contest, and I find it hard to believe all 3 of you were having a day day together. I sympathize with you if you were the carry of your team and had a bad day, but that is obviously not the way to approach team contests. There were teams in your college who either solved more questions than you (in which case you better not be ranting here), or just did it faster (in which case they are equally, if not more, competent) and are probably better suited to be representing your college at the regionals. Would having an additional easy-medium question have changed the outcome for you? Maybe. Maybe not. You surely can't be delusional enough to believe that the team from your own college which beat you wouldn't have benefited from that question as well. I'm fairly certain that all teams which stood a chance at world's have made it through with the current question set.
Teams solving 1 question and not qualified: I honestly don't think you should be ranting. I can attribute 2 questions to a bad day. But 1? Seriously? 3 people, 3 hours, and the whole internet at your disposal, and the best you could do you was 1 super easy question? Yes, the team that did qualify from your college also did so at just one question. But why do you even care? I am fairly confident that you (or them) are not at a level where your participation in the regionals would have mattered for the world's. Two more words for you: Git gud.
Teams breaking monitors: You seem hurt. Relax. The contest will probably have a replay round soon with the same questions. You should all probably just sit down individually and attempt the questions you couldn't solve with a calm head. They really weren't that hard.
You seem to miss the point. More problems would mean smaller variance, randomization.
"This contest is meant for choosing the best Indian teams we can find for world's, and not to appease your egos"
I think the goal is to choose a big number of teams, not really the few best ones. And the other goal is to popularize the contest and make more people participate. Both are done poorly if there is a small number of problems, and ties are often decided by a wrong submission in an easy problem.
"More problems would mean smaller variance, randomization." We were able to solve 3 questions with no difficulty (as, I am sure, is expected of any decent team who is at all serious about trying for worlds), the fourth one with some effort, and barely missed out on the fifth one. I personally feel the difficulty was fine to allow the best serious teams from all colleges to distinguish themselves from the "lets write attended ICPC regionals on our resume" teams. Do have a look at the statements if/when they become available and decide for yourself if you have not already done so (Sorry, but it is really easy to be swayed by the masses).
"I think the goal is to choose a big number of teams, not really the few best ones. And the other goal is to popularize the contest and make more people participate. Both are done poorly if there is a small number of problems, and ties are often decided by a wrong submission in an easy problem." Why does the contest need to be a people pleaser? Like I mentioned above, the gradient was fine to allow all serious teams to move forward. The noise is coming from teams who might have benefited from question 2.5, but they probably won't have had any impact on the final world's roster.
I have seen the questions (ref if you didn't see before). Yes, I agree that these problems should be relatively straightforward if you aim for the highest ranks. (Disclaimer: I didn't read the last problem as it was a bit lengthy.)
The issue is somewhere else. From what I understand, a few hundred teams (say, 500) are meant to qualify from this contest, and this exact contest should allow the organizers to pick them fairly (and most conveniently, not depending only on your performance in the first 20 minutes of the contest). About 20 teams managed to stand out from the pool of thousands of teams. Nice. But what about the remaining 480 or so? You won't probably maximize the overall enjoyment of the contest by pleasing the best of the best only.
I agree with Errichto on the issue with the number of problems. In fact, every other contest here on Codeforces is met with rage on the problem difficulty distribution. This isn't bad here on Codeforces as any difficulty randomization usually averages out over a large number of contests. But eliminating the variance is essential if the contest decides on your future.
Do you think it's fair 30-300 ranked teams all solving 2 problems?
No, it is not. But do you think having a question in between would have changed anything except which team from XYZ college comes to the regional and has absolutely no impact on the worlds selection?
You might consider that World Finals is not the sole purpose this contest.
exactly
Most of the teams know whether they will reach finals or not. Then why do they give qualifiers..?? If you are not top class in something won't you even try it...?? In that case only masters or grandmasters level people should give qualifiers... This is wrong.
Regionals must have given exposure to those teams which will always be beneificial for next icpc..
wtf, this is extremely negative thought process indeed , what you will say that a expert,specialist should have no joy to participate, nothing to achieve if gennady korotkevich is participating , it always comes with time desire and hard work