UC Rewards Leveling

[Frosty]

Keep the discussion focused. Attempts at derail will be deleted.

There were some posts regarding UC rewards that brought up some interesting concerns. Let me paste them here.

I'm hardly arguing that reffing an 8v8 brawl round is simple, but do we really need to be awarding more than a whole TLRs worth of counters for 1-2 hours work in these 2 round, flavouless matches? Didn't we used to have a brawl cap for referees for a reason?

I agree with Deadfox on this. On one hand, a large part of a referee's worth is perseverance - you are paid because you regularly did your job over a relevant span of time. If you get a ton of UCs for only a couple hours of work, something goes amiss here.
On the other hand, it is a matter of balance. I'm all for seeing referees earning 30-50 UCs when they deserve it. But if they can earn them overnight, this could be... how can I say? Unbalanced? You get the idea.

Zarator brought a very valid point that I think deserves to be considered: Time and perseverance. Refs are paid for the actual job and for their willingness to keep on reffing until the end. That is why if the guy is subreffed, he gets no counters even considering the work already done.

If you compare a 8vs8 Brawl with a 8vs8 Singles, the perseverance needed for the latter is MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than for the former. Even if we consider that both use roughly the same ammounts of rolls (that is a wrong premisse, for the reasons stated here), the brawls will take from you much less time and will need of you less commitment to the deadlines and all than a singles. Same thing goes with triples vs singles, so it isn't necessarily a problem with brawls, but with the UC system as a whole.

One other argument passes through the types of battles we want to promote here. If a 8vs8 Brawl and 8vs8 singles end up with the same counters (and they do) and one ends in 5 hours and other in 3 months (at least hahaha), which one will you take (as a ref or as a battler)? That is the reason why we had a gazillion 8vs8 brawls begin and finish over the past weeks, while we only have 3 13vs13 (no 8vs8 mind you) singles still going. Sure, for that last question the answer is pretty subjective. If the community wants to emphasize brawls or wants people to train their mons really fast then it is doing the job for it, I guess?

In the other hand, there is always the problem involving the time needed to train a mon through the more...usual ways. Without fast tracks like Brawls and Flash Matches, a team for a Gym will need quite some time to be done from scratch. Which isn't necessarily bad, but something to be considered. Although, TBH, the ones using the brawls are the ones that can afford to be more patient. The quality of their teams and their needs don't bring any kind of urgency to training the mons (and of course I include myself here).

If you are talking strictly about "fairness" then yeah I agree that giving the same ammount of counters for a 8vs8 brawl and for a 8vs8 singles is absurd. There is a reason why we had KO Bonus divided by the number of pokemon per side. We lost that with the new rules and I think we shouldn't have as it gives a nice bonus to the people that are willing to undertake a commitment to be active on the next 3 or 4 months (which is probably the hardest part in reffing). BUT it is worth mentioning that a nerf to brawls probably should come with the actual implementation of self-reffing or other "fast track" (maybe not as "fast" as those brawls) for training. So all needs are covered somewhat.

Maybe recreating some kind of KO bonus (or KO penalty haha) instead of just putting a cap will solve the problem (assuming there is one)? I mean, even if we lower the cap to 25, people will still have 6vs6 brawls like the crazy community that we are.

As someone who just refereed three 8v8 brawls in the past three days, there is no denying that they are a ton of work. It takes two hours at minimum to do the first round. Once all is said and done, it takes around three to four hours to referee one of these puppies. They are certainly worth 45UC, so there is no issue there. However, Frosty is right that putting a cap on them won't solve anything. People hunting for counters (me) will find the next highest bidder and spam it to strengthen our Pokemon. There is no way to stop this. People in ASB raise their Pokemon competitively, so if they have the freetime, they will find a way to utilize it to get counters.

If we want to "fix" this, my case has always been that we need to emphasize what's important in ASB and make those our "highest bidders" in terms of both counters and referee payout. Getting under 50UC for a TLR run over months is ridiculous when I can do the crunch in one night (on my own time) and get the same results. I don't think it's unreasonable to make a TLR worth around 100UC. The referees are adding flavor, doing varied updates, (often) making new TLRs, and expected to battle as top-class battlers. It can be exhausting work that is really worth more than it is getting paid. Hall, Arcade, Pike, Gym, and Tournament refereeing should all see an increase in pricing, since those are our most important events, in my opinion.

I s'pose it depends where you want the referees looking to strengthen their team go. If you don't care, I will spam 8v8s or whatever variant to get my UC. There's no need to putz around here; let's entice the referees to work on our most highlighted events with suitable prizes.

Also yes, can we please get self-refereeing going? It's been quite some time since my proposal was implemented,akela. If you're too busy, I wouldn't mind taking the program into my own hands.

Yeah, I more or less agree with everything Birkal said; the issue here isn't the amount of rewards that Brawls get, and capping them somehow won't really help. The issue is that the UC payment system as it stands only looks at the number of Pokemon, and completely ignores how long the match takes. If you have a 3v3, it doesn't matter if it goes for two rounds or ten, you still get 10 UC, which is a fair number for a 3v3 Triples but feels really low for a 3v3 Singles which, while less work per round, will go on for much longer. In the time it took that ref to ref those ten rounds of singles, he could have had at least 5 1v1 flashmatches for 15 UC, and possibly more than that. I feel like the ideal UC payout system would be a function of number of Pokemon per side (a round of triples should certainly be worth more than a round of singles, and a round of a brawl should certainly be worth a fair bit) and the number of rounds in the match. My first thought was 2 UC per round of singles, 4 per round of doubles, 6 per round of triples, going on up to 16 per round for an 8v8 brawl. Numbers probably need to be tweaked, but I would like to see what people think of a system like this, while we're talking about UC payout (again).

Payment per round or per action (I used to defend per roll, but now I think it is just silly) was already discussed here (warning old): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/referee-payment.3476960/

Personally I am all for it (it = payment per round with a "round is only considered a round if there are at least X non-chill actions" rule so dedication is rewarded as well as work itself without it being so prone to abuse), but it involves reviving a heated discussion over a matter that will probably never bring something 100% acceptable, so continue at your own peril.

That aside, I agree with part of what Birkal said. Referees (and players) will all go towards what pays them better, that is logical and natural and won't ever change. So there will always be a "hey there are too many *insert type of battle here* around!" comment. The matter at hand is changing what that battle is. Personally I wouldn't mind if 6vs6 singles are everywhere. Or TLRs. Or Gyms. Definitely not Brawls as their competitive value is iffy <_<;.

The issue here is defining how much work is necessary to be granted 45 (any number really) UC. There is no right answer here, but only a majority's opinion or guideline. Personally I don't think that a 8vs8 brawl is worth 45 UC considering the value of the UC in our current system, simply because it is more than twice the UC from a 5vs5 singles and you can bet that it is easier (or more desireable) to ref a brawl than a 5vs5 singles, considering all factors involved (mostly dedication and staying on DQ regardless of weather and patience with battlers that take too long to order).

But if you take the number "45UC" and consider only it, well, the conclusion is that it is not THAT many UC. With the ridiculous power creep we have got into (result of 3 years of training maxing lots of mons from older people and other people running to catch up to them), a pokemon is only somewhat useful (or that is the message we pass at least) after 50 relevant moves, and that costs around 100UC or so (a bit less, but not much less) and if you are going for a gym, chances are that you are going for the maxed or almost-maxed status, since hey, that is where the leader is! Same goes with everything other than Raids and maaaaybe TLRs to some extent. Sure many people try gyms with less moves and are successful, but that is becoming rarer and rarer.

This power creep means that the value given to the UC is really really smaller than it was a couple years ago. Back when I left, in 2012, 40UC was a shitload of UC. Now it is something many spend on everyday claims. People need much more UC today to compete in the "high level" battles we have here. In that perspective, then 8vs8 Brawls maybe are indeed worth 45UC....and other battles are worth much more than that!

But again if we upgrade the payment system as a whole, we will risk reaching the "boiling point" sooner. By boiling point you read: the point where people have the pokemon they want with all the moves they want. And when we reach that point, we will either focus solely on high level matches (and become more elitist towards newbs) or we will leave. So it isn't just a matter of "raising everything up to fill in our needs". Maybe our major need is to learn to be patient <_<;. Or making the system more...friendly to patient trainers?

...all the above is way too confusing for my own good. Even I can't understand it @.@ . But the point is: the issue with payment won't go away until we, as a community, estabilish what we want for it. What do we want to emphasize? What kind of game do we want in the future? Is it acceptable the time needed to train a high level team today? Will Self-Ref aid in that regard? Until we have that settled (or until we stop avoiding that discussion), we will continue to simple patch up the problem with "temporary" solutions and hear complaints about payment from time to time.

Also in a 8vs8 singles today each player gets up to 45 counters (minimum is 28), while the ref always gets 45. To give some perspective (first column is maximum per player, second is ref):

1vs1: 6 | 3 - (50%)
2vs2: 12 | 6 - (50%)
3vs3: 17 | 10 - (58%)
4vs4: 23 | 15 - (65%)
5vs5: 29 | 21 - (72%)
6vs6: 34 | 28 - (82%)
7vs7: 40 | 36 - (90%)
8vs8: 45 | 45 - (100%)
(for brawls the player gets 1-2 less counters)

(do note that it is the absolute maximum, that requires all mons to have training items and all KOC available to be achieved.

We know that bigger matches pay better because it was supposed to be that way...it was "by design". But why is that?

Iirc, back on the KO bonus era, the reason was so people take bigger matches as much as the smaller ones. The (correct) argument is that, if 2 1vs1 net you the same UC as 1 2vs2, it is best to ref 1 1vs1 and then another, then to ref 1 2vs2, as you will end up with the same amount of UC, but with half of it before the end. I assume that reasoning is still valid

In other words, it is to prevent the "time" factor from making one kind of battle always superior.

The problem is: since we have no specific rules for doubles or triples or quartets or brawls or whatever, time factor is still making one kind of battle preferable. If you can ref (same goes for players) a 8vs8 brawl and a 8vs8 singles and in a brawl you finish earlier (even if you work at the exact same pace, you will wait less for the battlers and the battle will have less "dead time" so you will finish it earlier), and both give the same amount of counters which one will you prefer?

If we want a "balanced" game in the sense that all kinds of battle have similar cost-benefit (obviously one will have better cost-benefit as said above, but at least we can make the gap not so big), then we need to account for time. Longer battles need to be rewarded more than shorter battles, even if the work put into both is the same, as work isn't everything.

If this means that brawl should be rewarded less or that big singles should be rewarded more, I don't know (I would prefer if something like the KO Bonus is implemented once more). It is up to whoever holds the power to decide (as it is more of an opinion then a matter or right or wrong answer, as seen in the bananas hide tag). But the proportions are borked if we consider the intentions behind the system implemented. IIRC and IMO, obviously.

You're exactly right Birkal, people are going to find a way to break the system for the most UC no matter what kind of rule we put in place. You very well may spend 4 hours in a night/day on an 8v8 brawl and its your prerogative to spend your free time doing so. This game has always and will always be skewed towards those with more time to gain counters and I am accepting of that. Myself I have limited free time to referee on here and chose to channel that time into reffing Tournament and Gym matches with quality over quantity as I feel these are a strong benefit to our community. Its not something I do for the UC its because I like to see these important showcase matches given the proper treatment (see: the war to actually keep flavour in ASB that I have long since given up on. Despite what Texas may post when opening up gym reffing to all that "flavour is manditory in gym matches" I still see it lacking far too often.) That said it frustrates me to watch someone rake in 20 TMs worth of UC for 2 rounds of Wide Guard - Dazzling Gleam+Dazzling Gleam while I gain 19 UC for a hard fought 16 round near 5 month gym match with complete flavour in every round (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/poison-engineer-pikachu-vs-frosty.3500006/page-3). Something is broken in this system when I'd be tactically better off ignoring the parts of this game we should be highlighting (not that I intend to change my mindset regardless of the lack of resolution I am sure will come from this)

EDIT: By no means am I intending to single anyone out in this post. Merely responding to a comment that Birkal made which sparked my train of thought.

I will be brief here. The problem at hand isn't that refs are underpayed. Or not anymore.

The problem is the vast gap between some types of reffing. If you ref a brawl you can get 45UC for X work and Y time and if you ref a 4vs4 gym match you get 19UC for X work and 10Y time and if you ref a gym match with full flavor you will get 19UC for 2X work and 10Y time.

If you ref some RP facility not named TLR you will end up getting stardard UC + 2 or 3 baseline. That 2 or 3 UC is the price payed for the RP, flavor and extra stuff the RP demands of you (damn you rng adjust ._.) and, more importantly, for figuring out orders. This can't be stressed enough: RP refs are expected to play at high levels and get only 2 or 3 UC for it. Be certain, if you are reffing doubles subway or arcade, the toughest part isn't running calcs, but ordering. If you disagree with me, try ordering first using fucking garbodor vs megaggron with the duty to win (aka: you can't just explode and admit it is impossible to win). Just try to do that.

The point is something Birkal said. The type of match best paid should be the type we want to see the most and the opposite also applies. Right now, IMO, the system favors brawls and discourages long battles, full flavor battles and most facilities. And if you check the forum, you will get what I mean.

The purpose of this thread is to level the rewards. Tune and tweak then so they are proportional. And refs end up picking the type of matches we feel we should have more of because they are better paid to do so.

So I ask:

1) Do you feel that rewards are proportional?
2) Which kind of matches should be more emphasized in ASB?
3) How do we adjust the rewards formulae so said battles are paid well enough so refs take more of them (and the opposite)?

Thanks.

 

[Geodude6]

When the new UC payout was first introduced and then capped, I proposed that for matches up to a 6v6 we use dogfish's formula (aka the current formula) and past a 6v6 increase the UC rewards by a linear amount (I suggested 6 UC), with no UC cap for non-Brawls.

So the payout for a XvX battle would be:
X<6: (X+1)(X+2)/2
X>6: 28+6(X-6)

This would mean that a 7v7 would be worth 34 UC, compared to 36 under Dogfish's system. A 20v20 would be worth 112 UC, compared to 70 UC under the old system and 231 under Dogfish's system (capped at 100). This system has the benefit of rewarding refs that ref large matches, while not having potential for abuse as far as I can see, even if we remove the 100 UC cap.

(This is literally just C/P'ed from the old thread "Capping UC under the new format")

 

[Flamestrike]

Geodude I think you're missing the point. We're not looking to increase the pay for 7v7+ matches; those are almost exclusively Brawls (which are on the "ridiculously good" side of our scale already) and 13v13 Singles type matches which exist solely to grind counters and aren't really feasible for any other purpose.

I still think the easiest way to solve this problem in the fairest way possible is to make the UC payout per round, with an additional bonus for Gyms and Tournaments (compensating for the need for decent flavour) and for Roleplays (compensating for the need to order as Frosty pointed out). Yes there are some kinks to work out (the biggest two issues are the fact that refs would probably be required to keep track of round number in each reffing to help approvers and the fact that players could purposefully stall to grind counters), but I think that if we can find a way to fix those two issues making UC based on the rounds reffed would be the best way to do it.

 

[Geodude6]

My proposed payout system actually decreases rewards for "kinda large" matches. (read: 7 to 17 per side) Matches with 19+ Pokemon per side actually get increased UC payout due to the cap currently in place, but as matches get larger and larger in size, the amount of work needed to referee these large matches increases at a faster rate than the UC payout does.

Also keep in mind that the linear amount by which payout is increased doesn't necessarily have to be 6; it can be larger or smaller; I just used 6 for the sake of example.

 

[Mulan15262]

I agree with Flamestrike that the awards for the ref should be based upon the number of rounds. Also, quite a few refs (myself included) keep track of the number of rounds.

I suggest that we pay .5 UC per round per pokemon out at a time (so 1 UC/round for Singles, 2 UC/round for Doubles, etc.) because this somewhat closely matches current UC pay for the matches that people aren't saying pay too much UC, while it reduces the pay for the matches that pay too much (an 8v8 brawl now earns about 16 UC on average instead of 45, and a 9v9 brawl awards about 18 UC on average instead of 50). I have a spreadsheet of how my idea compares to current (and the proposal that Flamestrike made is also listed), and it can be found here.

I think that if we go with a per round UC payment, we should abolish the UC limit as the payment would be fair already (unless someone wants to ref a 26 v 26 brawl, odds are brawls won't exceed 50 UC, and singles matches would have to be somewhere around 30 v 30 to reliably exceed 100 UC).

 

[Engineer Pikachu]

fwiw we've already passed the whole "can of worms" thing about per-round payout with the last update to TLR referee payout

if we really want to be picky i guess maybe something like "X UC per Pokemon alive at the start of the round per round" and scale that to something reasonable if we want accuracy – it's not overwhelmingly difficult to calculate and we can trust referees to add correctly!

 

[Flamestrike]

I'd rather go with 1 UC per round per Pokemon, but we can haggle over exact numbers later. And yeah, the fact that TLR does per-round UC payouts and it works fine should mean that there shouldn't be an issue with doing it for normal matches? Again refs would likely have to keep a running round count in each of their reffings for the sake of approver sanity, but I don't think that should be a huge issue.

 

[tavok]

Just be sure to not make the pay as high as TLR's: remember that TLR refs have to order, add flavor, destroy all your hopes play at a high level, have in mind the special arenas...

 

[akela]

Is a round of reffing 6 chills and nothing else worth the same as a round of 1 earthquake, 1 lava plume, 1 headbutt, and 3 hyper voices?

I would like to suggest that a solution to a reffing payout problem should not include "Well, we'll just have the approvers worry about it.". That does not solve a problem, it just shifts the responsibility of solving the problem to somebody else.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Is a round of reffing 6 chills and nothing else worth the same as a round of 1 earthquake, 1 lava plume, 1 headbutt, and 3 hyper voices?

I ask you a question: Does it really matter?

I have not looked at what is going on in great detail yet but let's not get pedantic on round worths and all that as that is partly what shot down the update-based pay last time update-based pays were seriously considered for regular matches.

 

[Flamestrike]

I don't think what happens in a round is worth worrying about. At best I wouldn't mind shifting round worth based on # of Pokemon on the field (so as Pokemon die off in Doubles+ rounds get worth less) but realistically every round will likely end up being worth the same. Yes, this theoretically allows for some abuses, but I'd like to think that true abuses would be obvious enough that someone would notice and report it to the council. As an approver myself I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure this doesn't add any extra work for the approvers, and I think that as long as we force refs to add round counts to their matches in a way similar to how some TLR refs count their updates as they go, there shouldn't be any issues. Obviously we'll want to discuss ways to curb abuse since yes this system is more abusable than the current one, but I don't think the fact that the system can be abused should automatically make it unusable.

 

[Frosty]

I just think that something should be included to account for the time factor. Or to be more specific, this system makes it better to ref 2 2-round matches in sucession than 1 4-round match (you get the same UC, but half earlier).

I liked the old KO Bonus and I feel it can be used for that purpose. Either way, accounting for that problem would be lovely before we go on on this discussion.

 

[zarator]

Can't we just get rid of Brawls already? They're a silly, skill-less, counter-whoring format that we do not need at all. Just limit things to Triples IMO.

 

[Geodude6]

zarator: This sounds familiar...

Maybe I'm being too blunt, but why are we even allowing stupid stuff like 7+ Brawls? They just look like a massive counterfarming to me <.<

I remember that someone (I think it was Emma?) said that there's something awesome about sending out a ton of Pokémon and having an all-out war. Yes, there's a ton of counters being awarded, but that's not the only reason people play brawls.

If people want to do something "for the heck of it" they are more than welcome to do so, but they should not get additional rewards for it if it's something completely ridiculous. If they want to do a 20v20 brawl they are more than welcome to do so - as long as the rewards are capped for a 6v6 one or something like that.

We should not punish any format seen in the Anime and Manga. Lest we forget this is ANIME Style Battling and not Video Game Style Battling With Words.

Putting a cap on how many Pokémon can be brought to a format, or not allowing any extra counters for non-standard formats, does nothing to solve the issue concerning UC under the normal format (We want to satisfy a majority of the crowd here, not just the one user!), & is a pathetic attempt to sweep the issue under the rug.

 

[Flamestrike]

Frosty, the only issue I have with the KO bonus is that it doesn't scale with match type; an 9v9 Singles and an 9v9 Triples will (at least I presume; maybe I'm misunderstanding how the KO bonus works) have the exact same KO bonus. This isn't necessarily an issue, but if the goal is to reward refs for having the dedication to ref long matches with lots of rounds, the KO bonus doesn't achieve that on its own; it just rewards refs for reffing matches with lots of Pokemon, just like the current system. I wouldn't necessarily be adverse to adding the KO bonus on top of a per round system, but I don't think that long matches should necessarily be more rewarding than short matches; I just want to make sure that regardless of how long the match is the ref gets paid for (roughly) the amount of work they do.

Zarator the issue here isn't brawls; as Birkal pointed out at some point during the UC discussion players will always flock to the quickest way to grind counters because ASB is a slow game and if you want to get caught up to the top level players who already have virtually everything they need, or even as a top player who just wants to be able to stay ahead of the curve, you need to be able to get counters as quickly as possible. If we ban brawls all that means is that people will be forced to resort to flash Triples for grinding counters, and we still won't see people reffing Gyms or Tournaments or Roleplays or longer BT matches any more than we do now. The point of this discussion may be to make reffing big matches more attractive for refs, but banning brawls will do absolutely /nothing/ to help that.

 

[Frosty]

the old ko bonus was (Number of KO)/(number of pokemon out per side) and only for 4vs4 and above battles

Also, this goes beyond brawls. Heck it goes beyond usual matches. I intend to bring up RP (only facilities- Hall, Arcade, Pike and Subway) and Gyms and Tourneys at some point too.

 

[Flamestrike]

Ah, so that could be a decent alternative option then. I still don't like how it doesn't reward a ref who's forced to ref two players trying to stall each other out and it goes far more rounds than it has any right to, but it's an improvement on the current system at least. And yes, RPs and Tournies should have a reffing bonus on top of what's already given; Gyms already have the +0.5 UC per Pokemon which I think is sufficient, and we could always give that to tournaments as well, but RPs probably need something more since ordering while doing your best to win is tough, especially in RPs where you're almost always at a team and sometimes at a movepool disadvantage.

 

[Frosty]

BTW, the KO Bonus is in addiction to usual rewards. So it would be X per round + KO Bonus, which should solve the problems nicely.

 

[zarator]

Geodude6 I'm aware it's something familiar. And there we are, discussing once again the same old problem. I can't help but noticing that, were it not for brawls, we would not even have this discussion <.<

Flamestrike: I doubt Triples would be as broken as 7v7 brawls to be honest. They certainly do not result in the same mindless spamming and they should not reward as many UCs. Or am I missing something?

 

[Flamestrike]

If brawls didn't exist, we'd still have the issue that less people would want to ref big matches than flashmatches, because they'd be too busy reffing 3v3 Triples flashes instead. Sure, they'd be getting a lot less UC for it, but it'd be the quickest way to get UC. Whatever is the quickest way to get UC WILL ALWAYS be mindlessly spammed, whether it's 9v9 Brawls, 3v3 Triples, or 1v1 Singles; that's how ASB is now and short of making massive sweeping changes that will inevitably piss off half the userbase, that's how it'll always be. And while it may seem unfair to get 45-50 UC for a 8v8/9v9 Brawl, there's actually a LOT of work involved in reffing a Brawl; just one round will almost inevitably take at least 2-3 hours, if not more if there's more RNG rolls involved. And while some brawls end in just one round, a fair amount go two or even 3-4 rounds! And if it makes you feel any better about it, if we move to a UC per round system, one-round brawls would end up paying significantly less; my original suggestion of 1 UC per Pokemon per round would make a one round 9v9 Brawl, which currently gives a full 50 UC, only give 18 UC.

 

[Avnomke]

Eh, there's actually a surprising amount of skill involved in brawls. While it usually ends up being EQ+EQ spam, there are several ways to counter that and counter the countering and counter the counter countering and so forth. Wide Guard and Imprison are the most common ways, Wide Guard being countered with Feint, Fake Out, and Snatch and Imprison being countered with (faster) Taunt, (faster) Imprison, Fake Out and Snatch, except a faster Quick Guard stops Fake Out and using some random support move before Imprison makes Snatch useless, and single-target moves make the whole thing useless, and Follow Me just screws with everything. And of course there's more that I haven't listed.

Of course, most brawlers care more about counters than winning. Hence why we need to reduce their rewards.

 

[ZhengTann]

So back to Frosty's question #2:

Which kind of matches should be more emphasized in ASB?

Thinking back, there'd be a time when I'd say "Tower, non-RPG flavour matches", "Long matches", or something to those effects. Now I think I'd settle for one answer:

The kind of matches that are played and reffed with the highest skill level and dedication possible from battlers and referees.

I hope we can all agree, that no matter the match format - be it 12v12 NFE Brawls or 5v5 Gym Singles, or even Battle Pike - as long as the battler(s) gave their all in their thought processes (from teambuilding to matchups to orders to substitutions), as long as everyone involved gave their utmost responsible dedication and emphatic understanding (so no cluttering the thread with tags pinging battlers / referees to make their move), it'd be a good read. Of course, flavour is what makes it an even better read - kinda like the difference between a good Warstory, and a simple animated replay with logs :P

Honestly, though, I see no way to answer question #3. Just as Birkal said, we have a system, and people will use the system however it suits their interests the best. All I suppose an ASBer can do, what we can do, is to foster the culture/trend instead of enforcing a system/ruleset. 2 cents - sorry if it doesn't contribute towards the the discussion..

 

[Its_A_Random]

Someone tell me why people spamming 3v3 Triples, 2v2 Doubles or 1v1 Singles post-brawl nerf is a problem?

After that rhetorical, let me throw off some views and knowledge and all into this post. In this somewhat tl;dr post, I will do two things: Attempt to explain the issue with long haul matches and why they are generally shunned, and then look at the UC issue and look at some of the options we could take to address the issue. Brace yourselves.

The issue with long haul matches

The thing is we do all these things to attempt to encourage a long haul match but the problem is that it simply is not viable nor is it practical with regards to efficiently gaining counters. Never really was and they probably never will be unless the whole counter system (or facets of) is overhauled. The problem is this:

• Let us take the average length of a 1v1 singles match, which is like two rounds. Compare it to other singles formats. 2v2 is like five rounds. 3v3 is around nine. 4v4 is like thirteen. 5v5 is like seventeen* and 6v6 is like twenty one*. idk I am making these numbers up. Now let us assume all of these matches are Training Items off and everyone is using FE Pokémon with max AC but not max MC. Let us also assume the player plays like an idiot and does not even score a KO.
  • For a 1v1 assuming average length, the player will gain 4 counters with an average of 2 counters per round. The referee will get 3 UC at 1.5/Round.
  • 2v2 will net 8 counters at 1.6 a round for the player, and 6 UC at 1.2 a round for the referee.
  • 3v3 will net 11 at 1.222 for player, 10 at 1.111 for referee.
  • 4v4 will net 15 at 1.154 for player, 15 at 1.154 for referee.
  • 5v5 will net 19 at 1.118 for player, 21 at 1.235 for referee.
  • 6v6 will net 23 at 1.095 for player, 28 at 1.333 for referee.
  • If the player won all the matches, those values scale to 5 at 2.5, 10 at 2, 14 at 1.556, 19 at 1.462, 24 at 1.412, and 29 at 1.381 respectively.
  • Win or lose, the average counters that the player would get per round diminishes as the format gets larger assuming the match plays out to average length (based on not completely baseless guesses). Combine with this the fact that you generally have to think more to win as the format gets larger (long term planning etc) and the efficiency for counter gains gets lower and lower.
  • The referees on the other hand also have optimum efficiency at a 1v1 Singles though you might also notice that the efficiency for referees actually floors and then rises for longer formats assuming average length. However this means little because the battlers counter efficiency for larger formats is so small relative to other formats that it is not worth it.
• What the above findings say can also be reasonably applied to non-singles format as well. This then ties into this major statement that could be said for the formats and counters on the battler's perspective: A format is at its most efficient for the battlers when the number of of Pokémon on the field at a time is large and the bench size is small or non-existent.
• Basically this means that the possible reason why people prefer 1v1 Singles over a 6v6 Singles from an objective standpoint (excluding other factors like time, thought process and the fact that tower is nowadays generally used to generate counters for RP's and Tournaments as opposed to having "real fights") could be explained due to a far lower counter efficiency for the large format relative to the smaller formats, which in turn could be explained by the bench size of a larger format.

The bottom line is that while altering UC pays may help in terms of encouraging a referee to referee a large format as a result of increasing efficiency, the diminishing levels of counter efficiency for large matches for the player means that if they want to gain counters more efficiently, which is generally the case, then formats like 6v6 Singles will be shunned in favour of their smaller counterparts because of lowering efficiency. The only reason why people play 6v6 Singles or higher comes down to the desire to have a "real battle" or "why not?" Unless you alter the counter systems for the battlers, then the large tower battles will continue to be as rare as they are today.

All the above however (with regards to the rarity of long matches), is off-topic with regards to the focus of this thread (UC Rewards) and the major reason why I brought it up is to outline the problem and to outline why altering UC payouts will not encourage people to play large matches. While it encourages referees to referee from an efficiency point of view, it does nothing to encourage people to play those matches from an efficiency point of view. This counters for players issue can be dealt with in another thread if it gains enough momentum.

The UC Issue

Now to UC. The issue here that people are calling out is brawl-spam and we wonder why. Taking the math of the above: If we assume the player plays an 8v8 FE Brawl with no training items, max AC, non-max movepool and wins, then the counter efficiency rate (assuming an average of two rounds) is at 35 at 17.5 for the player, 45 at 22.5 for the referee. The proof is in the pudding. The high efficiency rates make brawls a big winner. The thing is though: Is this what we want? Do we want an ASB where everyone and their mother will spam large brawls for counters?

If you think it is alright then yes, do nothing. If not, then you will obviously be for disincentivising brawls for the referees. For that: there are a few ways to go.

• If we decide that the current UC System is what we want, then there are a few ways to go:
  • Lowering the cap for brawls and/or keeping a cap: This is generally the most effective in the eyes of many but I am so over UC Caps it is not funny. As I have said before, lowering the UC Cap is just a shitty way to sweep the issue under the rug (which when I said it the last time it was brought up was ultimately proven to be true) and people will simply move to the next highest bidder although it may not be a bad thing if it was a standard format.
  • Implementing a penalty for brawls for referees: I brought this up the last time UC was a hot topic. It was sound back then and it is still sound now; even though brawls could still happen, the vastly lowered efficiency meant that it was less incentivising for the referees, especially given the amount of effort to take to referee a round of a brawl. If the triangle payment does not change then I am still going to stand by this option as I feel it was the best of the bunch. If it was passed by the Council back then then I could have guaranteed that brawl spam would not be super prominent / super rewarding for the referees. 35 UC for a 20v20 Brawl is nothing in comparison to 45 UC for an 8v8 Brawl, but at least the former payment is pretty respectable in my opinion.
  • Ban brawls: Unpopular, too controversial, let us not go there. The people who are calling for it have not put up a convincing argument to do so anyway imo and the burden of proof lies on them.
    
  • Draft up a different pay system for brawls like before the triangle UC System: Could work. I would also support this if brawl penalties is considered infeasible. The issue here is designing such a system and well... yeah.
  • KO Bonuses or something similar for larger matches: Could work but I doubt it would change much. If you are Objection pedantic then you would want to steer clear of this because it is apparently a "poor way to measure effort." But that is just mountain of a molehill territory right here. But yeah my point stands: It can work but it does not do much to fix the issue as outlined earlier.
  • Raise UC for flavourful matches: Will not work. Flavour is subjective and I would prefer if we steer far far far away from this.
    
  • Combinations of above: Depends.
    
  • Anything else I missed: Either slipped my mind or is a bad solution.
• However, if we decide that the current UC system is infeasible, then we need to draft up a new system. Should we go down that route:
  • The tried and true fixed UC System like the current system and all systems before it: Unless it really solves some issues, then I am not willing to accept another pay system like this. For the super pedantic, it "rewards more to matches with less effort to referee." Otherwise yeah, they do not tend to fully fix the issue at hand.
  • Update-based UC System: "OMG MATHS CLASS I DID NOT SIGN UP TO DO THIS!!!" Super exaggerations aside, this is probably the best route to take. My only advice is that we a) base it off rounds and adjust according to format, going no more "accurate" than that and b) we do not get super pedantic about "effort"; it is vague and subjective and getting down to super details like effort and all is part of what killed off update-based pay systems the last time they were considered. And this is going off experience too. A good update-based pay system like TLR or Raid does not care about how many faints there are or however many chills there are because honestly, who really cares? I have a few I could share in my head but not now.
    
  • Other possible UC Systems that are based off something not updates or static: Are there even any?
  • If we decide to go down the new route however, brawls and abuse will definitely need to be factored.
• There are some other things we could do like complete overhauls or idk but I am not going to go there.

===============

In conclusion I went explained some ideas as to why no one does long matches and looked at the issue with UC. With the former, I delved into counter efficiency and explained that counter efficiency and that many people use tower to get counters was a possible reason for the lack of long haul matches. I also mentioned that altering the UC system may encourage referees to referee a large match but it does not change the incentives for players. With the latter part I stated that if Brawls are a problem, then the brawl penalty or a new UC system for brawls was a good idea if we kept with the current UC system with modifications or if the UC system was overhauled, then an Update-based system that goes by round would be the best route to go.

I guess that is all. I could have written more but interruptions like to ruin your train of thought... -.-'

*: In reality matches will tend to last shorter than the average but let us not get pedantic. A 15 Round 6v6 Singles will still not be as efficient as a 2v2 Singles for the player but more rewarding for the referee than an average length 1v1. But let us not get pedantic here.

 

[Frosty]

That was a lovely post and I agree 100% with it. Also there is something here I want to emphasize:

Implementing a penalty for brawls for referees: I brought this up the last time UC was a hot topic. It was sound back then and it is still sound now; even though brawls could still happen, the vastly lowered efficiency meant that it was less incentivising for the referees, especially given the amount of effort to take to referee a round of a brawl. If the triangle payment does not change then I am still going to stand by this option as I feel it was the best of the bunch. If it was passed by the Council back then then I could have guaranteed that brawl spam would not be super prominent / super rewarding for the referees. 35 UC for a 20v20 Brawl is nothing in comparison to 45 UC for an 8v8 Brawl, but at least the former payment is pretty respectable in my opinion.

I feel that this is the way to go. That or the different pay system.

The issue about Brawls is that it screws up the logic used on our pay systems simply because:
a) It needs less rolls per KO due to its "weakness" to combos and such. More on that here.
b) It is easily abuseable regardless of what we do if we don't treat it severely differently. If we keep a mon per round per update thinge I think it will be a matter of time before the ridiculous hammer strikes and we have like 8v8v8 brawls or something like that. Sure it will be harder, but it will still give a shitload of UC in a short ammount of time.

On the previous voting, I voted for a cap for simplicity reasons. But it didn't work, so the next option is the formula. I feel it probably is what we should be looking at.

But of course this isn't only about brawls.

BTW, regarding the decision making of this thread...I propose we work step-by-step voting, in this order:

a) What kind of Pay System will we have (pay per update per action or fixed ammount or some other option I forgot). After that we go back here and discuss and come up with options for the next voting:
b) Which specific formula will we use? Basically we take the result from "a", discuss what kind of battles we want to emphasize, crunch numbers and get to an specific result.
c) What will we do about brawls? (options being nothing and ways to give it a different payment and I suppose banning?)

After that we go back to the drawing board and discuss and decide on (at the same time):
a) Extra rewards (or not) for Tourney matches
b) Extra rewards (or keep the current ones) for Gym Matches
c) Extra rewards (or not) for matches where the ref also has to think on orders (excluding TLR and Raids)

The second and last ones will probably be decided by the Committees, but some discussion on the matter will be appreciated.

Can we do it that way? It will work like the CAP Process and I think it should be good enough to keep everything on its tracks.

 

[Flamestrike]

I like that voting slate, although I think pay per round, not per action, is the correct choice. It would also do a pretty good job of solving the "brawl issue"; as I pointed out before, if we go with 1 UC per Pokemon per round, then a one-round 8v8 Brawl only pays 16 UC and a two-round Brawl only pays 32, both of which are significant nerfs but still pretty fair amounts (I'd gladly take 16 UC for 3-4 hours of work reffing a single round of a Brawl).