CAP Server Mini-Tournament Rules Workshop

[Bass]

Originally Posted by Fat Kazio32

I do have some good ideas but since I'm probably (most defenatly) trying out for the new TO spots I can't give any of my ideas. But my view on the questions are

History about CaP: How we create, past CaP topic leaders, specefic steps of progression of the CaP (i.e. Step 5 is the ..., Step 10 is the ...) and the CaPs themselves.

Battling skills: What happens on D/c, If you send out [insert pokemon here] what do you do (A,B,C or D or Opinion)

TO Knowladge: How many points can a person get if they [insert when they lost or won the tourney here], past TO's etc.


Not the best list of ideas but maybe it can help you start out.

Just so you know, I don't have any intentions on testing TO's on basic battling skills. As far as having what it takes to be a TO, only organizational and leadership skills truly matter, not battling skills.

[eric the espeon]

I agree that they dont need to be good battlers, but it would be crazy IMO to put a Charizard/Pikachu using noob in charge of a MT (it looks pretty bad in the FC for one thing...) even if they are not that good they should know a decent about Pokemon in general. I am not proposeing that it should be a major part of the test, but a test battle to see how they perform would be something to consider.

I know it is improbable that the total noobs would get through the test but... You can see the risk there.

[Kazio32]

I wasn't trying to make "Battling skills" one of the major things. Just trying to seperate the noobs from the TO's. But still, I'm fine if you don't use my list. I shouldn't care also cause I'm going to take the test in the first place, but w/e.

[eric the espeon]

Can we get this going?

Lets just say watch them do a MT (4 player) ask them a couple of questions that they should know if they have read the guide and been in a few MTs ("What do you do if one player disconnects and claims it was unintentional?" or "What do you do if a player has to leave in the first/second round?")

Then we make them a New/Inexperienced TO and see how they do. If we get complaints or see them doing something stupid then we ether try to teach them how to do better or chuck them out, if they do well then we promote them to Tenured.

[tennisace]

Originally Posted by Fat eric the espeon

Can we get this going?

Lets just say watch them do a MT (4 player) ask them a couple of questions that they should know if they have read the guide and been in a few MTs ("What do you do if one player disconnects and claims it was unintentional?" or "What do you do if a player has to leave in the first/second round?")

Then we make them a New/Inexperienced TO and see how they do. If we get complaints or see them doing something stupid then we ether try to teach them how to do better or chuck them out, if they do well then we promote them to Tenured.

Well then, get a solid slate of questions together.

[eric the espeon]

I will make a start but it would be useful to have some input, also having it so VTOs add questions would make it much less easy for applicants to just check the specifics:
What do you do if one player disconnects and claims it was unintentional?
What do you do if a player has to leave in the first round?
What do you do if a player has to leave in the second/third/forth round?
What information do you need to send to Bass once the MT is over?

Please suggest more.

[Captain]

Ugh, this topic seemed to just die for a while, I guess bass forgot about it. Anyway, I'll contact bass on the weekend or earlier so this can get done.

Those questions don't seem like bad questions eric except for the last one. It's rather unnecessary as they can just send results like they normally would to bass as TO along with a VTO sending a testing results confirmation on the earlier steps.

Obviously they should be knowledgeable about tiers as well as know the obvious fact tournies have to be 4, 8, or 16 man not something like 3, 2, or 6 people. Knowing that TOs can join their own tourneys but that they should never do it if it's obvious atm that someone else wants the spot (entering last when it's obviously unlikely another person will take up that 4th or 8th spot soon) sounds good but a lot of TOs don't join their tournaments prematurely and it appears we never had that as a serious problem.

Coherent typing skills/grammar are necessary.

Most of all we want to avoid this from happening again:

Originally Posted by Fat DougJustDoug

As for TO's, there are way too many bad ones. They aren't bad people or anything, but they are not good organizers. They can't deal with people, they can't control the tournament, they are flaky, they bicker amongst themselves over the stupidest little things, they can't spell -- basically, they suck. And there are LOTS of them.

At this point, it is making the server look bad. I have received complaints from MANY people on this issue. Having a bunch of immature idiots running around starting disorganized tournaments all over the place is NOT a good thing -- even if they are really nice people that are just trying to help.

I have mentioned this in the past to eric and others. I realize there was a recent "re-application" process for all TO's. But it doesn't appear to have helped very much.

If we can stay clear of that and get a active TO staff then I think we're doing well. Fortunately it looks like as far as the test goes just watching them host a four man clears a lot of that.

Uh, I'm not sure how many more questions we need to ask, I can't think of many that come off the top of my head.

[eric the espeon]

Ok so:
What sizes of tournament are possible?
4, 8, 16.
Under what circumstances should you join your own MT?
Only if there is no one else to fill the last spot. If you win it then ignore the FC.
If they say "never" then its not that bad.

I think that its useful to ask about what info is needed just so they get it right first time.

And to avoid having too many bad TOs we could clear out the inexperienced TOs once a month or something, and only promote them if we see them doing well on several occasions. If someone complains and their complaint is valid then inexperienced TOs will be first warned then chucked off, Tenured TOs will be first warned then demoted to Inexperenced.

[Bass]

Sorry that I missed this, but I am glad that eric and Captain have come up with some good ideas. I also think that we should not allow them to host a test tournament if they do not get ALL of the written questions write (Think of this as a drivers test -- If you can't pass the written test, you won't be allowed on the road to begin with). The only question I have is: Who will we allow to administer this test?

After clearing out the TO's that tennis suggested, should we allow all Tenured TO's or above to give the test, or should we make it Senior TO only like before?

I believe that we should allow all active tenured TO's to administer the test because they have earned their ranking by being active in hosting mini-tournaments themselves. It will also be a much smaller strain on the few Senior TO's we have because far too many people applied last time, but there were only a few people eligible to test them, many of which didn't have the time too.

However, I do agree that we want to make sure only quality TO's are selected, so I suggest that after the test is administered, the person who conducted the test must also PM me or a Senior TO a brief report about how the test went (including their answers to the questions and tournament results) and give the applicant a reccomendation (If they don't pass in the examiner's eyes, then they must do the opposite). This way, the Senior TO's will still have the ultimate say and ensure that only knowledgeable applicants are accepted. Do you all agree?

Once we decide on these things, applications will be opened immediately, so be ready.

[Captain]

eh, not 100% on it, but yes, I agree, at least for now. I'd like to try it out and see how well it works. This could be extremely beneficial to us.

[tennisace]

Originally Posted by Fat Captain

eh, not 100% on it, but yes, I agree, at least for now. I'd like to try it out and see how well it works. This could be extremely beneficial to us.

Ditto, we need to get this moving.

[Infiltrator]

Originally Posted by Fat eric the espeon

Can we get this going?

Lets just say watch them do a MT (4 player) ask them a couple of questions that they should know if they have read the guide and been in a few MTs ("What do you do if one player disconnects and claims it was unintentional?" or "What do you do if a player has to leave in the first/second round?")

Then we make them a New/Inexperienced TO and see how they do. If we get complaints or see them doing something stupid then we ether try to teach them how to do better or chuck them out, if they do well then we promote them to Tenured.

I agree with Eric on this.... i like this process that players would have to go through for the TO application.

[eric the espeon]

I would think that only the Senior TOs should administer the test, we should be able to handle the number of applications and would probably be the best judges.

Other than that I agree with Bass.

[Bass]

Originally Posted by Fat eric the espeon

I would think that only the Senior TOs should administer the test, we should be able to handle the number of applications and would probably be the best judges.

Other than that I agree with Bass.

If that is the case, then I would at least want to experiment with the "recommendation" process, that is, force Senior TO's to explain their reasoning as to why "user" would make a good (or bad) TO after administering the test.

Besides this, I think we are ready to open up TO applications. I'll make the necessary preparations and make an official announcement. Sounds good?

[Bass]

New Topic: Types of Tournaments

Today, I got a PM from Magmortified, a fellow moderator on the server, and he had made a few observations about Mini-Tournaments recently.

Originally Posted by Fat Magmortified

I've just kind of been thinking lately, considering the recent craze with all of these random tournaments, but why are tournament results for stuff like Mono-Bidoof or BL counting the same as tournaments like OU or UU, which actually have serious competitive metagames? It just doesn't seem right for somebody who's gotten fifty victories in mono-Arceus tournaments to look better on the scoreboard than somebody who won twenty-five OU tournaments -especially for a server that claims its basis in competitive play (for testing CAP Pokemon).

Either there needs to be some kind of balancing (one victory in a mono-arceus tourney is equivelant to 1/x of an OU tourney), a seperate scoreboard for non-competitive metagame tournaments, or just not count wins in such tournies altogether.

Just my thoughts on the matter. =P

With this in mind, I would like to raise the following question. Do you thing non-Standard tournaments (not OU, UU, or Uber) should count for the scoreboard? Please discuss your opinions on the subject here.

[tennisace]

Originally Posted by Fat Bass

New Topic: Types of Tournaments

Today, I got a PM from Magmortified, a fellow moderator on the server, and he had made a few observations about Mini-Tournaments recently.


With this in mind, I would like to raise the following question. Do you thing non-Standard tournaments (not OU, UU, or Uber) should count for the scoreboard? Please discuss your opinions on the subject here.

I'm going to have to say other than OU, UU, Uber, and Little Cup, tournaments shouldn't count for the scoreboard. It doesn't encourage people to join in really. As a collary, only results from the 4 types of official tournaments should be PM'd to Bass.

[darkie]

I agree with the above completely. It doesn't really make sense for mono-arceus to weight the same as cap ou.

[Magmortified]

Originally Posted by Fat darkie

I agree with mag completely.

Fixed. =D

Anyhow, yeah. Since CAP is a competitive server, it makes sense for the tournament scoreboard to only relate to competitive metagames.

[cyberzero]

The emphasis on competitive metagames is always in the best interest of the server, and the non-Standard metagames are of course just meant for the amusement and enjoyment of those on the server.

An option could be that with the major decline in 8 man tournaments since the introduction of the Smogon server, we can bump up the value of tournaments a little. From hereon, I will consider OU/Uber/UU/LC as standard and everything else as non-standard.
Here is an example:

Four man standard: 2 points
Eight man standard: 4 points
Sixteen man standard: 8 points

This is essentially doubling the point values that are in place at the moment, but if we can continue the trend of non-standard tourneys such as mono/BL/mono-Arceus/etc, we can have them worth half of the credit.

For example:
Four man non-standard: 1 point
Eight man non-standard: 2 points
Sixteen man non-standard: 4 points

This complies with the general consensus that the non-standard mini-tournaments are not worth as much as standard, yet allows the TO's flexibility to meet the wants of the community. There is very little movement on the leaderboard despite all of the tourneys that have been held, mainly because of the lack of people. Back in the day when 8 man tourneys were everywhere, it was very easy for someone relatively new to become a regular and make himself known on the leaderboard, but now this is extremely tough. With the new point values, we would make this more accessible to the people who will hopefully be swarming to our server once the metagame guide has been completed.

EDIT: After discussing with tennisace0227 and Hybrid, the argument came up that this would be much more work for the TO's and Tournament Director, Bass. Of course, this idea is just that - an idea. I propose that the TO's could possibly tell Bass the number of points that the winner of the MT won, as well as the number of basic details: standard/non-standard, how many people in tourney, whether they won the FC or not, and of course who actually win.

This would allow this process to work without too much continuous strain on Bass. Now, the TO's would be required to do some extra work, but the TO's on our server hold a position that demands or at least requires a certain level of respect from the community. Currently, the TO's are not subject to much work besides organizing tournaments willingly, and all they have to do is PM Bass the results, which is not complicated. I'm sure that adding some very simple arithmetic will not make their lives much harder.

[eric the espeon]

The thing is that the MTs do not just measure battling prowess (let alone prowess in a specific metagame), but activity on the server.

Mono X (Region, Type, whatever) or BL matches still require the same basic skills as normal environments (team making, prediction, ect) even if they are not as well acknowledged by the competitive community due to them having more arbitrary rules.
I do not think they should be banished for the scoreboard.

Random tourneys in particular are massively luck based. If we were going to disallow any type of tourney it would be Random, but maybe a better solution would be a random leaderboard? And to avoid the need for a Random TO leaderboard as well we could take FC's away from random tourneys.

[tennisace]

Originally Posted by Fat latinoheat

why should lc be apart of the leaderboard? its the CAP server not little cup server. Just about everyone you are trying to attract by cutting down on the random shit are not interested in LC either.

We're the only place that has a LC ladder, and people come here just for that. Its a legit metagame, unlike all the other ones.

[Flounder]

Originally Posted by Fat tennisace0227

We're the only place that has a LC ladder, and people come here just for that. Its a legit metagame, unlike all the other ones.

The problem here is that's a relatively subjective opinion.

While randoms isn't a metagame, Mono-Arceus, BL, Mono-reigon, etc. are *technically* metagames, they just aren't played or acknowledged.

Consider the fact that LC was largely ignored until a few people (primarily eric) started playing it and thus popularizing it. LC's growth (at least on Doug's, which eventually led to still further expansion) could be partially attributed to Mini-Tournaments.

tl;dr - "Metagame" is rather subjective and is only legit as the individual desires it to be, and growth is fostered by tourneys.

But that's just my thoughts.

[tennisace]

But we actually have an LC ladder on the server. The server recognizes it as legit. However, do we have mono-whatever or BL ladders on the server?

[Deck Knight]

Originally Posted by Fat Flounder

The problem here is that's a relatively subjective opinion.

While randoms isn't a metagame, Mono-Arceus, BL, Mono-reigon, etc. are *technically* metagames, they just aren't played or acknowledged.

Consider the fact that LC was largely ignored until a few people (primarily eric) started playing it and thus popularizing it. LC's growth (at least on Doug's, which eventually led to still further expansion) could be partially attributed to Mini-Tournaments.

tl;dr - "Metagame" is rather subjective and is only legit as the individual desires it to be, and growth is fostered by tourneys.

But that's just my thoughts.

I think one of the things that makes a metagame a legit metagame is dependent on the restrictions on the team.

For example, earlier today I managed to win a Dual Mini-Tournament. As far as I'm aware, you pick 2 base types and select 3 pokemon from each type to make your team.

The trouble with this as a "metagame" is that it centers primarily around which types you pick. If you pick Grass and Ice, expect to lose a lot because almost every other type combination can wipe you out, Fire in particular.

So if you're a cheap bastard like me who goes with Dragon and Steel, and you'll usually do well because you have a plethora of resistances to exploit and your two types cover each other well enough.

So the metagame itself is incredibly restricted in terms of overall strategy. You're more likely to lose with a bad type matchup (For me, Ice and Fighting) than being outplayed.

Little Cup on the other hand sets its only pokemon restrictions on first forms that can evolve, played at Level 5. Any strategy you can come up with given any of the viable pokemon can be put together, and aside from your opponent by chance having a complete counter to your best sweeper, it is basically up to skill who wins.

Little Cup also has its basis in Pokemon Stadium 2, so it does have the force of pokemon canon behind it at the very least.

[Bass]

I have talked to Captain about this on his server, and this is his opinion:

you touched me inappropriately: so you want my opinion on 
you touched me inappropriately: metagame pruning? 
Bass: Post it in the thread 
Bass: Because 
Bass: In order for me 
Bass: to come to a decision 
Bass: I will need EVERYONE'S opinion 
Bass: Unlike some of the other things I have brought up for discussion 
Bass: there is a lot of disagreement 
you touched me inappropriately: can't I just PM to you? 
you touched me inappropriately: <_< 
you touched me inappropriately: talk in P< 
you touched me inappropriately: *PM 
Bass: You can 
Bass: But if you do 
Bass: Post as well 
Bass: So in case I forget what you said 
you touched me inappropriately: I don't see why I should trash all the point values of said nonstandard tournies 
you touched me inappropriately: my only interest in excluding them is 
Bass: IS? 
you touched me inappropriately: seeing who is better at a specific metagame but 
you touched me inappropriately: we don't record that 
you touched me inappropriately: it'd be more accurate MAYBE if we throw them out 
you touched me inappropriately: but 
you touched me inappropriately: I'd feel guilty over those tournaments not mattering at all 
you touched me inappropriately: if I wanted to cull them 
you touched me inappropriately: I'd have to put a seperate scoreboard that recorded all results regardless of the metagame 
you touched me inappropriately: just to get rid of the guilt 
you touched me inappropriately: secondly, more standardized tournies could mean better statistics, but it'll only matter towards CaP if they're only OU 
you touched me inappropriately: again being partially effective 
you touched me inappropriately: I can't see why people really want to cull this stuff really and empathize with it 
you touched me inappropriately: now you know what I mean? 
Bass: Yeah 
Bass: Right now 
Bass: I am kind of leaning towards eric's point 
Bass: the scoreboard is a measure of participation 
Bass: not primarily ability 
you touched me inappropriately: so is laddering 
you touched me inappropriately: but 
Bass: at least with laddering 
Bass: your rating is based on consistency 
you touched me inappropriately: that is true 
you touched me inappropriately: it requires more play to have a high CER but if you play enough the consistency gets more accurate ratings I bet 
you touched me inappropriately: whereas that's not so true with the MT scoreboard 
you touched me inappropriately: If anything it only opens up to a new rating system :/ 
you touched me inappropriately: but 
you touched me inappropriately: the current one is simple 
you touched me inappropriately: and good

Right now, I am still undecided on this issue, but I am currently leaning towards eric's opinion. While winning a non "standard" tournament certainly has less merit and requires less skill, the scoreboard's purpose is not entirely meant to show the relative skill level of players, rather, it is to show which players are or have been most active in Mini-Tournament participation.