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RBTT RBTT IX: Format Discussion Thread
- Thread starter IcyPenguin2
- Start date
Representing Team Do Nothing
There's been a lot of discussion on what formats to remove and what to put in. While I've enjoyed reading a lot of these posts, I think there are way too many moving parts to have a productive discussion. There's no consensus on what to remove and there's no consensus on what would replace it, and the former is highly dependent on the latter. I might be open to a format being removed, but never if Gen 1-9 Bo9 (for example) was the replacement.
Therefore, I suggest we Do Nothing about the formats for this iteration of RBTT and discuss it for the next. In the time between, we can take more time to evaluate the viability of both the current formats on the chopping block and those being proposed.
Why we should Do Nothing about the formats on the potential chopping block this year
It pains me to say this as a 5 year public Hackmons hater, but unless significant balance issues can be demonstrated, there is no justification to remove Hackmons anytime soon. All other aspects have been thoroughly answered by the mainers.
For BSSF and BF, it's true that the laddering playerbase is low and it's not like they're exceptional in terms of balance and whatnot. However, these two formats are unique in that they draw from external playerbases - BSSF from BSS and BF from tiers. Integrating players from these bases to the Rands community is a great thing, because the nature of Rands is that it's quite easy to pick up; it's not like they have to learn a whole new tier to get involved further. I would hate to see that go away for another Gen 9 slot or something.
For example, lax was drafted for BF in RBTT3 and stuck around for quite a while, playing in future RBTTs and WCOR. When I made the first Randbats Calculator, it was based off of the BSSF calculator code. I worked with the creator of the BSSF calc, Lego, over a couple of months to tailor it for Rands, and he went on to play BSSF in RBTT3. While not through BF/BSSF, Amaranth is another example of someone who came from SmogTours and has done great things for us.
It's also not the case that these formats are only for players outside the Rands community. Historically, there have always been at least 3-4 starters of BF/BSSF that learned by playing them, not outside knowledge from playing tiers or BSS. I'm not even good and I went 5-3 in BF, winning against notable Smogon Tournaments names like crying, jonfilch, and kythr. Ironically, it was mostly the Rands mainers I lost against, because dedicated players can practice to gain an even better understanding of these formats.
These are valuable opportunities to bring invested players into Rands. Their removal should not be taken lightly.
Thoughts on proposed replacement formats
Franchising & Auctions
These ideas are linked together. There's not much point in franchising if you can only rely on a snake draft to maintain a continuous team identity, and there's not much point in having an auction if team identities are up for change every year. If we want to move towards an auction, and I'm not even sure that would work well in Rands, then we should start by franchising this year and go forward from there. Otherwise, there's no point to franchising, unless there's other concerns with art or something.
There might be some other drafting system that's more in line with the nature of Rands, but for now, snake draft is close enough.
3 series vs 5 series in tiebreak
I'm glad to see a couple of people agree about 5 series in tiebreak, but wanted to respond to the one dissenting post I saw:
3 set tiebreak is already a balance between the best players vs team depth/flexibility. I'm suggesting we shift the balance more towards team depth because there's just too much out of the players' control to prioritize individual performance like in SPL/SCL/WCOP. Even with 5 set tiebreak, that would be less than 1/3 of the players of each team coming to play; I don't think that would be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Looking at the top 5 players of each team that made playoffs in RBTT8, we would have still have highly competitive tiebreaks with 5 sets rather than 3:
- All 20 players ended the tour positive with the worst record being a solid 5-4.
- Most of those teams didn't have a player that went negative until about #8, depending on how you sort the list between someone that went 4-5 and someone that went 4-0.
Bo3 vs Bo5
It wouldn't be the worst thing if things became Bo5, but I'd prefer Bo3 and I don't think the additional hassles of scheduling with a longer time limit, etc, are justified by a nominal increase in competitiveness.
There's no good way to decide Bo5 vs Bo3 based on a player vote. You can't know ahead of time who the players will be, and having them vote after the draft sucks because what if a player wanted to Bo3 but gets voted into Bo5? It should be determined ahead of time.
I also think it should be applied uniformly. No gen is so bad that it needs Bo5 to be competitive when others only need Bo3, and generally they all take the same amount of time except for 2, which isn't in. I'm not a huge fan of the Gen 9 Bo5 slot, but at least that one has a repeat format. I don't see a reason for any of the other gens, and I don't think "the players want it" is sufficient for the reasons in the previous paragraph.
Ban Lady Writer
Ban Lady Writer.
There's been a lot of discussion on what formats to remove and what to put in. While I've enjoyed reading a lot of these posts, I think there are way too many moving parts to have a productive discussion. There's no consensus on what to remove and there's no consensus on what would replace it, and the former is highly dependent on the latter. I might be open to a format being removed, but never if Gen 1-9 Bo9 (for example) was the replacement.
Therefore, I suggest we Do Nothing about the formats for this iteration of RBTT and discuss it for the next. In the time between, we can take more time to evaluate the viability of both the current formats on the chopping block and those being proposed.
Why we should Do Nothing about the formats on the potential chopping block this year
It pains me to say this as a 5 year public Hackmons hater, but unless significant balance issues can be demonstrated, there is no justification to remove Hackmons anytime soon. All other aspects have been thoroughly answered by the mainers.
For BSSF and BF, it's true that the laddering playerbase is low and it's not like they're exceptional in terms of balance and whatnot. However, these two formats are unique in that they draw from external playerbases - BSSF from BSS and BF from tiers. Integrating players from these bases to the Rands community is a great thing, because the nature of Rands is that it's quite easy to pick up; it's not like they have to learn a whole new tier to get involved further. I would hate to see that go away for another Gen 9 slot or something.
For example, lax was drafted for BF in RBTT3 and stuck around for quite a while, playing in future RBTTs and WCOR. When I made the first Randbats Calculator, it was based off of the BSSF calculator code. I worked with the creator of the BSSF calc, Lego, over a couple of months to tailor it for Rands, and he went on to play BSSF in RBTT3. While not through BF/BSSF, Amaranth is another example of someone who came from SmogTours and has done great things for us.
It's also not the case that these formats are only for players outside the Rands community. Historically, there have always been at least 3-4 starters of BF/BSSF that learned by playing them, not outside knowledge from playing tiers or BSS. I'm not even good and I went 5-3 in BF, winning against notable Smogon Tournaments names like crying, jonfilch, and kythr. Ironically, it was mostly the Rands mainers I lost against, because dedicated players can practice to gain an even better understanding of these formats.
These are valuable opportunities to bring invested players into Rands. Their removal should not be taken lightly.
Thoughts on proposed replacement formats
I put this in hidetext because it doesn't seem particularly relevant when I'm suggesting we not cut formats, but if you needed more reasons...
Some type of multi-gen slot (Gen 7-9, Gen 1-5, etc)
I'm pretty skeptical that these are a good idea. For one, multi-gen slots draw from existing playerbases and weaken them. I'm also dubious about how many players can play all 3 or 5 gens at a high level, keeping in mind that all players that can would also be wanted in other slots.
This would be less of an issue with an auction, where you can spend big on your multi-gen starter while still retaining some control over how you fill the rest of your slots. But with a snake draft, I see a very real possibility of at least a couple teams ending up weakened somewhere.
Random Roulette
Similar issue as above. Honestly, this sounds like a good idea for exhibition matches for the subs though.
2nd Doubles
This is an intriguing idea, but I think it's too soon to make the switch this year. I'm going to respond to the points in ionss' post since that seems to be what everyone else in support agrees with.
This is highly speculative. Ever since I managed the RBTT2 Yveltals to finals, where my main contribution was draft prep, I and some friends have talked about every RBTT draft. The conclusion we've come to is that it's foolish to even try to predict the results of the draft without some serious insider knowledge. Things happen, players decide to skip a year, managers change so frequently that they might not value the previous talent the same way former managers did.
Looking at the change in Doubles players over the past 3 years:
Green = played in 3 editions
Yellow = played in 2
*correction: memoric name changed to idyll, thanks to freya for pointing this out, overall point remains intact
Over 3 years, we have a total of 4 starters that have shown some continuity. That leaves four other starter slots that could be up for grabs from anyone. So I think it is premature to say that all of these people are unlikely to get picked. You can't know that, not when we don't even know who the managers are. It would've been much stronger if you did this analysis on RBTT7 Doubles starters based on the results of WCOR and RBEL, since that would be looking historically, not predicting the future.
In conclusion, while it's true that the playerbase of Random Doubles is growing to the point where a second slot could be considered, we're not at the point where it's certainly warranted, and I find a lot of the argumentation highly speculative.
Some type of multi-gen slot (Gen 7-9, Gen 1-5, etc)
I'm pretty skeptical that these are a good idea. For one, multi-gen slots draw from existing playerbases and weaken them. I'm also dubious about how many players can play all 3 or 5 gens at a high level, keeping in mind that all players that can would also be wanted in other slots.
This would be less of an issue with an auction, where you can spend big on your multi-gen starter while still retaining some control over how you fill the rest of your slots. But with a snake draft, I see a very real possibility of at least a couple teams ending up weakened somewhere.
Random Roulette
Similar issue as above. Honestly, this sounds like a good idea for exhibition matches for the subs though.
2nd Doubles
This is an intriguing idea, but I think it's too soon to make the switch this year. I'm going to respond to the points in ionss' post since that seems to be what everyone else in support agrees with.
The increase in playerbase is true and I'd be interested to know what drove it, but I don't think a year and a half is a sufficient amount of time to demonstrate that that growth is there to stay. If that doesn't sound fair, consider that the two formats most likely to be removed (BF/BSSF) had strong playerbases for 5-6 years, and arguably still do.
I don't put much stock in what spotlight tours are voted in, but to your second point and the list, I might agree that a lot of those players could probably do well in RBTT (and a couple I think aren't, some for reasons other than their play, ability to play is not the only thing), but it's speculative. There should be a demonstration of records and such over time to move this out of the realm of speculation, which leads into:
I'm going a little out of order of your post but I'll loop back to the first part of this point.
This is highly speculative. Ever since I managed the RBTT2 Yveltals to finals, where my main contribution was draft prep, I and some friends have talked about every RBTT draft. The conclusion we've come to is that it's foolish to even try to predict the results of the draft without some serious insider knowledge. Things happen, players decide to skip a year, managers change so frequently that they might not value the previous talent the same way former managers did.
Looking at the change in Doubles players over the past 3 years:
Green = played in 3 editions
Yellow = played in 2
*correction: memoric name changed to idyll, thanks to freya for pointing this out, overall point remains intact
Over 3 years, we have a total of 4 starters that have shown some continuity. That leaves four other starter slots that could be up for grabs from anyone. So I think it is premature to say that all of these people are unlikely to get picked. You can't know that, not when we don't even know who the managers are. It would've been much stronger if you did this analysis on RBTT7 Doubles starters based on the results of WCOR and RBEL, since that would be looking historically, not predicting the future.
This is not unique to RandDubs; pretty much every generation of Randbats has the same representation as Doubles. It was worse, actually, because for a couple of years, the circuit compressed various gens together into tournaments of 1-5, 1-3, 4-6, etc. In all of the years of circuit, Doubles has had its own open. Doubles has been treated fairly in tournament representation, perhaps even more fairly than others.
In conclusion, while it's true that the playerbase of Random Doubles is growing to the point where a second slot could be considered, we're not at the point where it's certainly warranted, and I find a lot of the argumentation highly speculative.
Franchising & Auctions
These ideas are linked together. There's not much point in franchising if you can only rely on a snake draft to maintain a continuous team identity, and there's not much point in having an auction if team identities are up for change every year. If we want to move towards an auction, and I'm not even sure that would work well in Rands, then we should start by franchising this year and go forward from there. Otherwise, there's no point to franchising, unless there's other concerns with art or something.
There might be some other drafting system that's more in line with the nature of Rands, but for now, snake draft is close enough.
3 series vs 5 series in tiebreak
I'm glad to see a couple of people agree about 5 series in tiebreak, but wanted to respond to the one dissenting post I saw:
In that case, shouldn't it be 1 set then?
3 set tiebreak is already a balance between the best players vs team depth/flexibility. I'm suggesting we shift the balance more towards team depth because there's just too much out of the players' control to prioritize individual performance like in SPL/SCL/WCOP. Even with 5 set tiebreak, that would be less than 1/3 of the players of each team coming to play; I don't think that would be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Looking at the top 5 players of each team that made playoffs in RBTT8, we would have still have highly competitive tiebreaks with 5 sets rather than 3:
- All 20 players ended the tour positive with the worst record being a solid 5-4.
- Most of those teams didn't have a player that went negative until about #8, depending on how you sort the list between someone that went 4-5 and someone that went 4-0.
Bo3 vs Bo5
It wouldn't be the worst thing if things became Bo5, but I'd prefer Bo3 and I don't think the additional hassles of scheduling with a longer time limit, etc, are justified by a nominal increase in competitiveness.
There's no good way to decide Bo5 vs Bo3 based on a player vote. You can't know ahead of time who the players will be, and having them vote after the draft sucks because what if a player wanted to Bo3 but gets voted into Bo5? It should be determined ahead of time.
I also think it should be applied uniformly. No gen is so bad that it needs Bo5 to be competitive when others only need Bo3, and generally they all take the same amount of time except for 2, which isn't in. I'm not a huge fan of the Gen 9 Bo5 slot, but at least that one has a repeat format. I don't see a reason for any of the other gens, and I don't think "the players want it" is sufficient for the reasons in the previous paragraph.
Ban Lady Writer
Ban Lady Writer.
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quick disorganized post it's getting late here
it's cool that we finally get to have this discussion in the open, but as @above notes there are too many competing viewpoints on removing or adding formats. I'll flesh out another option not involving cutting anything: expand to 16 slots
(i.e. make everyone happy, but no one actually happy
)
One new slot would be Doubles. even as a randdubs main (albeit kinda washed now) I don't think I realized how many good randdubs players there are now until ionnss pointed it out. 16 spots is objectively fillable while remaining more competitive than several other slots, and I don't think it's unfair representation-wise to oldgens if dubs is far more popular than them.
- Discussion: are both slots Bo3 (no clear first/second slot could lead to attempts at gaming slot strength), or is one Bo5 (puts it at equal importance as Gen 9, which might not be desirable)? personally not sure about this.
- also, please make dubs open swiss.
The other new slot can be Mystery Box, with some emphasis on recent gen(s) instead of purely side formats. I would suggest having these as five of the seven: 9-8-7 trio, roulette, baby, cap (basically gen 9 with a few extra mons...), b12p6 (shared power or not, idk).
- Discussion: do we take this out in playoffs? Nobody likes playoff tiebreakers (though making those 5 series may make it better) and nobody likes mystery box becoming partially a 9 slot (this might be false given the support for even more 9 representation). I would personally not be against it.
14->16 players also seems somewhat reasonable given the growing playerbase, at least more than increasing to 10 teams cuz 9 weeks for regular season feels a bit burnout-inducing. Teams do start to get large but it doesn't seem that unmanageable, especially with a third player-manager or allowing players to self-sub.
it's cool that we finally get to have this discussion in the open, but as @above notes there are too many competing viewpoints on removing or adding formats. I'll flesh out another option not involving cutting anything: expand to 16 slots
(i.e. make everyone happy, but no one actually happy
)One new slot would be Doubles. even as a randdubs main (albeit kinda washed now) I don't think I realized how many good randdubs players there are now until ionnss pointed it out. 16 spots is objectively fillable while remaining more competitive than several other slots, and I don't think it's unfair representation-wise to oldgens if dubs is far more popular than them.
- Discussion: are both slots Bo3 (no clear first/second slot could lead to attempts at gaming slot strength), or is one Bo5 (puts it at equal importance as Gen 9, which might not be desirable)? personally not sure about this.
- also, please make dubs open swiss.
The other new slot can be Mystery Box, with some emphasis on recent gen(s) instead of purely side formats. I would suggest having these as five of the seven: 9-8-7 trio, roulette, baby, cap (basically gen 9 with a few extra mons...), b12p6 (shared power or not, idk).
- Discussion: do we take this out in playoffs? Nobody likes playoff tiebreakers (though making those 5 series may make it better) and nobody likes mystery box becoming partially a 9 slot (this might be false given the support for even more 9 representation). I would personally not be against it.
14->16 players also seems somewhat reasonable given the growing playerbase, at least more than increasing to 10 teams cuz 9 weeks for regular season feels a bit burnout-inducing. Teams do start to get large but it doesn't seem that unmanageable, especially with a third player-manager or allowing players to self-sub.
Thanks for bringing some attention to the tiebreak discussion Wigglytuff , I appreciate what you've written and I understand there is a reasonable case to be made for a bo5 series, and I don't see it as an awful thing if it does get implemented.
Allow me to give some pushback here tho. To my understanding the purpose of a tiebreaker is to break a tie, to find a fine margin between 2 evenly matched teams, just a little something to push one side over the edge, not to wage another war (let me know if I'm off here). Showcasing the depth of a roster is totally unnecessary here, that's already been done during the week(s) prior and has lead to both teams being equal and I feel like 36% of the starting lineup coming to play is a tad too much. Sufficient variance mitigation is already in play for the rands tours, being 3 bo3s rather than 3 bo1s in the other tours you mentioned. I know your 1 set suggestion was tongue in cheek but I think bo 3 sets is the smallest it can reasonably be.
Obviously this conversation will be much of a muchness in the end and its not the end of the world either way, but this is my preference and I'm on team do nothing for this one.
Allow me to give some pushback here tho. To my understanding the purpose of a tiebreaker is to break a tie, to find a fine margin between 2 evenly matched teams, just a little something to push one side over the edge, not to wage another war (let me know if I'm off here). Showcasing the depth of a roster is totally unnecessary here, that's already been done during the week(s) prior and has lead to both teams being equal and I feel like 36% of the starting lineup coming to play is a tad too much. Sufficient variance mitigation is already in play for the rands tours, being 3 bo3s rather than 3 bo1s in the other tours you mentioned. I know your 1 set suggestion was tongue in cheek but I think bo 3 sets is the smallest it can reasonably be.
Obviously this conversation will be much of a muchness in the end and its not the end of the world either way, but this is my preference and I'm on team do nothing for this one.
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On mobile, so dont expect me to write long and thorough. In addition, it is 7am and already in a bus going to work, so cut me some slack. But I wanted to give my brief piece as I think most of my Smogon colleagues have alreaduçy covered much of it.
(i) Regarding Ghostilex and Wiggly posts, while it is true that bo3 tb is enough to push the edge, if the teams get bigger and bigger, with more and more formats, I believe that wiggly proposal makes more sense, as it is fairer without pushing too many games. Tb needs to push over the edge, but also represent the teams LU and not a coinflip.
(ii) Pushing for 10 teams is great, as I believe there is enough talent to compensate, as it is clear in RBEL. Making the teams bigger is also a possibility, something I dont prefer but a mid-ground for advocates of not making RBTT longer, something I understand but RBTT is the most important rb tour from the whole year.
(iii) Not a rby player, but when I play it, most of the time I feel like bo5 should be better or, at least, encouraged. So you can leave it to players but encourage them to do so.
(iv) I dont play dubs, but dubs in general have been raising stars in Smogon. I believe it makes sense to keep track on them and seriously discuss their number of slots. To me, I would try to get the number of ppl who plans to sign-up for dubs and see if their numbers are or are not significant.
Thats it, I hope it was short and concise. Enjoy the rest of your day Pokémaniacs
