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I'm ngl I haven't played much champs randdubs and so I'm not the best person to ask. but from watching a lot of sets this RDTT, I do feel it's not quite mature enough of a format. (Similar for champs rands, I have even less of a grasp)
On a more general note: people seem to be reaching a consensus about keeping 8 teams, 16 slots, with minimal changes from last year. Don't fix what ain't broke, and lowkey the most broken thing was that losing 7-9 sucked more than usual. I would favor, though:
- keeping/making Gen 1, BSSF, maybe HC, maybe Roulette Bo5.
- if viable, replacing SV3 with something like balanced B12P6, champs rands (if it's stabilized), etc. I agree with soTsoT that RBTT should be able to showcase more unique formats than WCoR.
- if viable, somehow distinguishing the two dubs slots. I don't think champs dubs or VGC are quite up to the task though. I'd personally prefer making the first dubs slot Bo5, as the top few dubs players are indeed better than the other RBTT-caliber dubs players, and arguing this makes dubs as important as singles is kinda a bad argument when singles has 8 other gens.
1. 8 teams. We don't need a 9-week regular season 2. 16 is fine, but if we are changing, it should be down, not up.
Generally divisive slots I would totally be ok with cutting: SV3, Dubs2, Gen 2, BSSF, Hackmons, Roulette.
I don't think you should be cutting something not on this list. 3. There are literally academic papers backing 3rd manager loafing, but there's not really much downside to a 3rd manager besides one [usually] underqualified player who otherwise wouldn't be in RBTT getting a free custom avatar. 4. Players should only make subs when it's clear the manager will not be around in time to make them. Otherwise good!
Format related discussion:
If you asked me to create my ideal RBTT in a vacuum, I would go SV1, SV2, Champs, Dubs, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, Roulette. However, Rands WCOP exists and making the tours distinct is very important. This means we should have a bit of fun deciding our more niche formats. However, I'm not a big fan of putting wacky formats into RBTT (looking at you VGC Rands); there should still be some prestige and "order" for the formats included. I think it's kind of silly to include formats that people don't actively main/play just to add variety/quirk.
I like the following changes:
SV3 -> Champs, or gone
Dubs2 -> Dubs bo5, Champ Dubs bo3, or gone
Roulette -> format pick/ban, similar to circuit. It's more complicated and not self-contained, but we already played around with challenge codes and MBox in the past and this format mirror circuit more closely.
Doubles 2 is not weak! The Doubles scene has a lot of good players!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a big argument about Doubles2 in the randdubs server a couple days ago, and the main argument I saw was that there are in fact, 16 players who are good enough to play at an "RBTT level". While I think there are reasonably more than 8 players who are RBTT level, the problem isn't finding enough players to fill 16 (I'm ok with a few stinkers like me every year), but additionally the 8 extra subs that people draft to cover two slots. In a one-slot Doubles format, you'll probably get around 9-10 Doubles players getting drafted; few teams opting for a sub, to cover for weaker resumes or availability. However, in two-slot doubles, you will get 21-24 Doubles players getting drafted; almost every team opting for a sub. Adding onto the fact that managers want to give all players some playing time, you'd be lying to yourself if you said the skill disparity between players isn't noticeably wide. It's very evident when you end up with teams like soTsoT/Freya or marco/dinis playing against weaker drafts. However, I do think the overall popularity of Random Doubles as a whole warrants two slots, whether it be in SV or Champs. (mirroring SV). I'm personally a big advocate for SV Bo5 and SV Bo3 for Doubles, it worked well in RDTT in separating those higher level players
I wasn't supposed to play Bo5 in RDTT, I was just larping
Honestly indifferent about these formats' existence in RBTT, but here some thoughts:
Hackmons - Playerbase definitely exists, but the skill disparity is less than other formats in RBTT. This could be because all the players are similarly skilled, but I'm more inclined to believe that the format is a bit less skill-based than advocates are making it out to be. Also shoutouts to npm for carrying Diancies last year, both in Hackmons and in vibes. BSS Factory - Playerbase is not there. Over half of the players in the RBTT 9 pool actively play another RBTT tier at an RBTT level. I think there are more popular formats out there that can fill the "diversity quota" for RBTT/WCOP differentiation.
Funnily enough, the existence of BSSCL and HackmonsPL removed one of the old reasons for having them in RBTT: to keep them alive and represented in tours. If Challenge Cup doesn't need to be in RBTT because it has its own tour, Hackmons and BSS Factory will be just fine.
And if you look at the <insert format team tour> sheet, it had a good number of <insert format> players that ended with positive records.
Yes, Pokemon is a zero-sum game, there will be players with positive records. What actually matters is the disparity between good players and bad players. Also including players who usually play/prefer other formats is not particularly meaningful. I think Click>Think would actively murder me if I fielded him in BSS Factory or Hackmons Cup.
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Probably not a consideration for this tournament, but I do think we should atleast consider walking away from gen1-9 singles being 100% fixed slots. I think the amount of people who actually enjoy playing gen2 AND are able to play it at RBTT level can be counted with one hand. We excluded singles formats in the past because we knew they were unpopular, and while the whole thing has definitely become more serious since then, I don't think keeping a format around that hardly anyone actually wants to play helps the overall competetiveness of the tournament.
I already said this above, but 100% agree. Gens 1-9 are not mainstays, especially unpopular ones. Gen 2 wasn't included in RBTT for many previous editions, and there were very few people who complained about it. Also please don't make them a rotating format if you do axe their permanent slot, you still need to draft for each of the formats but they get less playing time/value.
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All of the pick/ban is too complicated ... I think the two things that could improve the slot to give it more variety are:
1. bo5 would increase the tiers that could be showcased in a given set.
2. No repeats allowed. Instead of just challenging the format, roll in pms beforehand and reroll on dupes, then just challenge in the tier that gets rolled. This has the added benefit of allowing calcdex to work.
Pick/Ban is a single extra step more than option 2. Hard agree on Bo5 though.
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Number of slots should stay the same but I think it should be looked into getting the subs doing more than twiddling their thumbs. Maybe have 2 or 3 sub slots playing each week with rotating formats and the team with the best subs record gets a bonus point or 2.
Rotating slots and Mystery Box are bad. Also subs are subs, their whole job is to not be doing something so they can fill in for someone who is busy. Also imo a good manager should be giving all their players some amount of playing time.
Franchising:
Franchises should change infrequently, but not never. RBTT is very guilty of having managers go: "what legendary do I want in my CA this year?" and picking a different mascot every year. Rands players currently view team continuity more through the lens of the manager core, not the team, which should be primary and not secondary to the managers/players on said teams. Franchising also helps builds more progression and storylines. You can't really have storylines like Canada going from Quals failures to Champions, or being b2b Champions when your team name and identity changes every single iteration. Maybe if people really want the opportunity to switch, we can make it so certain manager pairings have to keep their mascot for a couple years (maybe 3?), before being allowed to switch. Reminds me of the ridiculousness of WCOP Team France having swapped mascots literally every year. I just want teams themselves to have some type of continuity outside of the names comprising the manager cores, and franchising helps with that. (also the CA farming with yearly mascot changes is really stupid, both for bloat and artist workload.)
Also, to me one of the best aspects of rbtt is to land in a different teamenvironment every year, and retains actively work against that. I was a Hoopa for my first 2 rbtts, and while I had a good time in both of them, I was very glad to not be a hoopa for a third year in a row.
Team Hoopa aside, the cosmetic difference of a new mascot doesn't really affect the team environment. Your managers will be the same, and the players likely not. If you ended up in a similar team environment, it's probably bc of the managers/players, not the mascot.
Mostly unrelated to RBTT but related to franchising and CAs as a whole:
I might be the only person on the platform to think this, but I think team-specific CAs for getting drafted to a team tour is really stupid. 90% of people don't use them bc they have cooler ones from other tours, and they just add a bunch of bloat to the CA pool and peoples' collections. NPA got denied team-specific avis and was instead given an interesting consolation: a set of CAs for the whole tour + Team CA for the winners. It keeps the prize for getting drafted, gives every iteration its own unique vibe, and maintains further incentive for teams to win and get that Team CA. I don't really want a CA with customization restrictions (which these tours have), especially if the team performed poorly. I think there are other ways for Showdown to implement 'team pride' for these tours, such as putting up a team banner beneath their name for their tour matches, having a country flag by their name, a team badge similar to ladder achievements, etc. It's too late now to fix the CA inflation economy (especially now that each section individually gets 3 lol), but I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic anyways.
RBTT should do whatever cool stuff they can with the CA slots that teams are given, but cool avis should never come before other considerations for team franchising (and CA artists are really hard to find rn, like it took Canada months to find an artist, even with large financial incentive)
Other thoughts:
- Auction should just be the standard for all other mons formats; 10k per mandatory slot, min 3k.
- I want manager selfbuys to be more variable in price to account for skill level (because I'm trash), but a consistent price is just easier to follow and is less subjective. I would be careful about strong players being "manager" for the sake of going at a lower, consistent price though.
- Indifferent on retains, could be fun. Tetains should get more expensive over consecutive retains, and pause retains for a year if you go 10 teams.
- Previously Bo5 formats should stay bo5. If other formats want to join them, sure. We are NOT entertaining Bo7... I'm probably objectively wrong on half of these opinions lol
Dubs mainers, mainly SolaceAntsoTsoTOptidoxsnorlax142857 who already wrote here, i would very much like to know your opinions on this matter specifically.
I'm really curious of what you all may think! Thanks for the attention o7
I personally would rather have SV Best of 3 and SV Best of 5 than SV and champs, but I think there are merits to both. I just think champs is in too much of a state of flux right now, as new regs drop and items get added sets and levels will change pretty frequently. Would rather have a more stable format.
1. 8 teams. We don't need a 9-week regular season 2. 16 is fine, but if we are changing, it should be down, not up.
Generally divisive slots I would totally be ok with cutting: SV3, Dubs2, Gen 2, BSSF, Hackmons, Roulette.
I don't think you should be cutting something not on this list. 3. There are literally academic papers backing 3rd manager loafing, but there's not really much downside to a 3rd manager besides one [usually] underqualified player who otherwise wouldn't be in RBTT getting a free custom avatar. 4. Players should only make subs when it's clear the manager will not be around in time to make them. Otherwise good!
Format related discussion:
If you asked me to create my ideal RBTT in a vacuum, I would go SV1, SV2, Champs, Dubs, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, Roulette. However, Rands WCOP exists and making the tours distinct is very important. This means we should have a bit of fun deciding our more niche formats. However, I'm not a big fan of putting wacky formats into RBTT (looking at you VGC Rands); there should still be some prestige and "order" for the formats included. I think it's kind of silly to include formats that people don't actively main/play just to add variety/quirk.
I like the following changes:
SV3 -> Champs, or gone
Dubs2 -> Dubs bo5, Champ Dubs bo3, or gone
Roulette -> format pick/ban, similar to circuit. It's more complicated and not self-contained, but we already played around with challenge codes and MBox in the past and this format mirror circuit more closely.
There was a big argument about Doubles2 in the randdubs server a couple days ago, and the main argument I saw was that there are in fact, 16 players who are good enough to play at an "RBTT level". While I think there are reasonably more than 8 players who are RBTT level, the problem isn't finding enough players to fill 16 (I'm ok with a few stinkers like me every year), but additionally the 8 extra subs that people draft to cover two slots. In a one-slot Doubles format, you'll probably get around 9-10 Doubles players getting drafted; few teams opting for a sub, to cover for weaker resumes or availability. However, in two-slot doubles, you will get 21-24 Doubles players getting drafted; almost every team opting for a sub. Adding onto the fact that managers want to give all players some playing time, you'd be lying to yourself if you said the skill disparity between players isn't noticeably wide. It's very evident when you end up with teams like soTsoT/Freya or marco/dinis playing against weaker drafts. However, I do think the overall popularity of Random Doubles as a whole warrants two slots, whether it be in SV or Champs. (mirroring SV). I'm personally a big advocate for SV Bo5 and SV Bo3 for Doubles, it worked well in RDTT in separating those higher level players
I wasn't supposed to play Bo5 in RDTT, I was just larping
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Honestly indifferent about these formats' existence in RBTT, but here some thoughts:
Hackmons - Playerbase definitely exists, but the skill disparity is less than other formats in RBTT. This could be because all the players are similarly skilled, but I'm more inclined to believe that the format is a bit less skill-based than advocates are making it out to be. Also shoutouts to npm for carrying Diancies last year, both in Hackmons and in vibes. BSS Factory - Playerbase is not there. Over half of the players in the RBTT 9 pool actively play another RBTT tier at an RBTT level. I think there are more popular formats out there that can fill the "diversity quota" for RBTT/WCOP differentiation.
Funnily enough, the existence of BSSCL and HackmonsPL removed one of the old reasons for having them in RBTT: to keep them alive and represented in tours. If Challenge Cup doesn't need to be in RBTT because it has its own tour, Hackmons and BSS Factory will be just fine.
Yes, Pokemon is a zero-sum game, there will be players with positive records. What actually matters is the disparity between good players and bad players. Also including players who usually play/prefer other formats is not particularly meaningful. I think Click>Think would actively murder me if I fielded him in BSS Factory or Hackmons Cup.
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I already said this above, but 100% agree. Gens 1-9 are not mainstays, especially unpopular ones. Gen 2 wasn't included in RBTT for many previous editions, and there were very few people who complained about it. Also please don't make them a rotating format if you do axe their permanent slot, you still need to draft for each of the formats but they get less playing time/value.
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Pick/Ban is a single extra step more than option 2. Hard agree on Bo5 though.
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Rotating slots and Mystery Box are bad. Also subs are subs, their whole job is to not be doing something so they can fill in for someone who is busy. Also imo a good manager should be giving all their players some amount of playing time.
Franchising:
Franchises should change infrequently, but not never. RBTT is very guilty of having managers go: "what legendary do I want in my CA this year?" and picking a different mascot every year. Rands players currently view team continuity more through the lens of the manager core, not the team, which should be primary and not secondary to the managers/players on said teams. Franchising also helps builds more progression and storylines. You can't really have storylines like Canada going from Quals failures to Champions, or being b2b Champions when your team name and identity changes every single iteration. Maybe if people really want the opportunity to switch, we can make it so certain manager pairings have to keep their mascot for a couple years (maybe 3?), before being allowed to switch. Reminds me of the ridiculousness of WCOP Team France having swapped mascots literally every year. I just want teams themselves to have some type of continuity outside of the names comprising the manager cores, and franchising helps with that. (also the CA farming with yearly mascot changes is really stupid, both for bloat and artist workload.)
Team Hoopa aside, the cosmetic difference of a new mascot doesn't really affect the team environment. Your managers will be the same, and the players likely not. If you ended up in a similar team environment, it's probably bc of the managers/players, not the mascot.
Mostly unrelated to RBTT but related to franchising and CAs as a whole:
I might be the only person on the platform to think this, but I think team-specific CAs for getting drafted to a team tour is really stupid. 90% of people don't use them bc they have cooler ones from other tours, and they just add a bunch of bloat to the CA pool and peoples' collections. NPA got denied team-specific avis and was instead given an interesting consolation: a set of CAs for the whole tour + Team CA for the winners. It keeps the prize for getting drafted, gives every iteration its own unique vibe, and maintains further incentive for teams to win and get that Team CA. I don't really want a CA with customization restrictions (which these tours have), especially if the team performed poorly. I think there are other ways for Showdown to implement 'team pride' for these tours, such as putting up a team banner beneath their name for their tour matches, having a country flag by their name, a team badge similar to ladder achievements, etc. It's too late now to fix the CA inflation economy (especially now that each section individually gets 3 lol), but I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic anyways.
RBTT should do whatever cool stuff they can with the CA slots that teams are given, but cool avis should never come before other considerations for team franchising (and CA artists are really hard to find rn, like it took Canada months to find an artist, even with large financial incentive)
Other thoughts:
- Auction should just be the standard for all other mons formats; 10k per mandatory slot, min 3k.
- I want manager selfbuys to be more variable in price to account for skill level (because I'm trash), but a consistent price is just easier to follow and is less subjective. I would be careful about strong players being "manager" for the sake of going at a lower, consistent price though.
- Indifferent on retains, could be fun. Tetains should get more expensive over consecutive retains, and pause retains for a year if you go 10 teams.
- Previously Bo5 formats should stay bo5. If other formats want to join them, sure. We are NOT entertaining Bo7... I'm probably objectively wrong on half of these opinions lol
From my experience (1500+ ladder games, peaked the ladder several times), despite it being super fun, some actions should be taken on B12P6 before we seriously consider it as an option for RBTT, just like what we did with HC. Some abilities, like Shadow Tag, Huge Power and Speed Boost, can give the player a huge advantage, sometimes even an auto-win at team preview. As in the Shared Power (OM) tier, maybe we could restrict some abilities based on their win rate, meaning they cannot be shared with teammates.
So, as someone who was involved in B12P6 getting a perma ladder and who plays it w some frequency, I'd love to have it on RBTT cause the format is genuinely incredible and does value a decent gameplan on preview, I think the simple fix for the Stag, Huge and pure power and such is just doing what the main SP does, restrict the ability to the native users, in this case medi azuma goth, and id rather also mention that Regenerator, Speed boost, Adaptability and Tinted lens could also be looked at that as well, which although not outright broken like the other 3, can make games pretty obnoxious due to how well they stack with other ability multipliers as far of rand bats
Here are my thoughts on the points I care about...
Keep the numbers the same as last year: 8 teams, 16 slots. I can see the argument for 14 slots, but it's tough to cut tiers and there are new tiers people want included as well, so keeping 16 feels best. Maybe for RBTT 11 we do need to look at condensing some oldgen slots to make room for more other slots, but personally I wouldn't like to see any gen completely unrepresented, so it's difficult. Something to think about as gen 10 approaches.
Despite maybe not being the most "polished" and being susceptible to shock updates, I think Champions deserves a slot on account of being derived from the "most current" form of competitive mons. The slot I would most want to cut for this would be either SV3 or BSSF. Other than this change, I'd want to keep the slots essentially the same as last year.
I think doubles should retain 2 slots. My strong preference for this would be to have SV Bo5 and SV Bo3 slots for doubles. In RDTT, I personally felt like regular gen 9 random doubles was a good tier to play and watch while the variant doubles formats (VGC rands and Champions doubles rands) were noticeably worse. We definitely should not include VGC rands in its current form. Champions doubles would probably be okay but it somehow feels wonkier to me than Champions singles and I'd prefer just a second SV doubles slot.
I don't think we should have player retains. On franchising more broadly, I think managers should perhaps be encouraged but not forced to carry on the legacy of previous teams? I'm not too well-informed on this topic.
Roulette is a cool tier but I like some of the proposed changes. It is a tier that could benefit from being Bo5 in its current form. Alternatively, I like what hammy suggested about tiers being pre-rolled each week so teams can have a bit more strategy in deciding who to slot, but I do concede this takes away from the spirit of roulette being a purely all-rounder, ready-for-anything tier.
I do not care what the tiebreak rules are as long as they are laid out clearly, somewhere publicly accessible, before a tie actually eventuates.
I might sign up as a manager so I will talk a bit about my thoughts here
Removal of formats (and slots): I'm generally in favour of reducing the number of slots to 14 if that means that we can keep the overall quality of the tournament higher. I think SV3 would probably be the format I'd be most comfortable removing. Doubles does get a lot of support and so does Hackmons Cup.
Substitution of formats: If we do remove some formats, I'd rather see them replaced with something that actually brings a different experience to the tournament instead of just adding another similar format. There are quite a few interesting suggestions in the thread, so I think it's worth looking into some of those before making a decision.
Introduction of new formats (Champions?): I think Pokémon Champions could be an interesting opportunity to introduce something new, especially Champions Randoms or Champions Doubles. Even tho I haven't actually played Champions rands myself, I do see the support and it would make a great addition.
The future of formats such as Battle Stadium Singles Factory and Random Roulette: I'm personally in favour of keeping formats that make RBTT unique. BSSF offers a different kind of competitive experience, and I think Random Roulette is a fun format that adds variety to the lineup. I'd rather keep both if possible, although I'm open to adjustments if there are concerns about their competitiveness or overall quality. I think A Cake Wearing A Hat made a good suggestion about roulette that would be pretty cool
Modifying the type of series (e.g. Best of 3/5/7): I would definitely support introducing more Bo5 series, especially in formats where variance plays a bigger role, such as Hackmons Cup and Random Roulette. I also think Gen 1 and BSSF could benefit from it. Don't make it Bo7 tho pls. I like to watch people suffer but that is too much in my opinion ....
Also :
Removal of player retains: I do agree what the password guy O1V7O2X9O says: I don't think we should have player retains. While I can understand retains from a managers perspective and that they would want to keep a reliable player, I think it's better to give every manager the same opportunity to build their team from scratch and draft whoever they think is the best fit. It makes the draft more interesting and gives everyone more flexibility.
Earlier manager signups and more time for artists: I don't think Custom Avatars are the most important part about RBTT but definetely a big part and why we have so many sign ups. So I do think we should open Manager signups earlier to give artists more time to work on avatars. I also think managers should be able to talk to the artists and give some ideas or guidelines for their teams avatar since its basically the mascot which represents the team
RBTT winner and MVP recognition: I'd also like to see a red banner for RBTT winners, similar to what SPL has. I think winning RBTT is a pretty big achievement considering how big the tournament is, and it would be nice to have something that actually shows that on your profile. Having an RBTT MVP banner or award as well would be a cool addition to recognize the players who had an outstanding performance during the tournament.
