Project Doubles Oldgens Scheduled Room Tournaments [ON HOLD / Looking for Showdown tour host bot...]

ryo yamada2001

ryo yamada2001
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Introducing scheduled old generation Doubles room tournaments!
This is a points-based monthly tournament for old Doubles metagames played in the Smogon Doubles room on Pokémon Showdown. There will be two single-elimination tournaments a day: one at 8pm GMT+2 and another at 8pm GMT-4. Winners of every tournament will be awarded 3 points; finalists 2 points, and semifinalists 1 point. This leaderboard is kept by Officer Jenny in the Doubles room; the player with most points at the end of each monthly cycle will be awarded the ^Prize Winner role on Pokémon Showdown!

The times will remain the same every day, but the tiers rotate daily and weekly as to give everyone as much opportunity to play.
The tournament schedule for April is as follows:
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Link to schedule

DPP DOU also hosts weekly double-elimination tournaments on Sunday at 1am GMT+2; these do not count towards the points leaderboard, however.

Good luck to all our old generation gamers!
 
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We are now officially a week into our scheduled room tournament cycle! I would like to thank everybody for showing up and making this a successful project thus far -- we've been able to gather at least 10 people for almost every tournament so far!

Here are the standings so far:
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(note that the sheet is maintained manually and is more consistent than the bot's leaderboard)
A major shoutout to Bless who managed to win three tournaments this week! No other player managed to win even two so far.

Here are the winners for week 1's tournaments:
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The upcoming tournaments schedule is in the opening post. We won't have the same tiers on the same days, so double check if you're curious about particular tiers! Speaking of which, we have roles in the Doubles Discord #role-channel; be notified when your favorite room tournaments go up so you don't miss any chance at points! :froth:

Now that we're a week into the cycle I have a few questions:
1. Should these tournaments be double elimination? I think players appreciate single elimination's brevity, but it might also feel underwhelming to be knocked out after one bad matchup. I personally lean towards keeping it single elimination and hosting other non-points tournaments throughout the day as to not overwhelm players with long tournaments.

2. Have the other tournament rules been fine so far? I noticed that some people were a bit late, despite tournament autostart being set to 5 minutes. Should it be set to 10 minutes or is this too long?

3. We have additional slots in our schedule, which are currently filled by extra old generation tournaments. However, we could also take this opportunity to include other tiers, such as Doubles UU. What would people like to see in this slot most; oldgens or other metagames?

4. Has it been fun?
 
1. I'd say keep it single elim. These aren't incredibly serious tours and I think with how many there are, anyone can make up ground despite losing to hax/matchup in one tourney. Multiple double elim tournies could start to feel like a chore and could result in less people joining.

2. I have only played in like, 2 room tours as of late but I try to watch games when I can. From what I observe tho, things seem just fine as is. Personally I think with tours being scheduled people should be able to adjust their own schedule around the tournies and that 5 minutes is a fair window to log on.

3. My own opinion here, but I feel old gens are more fun than the entirety of sv, so I'd obviously want more old Gen stuff. However I know there are dedicated dubers, duu and dlc players and I'm sure they'd appreciate more of those formats being played. Featuring duu/dubers/dlc in some way is probably the call.

4. Yes. Despite not being able to partake in many tours I have enjoyed watching on the sidelines and appreciate the attempt to keep people interested in old gens. Keep up the good work.
 
1.) I would prefer double elim. Single elim is shorter but single elim bo1 feels terrible in a game like mons. There's so much variance caused by hax and matchups that I think double elim is the most competitive format that's still reasonably accessible and not too long.

2.) I think the start times are fine, but I don't really see a downside to changing the start time to 10 minutes. All the other rules are fine

3.) The point of the tournament is to increase interest in oldgens, so more oldgens stuff just seems logical to me. I'm biased though because I think DUbers is very unfun (Dondozo moment) and DUU changing every few weeks makes it an extremely volatile meta that never really has time to settle into anything

4.) YES! I love oldgens (though I haven't played in many of the tournaments because I've been busy with life stuff + DPL), and I think roomtours are casual enough to not be stressful, but still competitive. I enjoy :D

This project is a very good idea, thank you for not letting oldgens die (they're very epic) :D
 
1. Despite being longer I would prefer double elimination after all. Single elimination is awful: makes everything incredibly matchup-dependant, doesn't really give any opportunity for new players to learn the metas and makes the more experienced players very salty when they lose to hax.
2. Ruling-wise, I'm pretty happy with the status quo.
3. I don't really enjoy current DUbers but all other tiers (DUU, DNU, Oldgen DUU, oldgen DOU, oldgen DUbers, CAP doubles) are welcomed personally.
4. It is fun, although I believe it would be even funnier with the improvement I've previously stated in section 1.
 
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A huge congratulations to Lolk for winning the April cycle!
By joining tours with an incredible consistency and placing highly with unique teams and excellent meta reads, Lolk ended up far and away with the most points this month! This makes him a pretty big deal and that's why he was awarded the room tournament winner role on Discord!

A major shoutout to bage1 for coming in second with 30 points, Bless third with 27 points, Iceberg77 fourth with 26 points, and Farfromani fifth with 24 points. Thank you to everybody else who participated in the tournament cycle! I hope to see you all again next month.

Here are all the tournament winners of the April cycle:
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The top three (Lolk, bage1, and Bless) all won 6 tournaments; Sunrose bookended the April cycle with wins in ADV and BW, respectively.

Here are all the players who earned 5 or more points during the April cycle:
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Here is the full standings sheet
Lolk earned the most points in SS (10) and Actuarily came in second (8). Both of them won 2 SS tournaments each.
bage1 and commutative shared the most points in SM (7), with the both of them also winning 2 SM tournaments each.
Lolk was the only person to score more than 5 points in XY (7).
Lolk, Farfromani, and LOP DF Tarjete shared most points earned in BW (7).
bage1 was the best DPP performer with 8 points, while Sunrose followed closely with 7 points.
Lolk also topped the ADV leaderboard with 11 points, followed by Iceberg77 (9) and bage1 (8).

Here is the schedule for the May cycle:
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And as always, if anyone has any feedback for the scheduled room tournaments I would love to hear! Looking forward to seeing everybody compete again next week!
 
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Congratulations to AIRedzone for winning the May cycle!

Here are all the winners of the May cycle tournament:
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Congratulations to the rest of the podium and to DaWoblefet in particular for winning the most tournaments out of anyone this cycle.
Best performers:
ADV: Sunrose (6 points)
DPP: AIRedzone (11 points)
BW: DaWoblefet (13 points)
XY: Alexia B. (7 points)
SM: AIRedzone & DaWoblefet (5 points)
SS: Teals, MausHoldMyHand, Sunrose & Jterry (4 points)

The schedule was a bit wacky this month but that should be resolved next month, with the following schedule:
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Congratulations to griffedulion for winning the June cycle with a whopping 52 points! That's a new monthly record!

Here are all the winners for the June cycle:
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Congratulations to the rest of the podium and congratulations to griffedulion and ryo yamada2001 for setting the record for most tournaments won in a month!
Best performers:
ADV:
Farfromani (9 points)
DPP: ryo yamada2001 (17 points - new record for most points in any tier in a month!)
BW: DaWoblefet (13 points)
XY: griffedulion (11 points)
SM: Penter (10 points)
SS: griffedulion (10 points)


The room tour schedule for July is as follows:
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Note that the tournaments marked yellow will not count towards points for the end of the month.


Make sure to visit the #roles-channel in the Doubles Discord to select roles to get pinged for specific room tournaments whenever they go up!
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Congratulations to Farfromani for winning the July roomtour cycle, completely eclipsing the previous record by 30 points!
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Best performers:
ADV: Farfromani (17 points) - new record!
DPP: bage1 (12 points)
BW: Farfromani (18 points) - new record!
XY: Farfromani (19 points) - new record! Most points in any given tier in one month
SM: Farfromani (9 points)
SS: Smudge (16 points) - new record!

The tournament schedule for August will be as follows:
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This month might be a little bit wonky because we'll have to start the tournaments manually. If a tournament does not go up as expected, please ping me or any other driver, mod, or roomowner in the Doubles room or on Doubles discord.

Good luck competing this month everyone!
 
It has now been over a year since the scheduled old gens room tours were put on hold due to the bot shortage (prolly a global supply chain issue like everything else). That's a real shame because those room tours were a positive development on a number of levels.

The Doubles room on Showdown is going to hold some old gens room tours anyway. Two a day is a very reasonable amount and having them prescheduled makes it much more likely that 2+ people will actually show up. We only had the scheduled room tours for four months last year, and participation fluctuated somewhat, but I believe we could easily get to 50+ people participating in one or more scheduled old gens room tours in any given month.

Scheduled room tours are a great way to support our old gens community. ADV and DPP are fairly recent additions to the Doubles pantheon, and they have further stretched the limited old gens DOU playerbase. There are currently no ladders for DOU gens 3, 4 or 5, and the ladders for 6 and 8, though awesome to still have, are not very active. Having tours for each old gen once a year, along with the Vintage and revamped Classic (which require players to have familiarity with 3 old gens formats) is not really enough to get players up to speed in a new (for them) old gen. Without a way for new players to get meaningful practice and become proficient in the old gens, many potential players (myself included) will sit on the sidelines for gens they don't feel comfortable in and the old gens player base will predictably decline over time. Scheduled room tours would allow people to play up to 10 tours in an old gen of their choice each month, often against quality opponents, gaining familiarity that will enable them to be more active in the community and to join the annual tours if they are so inclined.

For me some, scheduled room tours are also a welcome alternative to the intense competition of the official annual tours, as reflected in the Doubles record sheet. Room tours don't have the same problems as the official tours with waiting (only one lousy game/set a week for months on end) and constant scheduling headaches ("GMT+ what?" "You mean you can only play at my 6 am?" Then, after you've finally gotten scheduled, feverishly waiting for your late opp who may or may not finally show up at any minute). Room tour results don't go on your "permanent record". Everything starts fresh each month. You can even join on a random Showdown alt if you desire some anonymity. Just come and have fun and maybe you'll win a point or two (or three!), and you'll get valuable old gens experience in the process--which could actually help you feel confident enough to try the official tours.

The current "sheet" encourages the type of player who is prone to stress about their win/loss ratio to avoid tours in formats where they are not very experienced or skilled, so as not to mess up their record. If, for example, a player tried to participate in a small seemingly unofficial ROA tour (even under an alt) to get much needed "practice" in a completely new old gen DOU format, someone would helpfully find the results and add those losses to their "full" permanent record—plz don't ask me how I know this :psynervous:. A hypothetical records format that was just based on tour wins alone (with no win/loss break outs) would be much easier to keep up and would actually yield very similar "rankings" for top players (giving them something to strive for), while incentivizing all players to sign up for as many tours as possible to maximize the chance that they hit a hot streak and win a tour.

What value is there in having a special column for "finals" records in addition to the "trophy" section that already tallies finals wins? Getting to finals is harder than losing in semi-finals, but a finals loss effectively creates a permanent black mark on a player's record.

For a real treat, take a look at the bottom half of the "sheet". Most of those folks have literally never won a tour set. A very large number played and lost a single set and then never darkened the door of another Doubles tour. What value is there in keeping a permanent record of this?

Excluding noobs and a few superstar outliers, most tour battles are between folks whose win ratio for individual games is in the 50-60% range (with many who are a bit under 50% being competent competitors, perfectly capable of winning a tour when RNG smiles on them). Making a big deal over these small differences likely drives more people away than it attracts.

I get that preparing and maintaining the record sheet is a difficult, time consuming and thankless task (largely undertaken by the same person who made the incredible scheduled room tours happen :psycry:). I appreciate the selfless intent, and I'm sure many players don't stress about stuff like their permanent record, but I do think it's good to provide alternatives for those who do and scheduled room tours were perfect for that! Frankly, I think CG DOU would also benefit from having regularly scheduled room tours, as even CG participation in Doubles room tours has been pretty hit or miss lately from what I have seen).

Anyway, so I get that a bot would be helpful for running these room tours. However, can we please explore other alternatives to make something work? In my experience, things get done with Smogon stuff only when there is personal will to make something happen. May put forth a superhuman effort to get the scheduled old gens room tours put together last year. I and many others who enjoyed those tours are grateful for that! However, they shouldn't personally bear the burden of keeping the old gen room tours going. Can't we get a few of the more regular participants to manually start the old gen room tours at the appointed times? As long as I'm in my current work situation, I think I'd be able to personally help start over 50% of the room tours (if given that ability) and could send out a message on the Old Gens DOUcord for most others. If we could get to around a 90% success rate in holding scheduled tours that would be just fine. I believe we could do that without a bot. I could also assist with compiling monthly point totals if that would be helpful. There's probably technical stuff I don't know about, but let's at least get this conversation going!
 
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hi! I share the sentiment for oldgens roomtours entirely, because even now oldgens tournaments have been codified into their own circuit, the schedueld roomtours were very beneficial for the significant and often quite neglected player populace you illustrate in your post. what happened with the roomtours is that I lost contact with the original bot owner and finding a new one coincided with my burning out from contributing on Smogon at large. I lost the commands & documentation to run the bot in the meanwhile, and while Smudge in particular has been very active trying to get back in contact w/ bot owner Felucia, she's also presumably been busy w/ other technical efforts around Showdown + cleaning up whatever catastrophe happens weekly in 1v1... so it's not been for a lack of trying! really just the manual upkeep of tournaments is such busywork that I don't have in me anymore... I will discuss alternatives w/ PS staff for the time being, looking if we can maybe get a select group of hosts to start tours as a band-aid solution to having no bot

as per the sheet, as someone w/ playing anxiety myself i understand the concerns about maintaining a w/l record. I get the impression that most people do appreciate the resource, so i'm not going to close it, but i can try to anonymize it if you're comfortable by, for example, removing you from the aggregate pages ('standings' & 'full'). i will at least change the finals records column to finals appearances instead as a less negative way of displaying someone's deep tour runs. if i hear about more people who feel pressured by the sheet i'll try to find out a different way of displaying information

for the bottom half of the sheet: the purpose of the sheet was/is to be as complete as possible an overview of doubles' tournament history, where naturally is someone wins (+1) someone must lose (-1). though the sheet isn't perfectly accurate, even the players who have only 1 set on their record are a part of this ecosystem, thus the value of keeping these records is to keep it as accurate as possible. i could hide players below a # of sets played -- and i do sort the sheet this way -- but then you'd get the issue that inevitably someone else ends up at the bottom, and if you hide those then someone else, etc. to the point i could as well delete the sheet (which i won't do). i also frankly don't think the supermajority of those players know there's a records sheet at all, let alone care about their doubles records if they've only played a handful of sets here at most

i hope that clears some things up if you have any questions feel free to dm me here or ping me on discord. and if you want a roomtour feel free to ask whatever driver or mod is online in PS room because its really just one click for us
 
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