Circuits are becoming more and more ingrained into the smogon culture and it is good to see that there is now a prize, ribbons, for being consistent in a tier throughout the year and rewarding players for joining these tours year-round. Because the circuits were made by all tiers separately and were modified from the old system where are all tiers did their own thing, there is no uniformity in the formats of the circuits. The main two things that are important and need to be addressed are: who gets points and how many does one get for winning a certain tour.
So as the past gen circuit host, I know in RoA everyone who wins a round of a Cup, Global Championship, Seasonal and Smogon/RoA tour gets points. This was the original idea of the Smogon Championships and of the circuits, as can be seen here. However, the system RoA uses differs from the original one that by using scaling factors instead of equivalent points. We have adopted a system where winning a Cup or GC is worth 6x as much as winning a single Smogon or RoA tour and a Seasonal is worth 5x as much. In this way, we have made it a lot easier to see how many points one has during the year, although the ratios are fairly arbitrary chosen and some people like false, SamuelBest and Alice have already complained about the relative weights of RoA Tour compared to the other tours.
Recently, I became more active in the 1v1 community and saw that their format is completely different from the one that I was used to in RoA. For example, they only give points for making top 16 in Seasonals and their ladder tour and top 8 for Classic. Furthermore, the amount of points one get from winning a tour is also 5 times less in comparison to the lowest worth tour in RoA, which means their scaling is also completely different. However, they are not alone because they got this format from the UU circuit after contacting Hogg in 2018. I know that 1v1 is not unofficial metagame yet, but UU is an official core metagame with a fairly large circuit, so such a big difference between RoA and UU is very surprising.
After checking the other tiers it seems that OU, Ubers, LC, RU, NU, Doubles OU follow a similar but differently scaled system, whereas both 1v1 and UU both use the other format (other OM's or PU might follow first or second one as well, but I haven’t checked them). However, the scaling is different for most tiers, for example RoA gives 5x as much points for a seasonal as LC and OU do, but also favours bigger tours like Classic or GC more than LC and OU do for their bigger tours (LC Open and OST respectively). This year LC and OU seems to have included different amounts of points for A, B, C type tours, but LC give 500, 333 and 167 whereas OU use the equivalent point system of M Dragon.
Personally, I think it is best to make a uniform format so that all circuits give points in the same way and that all tours that are similar give the same amount of points in every tier. This makes it much easier to understand for newer players to learn how all the circuits work. Moreover, players that want to branch out do not have to learn a completely different point system, but can just use their intuition from their old circuit. It also makes more sense and there is no reason why it should not be uniform, especially if they all give similar prices (ribbons). Therefore, we should try to find a uniform format for when to give points to players and how many points a certain tour gives. I am not a big fan of forcing all circuits to have the same amount of tours, because for example OU and RoA circuits cannot fit that many Seasonals in their calendar and other tiers might have legacy tours that they want to keep hosting. However, for Seasonals, opens, cups or live tours the amount of point one gets for winning them should be uniform.
So, for when to give points there are just 2 options:
For how many points one should get for a certain tour, there are many possible scaling factors possible. So, for this I think the TDs or tier leaders need to decide with each other how many points a seasonal should give, a live tour, Cup or Open. However, before this can be discussed properly, we need to establish if we want either:
Personally, I do not like the mercantilist system of M Dragon, where you need to increase your share of the points, thus lowering the points of the other players, to get a higher seed. Especially if you use the system that Ubers was using, because one can lose their playoff seed due to someone else winning a tour. For example, if someone else, who was already qualified via type A points, wins a type B tour, your equivalent value of type B points might drop and cause you to lose your playoffs spot, without it being your fault directly. I think the system is to convoluted and not necessary for our circuits and making it easier for people to understand where they are and how many points they need to qualify, seems much better.
tl;dr: What is your opinion about having a more uniform structure for all our circuits? Also, who should get points and at which round should they get them? And how many points should a certain tour give relative to other ones with a different format?
An unrelated thing, but I saw that some circuits include their classics, so that people can get points for doing well in that tour. However, the playoffs format does not contain any of those old gens, meaning that people can qualify due to tiers that are not included in the playoffs. A rule of thumb should be that tiers that are not played in the circuit playoffs should not count towards qualification for said playoffs. I can understand that tiers want to include their classic in the circuit, but I think giving other prices like signature trophies or, preferably, a banner for winning such a classic sounds much better in my opinion.
So as the past gen circuit host, I know in RoA everyone who wins a round of a Cup, Global Championship, Seasonal and Smogon/RoA tour gets points. This was the original idea of the Smogon Championships and of the circuits, as can be seen here. However, the system RoA uses differs from the original one that by using scaling factors instead of equivalent points. We have adopted a system where winning a Cup or GC is worth 6x as much as winning a single Smogon or RoA tour and a Seasonal is worth 5x as much. In this way, we have made it a lot easier to see how many points one has during the year, although the ratios are fairly arbitrary chosen and some people like false, SamuelBest and Alice have already complained about the relative weights of RoA Tour compared to the other tours.
Recently, I became more active in the 1v1 community and saw that their format is completely different from the one that I was used to in RoA. For example, they only give points for making top 16 in Seasonals and their ladder tour and top 8 for Classic. Furthermore, the amount of points one get from winning a tour is also 5 times less in comparison to the lowest worth tour in RoA, which means their scaling is also completely different. However, they are not alone because they got this format from the UU circuit after contacting Hogg in 2018. I know that 1v1 is not unofficial metagame yet, but UU is an official core metagame with a fairly large circuit, so such a big difference between RoA and UU is very surprising.
After checking the other tiers it seems that OU, Ubers, LC, RU, NU, Doubles OU follow a similar but differently scaled system, whereas both 1v1 and UU both use the other format (other OM's or PU might follow first or second one as well, but I haven’t checked them). However, the scaling is different for most tiers, for example RoA gives 5x as much points for a seasonal as LC and OU do, but also favours bigger tours like Classic or GC more than LC and OU do for their bigger tours (LC Open and OST respectively). This year LC and OU seems to have included different amounts of points for A, B, C type tours, but LC give 500, 333 and 167 whereas OU use the equivalent point system of M Dragon.
Personally, I think it is best to make a uniform format so that all circuits give points in the same way and that all tours that are similar give the same amount of points in every tier. This makes it much easier to understand for newer players to learn how all the circuits work. Moreover, players that want to branch out do not have to learn a completely different point system, but can just use their intuition from their old circuit. It also makes more sense and there is no reason why it should not be uniform, especially if they all give similar prices (ribbons). Therefore, we should try to find a uniform format for when to give points to players and how many points a certain tour gives. I am not a big fan of forcing all circuits to have the same amount of tours, because for example OU and RoA circuits cannot fit that many Seasonals in their calendar and other tiers might have legacy tours that they want to keep hosting. However, for Seasonals, opens, cups or live tours the amount of point one gets for winning them should be uniform.
So, for when to give points there are just 2 options:
- Giving everyone who wins a round points using the scaling system of M Dragon.
- Giving only the top x points and using the same scaling system, where x is number for example 16 or 32.
For how many points one should get for a certain tour, there are many possible scaling factors possible. So, for this I think the TDs or tier leaders need to decide with each other how many points a seasonal should give, a live tour, Cup or Open. However, before this can be discussed properly, we need to establish if we want either:
- The equivalent point system by M Dragon, read here.
- A scaled system, similar to the ones that LC and RoA are using.
Personally, I do not like the mercantilist system of M Dragon, where you need to increase your share of the points, thus lowering the points of the other players, to get a higher seed. Especially if you use the system that Ubers was using, because one can lose their playoff seed due to someone else winning a tour. For example, if someone else, who was already qualified via type A points, wins a type B tour, your equivalent value of type B points might drop and cause you to lose your playoffs spot, without it being your fault directly. I think the system is to convoluted and not necessary for our circuits and making it easier for people to understand where they are and how many points they need to qualify, seems much better.
tl;dr: What is your opinion about having a more uniform structure for all our circuits? Also, who should get points and at which round should they get them? And how many points should a certain tour give relative to other ones with a different format?
An unrelated thing, but I saw that some circuits include their classics, so that people can get points for doing well in that tour. However, the playoffs format does not contain any of those old gens, meaning that people can qualify due to tiers that are not included in the playoffs. A rule of thumb should be that tiers that are not played in the circuit playoffs should not count towards qualification for said playoffs. I can understand that tiers want to include their classic in the circuit, but I think giving other prices like signature trophies or, preferably, a banner for winning such a classic sounds much better in my opinion.
