Help Wanted: Old Gens Tournaments Feedback

[phoopes]

Thank you very much to Rage, Siatam, and Theia for helping make this post possible!

Hi everyone, this thread is being posted by Ruins of Alph leadership in response to some concerns that have been raised in the past few months by different people around the site, namely that there are problems with the old gens tournament scene, and the circuits are a particular point where this is concerned. In this thread, we'd like to work out exactly what the issues are and how we can fix them to continue to keep the site's older generations healthy and the tournaments enjoyable and competitive while still being accessible for everyone.

To start off, we held an internal discussion within leadership to attempt to diagnose what we think the issues could be. Siatam hit on the four reasons that most people participate in tournaments:

• Fun: As part of an effort to cater to what different old gen playerbases are after, we touched base with all of the generation forum mods to remove the centralized circuit structure and instead allow each generation to have their circuit built on a case-by-case basis instead, including things like removing RoA Tour, which had increasingly low participation, and cutting down on longer tours like Seasonals and introducing new formats like Majors where desired. These can continue to be adjusted based on feedback from the community.
• Sense of Accomplishment + Clout: Putting these two reasons together, people want to feel like they've done something when they win a tour. The first few rounds of a tour especially can be a slog as inactive users are filtered through the bracket, and there isn't much of a sense of pride in getting activity wins until Round Four of a seasonal. Additionally, due to the naturally accessible nature of circuit tournaments, more proven players may end up paired against less proven players until later rounds of the tournament, reducing the desire to play. Finally, there seems to be a general sentiment that ribbons just don't matter much and there isn't much pride in winning one.
• Prizes: As seen by the recent ORAS Invitational, prizes attract talented players. The generation-specific PLs, RoAPL, and RCoP all offer team custom avatars, while the circuit champion gets their choose of an avatar, name reset, or name color change. Money is also an idea thrown around a lot, but it's extremely difficult for RoA and RoA Tours leadership to provide a monetary incentive for all of our tournaments in order to attract more players.

There's a lot to address about this issue, it's obviously a complicated one with no easy, straightforward solution, but these are the main factors we're looking to address. Additionally, if there are any other major points we didn't come up with between the three of us, we'd love to hear about them so we can work to improve them too. All (reasonable) ideas on how we can move forward with this are largely appreciated.

We're grateful any and all constructive feedback and suggestions from the community at large so we can hopefully continue to make positive changes to the old gens tournaments scene. Thanks everyone in advance!

 

[Expulso]

Tbh I think a sizable money prize is the only real fix.

Lutra has tried every possible tournament format so I don't think that u can find a format that makes the tour substantially more fun and improves the quality of oldgen seasonals that way.

===

In all smogon unofficials but especially oldgen ones, there is little incentive for established players to participate. They've generally already built up a reputation for being good and dont need to advertise themselves as a seasonal winner, and they often have experienced friends to test with, which can be more productive than a seasonal (particularly since ssnl teams wont align that closely with the teams you encounter in high-level tournament play). They also face downsides to participating, such as revealing teams/playstyle thru replays and the general grind of playing a 12 to 14-round seasonal, which takes at least 3 months. These tours also overlap with more important events like SPL/Classic.

The seasonals are mostly useful for new players to break out. When I was getting into DPP for instance I kinda grinded the dpp tours and made it to a circuit finals, and these tours were a useful tool to get more familiar with the tier and play higher-quality matches than the ladder allows. I dont think people took the "accomplishment" that seriously, and I also don't -- honestly it wasnt that impressive bc nobody really cares about ribbons or the oldgen circuits.

Smogon has also kinda maxed out on non-money or trophy prizes. The ribbons dont have much value, and almost everybody capable of winning a tour/circuit has a number of teamtour customs already.

===

Based on the numbers for invitationals, I think a monetary prize of at least $250 for a tour / $500 for a circuit is high enough to make people put in genuine effort. (The current $50 for Global Champs is clearly not enough). You could set it up so that a) theres one ssnl that gets a money prize, or b) winning the entire circuit grants a money prize. Without this, I think the oldgen circuits will continue to only sporadically attract top players and remain a second-rate area of competition.

Adding a money prize also helps bring more high-level discussion and competition to Smogon instead of on side discords, which might give the site owners some incentive to pay for it (disclaimer: like a 0.1% chance this happens). I recognize that $2-4k yearly for adding these prizes to 8 tiers' circuits is a ton of money but it really is necessary to create the high-quality competitive environments of Callous invitational without putting a trophy on the line. (on the trophy topic, you could also consider Vulpix03's proposal here)


===

Thanks for considering and I really hope that such a money prize is provided. I personally find DPP ORAS SM really fun to play and would be thrilled to have their publicly accessible tours provide high-quality competition that people care about. Seeing everyone half-ass it in the ssnls kinda sucks the fun and feeling of accomplishment out of these tours and that kinda stuff is what makes competition rewarding. Thanks for making the thread

 

[FNH]

Tbh I think a sizable money prize is the only real fix.
.
.
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I think a monetary prize of at least $250 for a tour / $500 for a circuit is high enough to make people put in genuine effort.

This is the best solution, but also the least ideal. I'm all for money being put up. You're correct that a sizable purse would increase the quality of play, but it's not a sustainable solution. First we need to address who is paying? Do you expect the hosts or the community leaders to indulge the community with sizeable prizes? Those are some rather generous sums you suggested. The unfortunate side of this is, except for two people (that I'm aware of): Smogon's owner and Pokemon Showdown's owner, there is no way for a host to ensure that they can recoup their losses if they were to offer cash prizes. From what little I know about hosting tournaments with cash prizes, when prizes are available usually access to viewing the games is exclusive to the host/organizer, allowing said host to restrict who viewership to their respective channel/stream, generating some form of revenue to recoup the loss. Here on Smogon, host's and organizers can fund tournaments on this site, and utilize their channel/stream to generate add revenue by spectating the games, but they can't restrict individuals to view the game through their medium, thus can't guarantee that loses will be recovered. Anyone can log onto Smogtours and view the game live if they want. If we resort to random generosity, it breaks down eventually, the generosity of one year isn't guaranteed the next. We could complain to whomever holds Smogon's wallet to fund more tournaments, but why should they? Larger tournaments might attract more players, but will funding seven or eight tournaments attract enough traffic on the site to be recouped that year? If the outcome is uncertain then why take the risk? Asking for larger and more prize-pools isn't a feasible solution, not the way things stand that is. If Smogon or showdown doesn't pay up and I won't expect them too, then why should you expect the hosts who already dedicate enough time on this site to also spend?

 

[Excal]

there is nothing feasible that roa can do to improve old gen tournaments. smogon is a website that does not have strong monetary incentives. frequent players are here purely for passion and playing the official team tournaments. i believe that for old gens, our communities and tournament activity have diminished as a result of old gens being taken out of world cup. the lack of old generation ou presence in official tournaments outside of spl (the most exclusive tour) and classic (huge commitment to take seriously) has lowered incentive to join roa tournaments to "stay in shape" and push these metagames forward.

the only feasible solution is reintegrating old generations into world cup to increase interest in these tiers. current gen low tiers are not comparable bc they have a lot more excitement due to the new toy feeling + more people interested in developing a fresh/untouched metagame. by decreasing metagame diversity in world cup, we have systematically lowered interest in our old generation ou metagames. it's sad for old gen enthusiasts but that's just how it is. i think we should seriously consider reintroducing old gens into world cup to make playing them in an official capacity more accessible + approachable for the community.

sorry if that's a bit of a tangent but i assume this post was spurred by this one in commencement and from my time spent contributing to roa + participating in this community this is what i feel the main issue is. maybe someone can think of a way to increase old gen official tour presence outside of wcop but probably not. ty for reading

 

[ninjadog]

I think adding old gens to world cup (unless lower tiers were to also be added) would be ridiculous, there is absolutely no reason old gens should have more official team tour representation than lower tiers when they are at the very least pretty comparable in popularity (and vice versa). Official team tours should be to showcase the most competitive/popular tiers and not to prop up ones that need help, implying that lower tiers shouldn't be included in world cup because they have 'a lot more excitement' is completely backwards.

i've got no issues with some form of cg/old gen/lower tier hybrid format for wcop but it seems silly to me that one of old gens/lower tiers should get more team tour representation than the other, especially with how official team tours are being increasingly valued above all other tournaments. individuals yeah adding money is really the only way to seriously increase prestige or interest there.

 

[Amaranth]

"Readd oldgens to WCoP" is completely unreasonable imo, not only for the reasons ninjadog outlined, but also because we're in gen 9. 8 oldgen slots + 2 SV most people would agree is not enough SV for a world cup, and if to make space for more SV you cut oldgens, namely RBY+GSC... then why the hell are you readding oldgens to WCoP in the first place? To save your favorite metagame while leaving two you don't like as much to die?

The circuit as it stands has no place for oldgens in WCoP as a full-on feature. You could allow them in but not have them played every week (through tier pick format that I describe in the last bullet point here), or you could compress some oldgens into Bo3 or Bo5 slots, but that would clearly not address the issue of people not picking up oldgens enough.

IMO, the only reasonable way to use official WCoP as ways to prop up oldgens is if we made Old Gens WCoP, SV WCoP, and Low Tiers WCoP three different official tournaments. There is simply no way to compress oldgens into a WCoP format that works otherwise, and if you make OGWC an official then surely there is 0 reason for a LTWC to not also be an official.


(i have more general thoughts on the topic that I will share at a later date, just wanted to answer the WCoP points promptly)

 

[Expulso]

This is the best solution, but also the least ideal. I'm all for money being put up. You're correct that a sizable purse would increase the quality of play, but it's not a sustainable solution. First we need to address who is paying? Do you expect the hosts or the community leaders to indulge the community with sizeable prizes? Those are some rather generous sums you suggested. If Smogon or showdown doesn't pay up and I won't expect them too, then why should you expect the hosts who already dedicate enough time on this site to also spend?

...
From what little I know about hosting tournaments with cash prizes, when prizes are available usually access to viewing the games is exclusive to the host/organizer, allowing said host to restrict who viewership to their respective channel/stream, generating some form of revenue to recoup the loss. Here on Smogon, host's and organizers can fund tournaments on this site, and utilize their channel/stream to generate add revenue by spectating the games, but they can't restrict individuals to view the game through their medium, thus can't guarantee that loses will be recovered. Anyone can log onto Smogtours and view the game live if they want.

...
If we resort to random generosity, it breaks down eventually, the generosity of one year isn't guaranteed the next. We could complain to whomever holds Smogon's wallet to fund more tournaments, but why should they? Larger tournaments might attract more players, but will funding seven or eight tournaments attract enough traffic on the site to be recouped that year? If the outcome is uncertain then why take the risk? Asking for larger and more prize-pools isn't a feasible solution, not the way things stand that is.

1. I don't think it should be the responsibility of the hosts. All of the invitationals have been funded largely by community donations. In return, the hosts give them a rewarding experience to follow. The best example I can think of is the CALLOUS invitational: the server is active during every single game, and the host produces video recaps of every series. I think that if Smogon/PS/popular PS Youtubers cant be convinced to pay, hosts should solicit donations and, in return, make the tour a rewarding experience by doing things like streaming games, advertising the tour & tier server, and otherwise trying to boost discussion.

2. See above. I dont think ppl donating to the CALLOUS tours (which is an insane number of people... it got over $2000 in money multiple times) expected anything out of those donations. The server is publicly accessible, and he makes a huge fuss about it not increasing your chances of being invited in the future. I agree that donors can't guarantee that losses will be recovered, but making the tour an active, entertaining event experience is enough of a reward. (If you wanna make monetary returns go put your money in the stock market not online pokemon lol)

3. I agree, hard to ensure that random donations continue year after year. Again the best way to keep this hypothetical system going, short of chaos paying, is to just cultivate a strong enough sense of community that ppl will want to continue putting money into it. Not to beat this drum but CALLOUS tours seem to raise more and more money every year and get repeat donors: people support it once, love the experience, and support it again. I think this is an attainable ideal


I do recognize the difficulties of putting that much money into this site's online Pokemon tours. I posted to say that the other solutions wouldn't do anything to change the problem. If you want to make oldgen tours prestigious and valuable to the community you simply need to add a cash prize: any other solution would be a non-answer, and if we cant do money we shouldnt pretend that we've addressed the problem.

 

[Hipmonlee]

One thing about the circuit tours is they are utterly buried in the tournaments section. For a long time when I played in seasonals, I would find the threads by looking back through my notifications, because I had no idea where to find them otherwise.

Maybe part of the reason no one cares about them is because no one knows about them?

For world cup, you could alternate oldgens/lower tiers each year. The real world cup only happens every 4 years after all. And wcop doesnt have the retain issue that SPL has.

 

[Volk]

One thing about the circuit tours is they are utterly buried in the tournaments section. For a long time when I played in seasonals, I would find the threads by looking back through my notifications, because I had no idea where to find them otherwise.

Maybe part of the reason no one cares about them is because no one knows about them?

For world cup, you could alternate oldgens/lower tiers each year. The real world cup only happens every 4 years after all. And wcop doesnt have the retain issue that SPL has.

I wasn't planning on replying to this thread, but I had to chime in to echo this point. Navigating this site is an enormous pain, especially for new players. I've been here for over two years now and I still get lost in the forums looking for tournaments. Here is what I need to remember when I want to play tournaments in my main tier, RBY UU, as an example:

• Circuit, RBYPL -> Competitive Play, Ruins of Alph, RBY
• Spotlight, ALTPL -> Competitive Play, Ruins of Alph, Ruins of Alph Tournaments
• UUSD, UUFPL -> Smogon Metagames, UnderUsed (at least that's where I think they'll be, as they're still in the Generation VIII section right now)
• RoA Olympics -> Competitive Play, Ruins of Alph, Ruins of Alph Tournaments but I'm pretty sure it used to be in Competitive Play, Tournaments, Unofficial Tournaments, Unofficial Team Tournaments (I've missed signups on this tournament multiple times because it is so well hidden and keeps moving)

This also doesn't account for any additional tournaments, such as the Dragonite Suspect Live Tours we had (which can be found in Competitive Play, Tournaments, Live Tournaments), or any Discord Tournaments (which might not be properly documented anywhere). (While it's not a UU Tournament, the RBY OU Invitational is a good example of an opaque tournament like this as well.) This is the tournament layout of just one relatively niche tier. I can't imagine that the tournaments of more popular tiers, like RBY OU and Ubers, are much easier to locate.

I don't think cleaning up the layout of Smogon would help enormously for RBY Tournament popularity, but I do think it would a help a little and certainly will not hurt. I don't have concrete solutions to this, but this site isn't user-friendly at all and I think its administrators should seriously consider revamping its accessibility and navigability.

Aside from that, I think some of the other points made in this thread seem cogent, at least given my admittedly lacking understanding of how tournaments for the current generation are run. I do think creating larger-scale official ("official") tournaments that model their Current Generation OU counterparts is a pragmatic thing to do. For one, a lot of people flock to tournaments like WCoP, so emulating WCoP for RBY or Generations I through V, for example, would probably drive some more attention to those games. For another, it insulates old generations from losing representation if and when they get cut from the really big tournaments, like SPL. This is why I really admire ALT PL; it's a practical move to preserve old generation tiers that are seeing less representation (but not necessarily less activity) as Game Freak continues to roll out new games. It would be nice if tournaments like these had a bit more prestige to them though, like a trophy or even a custom avatar, just to get people a little more interested.

Money will also certainly drive players to tournaments, but good luck raising it. Money did work wonders for the RBY 7U and PU Tournaments.

 

[Ortheore]

1. I don't think it should be the responsibility of the hosts. All of the invitationals have been funded largely by community donations. In return, the hosts give them a rewarding experience to follow. The best example I can think of is the CALLOUS invitational: the server is active during every single game, and the host produces video recaps of every series. I think that if Smogon/PS/popular PS Youtubers cant be convinced to pay, hosts should solicit donations and, in return, make the tour a rewarding experience by doing things like streaming games, advertising the tour & tier server, and otherwise trying to boost discussion.

2. See above. I dont think ppl donating to the CALLOUS tours (which is an insane number of people... it got over $2000 in money multiple times) expected anything out of those donations. The server is publicly accessible, and he makes a huge fuss about it not increasing your chances of being invited in the future. I agree that donors can't guarantee that losses will be recovered, but making the tour an active, entertaining event experience is enough of a reward. (If you wanna make monetary returns go put your money in the stock market not online pokemon lol)

3. I agree, hard to ensure that random donations continue year after year. Again the best way to keep this hypothetical system going, short of chaos paying, is to just cultivate a strong enough sense of community that ppl will want to continue putting money into it. Not to beat this drum but CALLOUS tours seem to raise more and more money every year and get repeat donors: people support it once, love the experience, and support it again. I think this is an attainable ideal


I do recognize the difficulties of putting that much money into this site's online Pokemon tours. I posted to say that the other solutions wouldn't do anything to change the problem. If you want to make oldgen tours prestigious and valuable to the community you simply need to add a cash prize: any other solution would be a non-answer, and if we cant do money we shouldnt pretend that we've addressed the problem.

I think a system that relies on goodwill donations simply isn't scalable. It might be feasible for a single annual tournament, but the scope of this thread is far greater than that. I frankly don't think prizes are a viable solution at all unless more is done to generate revenue and make it sustainable. I think that's its own can of worms and probably a separate discussion, but you touched on a great point in terms of creating content. When Smogon's official youtube page has only a single video that's less than 4 years old, I think it's clear that there's potential for improvement on that front. Making content can potentially earn funds directly via whatever platform it's hosted on, and makes soliciting donations plausible.

Basically if we don't have a system in place for making content to generate revenue to fund prize pools, we shouldn't look to prize pools as a solution

Hipmonlee makes some good points imo. I'm not sure how much they move the needle but I generally agree, especially regarding navigability

 

[FNH]

To help with navigating tournaments, the RMT section is linked in each subforum that when you click on it brings you the Old gens RMT page with the tier filter already implemented. Maybe have a link that does the same for tournament in their respective generation? Might be a little bit complicated because where some tournaments are hosted under. Would be very convenient if an individual who wanted to see what RBY tournaments could go to the RBY subforum and hosted there was a link/page that allowed for them to view all current tournaments.

 

[vapicuno]

To help with navigating tournaments, the RMT section is linked in each subforum that when you click on it brings you the Old gens RMT page with the tier filter already implemented. Maybe have a link that does the same for tournament in their respective generation? Might be a little bit complicated because where some tournaments are hosted under. Would be very convenient if an individual who wanted to see what RBY tournaments could go to the RBY subforum and hosted there was a link/page that allowed for them to view all current tournaments.

Visiblity-wise, I think

1. Having links from the RoA metagame subforums is a step but not enough - people won't click on it if they can't see the updates (bold text + latest thread); without a prompt, nobody isn't going to click on something that they expect activity only once a month. Consider that this link, which is currently in the general RoA subforum,

gives you essentially no information, on tours, and you're probably not going to check the forum out at all if relevant tours only pop up once a month for the particular gen you're interested in. Compare it to a subforum link from the main forum that houses it here

where if I saw the above bold link from the SM forum with the latest thread on the right, I would immediately know a SM seasonal is going on.

2. At the same time, having all oldgens stacked together in a blanket "Old Gen Metagames Circuits" forum obscures threads that someone playing only say RBY and GSC cares about among 6 other generations.

A technological solution that allows filtered links specific to the generation of interest that somehow still shows updates would be ideal, but I don't know if that can be implemented. Splitting tours into subforums within metagame subforums gets you this bold link with updates but messes up the organization of course for people who want to look at everything.

Finally, there seems to be a general sentiment that ribbons just don't matter much and there isn't much pride in winning one.

I don't have a solution, but want to point out something slightly disturbing - that the individual gen classic cups, by association with the classic trophy, maintain their prestige over the circuit tours dedicated to a particular gen, despite all their flaws - notably, that quite a number of the best players on the site see it as a stepping stone towards the playoffs and simply stop trying hard / dropping out upon qualification; want to conceal their best teams for playoffs; single elim.

Justify it whichever way, it's still thus ironic that while the individual gen classic cups are not exactly aligned with finding the best player of that particular gen in a given year, and the circuit tours have a much more straightforward motivation / alignment, in the end, the ADV classic cup (for example) is probably still viewed with more prestige than ADV circuit / global championships.

 

[phoopes]

Hi everyone, thanks for your feedback so far!

Concerning navigability, I've just made it so that each generation subforum has a linked forum at the top that directly links to a generation-specific filtered view of tournaments in the Old Gens Metagame Circuits forum. I'm reading that sentence again and I feel like it's hard to figure out what I'm saying. So just take a look at Ruins of Alph and I hope you get what I mean haha (since there's new links to look at). This should hopefully help make things easier to find. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to make these links bolded when there's new posts (might be a Xenforo limitation, idk) but at the very least there's now more ways to get there, and these new links are filtered to be generation-specific.

As for everything else, we're still internally discussing stuff but keep the ideas coming. Again, thank you for the feedback.

 

[ziloXX]

What thread do you want access for?
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/help-wanted-old-gens-tournaments-feedback.3714745/

Please submit the post you intend to make.
Regarding WcoP my opinion is similar to Excal's. I started being an active player on the site by the last time Old Gens World Cup took place. I played many old gen tournaments, and in most of them, I had the fortune to play against established and upcoming players that were already making a name by themselves.
Last year, this well-rounded mix of established and new players was wholly lost. Only a small portion of both groups stayed, and the newcomers had a more significant presence than the well known established players. This is one of the reasons people lost interest in those tournaments and started caring less and less about playing them.

Anyway, I second what Amaranth mentions, 8 Old Gens are a really huge amount of slots and arbitrarily cuting-off tiers wouldn't make sense as a solution to the problem.
In my opinion, this World Cup format with team-pick tiers that amaranth mentions should work. It's a format that should be in the discussion table and should at least be considered, it could be a positive addition, as soon as tiers don't go too far from logical options.

Some of the interesting points of this format are:

1. Managers would play a competitive role much bigger than the role they play with the actual format, from talent scouting in diverse communities to the diverse strategies in a weekly base, which changes every week against different countries.
2. Every active player might get a chance and could find motivation to improve their play, no matter the tier.
3. Every team counts with their very own style from playing and logistic view, this could create hype within the spectators, as to see who will dominate the week, 'Country X' with their vast variety of experimented Old Gen players, or the avant-garde 'Country Y' with they dominant low tiers players?

In case a single World Cup is still the preferred format, this format could at least be considered, as absurd as it might sound from certain perspectives.

As for the other option that Amaranth proposes, making a World Cup format for each competitive group (CG, Old Gens and Low tiers), comprehends the most functional format and should work, but its problems spans to the year schedule. How could we fit not one, but two brand new official tournaments within a calendar year without overlapping within one another? Is it feasible to overlap each team tournament to their most opposed individual tournament? For example, Old Gens World Cup overlapping with Grand Slam, idk

===

Regarding Old Gens individual tournaments, Classic is the tournament to focus on. The current format received criticism from players, be it from those who made playoffs and those who haven't. It's been criticised the huge commitment it takes for a few months, which is not suitable for everyone, given that difficult pairings and bad luck all in the same week can end your chances of qualifying for playoffs instantly.

An idea is using part of the circuits as qualification for Classic play-offs. Circuits could have 3 tours a year, in which 2 of them could affect the Classic qualification. The schedule would be the following: 1st circuit tournament has points count towards Classic, 2nd tournament counts towards Circuit Championship during half-year and 3rd tournament counts towards Classic, same as 1st tournament. Then Classic play-offs would be played at the end of the year.

Some positive things of using this format would be:
- Reduces the huge commitment that the current format represents, this way players could earn their points sorting their schedules at convenience.
- Ends the punishment that represents bad luck or irl issues in determinated weeks, giving players a second chance at another time of the year to earn points and try to qualify.
- Gives most of the Circuits relevance in the possibility of winning an official tournament, which could attract good players to play, therefore increasing the overall effort of the entire playerbase. This gives a better perspective for SPL Managers on the general level of players.


I know these are big changes and deserve long discussions, but I think only they will give results long-term

 

[Excal]

"Readd oldgens to WCoP" is completely unreasonable imo, not only for the reasons ninjadog outlined, but also because we're in gen 9. 8 oldgen slots + 2 SV most people would agree is not enough SV for a world cup, and if to make space for more SV you cut oldgens, namely RBY+GSC... then why the hell are you readding oldgens to WCoP in the first place? To save your favorite metagame while leaving two you don't like as much to die?

The circuit as it stands has no place for oldgens in WCoP as a full-on feature. You could allow them in but not have them played every week (through tier pick format that I describe in the last bullet point here), or you could compress some oldgens into Bo3 or Bo5 slots, but that would clearly not address the issue of people not picking up oldgens enough.

IMO, the only reasonable way to use official WCoP as ways to prop up oldgens is if we made Old Gens WCoP, SV WCoP, and Low Tiers WCoP three different official tournaments. There is simply no way to compress oldgens into a WCoP format that works otherwise, and if you make OGWC an official then surely there is 0 reason for a LTWC to not also be an official.


(i have more general thoughts on the topic that I will share at a later date, just wanted to answer the WCoP points promptly)

world cup format should be whatever the community's best interest is, like it was decided last year. a survey should be run w different format preferences and then the community votes and that decides it. i think it's true & valid that community preference is all cg and despite my first post i'm fine w that format at the end of the day

that said, something needs to be done for old gens in official tournaments if we want to improve old gen communities/circuit tournaments. there is a lack of synergy in the official team tournaments that was once had with people using world cup to break into spl/snake etc with a wider variety of tiers played. if world cup's format can't be changed/diversified (which i still think the more diverse of a format wcop is, the better it is for the community and all tiers), then some sort of restructure/new idea should be pursued to fix what's been lost.

i believe that tournament directors should try to break a bit from the status quo and truly reevaluate our official tournament schedule to give a bit more diversity than we currently have, although having cg be the most prevalent metagame by a decent margin is still preferable. i feel it will improve old gen tournaments as a whole, including spl, our flagship tournament.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I have a brilliant idea re: old gens and World Cup. What if there was some sort of "Retro World Cup of Pokemon" that was just like World Cup but only for old gens? I think if someone was able to make this tournament actually happen, it would address a big portion of these issues.

More seriously though it used to be under the "Unofficial Team Tournaments" forum in the Tournaments subforum, but now it's in the RoA subforum as a team tour. Since it's not really an official I think most people don't really care much about it, but if you market it differently and maybe make it a bit more official somehow with some incentive, you could get more people to see it happening. So you're not really "creating" an extra tour - it already exists, you're just making it more visible/more appealing to people to join.