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RBTT RBTT IX: Format Discussion Thread

IcyPenguin2

IcyPenguin2

It's RBTT season, everyone!

The reason for this thread is to gather community feedback on our premier team tournament and explore suggestions for improvements in the upcoming edition.

We propose to kick off the discussions with the following topics: team composition, tour organization and format discussion. Needless to say, if you have any other ideas or suggestions that you want to share with us, feel free to do so!​

Team tournament

RBTT is first and foremost a team tournament. The success of each season depends on how well teams are formed, managed, and supported, making this a key area for feedback and improvement. Here are a few things you can focus your suggestions on:
  • The number of teams in total (historically, there have always been 8 teams)
  • Number of managers per team (do we increase the amount of managers? If so, how many managers are allowed to play?)
  • Mascots, introduction of team names and "franchising" (i.e. having returning teams similar to SCL/SPL)
  • Team size (more or less players per team)
  • Bench involvement (can we find ways to engage the non-starting players more?)

Tournament organization

Beyond team structure, there are a few logistical aspects of RBTT IX worth discussing to improve the player and spectator experience. Community feedback on these points will help the staff make informed adjustments before the tournament begins:
  • Commencement of RBTT IX and alignment with the Random Battle Circuit
  • Spreadsheet, player metrics and tracking of data (What specific information would you like to see in the tournament spreadsheet?)
  • Type of draft (snake vs. auction)
  • Manager self-buys (in which round are managers picked in a snake draft or do managers go for a fixed price in an auction? What round/what price should that be?)
  • Activity wins and self-substitutions (without managerial intervention)

Format discussion
  • Gen 9 Random Battle - Best of 5
  • Gen 9 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 8 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 7 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 6 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 5 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 4 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 3 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 2 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 1 Random Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 9 Random Doubles Battle - Best of 3
  • Gen 9 Battle Factory - Best of 3
  • Gen 9 Battle Stadium Singles Factory - Best of 3
  • Gen 9 Hackmons Cup - Best of 3

For the upcoming season, we intend to maintain the above formats. That being said, we are in fact open to discussions and change. Here are some points your suggestions could be centered around:
  • Removal of formats (and slots)
  • Substitution of formats
  • Introduction of new formats
  • Modifying the type of series (e.g. Best of 3/5/7 and/or the possibility of a gentleman's agreement in this respect)

Let the discussions begin!

Please remember to keep your proposals constructive and respectful. Submissions made in bad faith or intended to troll will not be considered. Final decisions rest at the discretion of the Random Battles staff.
 
Here are my thoughts :

I think 8 teams is fine. It's a good middle ground and I think 10 teams would be too lenient and lower the quality a bit while 6 would make it way too elite.

I think 2 managers is fine. It's not like most other tours where you have to build for slots so it's fine.

I would be down for franchises if it offers something like even better CA quality otherwise idt franchises are needed. However this falls into an other category of do we do auctions or the current format. If we do franchises then retains are natural so if you want to do that then better to do auctions. I'm neutral on if auctions or the current format is better.

I like the current formats.

Idt that's possible to do in a good way. Subs are supposed to be there in case some slots underperfom or if the player needs to be subbed out. I didn't like mystery box as it put more people on the bench than anything.

One change I would add is realeasing manager sign ups earlier so artists have more time to creat the CA as otherwise it overrides and makes it so they are working intensivly. I feel like some other people I asked that the RBTT CA are good but less creative than the official tiers (most of the time a recoloured trainer with the mon). I think some stuff with for example a trainer riding a spectrier if there's a team spectrier could be cool). I have no idea if artists have time to do that but it's a thing I saw some RBTT players asks so I would be down to know your guys thoughts. Otherwise happy RBTT season everyone and have a good day:blobthumbsup:
 
I really would like to push for making the rby slot bo5. I'm almost certain the overwhelming majority of the rby playerbase prefers it (in rbypl the rands players actually voted to play bo7 instead of bo5), and it improves the tier by a lot.

Just due to the nature of the tier and gen you sometimes get unwinnable matchups or unsurmountable rng, bo3 just isn't enough to offset the variance (I'm not that good at any other gen, so I don't know if they have similar issues). In addition it really isn't a stally gen since recovery moves are so limited, so playing 5 games really doesn't take to long. The only real argument for bo3 is that people who don't enjoy the tier have to play it less (which I maybe can see for something like wcor, where sometimes non-mains are forced to play). But for RBTT there are more than enough dedicated rby players to make that a non-issue.

Again maybe this is true for most gens and bo5 should be the standard, but I'm not experienced enough in any of them to have strong opinions.
 
My thots:
-Keep 8 teams. Anything more takes way too long to be over esp with possibility of tbs and such
-2 managers please. 3 in anything apart from spl/scl is already overdoing it. Also its randbats, there is nothing for a manager except sending lineups after draft.
-I do support franchising to help build history/rivalries and such

-I think something like modern gens bo3(9,8,7 or 8,7,6). Probably replace hackmons, bf or bssf with it. All 3 are terrible formats anw (favouring most of bf to be removed)
I forgot classic boX has gsc, so I removed it
-Make rby bo5
 
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Hackmons is cool, I actually think it's the most psychological format in RBTT and people don't really get the intricacies of hidden information and tracking the intentions of the opposing 6 mons to deduce their movesets, but yes it is obviously quite silly and if you're gonna cut something it's an obvious choice. Personally I'd prefer BSSF get cut if we have to cut one but I don't play BSS so that's not really a surprise. If you do keep Hackmons I do think making it Bo5 is a good choice, the games tend to be quick and it helps the balance issues.
 
Piyu said:
My thots:
-Keep 8 teams. Anything more takes way too long to be over esp with possibility of tbs and such
-2 managers please. 3 in anything apart from spl/scl is already overdoing it. Also its randbats, there is nothing for a manager except sending lineups after draft.
-I do support franchising to help build history/rivalries and such

-I think something like modern gens bo3(9,8,7 or 8,7,6) or classic (1 to 3 or 1 to 5) can be cool. Probably replace hackmons, bf or bssf with it. All 3 are terrible formats anw (favouring most of bf to be removed)
-Make rby bo5
Click to expand...
I really like this bo3 of modern gens. 1-3 I feel may be harder because I think there’s a lot fewer players who play all 3 at a high level, but I think the format overlap bo3 could be a really nice addition
 
Lady Writer said:
I really like this bo3 of modern gens. 1-3 I feel may be harder because I think there’s a lot fewer players who play all 3 at a high level, but I think the format overlap bo3 could be a really nice addition
Click to expand...
I think that could work but ngl then remove hackmons. Bssf and bf may have less regular players but there is way less luck involved and are competitive tiers (more than gen 5 or 4 rands). I think if you want to make that I would say gen 9-8-7
 
I think the current format for tiers is fine as is the only thing I'd push to change is switching from snake to auction as I've always felt like its more competitive (also more fun but thats subjective lol). I'd probably set the manager price to 15-20k and they'd just self buy before the draft like most standard smog auctions do.

If people did push for auction I think it would also be worth discussing allowing both managers to self buy if they chose to do so unlike snake its not quite the same advantage when you're losing a major chunk of your budget to do it.

edit: I forgot to mention I would also push for 10 teams over 8 we always have MORE than enough signups to do it and getting more people involved when we can is never a bad thing especially when they're still rbtt quality players.
 
My thoughts:
- 8 teams are fine, but there is room for 10 as well. RBTT mirrors SPL in alot of aspects so increasing 2 more teams is a very easy. There are plenty of very strong manager signups and signups are also sufficient. There is also not much argument on the length as there is no teambuilding needed and rands is not alot of time consuming. Everyone is up to play a game of rand bats!
- I am very high on 3 managers for preimere leagues but for RBTT, there is no need for 3 manager 2 managers are ample support for everything. however i do want to point out that managers are not just line up sending party, they also help players analyze thier mistakes and provide them assistance when required.
- I again repeat this tour mirrors SPL/SCL alot so having franchises will be a net positive change and it will help preserve legacy and history.
- Current team size is feasible
- Current system is fine for bench players but an additional way can also be adapted to let them play like in ADPL. The not starting players 3 each team play vs each other and the winner of 2/3 games get to award 1 net win in the score of the team eg if team x won 2/3 bench player matches it counts as 1 win vs the other team. idk how this can be panned out as this often contributes to non-even slots maybe another slot can be added using same technique or completely new slot.
- Current RBTT schdule is fine.
- Generic data like every tour is fine.
- I think snake draft is better for random battles tour as it maximizes the number of people that can get drafted giving alot of chances to newer people.
- 1 Manager draft per team is solid.
- Activity wins and self-substitutions without manager intervension is implemented in every tour and people are required to do teamwide pings to call act and players can do subs. I having experince of this as a manager in WCOR and it is better to have a cord and suggest this change. Managers can point out un authorized stuff themselves and subs done by players are almost always when managers are afk and a player misses time.
- I think formats current are fine but i support the bo5 rby idea and defo should be implemented.
Thanks for giving a read!
 
Make tiebreaks 5 series
One change I would strongly suggest is making tiebreakers 5 series. Edit: By this I mean there are 5 players selected from each team to play the tiebreak, not Bo5

I don’t think there was ever a clear reason why Rands copied 3 series tiebreak from SPL, but there are a lot of differences between RBTT and SPL, not least of which being that there’s no need to build teams.

It also makes more sense to have 5 series, because that would reward depth of team rather than individual starpower. Prioritizing individual starpower might work if the skill ceiling is high enough to warrant it, but too much is out of the player’s hands for Rands for this to be the case.

Multi-Gen slots
Not a super huge fan but it would have to be 7 8 9 if it happens at all. Anything else wouldn’t have an adequate player base and would result in some low quality series.

If you were to replace something, it would be Hackmons, BSSF, or BF
In order:
- I’ve publicly hated Hackmons for longer than a lot of people on this thread have been on Smogon
- BSSF is alright probably, don’t get rid of it
- Battle Factory is great!….if it’s Gen 7. It’s awkward, but is there not a way to avoid a Bo3 of Gen 9 Battle Factory? Because the activity and playerbase just isn’t there like it was for 7 or even 8. Maybe Bo3 7, 8, 9?

Auction vs Snake Draft
I was probably one of the first people to suggest doing auction; there’s logs of that in Randbats Auth in 2019.

The time was not right then and I’m not sure it is now either. There are some things that need to be true for an auction to be better than a snake draft:
1) There has to be appreciable differences in player skill to justify price differences
2) There needs to be some continuity across years in the managers
3) There needs to be a merit component to selection of managers

It wasn’t until 1? 2 years ago? that RBTT managers were just a revolving door of Randbats auth, some of whom had no experience at all before managing (this would include the time I managed to a finals, so not a shot against anyone). There needs to be more time for 2) and 3) to be demonstrated, and 1) will always be in contention.

Ban Lady Writer
Ban Lady Writer.
 
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Hello, former manager & player here, thoughts:
- 10 teams over 8 is fine, we have a lot of good signups every year and this tour has gotten big enough to justify having that many teams & weeks
- Make it 3 managers, scheduling issues can come up quite often, especially with people playing early on in the week; with at 14 slots you're gonna need to cover as much as possible in terms of timezones, and having 3 managers helps in that regard, but keep a single manager self buy per team
- I've said it before and I'll say it again, do not fix what's not broken, snake format is miles better than auctions for this; I think it's very easy to overestimate how much top players are worth, and this would ultimately make newer players less likely to be picked.
- As for format:
Removal of formats (and slots): 14 slots is good, let's not make it any more than that; I don't think any format needs to be added over another one, but if we were to add an extra Doubles slot, I'd remove BSSF or HC, although I'm not a fan of that
Modifying the type of series (e.g. Best of 3/5/7 and/or the possibility of a gentleman's agreement in this respect): Gentleman's agreements should not be part of the equation here; either make everything bo5 (+ one bo7 slot for gen9) or don't change anything

Also add franchising it makes everything so, so much easier for logos & avatars, we do not want people picking their mascot specifically for custom avatars purposes
 
Been saying this for years, but I truly believe that bssf should be bo5.

As a format since it is bring six pick three it goes faster than most other formats on the current list. By making it bo5 it removes some of the unluckiness that can come with team generation. And it's just fun to play more games.

I don't advocate for any format cuts but bssf def shouldn't be the first one on the chopping board... (but in all seriousness, I think bssf has become more popular over the years, even if ladder stats might not reflect it)
 
I don't see how snake draft leads to more new players being drafted. The number of drafted players is the same, if you have the same number of required subs, could even be more if teams have cash left to buy extra players.

Also imo let people gentleman however many more games they want (gentleman for less games is weird). If 2 players want to bo35, let them. Enforcement is a bit tricky, but I really don't hope that will be necessary, don't think I've ever seen it making problems.
 
Dropping my thoughts per section

The number of teams should stay at 8 - anything more/less would serve to reduce the quality of each team/make the bar for entry too high. It's in line with pretty much every other PL on the site, no need to touch it. Team sizes should remain the same too, we already push the envelope quite a bit with *18* players per team, and you either are forced to introduce more slots a week to compensate for this or just have an even larger bench, both of which I think are undesirable.

Same for managers, keeping it at 2 is completely fine, just make clearer guidelines on what to do in the case that e.g. a player isn't showing up and the power/ability of players to make a sub in the event both managers are unavailable (an entirely plausible situation that occurred a few times last RBTT).

Bench involvement is whatever, it can be boring to sit on your thumbs and just sit idly for weeks but that's the nature of a sub slot in rands. I've been in tours where there are 'challenge' slots to get more engagement from benched players, and I wouldn't really mind as long as it had no bearing on actual standings, but I feel indifferent towards this topic. No thoughts on mascots/franchising.

EDIT: Also echo Wigglytuff's proposal of making tiebreakers five slots

Removal and substitution of formats - 14 formats per week is fine, however I'm most partial to removing Battle Factory and Hackmons and replacing them with something else.

Battle Factory is one of the least actively played rands formats, with the ladder having a singular player at 1500 at the moment and most players deviations being in the 80s/90s. There isn't a great interest in it (dwindled a lot with each successive gen) within the rands community and it's not viewed as particularly competitive.

As for Hackmons, though there is some skill involved in being able to deduce information and manage your resources, this is not inherent to HC and it is by far the least competitive format in RBTT - it *can* be fun to watch but it can also be incredibly frustrating to watch your teammate roll some garbage and have quite literally 0 counterplay. It doesn't feel fitting to have in what is supposed to be the most competitive rands tournament, and with HCPL / Minior Circuit / other potential projects next year, I feel that HC gets enough representation in the forum that its exclusion from RBTT wouldn't be missed much.

In their place, any of the following would suffice:
- An additional Gen 9 slot - we have 3 in RBEL and WCOR and it has the largest pool of good players by far, feels like a no-brainer
- Some type of roulette slot (whether formats are fixed before lineup submission, after lineup submission or completely randomised, I have no preference or argument for either yet)
- Modern Gen BO3 slot - echoing what people have said above, likely to have a strong player pool too and adds a bit of flavour to the usual vanilla lineup
- Some type of flex BO5 - G1 starts with Gen 9 then loser picks the next format from any RBTT format

I'd also make Gen 1 and BSSF BO5 - in tournaments like SPL/SCL, they follow BO1 whilst making RBY BO3 - given that in rands, our default is BO3, why shouldn't RBY be BO5? In fact, most RBY mains play BO7/BO9, so BO5 feels like a very obvious change to make. BSSF is similarly short paced and MU-heavy, a BO5 should be instated at the very least. I'd even make a case for BO7 for both but I understand that BO5 would already be a switch-up from all previous iterations of RBTT, so happy to stick to BO5 for RBTT9.

Keep it as a snake draft - auction may be more fun to watch but I think it'd severely degrade overall team quality. There's no reason rands should have auctions when there is too much of a match-up component to be able to veritably distinguish player skill/price differences. Moreover, it means that hosts have to be especially discerning with who they pick as managers, prospective managers now have to consider picking someone with the ability to draft well in auctions (which can reduce community involvement), and I think it prioritises the spectacle of the auction/prices of players as opposed to having a linear, consistent snake draft.

Assuming it is snake draft, R5 self-buy is fine. As I stated earlier, self/team substitutions should have clearer policy, because managers can't be expected to be available 24/7, especially with some time zone differences. Spreadsheet from RBTT8 was good.

EDIT: Lowkey agree with Nemo/Chains on second consideration, being able to get a R1 pick in R5 is kinda busted, maybe push that up a round or two
 
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I agree with making tiebreaks bo5s. Makes them more hype and also makes them a bit more skill-based

Disagree with giving two slots to dubs. Not enough strong players and not enough interest

Snake format works fine. I don’t think auction is necessary

Edit: It looks like the initial idea was to make tiebreaks 5 series, not bo5s. I stand by making tiebreaks 3 bo5s though, and I think other people here do as well. I think that’s one of the strongest and least controversial ideas in this thread
 
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I would vote to keep everything the same except the following:
  • Make all gens best-of-5 on mutual agreement at least. Bo3 is pretty luck-based/mu-heavy. For any format where the games tend to take a relatively short amount of time (e.g. 4/5), it isn't unreasonable to ask players to play up to 5 games but would help make the game more skill-based. Tiebreak Bo5 makes sense also.
  • Replace BF/BSSF with Roulette.
 
HC is a very controversial format, and as a HC main that has a lot to gain from just saying "you're wrong it's not uncompetitive!!!" I'd rather just make use of some data to try to prove it otherwise.

An uncompetitive format by definitions means that skills takes a smaller role in determining the winner, the easiest way to check that is comparing win rates throughout RBTT. Assuming an infinite sample size formats that are purely luck based will have low variance between the players (it will tend to 50%) while formats that are more skill based will have higher win rates.

Of course there are several caveats here, players that are going in loss streaks are more likely to get subbed, the sample size is relatively small and so and so on, but looking at the results (and getting reassured they make at least some sense since monotype showed the lowest variance of them all) I do believe they are worth considering.

For the data I used RBBT 3 through 7 since i couldn't quickly find 1 and 2s, and 8s only shows set winrate and not game winrate. From highest variance (more skill) to lowest here are the formats and the sample sizes: \\

1763141124379.png


Full sheet if you want to see what formulas I used to offset noise and so on: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GtILyF4zN0flwR3SjDUxGN3YhBxKB-E7Zy-ZeDE8BJ4/edit?usp=sharing

I believe these results would be more telling if we had an infinite sample size but alas, we don't, and this is the best I could do with the available data and not dedicating more than two hours worth of effort.

Main takeaways: Hackmons is not an outlier, it has comparable skill to other formats, or, (in my opinion), even though other formats demand more skill, the ceiling exists and most players drafted in RBTT have either reached it or are extremely close.

I see a lot of suggestions on what to replace hackmons, battle factory or BF with but honestly? They seem a bit forced, mixing formats together or adding a second doubles, I don't know, imo just keep the formats as they are and once there's a new current gen revisit this topic.
 
Hard agree with making tiebreakers bo5s, there's way too much variance

Hard agree with making BSSF bo5. Also allow people to gentleman bo5 for other slots, but it shouldn't be pressured to be the norm (except gen1 maybe)

14 slots is already a lot, though the rands playerbase is expanding quickly and there definitely isn't a shortage of deserving players. It's just that 16 players (20 w/ subs?) might be unwieldy, and 10 teams makes the regular season a bit long, so I'm unsure about changes here.

Draft is fine as is (but I also wouldn't care much if it gets changed).
3 managers could help with greater availability, or maybe each team starts with 2 managers and can designate an active player to be 3rd manager after the draft, but it also might be pretty unnecessary.

------------------------------
Re: formats

I'd rather have roulette than any specific gens bo3, though 9-8-7 does seem the most viable.

I'll try to be unbiased but the Dubs playerbase has indeed grown a lot and 2 slots would not be completely unreasonable. That being said I still think it's a bit soon (me saying this is like a congressman saying "don't gerrymander me a safe seat"). Similar for a third 9 slot I guess, though the reason there would be that it already gets significant weight.

Seconding that HC is not as uncompetitive as some people think it is.

As for cutting formats: I think BSSF might have the weakest playerbase judging from the past couple years' results (?), but BF seems to get the most hate, and for good reason as team preview exacerbates matchup issues. So the only format change I'll push today is removing BF but letting it have significant weight in Mystery Box, which replaces it as a compromise. Something like 9BF / 8BF / 7BF / 8Dubs / Roulette / X / X in MB.
(preferably not monotype in MB cuz obviously, not 8HC since people already complain about HC. something like b12p6 shared power might be fun, or Baby Rands as it's one of the more popular Minior circuit formats?)
 
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