Tournaments RBYPL V - Format Discussion

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in any case, we must not reduce the over used slots in favor of a lower tiers.
There are infinitely more over used players.
sacrificing an over used slot would be a major mistake.
I think that said that we could open a vote for the addition of a slot under third party if the number of registrations allows it.
 
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Think it’s best to just run back the old format then (+ changing lowtiers to bo5). The most popular options currently seem like keeping the old format, or cutting one OU and one of PU/Rands. Both PU and Rands have good reasons to stay in the tour and I think the downside of losing one of those tiers is worse than the "downside" of keeping OU5 and maybe having some “weaker” OU games.
 
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I won't be around for RBYPL this year (:psycry:), but I have to agree with gastlies.

I find the "weak OU5 slot" arguement to be a touch elitist and gatekeeper-y. People need team experience somewhere, and this is the best chance. I was debatably an OU4/5 slot last year, and it was the first chance I got to work with people. If the quality is a concern as a spectator, then dont watch the game. I think seeding could be considered (would be hard to enact/enforce), so above avg players play other above avg players. But I also think having large skill differences between first and last slot make the draft more strategically interesting.
If signups/interest is not there, that's another point, so I would support making the slot# call one week into signups again.

The best point against 10 slots, imo, is manager time/effort (as I brought up last year, and Amaranth did here). That I'm fully receptive to; asking managers to oversee 10 slots is a tall order from where I sit, but that should be up to managers.

way I see it: plan 6 teams. Poll managers 1 wk into signups for 8 vs 10 slots. If 8 is chosen, then cut PU or Rands.


Main critique of Belgian format was it lasted too long and undervalued the first leg. Main critique of 3 team playoff is bye week for 1 seed. The best midground to me seems 6 teams with 4 team playoff. Ya it's a little weird that 4th place team can pull out an upset, but that was possible with Belgian anyway. It's really just a slightly shorter Belgian format. Playoffs always undervalue regular season play in exchange for an exciting finale. That's just what playoffs do; you need relative consistent avg performance to qualify, then be able to turn it up on demand to win.

Top 4 team playoffs makes 5-7 wk total season, which seems to be a sweet spot in length, gives enough meaning to regular season while still avoiding a bye week in playoffs. Peace out.
 
Some thoughts :
Previous format was about the best you can get w a 6 teams tour. Pretty long tour if anything but it made it way more fair than 4 teams playoffs (why even bother going for higher spots) or 3 teams playoffs (seed one that gets a bye loses almost all momentum).
We've seen in several other tiers pl, may it be advpl, dpppl, bwpl and so on that 8 teams function real well. I dont see see why this wouldnt be the case for rby. We have the second highest playerbase of old gens after adv, surely we can manage 8 team now. Just my opinion, but this also raised the average level of every pl that implemented 6->8 teams, please at least consider it.

Whether its 6 or 8 teams, this is the lineup I think makes most sense with 10 slots:
OU
OU
OU
OU (bo5)
OU (blitz bo5)
UU
NU
PU
UBERS
RANDS

So yeah unsurprisingly nothing changed much EXCEPT really exciting and super cool blitz bo5! I've seen a couple of people say they think 5ou slots leads to staler games in the 3rd/4th slot (bo5 was always good last year). I think blitz is cool, adds some flair to the tour. If you hate blitz you can also keep same format as last year. I hope I have time to play this tour (unsure yet). Thanks for listening to my rambling, sayonara :D
 
Going to offer my opinion on some more "controversial" ideas because I feel like it.

I didn't love the Belgian Format. There isn't really anything wrong with it, I just think it takes very long and starts to feel like a slog after a certain point. It's not a dealbreaker though, and I'd sign up if it returned. Assuming we can't afford 8 teams, I think I'd rather just take the top 4 teams from the starting 6 and make that the playoffs. Yes, that's a lot of teams to pull, but I think it's fine. It gets more games played and will probably make the final weeks seem less hopeless for the bottom teams, as mathematical elimination becomes more difficult. I don't really mind the #1 Seed Bye, but I know a lot of players dislike it so it might be a good thing that this method kills that as well.

Regarding included tiers, I think I'd keep it the same as last year. The five OU tiers were competently filled out and I think it was really cool that up-and-coming players got to start in OU and show off. A lot of times these players get slotted into lower tiers or just go undrafted, so I think it is very good that more players got to participate, develop, have fun, and establish themselves. No matter what format we do, I think we should keep at least 4 OU slots. The best-of-five slot seemed popular too, so keep it. The lower tier slots were fine as well. If anything had to go, I'd probably cut PU, as I think it has the smallest community and isn't a very well-liked metagame right now. I think I'd rather see something like Tradebacks or Stadium there, as I think they are frankly more deserving of development at this point and are arguably just more interesting metagames. I'd like to see if anyone else shares this opinion, but I think PU will probably prevail because it's simply the largest of the three at the end of the day, which is a perfectly valid reason to keep it. A second Random Battles slot is also potentially justifiable. Speaking of which, keep Random Battles. I still don't know if it's the best meta for a PL, but I think it is essential to rope in that part of the RBY Community. Random Battles players comprise a huge portion of our community and they get ignored all the time. This format is great for introducing these players to each other and unifying the three subsets of the RBY Community, OU players, LT players, and Rands players.

This is self-interested, but please do not make LTs best-of-five. Keep best-of-five to Random Battles and the one OU slot. I think saying teambuilding for these tiers is easy is a gross overstatement. Teambuilding is as effortful in LTs (at least UU and NU) as it is in OU, in my opinion. Speaking from NU, which I've been playing most right now, there are a lot of moving parts to consider and there really isn't a streamlined build yet. These sets also just risk taking forever. I'm not a clicker and often take a minute or two between games, so a five-game set can easily take two hours for me (I know from experience in the RBY NU Invitational). I really just do not feel like committing this time and scheduling will become a pain. I love RBY LTs and think more games are better, but that is just a lot of time. And forget it if one player is going for partial-trapping spam. Individual games with that are liable to take 30 minutes or more alone.

I'm mixed on the RBY OU Blitz slot. On one hand, I think the tier has some enthusiastic proponents, so you might muster some additional signups that otherwise wouldn't have showed. It's also a way to spice up the 5 OU slots (which Tradebacks, Stadium, or Triple Threat would too!). On the other hand, I just don't really like the metagame. I'm not going to pretend it's not skillful, but it is a different set of skills at play. I think standard OU is more reflective of the skills that players are looking to cultivate when they play in a tournament, and there really isn't a sizable "Blitz Community" that we'd be catering to with its inclusion.

tl;dr We should include RBY STABmons in RBYPL.
 
Last years format works fine, 5 ou slots to lower tiers is pretty even. The 8 slot format means PU probably gets binned. I feel like this community really sets the example for developing resources for lower tiers and if there is a feasible starting 8 slots for RBY PU then there isn’t really a reason to cut it. Really surprised RBY PU is being suggested to drop over Random Battles and I don’t really find it prestigious saying out loud “RBY PU needs to be dropped but I’m comfortable with a randomized tier determining the result of the week”. Furthermore there are also other tiers in Grand Slam featured there that doesn’t have inclusion here (over Random Battles), but I feel like there are options to swap either out if there’s really an issue. Bo5 sounds horrible, just make that gentleman’s agreement only. People have other tours to play and jobs. Playing a Bo3 can be someone’s 30 minute break time, let’s not make this 5 games. Losing games on a tighter schedule just for the shits and giggles only makes people quit this site sooner.
 
Last years format works fine, 5 ou slots to lower tiers is pretty even. The 8 slot format means PU probably gets binned. I feel like this community really sets the example for developing resources for lower tiers and if there is a feasible starting 8 slots for RBY PU then there isn’t really a reason to cut it. Really surprised RBY PU is being suggested to drop over Random Battles and I don’t really find it prestigious saying out loud “RBY PU needs to be dropped but I’m comfortable with a randomized tier determining the result of the week”. Furthermore there are also other tiers in Grand Slam featured there that doesn’t have inclusion here (over Random Battles), but I feel like there are options to swap either out if there’s really an issue.
RBY PU definitly is far more rng reliant than RBy Rands. Rands has the variance in what Pokemon you can get but you are very rarely every dealt a truly bad hand; the level balancing is great and very few Pokemon are bad, most server valuable roles. The skill expression in Rands is unarguably higher than PU imo as PU in comparison has not much variance in the teambuilder; most teams carry the same 4, 5, or even 6 Pokemon as each other, with the lead usually being the same across nearly every team (Arcanine), resulting in most games being dependant on nothing but Speed tie wins, critical hits, and full paralysis. PU also does not have 8 starters, by the looks of it, the pool this year for the tier will be incredibly dicey. In comparison, Rands has an incredibly deep and talented pool of players, second only in size and quality in OU.
 
  • 6 teams, running back the Belgian Pro League Format from last year.
  • 8-10 slots. We are aiming for 10 slots with OU (Best of 5)/OU/OU/OU/OU/Ubers/UU/NU/PU/Random Battles (Best of 5). If we move down to 8 slots, one OU slot and either PU/Random Battles will be removed, depending on player signups and manager/host discussion. UU/NU/PU may be Best of 5, depending on community interest.
  • Teams may either self-buy one manager for 15k or both managers for 20k each. Teams will be allowed three total manager self-buys or retains. With a very similiar format returning, retains will be tier-locked into tiers they signed up in the previous edition.
Thank you for your discussion. Manager signups are live now.
 
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