If you are a fairly active participant in Tournaments held in the Smogon Tournament subforum, you will notice that it is getting very hard to join Tournaments lately. I'll highlight some issues through actual examples, but first I will present the problem on a more general line. Before anyone whine about it, I'd like to underline that, if I make specific examples, it is not because I want to call out user X who happens to be the host of said Tournament, but rather because I want to show you that the problem is real, concrete and documented. I don't want anyone in this thread to say anything like "you are talking about a non-existant problem" or "the things you say in the OP" are false.
Right now, the standard format for Tournaments is 64-man, with some specific ones being restricted to 32 (like Secret Santa) and others, generally less connected to the competitive side (like Riding the Metronome and Random Tournament) allowing up to 128 participants. I'll focus my OP on the 64-man format, since it is arguably the standard for Tournaments nowadays (as you probably have guessed, I'm not taking official tournaments into account). Most of the sign-up threads pertaining to these tournaments have one of the following issues:
1) They close shortly after they have been posted
2) They handpick the participants
I will explain why they are both undesireable issues. First, let's talk about (1). Lately, some Tournaments have closed their sign-up thread few hours after they have been opened. An example of this is the Item Restriction Tournament. If you compare the time of the OP and the time of the last post, you'll see that the thread has been open for just 4 hours. This is clearly a problem, because a lot of people who live in a different timezone are completely unable to even get a chance at signing up (sometimes, even being a sub is impossible). Now, you may say "Tough shit, Zarator. You will get to participate in the next tournament". But what if every sign-up thread lasts only for a few hours? Do I really have to rely on getting blessed with an host who live in my same timezone in order to participate in a tournament?
I may look like I'm exaggerating the problem, but if you check these threads you'll see that I'm not joking. How many tournaments stay up for at least 24 hours (which should be the reasonable amount of time for being sure everyone got the chance to sign-up no matter where he lives)? Very few, and most of those which actually do (at least, among 64-man tournaments) fall under the second issue, which I will outlight below.
Now, on with (2). I can see a lot of you saying something along the lines of "What's wrong with it? I don't care about Smogon average battler, I just want to see the best of Smogon playing against each other. Besides, if we make a 32-man tourney with a "handpicking" system which favours well know players, we will probably obtain the same names we would get if those 32 were an hypothetic "round 3" of a 128-man tournament, right?".
Well, let me just say that, if you were to be right and Tournaments could be so easy to predict, I guess the front runner of the Smogon Prediction Tournament (also, let's not forget that, being about standard OU, ST is probably the easiest tournament to predict - with less influence from gimmicks, it is easier for the good player to defeat the bad, right?) would have much more points than what corresponds to, roughly, 50% of the Round 1 battles. A lot of players are much better than their reputation would suggest, and discarding them a priori only because they are not enough well known detracts, ultimately, from Smogon's attempt to aim for the maximum level of competitiveness (no matter what could you say about Tournaments being less competitive than ladder).
Now, most sign-up threads try to reduce this issues in a way or another. The most popular ways are arguably the following 3:
a) First come, first serve: This way, the issue (2) gets removed from the equation.
b) Handpicking system: This way, it is possible to leave the thread open for more days, essentially removing the issue (1)
c) Mix: They generally allow the first 40 participants through the method a, filling the remaining 24 spots through the method b. It dampens both issues to a certain extent.
All of these methods have its merits, but it should be apparent that no one of them manage to solve the issues at hand in an acceptable way. The closest one is c, but it still penalizes certain timezones.
Now, it is quite obvious that I would not make such a OP without even trying to propose a solution which could be more suitable then the ones applied so far. My idea, which is obviously open to discussion, is simply bringing the standard format for Tournaments up to 128. I cannot see important issues coming from it, compared to the current 64-man format. Someone could argue that specific Tournaments may be unmanageable with 128 participants. However, more often than not, such Tournaments would run less than 64 participants anyway (like Secret Santa). Most of the current 64-man tournaments could be comfortably be run with 128 participants without major problems, besides having another round (which isn't really a problem, in my opinion) and having more troubles with getting all matches finished (which is an issue pertaining the 1st round only, anyway - from the 2nd round on, there would not be any differences). If you do not believe Smogon can support 128 non-official Tournaments (i.e. it cannot fill approximately within a day 128 spots), or that even 128 would be too low of a number, look at the Random Tournament #2 sign-up thread. It stayed open for roughly a day (20 hours, to be accurate), and it gathered approximately 145-150 submissions, which is much more closer to 128 than the current 90-100 -like numbers we reach if we let a 64-man tournament open even for something like 12 hours.
Well, this is it, pretty much. Discuss, and, although this goes without saying, stay on topic! Thanks for your attention.
Right now, the standard format for Tournaments is 64-man, with some specific ones being restricted to 32 (like Secret Santa) and others, generally less connected to the competitive side (like Riding the Metronome and Random Tournament) allowing up to 128 participants. I'll focus my OP on the 64-man format, since it is arguably the standard for Tournaments nowadays (as you probably have guessed, I'm not taking official tournaments into account). Most of the sign-up threads pertaining to these tournaments have one of the following issues:
1) They close shortly after they have been posted
2) They handpick the participants
I will explain why they are both undesireable issues. First, let's talk about (1). Lately, some Tournaments have closed their sign-up thread few hours after they have been opened. An example of this is the Item Restriction Tournament. If you compare the time of the OP and the time of the last post, you'll see that the thread has been open for just 4 hours. This is clearly a problem, because a lot of people who live in a different timezone are completely unable to even get a chance at signing up (sometimes, even being a sub is impossible). Now, you may say "Tough shit, Zarator. You will get to participate in the next tournament". But what if every sign-up thread lasts only for a few hours? Do I really have to rely on getting blessed with an host who live in my same timezone in order to participate in a tournament?
I may look like I'm exaggerating the problem, but if you check these threads you'll see that I'm not joking. How many tournaments stay up for at least 24 hours (which should be the reasonable amount of time for being sure everyone got the chance to sign-up no matter where he lives)? Very few, and most of those which actually do (at least, among 64-man tournaments) fall under the second issue, which I will outlight below.
Now, on with (2). I can see a lot of you saying something along the lines of "What's wrong with it? I don't care about Smogon average battler, I just want to see the best of Smogon playing against each other. Besides, if we make a 32-man tourney with a "handpicking" system which favours well know players, we will probably obtain the same names we would get if those 32 were an hypothetic "round 3" of a 128-man tournament, right?".
Well, let me just say that, if you were to be right and Tournaments could be so easy to predict, I guess the front runner of the Smogon Prediction Tournament (also, let's not forget that, being about standard OU, ST is probably the easiest tournament to predict - with less influence from gimmicks, it is easier for the good player to defeat the bad, right?) would have much more points than what corresponds to, roughly, 50% of the Round 1 battles. A lot of players are much better than their reputation would suggest, and discarding them a priori only because they are not enough well known detracts, ultimately, from Smogon's attempt to aim for the maximum level of competitiveness (no matter what could you say about Tournaments being less competitive than ladder).
Now, most sign-up threads try to reduce this issues in a way or another. The most popular ways are arguably the following 3:
a) First come, first serve: This way, the issue (2) gets removed from the equation.
b) Handpicking system: This way, it is possible to leave the thread open for more days, essentially removing the issue (1)
c) Mix: They generally allow the first 40 participants through the method a, filling the remaining 24 spots through the method b. It dampens both issues to a certain extent.
All of these methods have its merits, but it should be apparent that no one of them manage to solve the issues at hand in an acceptable way. The closest one is c, but it still penalizes certain timezones.
Now, it is quite obvious that I would not make such a OP without even trying to propose a solution which could be more suitable then the ones applied so far. My idea, which is obviously open to discussion, is simply bringing the standard format for Tournaments up to 128. I cannot see important issues coming from it, compared to the current 64-man format. Someone could argue that specific Tournaments may be unmanageable with 128 participants. However, more often than not, such Tournaments would run less than 64 participants anyway (like Secret Santa). Most of the current 64-man tournaments could be comfortably be run with 128 participants without major problems, besides having another round (which isn't really a problem, in my opinion) and having more troubles with getting all matches finished (which is an issue pertaining the 1st round only, anyway - from the 2nd round on, there would not be any differences). If you do not believe Smogon can support 128 non-official Tournaments (i.e. it cannot fill approximately within a day 128 spots), or that even 128 would be too low of a number, look at the Random Tournament #2 sign-up thread. It stayed open for roughly a day (20 hours, to be accurate), and it gathered approximately 145-150 submissions, which is much more closer to 128 than the current 90-100 -like numbers we reach if we let a 64-man tournament open even for something like 12 hours.
Well, this is it, pretty much. Discuss, and, although this goes without saying, stay on topic! Thanks for your attention.
