Other 1v1 Tournament Policy Discussion Thread

[ncalathes]

With this brief post, I’d also like to express my strong recommendation to include a SSBO7 slot in the coming PL.

If you’re wondering “why bo7”, start by asking yourselves why playing more games on average is beneficial in 1v1. Between being able to adapt to what your opponent brings to the table, lowering the impact of games decided by RNG in a format where a single loss is often decisive, and further rewarding player creativity and sharpness, playing a bo7 tends to reward the player whose preparation is on point and approaches the series better more often than a bo5.

Obviously, one could theoretically argue to keep increasing the best-of to even greater numbers, which isn’t feasible. The reason why this isn’t feasible is because one should not only consider the slot’s competitiveness, but also player strain. Numbers greater than 7 wouldn’t be optimal as players would have to either increase the number of teams they build even further, or face the risk of getting repeated matchups, or maybe even both. Such events occur very rarely in bo5s and bo7s, but at the same time the bo7 format has the advantages mentioned above, making it a fair compromise that balances competitiveness and player strain.

Although I wish I could have the actual data past PLs have provided for comparison purposes, I want to remind to everyone that the gradual transition has mostly been voiced by people who have experienced both formats; the relatively more positive experiences these players had in bo7 compared to bo5 supplement the overly positive experience viewers had in OGPL as shown by Deg’s chart.

I am also aware of the fact that due to time constraints or other commitments, a portion of the SS playerbase considers a bo7’s strain heavy enough already. I’d like to remind that the potential introduction of bo7 to oldgens, only applies to SS for the time being. Hence, this introduction won’t erase the bo5 slot and those players will be able to simply pick that slot to play. Both slots are projected to be highly competitive given that the SS pool is among the most competitive, if not the most competitive pool as far as the upcoming PL is concerned and players will find a certain level of competition regardless of the slot they choose.

TLDR ; make one of the 2 SS slots Bo7

 

[Lumii]

I don’t play SS so I’ll look at this issue from the perspective of someone who might end up doing the sheets for PL, which is that there’s not too much extra work that goes into making sheets for with SS Bo7 included. With the community support adding SS Bo7 has, I would like to see it be represented in the tour.

When it comes to the discussion behind possibly having a 10-slot tour, I think that we shouldn’t be making the discussion around this possibility centred around how many signups we get. UUPL got 240ish signups and NUPL got 180ish signups, and both did a 10-slot tour. However, forum PLs that were larger than both did 8-slot tours. I personally love the idea behind a 10-slot tour, but I don’t think that we should do it without sufficient community support, which is something that I don’t see at this moment. If the signups numbers for this year drastically surpass my expectations (like say we get 320 signups or something ridiculous and we have only 80 people getting drafted), I think we may be in a better place to look at this. Even if we get to that point, we should only do it if we have sufficient community support behind that move. For now, however, it’s not something that I think should be implemented.

 

[Euphonos]

SV Bo7
SV Bo5
SV Bo5
SS Bo7
SS Bo5
SM Bo7
SM Bo5
ORAS Bo5

If you're gunning for eight slots this PL, this should be the metas picked for those said slots. I'll be applying everyone's [this meta is in a bad place right now] card to DPP in the last PL to BW for this season because the sentiments based on the people who played and spectated in OGPL said it so. Besides, as what based DripLegend said, there's 1v1 Classic if BW fanatics right there want room for development anyway.

 

[DEG]

SV Bo7
SV Bo5
SV Bo5
SS Bo7
SS Bo5
SM Bo7
SM Bo5
ORAS Bo5

If you're gunning for eight slots this PL, this should be the metas picked for those said slots. I'll be applying everyone's [this meta is in a bad place right now] card to DPP in the last PL to BW for this season because the sentiments based on the people who played and spectated in OGPL said it so. Besides, as what based DripLegend said, there's 1v1 Classic if BW fanatics right there want room for development anyway.

I believe, there seems to be a misconception as to why DPP isn't included in the mix. The idea behind excluding DPP has nothing to do with the metagame place or what people think about it - the answer is simple, the opportunity cost is too high. The addition of DPP would force us to exclude either the second SS slot, or the third SV - both of these slots deserve more developmental than DPP and are more competitive. About gen skipping - I've never been a fan of gen skipping nor trimming down old gens as it isn't sustainable and knows no limit, as long as the metagame is playable and not overly centralized or broken then it is fine to include. Gen skipping also sets a bad precedent - what stops people from not complaining about ORAS next year as it is also in a shaky spot players wise. Also, about SM2, the slot was already under heavy fires last year and labeled as bad so I see no reason to include now that some people that played SM are banned or have quit/migrated to another generation.

As previously stated the decision is final, and I will not open any discussion about the tournament format outside of Best of 7 SS.

 

[Mishlef]

I believe, there seems to be a misconception as to why DPP isn't included in the mix. The idea behind excluding DPP has nothing to do with the metagame place or what people think about it - the answer is simple, the opportunity cost is too high. The addition of DPP would force us to exclude either the second SS slot, or the third SV - both of these slots deserve more developmental than DPP and are more competitive. About gen skipping - I've never been a fan of gen skipping nor trimming down old gens as it isn't sustainable and knows no limit, as long as the metagame is playable and not overly centralized or broken then it is fine to include. Gen skipping also sets a bad precedent - what stops people from not complaining about ORAS next year as it is also in a shaky spot players wise. Also, about SM2, the slot was already under heavy fires last year and labeled as bad so I see no reason to include now that some people that played SM are banned or have quit/migrated to another generation.

As previously stated the decision is final, and I will not open any discussion about the tournament format outside of Best of 7 SS.

So ur saying remove ORAS for DPP got it

 

[Euphonos]

The idea behind excluding DPP has nothing to do with the metagame place or what people think about it - the answer is simple, the opportunity cost is too high.

This has something to do with the last PL when that tour excluded DPP and had it replaced with Multigen, and it's for that very reason: people like [banned user] were advocating against DPP for how bad that metagame was - not to mention this was before the leaders that time ultimately decided to a Shaymin quickban (they've also mentioned my 1v1 PL V match against [another banned user] because they were hax-filled in the first four matches).

In that case, either push through with 10 slots and include BW/DPP (which I doubt people will support this move), or keep with 8 but remove BW given that same sentiments we've seen from BW mains. Just my two cents.

However decision you're going with, I don't really mind.

 

[DEG]

Thank you for participating in the discussion. There will be an SS Bo7 slot. Therefore the slots for this PL will be;

SV Bo7
SV
SV
SS Bo7
SS
SM
ORAS
BW

We will assess the newly added bo7 slot then re-open the discussion to talk about that and the possibility to extend bo7 to more gens.

 

[DEG]

Let's all collaborate together to never miss an important game again! 1v1 will be using discord's event tab for highlight games -semis, finals of individuals, fight nights, and team tour highlight series! However, this won't be possible without all the players collaborating and sharing their times.

Thanks to Vertigo, we will have a game schedule sheet again this year for PL. Managers / delegates will be kindly requested to fill the sheet with the times so we can all watch the games! The event tab will broadcast at least 4 highlight games per week as a reminder.

Arai and I would also like to remind you that playing games in private is strongly discouraged specially in team tournaments. The team tournaments games must either be public or private but publicized in the room. This is also a good time to remind you that smogtours is the server that has a priority - so if one of the players want to play on smogtours then you have to play there. You can also utilize /modchat on the main server. JUST.DON'T.HIDE.YOUR.GAMES.

 

[Joker 1v1]

JUST.DON'T.HIDE.YOUR.GAMES.

Smely Socks hid the replay of this battle.

Don't be like this...

 

[ncalathes]

Thanks to Vertigo , we will have a game scheduling sheet again this year for PL.

 

[DenisTheMenace]

I‘m in agreement with DEG ’s post for the most part, but I think that simply stating “playing games in private is strongly discouraged especially in team tournaments“ isn’t enough of a deterrent.
I believe that every hidden/private PL game within a series played on the main server should automatically result in a loss for the player at fault, that way any sensible person won’t repeat the same mistake.
It’s definitely not something that will be implemented but I‘ve wanted to share my 2 cents anyway since I heavily dislike when that happens

 

[RTM]

I agree with Denis. If you can't take the pressure of a teamtour, why join in the first place? Playing privately just shouldn't be allowed as it goes against the competitive spirit of the tour. I don't know if handing out losses would be fair for something which could just be an accident on either party's part but I think a nudge in the right direction could go a long way here. Just ping matches guys, bye.

 

[Vertigo]

It's very easy to implement in practice.

All tournament battles should be played on the Smogtours server. If a valid reason is provided and both players agree, playing on the Main server is acceptable.

If one player wants stours, it has to be played there.
If both players agreed to play on main and play private/do not link, the match is void. It's not a stretch and the "i forgot" argument isn't really valid, you at least ping your team or something when you play.

 

[DEG]

Refer to this post for the 2nd tournaments survey.

 

[DEG]

Re; 2023 1v1 Championship

Due to logistics issues from tournament planning and burnout side, and the lack of enough hype or push the series to be more competitive to justify it running deep into team tournaments and future circuit tournaments, the 1v1 TD team believes Double Elimination has no place as a playoffs format in Champs. Therefore, we have decided to drop Double Elimination (DE) from the potential list of format that this year's Circuit Championships. There will be a vote among qualifiers between Single Elimination and Swiss Top Cut. We will open a 2024 circuit planning thread in the foreseeable to discuss next year's formats.

The decision is final and will not be reversed.

 

[DEG]

Over the past weeks, I've been thinking about the place of World Cup in our circuit, how should we define it? who should we allow? should we allow expansions? should it be more CG oriented? I believe that I found a world cup I can get behind for the time being.

We've always been focused on two things as a community: pre-determined regions and 2x Old Gens slots. Both of these "rules" should be changed, in my opinion. Team-wise, it would be advantageous for the community to offer open spots and, if necessary, run qualifying for Country or Other Continental Teams (Latin America). If players want to form teams and compete in the tournament, we should enable it. This will increase interest in 1v1 and promote the tournament scene and community overall. If that happens, we should be prepared, which is why I recommend moving the world cup a week or two early (I'm already working on this, as well as signup logistics and behind-the-scenes discussions with representatives of prospective new teams). With that stated, I don't think qualifiers are a good idea if we have an even number of teams; it's a waste of time and makes the tournament drag on for no reason; I'd rather have more pools. The main disadvantage is that we only have four teams in the playoffs instead of ten or twelve, which some may find unfair.

I feel we should also incorporate more CG into our team tours. I recommend removing two Old Gen slots, particularly in WC, and replacing them with four CG slots in the 2023 format: 4 SV (1 bo7 3 bo5?) 1 SS (bo7?) 1 SM, 1 ORAS, and 1 BW. The two old gens slot is only a tradition, and as we've seen from last year's team tournament and PL, I don't think its presence is justified. 1 SS is more than enough for the SS player base we have, and investing in CG is an excellent idea because it is more welcoming to newcomers and will aid in the development of SV, especially after DLC. Additionally, we have OGPL to satisfy the SS community and PL which will have 2x Old Gens slot (for now), so basically this allows us to create format identities for every team tournament we have.

 

[LittEleven]

 

[SwordIsBored]

Forming teams is an interesting idea but I don't think we really have the playerbase for that, teams being only formed by people who wouldn't be drafted otherwise would allow them to be farmable.

Four SV slots heavily disadvantages specific teams and because of the limitations of which players you can draft on a certain team, this could prove to be a problem. A lot of regulars on WC teams in previous years are used to playing their main tier and this shake-up would disrupt this, some teams just overall don't have many good SV players and instead of this allowing new players to shine it'll just result in oldgen players being forced to play SV or having generally unwanted players on a team.

Overall, team tournaments isn't really where new players prove themselves or should and we have individuals to do this already. All of these additions just seem to be encouraging inexperienced players to have a chance which works on paper but defeats some of the competitiveness of WC and gives certain teams an unnecessary advantage.

 

[bea]

World Cup should be more CG focused.

More CG allows Newcomers a better chance to learn the tier and to make the tour more competitive as with new teams we will have many newcomers into the tour, which those new teams might not have, as they lack established old Gen framework. More people play (and can be incentivized to play) CG which means more CG allows teams having a easier time finding players to fill their roster and having more competitive rosters than they would otherwise.

the suggestion deg made was ideal with 1 bo7 and 3 bo5, with the SS slot bo5 / bo7 probably being up to what the SS community prefers, but more SV could also be an option

TLDR

 

[Vertigo]

Four SV slots heavily disadvantages specific teams

Using your exact same reasoning, more old gens slots heavily advantages specific teams then.
It's also untrue because CG is obviously more welcoming, giving some teams more options.

A lot of regulars on WC teams in previous years are used to playing their main tier and this shake-up would disrupt this, some teams just overall don't have many good SV players and instead of this allowing new players to shine it'll just result in oldgen players being forced to play SV or having generally unwanted players on a team.

Correct me if I'm wrong; I can't help but read this part as gatekeeping, WC should be the same players every year in their respective tiers and we shouldn't make it more welcoming for new players. If you don't want to slot a "regular" in SV because they do not want to play SV, then so be it, someone else with more motivation can take the spot. Why should we cater exclusively to the established players?

 

[Vertigo]

After discussing the matter internally and collecting input, the TD team has decided to move forward with implementing a 4th CG slot to WC, with 1 Bo7 and 3 Bo5. All old gen slots will be Bo5.

 

[Potatochan]

if i had a dollar for every time the TD team makes the wrong decision id be so fucking rich

 

[ncalathes]

This

 

[DripLegend]

Wanted to share my thoughts on Classic as a tour before WC starts up soon so i can just clear my opinions on it while i have them instead of sitting around holding onto ideas i think could benefit the tour. (just seperating these ideas into different bulletpoints so each is more clear to read).

1. Seed Classic Cups
Bracket luck is something I've seen a large amount of complaints about and it's been really apparent in the past couple of years. With many Round 1's ending up like this anyways, realistically there's even more than the few potential byes that already come with the predetermined bracket. Qualifying for Classic also largely hinges on the fact of having multiple consistent performances, and this can be completely undermined by simply rolling either players who just joined the site since they saw ps! news link to the thread, or getting opponents that forfeit due to being busy/not caring. Every cup being relatively close to each other also increases this likelihood, with some ppl playing most if not all of the cups (caused by problems mentioned in my next point). Seeding could ideally be based on PL/WC performances (maybe OGPL but it isn't official so if it gets included give it less "value" than both other tours). Seeding each cup would help foster a more competitive environment than our current system of randomizing and help to eliminate how prevalent luck is in being able to have deep runs into the tour. An example many players are familiar with was Akeras last year, receiving a ton of act wins in multiple cups (if i counted right, 2 in SM cup, 2 in ORAS, won a coinflip in DPP too as well as an opp forfeiting) which definitely improved his chances of qualifying. Not to discredit any of his wins during the tour, but getting multiple activity calls or people forfeiting can drastically improve/decrease any one person's chances of qualifying. It also goes hand in hand with my next point in order to prevent outcomes like this happening again in future years.

2. Adopt Point-Scoring of Grand Slam (i.e, top 3 cups results are the only ones counted)
I think being able to use points for every gen to count towards classic is bad for fostering competition with this tour. Instead of being able to qualifyy from, say, a good run in one gen + decent placements in a couple others people are basically encouraged to sign up for as many tours as possible. Which while having more people play tournaments is always the goal, this severely limits the level of competition and skill that comes with trying to qualify for this tour. The ability to just signup and do average/roll good brackets in every cup is given more value than just winning out cups in this sense, not that winning a cup automatically means qualifying, but good players are not put into favorable positions on average just based on aspects out of their control. Adding a type of limitation on points for cups like seen through other Classic tournaments would encourage players to focus on quality over quanity in terms of how they approach the tournament. Increasing the effort put into it as well instead of the reusing snooze fest from mainers and sample/unviable mon spam from newer players.

3. Potentially Reworking Cups to not just be in the same time period
Having 5 cups run with only a week gap in between is a lot to manage, and the amount of people giving wins/losing to activity is extremely high. As well as the fact old gens are really stagnant in development around the year, only really coming into discussion during Classic or team tours. I think having cups be spread throughout the year/reworking our cups/oldgens tours could be beneficial in ways even outside the realm of the tournament. Having Old Gens be an active part of our circuit instead of the span of a couple months where people play in Classic can spark discussion and bring a lot of new players into the scene without having to make the hurdle of immediately being drafted to a team tour. Which is very unrealistic for first-timers and discourages new players to explore oldgens since in each team tour it's around the expectations are usually:
-PL usually favors established players in the tier to play oldgens
-WC also does the same but geographically so even harder to break into a region and be able to play off the bat
-OGPL is kind of an outlier here since it features only old gens, but not being official really harms it in terms of people taking it seriously (not that i'm advocating for it to be). Being able to have more of a build up between Classic also heightens the excitement of being able to follow the tour outside of just playoffs, instead of just checking the sheet every couple of weeks waiting to see who ends up in the lead.

4. Old Gens Communities
I think reworking Classic with these changes would do a lot of justice to our dedicated old gens mainers that have been dedicated tour players for years. They usually only reveal themselves a ton during either World Cup or Classic reliably, and old gens players make up a huge portion of our playerbase. Tiers rarely see more development/discussions surrounding them currently outside of team tours as mentioned previously, and being able to increase competition in the only individual tournament we have with oldgens atm can encourage more players to return and compete in gens that they were there for since the beginning. Being able to develop the tiers as well as cycle in new members motivated into oldgens councils to bring a completely different era of our old gens would also be a great way to start.

 

[Joker 1v1]

Wanted to share my thoughts on Classic as a tour before WC starts up soon so i can just clear my opinions on it while i have them instead of sitting around holding onto ideas i think could benefit the tour. (just seperating these ideas into different bulletpoints so each is more clear to read).

1. Seed Classic Cups
Bracket luck is something I've seen a large amount of complaints about and it's been really apparent in the past couple of years. With many Round 1's ending up like this anyways, realistically there's even more than the few potential byes that already come with the predetermined bracket. Qualifying for Classic also largely hinges on the fact of having multiple consistent performances, and this can be completely undermined by simply rolling either players who just joined the site since they saw ps! news link to the thread, or getting opponents that forfeit due to being busy/not caring. Every cup being relatively close to each other also increases this likelihood, with some ppl playing most if not all of the cups (caused by problems mentioned in my next point). Seeding could ideally be based on PL/WC performances (maybe OGPL but it isn't official so if it gets included give it less "value" than both other tours). Seeding each cup would help foster a more competitive environment than our current system of randomizing and help to eliminate how prevalent luck is in being able to have deep runs into the tour. An example many players are familiar with was Akeras last year, receiving a ton of act wins in multiple cups (if i counted right, 2 in SM cup, 2 in ORAS, won a coinflip in DPP too as well as an opp forfeiting) which definitely improved his chances of qualifying. Not to discredit any of his wins during the tour, but getting multiple activity calls or people forfeiting can drastically improve/decrease any one person's chances of qualifying. It also goes hand in hand with my next point in order to prevent outcomes like this happening again in future years.

2. Adopt Point-Scoring of Grand Slam (i.e, top 3 cups results are the only ones counted)
I think being able to use points for every gen to count towards classic is bad for fostering competition with this tour. Instead of being able to qualifyy from, say, a good run in one gen + decent placements in a couple others people are basically encouraged to sign up for as many tours as possible. Which while having more people play tournaments is always the goal, this severely limits the level of competition and skill that comes with trying to qualify for this tour. The ability to just signup and do average/roll good brackets in every cup is given more value than just winning out cups in this sense, not that winning a cup automatically means qualifying, but good players are not put into favorable positions on average just based on aspects out of their control. Adding a type of limitation on points for cups like seen through other Classic tournaments would encourage players to focus on quality over quanity in terms of how they approach the tournament. Increasing the effort put into it as well instead of the reusing snooze fest from mainers and sample/unviable mon spam from newer players.

3. Potentially Reworking Cups to not just be in the same time period
Having 5 cups run with only a week gap in between is a lot to manage, and the amount of people giving wins/losing to activity is extremely high. As well as the fact old gens are really stagnant in development around the year, only really coming into discussion during Classic or team tours. I think having cups be spread throughout the year/reworking our cups/oldgens tours could be beneficial in ways even outside the realm of the tournament. Having Old Gens be an active part of our circuit instead of the span of a couple months where people play in Classic can spark discussion and bring a lot of new players into the scene without having to make the hurdle of immediately being drafted to a team tour. Which is very unrealistic for first-timers and discourages new players to explore oldgens since in each team tour it's around the expectations are usually:
-PL usually favors established players in the tier to play oldgens
-WC also does the same but geographically so even harder to break into a region and be able to play off the bat
-OGPL is kind of an outlier here since it features only old gens, but not being official really harms it in terms of people taking it seriously (not that i'm advocating for it to be). Being able to have more of a build up between Classic also heightens the excitement of being able to follow the tour outside of just playoffs, instead of just checking the sheet every couple of weeks waiting to see who ends up in the lead.

4. Old Gens Communities
I think reworking Classic with these changes would do a lot of justice to our dedicated old gens mainers that have been dedicated tour players for years. They usually only reveal themselves a ton during either World Cup or Classic reliably, and old gens players make up a huge portion of our playerbase. Tiers rarely see more development/discussions surrounding them currently outside of team tours as mentioned previously, and being able to increase competition in the only individual tournament we have with oldgens atm can encourage more players to return and compete in gens that they were there for since the beginning. Being able to develop the tiers as well as cycle in new members motivated into oldgens councils to bring a completely different era of our old gens would also be a great way to start.

I hear you, but what if we "let" DEG host everything moving forward