Tournament 2020 DOU Circuit Feedback + 2021 Circuit Planning Thread

[MajorBowman]

In lieu of a feedback survey and mostly private discussion about DOU circuit feedback within the council this year, we've decided to open up the discussion here. The council will have the final say, but we want to make this process more interactive.

With 2020 rapidly (finally) coming to a close, we have to start thinking about the 2021 circuit. This requires evaluating what went well and what could have gone better over the past year. While all discussion and/or ideas regarding the DOU circuit are welcome, these are the main points that we think require the most discussion:

(2020 Circuit thread for reference)

1. Replacing the 2nd DLT - it is clear that a large contingent of the playerbase does not enjoy DLT. This past year, we went back two 2 iterations of DLT in our circuit to cover for a lack of interest in live tournaments, but we think there could be an even better option going forward. Some of the ideas that have been thrown around in the past are a DOU version of majors, or possibly a Swiss-style tournament. I'm partial to the latter myself and I think that it would be a great option for us, but we are open to any and all ideas. Note that we will still have one DLT, we are only looking to replace the 2nd DLT.
2. CP bonuses for performance in individual cups during Classic - this was something we implemented this year, but with a BFL of sorts. You could only receive a bonus from one cup, so if you won all 3, for example, you would only get one 2-point bonus. Should we keep this BFL or drop it to further reward people who succeed in each cup?
3. CP distribution - we adjusted the CP distribution slightly last year, and I think what we ended up with is pretty optimal (aside from the point above). We always want to make sure to check and reevaluate our work however, so if you have any feedback regarding CP payouts for a given tournament it would be welcome
4. World Cup - the first DOU World Cup has been a great success (thanks to all who made it happen!), and I imagine people would like for it to be worked into our circuit schedule. I'm happy to do so, and would freely let those who ran it this year continue to take the reins since they did a wonderful job. Tagging Frania Sunrose Z Strats umbry Paraplegic Memoric (and anyone else that helped run the tour that I may have missed) specifically for their input on this one
5. DPL timing - without involvement in SPL, we have a lot more freedom as to when we host DPL. Do we want to keep it around the same time, or possibly move it up a bit? The timing of the new Doubles OST will certainly play a role here, but we don't have any info on that yet so it would be hard to truly plan around at this time.
6. Tournament overlap - if we add World Cup to our official tournament schedule, we'll start running into more overlap issues than we've had in the past few years. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing since it should only be affecting a few people at a time, but it creates a scenario in which someone who theoretically is making it to the finals of every tournament probably has no break at all throughout the year. This is somewhat of an unavoidable evil if we want to add to our circuit without taking anything away, but is still something to consider.

Feel free to discuss any or all of these topics, plus anything else you want to bring up. We're hoping to have the 2021 circuit finalized in the next week or two, so try to get your comments in as soon as you can!

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

Just add WCOP and remove DLT2, you avoid overlap. We replaced DLT2 with live tours 2 years ago and it didn't work out. I see no reason to reason why it needs replacing, just fill empty time in the schedule with mini tours and WCOP in absence of DLT2.
Also I would like to see you push for DWCOP to be trophy tour. OU gets a trophy for it, keep that same energy you had in fighting for SPL representation to all of our stuff. Heck make DPL a trophy tour too. Don't let the singles illuminati tell us singles tours are more competitive and prestigious. We deserve trophies just as much.

Expanding DPL to 8 teams or add an extra playoff round since we have more time without SPL.

All the other stuff seems fine. Maybe introduce an old gens Bo3 tour. I hosted one in a private discord and it got 32 sign ups, so people are interested in this. It is good to keep our old gens active as possible

 

[MajorBowman]

World Cup won't directly replace DLT2 because World Cup isn't a tournament that awards circuit points. World Cup is more akin to DPL as far as how it fits into our circuit - it's a DOU tournament but is more for fun (for lack of a better term) than for official rewards.

Comparisons between DOU and OU as far as trophies go isn't really fair, OU is the flagship metagame of the site and will (deservedly) have more opportunities for trophies. DPL and DWCOP will likely never be trophy tournaments for that reason. I agree with you in that our tournaments are as competitive as any and I'm really proud of what we've done with our circuit, but I think it's important to keep that perspective in mind.

8 playing slots is a better option than 8 teams for DPL but I'm certainly not opposed to that. That's a discussion that will be had when DPL is a bit closer.

Classic is our oldgens tournament and isn't going anywhere, we don't need another oldgens tour within our circuit.

 

[KennyJ]

I'm in favor of increasing the DLT CP payout by 1 for each placement (so it's 3, 5, 7, 9, 11). I know ladder players aren't always the best but I feel like qualifying for DLT playoffs deserves more CP than going 2-2 or 1-2 in a Seasonal.

As for the 2nd DLT replacement, after much internal debate with myself, I think I would prefer a swiss tournament over a "major" tournament. (It's a nice homage to VGC.) I assume x-2 would be the cut for the single elimination bracket (Which there would be, right?). And assuming there are 7 swiss rounds, giving out CP to those who go at least x-4 and just eliminating those who can no longer earn CP seems fair to me.

 

[Fran]

While I'm not necessarily opposed to replacing the 2nd DLT I'd like to provide some arguments for why I think the tournament adds value to our circuit. Firstly, in my opinion it's a great opportunity for new players to get to a far stage of a tournament and play some high quality opponents. Unlike in seasonals, where you need a pretty high level of consistency to get into the final stages of the tour or Classic, where you need to be familiar with multiple old gens, in DLT if you are determined it's not hard to get to the top 16 or even top 8, when you put in the effort. Secondly, I think the fact that the tournament is not as enjoyed by the DOU veterans also creates opportunities for both new players and people who didn't have enough time to compete in the circuit the whole year. If it were to be replaced by something else, there might be an issue with how many tournaments you need to compete in to get the CP required for invitationals (unless we make it so only the best result is counted out of DLT / the replacement tour). The (slightly) lower level of competition is also benefitial in my opinion, as it gives the less established players a chance to have their first success. I know for me, winning the DLT lead to my best and most fun season. Finally, I think we should consider the timing issue with this tournament, especially as we introduce DOUWC into the circuit. From the players perspective DLT takes at most 4-5 weeks of games, which can already be hard to manage if you're also participating in a seasonal and/or a team tournament. I think almost any other format would have to require more effort, so we should make sure it's possible to accommodate it with other relevant tournaments.

Regarding the possible replacements I'd argue for going with the swiss format over the majors. In DOUWC we just experimented with using pools for the first round and while it was certainly a fun format to play in, I don't think it fits right for an individual tour. It seems to me like it would favour the people with access / ability to build good teams fast, while generally decreasing the quality of the games. I know in World Cup I needed my teammates help with figuring out my teams and I still wasn't fully satisfied with the result. In a situation, where someone is also participating in seasonals or a team tour it would make it pretty much impossible for them to be well prepared for all of their games. On the other hand the swiss format is likely to give us more good matches, while being less demanding and probably more welcoming to the newer players (by making the best play against each other and not them). The only issue I see is that it may take longer than a majors format, but in my opinion it should be much easier to accommodate if it's just one game per week, before the playoff rounds.

I don't have much to add about World Cup, since it seems like it has been a great experience for everyone and I had pretty much no issues hosting it. The format we tried has worked well and I'm not sure if I'd change anything about it. Now that we're "free" of SPL there is a lot of possibilities for figuring out the timing of the tournament, this year we started it as the week 9 of Snake Draft has ended and it seems like a good time to begin, assuming it's replacement follows a similar schedule. As MajorBowman has mentioned, it will likely be impossible to avoid overlaps for people that will want to play / finish in finals of everything and out of the Snake Draft playoffs group we got 3/4 starters.

 

[Actuarily]

While I'm not necessarily opposed to replacing the 2nd DLT I'd like to provide some arguments for why I think the tournament adds value to our circuit. Firstly, in my opinion it's a great opportunity for new players to get to a far stage of a tournament and play some high quality opponents. Unlike in seasonals, where you need a pretty high level of consistency to get into the final stages of the tour or Classic, where you need to be familiar with multiple old gens, in DLT if you are determined it's not hard to get to the top 16 or even top 8, when you put in the effort. Secondly, I think the fact that the tournament is not as enjoyed by the DOU veterans also creates opportunities for both new players and people who didn't have enough time to compete in the circuit the whole year. If it were to be replaced by something else, there might be an issue with how many tournaments you need to compete in to get the CP required for invitationals (unless we make it so only the best result is counted out of DLT / the replacement tour). The (slightly) lower level of competition is also benefitial in my opinion, as it gives the less established players a chance to have their first success. I know for me, winning the DLT lead to my best and most fun season. Finally, I think we should consider the timing issue with this tournament, especially as we introduce DOUWC into the circuit. From the players perspective DLT takes at most 4-5 weeks of games, which can already be hard to manage if you're also participating in a seasonal and/or a team tournament. I think almost any other format would have to require more effort, so we should make sure it's possible to accommodate it with other relevant tournaments.

Regarding the possible replacements I'd argue for going with the swiss format over the majors. In DOUWC we just experimented with using pools for the first round and while it was certainly a fun format to play in, I don't think it fits right for an individual tour. It seems to me like it would favour the people with access / ability to build good teams fast, while generally decreasing the quality of the games. I know in World Cup I needed my teammates help with figuring out my teams and I still wasn't fully satisfied with the result. In a situation, where someone is also participating in seasonals or a team tour it would make it pretty much impossible for them to be well prepared for all of their games. On the other hand the swiss format is likely to give us more good matches, while being less demanding and probably more welcoming to the newer players (by making the best play against each other and not them). The only issue I see is that it may take longer than a majors format, but in my opinion it should be much easier to accommodate if it's just one game per week, before the playoff rounds.

I don't have much to add about World Cup, since it seems like it has been a great experience for everyone and I had pretty much no issues hosting it. The format we tried has worked well and I'm not sure if I'd change anything about it. Now that we're "free" of SPL there is a lot of possibilities for figuring out the timing of the tournament, this year we started it as the week 9 of Snake Draft has ended and it seems like a good time to begin, assuming it's replacement follows a similar schedule. As MajorBowman has mentioned, it will likely be impossible to avoid overlaps for people that will want to play / finish in finals of everything and out of the Snake Draft playoffs group we got 3/4 starters.

I sincerely second this, as a new player to the circuit scene, I saw DLT as my best chance to finish top 16 in anything and thus get a chance at a BO3 with some of the top players.

I completely understand some of the veterans dislike for DLT, but many of these players are still playing in the seasonals throughout the DLT, and are qualifying for invitationals regardless of DLT - so they may not see the opportunities it provides.

I get that people may want to get rid of the second DLT, but if we do I think we should try to replace it with something that does create a similar opportunity for the newer players. It may not give the same boost to the ladder that DLT does, but it should at least give players an opportunity to play against the best without having to consistently win many rounds of a tournament first.

 

[Bless]

Confirming that Frania Z Strats umbry Paraplegic Memoric SMB and myself will gladly be happy to continue our reign for dwcop next year!

 

[shrop]

I first want to say that the 2020 circuit has been a great success and am super excited to see what ultimately happens in invitationals. Big props to MajorBowman, talkingtree, and the other various tour hosts for guiding this ship in the right direction. With that being said I have a couple thoughts I wanted to share regarding the 2021 circuit:

Regarding the potential replacement of DLTII: I think having two DLT's is quite redundant and adding some more diversity to the slate would definitely be a good change to make. People above me have added great points that DLT is important because it gives new players to the format a chance to get to stack up against some of the more prominent players. Many players in the past have used DLT as their grand entrance to performing well in the tournament scene and I think its vital that the potential replacement of DLTII still adequately offers these things. My proposition is replacing DLTII with Doubles Majors. This pool based format would operate very similarly to the DWCOP format and, in my opinion, satiate the goals of DLTII even better than a ladder tournament ever could. A pool based format essentially guarantees that new players at least get one opportunity to play a "top tier" doubles player and prove themselves in a big tournament. Our tier's player base has never been stronger so I think it is a fair assumption that each pool will have a minimum of one very strong player. The issue with DLT's is that some new players struggle with qualifying for the playoff bracket or just don't even sign up in the first place because laddering to a high enough ELO can be very frustrating, however, Doubles Majors would ensure that these players get at least one crack at a big tournament win. Looking back at the pool portion of DWCOP, players like k 8 s m and no one interesting came out of nowhere with strong pool play and wins vs very prominent players and I think we can expect more of this if we add Doubles Majors to the circuit. I think a swiss based format is definitely worth looking into, but I think a pool based format feels like a better successor to DLTII because it offers new players more opportunities for high quality opponents. I think CP distribution for this new tournament should be quite similar to that of a seasonal (16ish for first place, 14ish for second place, etc.).


Regarding CP distribution for Doubles Classic: Doubles Classic is maybe the most hype event of the year but in my opinion offers far too much CP as is. It seems really weird to me that a tournament that consists entirely of generations that are several years old offers essentially the same amount of CP as a seasonal does, when the whole circuit culminates in doubles invitationals that is entirely current gen games. I think Classic's CP distribution should be reduced to something like 1st gets 10 CP, 2nd gets 8 CP, etc. The current CP distribution essentially allows someone to perform very well in Classic, then basically just have to sign up for all the seasonals and clinch invis solely off that. This seems super unfair to people that are new to smogon as learning old formats is difficult when they are only really played once a year (mirrors many arguments that revolved around SPL going to old-gen based format). As a doubles boomer, I love playing old formats as much as the next boomer but, in my opinion, we should prioritize creating a format that finds the 16 most deserving current gen players which would mean altering CP distribution for classic.

 

[sawamura]

First of all Mish.

Well I have read this thread from a thousand points of view regarding the variant of the CP distribution in the Doubles Cup both the replacement of the DLT 2 or the officialization of the DPL as mentioned n1n1 , The SPL slap to the Doubles OU community has been very unfair to us (all my support to MajorBowman showing The face by our Format), Veteran players are destined to fight random Ladder players, something that has frustrated me in the last year and a half, I feel it is necessary to change the strategy of the tournaments even if I am not very familiar with the points. Because the lack of SPL tour has made us very slow, the dlt was a tour in which I was able to get to know myself as a climber and play 24/7 with ups and downs due to my times and it was what pushed me as a new player at that time to follow the Circuits with veristas being this my first Tour G1,G2 and G3. But given the current occasion the DWCP format may be something we can implement and thus notice that new players in the metagame can adapt and make space as DLT JRL BELL did in the DLT this year when I see it again I make the image of this type of tour in which you can have more chances to make yourself known and not have to lose in rounds of the season for only 3 weeks. I perfectly agree with shrop in the Swiss Tour, that we have to study and test it to see how it develops and to be able to implement it because of the lack of variety and not because it is something very flat and boring

with nothing more to say ,shrop for TL, not umbry Yoda2798