Circus Premier League Development, Part 2

Pidge

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The first CPL has been complete with Abstract Mathematics taking the crown! Here is a link to the server where everything took place, and where there is some active discussion on the subject: https://discord.gg/2WwjhBQN

There is a lot to go over, but here are some quick talking points.

Draft
Auction will be used next time.

Categories
There has been talk on getting rid of chess and Smash, considering large skill gaps and the inaccessibility of Smash. Without these categories, we could double up on other categories. It could be something like two different ORG categories, two different browser games, and two multi-generation random battles category. The two different ORG categories could be split into Genius-type games and non-Genius type games. An even amount of categories is okay, and tieing a week is okay, as it will be taken into account when determining playoffs with a point system.

Other category ideas are also floating around and is open for discussion, and the exclusion of Chess and Smash isn't locked or anything if there is a large demand for it and it fits our 'premise', if there is one.

Player Base
It was too ambitious to go with 6 teams with the amount of players we had and the amount of actual active players without substitutes being available. Going with 4 teams without advertising a PS! news spot may be the best; however, that might be less exciting. With advertising on PS!, filling 6 teams and having 2-3 substitutes seems very possible. Numbers could be adjusted based on sign ups.

Early Outcomes
With a team's victory possibly being decided early on in a week, the time and practice spent on a category that won't be completed until later on in the week can be seen as going to waste. With more categories that require preparation, this is less likely. Also, prize incentives can be added to win. Each win could add $1 dollar to a player's winnings, or go towards a charity of their choice.

Activity Wins and Substitutes
With more appropriate team sizes or a possibly larger player base, substitutes will be available and reduce activity wins and incomplete matches.

Prizes
Myself and and another (don't know if they want to be anonymous or not) are willing to provide monetary prizes and charity donations for top placing teams. Edit: A forum banner could be another potential prize, similar to Mafia Champion banner previously awarded in Circus.

Spectating
Part of the fun of Premier Leagues on Smogon is spectating the games being played, whether you're in the League or not. This is not possible with browser games in which players try to get the best score or time over the week, or if a spectating feature is not available in live matches. There is a limited amount of decent multiplayer browser games with spectating as well. This could be a non-problem, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

When
I think another run sometime this year is possible, but afterwards, if things are a success, it should be a once a year thing.
 
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Hulavuta

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Okay, so I'll throw in a few cents, mainly just compiling what I had said before.



First off, it struck me that the design philosophy of this tournament was kind of mixed in terms of what skills mattered. It seemed like half of the games valued "adaptability" or flexibility, like the browser games and ORG Wildcard. Those were kind of like "see who can become the best player of this game in a week". Smash and Chess were more about "dedication"; games with high skill ceilings that valued players who had a lot of previous experience and had sunk hours into training beforehand. Some weeks you'd get a Browser game that someone just happened to have wasted all their high school years playing, but obviously that's still quite different. And Pokemon Random Battles was somewhere in the middle there because of the randomized teams.

That's not necessarily a bad thing to mix, but it did seem to me that a lot of teams could basically count on getting 1 and/or 2 guaranteed wins a week by having a good smash and chess player, (and again Pokemon, to a lesser extent) and that did really devalue the ORG and Browser game spots, which were already somewhat of a toss-up because of the uncertainty of games.


I'll speak for Smash in particular since it's what I played and what I feel like I know. I think a big issue with it is that, unlike every other game, it's not played on computer but on Switch. That means there's already a 360$ buy-in to begin with. I don't think that's a tremendous issue as the Switch and Smash are both quite popular, but it is a consideration when it comes to subbing, for example. Smash players are pretty much locked into their category. In addition, it is pretty difficult to spectate, because in-game viewers contribute to lag. Not even being able to see the games is a pretty huge downside in a team tournament of all things.


When it comes to the skill ceiling argument, I do see four possible solutions with varying degrees of effectiveness.

1. Auctions will make it more costly to "just get a good smash player" - this really mitigates the whole idea I outlined above of just picking out the best smash and chess players and basically being set with a 2-0 advantage each week.

2. The skill ceiling issue is lowered with more available players - I believe only 3 of the 6 smash players (San Tomas, ajhockeystar, nightblitz42) actually had any prior tournament experience. But if you advertise the tournament more, I'm sure you'll get plenty of sign-ups from plenty of people who are experienced in that regard.

3. Have characters always set to random - this is personally my favorite, ha. I think it sets it in line with the "adaptability" philosophy of the tournament without making it luck-based. It doesn't take away from the player who has overall solid mechanics and game knowledge, but it does add another skill factor of being able to adapt to a series of unknown matchups quickly. This makes it pretty in line with Pokemon random battles; your overall Pokemon knowledge is a huge factor and you must also learn your team and what it can do, quickly.

4. Eliminate the category in favor of a more viewer-friendly and low-skill-ceiling game - obviously not a huge fan of this one but being objective, if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the tournament it should be cut.



Anyway, all this really depends on which direction you want to take the next tournament, or even if you wanted to split it into two tournaments. People are discussing having more solidified categories for the next one already, so in that case 1 and 2 might be more applicable. I think 3 might be the most fun. But I just wanted to get all my thoughts gathered in one place.
 

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