Tournament Pre-ZUPL V Discussion Thread

[Merritt]

(approved by esteemed tier leader Corthius)

Time for your least favourite event of the year, where the hosts (this year me and Xayah are hosting!) lose half their lifespan combined to host the biggest gang war between the userbase on which manager couples should be drafted! (comment your favourite manager BELOW!)

All jokes aside, last year I did this thread trying to ask the people what did they think about last ZUPL, what to change and what to keep, and we're here now, with less than a month before the ZUPL V to ask the important questions again!
- Tiers: this year we're pretty covered since we have 3 SV and 1 of every oldgen up to DPP, so there shouldn't be much discussion here; SV is also bound to be fresh all PL thanks to Home dropping!
- Format: last year the move to 8 teams was pretty criticized after the tour because it brought some low quality games down the line, but what do we think about it this year, with SV? Are people more interested in it? Are the presented oldgens big enough to warrant it?
- Anything else you might think of! Retains? Selfbuys?

Feel free to pitch your ideas and thoughts here!

 

[BaitWiz]

Just two things from me:

1. 8 teams is a mixed bag - I think it definitely has potential to work out from a current gen perspective, as imo SV ZU is a far more exciting tier than SS ZU was for ZUPL IV. It helps that the meta is very fresh, with several of the most problematic mons being removed at this point. personal bias definitely not coming through here on my opinion of SS ZU
2. I’d just like to put a voice towards potentially freeing ADV - the meta is not limited to a lot of the bulky balance teams that were seen in Olympiad, as shown by Purple Haze (and a couple other builds), and if people do feel like three current gen slots is too stressful on the manager side of things it’s entirely possible that adding ADV to the equation could be the solution. Just food for thought.

Super excited for everything to start in earnest next month!

 

[Jett]

Our protagonist Lalaya appears to be willing to accept another "traumatic" experience from the ZU community. That said, I'm glad this thread is being made much earlier so that we can sort this stuff out before the tour begins.

Tiers: 3 SV and 1 SS to DPP is pretty much the only viable option. The next best tiers after these would be Bo3 and ADV and I don't see how we'd fit them unless we went to 10 slots and that ain't it.
Format: Any which allows me to win again. 8 is objectively better for playoffs format and probably more feasible now? It'll be a new metagame so players might be able to get away with more scuffed builds than last PL (i.e standards for playerbase lower so less bad than last year but might still be a struggle) No idea what manager pool will look like but that's something to bear in mind.
Retains, Selfbuys?: Whatever last time seemed to work. Two retains max if we're changing it though but a good case needs to be made by someone else not named me. As an aside how do retains work across multiple years? Would it go for example 7k -> 10k -> 13k or 7k -> 10k -> 16k? Important info for managers this time around.

 

[wooper]

would personally love to see adv replace a ss slot im definitely not biased at all

 

[Toto]

Change manager selfbuy to 3k

Keep everything else the same

 

[Lalaya]

Quick answer @ ADV: if you want to have it, bear in mind: 3 SV + 1 tiers up to DPP are a even number (8 slots), so ADV needs to replace a tier or be included with another tier/slot, which I don't think it's that feasible, as 10 slots is not a number ZU can realistically support without going in the same issue as last year and every other ZU tier just seems... more active or stable, straight up (feel free to correct me on this).

 

[Lalaya]

As an aside how do retains work across multiple years? Would it go for example 7k -> 10k -> 13k or 7k -> 10k -> 16k? Important info for managers this time around.

it goes up by 3k every subsequent year in officials (example: 11k > 14k first retain > 20k second retain > 29k third retain)

 

[DurzaOffTopic]

it goes up by 3k every subsequent year in officials (example: 11k > 14k first retain > 20k second retain > 29k third retain)

How much more are they paying to retain you as host for this tournament? It better be enough!

Corthius wooper Tuthur Aaronboyer
I demand answers, Now!

 

[Medeia]

I honestly doubt based on last ZUPL and individual tours that our playerbase is big enough that 8 teams make a competitive enough tour. I also don't see so far how a lot more people are supposed to be invested in pre-home SV compared to end of SS, so i'd support 6 teams for this edition. I'm kind of indifferent about adding ADV even tho it's like my "main" ZU gen, but i'm also positive that the meta wouldn't be quite as dominated by sameish bulky/fat squads. I'm slightly in favor of 8 slots over 10 even with 6 teams and think 8 teams + 10 slots are unviable for the same reason i don't like 8 teams again. Just my 2 cents on this.

 

[Danny]

Retains and self buys are fair. Sv is a joke let’s add a bo3 slot instead. If we do 8 teams we should incentivize it with a zupl banner and the customary custom. Go flamencos.

 

[Tuthur]

ZUPL has to be 8 teams. The community has significantly grown since lasy year thanks to the new generation hype. SV is also a much more accessible tier than SS and SM, because of how new it is, hence underdevelopped. The quality of every slot last year wasn't worse than in the previous iterations, there have always been weaker slots and always will. Moving back to 6 teams would be a step back in ZU growth and would prevent a lot of the new community members to take part to this tournament. ZUPL made a ton of signups last year thanks to the custom avatar price and we can expect pretty much the same this year again.

On slots, anything that isn't 3 SV + 1 SS-DPP makes no sense to me. Cutting one of the old gen is dumb as they now have established playerbase and proved to be competitive pools. Having less than 3 CG slot is nonsense to me, SV ZU is the priority and having only two slots won't let it develop much. I cannot think of any teamtour that has less than 3 slots of the main format.

On retains and selfbuys, I remember some people being adamant with their inclusion last year. However, I think that they not only proved to not be broken, but also not to be that good. I would like to extend selfbuy and extend to two possible players each for this year, but also not more than two people in total; i.e. you can selfbuy both managers OR selfbuy one manager + retain one player OR retain two players. Selfbuy price should also be reduced, 15k + differential was way too much last year and will still be this year. Making selfbuy that inaccessible make the pools worse and ruin the fun of most managers, selfbuying is rarelly worth it when it means giving up on drafting more people and not getting more support. I would encourage dropping selfbuys to 10k + 1k per differential.

 

[DurzaOffTopic]

ZUPL has to be 8 teams. The community has significantly grown since lasy year thanks to the new generation hype. SV is also a much more accessible tier than SS and SM, because of how new it is, hence underdevelopped. The quality of every slot last year wasn't worse than in the previous iterations, there have always been weaker slots and always will. Moving back to 6 teams would be a step back in ZU growth and would prevent a lot of the new community members to take part to this tournament. ZUPL made a ton of signups last year thanks to the custom avatar price and we can expect pretty much the same this year again.

Hey Tuthur, wanted to respond to a few things here.

re: 6/8 teams:
I feel you, I really do, and I tentatively agree, but I have some concerns based on my experience as a manager last year.

While it's true that the community has grown, and SV is a newer and underdeveloped tier, I believe that having eight teams last year had some negative consequences. The overall game quality dropped significantly, and teambuilding options were limited. Managing became more difficult and constraining due to the lack of competent players in certain tiers, leading to some disappointing matches. I understand that there have always been weaker slots in the tournament, but the decline in game quality last year was noticeable and affected the overall enjoyment of the tournament. I'm willing to provide specific examples privately if you're interested. I don't think it's consistent to want to push ZU for going 8 teams while also not wanting to bring up the game quality to a high standard.

(THIS IS NOT A BASH ON XAYAH vs APA, both of those players are obviously more than qualified to play in this tournament regardless even if they have a million funny games like that. Completely irrelevant here. Mentioning it specifically here because I know I've joked a lot about it in the past.)

Regarding your statement about "moving back to 6 teams would be a step back in ZU growth," I believe it's important to consider the quality of the games and the experience for both players and spectators. While having more teams may seem appealing for the sake of inclusivity, it doesn't guarantee a positive tournament experience. Fewer teams can lead to a more focused and competitive environment, allowing for better-prepared metagames and higher-quality matches. You have to remember that Olympiad was just a few months ago, which was specifically designed to be inclusive and provide a platform for new users to participate.

In the past, when we had two SM tiers in ZUPL due to the release of SS, it was a conscious decision made by the council to address the community's preference for more developed metagames in tournament environments. Similarly, reducing the team count to six could help us maintain a higher level of competition and ensure that all matches provide an enjoyable experience for participants.

When thinning out the pool of skilled players by reducing the team count, we also inadvertently thin out the dedicated and effort-driven users who contribute significantly to positive team experiences. You know, the chatters. Many of us have experienced the positive influence of those who put in the effort to build, actively participate, and engage in team discussions. With the larger team count, it becomes more challenging to maintain a sufficient number of such individuals. As a result, there is an increased likelihood of having to include players who may not share the same level of commitment or enthusiasm. This can pose difficulties when it comes to bench slots, support players, and overall team cohesion.

On slots, anything that isn't 3 SV + 1 SS-DPP makes no sense to me. Cutting one of the old gen is dumb as they now have established playerbase and proved to be competitive pools. Having less than 3 CG slot is nonsense to me, SV ZU is the priority and having only two slots won't let it develop much. I cannot think of any teamtour that has less than 3 slots of the main format.

I totally get where you're coming from regarding the slot allocation and the importance of keeping established player bases in certain formats. It's unconventional to have less than 3 slots for the main format, I get that, but there are some problems that I think need to be addressed.

EDIT CLARIFICATION: These are reasons why people dislike underdeveloped metas in PLs, not specific reasons why they should be excluded or limited

New metas can be pretty chaotic. There's a around-the-clock risk of any particular threat or wall taking over before tiering actions, and that can mess up teambuilding, integrity of the result, and the overall game quality. On top of that, there's always a shortage of resources at the start of a new generation, which puts even more pressure on the builders, since the newer players and tournament players don't have much to work with. Like I said earlier, I think the decision a few years ago to have 2 SM at the release of SS was a good decision and was well received by the community.

On retains and selfbuys, I remember some people being adamant with their inclusion last year. However, I think that they not only proved to not be broken, but also not to be that good. I would like to extend selfbuy and extend to two possible players each for this year, but also not more than two people in total; i.e. you can selfbuy both managers OR selfbuy one manager + retain one player OR retain two players. Selfbuy price should also be reduced, 15k + differential was way too much last year and will still be this year. Making selfbuy that inaccessible make the pools worse and ruin the fun of most managers, selfbuying is rarelly worth it when it means giving up on drafting more people and not getting more support. I would encourage dropping selfbuys to 10k + 1k per differential.

I believe that selfbuys should come at a high price to discourage abuse and maintain a fair playing field for all managers. The ability to selfbuy yourself or your assistant manager at a fixed price, without any control from other managers, can easily be exploited and goes against the purpose of a manager in my opinion. Allowing selfbuys to become too strong would undermine the integrity of the tournament. While a minor price reduction could be considered, I believe that significant selfbuy buffs are not healthy for the overall competition.

I definitely see where you're coming from on these things but I don't think those are the best ways of approaching some of these issues. I'm glad you are giving your input though and I hope others will do the same!

Excited for the tour!

 

[TomatoZause]

I also think that ZUPL cannot be anything other than eight teams. The community has grown recently and there is no need to regress to six teams. Many tour players will be motivated to play purely because of the avatar prize, providing a higher quality of play. Lastly, six teams form a Mickey-Mouse playoffs that I believe is uncompetitive.

I also agree that both managers should be allowed to selfbuy, like they were in Olympiad. This can make the tournament more fun for the managers and would also increase the quality of players for those who are concerned. I also think it should be limited to two people because otherwise cores of a team could be retained over a few years, making it somewhat repetitive.

On the topic of slots, I do not think ADV should be included. The best style tier is generally fat with Pokemon such as Lileep, Delcatty, Koffing and Dustox. There are very few ways to throw this core off as well, and they can also be handled in Stall's final two slots. This make ADV an unpleasant tier to watch and play for most people. I'd also like to address that if one casually plays ADV it will be much different than forum play. Casual ADV ZU is much more Offensive, mainly because people just want to enjoy playing the game, and not wasting their time passively killing their entire opponent's team. Forum ADV ZU is mostly fat because that is what is best in the tier. I also think Olympiad showed this very well. I also think there is a not a slot that can logically be dropped for it. I think ORAS is an arguably worse tier, but it is more developed and also more entertaining. An SV slot could be dropped, but that be at expense of the development of a brand-new tier, SV ZU post-home.

 

[Monai]

My 2 cents. I believe 8 teams does not inherently lower the quality of the games. Reusing established teams and tweaking them to player preference and meta trends is a routine thing for team tours, and there will always be "weak" or untested player slots in every team tour, all the way up to spl.

I don't really care regarding 2-3 current gen slots, but the possibility of a broken threat taking over the metagame shouldn't deter 3 slots. The walking wake suspect happened at the height of spl, and there are a million other examples of tiering action or broken threats popping up in the middle of tours. It's just the nature of meta development.

I do feel pretty strongly about manager self buys though. Using differential as a metric is blatantly a pretty bad idea, just make it a consistent price, with retains adding another 3-5k.

Finally, the assessment of ADV being excluded because it's "fat" is just objectively stupid. Disregarding whether or not adv is ruled by fat, which it's not, how a tier is structured has never influenced whether or not it's included in a tour. We did not exclude GSC OU from SPL, we did not exclude SS UU from UUPL, and excluding ADV on the basis that Lileep Dustox Delcatty cores are viable and "unpleasant" is laughable at best. Not being able to fit it because 8 teams of 10 starters is too much would be reasonable. But if we're returning to 6 team slots to preserve quality, I believe including ADV and 4SV/BO3 is the best way to accommodate the growing playerbase.



Tldr: 8 teams is cool but so is 6 teams of 10. Threat of a broken shouldn't stop 3/4 SV. Manager self buy should be set at 15k or some other number. Don't listen to Zause about ADV.

 

[TWiTT]

Not gonna have time to write something long nor actually argue for my cause. I support 8x8 the most out of options presented so far.

ADV is probably my favourite oldgen and I deem it way more balanced than for example DPP and ORAS. I do feel like just going 3SV+SS-DPP fits better with this tour though. I'd have loved a Bo3 slot as it's one of my favourite slots to watch in other pl's but personally think it's easier to just go with 8 bo1 slots.

For retains I don't see a big reason to put a limit. 100k budget means that even the 10k retains take up 1/10th of your budget and unless multiple new stars emerge and all appear on the same team I don't see it being "abusable". I'm a fan of the continuity in the franchises.

For self buys I've been a big fan of an average base price + differential. Main one I'd consider appropriate would like 12k + 1k per differential (excluding playoffs for obvious reasons). If people wanna enlighten me to the disadvantage of this then I'm all ears. I just don't think players pulling up with 5 wins or more should go for sub 15k if they decide to manage.

 

[Corthius]

I guess as the True Gangster of the tier, I have to make a post too.

I'm not huge into the whole ZUPL/team tournament topic myself. I have started to invest energy into understanding how they are done with Olympiad really, even though I participated in last ZUPL, being a manager in Olympiad really forced me to invest time - part of the reason why I wanted to manage in the first place was to understand the whole process better. Anyway, while reading, please keep in mind that I am really inexperienced with the whole procedure and if I happen to talk in extremes, take it with a grain of salt.

If I understand correctly, the main concern that leads people like Durza believe we benefit more from 6 vs 8 teams, is that we don't have enough quality players across all generations and thus reducing the quality of games and therefor the experience for both of the players and the people that expect high quality games in said tier. The other side of the coin says that ZU has grown, and will be able to maintain a level of quality across the generations, so that no one gets disappointed or has an unpleasant experience.
Now, my POV is potentially influenced by my work, because I work as an Analytical Lab Technician, and I put high value on data. I know it is a frustrating and tedious process to gather such information, especially about this topic, but as the posts stand right now, I don't get a whole lot of data that convinces me that either side is "correct". (even with numbers, there still is a subjective part about the whole topic that I'm not trying to bury)
Tuthur and zause talk about the growth of ZU, and while I'm the last who is gonna deny that ZU is growing, it is a statement that, without any data, just falls flat in my brain. Similar, when Durza talks about "the chatter" being thinned out because we would have more teams, it is a logical statement that makes sense, but without any data behind the fear being justified, I can't put too much value into it.
I'm not saying that either is wrong, or that just for me they are now forced to go out of their way to prove their points just for me, I want to clarify my POV and my trouble with the whole topic. Obviously if they wish to do so, even better for me. And I totally understand both sides, if they are true.

As for the inclusion of ADV, and other old gens for that matter, I feel like the discussion is worth it. Being included in ZUPL is arguably worth more than the inclusion in Olympiad, and I believe that ADV is a tier that deserves being added, same for GSC (I don't know enough about RBY to really make a statement about its stability). The problem is of course that in order to not make some arguably weird decisions (like making a BO3 old gen slot that includes smth like DPP/ADV/GSC) I don't really see much room for it to be included, other than upping the slots to 10. I think what was done for the first ZUPL after SS release is an interesting idea though, which had 2 slots of the new gen and 2 slots of the last current gen. I'm biased here because I really do not wish having to support two SS slots, but if the majority thinks that is a good idea, I wouldn't be opposed to something like that. For the other PLs that come with SV, we can then choose to use 3SV + SS-XYZ.

This of course comes with other disadvantages, and I am sure that people that propose 6 teams don't see any value in this because it removes the entire point of less teams/players, and i don't know if people see ZU's growth as this big to justify 8x10. I think I've only seen Tuthur being strongly against 6x10 as a format, and was fine with adding their comments about that here, so I'd love to hear the disadvantages of that because it would techincally act as a compromise to the whole "step back" argument by including a simlar number of players to the tour (6x10 vs 8x8).
I heard that 6 teams make the POs weird, someone explain that to me. Thanks.


TL;DR: It is hard for me personally to agree with either 6 or 8 teams, due to the lack of data that would prove their concerns. 6x10 sounds like a fine compromise for the people that think ZU is big enough for 8x8, but also includes ADV and GSC. No strong opinion about self-buys nor retains.
Also Monai explained really well why I think that zause's proposal of ADV's exclusion is pretty bad.

 

[Lalaya]

re: 6x10
it's pretty much just the copium format that would still incur into having problems with the discussed above on the quality of the games being compromised, having to compress two extra tiers (or slots) to support your team and 8x8 is a better format to preserve integrity while still having a bigger format

also 3 SV especially with Home on the door seems pretty much a given and we believe into not removing that option (as it's a well standard format having 3xCG regardless and I don't want to change the status quo for no reason, especially when it's the *perfect* time to have more current gen games)

6x10 is a wack compromise but we could consider it as it would please people more than going than 6x8, 8x8 imo is the more optimal route overall (also because 6-team tours are just ass if you ask me as a host) but we're open to discussion on this

(on ADV: )

 

[Tuthur]

If I understand correctly, the main concern that leads people like Durza believe we benefit more from 6 vs 8 teams, is that we don't have enough quality players across all generations and thus reducing the quality of games and therefor the experience for both of the players and the people that expect high quality games in said tier. The other side of the coin says that ZU has grown, and will be able to maintain a level of quality across the generations, so that no one gets disappointed or has an unpleasant experience.
Now, my POV is potentially influenced by my work, because I work as an Analytical Lab Technician, and I put high value on data. I know it is a frustrating and tedious process to gather such information, especially about this topic, but as the posts stand right now, I don't get a whole lot of data that convinces me that either side is "correct". (even with numbers, there still is a subjective part about the whole topic that I'm not trying to bury)
Tuthur and zause talk about the growth of ZU, and while I'm the last who is gonna deny that ZU is growing, it is a statement that, without any data, just falls flat in my brain. Similar, when Durza talks about "the chatter" being thinned out because we would have more teams, it is a logical statement that makes sense, but without any data behind the fear being justified, I can't put too much value into it.
I'm not saying that either is wrong, or that just for me they are now forced to go out of their way to prove their points just for me, I want to clarify my POV and my trouble with the whole topic. Obviously if they wish to do so, even better for me. And I totally understand both sides, if they are true.

There are no concrete data, we are only speaking out of understanding of the community, as durza and I have been part of it for more than 5 years. That said there are concrete elements that makes me think we grew. The room's and tournament's activity have been growing. There has been a ton of new room regular and auth, that have also shown interest in taking part to tournaments like GetSleidSun, BaitWiz, plznostep, R-G-E, and TomatoZause. 2023 tournaments have scored more signups than 2022's one, all cups have moved from one bracket size up (48 -> 64 for non bw cups, and 64 -> 96 for bw cup) and likewise for ZU Open going from 64 to 96 signups. One could argue we lost some skilled players like TJ, Ho3n, and Louna from last year, but I'd reply some players have also stepped up. MrSoup and Beka won their first individual and weren't starting last year; skilled players like Shaneghoul, Monai, and clean have been more integrated to the playerbase and have joined other tournaments than ZUPL. This growth paired with SV better accessibility than SS (i explained the reasons in my previous post) means quality won't be an issue in ZUPL, but also that we got more "chatters" that durza seemed to miss last iteration of the tournament.

As for the inclusion of ADV, and other old gens for that matter, I feel like the discussion is worth it. Being included in ZUPL is arguably worth more than the inclusion in Olympiad, and I believe that ADV is a tier that deserves being added, same for GSC (I don't know enough about RBY to really make a statement about its stability). The problem is of course that in order to not make some arguably weird decisions (like making a BO3 old gen slot that includes smth like DPP/ADV/GSC) I don't really see much room for it to be included, other than upping the slots to 10. I think what was done for the first ZUPL after SS release is an interesting idea though, which had 2 slots of the new gen and 2 slots of the last current gen. I'm biased here because I really do not wish having to support two SS slots, but if the majority thinks that is a good idea, I wouldn't be opposed to something like that. For the other PLs that come with SV, we can then choose to use 3SV + SS-XYZ.

There are many stuffs that are very wrong to me in this paragraph. First, Olympiad was created for more inclusion of these Old Gens; the goal was to give them a teamtournament slot, while not having them in ZUPL. Second, in ZUPL we had 3 SS + 2 SM, not 2 SS + 2 SM; having less than 3 SV is probably the worst idea of all the ones I've read in this thread. The main goal of any tier is to develop its CG tier as it is its main one; the one played in the circuit and in most tournaments. Old Gens are great, but they are a sidething whose development should always come after the interest of the current gen. The difference between ZUPL V and previous iterations is that we don't have a free slot anymore; we used to have 7 set slots in 3 SS + 1 SM-DPP, but now we have 8 set slots in 3 SV + 1 SS-DPP, cutting any of those should stay out of the equation. 3 CG has been the standard on pretty much every lower tier PL ever and having less than that would be deeply detrimental.

This of course comes with other disadvantages, and I am sure that people that propose 6 teams don't see any value in this because it removes the entire point of less teams/players, and i don't know if people see ZU's growth as this big to justify 8x10. I think I've only seen Tuthur being strongly against 6x10 as a format, and was fine with adding their comments about that here, so I'd love to hear the disadvantages of that because it would techincally act as a compromise to the whole "step back" argument by including a simlar number of players to the tour (6x10 vs 8x8).
I heard that 6 teams make the POs weird, someone explain that to me. Thanks.

6 teams playoff: 2 teams in semis, as first seed gets a bye. 8 teams: 4 teams in semis, the first seed doesn't get a bye. The 6 teams format is inherently less interesting; having a team already qualified in finals makes following semis far less interesting as there are less stakes, while the managers of the qualified team struggle to maintain chat active with a one week break (up to three in case of double tiebreak). The 6 teams format hence suffers from that unfair treatment between teams with first seed having to deal with activity, while second and third seed have to deal with an additional week to qualify. Extending it to 4 teams in semis is unreasonable as it would make the first half of the tournament laughably irrelevant as it would be far too easy to qualify for playoff.

That's however not the only problem with 6x10 between 8x8. Without even factoring slots, having more weeks means more flexibility for managers and players. Each week matters individually less which makes having a player unavailable/underperforming for a week less detrimental and allows more experimentation with different lineups. The difference between 5 vs 7 is proportionnaly bigger than between 8 vs 10 (that's mathematical), and the amount of work managers have to put every week is bigger as having to make sure 10 preps are doing well is harder than just 8. Taking into account now that this would include more formats, this makes drafting even harder as you have to find people knowledgeable on more tiers. Managers are usually able to help in most slots, but the more tiers you add, the least easy it is for a manager to stay knowledgeable on them all. There are already 6 set tiers in the tournament, moving to 7 or even 8 is just too many to handle, especially when ADV and GSC are quite niche. Eventually, it is impossible to go backward after adding GSC and ADV, next year, you'll be stuck with 10 slots unless you want to go throught the backlash of removing these formats. Hence moving to 6x10 essentially means never moving to anything else without massive backlash, and being stuck with the mediocre 6 teams format for the next iterations. 6 teams also is less ideal in a metagame development perspective; sure it hurts ADV and GSC to not have these additional 17 games, but it hurts even more established Old Gens to move from 31 to 17 games, and SV from 93 to 51 games.

tldr; ZU has the playerbase to support a format bigger than 6x8, and 6x10's pro of including ADV comes with too many downsides for even being seriously considered over 8x8, the better format by far.

 

[a fruitshop owner]

I support 8 team league (8x8). I do not like the 6 team playoff format with 1 seed making the finals. Having 3 current-generation slots makes sense, so adv would not fit. Removing a generation slot between ss and dpp for adv cannot be justified in my opinion. Manager sign-ups could be the largest problem to an 8 team zupl. I support retains/manager buying. For manager self buys those who play and manage advocate for a lower price and those who don't self-buy want a high price I don't know the fair price but I'm sure a compromise can be met. Retains I think are cool I really don't know what other leagues follow but I think we could act according to their rules. I think the idea of 2 total self-buy/retains was mentioned at a point and that seems fair.

 

[Mirbro]

Hello everyone and I am glad to be around again for this amazing moment of the ZU year.

I will be short but I would like to give my biased opinion for each topic.

6x10, 8x8 or even 6x8

I believe that 6x10 can totally be discarded as having more teams and the same number of players is, in general, a whole better experience for the community (more weeks, more competition team wise). The real question is having 6 or 8 teams. I believe that with the experience of last year, I would keep with 8 teams as it is an ideal number in terms of play-offs and compared to other PLs. I understand the concerns of some people regarding the quality of the games, but if we try to keep and push the 8 teams, I believe this might be beneficial for the quality of future PLs and, overall, is more inclusive to all community.

ADV yes or not: 3SV 1 SS-DPP or 2 SV 1SS-ADV

Here I do not know because it is difficult to touch the rest of the tiers... DPP has always shone, BW is now iconic, ORAS has a good playerbase, and the rest is history... So I would advocate including ADV only if we increase the slots or we go with 2 SV over 3, which I would be happy with but I am at 50/50.

Self-buys price and quantity

To be honest, I have not thought enough to come up with a magic number, but we all know that 15k and 1 self-buy has worked. Now there is discussion about doing 2 self-buys (which I am happy with but because I am biased) and that the price might be lower because it is less abusable right now... I believe that the second statement is kind of hard to proof (I know, ho3n is not around and so on but still it is difficult to show it in numbers as we dont really know how ho3n would do this next zupl or even a "mediocre" player might be shining next one!) so I would always go with a conventional proposal (15k even though 12k does similar things so I would not oppose to that). But the price might be relative to the number of self-buys and the number and price of retains.

Retains: how many?

This is a hot topic now. I believe that they are good because of identity and team-rivalries. Some people has argued that there is not that much of identity yet or that managers swap around too much. They might be right but the idea is to increase the identity slowly and I think some teams or managers are repeating ones already. So I dont think this argument is good enough to against retains. The other issue is the impact to the draft. This is a better one but we need to keep in mind that they were drafted (ok, in the past) and that the draft is going to happen anyway. It is true that if everyone would retain all their players unlimitedly, then the draft per se would not be fun. This might be possible if we do unlimited retains but, realistically, I do not think is going to happen. But if we put ourselves in the worse-case scenario (which we might), it is true that we should limit somehow. Again, there is no perfect number but we should choose a number that is relative to the number of expected sign-ups in order to make the draft something still special. Also, the number of retains should be relative to their price. I dont have a specific answer but I would agree that a total of 1-2 retains should be cool (I think 1 is kind of mandatory, 2 is something we havent tested but is good to take into account in a scenario of ZUPL getting bigger and bigger). The number of retains should be less than 10% of the number of sign-ups (e.g., 200 sign-ups, less than 20 retains in total [8 teams means max 16 retains if we allow a max of 2]). Overall I would say that the whole retain/self-buy should be around 25-33% of the players in the teams (if we accept 20% with 200 sign-ups, then it would be around of 40 players between self-buys and retains for the whole 8 teams). This might seem too much, but to go a bit lower because it is our first time, we could go with 2 self-buys possibles and 2 retains (again, worse case scenario as I know that not everyone is gonna self-buy, not everyone is gonna apply all retains).

So, if you want, I would propose this comment as a space to see what you think (a poll).
- Like if you want 1 self-buy and 1 retain
- Angry if you want 2 self-buys and 1 retain
- Wow if you want 1 self-buy and 2 retains
- Love if you want 2 self-buys and 2 retains

Have fun pokémaniacs!

 

[Toto]

Wanna talk about manager self buy quickly as there still doesn't seem to be a conclusion on them.

Manager self buy prices cannot function the same way as last year (15K + diff) due the the tour moving from 5 > 7 weeks in regular season which means that the maximum price manager price has increased from 20k to 22k this year just on its own without any direct input. On top of that from my understanding the general consensus of the community is to lower manager prices slightly from last year anyway.

Selfbuy price should also be reduced, 15k + differential was way too much last year and will still be this year. Making selfbuy that inaccessible make the pools worse and ruin the fun of most managers, selfbuying is rarelly worth it when it means giving up on drafting more people and not getting more support. I would encourage dropping selfbuys to 10k + 1k per differential.

I believe that selfbuys should come at a high price to discourage abuse and maintain a fair playing field for all managers. The ability to selfbuy yourself or your assistant manager at a fixed price, without any control from other managers, can easily be exploited and goes against the purpose of a manager in my opinion. Allowing selfbuys to become too strong would undermine the integrity of the tournament. While a minor price reduction could be considered, I believe that significant selfbuy buffs are not healthy for the overall competition.

For self buys I've been a big fan of an average base price + differential. Main one I'd consider appropriate would like 12k + 1k per differential (excluding playoffs for obvious reasons). If people wanna enlighten me to the disadvantage of this then I'm all ears. I just don't think players pulling up with 5 wins or more should go for sub 15k if they decide to manage.

I think TWiTT suggestion is a good and a fair way of sorting out both reducing the manager selfbuy price slightly as well as the increase in the number of weeks increasing the max diff by 2.

If we wanted a fixed price I think both 12.5k (being 1/8) of the budget similar to how other pls 120k budget uses 15k selfbuy or 13.5k in what ompl uses would be fair

 

[Lalaya]

Hopefully the last update to the matter, why is ZU hard

• On retains: two seems the agreed limit with everyone (and a reasonable one that has numbers to back it up), so there's that
• On manager selfbuys: I'm personally not gonna oppose the double selfbuys, we hosts reserve the right to veto any pairing that is a blatant attempt to pricefix (yes, as discussed, this is "subjective", but a total of four heads should be able to catch you trying to smuggle the 15k Finchinator/SoulWind in), and there's that
• On pricing: gonna cut a bit of a slack on all the proposed solution and throw one in that should appease most people: 12.5k+(positive differential), makes the most sense mathematically (as suggested by Toto and other people, this is 1/8 of the budget) on most people that are going to selfbuy for the base price, and dents the people that went (overwhelmingly) positive.

Hope this proposal is fine to everyone :]
I swear to god if this fuels another day of discussion I'm going to delete the whole subforum

Edit, to explain the why on all those choices:
- On retains: the number of retains officials give is 3, in a 10x12 format (we're 8x8 by comparison), so making it so the number of selfbuys and retains don't exceed half the size of the starters seems a balanced choice, as in we're literally 1/3 smaller;
- On selfbuys: While not selfbuying is the optimal choice, there are always managers that want to play in unofficial team tours like ours, and there were a bunch of people asking for the possibility to double selfbuy, which other tournaments already do, so I don't see why not, as long as it's fairly covered from abuse, there are way enough precedents to see that a double selfbuy is perfectly reasonable;
- On pricing: This is my (and not only mine) take that strives to be a balance across the people believing extreme measures should be taken to dodge the worst possible scenarios, and the people that believe that last year's pricing was too much (which were voiced even in last year's post-tournament thread); this tries to fix the people that are truly powerful with a selfbuy by upping the price on them, while still trying to be enticing to the newer faces, something that we noticed was severely lacking last year. The exact number might not please everyone here, but it should do the job well enough to (attempt to, as this is something that by nature can't be balanced) be fair for everyone involved.