Tournament PUPL IX - Format Discussion

[Theia]

Good news: It's PUPL season once again
Bad news: They've invited me back to host once again.

A new generation is upon us and RBY has a fairly established PU now so it's time to discuss the format for PUPL IX!

The format for PUPL VIII was:
SS/SS/SS/SM/ORAS/BW/DPP/Bo3 (SS/SM/ORAS).

Suggestions or feedback from last year's edition of PUPL not related to the format are also welcome!

We're planning on having manager signups around June 11th, so the format should be decided by then. Thanks in advance to everyone who offers feedback!

 

[rien]

SV/SV/SV/SS/SM/ORAS/BW/DPP/Bo3 (SV/SM/ORAS) (SV/SS/SM)

if we're not dead set on having an even number of slots, this seems like the best solution to me as cg gets just enough (but not too much) representation and bo3 remains intact. i'm absolutely not an adv person but i'd be down to add it as a 10th slot if the metagame is deemed decent enough and if there's enough demand for it.

 

[Chloe]

imo the ideal layout is 10 slots this time around.

4 sv, ss, sm, oras, bw, dpp, multigen bo3

main focus on sv, everyone gets a go except for those pesky old old genners (adv underdeveloped, rby gross). don't see a better option really but just my opinion.

edit: after more consideration i think i prefer the 8 slot mz proposal

 

[Chris Chien Pao]

10 slots, 4 sv ss sm oras bw dpp (bo3)
Sv is a new meta,more playwr base is their there must be older gen sweats to run the older playerbase.

 

[zS]

from a manager perspective 4 sv is a bit too much to cover and will undeniably lead to either lower quality gameplay or would require way too much support. i think going 10 slots is ideal so that we can get as much sv representation as possible but i'd change one of the 4 sv slots to adv.
format would be: sv/sv/sv/ss/sm/oras/bw/dpp/adv/bo3.
with this u get 16 sv games a week and i feel like that's the perfect middle ground for cg rep and good quality games imo. adv shouldn't be scrapped this time around. it's a tier that has a flourishing playerbase and that is in a pretty stable state as of rn, so giving it a go this pupl sounds like the play.

 

[MZ]

SV/SV/SV/SS/SM/ORAS/BW/DPP 8 slots nice and simple. if 10 then add adv and bo3 but avoid 4 SV

 

[Leni]

SV/SV/SV/SS/SM/ORAS/BW/DPP 8 slots nice and simple

this definitely, dont think 10 is really a beneficial option for the tournament. If it goes to 10slots, SV/BO3 instead of ADV preferrably

 

[DiannieRatson]

No one will mention GSC PU here except for me I believe so just to show my support for it as usual I'm adding this weird intro.

Imo 4SV slots + Bo3 also having SV seems a lot of slot for SV. But then I am also torn in having 10 slots for this tour. I guess a way to go around this is the Bo3 won't have SV? But that seems weird imo.

A slot for gen4-8 seems locked so thats 5 slot already. Add at least 3 slot for SV so that makes it 8 slots.

About adding adv, afaik yeah it still seems not that as active despite a dedicated tour for it was done several months ago, that makes me think since I respect PUPL as a top tier tour, the arguments about it to not be included is fair. (This might be added for PUWC then ig but thats for another discussion). There's also rby which is...active as usual in the rby community but idk what're y'all thoughts in the general PU community. GSC is already mentioned and yeah I admit I won't push it through right now but will try again in PUWC.

TLDR: Since I can't provide any better idea for now, I'll support the 4 SV/ SS/ SM/ ORAS/ BW/ DPP/ Bo3 of SV SS SM. Or actually maybe y'all are fine with Bo3 not having SV which looks fine to me.

 

[Lily]

If you're doing 4 SV please don't add BO3. Current gen rep is great but 5 SV per week is a lot. 8 slots is probably better. I'd shill ADV if I thought it had any chance but I'm not naive enough to believe it. Just do SV / SV / SV / SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP.

e: just realised multigen bo3 could be ambiguous and doesn't really specify sv. bo3 without sv is probably "fine" in terms of avoiding cg overload but it sounds pretty ass and dont think it should rly be considered

 

[Raahel]

SV PU, SV PU, SV PU, SS PU, SM PU, ORAS PU, BW PU, DPP PU, ADV PU, GSC PU.

(Other option is.) SV PU, SV PU, SV PU, SS PU, SM PU, ORAS PU, BW PU, DPP PU, ADV PU, BO3 (SV,SS,SM).

I mostly see that they prefer 10 slots in this PUPL so my proposal is this, it is the same tier slot as this year's UUPL, and similar to the UPL that there will be this year, only RBY and the BO3 slot would be missing, the truth is GSC and ADV are Tiers that have very enthusiastic players to play and should be in this PUPL rather than a BO3 slot that is becoming very monotonous and annoying, I hope that someone else is in favor of this format equal to the UUPL and similar to the UPL that there will be this year, because it might be a good change to add ADV PU and GSC PU for this and future PUPLs.

 

[ishtar]

I believe that MZ/Lily have the most optimal risk free solution for this with the 8 slots idea. I would really love the idea of ADV being included but im very unsure on the quantity of the playerbase, and hence, quality of the games. I also admit I am not familiar enough with said playerbase to absolutely be against it, but talking to multiple people it seems like a huge question mark that I dont feel totally comfortable supporting, though Id be happy to see it on stage if enough support shows and Im proven wrong. If that were to be the case, 10 slots with BO3 would be the best option. Admittedly, my biggest issue with the 8 slots is that I see great value lost in the lack of a BO3 slot, but dont see a way around this without making everything else awkward. If anything, the inclusion of BO3 should take priority over a newly included tier as it is more representative of the best PU has to offer.

TLDR: SV / SV / SV / SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP.

 

[MrSoup]

I'm biased and wanna play ADV so 10 slots 3cg and bo3 sounds the most logical to me (supporting zs's proposal). I won't even try to push my typical gsc agenda. ADV has developed pretty nicely and certainly has notable players with recent tours as well. It also allows us to not overload 4 sv slots in addition to bo3.
SergioRules if this goes through and you need help with resources I can lend a hand

 

[Shaneghoul]

I was initially hesitant to bring up ADV as a slot for this but seeing that there's generally support for it I'd like to add my voice to that. Despite some initial push back to it being added, we tried out ADV in classic and quite frankly I thought it was great. There were some brilliant high level games in both ADV Cup and the playoffs that would suggest to me that the tier would have no issue in pupl. There's a decent amount of people who I would expect to sign up wanting to play the slot and the general ADV player base is huge and so I'd expect we'd get some of them signing up wanting to try their hand at ADV in the tour too. That is to say, I don't think we would have an issue filling slots.

This would kind of knock out two birds with one stone in my eyes as it would also allow us to go 10 slots and include bo3 which to me has always been the most enjoyable slot to watch in pls and I'd hate to see it left out.

Tl;Dr ADV is in a strong enough space and I think we can build on a strong classic showing by adding it to pupl

Sv/sv/sv/ss/sm/oras/bw/dpp/adv/bo3 would be my preferred format. Also I agree that whatever way we do it 4 sv is the ideal number, 5 is too many

Edit: I forgot to comment on gsc. I admittedly know very little about it other than that there was a tour for it recently (which is awesome!). From what I understand though its quite new and still has some balance issues, but more pressingly it's very disconnected from the general pu community in a way ADV is not, which would make adding it a very hard sell for me. People aren't familiar with the player base or the tier and it hasn't see any representation in our official tours so far like ADV has (classic) . If any gsc people want to contact me (or even better join the pu discord and discuss it there) to look at maybe changing that outlook and incorporating the tier in some way you're more than welcome and I'd love to see it. But for right now I don't think it will happen this pupl

 

[Shaneghoul]

Thank you to everyone who has given their feedback here. We've decided on the following format for this edition of PUPL:
SV / SV / SV / SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV / Bo3 (SV/SS/SM)

If possible we'd also like to hear any thoughts people have on retains and self-buys. Last year's format was as follows:
Unlimited retains allowed, with the cost being the previous year's price + 3k, or 10k flat if that price doesn't go above 10k.
Both managers can self buy, at a base cost of 10k + 1.5k for every win in the previous year's edition.

Were there any issues with these settings and if so what about it should change?

Edit:
Last year's draft budget was 100k, with two extra slots this year that would make this year's adjusted budget 125k.

 

[Drud]

manager self buy prices should be based on differential, not total wins. differential shows impact on winning way more and total wins are bad. If there are situations that will occur where it's optimal/where you have to make your manager play last in a playoff tiebreaker or even a regular season week to make sure you don't get penalized the next year, that system is probably flawed. minimum amount depends on budget, with adjusted budget (with 120/125k i would probably suggest like 14-15?k + 1.5k or per win differential, numbers are up for debate this is just what i quickly came up with)

increase budget to 120 or 125k if we're adding 10 slots

imo limit retains at 1 or 2 at least for this year, or 0 if you really think it'll be a big problem. retains from last year to this year might be a little too good because of budget difference. can also change retain price/formula just for this if really wanted/needed. 2 selfbuys is fine because the price will be adjusted unlike retains

 

[sugar ovens]

So originally i just wanted to make a post like a normal person, but after seeing a few people quite vocal about not using wins for self-buy prices i thought- hey, this actually sounds like something interesting and fun to mess around with. Too lazy for fancy formatting, though.

So i took records from some lower tier PLs (would have liked to use PUPL 6 too but for some reason that is good and exists it is set to not allow copying so) - win counts, differentials, prices. The numbers are correlation coefficients, here it should be like at least 0,2-0,3 to be relevant, depending on the sample size. The left column is correlation between cost of the player and their win count / cost and their differential - this was mostly just for fun, but the takeaway is that more expensive players generally will get more wins, but not necessarily a better differential.

Middle column is about the correlation of win count/differential in previous iteration with price/differential in the next iteration of the tournament. Obviously, only the players that participated in both iterations are counted. Both higher win count and differential mean generally higher price in the next iteration for the tournament, but win rate is a noticeably better indicator. As for wincount in previous tour - differential in next and differential in previous - differential in next -- well, it's something i was curious about and it seems that someone's good or bad record in one iteration of the tournament means nothing for the next one. Fun fact.


Don't take this too seriously, it's not really my.. area, but what i'm trying to say is: if the aim is to make manager self-buy prices as close as possible to what they would have cost in an auction, wincounts are better than differential. Like, i feel that this is pretty obvious - someone who is generally considered to be a good player and trusted enough to not be subbed out even if they have a bad season and end up 3-7 will still likely get bought for a decent price, while someone who gets a nice 3-1 debut will still probably be relatively cheap. And of course for like a 1-0 sub having the same price as a 4-3 player makes no sense at all. The records are not the sole reason of why these players were bought - it's just an indicator.

 

[Shaneghoul]

Thank you for all the insightful comments. The format we've decided on is as follows:
SV / SV / SV / SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV / Bo3 (SV/SS/SM)
Both managers can self buy, at a base cost of 10k + 1.5k for every win in the previous year's edition - We chose not to go for differential as we know total wins is functional from previous year and there was some uncertainty regarding differential.
Two retains allowed, with the cost being the previous year's price + 3k, or 10k flat if that price doesn't go above 10k. Manager selfbuys do not count as retains.

And to answer a question that was asked in the discord, a manager from the previous year can't be retained if they choose to play and not manage this year.

Edit: Forgot to mention once again that the budget is 125k, in line with the two new slots

To clarify some confusion, self buys don't count as retain slots and playoff wins aren't counted in manager pricing