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PokeMMO Dev Blog 9000: Questions


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4 hours ago, Paul said:

I think that would kill the fun for a lot of people who play tournaments. Why have I built 6 UU teams this week if I can only use 1 per tour going forward? That just sounds like a bad idea.

 

Kyu said he'll look into shuffled brackets each round so I don't see the point in debating crazy new ideas, I think shuffled brackets fixes the issue.

Why is it crazy? Other games tournaments (even official) are done that way. It isn't some "random crazy" idea I came up with.

 

Honestly, I think it doesn't kill the fun. It gives more focus and importance to your team and idk, we could have something like a "hall of fame" for every tournament showcasing the winner team.

 

But hey, that's just my opinion.

 

4 hours ago, XelaKebert said:

Because nothing would stop teams from scouting movesets ahead and reporting to each other on Discord. Allowing team changes plus shuffling brackets is the most effective means of neutralizing the impact of scouting early on. As the field narrows scouting would become more effective, but there really isn't much that can be done about that.

And yeah, maybe you're right, it isn't necessary if shuffling is implemented.

 

Still, in the latest stages of the tournament, it will still be effective to scout. That's why I'm suggesting only one team, so scouting becomes pretty much useless outside of movesets.

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1 minute ago, Kornelio said:

That's why I'm suggesting only one team, so scouting becomes pretty much useless outside of movesets.

How would that make scouting useless? Everyone only using one team would make scouting MORE effective, completely negating any progress we make. Sure, nobody can counter-team me because they can't switch anything on their team, but they still know all of my moves, items, etc. It just wouldn't work if your goal is to reduce scouting. 

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A terrible con would be that matches need to start at the same time in every round, otherwise shuffling won't work, which means tournaments will last much longer, especially if some players are stalling because that is their only way of winning their games.

 

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I don't want this thread to derail into a discussion about how spectating in tournaments should be handled but here are my two cents. I personally believe that the way it is now is fine. If you add extra dynamics to how the tournaments work it could add complications. I will go by some examples presented already:

  • Ban spectating

Horrible idea, easily kills the hype for anyone wanting to watch it live.

  • Shuffle brackets

Delays the whole tournament, shuffling the bracket would only be fair if everyone was included in the shuffle. (I would like to stress this point as tournaments are already long enough as it is especially with more 256 man tournaments.)
You will eventually be able to deduce who you are likely to play against as well in the later rounds (if multiple people start their games you know you wont be playing them), hence scouting can still happen but only to a smaller portion of the player base. 

Shuffling brackets is usually reserved for multilevel tournaments whereby you are matched with someone with a similar record, e.g. a 3-1 player should be paired up with another 3-1 player.

  • Restricting to one team per player

Leads to some impossible match ups .

Can heavily influence usage stats. 

Players cannot swap out mons if they believe they need a change.

 

I may have some bias on this subject as I have won many tournaments but these suggestions seem to complicate the tournament structure and implementing these ideas are unnecessary, the good players should still win more consistently either way.
 

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4 hours ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

I don't want this thread to derail into a discussion about how spectating in tournaments should be handled but here are my two cents. I personally believe that the way it is now is fine. If you add extra dynamics to how the tournaments work it could add complications. I will go by some examples presented already:

  • Ban spectating

Horrible idea, easily kills the hype for anyone wanting to watch it live.

  • Shuffle brackets

Delays the whole tournament, shuffling the bracket would only be fair if everyone was included in the shuffle. (I would like to stress this point as tournaments are already long enough as it is especially with more 256 man tournaments.)
You will eventually be able to deduce who you are likely to play against as well in the later rounds (if multiple people start their games you know you wont be playing them), hence scouting can still happen but only to a smaller portion of the player base. 

Shuffling brackets is usually reserved for multilevel tournaments whereby you are matched with someone with a similar record, e.g. a 3-1 player should be paired up with another 3-1 player.

  • Restricting to one team per player

Leads to some impossible match ups .

Can heavily influence usage stats. 

Players cannot swap out mons if they believe they need a change.

 

I may have some bias on this subject as I have won many tournaments but these suggestions seem to complicate the tournament structure and implementing these ideas are unnecessary, the good players should still win more consistently either way.
 

The only real solution is building 6+ different, heavily-tested teams and use them randomly so you're not "scoutable".

 

So yeah, it's not beginner-friendly, but that's the reality. My suggestion was only to make it a bit more beginner-friendly.

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11 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

 

  • Shuffle brackets

Delays the whole tournament, shuffling the bracket would only be fair if everyone was included in the shuffle.
 

Not really. Tournaments can shuffle spots rather than players. All they need to do is to not reveal the names of the players involved in each match until said match starts. This way, they can shuffle the entire system effectively without delaying anything at all.

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, pachima said:

Not really. Tournaments can shuffle spots rather than players. All they need to do is to not reveal the names of the players involved in each match until said match starts. This way, they can shuffle the entire system effectively without delaying anything at all.

 

 

 

That would still be exploitable, say you and one other player just so happened to be shuffled together for round 2 and you both finished round 1 before everyone else, you would know who you are paired up with when the timer starts ticking to ready up. If you have not paired with someone then you simply wait for a match to end, if your timer starts then you scout that guy that recently won. 

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11 minutes ago, pachima said:

Not really. Tournaments can shuffle spots rather than players. All they need to do is to not reveal the names of the players involved in each match until said match starts. This way, they can shuffle the entire system effectively without delaying anything at all.

 

 

 

This plus it seems like there is a misunderstanding on how long shuffled rounds would take. The server can literally shuffle the player slots with seconds, not that much of a delay. Even with a 256 seed bracket you are adding, at most, about 20-30 seconds total if that. Delay for the server to randomize the next round isn't even a con at all. The pros honestly outweigh the cons vastly.

Higher quality matchups in later rounds and negating scouting early on are the two biggest pros. There's more but players will be more hyped about the tournament when skill gets more emphasis early on than reliability of scouts.

 

The bit about matches needing to start at the same time simply won't happen. We've tried it before. There's too many factors to consider, including a player's connection dying due to means outside of their control. The current system disqualifies a player if they do not queue for their match within the time given.

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1 minute ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

That would still be exploitable, say you and one other player just so happened to be shuffled together for round 2 and you both finished round 1 before everyone else, you would know who you are paired up with when the timer starts ticking to ready up. If you have not paired with someone then you simply wait for a match to end, if your timer starts then you scout that guy that recently won. 

This is such a specific example and I don't see how this is an argument against shuffled brackets, considering this happens every single tournament in the current system. In the last UU tour I won round 1 quick enough to watch a good portion of my opponents round-1 game. How is this different than what you're saying here?

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Why scouting and counterbuild is a probleme ?
Playing a tournament with only one team has no sens, 
If you have comp you can change your team whenever you want, if someone try to counterbuild you, you can just change your team and the probleme is solved.
Having a lot of comps should be an avantage in this game. Since we need to farm money to breed. Imagine I breed a lot of comps to use only 6 of them.

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7 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

That would still be exploitable, say you and one other player just so happened to be shuffled together for round 2 and you both finished round 1 before everyone else, you would know who you are paired up with when the timer starts ticking to ready up. If you have not paired with someone then you simply wait for a match to end, if your timer starts then you scout that guy that recently won. 

No it wouldn't because when matches are shuffled then there needs to be a threshold of matches to be completed before next round pairings can even start playing. Having 2 players start 2nd round is just silly. Personally I'd say at least >=50% of a round should be finished before the next round should start. If we want to get crazy about it, 95% would be good as well. 100% will add time to the tournament and negate scouting entirely, but how many players are willing to sit for that long? You don't get dinged for the next round until your opponent is finished with their match anyway.

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16 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

That would still be exploitable, say you and one other player just so happened to be shuffled together for round 2 and you both finished round 1 before everyone else, you would know who you are paired up with when the timer starts ticking to ready up. If you have not paired with someone then you simply wait for a match to end, if your timer starts then you scout that guy that recently won. 

Although this is possible, it is not realistic, there are too many matches at once, and more often than not, several people finish theirs within seconds of each other. And it is not hard to make your timer start ticking 1 minute after the paired opponent finishes their game. For the early rounds, where the scouting issue is the biggest, this works fine.

Edit: Xela offered an even better idea.

Edited by pachima
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3 minutes ago, EazyL said:

Will we continue with the most played current tiers like: OU, UU, NU or will a new one be added as tier RU?

Munyu said in the competitive alley thread that RU won't exist so I wouldn't count on it. It might be used as an "unofficial" tier used for some player-based tournaments though

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24 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

No it wouldn't because when matches are shuffled then there needs to be a threshold of matches to be completed before next round pairings can even start playing.

Reflecting on this idea a bit more, it's decent, but there is a better option with a downside. For larger tournaments, say anything larger than 64 seeds, the early rounds could be 3v3 and later rounds could be 6v6. Cons to it being you don't get to build a team with full synergy and the matches go faster, but the big pro to it is that the later rounds take longer and scouting can be negated entirely. It's not going to be the most popular idea, but it is another way to handle it without adding a ton of extra time to a tournament. So for 256 seed tourny the first 3 rounds could be 3v3, fields of 256, 128, & 64, and the final rounds would be 6v6, fields of 32, 16, 8, 4, & finals.

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27 minutes ago, Paul said:

This is such a specific example and I don't see how this is an argument against shuffled brackets, considering this happens every single tournament in the current system. In the last UU tour I won round 1 quick enough to watch a good portion of my opponents round-1 game. How is this different than what you're saying here?

Exactly, I'm trying to say in this example scouting would still exist. 

22 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

No it wouldn't because when matches are shuffled then there needs to be a threshold of matches to be completed before next round pairings can even start playing. Having 2 players start 2nd round is just silly. Personally I'd say at least >=50% of a round should be finished before the next round should start. If we want to get crazy about it, 95% would be good as well. 100% will add time to the tournament and negate scouting entirely, but how many players are willing to sit for that long? You don't get dinged for the next round until your opponent is finished with their match anyway.

95% would be a horrible idea, you narrow down the bracket largely for the last 5% to scout. The 50% suggestion is at least feasible as it would cut wait times for that group of players, however if just 1 person stalls out their match it will increase the wait time for the other half of the bracket significantly ,which would in turn delay the whole tournament.

 

25 minutes ago, pachima said:

Although this is possible, it is not realistic, there are too many matches at once, and more often than not, several people finish theirs within seconds of each other. And it is not hard to make your timer start ticking 1 minute after the paired opponent finishes their game. For the early rounds, where the scouting issue is the biggest, this works fine.

Edit: Xela offered an even better idea.

It is realistic, it is not limited to being the "first" to finish a round. You simply need to not have been paired yet and you would just need to wait. At the very least Xela's suggestion to have a threshold of players to advance would work to diminish this but as I said this can cause delays.

1 minute ago, XelaKebert said:

Reflecting on this idea a bit more, it's decent, but there is a better option with a downside. For larger tournaments, say anything larger than 64 seeds, the early rounds could be 3v3 and later rounds could be 6v6. Cons to it being you don't get to build a team with full synergy and the matches go faster, but the big pro to it is that the later rounds take longer and scouting can be negated entirely. It's not going to be the most popular idea, but it is another way to handle it without adding a ton of extra time to a tournament. So for 256 seed tourny the first 3 rounds could be 3v3, fields of 256, 128, & 64, and the final rounds would be 6v6, fields of 32, 16, 8, 4, & finals.

Nobody that takes competitive seriously would like this.

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11 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

Reflecting on this idea a bit more, it's decent, but there is a better option with a downside. For larger tournaments, say anything larger than 64 seeds, the early rounds could be 3v3 and later rounds could be 6v6. Cons to it being you don't get to build a team with full synergy and the matches go faster, but the big pro to it is that the later rounds take longer and scouting can be negated entirely. It's not going to be the most popular idea, but it is another way to handle it without adding a ton of extra time to a tournament. So for 256 seed tourny the first 3 rounds could be 3v3, fields of 256, 128, & 64, and the final rounds would be 6v6, fields of 32, 16, 8, 4, & finals.

I think with any implementation of a shuffle feature there are going to be logistical hiccups, but this idea would completely change the competitive metagame and just isn't feasible

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10 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

however if just 1 person stalls out their match it will increase the wait time for the other half of the bracket significantly ,which would in turn delay the whole tournament.

How exactly?

If I understood Xela correctly, game shuffles spots randomly and their match can only begin (time ticking or whatever you may call) after a certain threshold of finished matches in the earlier round. There are not halves of the bracket. All bracket is shuffled, and everyone who is still playing in the earlier round has its spot already shuffled, provided the threshold has been reached. You'd need several, and I mean several, people to stall their matches to affect the minimum threshold and therefore to affect the whole tournament.

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6 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

Exactly, I'm trying to say in this example scouting would still exist. 

If you have to get that specific then it's barely an issue. That's like saying, "What if I get struck by lightning tomorrow?" Sure, the chance exists, but it's such a small chance that other things are more likely to happen first.

 

6 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

95% would be a horrible idea, you narrow down the bracket largely for the last 5% to scout. The 50% suggestion is at least feasible as it would cut wait times for that group of players, however if just 1 person stalls out their match it will increase the wait time for the other half of the bracket significantly ,which would in turn delay the whole tournament.

For a 256 seed tourny, 122 matches would need to be completed before pairings for second round are started. This would mean 6 matches would still be playing when next round starts. Without any prior knowledge of how many matches are finishing while you are still playing, it's going to be very difficult to know if you need to scout at the very end. Stalling to try and get into that last 5% would mean the whole tourny would drag on much longer because everyone would want to do it, but then it would start to be an issue of who really wants to scout that badly. If the issue of tournaments already being a heavy time commitment is that large, do you honestly think enough players are going to do that to make a significant difference in the duration of the tournament? Be realistic here, there will always be a few players who will use stall tactics. Stall doesn't go away, but to think that trying to get into a statistically smaller group that would maybe allow you to scout is worth significantly increasing the duration is not realistic at all.

 

19 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

It is realistic, it is not limited to being the "first" to finish a round. You simply need to not have been paired yet and you would just need to wait. At the very least Xela's suggestion to have a threshold of players to advance would work to diminish this but as I said this can cause delays.

At 25% of a round being finished, all players remaining get shuffled. Matches still in progress would simply have a spot where the winner of that match would be paired, think like March Madness play-ins where the 16 seed is one of two teams. All players would have a pairing, but the bracket would display ??? for each seat until the threshold for matches to take place is reached.

 

22 minutes ago, xXBlu3BreathXx said:

Nobody that takes competitive seriously would like this.

I said it wouldn't be the most popular, but it's also another idea. The support would need to be there for it in the first place, and it would need to be easily implemented by the next update even with support for it to happen.

 

20 minutes ago, Zymogen said:

I think with any implementation of a shuffle feature there are going to be logistical hiccups, but this idea would completely change the competitive metagame and just isn't feasible

That is very true, and it may not even be practical to do from a coding standpoint. Just spitballing ideas out there.

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3v3 back to 2013, just no. 

But seriously, imagine everyone spamming stall due uncertainty, that would be boring af, also nobody is gonna throw a gimmick into a blind matchup, instead they will go for the safe way, which are always the over used sttuf, for logic reasons.

No scout just closes the windows for creativity. 

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Would it not be possible to implement a system that applies a randomly-generated shuffle to each round before a tournament starts? I.e. match slots are placed into pre-determined pairs so that the shuffling has already been done, and therefore the matches don't need to start at the same time each round. The pairing pattern would also be unique for each tournament so that it wouldn't be decipherable. It's not perfect - the first and last games of each round would still invariably be susceptible to exploitation, but it would at least greatly attenuate the extent of scouting in early rounds. Perhaps the 10 minute match timer between rounds could be halted until there are at least 4 players waiting to enter their next game.

 

Additionally it wouldn't be as effective in the later rounds or in smaller brackets, but I'm not sure how you can effectively prevent scouting in these scenarios without anonymising every player or removing live spectating.

 

I threw together a visual demonstration in case I haven't explained it properly (I'm also not familiar with how coding works so this could end up being too much of a pain in the ass to create, but it's just an idea). 

 

Spoiler

image.png

 

There are also other options available if remote spectating is implemented. The bracket could be hidden entirely until the tournament is finished in order to prevent live scouting, and you could just input a command to spectate specific players such as teammates or friends etc. instead of freely picking from an entire list of matches while the tournament is happening

Edited by Zymogen
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14 minutes ago, pachima said:

How exactly?

If I understood Xela correctly, game shuffles spots randomly and their match can only begin (time ticking or whatever you may call) after a certain threshold of finished matches in the earlier round. There are not halves of the bracket. All bracket is shuffled, and everyone who is still playing in the earlier round has its spot already shuffled, provided the threshold has been reached. You'd need several, and I mean several, people to stall their matches to affect the minimum threshold and therefore to affect the whole tournament.

My bad it was to my understanding that those 50% would start their matches as soon as the threshold was reached, though this may cause confusion when some players have started a game while others have not.

 

8 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

If you have to get that specific then it's barely an issue. That's like saying, "What if I get struck by lightning tomorrow?" Sure, the chance exists, but it's such a small chance that other things are more likely to happen first.

How about if I claim that "Someone will get struck by lightning tomorrow?" This is not specific to an individual and could provide an unfair edge to that one person who can scout in the tournament.

 

10 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

For a 256 seed tourny, 122 matches would need to be completed before pairings for second round are started. This would mean 6 matches would still be playing when next round starts. Without any prior knowledge of how many matches are finishing while you are still playing, it's going to be very difficult to know if you need to scout at the very end. Stalling to try and get into that last 5% would mean the whole tourny would drag on much longer because everyone would want to do it, but then it would start to be an issue of who really wants to scout that badly. If the issue of tournaments already being a heavy time commitment is that large, do you honestly think enough players are going to do that to make a significant difference in the duration of the tournament? Be realistic here, there will always be a few players who will use stall tactics. Stall doesn't go away, but to think that trying to get into a statistically smaller group that would maybe allow you to scout is worth significantly increasing the duration is not realistic at all.

Yes, if people are committed to scouting they will scout if possible. The extent of which I cannot foretell but there will be people who attempt to abuse this. It is just easier to leave tournaments the way they currently are, it adds complications however minor but still exploitable. 

 

I do not wish to derail this thread any further, sorry for doing so.

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