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Rethink This New Tournament System


Luke

Question

For any that don't know, in the new update tournaments now have a fully randomized bracket.

 

"Standard Tournament brackets will now be randomized between each round.

  • (Players who are waiting for the next round are now paired together randomly.)" 

 

 

I'm unsure as to why this change was made, as the general consensus with the majority of the people who played tournaments was that the old system was fine. I assume this change was due to a  vocal minority which spoke out about this issue:

 

Which this had got 25 upvotes, and 14 likes. Among those 14 likes there is very little tournament success, so I am unsure why this suggestion was listened to.. As this was not an overwhelming opinion by the player base, but an opinion by a minority of players which refused to adapt to the system which tournaments had, and instead condemn it. If people hated this system and absolutely refused to adapt they could simply play matchmaking instead of trying to change a system which was well accepted and enjoyed by the community.

 

This now feels like a glorified matchmaking, which has completely ripped out the core elements of tournaments which have been apart of PokeMMO for so long. There has always been 2 options for pvp, matchmaking for ladder and placement on the leader board. And tournaments for prizes and a long running experience facing players back to back; of which you could see who you were facing. Ultimately creating a completely different PVP experience, now with this new change there is no differentiation. Ladder and tournaments are now almost identical and they have a very similar experience. People who dislike laddering are ultimately screwed as the same format has been repackaged slightly and put into tournaments.

 

People are going to argue that this change helps the newer players breaking into the scene, however I feel it does the complete opposite. If there is a strong player with a very good team that player is going to be able to spam that team every single round without any counter play from his opponent. This is going to create meta game defining teams to be spammed in tours and people are going to be able to do little to nothing other than match-up fish with a counter to these teams, or run very boring repetitive teams to ensure they can cover as many threats as possible through out the tournament. Where as previously the other player could prepare and ensure to pack an extra check / counter for a team which their opponent has spammed through out the tour.

 

"(Players who are waiting for the next round are now paired together randomly.) "

 

Overall I feel like this change only damages the integrity and competitiveness of tournaments which has been established for so long. I ask can the developers please re think this move as it can be detrimental for the environment of the game.

 

Edited by Lvkee
grammar. not the last edit for sure
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25 minutes ago, iJulian said:

“Huge competitive cost” all you really need is 2 or 3 well built, diverse teams.

No. If player A is as good as player B at counter teambuilding. Player A has unlimited resources (like a simulator) and Player B has 2 or 3 well built, diverse teams. Player A will have a unfair advantage. As diverse as those 2 or 3 well built teams are, these teams will have some similar holes. Player A with unlimited resources will be able to exploit these holes, Player B will not be able to do anything about it. If we could counter teambuild freely without restriction, no one would care about scouting, but that's not this game.

 

25 minutes ago, iJulian said:

If new players can’t meet those standards they should stay content with getting to round 3 or go back to matchmaking/grinding.

Delusional. 

 

25 minutes ago, iJulian said:

Even then, the first shiny tournament I won I spammed a single team Doc lent me. I rarely play CCs but when I do I don’t bother playing more than 2 teams and I’ve won plenty. So yeah, it’s not impossible to win with limited resources. Allow me to quote yourself: “Get good”.

No one gives a fuck.

 

14 minutes ago, RLotus said:

This is just not how the game works. When you are building you take into account the most prevalent threats in a metagame, but there are far too many and particular teamstyles are always going to have weaknesses. For example, your HO builds are usually going to be weak to rain and other speed boosters. Your balance builds are going to be weak to wallbreakers, bc you cant counter them all. Your stall builds are going to be weak to stallbreakers that you are unable to cover. 

We said the same thing here. You should aim to manage the most prevalent threats, we agree. The playstyle match up doesn't change anything in that matter, so I don't know why bring it up.

 

24 minutes ago, RLotus said:

I see many people making the argument along the lines of "Counterteaming is bad, so good". There will still be bad matchups, except it will be random when you face it. It is the same problem that matchmaking has and why tournaments are held in higher regard than mm. It does not matter what team you use when you play matchmaking, you are going to run into bad matchups and theres nothing you can do, you can't prepare for everything. Some games will be lost to matchup. In tournaments, players have more control of the matchups they face. The better players can mitigate bad matchups by not bringing particular mons/playstyles vs particular players, and be more consistent than worse players. Why would we not want to control for this factor instead of making it random? 

The fact that the bad match up will be random is more fair than being able to get a better match up by being better at grinding and asking friends for comps. I don't think that's the reason why tournaments are held in a higher regard than mm. Like I said earlier, in tournaments, you should play with your best teams. In matchmaking, you should train and test your teams. That's why people consider tournaments matches as more important. I have never heard anyone say: "Wow look at this amazing player winning the tournament, he is so good. He is so great at counter teambuilding." Lastly, the control for this factor comes at a cost and that's why it should not be controlled. 

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32 minutes ago, pachima said:
  • This is a duplicate form of a system we already have in place (matchmaking) ????

The current system feels like a "Win 5 consecutive rounds of matchmaking at 5pm GMT+0 to win 500rp and qualify for an actual 2 round (semis, finals) tournament for 500 extra rp and a comp" kind of event rather than you know, an actual tournament.

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Just now, iJulian said:

The current system feels like a "Win 5 consecutive rounds of matchmaking at 5pm GMT+0 to win 500rp and qualify for an actual 2 round (semis, finals) tournament for 500 extra rp and a comp" kind of event rather than you know, an actual tournament.

If I get to spectate decent duels instead of 2 monkeys failing at counterbuilding each other, I'm quite happy with this tournament format.

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11 minutes ago, gbwead said:

No. If player A is as good as player B at counter teambuilding. Player A has unlimited resources (like a simulator) and Player B has 2 or 3 well built, diverse teams. Player A will have a unfair advantage. As diverse as those 2 or 3 well built teams are, these teams will have some similar holes. Player A with unlimited resources will be able to exploit these holes, Player B will not be able to do anything about it. If we could counter teambuild freely without restriction, no one would care about scouting, but that's not this game.

If your 3 teams are diverse they wont have similar weaknesses lmao thats the definition of "diverse". pick up a dictionary please becase thats the second word i've had to explain to you in as many pages.

 

11 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Delusional. 

This is an mmo and people playing this game are commited to that concept. You're very welcome to go to showdown instead if you want unlimited resources so badly.

 

11 minutes ago, gbwead said:

No one gives a fuck.

I was just using my own case as an example. You can win with limited resourses. Ofcourse it is a slight disadventage but ffs this is an mmo. Go ahead try to join world of warcraft in 2020 and try competing with the people that have been playing for 20 years. Not having all champions in league of legends is also a disadventage in ranked and that doesnt mean riot should make them free. Games are based on resourses, simulators are not. You're the one who should stop being delusional.

Edited by iJulian
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6 minutes ago, gbwead said:

If I get to spectate decent duels instead of 2 monkeys failing at counterbuilding each other, I'm quite happy with this tournament format.

You'll get to spectate better duels watching high mmr matchmaking instead and you can do that 24/7. Tournaments add into acouguu an additional set of skills which you cant find in random matchmaking this update takes away.

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12 minutes ago, gbwead said:

We said the same thing here. You should aim to manage the most prevalent threats, we agree. The playstyle match up doesn't change anything in that matter, so I don't know why bring it up.

 

My point was you can't nullify all bad matchups with good teambuilding, which it seemed you were implying, perhaps i misunderstood there. 

 

15 minutes ago, gbwead said:

The fact that the bad match up will be random is more fair than being able to get a better match up by being better at grinding and asking friends for comps.

I have to disagree here. It is more fair for a skilled builder to have an advantage over a less skilled builder. You are acting as if it's as easy as grabbing some mons and counter teaming, when in reality it is a skill in itself to be able to identify what will be good and build around that. 

 

18 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Like I said earlier, in tournaments, you should play with your best teams. In matchmaking, you should train and test your teams.

There is probably some merit to this. I suppose there are more than one reason tournaments are more highly regarded. I do think the skill in teambuilding for tournaments is a factor, though. 

 

One final thing, I just don't know where this sentiment is coming from that we should be making tournaments more fair for players with less resources. Why shouldn't someone with a box full of comps have an advantage over someone with 6 mons? To me, that seems totally counter intuitive to the progression of an mmo. 

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Just now, iJulian said:

If your 3 teams are diverse they wont have similar weaknesses lmao thats the definition of "diverse". pick up a dictionary please becase thats the second word i've had to explain to you in as many pages.

Oh no, you said the word "diverse". Alright, gg. Your teams perfectly complement each other in such a way there is no possible similar holes among those 3 teams... Such intellectual garbage, no dictionary can help you with that, sadly. There is no point in talking to you if you think 3 diverse teams will have absolutely no similar holes.

 

6 minutes ago, iJulian said:

This is an mmo and people playing this game are commited to that concept. You're the dilusional one and are very welcome to go to showdown instead if you want unlimited resources so badly.

I didn't ask for unlimited resources. It's more than reasonable to ask for a competitive system that takes into account our mmo environment instead of just copying simulator competitive system that gives us big issues. 

 

10 minutes ago, iJulian said:

I was just using my own case as an example. You can win with limited resourses. 

You can win with limited resources. Thanks for that. Really, without your example, I would have never thought this could be possible... Seriously, no one gives a shit. That example was pointless and didn't bring anything to the discussion.

 

12 minutes ago, iJulian said:

Ofcourse it is a slight disadventage but ffs this is an mmo. Go ahead try to join world of warcraft in 2020 and try competing with the people that have been playing for 20 years. Not having all champions in league of legends is also a disadventage in ranked and that doesnt mean riot should make them free. Games are based on resourses, simulators are not. Stop being delusional.

On showdown, there are plenty of scout free tournaments too. So even on a simulator, people acknowledge scouting can be an issue. This issue is significantly worse in an mmo. MMO games have issues with creating competitive environment. People complain about this constantly. Does that mean we should throw in the towel? No. Does that mean we will have a perfectly competitive game? No. However, we should aim to make it as competitive as possible. That's a very reasonable thing to ask...

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, gbwead said:

was pointless and didn't bring anything to the discussion.

Oh, you mean like everything you’ve said so far. Got it.

 

9 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Oh no, you said the word "diverse". Alright, gg. Your teams perfectly complement each other in such a way there is no possible similar holes among those 3 teams... Such intellectual garbage, no dictionary can help you with that, sadly. There is no point in talking to you if you think 3 diverse teams will have absolutely no similar holes

It’s pretty simple actually; in ou: 1 stall, 1 balance, 1 rain, 1 ho. Done.

 

11 minutes ago, gbwead said:

However, we should aim to make it as competitive as possible. That's a very reasonable thing to ask...

Blind tournaments is in no way any more competitive than random laddering. Tournaments are supposed to have a higher standard.

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Just read the thread. I'm kinda down for change. I mean obviously with the new way (shuffle method) you can't really spectate your next opponent... but Imo that seems kinda weird. So people now should go with a all rounder strong team and hope they don't get countered... I can see this causing tension.

Edit: Like maybe it was better when one had an idea of what their opponent was bringing to the table. 

Edited by Goku
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1 hour ago, gbwead said:

Every player has limited resources. It doesn't matter if you're able to spot holes in your opponent's teams, if you don't have the comps to exploit these holes. 

Yes, and that literally applies to everyone.  If your teams are well-balanced or well-thought of, then that means you've accounted for all of the metagame threats.  If someone is able to look at your teams and say, "Hey, wouldn't this person's team be weak to X set on Y pokemon?" then that means that they currently don't have that pokemon to beat you during the tournament because it currently doesn't exist in the metagame.  This means you can possibly win in this current tournament, but maybe not future tournaments.  After the tour, this "c-teamer" will go breed X set on Y pokemon, build a team around it, and then use it in officials (and mostly against you).  That is one way in which the metagame advances, which is a good thing! And as a response to this, you will then modify your current teams to account for this new threat.  

 

If a player does happen to currently have a pokemon that can beat your well-balanced teams, then that means you have failed to account for this this pokemon.  

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

If don't see why new players should be penalized when entering tournaments, that's incredibly dumb imo.

Creating new teams, modifying current teams to adapt to the metagame should not be treated as a punishment.  It's how the game grows.  Look at almost any pokemon generation like DPP, that is over a decade old, and only recently people have discovered what a menace Clefable is.  DPP teams that were once good in 2008 are probably not that good now. 

 

You cannot possibly expect a metagame where the only work a player has to do is build 2-3 teams and then they're done for, because no, that's not how competitive pokemon works.  This isn't a penalty but an unavoidable consequence of the game we play.

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

There is a lot of thing that require skill that should not be encouraged. You can't just ignore the context like that. Not everything is a meaningful skill.

Outside of counter teambuilding, can you mention a few other areas where we ignore meaningful skills?

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

It's not a very competitive environment if you promote time/grind over skill. This game will never be perfect, but that doesn't mean we should just throw the towel and say fuck it, if you play more, you will win more. 

It's not just about investing time/grind over skill, but it is about how smartly you invest your time into this game.  If you spend your time in this game constantly thinking of new techs, then that's a smart investment in this time, and that should be rewarded.  People who play more don't always win more, look at how NORE won the most previous TT while being dead.

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

If you play better, you should win more.

I agree, but skill alone isn't enough, because luck plays a huge role.  Matchups / RNG heavily influence the outcome of the game.  But just because they heavily influence the outcome of the game, doesn't mean that they aren't completely in your control.  charizardlover6969 (aka Frags) cannot load up an OU team with Pikachu / Blastoise / Venusaur / Charizard and then complain that they are skillful but only lost because matchup. 

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

It's a bad thing because counter teambuilding may take skill, but it comes at a huge uncompetitive cost. On showdown, if you want to counterbuild your opponents in 10 mins, are you really going to actively teambuild a team in 10 mins. No, you will choose from the many many many teams you already made in order to counter your opponent. In MMO, you have to build a team because you don't have many many many teams prebuilt rdy to counter your opponent. You have to look through your resources and your friends resources to build a counter team and that is overall extremely uncompetitive. In a PSL setting where you have a full week to prepare, that's fine. But in a 10 mins window, that's just not the case and that is fundamentally wrong. I'm glad devs are trying to make this resource based game more accessible and competitive for everyone by doing their best at reducing the impact of counter teambuilding. I don't know what the end result will look like, but I hope for the best and if you care about make this game as competitive as possible, you should too.

The kind of c-teaming you are talking about is what is happening in 10 min, and I agree that 10 min cteaming is inefficient.  That doesn't make it uncompetitive.  Being able to be decisive in 10 min regarding what team you want to use is a good thing.  

 

I could be wrong about the current system, but if I understand it correctly, you won't know who your opp is prior to the starting of the game.  If that's the case, then going by your example of "taking a week to prepare for PSL opp is not uncompetitive" I could have had prebuilt teams ready for specific opps much ahead of the tournament, but if I don't know who my specific opp will be during the official, then that would defeat my effort. 

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

Hmm, that is not really relevant to scouting/counter teambuilding in general. HO vs HO, doesn't mean players are on equal playing fields when it comes to match up. Same thing for stall.

I don't see why the playing field on two players who decide to c-team each other would depend on the number of resources.  It would only depend on how they use their limited resources.  Even then, how you play the game (skill during battle) can affect the outcome of the game.  

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Honestly, it'd be cool to have usage separate for tournaments and matchmaking (and then combined). @Kyu is this possible?

I'd want to first test it myself and then see results before making any assumptions so I'll probably come back to this thread in around a month or so

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12 minutes ago, RysPicz said:

Honestly, it'd be cool to have usage separate for tournaments and matchmaking (and then combined). @Kyu is this possible?

I'd want to first test it myself and then see results before making any assumptions so I'll probably come back to this thread in around a month or so

I believe you can see usage for tournament, mm, and combined in the matchmaking signup box if you click on a particular pokemon. Can't see a full list tho.

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hey i have question 

you guys make a whole cteam in 10min? 

i normally look at the playstyle and clicked ready. there 4 playstyles for me ho, stall ballanced and broken screens. i have for every playstyle 2teams and dind bother what pokemon they used but i just wanted a fair and fun match. with this new system i feel some matches are unwinnable at the start im probally totally wrong but hey

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I've saw some good arguments from both side. Both have their part of reason and thats why this is a complex subject.

 

  • Old laddering was more iterative.
  • New laddering makes it have different situatios and this also makes you think in a specific strategy.
  • We ll never have big team pool in Higher tiers (OU/UU) Because we don't have enough mons (or H.A) for that. Even NU tier which has tons of useful "B rank mons" has some monotony sometimes. With Counter Building or Not, the pool isnt that vast (see HO Trode team in UU as an example)

The game is a MMO and also needs fresh content. IMO, lets wait at least a month to check how things gonna be unfold.

 

Have scouting abilities are part of the game. But as said before, if we talk about late rounds, scouting probably be useful for movesets/items. Mostly high experienced player can use a "counter-scouting" team. Unless a single team has very few flaws or common answers. This almost always gonna be a "rock papper scissors" no matter what. Thats pokemon and always gonna be sort of this.

 

This been said why not have both systems active? ( @Kyu //thats the part your oppinion could be given about implementation)
Some tournments could be in the old system, while others with the new. as FF said, lets wait a cycle, check usage stats with new system, then compare it with a season with old system (not valid compare now because new mechs/movs,etc) annd then even compare it with a mixed system, some specific tourments could have specific rules, like the NU doubles tournment, Texas Hold'en, etc.

 

Just don't disconsider both options.

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31 minutes ago, Quinn010 said:

hey i have question 

you guys make a whole cteam in 10min? 

Some players do. Most of the time it's in the form of new players who only play one team being preyed on by a hard counter team that is usually not very good vs the rest of the meta but since the newer player has more limited resources they're unlikely to be able to adapt to it. Which I agree isn't the most healthy gameplay.

 

There are exceptionally few players who are able to make counter teams on the fly based on scouting/prior knowledge of their opponent while still not being too weak to the rest of the meta, but that is not to say that it is impossible. For example I think old school lyle did this pretty well way back in the day, although the meta back then was easier to build in than it is now.

 

To me the whole argument boils down to ease of access for newer players to blindly spam their MM team in tournaments without getting cteamed & more experienced players who don't want to build more than one team vs a players ability to adapt and team build being tested & more innovation in the later rounds. In this regard I always lean towards the latter argument since, lets be honest, if a new player only has one team and has no resources, no friends, no team mates who can help them with new builds. The chances are they aren't getting far in the tournament anyway and if they somehow do manage to get far, they will ultimately get cteamed in the finals regardless.

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4 hours ago, pachima said:
  • You can fix tournaments with a group of friends / team You can't
  • You can purposely dodge friends You can't

Since most of the tournaments have been cancelled and so I haven't been able to test it (also I don't really want to test ways to exploit the game). Can you explain how this isn't exploitable?

 

For most of us the only information we have to go off is:


Standard Tournament brackets will now be randomized between each round.

  • (Players who are waiting for the next round are now paired together randomly.)

If we are to take these words literally it sounds as though if you win your battle early you will likely be facing off against other players who have also finished their battle early. So for example if I wanted to avoid playing against you, I could ask a friend to spectate your battle and tell me how close the game looks to being over. If my friend was to reply "it's still 6v6" I could then try and close out my battle faster to try and avoid the possible window where I could be matched against you. Conversely if you are about to win I could deliberately extend my battle and run down the timer. This would then become even easier to abuse the later it gets in a tournament where there should be a larger discrepancy in which round everyone is still playing in since there may be a round 1 battle at the same time as a round 3-4.

 

I really hope that I am wrong on this subject and that it is not as exploitable as it sounds, where you can almost chose your matches and can lead to match fixing, but as of right now most of us can only go off the words of the devs.

 

 

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37 minutes ago, redbluegreen said:

Since most of the tournaments have been cancelled and so I haven't been able to test it (also I don't really want to test ways to exploit the game). Can you explain how this isn't exploitable?

 

For most of us the only information we have to go off is:


Standard Tournament brackets will now be randomized between each round.

  • (Players who are waiting for the next round are now paired together randomly.)

If we are to take these words literally it sounds as though if you win your battle early you will likely be facing off against other players who have also finished their battle early. So for example if I wanted to avoid playing against you, I could ask a friend to spectate your battle and tell me how close the game looks to being over. If my friend was to reply "it's still 6v6" I could then try and close out my battle faster to try and avoid the possible window where I could be matched against you. Conversely if you are about to win I could deliberately extend my battle and run down the timer. This would then become even easier to abuse the later it gets in a tournament where there should be a larger discrepancy in which round everyone is still playing in since there may be a round 1 battle at the same time as a round 3-4.

 

I really hope that I am wrong on this subject and that it is not as exploitable as it sounds, where you can almost chose your matches and can lead to match fixing, but as of right now most of us can only go off the words of the devs.

 

 

Tours have been cancelled because sign ups are bugged. I have entered in one and couldnt find the partner, who was also signed.

Seats are shuffled, not players, so how do you exploit ?

From the tour i played, there is a minimum limit of ppl that need to win their round before system shuffle them, so you cannot ask your friends to effectively do what you saying.

Edited by pachima
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6 minutes ago, pachima said:

Tours have been cancelled because sign ups are bugged. I have entered in one and couldnt find the partner, who was also signed.

Seats are shuffled, not players, so how do you exploit ?

(Players who are waiting for the next round are now paired together randomly.)

 

If you are waiting for round 3, someone else is waiting for round 2 you therefor cannot be paired vs each other. So if you stay at a different tournament stage from someone you won't be matched vs them until the end?

  

6 minutes ago, pachima said:

From the tour i played, there is a minimum limit of ppl that need to win their round before system shuffle them, so you cannot ask your friends to effectively do what you saying.

Still not sure how much that really changes, if the number is 50% then all you have to do is stay in the slower 50% to avoid the front runners.

Edited by redbluegreen
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