No. of Rounds per Tournament

[DoubleJ]

To begin, 128-automated tournaments are great in that they allow more players throughout the game to participate in a single event. This overall helps the competitive community grow and it makes the competitive community that much stronger. 

 

Although, these lengthy tournaments are incredibly discouraging. They are simply just too long. Not necessarily by means of a time constraint, but rather simply by the number of rounds. The winning player must successfully navigate seven rounds just to claim 1st or 2nd place. With our tiny community, this just does not seem conducive to promote a competitive atmosphere because Pokemon has an RNG component that is heavier than most. By asking players to compete in seven rounds of play, you're asking them to not only outplay their opponents, but also dodge unfavorable RNG. That right there is incredibly discouraging and is a common complaint among competitive players. 

 

So, I suggest that we make the following changes:

• 128-man tournaments should not be the norm, but rather the exception
• 128-man tournaments should include an exceptional (or at least above average prize) to encourage better players to compete
• 128-man tournaments should only involve the OU tier, as byes are not competitive or favored in the community
• 128-man tournaments should be held once or twice a month
• 64-man tournaments should be the norm for every tier
• 64-man tournaments should include a prize that is less than a 128-man tournament

 

"Kyu's Awesome Tournaments" aside, 64-man just seems better for the community when we have tournaments on an almost daily basis. 

 

Spoiler

A dream of mine would be to introduce a scoring system based on a player's individual performance in matchmaking and tournaments. This score would then dictate which tournaments this player "qualifies" for and can play in. For example, everyone, no matter their score can compete in Munya's weekly combat tournaments, while players with a higher score can compete in more exclusive "64-man" tournaments. Kyu's Awesome Tournament could be an epic way of bringing all players together, letting everyone in despite their score. 

 

I'd honestly love this. 

 

 

[Mike]

21 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

128-man tournaments should not be the norm, but rather the exception

• 128-man tournaments should include an exceptional (or at least above average prize) to encourage better players to compete
• 128-man tournaments should only involve the OU tier, as byes are not competitive or favored in the community
• 128-man tournaments should be held once or twice a month
• 64-man tournaments should be the norm for every tier
• 64-man tournaments should include a prize that is less than a 128-man tournament

I agree with most points but 1. Having 64 mans as the norm for OU is not smart since alot of people sign up. If you had standard 64 man OUs alot of people will miss out on playing that tournament. I don't know the exact number of sign ups the last OU got but that was definitly over 150 when I checked. Seeing as the prize would be a bit less epic than a breloom. I could still see the sign ups being 100 man+. The player base has grown throughout the years and at the moment having 64 man OUs isn't really gonna solve anything. It is just going to make people complain more about not getting into officials/not enough officials to join because of this low seat count. But everything should work on the other tiers.

 

25 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

Spoiler

A dream of mine would be to introduce a scoring system based on a player's individual performance in matchmaking and tournaments. This score would then dictate which tournaments this player "qualifies" for and can play in. For example, everyone, no matter their score can compete in Munya's weekly combat tournaments, while players with a higher score can compete in more exclusive "64-man" tournaments. Kyu's Awesome Tournament could be an epic way of bringing all players together, letting everyone in despite their score. 

 

I'd honestly love this. 

I like this idea alot. Having a "leaderboard tournament" for officials and ranked matchmaking. And having an exclusive tournament for the players who have done well in the past months. This would definitly encourage players to join more officials and win them. Maybe these "64-man" tournaments don't even need to have a super amazing shiny. Any viable shiny would be much appreciate and A LOT higher money prize. That would be totally awesome!

[Darkshade]

We decided to make 128-Man Tournaments the standard format due to the increase in the amount of players wishing to participate.

This remains to be the case as we see the brackets getting reliably filled almost every time.

 

We cannot increase the prizes for these tournaments however, because the prizes given out through tournaments are balanced on the amount that is hosted, not the amount of players participating; This is because it limits the amount of value we inject into the economy.

 

There are a couple of ways to resolve this (that I can think of at least) - One of them would be to host less tournaments overall and give out more for the ones we do host. - this is not at all ideal for obvious reasons.

 

The other would be to add an entry fee to tournaments to effectively increase the prize pool.

I fear that this method would detract from the amount of players wishing to participate however (as we've seen in practice), which is a negative for the community.

[DoubleJ]

4 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

We decided to make 128-Man Tournaments the standard format due to the increase in the amount of players wishing to participate.

This remains to be the case as we see the brackets getting reliably filled almost every time.

This doesn't comment on the fact that 128-man tournaments for UU, NU, and Doubles just don't fill. Take for example yesterday, which was another great case that resulted in 29 byes. A staff member had previously stated that 128-man tournaments would not be the norm for these lower tournaments and I hope this holds true. 

 

4 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

We cannot increase the prizes for these tournaments however, because the prizes given out through tournaments are balanced on the amount that is hosted, not the amount of players participating; This is because it limits the amount of value we inject into the economy.

I have no argument with this. 

 

4 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

 

There are a couple of ways to resolve this (that I can think of at least) - One of them would be to host less tournaments overall and give out more for the ones we do host. - this is not at all ideal for obvious reasons.

Considering we have 3 weekly tournaments that are 32-man (amazing work there), maybe we should consider hosting less tournaments in order to garner bigger prizes. We currently have two tournament series (LC and NU), a monthly team tournament, and 3 tournaments a week in OU/UU/NU. Maybe we could simply supplement these with two more tournaments in OU and UU on the offdays. 

 

4 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

 

The other would be to add an entry fee to tournaments to effectively increase the prize pool.

I fear that this method would detract from the amount of players wishing to participate however (as we've seen in practice), which is a negative for the community.

I am still pretty heavily against this. The prize money right now is nice, it's that Shiny Reward I'm looking to bump. 

 

 

tl;dr The more inclusive tournaments are doesn't mean they are of better quality. I would argue that 64-man for UU/NU/Doubles is a better format to avoid byes.

[notmudkip0]

2 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

The other would be to add an entry fee to tournaments to effectively increase the prize pool.

I fear that this method would detract from the amount of players wishing to participate however, which is a negative for the community.

Last time we had a cash fee we got 

Spoiler

I don't mind fees, but this thread shows how many people oppose them.

 

[Mike]

1 minute ago, notmudkip0 said:

Last time we had a cash fee we got 

  Reveal hidden contents

I don't mind fees, but this thread shows how many people oppose them.

 

This was the last time we had a money fee official. And this got pretty good feedback.

 

 

[notmudkip0]

Just now, TheChampionMike said:

This was the last time we had a money fee official. And this got pretty good feedback.

 

 

Forgot about that, my bad. Gotta wonder why it got better reception, though.

[BlackJovi]

4 minutes ago, TheChampionMike said:

This was the last time we had a money fee official. And this got pretty good feedback.

 

 

:) Thanks bb

[Mike]

2 minutes ago, notmudkip0 said:

Forgot about that, my bad. Gotta wonder why it got better reception, though.

The idea was basically high risk high reward. Not alot of round which means less chance of getting haxxed and generally just a really good prize. 200k was definitly worth it for the prize there was. Aint that right @BlackJovi

Edited October 9, 2016 by TheChampionMike

[DoubleJ]

The difference between a 16-man tournament with a 200k entry fee with a bumped cash prize pool vs a 64-man tournament with a 15k fee is profound. The first shows that your investment actually improves the prize pool, you have a better chance of winning, and getting your cash back seems more plausible with only 16 people; while the latter seems more like an actual fee vs an investment. 

[Mike]

Just now, DoubleJ said:

The difference between a 16-man tournament with a 200k entry fee with a bumped cash prize pool vs a 64-man tournament with a 15k fee is profound. The first shows that your investment actually improves the prize pool, you have a better chance of winning, and getting your cash back seems more plausible with only 16 people; while the latter seems more like an actual fee vs an investment. 

The thing is tho. Asking like 50k from 64 players to bump the prizepool doesn't seem like a bad idea on paper. But you know how players are, once they see entry fee they go: EWWWW I JUST PLAY FOR FUN AND THIS GAME HAS ENOUGH MONEY SINKS etc. I personally wouldn't mind this. But I have no clue if it actually will fill. 64x50.000=3.200.000. Which is not a bad buff for 1st-3rd. But again once people see an entry fee they back off.

[Munya]

The weeklies have had mostly positive feedback(Except the AEDT/AEST timezone one) and they have a entry fee.  Should be a reasonable price fee that is reflected by the prize though.

I think most dislike of it came from a few factors, the first tournament that used it was well, the first tournament with a fee of course its going to get some negative feedback, players went from getting something for free, to spending a little to have a shot at getting more than you spent.

Also, the whole fact the first release was bugged and took money out of the players pocket every round or w/e it was that happened, left a sour taste.  Hopefully the weeklies can alleviate some of that and we can maybe use fees elsewhere for bigger prizes, maybe not the norm but in some cases.

[DoubleJ]

Just as a reminder, this thread wasn't designed to discuss prizes or entry-fees for tournaments. It was designed to discuss the fact that 128-man tournaments shouldn't be the norm.

[OrangeManiac]

I'm fairly alright with 128s. Why? Because I consider it as an achievement to make it to just far in the tournament bracket, heck Quarterfinals are even an achievement what comes to playing a 128-man tournament. Because we've always had the kind of 32 man tournament standard we've kinda made it sound like only 1st and 2nd place finishes has any value at all and for this I definitely agree dodging 7 rounds of both tougher opponents from outplaying you to getting flat out RNGd out, I can imagine it being very frustrating and unrewarding. It's just a thing how you wanna react to it. For example in big poker tournaments placing 100th can mean you cashed out huge sums of money and it's quite an achievement doing that in a week long tournament of thousands of players. The same way players could feel happy making it to the QFs in 128 man, winning one would just feel like an ultimate prize. I cannot talk about this without bringing up prizes at all because I think giving decent prizes brings more value to placing finishes in large tournaments.

 

If anything I find the duration as the issue considering for Europeans tournaments start close to midnight and what comes to Asian, well they're even more fucked.

 

Edited October 9, 2016 by OrangeManiac

[pachima]

3 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

If anything I find the duration as the issue considering for Europeans tournaments start close to midnight and what comes to Asian, well they're even more fucked.

Pretty much this. I often get to the point where I cant get serious on most of tours because I know I don´t have the time to reach somewhere far.