Tournament CAPPL VIII - Policy Discussion

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Tadasuke

Tuh-dah-skay
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CAPPL VIII - Policy Discussion

Alright CAPPL people, it's about time we get started with policy discussion for our upcoming team tour. I'm going to keep this OP fairly brief and to the point, so I'd like to start of by discussing the following:

Assuming we'd like to keep with the standard of using CAPPL for past gens and CAPCL for CAP OMs, which of the below tiers should be represented in CAPPL VIII's weekly lineups? How many slots should each chosen tier occupy?
  • SS CAP
  • SM CAP
  • ORAS CAP
  • BW CAP
  • BDSP CAP
  • DPP CAP
As a final question regarding our metagame choices, although we're defaulting to 6 slots, what would be the best way to fill out an 8 slot format if we do wind up reaching a high enough number of signups?

With regards to managers and assistant managers, what's the fairest and most effective model for determining their draft pricing?

Feel free to bring up any other issues you feel merit discussion in this thread. Expect another post more formally addressing the discussion topics here on Sunday.
 

SHSP

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Moderator
CAPPL VIII - Policy Discussion

Alright CAPPL people, it's about time we get started with policy discussion for our upcoming team tour. I'm going to keep this OP fairly brief and to the point, so I'd like to start of by discussing the following:

Assuming we'd like to keep with the standard of using CAPPL for past gens and CAPCL for CAP OMs, which of the below tiers should be represented in CAPPL VIII's weekly lineups? How many slots should each chosen tier occupy?
  • SS CAP
  • SM CAP
  • ORAS CAP
  • BW CAP
  • BDSP CAP
  • DPP CAP
As a final question regarding our metagame choices, although we're defaulting to 6 slots, what would be the best way to fill out an 8 slot format if we do wind up reaching a high enough number of signups?

With regards to managers and assistant managers, what's the fairest and most effective model for determining their draft pricing?

Feel free to bring up any other issues you feel merit discussion in this thread. Expect another post more formally addressing the discussion topics here on Sunday.
6 Slots-

SS
SS
SS
SM
ORAS
BW/BDSP

SS 3 should be the go-to, main gen and all that (even if the optimal is 3 SM js). ORAS/SM have well deserved slots, either could reasonably get two and fill slot 6, but probably unnecessary. Last spot I'm very unsure about- DPP should be out of the picture, imo, but I'm not familiar with BDSP as of late and unsure how thoughts are towards BW post-CAPCL.

8 Slots-
SS
SS
SS
SS
SM
SM
ORAS
ORAS

is what jumps to mind first. Three strongest tiers, three traditional CAPPL tiers, but could be 1- exclusive to metas that deserve a spot, i.e. BW/BDSP, and 2- stretching the pool thin. Here, ironically, I don't think its with the old gens as usual- we can absolutely sustain 2SM 2ORAS- but with the later SS spots, especially with a number of players moving from SS towards the old gens.

Could do something like 3SS, SM, ORAS, BW, BDSP, ?- would be a fit for DPP if we consider it viable enough, but this also asks that BW, BDSP and DPP all meet the level to be in the tour. Curious to see what others suggest for 8, this has actually been quite tricky.

Manager pricing I'll post again about, need to re-read some conversations I've had with Jordy and others about it.
 

spell

of the void
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OMPL Champion
i dont have much stake in cap, only really playing it during champions league but i personally think introducing a bo3 multigen slot would be better than trying to just double the slots

SS
SS
SS
SM
ORAS
Bo3 Multigen (SS/SM/ORAS)

6 slots like this is nice & simple, i dont think 8 would work in this tier ngl
 

Da Pizza Man

Pizza Time
is a Pre-Contributor
In terms of slots, I think we should try to incorporate all of SM, ORAS, and BDSP. SM and ORAS are basically shoe-ins for team tours at this point, and I think that BDSP still has a decent newness factor to it that I think could attract attention to the tour.

My ideal line-up would be this:
6 Slots: SS/SS/SS/SM/ORAS/BDSP
8 Slots: SS/SS/SS/SM/SM/ORAS/ORAS/BDSP or SS/SS/SS/SS/SM/SM/ORAS/BDSP (I kinda prefer the former but I think the later would work as well)

In terms of manager prices, I honestly don't care all that much.
 

dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
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If 6 slots:

SS/SS/SS/SM/ORAS/ whatever tbh. I am not a fan of BW, but that's more of a personal thing about the gen than the tier itself. I love BDSP, but that's also more of a personal thing, as the tier (admittedly) needs work and hasn't seen activity. Of course the obvious choice is Monotype.

If 8 slots:

SS/SS/SS/SM/SM/ORAS/ORAS/ whatever tbh. I'd like to avoid having 4 SS slots in an 8 slot PL. While the ratio of SS:Rest is the same with 3 in a 6 slot system and 4 in an 8 slot system, that additional slot actually heavily tilts the value of a player towards their SS ability due to having to prep and build for the extra slot. Personally, I don't think that's the greatest thing.

On the topic of manager prices:

In the past, we have done a sort of polling system where managers give what they think would be a fair price for other managers and the values are added. I don't like this. It isn't necessarily "easy" to game, as there is oversight via the host, but it is pretty arbitrary and doesn't seem totally fair. I think a fixed price of 15% of the total cash pool is a much better option. For those who cannot math, assuming a cash pool of 100,000, this would result in a fixed manager price of 15,000. The percentage could be changed from anywhere between 10% and 15%, but I like the higher end option.
 

spoo

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CAP Co-Leader
CAPPL is our biggest tour of the year, and the only one (aside from circuit poffs) with an actual prize; it should have an identity that is as prestigious as competitive as possible, and that means slotting in our most developed, most enjoyed, and most played tiers: our oldgens.

BDSP should be out of the question imo. It’s a fun tier, but we should NOT be putting the competitive legitimacy of this format to its first real test during our biggest tour of the year.

Same with DPP, unfortunately. We only need to look at BW during CAPCL to see why. Speaking as a manager for CL, BW was incredibly hard to draft for. The signup pool for BW was really dire, which is even crazier considering CL had the most signups of a CAP team tour ever. But perhaps even more importantly - we had a lot of games that were just not good quality. There were teams drafting absolutely no BW player AT ALL and just slotting literally whoever with HO teams ripped from OU. There were some fantastic and competitive showings, but there was also a lot of the opposite. To the best of our ability, we want to be showcasing high-level, competitive games. Now let’s look at DPP. This format is EVEN LESS accessible than BW and I have no doubt in my mind it would be near-impossible to draft for, support, and get competitive games out of (at this point in time - who knows what the future holds). Sorry, but let’s save this format’s first real test-run for CL.

As for BW - while the above paragraph makes it sound like I probably hate it, I would actually be okay with it here. But it’s on thin ice, and I would prefer alternatives. It got its early-tier rough start out of the way already, and I think now that we know more about the tier and its playerbase, we can consider it a contender for our premier summer oldgens tour. That said, we should look to other formats first.

6 slots: SS/SS/SS/SM/ORAS/Multigen Bo3 or SM2 or BW (in order of preference)
Clean and simple, others have already discussed this as a nice format for 6 slots. The last slot is ultimately pretty free, but Bo3s are cool imo. Almost every PL has them, and for good reason. It’s an inherently more competitive format because you have more chances to win, is incredible from a spectator perspective, and is sick for players in a way because it’s the best shot you have at showing you are the best; if you’ve got something to prove, the bo3 is the best place to do it. This format also mirrors our last PL which helps establish a stronger identity for the tour. However, SM is our most popular + developed pastgen, so in the case of no bo3 it should be chosen over BW.

8 slots: SS/SS/SS/SM/SM/ORAS/Bo3/ORAS2 or BW
I think if we’re 8 slots, we REALLY can’t justify no bo3. Yes, they require a lot of work, but they’re great. Last slot is subjective, idrc which way it goes. PLEASE no 4x SS though.

Manager prices:
I would like to preface this by saying there is no fair AND accurate way to price managers, period. During CL I was a fan of subjective prices, aka manager prices are determined by all the managers voting. I thought this would lead to the most accurate prices, but they were still completely all over the place. There is also almost no incentive not to overprice everyone else and underprice yourself. It’s a flawed approach. Now, let’s look at objective ways to determine prices, such as by taking into account a player’s previous TT wins. These ways might seem more accurate in practice, but they just aren’t. Our best player can be haxxed to hell and back one season, and end up WAY underpriced the next season as a result. A terrible player can still have a good season somehow and end up super overpriced relative to their skill. An unknown player can be priced low and overperform, or vice versa. Any way we do this is bad. BUT: Objective data-based approaches are at least fair, while subjective approaches are much less so. So, we should use a formula to determine manager prices based on their performance in last years premier league.
Here are a couple possibilities, taken from THIS post in the ZUPL policy thread:
  • Base price (10k) + difference based on differential: let's say, Tuthur went 4-1 in the last ZUPL; if he wants to selfbuy as manager, he needs to pay 10k+(3*3)=19k
  • Base price (10k) + 2k for win, - 1k for loss; as for the example above, he needs to pay 10k+(4*2-1*1)=17k
The difference between these formulas, or any other, is pretty arbitrary; like I said, they won’t be accurate no matter what so let’s just choose the one we think is more fair.
 

Dj Breloominati♬

born to play, forced to john
is a Top Tiering Contributor
UPL Champion
I share the same sentiment expressed above with regards to making this tour as prestigious as possible and I believe most of my suggestions are geared towards making that a reality

Slots:
You could probably say its because I was on the so called "army" teams for the last CAPPL/CL, but it always felt like someone deserving to start was forced to sit out because of it being 6 slots. That coupled with the fact that there is now prizes at stake ( i.e : more signups/interest ) makes me feel that we should definitely look towards increasing the number of slots (either by increasing the number of teams, or by just increasing the number of slots for 6 teams). I'll be addressing the latter of the two ideas presented above.

8 slots is the easy and ideal fix to the problem at hand, but I do feel that the extra slot in two tiers (4th SS/2nd ORAS) might lead to burnout in the builder and thus lesser quality games. So not 6, preferably not 8, which makes us reach the middleground of 7 slots. This would however lead to no possibility of tying each week, fewer points won per week on an average, and teams being out of playoff contention sooner which is not what we should look towards doing. Keeping this in mind id like to bring up boosting the SS1 slot each week, which would be worth two wins instead of one. To me, this adds nothing but positives, as we still get to preserve tying each week, six more people get to start and in theory it should also fulfill the role of the bo3 slot for being the most awaited/exciting match of the week from a spectator point of view. However, if we end up with 6 or 8 slots over 7, then I'd suggest that managers can independently choose which slot to boost each week. Ideally, they would choose which slot is boosted in their lineup without the opposing manager's knowledge. I think it'd be interesting to see how different managers value this slot during the draft (going all out on one v/s drafting multiple capable options) . The idea in itself is not completely foreign, with it being implemented in the most recent Ubers Winter TeamTour, originally brought up here, which ended up being implemented for the actual tour as well.

Manager prices:
I think fixed manager prices avoids a lot of the cons that come up otherwise (subjectivity of how much a particular manager should be worth, broken teams pre auction etc). Chaitanya's posts (here and here) in the MPL format discussion thread pretty much cover my entire stance on the topic, but ill still mention some of his points here :
I think managers should be equally priced no matter how many slots and these prices should be pretty high. Mainly because 1) 'to avoid broken teams' and 2) If you signup for manager, playing should be your second priority. If you think the price is too high then don't play. But yeah for 6 slots, 100k purse. I'd want 20k minimum per manager. (I think ideal number is 22.5) Assuming 8 people minimum per team, the average player would be 12.5k. If you put 10k or so aside for 2 subs, your average starter is gonna cost around 15k. Managers are generally leading figures in the community so the bump on 15k to 20-22.5-25 is reasonable enough imo.

subjective pricing has been real bad in the past, we've used managers to rank players + price them before and it hasn't gone well. I'm personally not a fan of using records from the last two years to figure out prices either but that wilson score stuff is a slightly better measurement. Individuals should 100% not be taken into consideration. If wilson score or some other measurement is used, I think that the scale should be 15 absolute absolute minimum/17.5/20/22.5/25 max out of a 100k purse.
My biggest issue with sabella's scale is there is absolutely no way to justify a manager is worthy of being a manager and be worth less than/equal to the average player so I would definitely say 17.5 - 25. Still wouldn't be keen on different prices but that's the best option if it ends up being the case imo.
I think the perfect number to land up on is either 17.5 or 20k with a 100k budget (MPL ended up with fixed 20k self manager buys). Anything lesser than this for some of the past/present manager(s) feels criminal ( can think of Jordy d2 lasen off the top of my head), and this would go against the entire cause itself.

1654751855044.png
monke.png

Retains :
Ive always been high on the concept of retains. Its pros are well known, so ill try justifying this suggestion against some of the reasons why it hasnt been implemented yet:
1654753816444.png

1654753836671.png
Our constantly changing playerbase seems to be the primary reason as to why this hasnt been implemented yet. Because new managers and new good players emerge every year, "fixing" anything (what retains tries to do) hasnt been a great idea. To deal with these reasons I suggest the following workaround :
I suggest that starting this year, players in cappl can be retained for the following edition. I believe we can implement the same retention plan that PUPL currently uses, which is as follows:
To manage, please post the following in one post:
Your team name (please refrain from inappropriate names)
Whether you plan to continue an existing team or not
If not, what team from last year do you want the retention rights to?
Why you and your co-manager deserve to manage
While this next part isn't included in the above PUPL format, new managers should also have to obtain the previous manager's blessing for their team's retention rights (as is the case in other tours like UPL, seen here). For example, if a new manager in the next edition of cappl wants to retain the players on this year's Thatcher Begone Bagons, they would need explicit permission from spoo and D2TheW. Especially since we're giving out a custom avatar prize, this year's cappl makes sense as a fresh start and the perfect time to finally implement retains.
Price last CAPPL you played in or 10,000, whichever is higher + ((10,000 + (# of wins last CAPPL you played in * 1500))/2) , rounded up to the nearest .500.

So for example, if I were to do this for myself, my price would be as follows:
10,000 + ((10,000 + (4*1500))/2) which would be = 18,000
1654758165588.png


This formula of higher pricing is moreso to give managers the option to build their team's "identity" pre-auction rather than be aimed towards rewarding a previous for "stealing" someone -- inspite of this being fundamentally against the spirit of retains, I feel its a necessary evil for a smaller playerbase such as ours.


This post pretty much sums up all my thoughts, major s/o to spoo for helping me put it together. Hoping to see some more discussion so we end up with the best tour possible
:psyglad:
 
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spoo

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CAP Co-Leader
There's a lot of interesting stuff in the above post that I think is worth more discussion, so I'll respond to the points in order -

6/7/8 and boosting slots:
To me, this is just dependent on how many signups we get. I don't feel comfortable making a decision at this stage before seeing player turnout - the OP seems to reflect this as well, asking "what would be the best way to fill out an 8 slot format if we do wind up reaching a high enough number of signups?" That said, I think myself and many others are hoping that this CAPPL is the time for us to be ambitious and finally expand.

I don't share the same worries about 8 slots leading to burnout - in fact, 10 slots is commonly seen as the "ideal" for a TT - so if we have the signups to support 8, we shouldn't deliberately choose fewer. I also think the single added slot from 6 to 7 is not worth the tradeoff (more on this soon). However, I find TTs without a bo3 not very exciting, and a boosted slot helps rectify that issue, so I would prefer a 7-slot boosted tour over a bo3-less 6 slot tour. Basically, I would only support Spitfire's suggested format if: signups are in a weird middle-ground between supporting 6 vs 8 slots, and we want to avoid having a bo3. In the case of 8 slots, I would also prefer boosting if we are determined to not have a bo3.

So, my main worry with 7 slots is that boosting SS1 has a weird effect on drafting + creating lineups. Managers currently have a lot of flexibility in creating a draft plan, and this is a good thing. You can draft only slightly-above-average players and hope that half of them win; three incredible players you bank on every week, and de-prioritize the rest; fill one slot with a 3k player so you have more funds for other areas; etc. I think boosting a slot kind of limits this freedom. Because each team needs to have a star on their lineup that can perform in the SS1 slot every week, my worry is that the draft + how we create draft plans will be skewed. Granted, a similar incentive to spend high on star players exists in bo3 slots, but not to the same degree; it's still only worth one point, so you could theoretically sack it and focus on other areas. But teams don't really have that luxury when one slot is worth two points each week. There is also the worry about matchup fishing, getting cheesed or haxxed, etc when a single slot is worth double. I'd argue this is especially prevalent in SS - I could not count the amount of times it felt like CAPCL SS games were decided on matchup alone.

Manger pricing:
While I suggested formulaic pricing in my above post, ultimately the decision of fixed vs formulaic is sort of arbitrary. Both have issues; formulaic pricing is data-driven, but most of the data isn't 100% representative of skill + it favors managers who didn't play last season, while fixed prices say that JoeyChesnaught03 is valued the same as stresh but avoid some of the bias towards new managers. At the end of the day, both approaches eliminate subjectivity and attempts to game the system, it's just a "pick your poison" deal. In the case we do fixed prices, though, I'd like to comment on what they should be.

As far as my general philosophy goes: everyone is better off when managers play. Managers are often our best tour players, and therefore are responsible for a ton of the meta development and high-level games we get out of TTs. While a manager's highest priority should be managing, first and foremost, I don't think we should be setting the bar for prices so high that it discourages them from playing. This is especially true because self-buys are only for playing rights. When you buy a player in the draft, the price reflects their playing rights, support across multiple tiers, team activity, etc. But managers prices ONLY reflect playing rights. E.g. if SHSP would go for 18k or something in the draft, his self-buy as a manager should be a lot lower. Lastly, I'm generally a fan of giving managers more freedom, and not less, to draft the best team they can; this rewards managerial skill and smart spending. Looking at the manager signups we have now, I think somewhere between 12.5-15k is a good place to shoot for.

Retains:
This post is already very long, so I would just like to agree outright with Spitfire's suggestion here. This is really the perfect time to implement retains going forward. We have made massive strides in gen 8 to expand our competitive scene, and I think we're at a place where retains are actually feasible now. The way PUPL (and probably other tours) handle retention is very simple and easy to implement. Not gonna comment on specific pricing, though, as that feels like more of a question for next PL.
 

Lasen

smiling through it all
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honest to God I don't think 8 slots is feasible with 6 teams; this implies a minimum of 10 players per team and unless all managers self-buy I do not see us having enough good picks to fill out every team, especially so if a team manages to get some 3-5k hidden gems and/or pinches the pool. I think 6 slots is optimal but! if the CA makes 10 pages of sign-ups magically appear, I'm down to raise the number of slots or even the amount of money-there is a precedent with ADVPL I where 30000 people wanted to play UU/Ubers so we got two extra slots!
As to the slots, SS/SS/SS/USM/ORAS/stour bo3 is what I prefer; the bo3 slot is a flex spot that I personally enjoyed a ton-why shouldn't the best player (usually) get rewarded? It doesn't make anyone play an underdeveloped metagame, especially since SM is "solved" and the ORAS council has gone above and beyond with trying to make the tier as enjoyable as possible. I also do not think the argument of "but you have to build for three metagames!" holds any water when I can literally show you 1 manager one each team that will workhorse that and I am sure you can draft some ORAS OU main, tell him that we made a Fighting-type that occasionally beats Tornadus-T and he'll give you 300000 teams that have no CAPs but still fit the metagame trends.
If 8 slots, add BDSP AND BW and then promise BionicleCryonicle or whatever the dude's name is that DPP will be added to Snake.

Manager prices I kind of like having other managers send their price estimation for other managers; it's fair and doesn't mean you end up with "manager who is awful at playing but great support" and "professor X: A Very Ginormous Battler" costing the same.


Retains suck ass cause the tier is tiny and if a team is allowed to get Jordy one year, they have Jordy for 20 years. No thanks!
 

SHSP

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Okay, so I was talking with Spoo, D2 and a few others on Discord and I wanted to write down here a bit of a bold take: What do we think about Committing to 8 Slots from the Outset?

So, even I am a little iffy on this, cause on paper this is... hard. Lasen's post above outlines a few struggles, especially the problem with filling out the teams themselves. I don't really have an answer to those: it's an aggressive position to commit to from the jump, and the problems outlined are very valid. Nevertheless, I think there's still merit to this for a few reasons:

(Note- I'm assuming we end up with some combination of majority SS, and most oldgens/BDSP- something like 4SS/SM/ORAS/BW/BDSP)

1- Absolute worst case scenario outside of straight up not getting enough signup numbers (more on that later), we end up starting some newer/less proven/etc players in some of the "lower" slots- be it the newer metas like BDSP or SS 3 or 4. This may end up bringing some level of overall game quality down, but it has a number of potential benefits. I'll draw on my own experience from waaaaaaaaaaay back in the day- my first tournament was CAPTT 2, as a member of the "scrub team"- the rookies and nobodies that didn't get drafted that got cobbled together into a team. This team was entirely non-competitive (we tied one week of 5, lost the rest), but it contributed more than one might think: myself and Heaven Jay both got sort of started because of having some sort of playing time in a major tour. We can totally use these slots to allow for newer blood to show their stuff to some level, foster more interest and involvement in team tours and tours in general, and grow. This segways into the second point quite well, actually...

2- Committing to it up-front has a number of potential benefits compared to changing late to 8 slots. Managers don't have to adjust plans as much, instead being able to plan from the jump. There's talk about how retains work w/8 slots compared to w/6- something I'm not going to get into much here, I'm indifferent about them honestly. Spoo and I discussed a point about how going in with a clearer 8 slots, combined with more serious prizing and the like, can actively drive more signups because there's a lot more room for starter spots, deeper teams, things like that. There's also the element of fighting inertia here: we've been discussing a potential 8 slot tour forever now, and we've come to the same sort of conclusion every year- if we get signups, consider 8, but if not go with 6. Eventually, I think at least, we should pull that trigger, be it now or in the future.

Not to drop a bit of a bomb in the thread a bit late, but I'm genuinely very curious what others think about this idea. It's an important discussion to have, I feel, despite my own stance being curious enough to bring it up, but not totally on board with moving to 8 slots right now.
 

spoo

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To me, this is just dependent on how many signups we get. I don't feel comfortable making a decision at this stage before seeing player turnout - the OP seems to reflect this as well, asking "what would be the best way to fill out an 8 slot format if we do wind up reaching a high enough number of signups?" That said, I think myself and many others are hoping that this CAPPL is the time for us to be ambitious and finally expand.
Yeah, I'd like to go back on this a bit; after thinking about it some more and talking with SHSP, I'm honestly in agreement about committing to 8 slots early. Our tour scene has been growing in size for years, with our last TT - in the winter, featuring two completely new metas - reaching the most signups we've ever had. It's risky, sure, and could definitely have some downsides, but it feels to me like it's finally time to go for it. We have to pull the trigger eventually.

I'll just echo SHSP's points cause he covered most everything I'd want to say. The whole "wait and see" w/ signups thing kind of sucks for managers - you're going to have to consider two distinct draft plans the whole time up until a call is made one way or the other, which adds a lot of undue complexity to the drafting process and managerial experience. And it's quite possible that committing to 8 from the outside can land us with a higher number of signups than if we made the call 3/4ths of the way through. If you're an outside player looking to get into CAP, it can be discouraging to sign up when you know that you might not have a shot at being picked given so few positions.

I think it's also unideal from a logistical standpoint to hold off on 8 vs 6 until we see the numbers. EG, if our plan for 8 slots includes BW but our plan for 6 doesn't - what do we tell players in the signup thread? Are we going to add one, potentially two entire tiers to the tournament a week and a half into signups? How will managers plan their draft effectively when players who signed up before this point don't have the new tiers listed in their post?

The biggest downside IMO is having poorer quality games because we're reaching deeper into a player field that just might not have that depth. This is something I'm conflicted on, and the main reason why I have really hated the idea of 8 slots for prior TTs, but I'm willing to take the risk this time. Even if one or two slots a week are a little less competitive - and this is still a big "if" imo - it can help usher in new blood, which is huge for a community like ours. It also just makes the tour experience more enjoyable when you have more people active and collaborating with each other.

My preferred format is still:
3 SS / 2 SM / 2 ORAS / MG Bo3 > 3 SS / 2 SM / ORAS / BW / MG Bo3 >> literally anything without BDSP >>> anything with BDSP
Bo3 was in last PL and it was great. A bit hard on workload, but that's literally the point; put in some effort if you want to win. It's the single most exciting slot for spectators, and the single most competitive slot for players; as Lasen said, why shouldn't better players get rewarded?

Okay, let's look at CAPCL signups to see something. We had 89 signups total (might be off by a very small amount, idr if I left anyone off my sheet on purpose). 29 people said they could play BW - 7 people fewer than Monotype.

19 out of 29 BW signups just listed "all" under tiers. While a couple of these people (Micaiah for example) ended up still playing BW, you're usually going to put them in different areas. 6 people put SS/ORAS/BW and 1 person put ORAS/BW. Okay, these are people you might want to consider more seriously for the slot, but this still reflects less about interest in BW and more about disinterest in playing monotype. So when we look at BW-exclusive players: 3 SIGNUPS out of 89 listed only BW. Three!!! Despite our team walking away with one of the better combos (ArcticBreeze + BasedWhat), drafting for this slot was still a nightmare. And frankly, there were a lot of pretty bad matches across the BW pool as well.

I'm positive it won't be as bad for PL considering: A) we will almost surely get more signups as a whole, B) some old managers (thinking nalo/fakee) won't be managing and could be free picks for BW instead, C) CAPCL helped get the meta off the ground and it's more developed now. But the question is less "does BW meet the bar for inclusion" and more "can BW justify itself over our three most popular, most developed oldgens for our biggest tournament of the year." I'm inclined to say "no" and throw in a second ORAS slot, but I'm also biased so w/e. We can give it another chance if we want.

HOWEVER: please for the love of god do not include BDSP. I am literally begging. Drafting will be awful. The games won't be good. This is our premier team tournament, and we should be representing premier tiers. BDSP will absolutely draw in some signups (much like monotype did) but has almost no perks outside of that. It's still a new tier, so there is very little development and an even smaller playerbase. Why are we considering this? Please save it for CL, assuming we still care about it in gen 9. It's a very cool tier, I enjoy playing it, I don't want to put it down. But I swear this is not the time ya'll.
 
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shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
is a Pre-Contributor
Tallied data on prior tours in consideration of how we want to approach this one

Code:
Sign-Ups | Team Tour
---------+----------------
      84 | CAPPL VI
         |
      57 | SS Snake Draft
         |
      82 | CAPPL VII
         |
      88 | CAPCL I

With six teams and using the 82 signups from VII, each team would have ~13 players if every single player was drafted. Now, here's the number of players drafted per team for the past team tours and the players from the pool that were not drafted (Snake Draft excluded since its smaller + all my homies hate Snake Draft)

Code:
CAPPL VI          |  CAPPL VII         |  CAPCL I        
------------------+--------------------+------------------
Jumbaos     : 9   |  Whimsicotts : 12  |  Venomicons  : 12
Revanankhs  : 11  |  Miasmaws    : 12  |  Garchomps   : 11
Snaelstroms : 9   |  Caribolts   : 12  |  Breezis     : 13
Astrolotls  : 12  |  Snaelstroms : 9   |  Staryus     : 11
Pinecos     : 10  |  Chromeras   : 15  |  Steelix Ds  : 11
Privatykes  : 11  |  Plasmantas  : 13  |  Zeraoras    : 11
------------------+--------------------+------------------
TOTAL       : 62  |  TOTAL       : 73  |  TOTAL       : 69
SELF-BUYS   : 12  |  SELF-BUYS   : 10  |  SELF-BUYS   : 7
REMAINDER   : 24  |  REMAINDER   : 20  |  REMAINDER   : 24
(edit: fixed remainer for cappl VII)

Feel free to interpret this information however you'd like in terms of 6 slots versus 8 slots.

Anyway I'm now going to campaign for 8 slots.

In terms of playerbase and interest in the tier I definitely feel we'd be able to get enough signups to field all 8 slots, team sizes have enough room to grow when factoring in manager buys to meet the demands the extra two slots, and I think interest right now is quite high following lots of cross-meta tournaments, CAPCL itself, and the winding down of other non-standard (AKA not cartridge legal) team tours like OMPLX and the first-ever PMPL. The custom avatar incentive is also a huge point in favor of a large sign-up pool, and with good advertising on that front it's not hard to see the pool of signups grow this season. Even if we just get a little bit more signups as past PLs, which is the upper 80/low 90 range, I still view that as workable for teams.

I do not have any major opinions on lineup, but I do think its important that the metas we choose do not have any concurrent tiering/balance issues. As in, if the Jumbao Humbling Ordination of the Oldgens Fixing and Futureproofing Leadership Representatives (JHO OFFLR) gets through soon and SM is seen as being in a better spot, I think people would be more interested in signing up/building for it. Something like justifying 2 SM is a lot easier IMO if the tier does not have this conception of being "solved." This does mean that BDSP with its Roak shenanigans and stupid Krilowatt does not seem viable for this tier (Also How Is Gliscor Not Banned) so I will echo spoo's sentiment in leaving BDSP for a potential slot in CAPCL II.

TL:DR lets take the plunge into 8 slots like other PLs have done as a proper sendoff to Gen 8 CAP it'd be hype
 
Last edited:
THE number man has recently been coming around to the idea of participating in CAP APPLE, despite initially wanting to sit it out, because these CAP tours have turned into a sort of tradition for me and ive enjoyed every one ive played in so far. Getting back into the meta after a couple months break is always fun.

With that said, I'd like to address the points made in this thread.

First of all, my general philosophy is that any change that brings the tour experience closer to something that feels like a tradition and gives a sense of narrative like the ones that official tours like SPL and SCL have cultivated is a good thing - provided the playerbase is there to support it. That said, here's my stance on the specific issues:

1) 8 slots: STRONGLY SUPPORT for reasons already stated
2) boosting slots: i dislike this idea in an 8 slot tour, also doesn't make sense to me without a bo3 slot
3) RETAINS: STRONGLY SUPPORT, this adds to the feeling of a tradition, of established groups coming back to battle eachother etc.
4) MANAGER PRICES: I SUPPORT SPOO'S PROPOSAL, manager prices should be lowish

Dont forget to COMMENT, LIKE, SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE
 

Garrett

Banned deucer.
1 Bo3 / 3 SS / 2 SM / 2 ORAS on paper sounds completely fine and ensures we have every tier with several players of support, which is better than the solo BW/DPP/BDSP player suffering on their own.

That being said, I expect every single one of you degenerates to find everyone you know with a not-banned Smogon account and get them to signup for CAPPL. Assuming at least 2 subs on every team, we're trying to pick at least 60 players that are decent with the 8 slot option. Most big PLs (exception being SPL) fetch between 1.5x, usually closer to 2x that in signups.

With six teams and using the 82 signups from VII, each team would have ~13 players if every single player was drafted.
The goal is therefore 50% more than last time.
 

Tadasuke

Tuh-dah-skay
is a Community Contributoris a CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Alright hoes, bros, and foes, the CAP metagame mods have finished our discourse atop Mount CAPlympus and I return to you with news from on high. For CAPPL VIII, we have officially decided to commit to having 8 slots each week, comprised of 3 SS / 2 SM / 2 ORAS / 1 Bo3 All Gens. Retains will be implemented in CAPPL IX, so it's suggested that all managers draft with this in mind if they expect to manage again in the future. All manager and assistant manager prices will be set to a default of 12.5k to encourage play from as many people as possible. Additionally, although this wasn't explicitly discussed in this thread, the total budget allotted to each team will be 120k points as opposed to the former 100k to account for the increase in slots played each week.

I'll see you all shortly for player signups!
 
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