Speaking for myself and not the council here.
The current reqs system works well for what it is, funneling in consistent and competent players for voting reqs. It isn't an unreasonable system by any stretch of the word, especially with the new +/-0.2 GXE system that has been implemented last generation to reward a highly successful reqs session and give leverage to those who have a harder time, making them more accessible than ever. As Finch already said, this system is definitely solid and works fairly well, as shown by the incredibly high voterbase in recent months.
That being said, I do believe the current system by itself, while good, could be improved, or at least supplemented in some way. At the end of the day, it's true that your experience and skill in the metagame is tested, but I do subscribe to the idea that its just as much of (if not more of) a stamina test that some people are better suited to approach than others. This admittedly has made it a problem for me in the past prior to me joining the council, and while part of it definitely was a skill issue at the time, I (and I know a good deal of other players who are experienced and I think would definitely deserve the right to vote but struggle with stamina) can have a frustrating time when you factor in fatique and tilt that have the potential to punish you with a greatly damaged (and sometimes even ruined) run off of one or two mistakes and/or the luck of the draw. When the primary initiative behind the current system is to gauge your experience, that can be extremely upsetting, for sure. I think for that reason it's absolutely worthwhile to have a dialogue about; I was having a chat with
viivian about it the other day, and I was waffling a bit on opening a policy review thread. Though I have ultimately decided against it since, like I said, the current system is definitely not broken and works quite well, and allocating resources toward addressing the system when there are other priorities is a bit rough to justify imo. Unless there is a massive wave of support I probably won't be doing so.
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However, while I'm here, I did have two ideas on how to, specifically,
supplement the reqs process. I don't believe removing a functional system is a particularly great idea regardless of its flaws, as there isn't anything fundamental that makes it broken or overtly and arbitrarily skewed toward one group of players.
1: My first suggestion is to
implement suspect tours in some way. This is a pretty common practice in other/unofficial metagames and RoA suspects mostly because they don't have active ladders, but to me it's an excellent voting alternative that focuses exclusively on metagame and skill knowledge. The primary caveat of this is that the scale of OU suspects comparatively can complicate things for the OU room staff who already have a ton on their plates, and voting reqs cutoffs are things that have to be sorted out too. It's not a perfect alternative given the circumstances behind OU but I do think they excel when utilized properly.
2: My second suggestion is one that's a bit rough around the edges, but specifically is a bit inspired by the crazy run of
LusterSN who had literally >100 games before qualifying and hit 1900 before reaching 80% GXE. Another potential alternative could be having an
ELO cutoff alongside a GXE cutoff. This one is one that would need a lot of sorting out regarding what thresholds are truly "correct" so to speak, but there is potential in it. I think a lot of people often dismiss ELO as a way to evaluate someone's experience in the tier. There comes a point where you get past the garbage and truly have to contend with competent players and the metagame at its fullest force. Even if your GXE isn't particularly the best, being at high ELO means you are still effectively winning enough games to even be there in the first place, which requires competency and some degree of experience to achieve and maintain. I personally don't like this one as much as the suspect tour option because of the fact that it's far more fickle to establish boundaries for and could lead to ladder saturation, but whether these are dealbreakers or even problems at all I think is up for debate.
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My own stance is that having voting alternatives alongside the current GXE-based system could be an actively positive thing to encompass a greater range of skilled/experienced players who have a harder time with the stamina-oriented demands of the current system. These are things I personally would support implementing if we have the resources/time, but it is not something that I believe is mandatory or at least not worth prioritizing compared to actually working on the tier. Regardless, I hope this can provide some food for thought.
