Implemented WCoP23 Format Discussion

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Amaranth

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Hello and welcome to yet another WCoP Format Discussion thread lol

A lot of discussion was had about a month before the start of WCoP2022, which evidenced a good deal of unhappiness with x8 CG OU as the format, despite it remaining the most popular option available at the time. We want to nail down the tiers for WCoP23 as quickly as possible so that especially the smaller teams can get to work on finding their best lineups ASAP.

After more discussion with the TD team, we have identified a few potential formats and discussed them - here are the conclusions we came to.

- Full CG OU is not bad. While there are concerns of low variety negatively impacting the spectator experience, the format overall just works. We've seen three new champions in as many years, and I'd say people overall found the tournament adequately exciting. With that said, it is evident from the pre-WCoP22 threads that there is a lot of discontent with it too, so we're happy to look into alternatives.

- We would be unhappy with any format that introduces oldgens without also introducing lowtiers; we believe overall circuit representation between them should be roughly equal, and we also believe introducing oldgens would cause a lot of trouble to the smaller teams and the qualifier teams in general. While we aren't closing the doors on it entirely, we are unconvinced with the prospect of formats such as x2 SV OU + x8 oldgens, or x4 SV OU + x1 each gen 3-8.

- We are strongly considering formats along the lines of the "TDK/ABR proposals" from the WCoP22 threads - something along the lines of x4 SV OU, x3 most recent oldgens, x3 lowtiers. These formats were rather popular in the WCoP22 poll too, and we feel that they would introduce some variety without introducing significant unbalance in representation - we are happy with the notion that the most recent oldgens deserve slightly more representation than ancient ones overall, as they naturally still have larger playerbases. As for the issues with this format, picking which lowtier 'deserves' the spot is a bit of an headache and we haven't settled on a satisfying way to do so - arbitrarily picking, say, UU+RU+NU while excluding other Slam tiers (and Doubles?) feels odd. Also, expanding to 10 slots again will be rather demanding on smaller teams.

- A more radical idea that was suggested to us before WCoP22, but we decided to shelve until now because it requires more time to evaluate, is a format that introduces team picks. Teams would be split in groups of 4 (seeded and drawn based on last year's results to avoid significant unbalance), each team would pick a tier (from a pool of all oldgens + all slam tiers + potentially maybe DOU), and they would then face off in x4 SVOU x4 teampicks. In playoffs, each team would pick 2 tiers instead. We already trust team picks as a mechanic for SPL/SCL tiebreakers (and, in the past, WCoP tiebreakers too), so this isn't too far-fetched of an idea. We believe this has potential for a lot of hype - everyone likes to see the best players playing in their best tiers - but there were concerns over whether teams, especially the smaller ones, would be able to cover every tier, and whether that would influence game quality negatively overall. While I personally don't share these concerns and would be happy to elaborate in a later post, they were prevalent in the TD chat overall.

It also emerged, as a general consideration, that the WCoP format doesn't need to remain the same year after year as long as the formats for future years are decided early enough to allow all teams all the time they need for planning. As such, we would be happy to consider something like x8 CG OU on the first year of each new generation, shifting to something with a more diverse layout for subsequent years.

We are very much looking forward to your feedback now that WCoP2022 is under the belt! (And please keep it related to the format alone for now, more threads will come about eligibility etc in the future!)
 
All CG OU WCoP is the most competitive format, and when the meta isn't stale/bad, it's super fun and interesting.

Prior to WCoP 2022, I argued for the TDK/ABR format. Speaking for myself and most of my team, this was almost purely because we were starting to grow disinterested in all SS OU, and we wanted a change of pace. I think a lot of other people who argued for format changes are in a similar boat. Now that a new generation is coming out, I don't think we will have this issue.

I think this should be assessed on a generation to generation, year to year basis. I know Smogon doesn't usually like doing things this way, but if a big chunk of the community thinks SV sucks, or we are hitting year 3 of all SV WCoP and people are fed up with it, then maybe we can swap to a different format until a new generation comes out. I think the TDK/ABR hybrid format is the second most competitive option in such cases.

The team pick idea seems fun, but it is a far too radical change for a tournament that has been largely successful for years now.
 

Lalaya

Banned deucer.
talking purely as a spectator, all CG OU wasn't bad because the idea is inherently bad, but because SS OU gets really uninteresting after a bunch of battles and it's the tier itself that grew stale to the point that people are unhappy with SS OUx8 (oh BOY I do love futureport regenerator shenaningans for half the battles that go for triple digit turns, or waiting for someone to not bring Slug, or actually build something stupid-ly fun to watch; seriously this tier is stale as hell), but for the first year of SV OU unless it's a genuine hellhole I see no harm into keeping this format, since the tier probably will only benefit for all the games generating from a tier at its infancy, even if it may sound counterintuitive since people could argue about wanting a fully fleshed tier to have as its center

Team picks is my second favourite idea but it's really dependent on the choice you give to the teams about the tiers they can select, getting a perfect balance of "not enough tier to actually impact the choice" and "having too many tiers that everyone and their dog will complain about covering that number of tiers for any potential choice", but I'm assuming it would revolve about lowtiers (or oldgens, but I feel lowtiers are more fitting for a current gen competition like WCoP usually is, and how we have RCOP anyway)

Lastly, the TDK/ABR proposals are also fine (as I would put the idea with the one directly above) as the reasons stated above are perfectly valid, as most recent oldgens definitely deserve more time in the spotlight than the older ones (who already have plenty, anyway) and they can be called in tandem with the biggest/most close to OU lowtiers (Ubers, UU and RU? you can kind of arbitrarily pick the last one I guess), but in general I feel there's no need to change format for the next year.

(cg ou + only oldgens/lowtiers and not the other is dumb)
 
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Corazan

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Full CG OU must be the only format. Some will think It's easy to say for a current gen player like me but I really do believe It's the best for the future of the tournament.

- First of all after discussing with a lot of oldgens players their main argument is always "no variety, same team every game, lack of creativity...". As I answered, blame the meta, not the format. Just imagine if we had this format with a metagame such as Sun&Moon from 2016-2019, It wouldve been so exciting, but now that gen8 has less mons, less moves and the new mech being banned of course there are less room for creativity.

- Second is team cohesion, some will not agree, but Im not gonna lie, If for example the tournament had included old gens and that my team mate Bihi wouldve been slotted in rby or gsc, I wouldnt have spend a single minute in his channel, wouldnt have known him better etc... yes, It's more about social stuff but I do believe It's very IMPORTANT for a team to success.

- It's easier to follow and spectate for everyone and especially for the new players.


Keep in mind that whatever you do, some people will not like it so you gotta go with the "less hated" option I guess. For now as I said recently let's just hope gen9 will be coolos so we can have fun and some boomers will enventually give it a shot like some did in gen7.
 

Cicada

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In my opinion, going with a mix of low tiers and old gens isn't a great idea.

I see where it comes from, tier representation etc, but i think it mixes the cons of both old gen and current gen, i.e less team support for the former and reliance on the meta state for the latter.
Maybe it can work, but imo we shouldn't rule out CG + one of old gen and low tiers just to satisfy an OCD. Wanting an equal representation is one thing, but it shouldn't be a primary criteria.

I don't have a preference at the moment about how the format should evolve, might edit the post later if I manage to settle on one proposal

talking purely as a spectator, all CG OU wasn't bad because the idea is inherently bad, but because SS OU gets really uninteresting after a bunch of battles and it's the tier itself that grew stale to the point that people are unhappy yada yada
In my opinion, CG OU wasn't bad because the idea is, nor because of the meta but because of ppl being too lazy to properly prep against the meta, and clogging themselves too much into the same tried and true things when the meta is wayyy wider than that. Reusing isn't that bad, but there was a clear abuse of that this edition.
I understand people hating on it with what has been shown, but to me this wcop showed more a lack of depth in prep/meta knowledge from the playerbase than an actual issue with it.
But I can get fatigue kicking in because, even though each player use their own teams, there'll be some kind of cohesion behind the thoughts because ppl influence each others in team tour. Tier variance has this pro over full CG, so i'm leaning more towards that if I had to choose rn

tl;dr: Players are to blame, before hating on this wcop meta

(cg ou + oldgens is dumb)
no
 
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z0mOG

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While I greatly appreciate the proactivity in settling a discussion that comes up every year, it is just way too early. A game of Gen 9 OU won't even be played for 4 more months. This is significant because frankly the basis behind almost all arguments are subjective enjoyment or disdain for the varying playable tiers. For all we know, gen 9 could be a repeat of the boring mess gen 8 was, or God's handpicked format. Many of the people holding or pushing an opinion now may not share the same view, or even still be playing the game come next Summer. Very high chance as well that (at least some if not many of) the TDs of now, who would be expected to make a decision, will no longer be in positions of authority come next wcop.

Early discussion = Good, but let's put a pin in this one till at least January if not later?
 

Amaranth

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Early discussion = Good, but let's put a pin in this one till at least January if not later?
Well, no, not really an option because we also need to decide on potential expansion / qualifier formats and that will heavily depend on the number of teams that will sign up, and that in turn highly depends on the tiers and the slots they have to fill. Your point is valid but logistics demand we move quicker, having this discussion during SPL next January and suddenly telling qualifier teams they have 4 months at best to find mains to fill in any potential number of tiers is just not viable logistically. I know it's a boring answer but I think it is absolutely far far better to gather feedback now that the WCoP22 experience is still fresh and start organizing everything ahead of time, as there are too many other variables in play that depend on this.
 

Lalaya

Banned deucer.
In my opinion, CG OU wasn't bad because the idea is, nor because of the meta but because of ppl being too lazy to properly prep against the meta, and clogging themselves too much into the same tried and true things when the meta is wayyy wider than that. Reusing isn't that bad, but there was a clear abuse of that this edition.
...don't fix what ain't broke? as much diversity as it can be on a metagame and how someone can do the "issue" of just recycling, it's not a "problem" people would recognize as such or accept unless its directly impactful on your performance (and usually people tend to stick on whatever the collective in your team thinks is good, anyway)
you can blame players (which is fundamentally right) but if anything I'd recognize the fact that people can't be assed into building for these many different games which leads to helping the argument of adding more non-CG OU tiers, if anything, but I see no reason to exclude oldgens or lowtiers, especially since playing oldgens actively implies you're already playing a shitload of stuff between Classic, the PLs, the respective circuits just to give them a second RCOP sounds wack
same as only lowtiers but at least they... dont have a second lowgens world cup?

(also stealing from cord, ty Expulso)
it would be fun seeing how would fare uniting all the facets of the community in one single tournament, with all of current gen, oldgens and lowtiers representing something truly big and all-encompassing, and would also be a testament of skill in teambuilding and uniting different parts of the community as one, as well as giving the people a more diverse show

what the show would entail is obviously all open to how healthy the tiers are but this ain't a problem of the format itself

(tl;dr as a spectator right now I'm still gravitating towards CG OU the most but TDK/ABR format feels really refreshing and definitely appealing)
 

Clementine

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I don't think it's that bad to have only 1 tier with a new gen (and a new OU tier) for wcop as meta will evolve a lot throughout the tournament and this can only be positive for a developing meta
changing SPL/SCL wouldn't be great at this point, and wcop could be a mix of those to really bring together great players or lower tiers / old gens

therefore, I would support having a mix of lower tiers / old generations of OU in wcop, maybe something like 3*OU, UU, RU, NU (if it's out but im assuming this would be the case), SS, USM, ORAS, and maybe BW but I know how bw mains feel about bw ou, so mayyybe something like a community poll format for the last tier
We could also do something like 2*SS or 2*CG OU depending on how people feel about the tier(s) instead of a 4th old gen
 
Ok, since I've played this tournament this year I really want to express my opinion on that (also because I plan to play for next year too).
I don't want to show disrespect to people with a different idea than mine but I really want to explain why every format outside Full CG OU format ruins the prestige of the tournament.

I'm not going to lie, if I should consider my team at least we would be really more broken with a CG OU + Old Gen Format (I won't consider the lower tier option since I'm 100% sure that a lot of countries that play Wcop don't really have viable lower tier players) but I think that FULL CG OU is still the best option for the following reasons:
With a FULL CG OU Format you have generally a team of 12 players in which everyone can cooperate and can focus only on ONE metagame. I think the argument of "metagames equality" etc. etc. is really bullshit, I don't see why the goal of a tournament should be the equality and not the real competitiveness. I don't consider a tournament competitive if then only a couple of teams are able to fight properly for the trophy. We can't pretend that every country has enough playerbase in which you find people that are interested to play old gens or lower tiers and this means that you'll have in your team players with less support in preparation, building and this is clearly something that does not really happen when you have a team where all 12 players can help one each other because everyone is tryharding only in a metagame.
The Full CG OU was a complete success at least at my eyes since we had 3 completely new WCOP Winners (Italy, US South, France) and also we had a lot of new teams that joined the competition and last but not least every team that in these three years won the tournament was a fair winner. We had a lot of variety in terms of teams who made playoffs in these three years and this shows how much every team is able to win the trophy, every team with same weapons without exceptions and this should be the only thing that should matter.
Also I've seen people who complained about "boring games to watch" etc etc but the truth is that you don't know what you're talking about. Do you expect that with more tiers (like old gens + lower tiers) something will ever change? Obviously NO, don't pretend that the old gens or lower tiers are better to watch... ok at least now I will talk about old gens since I play them more than lower tiers but nothing changes. Just to do some example, what makes you think that people won't spam the same Smurf HO in every BW game? The same lolstalls in DPP? We want to talk about the "variety" we have in gsc or rby? We want to talk about ORAS too? LMAO 12 people in a team are generally lazy as fuck to prepare in ONE SINGLE METAGAME and we expect them to find new ideas, to not recycle teams etc when they need to prepare FOR LITERALLY MORE THAN ONE META??? Don't complain about "metagame variety", "same teams spammed" etc. because it's a problem of the team, not of the format. As we have seen teams who fucking tryhard to explore new ideas in a FULL CG OU format will always be rewarded (France is an example).
It's fair that a team doesn't have enough playerbase or enough people to be involved in literally 8 different OU gens + Lower tiers, but it's not fair crying about a FULL CG OU format that gives to literally every team the chance to win. Keep away the loltier representation argument outside this tournament, thank you and just tryhard more, in this way you'll have for sure a chance to win the tournament.


Thanks for your attention
 
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Finchinator

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I strongly support keeping all CG OU for next year and all years that are immediately following a release. I believe this gives the community a great chance to witness our new, hopefully fun metagame and allows us to advance the tier as well. It is also a convenient solution for now as it is the status quo.

I am ok keeping it for other years if there is support, too, but also am ok exploring other formats so long as they have at least 4-5 CG OU such as the one with the mix of old generations and lower tiers. I do not think the support is currently there for these though, so that may be moot and CG OU may be fine to maintain after all.
 

Sage

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Would generally support team picks with OU Bias > all OU >>> rest, I think diversifying the structures of team tours would make for a more exciting yearly schedule, but don't have any major issues with Full OU being the standard as long as there are continued yearly discussions to evaluate burnout. World Cup is a tour that is heavily defined by the styles and personalities of each Country, and a team picks format would exemplify that to me by letting different star players / focuses on each Roster shine, and it would produce very fun matchups and a different level of lineup strategy. Agree with Zomog that these are mostly subjective arguments anyway that do need to factor in the quality of the meta / what the community consensus is at the time. I also think if we started experimenting more with our tours we could improve the entire tournament schedule (let's find something interesting for SCL that isn't just SPL but with Lower Tiers), but that might be a problem for another thread lol.
 

Vileman

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So we've seen sv is cool n fun and whatevs. Is 8 SV OU the preferred format still? I'd like to see some discussion so qualifier teams can start thinking about our lineups :pirate:

imo as much as all cg ou is boring af as a spectator, this just isn't the year to change it. Yeah, i love old gens, but we have a fun format and with pokemon home on its way (hopefully?) we get a fresh fun tier to explore in a big tournament.

Using this as a bump to this thread and to see if theres pushback for another format with legitimate arguments, other than "i like old gens all cg ou is boring".
 

MrAldo

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Yes, I firmly believe the wcop being all current gen has been strictly beneficial for the tournament identity and honest enjoyment as a whole, giving everyone a fair chance and rising the upset potential a lot more. This shouldnt change, please keep it like this as long as possible.
 

Lalaya

Banned deucer.
strictly as a spectator but like STRIKE THE IRON WHILE'S HOT
there is literally 0 reason to switch format, SV OU is still in a upward curve, there's so much experimentation to be done, there will be more post-HOME, and this is the first year of the new format, so no excuses on seeing a "solved" meta like SS

this year absolutely just go all SV OU, every other format is inferior and will gatekeep a lot of teams anyway, either through oldgens or lowtiers

if you really wanna experiment on other tiers for some reason don't waste the first year of a new meta
 
run the same survey used last year with updated formats, see what the players support, and establish this as the standard for wcop format decision each year. all sv ou / sv ou + old gens / sv ou + low tiers should be included in survey, no hybrid/inclusive bs formats
 

Amaranth

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run the same survey used last year with updated formats, see what the players support, and establish this as the standard for wcop format decision each year. all sv ou / sv ou + old gens / sv ou + low tiers should be included in survey, no hybrid/inclusive bs formats
i fundamentally dont believe in surveys done the way we did them last year for reasons outlined in posts made last year; chief amongst them many teams will vote what's best for their team rather than what's best for the tournament

i'm not against them if it's what the people want, but i think it's a silly way to make decisions
 

MANNAT

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i fundamentally dont believe in surveys done the way we did them last year for reasons outlined in posts made last year; chief amongst them many teams will vote what's best for their team rather than what's best for the tournament

i'm not against them if it's what the people want, but i think it's a silly way to make decisions
So to be clear, you are saying that you don't believe we should use the format that is best for the most teams? In my opinion that would probably be the best format for the tournament as a whole.
 

Isa

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So to be clear, you are saying that you don't believe we should use the format that is best for the most teams? In my opinion that would probably be the best format for the tournament as a whole.
what is best for a team differs from what is best for a tournament. see spl 5 where managers were allowed to vote on what format should make the last slot, ousting RBY in favor of LC.

i think there is still merit in surveying the community opinion but your objection is flawed.
 

mael

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i think there is still merit in surveying the community opinion but your objection is flawed.
i disagree. when teams vote on what's best for them, whatever is best for most teams is gonna be what wins. not the preference of one team wins but the option that is prefered by most teams. maybe what is best for a specific team differs what is best for the tournament, but whatever option is best for the biggest number of teams is arguably also best for the tournament.

not saying that u should vote on format every year or anything but his objection was correct.
 
mannat and mael are correct. conducting a survey is harmless and tds don't have to use it as absolute criteria. it did a good job in diffusing conflicting opinions on wcop's format last year. even if it's intuitive to do all cg ou for this edition, i think it's good practice to survey the playerbase each year. facilitating democracy should be preferred to executive decision from tournament directors; it should be up to what most players/teams want.
 

Amaranth

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conducting a survey is harmless and tds don't have to use it as absolute criteria. it did a good job in diffusing conflicting opinions on wcop's format last year.
This is very easy to say when you are not on the side that's being harrassed.
Last year I literally tried to not use it as absolute criteria and there was a remarkable amount of conflict that you directly caused. just saying.

even if it's intuitive to do all cg ou for this edition, i think it's good practice to survey the playerbase each year. facilitating democracy should be preferred to executive decision from tournament directors; it should be up to what most players/teams want.
I'd love if I could accurately and fairly sample "the playerbase" but I do not see a good way to do that.
Last year all CG won because a lot of teams struggled to fill slots in other formats. If those teams suddenly find new oldgen talent they'll swap their votes in a heartbeat. Giving each team 1 vote is not a good representation of what is good for the tournament, it's a representation of how many teams think they'd do better with a different format and nothing else.

It's also unclear if qualifier teams should get a say in this - arguably a good number of them have decent chances of making top16.
And I'm pretty convinced the methodology used last year was wack too, some teams for instance would have loved to vote two formats 5/5 and two formats 1/5 but due to how the vote was formatted that nuance was lost.

If we try to survey individuals instead of teams it raises the obvious problem of establishing who should be in the voter pool, especially when we're talking about potentially including tiers that have never been in WCoP before.

As long as a good way to survey teams that doesn't run into these issues is found, I see them as fairly useless if not outright dangerous (by providing questionable data and presenting it as objective truth).

I hope these objections clear up my doubts about the process, MANNAT
 
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