Tournament ZUPL IV - Format Discussion

[Greybaum]

(ftr since this was just mostly on discord we thought this was dumb already and went for a more traditional 15k + diff
also going negative was never in the plans anyway, its just "someone will cost single digit k more")

15k + differential is still dumb for all the reasons i already laid out. why is czim going for 4.5k less than ho3n when his standing is partially unfortunate but also a direct result of flexing to other tiers (e.g. where he lost to LPY in SM)? people in the discord called him the absolute best ss zu player for a while (idk if that's still general opinion) and the dude is definitely capable of going 3-1 again like he did in the first zupl. people are always going to have disappointing runs and making at least one player disproportionately stronger makes no sense to me. this year said privileged players would be czim and rawmelon if either feel like managing.
also can you clarify why differential from playoff games is being included when this means the two statistically strongest teams are potentially having their price lowered via more, difficult games that players from other teams don't face? i might be misremembering but iirc in zupl II yovan had two back to back losses against durza because of a tiebreak that don't show up on his otherwise 4-1 pre-playoffs record. this also lead to durza being 4-2 instead of 2-2.

since retains are still discussed this + a potential retain would literally mean deciding 1/3 of the team before draft which is honestly going against the point of the draft itself imo
so basically either we allow one or the other

if there are genuine drawbacks for self-buying then it's still heavily impacting the draft plan. you cannot make a concrete draft plan when you're working with 30-36k less than other teams to purchase 7 additional players and are doubtlessly going to have to make more on-the-fly draft decisions. this rewards drafting skill, it doesn't take away from it.

you're also not accounting for the fact that most teams won't want to self-buy. again, 30-36-whateverk is a very notable amount and i can't actually think of more than one or two teams that would want to double self-buy in the first place. durza didnt even buy himself last year and he's still getting a 18.5k heysup and whatever comanager he wants as part of his draft. i cant see how double buying is going to be broken when the best team last year didnt have a self bought manager while all the other teams did

 

[Lalaya]

making at least one player disproportionately stronger makes no sense to me.

I mean, you can literally argue this but with prices "bro this mf is like twice as strong as me/everyone else and hes going for 15k?" the truth of it is there isn't a clear factor in determining which guy is worth which price if there wasnt a system to do so in the first place, also poffs are not counted (and this was said like a month ago, but if it was only said on discord my bad for not being fully transparent here) for the sake of the statistic so its not like whoever had the better run gets privileged
15k+wins/diff/whatever was a way to balance the playing field in a way that the players themselves can control by actually performing, thats the only difference in my eyes from that to a flat 15k (and its not like we're the first implementing a fluctuating pricing system anyways)

if there are genuine drawbacks for self-buying then it's still heavily impacting the draft plan.

My point was just that fixing the teams to 2 or 3/8 (if we allow double manager + retain) to it just invalidates the point of doing a draft in the first place, not the fact that you need to do a better/worse draft
and retains give identity to a team better than double managers do, if I had to choose what to apply

again, nowhere in my point was the consequence of buying two instead of one (or three), as I'm aware how a draft works and how your decision to buy them affects your draft in different ways (such as not being able to shoot to the moon for another big player, but to be fair if you already buy three players you're convinced to you shouldn't need to)
but w/e thats enough on the tangent of the good/bad drafting plan

you're also not accounting for the fact that most teams won't want to self-buy.

I know giving a choice is usually better than not, but still this would literally take away almost nothing if we limit the selfbuy to 1 anyway, as you just said (or even 0)

but anyway the point is: I'm not considering to hold off a selfbuy because of drafting skill, I'm considering it because having 3/8 of the team already decided undermines the point of drafting in the first place in my opinion, regardless of what said 3/8 might bring on the table for their team (which could be a potential advantage anyway since, back on the tangent of the draft, you're gaining an advantage by having 3/8 already ready, or you might not! Potentially all could happen, but I'd like to see it happen on the draft)

-----

(ftr I'm good with either system, it's just hosting preference and obviously it wouldn't be considered if everyone would be against it, although in the end this just hits managers so if anything they should get a chance to express themselves about it when we decide them)

 

[Greybaum]

i just dont see 3 out of 10 players (more likely 11 or 12 based off prior drafts) to actually be a significant amount of the draft being compromised. chances are there wont be a team that 1. existed last year 2. have two managers who want to play 3. a viable retain and even if there is they have at least 7 more players to pick and it's likely going to be more. the same logic is applied to OU where neither manager is allowed to play and it clearly works for them. obviously it's just a matter of opinion where the line should be drawn and at what point you're making the draft less interesting but i think cutting off the possible manager combinations hurts the tour far more than possibly having an extra pre-draft player confirmed.

on variable pricing i understand the logic but having a flat rate is better to me than using a system that incorrectly prices people. a limited number of games from likely an entirely different meta (if playing ss) is a horrible way of pricing player ability and having a flat "everyone is _k" seems more fair to me than a system using criteria that doesn't properly reflect anything even if both systems are imperfect.

 

[Lalaya]

chances are there wont be a team that 1. existed last year 2. have two managers who want to play 3. a viable retain and even if there is they have at least 7 more players to pick and it's likely going to be more.

(for point 1: in case of retains being allowed, managers that didnt manage a older team can pick from a zupl 3's roster to give all of them the availability to)
that being said i said 3/8 instead of 10 because im assuming you're gonna buy and retain people that are not gonna sit on the bench, obviously not everyone is going to do it but as you said it's just a matter of opinions here, and id rather cut that possibility away while still letting people malleably decide to play/manage/retain

variable pricing vs flat rate pricing: exactly, both are imperfect at the end but aside from people not trying enough as players and ruining their runs (their fault, and we dont count negative diff anyway) i believe its just whatever
like this only goes on manager pricing anyway and if you played a certain tier last zupl chances are you'll end up playing the same anyway
idk its fine either way and we can always try this year to axe next year potentially so really I dont see the problem in trying to implement it anyway

 

[Tuthur]

Speaking on behalf of ZU tier leaders, we have taken some decisions based on the discussions taken in this thread.

- We are sticking to the original schedule. This should come as no surprise as nobody asked for it to get delayed, especially with no rises happening in July.
- Managers will signup with a comanager. There has been a lot of support for this change and nobody seemed opposed.
- Only one self-buy will be allowed in order to avoid people abusing the system. The default pricing will be 15k with an additional cost of 1k time the differential for the managers who went positive last ZUPL. This is not a perfect system, but no self-buy system is perfect and this one seemed both fair enough and popular.
- Each team will be allowed to retain one player from their past edition's team (new managers will be assigned a team from a non-returning manager). The pricing for retain will be given by the maximum of 10k and last year's pricing + 3k.
- We lean toward 4th SS for the last slot, but keep the discussion open for bo3 (SS/SM/ORAS), bo3 (SS/SM/BW), and 2nd BW. The final decision will be based on signups and we'll invite the people who signup to manifest their interest for the bo3 slots in their signup.

edit: sorry, i originally missread the actual selbuy proposal and edited the post with the right factor of 1k instead of 1.5k.

 

[JdRDMS]

Gonna throw in my two cents on the format, even though I haven't played in a while.

I feel like Bo3 (SS, SM, BW) would be the best choice of the four in the post above. As Toto said a few posts ago, burnout issues between SS4 and Bo3 wouldn't change for a well-drafted team. This would also be a good compromise for both those who want SS4 and those who want BW2, with SM2 thrown in as well. I haven't seen anyone vying for ORAS2. On that note, I think in the Bo3, the SM game should be the last one played, or the tiebreaker, since SS4 and BW2 are what we're really split between, and this way, those games would be guaranteed.

I don't think this post is super revolutionary or blowing anyone away, but like I said at the start, I just wanted to give my opinion on the situation.