Hi all, I wanted to propose an alternative Optional Rule instead of Own Finish, for WBO Beyblade X Formats.

This is in regards to this is instantaneous launches directly into the Over or Xtreme Zones.
Not touching the "Battle Zone" at all.

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Context:

Spoiler (Click to View)

In our area, the overall majority tends to like Beyblades given a "fair" time or chance to "actually battle."

While I think this is a fair viewpoint, I understand the need to penalize a Mislaunch to encourage improvement, especially in a Ranked context.
This also keeps events running at a good pace, which is very important.

However, some Bladers that have accidentally launched directly into the pockets are not being given a "fair" chance at the battle.

Best outcome being- coming back into the Battle Zone, with a portion of their RPM lost, which could make it potentially easier for an opponent to win.
Worst outcome being- not coming back at all and giving their opponent 2-3 Points.

One might say "Why not just not use Own Finish?"

Well;
The Tobu Zoo G2 event introduced Own Finish seemingly as a way to encourage contact between Beys as the proper battle start method for full points to start counting.

While I have found Own Finish generally very good after being introduced to the WBO's X Format, I have recently started to feel the Rule's intent is being lost.

The rule feels intended to be made for Bladers to not feel as bad about self-pocketing without contact, but if any miniscule contact is made, the full amount of points will be awarded in the event of a Self-Pocket Finish.

I think a Beyblade doing 3+ laps around the stadium, without touching another Beyblade, then self-pocketing feels very unfair to an opponent who might be launching in specific ways to avoid contact.
Their skills would be only be awarded 1 Point, just because of a lack of contact.

It feels unfair as well on the other side, in the case of Beys barely grazing each other, then self-pocketing.
It doesn't even feel like the Own Finish rule is working in it's intended spirit, at that point.

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As for Judging;

I feel Own Finish ends up making matches harder to judge in multiple ways.

Judges already have to be intently looking for mid-air contact, keep track of things like penalties, and be on their toes with the initiation and scoring of points. It's rewarding and fun, but it's also a lot.

With Own Finish, you have another layer of looking for Bey-on-Bey contact intently the entire battle to make sure they do or don't graze before judging it as an Own Finish.

With how erratic and spontaneous matches can be in Beyblade X, (not to mention how loud or distracting events can be), I feel like looking for this Bey-on-Bey contact can become unnecessarily stressful.

It takes a lot of the fun out of judging a match.
Often I find myself intently looking for that Bey-on-Bey contact just to rule out an Own Finish as a soon as possible and not worry anymore.

I am aware that now judges are very much encouraged to not use footage or player-words as a means to influence their call, but it feels bad to decide games based on these hair-grazes.
I find it easy to still be second guessing the outcome due to this rule can be a bit stressful on the mind after a match.

Not to mention that in a lot of cases, checking said footage can be incredibly time consuming if the device can't go frame by frame, and it ends up adding far more time than I think is worth having the positive uses of Own Finish.

Even if you do check the footage, and find that micro-bit of contact, it feels particularly horrible to tell the would-be winner that they did graze, so they now have to play another match which could potentially change the entire outcome.

All this to say, I think the best use case for Own Finish is to reduce the points for beys that are shot into a pocket instantly at battle start.

I also think if people really are still accustomed to playing this way, they can be allowed to as well, but I think this is a better competitive and sensible compromise than Own Finish or "Vanilla."

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Current Rules:

Spoiler (Click to View)

Own finish

• When you score an Xtreme finish or over finish against a Bey that did not touch your Bey during the battle, it is considered an own finish instead.
  
• When you score an own finish, you receive 1 point. Then, the battle is replayed.
  
• This optional rule can be applied to individual stages of the event.
  

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Proposal:

I would like to propose Pocket Start - A term defining the initial start of the battle, for when a Blader launches directly into the Over/Xtreme Zones.
(This means they must not have touched the Battle Zone at all.)

I believe this will be easier to judge within the first few moments of battle.
Judges already watch intently for mid-air, so seeing if a Beyblade completely missed the Battle Zone should be much easier than intently watching like a hawk the entire match for even a mild graze of Bey-on-Bey contact for a longer portion of the match.


Proposed Rules:

• When you launch your Beyblade directly into the Xtreme Finish or Over Finish, and did not touch the Battle Zone upon initial Stadium contact, it is considered a Pocket Start instead.
  
• When your opponent launches directly into the Over or Xtreme Zones, Pocket Start activates and you receive 1 Point.
  Then, the battle is replayed.
  
• This optional rule can be applied to individual stages of the event.
  

My hope is that this Optional Rule can sort-of bridge the divide for some WBO scenes, offering some; but not total leniency for Beyblades that "didn't get a chance" (so to speak).

I feel that the battle should be immediately cancelled by the judge upon Pocket Start, and the proper "Battle Start" condition should be when both Beys touch the Battle Zone. I think that can be up for debate though.

Additionally, you would be able to use Own Finish for the First Stage, and then minorly "increase difficulty" in Final Stage with this "Pocket Start" ruling, without completely re-instating full points.

Thank you for reading, and I appreciate any feedback!
I hope some type of variation will be considered!

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Being 2 years into X now I think the idea is good. The reason I like using own finish is due to the "no fun" barrier it puts on new people that always end up shooting straight into the pocket. But the THERE WAS NO CONTACT discourse that comes with it is tiring and bothersome. This would completely eliminate it and make combos/launch tech designed for evading attacks more validated as someone not being able to "control" their attack bey feel the consequences. While at the same time, letting newer players not feel punished and have a bigger barrier of entry for their first time playing. I like being able to bring my family that gets to play the game once a year due to being in countries where it's inaccessible, and they still have fun with the game without as much experience and launch ability as a more experienced player.

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I'm pretty new to competitive Beyblade, so I can't speak to any long-term consequences, but to me this makes a lot of sense! As a newer player liable to messing up this seems like a very fair compromise.

Everything below is my personal opinion and not representative of the WBO as a whole (I am not Organized Play, anyhow )

So I think my reservations are how much harder it seems to actually judge this. If I had video footage, it would have to be at a good angle to see if the Bey actually touched the stadium floor and not just get flung into the pocket (which I suspect most of these launches do, just too fast for the human eye to see). Where as Bey contact is usually easy to spot, especially since there is usually a sound aspect as well, even though you do touch on that it cannot be 100%. This also doesn't take into account stadium rotation can affect footage angles as well.

If I don't have footage, it would usually look like they insta-pocketed it. I can see why one would want this rule in place. Reduces the amount of replays.

My biggest concern though, is that I think we don't actually need any Own Finish style rule and its a crutch that players have hung onto. No other generation/format has a similar rule, and you can easily self-KO in those generations if you aren't playing smart or are relatively new to the game. Launching is apart of the game, and if we keep adding rules that reduce the punishment for bad launches, it will just lengthen games. I have personally seen a reduction in Own Finishes since removing it from my events (to the chagrin of my players). If the Regular Class (Under 13) B4 players can play without Own Finish, I think most of our players can too.

Overall, I think we need to encourage more Unranked play, especially if we want to test out clauses like this or have more casual events so people don't feel like they are sweating all the time. We are in Season 0, anyways. What better time to test out new rules than now

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Got that wombo combo

Spoiler (Click to View)

Everything below is my personal opinion and not representative of the WBO as a whole (I am not Organized Play, anyhow )

So I think my reservations are how much harder it seems to actually judge this. If I had video footage, it would have to be at a good angle to see if the Bey actually touched the stadium floor and not just get flung into the pocket (which I suspect most of these launches do, just too fast for the human eye to see). Where as Bey contact is usually easy to spot, especially since there is usually a sound aspect as well, even though you do touch on that it cannot be 100%. This also doesn't take into account stadium rotation can affect footage angles as well.

If I don't have footage, it would usually look like they insta-pocketed it. I can see why one would want this rule in place. Reduces the amount of replays.

My biggest concern though, is that I think we don't actually need any Own Finish style rule and its a crutch that players have hung onto. No other generation/format has a similar rule, and you can easily self-KO in those generations if you aren't playing smart or are relatively new to the game. Launching is apart of the game, and if we keep adding rules that reduce the punishment for bad launches, it will just lengthen games. I have personally seen a reduction in Own Finishes since removing it from my events (to the chagrin of my players). If the Regular Class (Under 13) B4 players can play without Own Finish, I think most of our players can too.

Overall, I think we need to encourage more Unranked play, especially if we want to test out clauses like this or have more casual events so people don't feel like they are sweating all the time. We are in Season 0, anyways. What better time to test out new rules than now

I actually did have Tuckwolf run this for me at The Kamendalorian Season 2. It ironically only kicked into effect maybe once or twice the whole event, but I believe that it still makes good sense as a rule regardless.

I did unironically get that comment of "man I really feel the need to lock in when Own Finish is off with my launches". Even the thought of just instantly losing that one point from Pocket Start was whipping people into shape.

We usually judge with the pockets facing furthest away, so judges are looking directly at the contact with the Battle Zone every time.
It's a lot easier to look directly through the clear back than the obscured and hard to see pocket portion with its molded logos and clips reflecting.


I agree that we do not have a need for Own Finish, because what it opens up is a "can of worms" for poor calls and potentially unsatisfying game finishes.

Launching

A Battle is prompted with the call of “3–2–1 Go Shoot!” and begins when both Beyblades have made contact with the Launch Area of the Stadium at least once.

Both bladers must simultaneously launch their Beyblades as the word “shoot” is called.

• A legal launch must have the Beyblade enter the Stadium within the Launch Area, with the Beyblade released from the launcher less than 20cm above the Stadium floor.
  
• Keep your Launcher held within your KO half of the BeyStadium. Never attempt to obstruct your opponent’s launch.
  
• Bladers cannot shoot their Beyblade onto the opponent's Beyblade mid-air.
  
• Do not touch the BeyStadium at any time. If you think the BeyStadium should be adjusted, ask a judge.
  
• If a winder-based launcher is being used, a legal launch consists of the winder being pulled out of the launcher, rather than pushed in.
  

Launch Area

• Beyblades must be launched into the Launch Area.
  
• The Launch Area is the area of the stadium floor bounded by the stadium walls, or in the case of stadiums with shroud components, the stadium floor directly below and bounded by the shroud’s top opening.
  
• In stadiums with entry ramp structures which slope towards the central Play Area (such as the Beystadium Triple Battle Type), these are also considered Launch Areas.
  

Above is what is written in regards to Legacy formats in their rulebooks.

The Battle begins when a Beyblade touches the Stadium Floor, meaning that when a Bey is shot completely past the stadium, it does not count as a self KO.

Since Over and Xtreme Zones are analogous to outside of the Stadium in old formats (on the Bakuten and Metal Fight Dishes mostly,) I view the pockets as a sort of "invalid start position" inherently.

What I am sort of getting at here is that Pocket Start would bridge the gap for that.

On old formats it would completely be a reshoot, vs now where its obvious why its a lot harder to do so (X has much more lenient positioning and a larger dish, with pockets only on one side.) while maintaining the X gameplay which is rebounds galore.

We were playing this way for a while, where reshoots were the normalcy for launches like this. But nowadays reflecting on our many conversations on the Discord around this topic, I can absolutely see how abusable this would be. I think the rare -1 point for a straight in Pocket Start definitely feels like the right way to go about encouraging improvement in events overall, regardless of being Ranked or Unranked.

I think that instituting this over Own Finish sooner than later would make a lot more sense as this doesn't really feel like an unpunishing rule; unlike Own Finish, where Beys can really get away with a lot of failure ;p

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Personally (and maybe this is just me), but this kind of feels like a solution looking for a problem imo. I think it's exceedingly rare that the actual conditions would be met in normal play (launching "hole-in-one" directly into a pocket without touching the floor at all) unless a player was doing unusual or exaggerated launches. Not to mention, while I can't seem to find it at the moment, I recall there being a mislaunch rule that already covered this scenario. I do see part of it in the X Rulebook, specifically

"Every time a blader commits two launch errors without either blader scoring any points, the opposing blader will receive 1 point (a penalty point)." -X Rulebook, Rules of Battle, Launching, Launch Errors.

I am also a fan of the current own finish rules, as it allows for a bit of lenience with imbalanced blades or excessively erratic bits while still allowing for full points to be scored against said parts. To be blunt, I find that blade contact is typically very easy to judge, much easier than whether a bey was launched directly into a pocket or if it bounced off the floor of the battle zone before entering a pocket. Although this may also be because I prefer to simply replay a battle if the results are unclear, rather than waste time deliberating and risk a potentially biased ruling in order to avoid delaying the match.

Perhaps the proposed "Pocket Start" rule could be refined to apply to any bey that enters a pocket within X period of time (maybe just one or two seconds) immediately after launch without blade contact, triggering a replay regardless of whether or not the bey returns to play? In fact, you could integrate it into the current Own Finish rules, as both rely on a non-contact condition being met. For example:

Pocket Start/Own Finish: 
        Pocket Start: When a bey enters an Xtreme Finish or Over Finish zone within (X period of time) after launch, and blades have not made contact, it is considered a Pocket Start. No points are awarded, and the battle is replayed. If a player has received more than (1-2?) Pocket Start rulings in one match, then they are to be considered as Own Finishes.
        Own Finish: When a bey enters an Xtreme Finish or Over Finish zone after the conditions for Pocket Start have expired, and blades have not made contact, it is considered an Own Finish. The opponent is awarded one point, and the battle is replayed.
        Contact: If both blades make contact after battle starts (See "Starting and Ending Battle"), then neither Pocket Start nor Own Finish can be ruled for that battle.


Obviously, this would need to be simplified and made clearer to understand, but it's just meant to be a rough draft of what a potential rule change could look like.


I would also like to take a moment to reply and give my thoughts on this, if I have space left to do so:

Everything below is my personal opinion and not representative of the WBO as a whole (I am not Organized Play, anyhow )

So I think my reservations are how much harder it seems to actually judge this. If I had video footage, it would have to be at a good angle to see if the Bey actually touched the stadium floor and not just get flung into the pocket (which I suspect most of these launches do, just too fast for the human eye to see). Where as Bey contact is usually easy to spot, especially since there is usually a sound aspect as well, even though you do touch on that it cannot be 100%. This also doesn't take into account stadium rotation can affect footage angles as well.

If I don't have footage, it would usually look like they insta-pocketed it. I can see why one would want this rule in place. Reduces the amount of replays.

My biggest concern though, is that I think we don't actually need any Own Finish style rule and its a crutch that players have hung onto. No other generation/format has a similar rule, and you can easily self-KO in those generations if you aren't playing smart or are relatively new to the game. Launching is apart of the game, and if we keep adding rules that reduce the punishment for bad launches, it will just lengthen games. I have personally seen a reduction in Own Finishes since removing it from my events (to the chagrin of my players). If the Regular Class (Under 13) B4 players can play without Own Finish, I think most of our players can too.

Overall, I think we need to encourage more Unranked play, especially if we want to test out clauses like this or have more casual events so people don't feel like they are sweating all the time. We are in Season 0, anyways. What better time to test out new rules than now

I've basically agreed with you already in my above comments with regards to your first point about judging difficulty and ruling on bey contact, but I would like to give a few counterpoints in favor of Own Finish as a rule (even though it's an optional rule anyways, lol). 
For starters, the X stadium is vastly different from stadiums used in other generations/formats; having a larger and taller shroud than both the Burst Standard and the Burst DX Set stadiums. It is also the first TT stadium to my knowledge that has all of the pockets on one side, with explicitly preferable launching sides for some players and customizations. Most inarguably, beys both launch and perform more differently in it than in previous standard stadiums; in part due to the differences listed above, but also due to the bowl shape and the X line.

While it is true that self-KOs and bad launches were easier and more commonplace in previous generations, the fact that the consistency of both the stadiums, and the beys performance in them, allowed for consistent launches can't be ignored either. Beys cannot be flower patterned or tornado stalled like in the past, and the launching positions (in my opinion, at least) have become cramped due to the size and height of the shroud, as well as winder launchers being uniquely viable and ripcords jutting into players' launch spaces. Perhaps in normal play it is a reasonable amount of space with two players flat launching, but as players have been discovering and starting to use new launch techniques, angling their launchers and taking different positions; it begins to feel claustrophobic.

All of this is to say that while launching is a part of the game, both launch techniques and the stadium itself have vastly changed in this generation. I think we can all agree that the way attack types are launched and played has changed considerably (for better or for worse), and a partial loss of control and consistency in avoiding self-KOs has come as a side effect to that. No other generation or format has had or has needed a rule like Own Finish, this is true; although X itself is also unlike any other generation or format. So, who's to say that such a rule is not needed here?


Anyways thank you for coming to my impromptu ted talk, I did not mean to write an essay lmao