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+--- Thread: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem (/Thread-Group-Stage-and-the-Competitive-Problem)
Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 17, 2018
So for a while now it has come to my attention that Group Stage is becoming a larger and larger issue for competitive bladers, there are two ways to handle it essentially and two major ways to approach a Group Stage battle.
1. Pick my favorite Bey, and hope it doesn’t get countered.
If I enter a group stage event with my Prized wValkyrie combo, that say magically beats ALL right spin beys, but randomly go up against a dFafnir in the dirst two rounds and get shut out of the event, theree was no launching skill, no Beyblade technique I could have employed to win those rounds, I got countered, and that feels bad. If that happened to anyone they would likely, and rightfully feel cheated.
2. Walk around the event venue for a while gathering data and seeing what people are playing, so when you face them you know what to counter.
This is an issue too, cause that’s not Beyblade skill, that’s POKER. Just using a dFafnir in oractice rounds so the opponent will use bLonginus to counter you, and having a cRagnaruk ready? That’s not Beyblade.
Basically what this post comes down to is the basic need for a competitive “sport”, or just any game that wants to be taken seriously needs to be able to remain skillful. I’ve had plenty of potential bladers get turned off and away from it because of the group stage.
I propose that we do away with the group stage as it is now, it can remain a double elemination bracket, but for the sale of competitivity MUST have a deck involved. For the sake of time we could have bladers submit a decklist, and have all bladers not be able to switch decks, increasing the need for knowledge of roles and counters and skillful deck building, while remaining 2/3 (which I assert is a good move, 2/3 should remain the staple of groul stage) my phone is starting to lag about how long this post is, so i’ll leave a TL;DR and will say my further points as responses when the questions arise.
TL;DR: Group Stage is either RNG, or poker, it isn’t beyblade in essence, and any game that wants to be ranked, or taken at all seriously needs ways to entice the actually competitive players, and reward competitive strategy.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - King Loofa - May. 18, 2018
As much as people want to use attack types, the slope of the burst stadium is too shallow to make attack types really consistent. As for the existence of opposite rotation, general physics of the tops kind of force even more of a stamina based meta. I think forcing people to use the same combos throughout the tournament would lock everyone into using safe stamina combos that would reduce some of the tournament.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
(May. 18, 2018 12:05 AM)King Loofa Wrote: As much as people want to use attack types, the slope of the burst stadium is too shallow to make attack types really consistent. As for the existence of opposite rotation, general physics of the tops kind of force even more of a stamina based meta. I think forcing people to use the same combos throughout the tournament would lock everyone into using safe stamina combos that would reduce some of the tournament.
That’s why once again it would be a deck you were locked into, always being able to use those 3 beys. so you’d have to have more than just a safe stamina type, cause everyone would have counters to both spin directions of stamina types in their decks. It allows for a certain degree of counterplay besides randomly getting dunked on by a complete counter.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - RedPanda2 - May. 18, 2018
like all sports, there is always some amount of luck involved
getting cold countered is never fun, but “them's the breaks”
in double elim group play, if it happens twice, the tournament is over for you
but if it happens only once, you can still get third place which is still great
what i don’t want is a 10+ hour tournament
double elim makes sure we won’t have to have them
it’s an acceptable trade off, imo
a beyblade tournament is many things
but it’s never going to be a totally objective and exclusive display of pure skills
luck is always going to be a factor
but just like the rest of life,
thinking the right thoughts and doing the right things, still puts you in position to succeed
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
(May. 18, 2018 12:37 AM)RedPanda2 Wrote: like all sports, there is always some amount of luck involved
getting cold countered is never fun, but “them's the breaks”
in double elim group play, if it happens twice, the tournament is over for you
but if it happens only once, you can still get third place which is still great
what i don’t want is a 10+ hour tournament
double elim make sure we won’t have to have them
it’s an acceptable trade off, imo
a beyblade tournament is many things
but it’s never going to be a totally objective and exclusive display of pure skills
luck is always going to be a factor
but just like the rest of life,
thinking the right thoughts and doing the right things, still puts you in position to succeed
It wouldn’t be any where near 10 hours. Still best 2/3, no “replay” same as it always was, except that players bring the decks with them for each round.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - RedPanda2 - May. 18, 2018
(May. 18, 2018 2:17 AM)EpicTurtwig Wrote:(May. 18, 2018 12:37 AM)RedPanda2 Wrote: like all sports, there is always some amount of luck involved
getting cold countered is never fun, but “them's the breaks”
in double elim group play, if it happens twice, the tournament is over for you
but if it happens only once, you can still get third place which is still great
what i don’t want is a 10+ hour tournament
double elim make sure we won’t have to have them
it’s an acceptable trade off, imo
a beyblade tournament is many things
but it’s never going to be a totally objective and exclusive display of pure skills
luck is always going to be a factor
but just like the rest of life,
thinking the right thoughts and doing the right things, still puts you in position to succeed
It wouldn’t be any where near 10 hours. Still best 2/3, no “replay” same as it always was, except that players bring the decks with them for each round.
it depends on the town and day. attendance is trending up.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - The Supreme One - May. 18, 2018
I agree with RedPanda2. Attendance is certainly trending upwards and deck format and the process of waiting for players to decide whether to switch and what to counter with after every round takes almost twice as long as a normal match. I like the idea, but imagine having four judges who have to scroll through a list of 60+ players' combos to find the two competitors before every match - and that doesn't factor in the players who won't come prepared, who hosts will have to wait on to submit their list before they can start the tournament. I could also see parents taking issue if their kid comes with one combo and gets shut down from the get-go by players who can easily counter them with full balanced decks. The nice thing about deck format is that by the time it's used, the remaining players are typically competitive enough that they have the parts to build a balanced deck with.
tl;dr it's a great idea in theory, but given the nature of the game and rising attendance, I don't think this could really play out the way you're envisioning it in reality.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - Cake - May. 18, 2018
It's really frustrating how making predictions in qualifiers is almost entirely based on scouting before matches and historical knowledge of specific Bladers. Without having extensively played in a specific area, it's extremely difficult to predict what your opponent is going to use with any consistency - no matter how much a novice Blader reads up on counterplay and picking theory, they will be no better off in an actual tournament than a wild guess when choosing, since they have no prior experience with their opponents or the region's metagame.
Ideally, there should be some (limited) options for new or non-local Bladers to get a feel for what their opponents might use, and this goes both ways - a new Blader or someone from another region is just as foreign to a regular as they are to the newcomer. Scouting works, but hosts are generally interested in pushing matches through as quickly as reasonably possible, so a well run tournament will rarely have much time available for spectating matches, and pregame scouting is not necessarily particularly useful, and again may be impractical due to time constraints.
However, three Beyblades in a deck is really too few to fight a whole tournament with - it's certainly possible to have a well-rounded deck of 3, but that will simply encourage the use of only safer, generally applicable combos throughout the tournament, which kind of defeats the purpose of making counterpicking more accessible. Instead, I'd potentially like to see something like:
- Tournament decks may consist of up to 6 Beyblades, to be used for the entire tournament. Normal restrictions on duplicate parts within this larger Deck do not apply. Your Deck of 3 in the finals may be chosen from this group only, so if you intend to use a full deck in finals you still can't have duplicate parts on every Beyblade.
- Qualifier matches are the standard best of 3, but both Bladers reveal their Deck prior to the match, then blind pick one combo to use throughout the match. This should let Bladers make more informed predictions (though exactly which combo they'll use is still a matter of knowing your opponent) without slowing the tournament as much as proper Deck Format.
- Ideally, a list of all tournament participants and their deck lists would be available online, to allow Bladers to inspect the competition freely, and to allow any Blader to check for suspected cheating through Deck changes, potentially saving judges some work on enforcing the deck rules.
I don't know that this is really the best way to solve issues with qualifiers - it would still add slightly more delays to getting matches done and would probably be some extra hassle for judges (and the 6 Beyblade deck is a largely arbitrary number lol) but it could be interesting to try.
(also I really just want to have a datasheet with decklists and W/L numbers for each combo - Winning Combos but on steroids lol)
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
(May. 18, 2018 4:37 AM)The Supreme One Wrote: I agree with RedPanda2. Attendance is certainly trending upwards and deck format and the process of waiting for players to decide whether to switch and what to counter with after every round takes almost twice as long as a normal match. I like the idea, but imagine having four judges who have to scroll through a list of 60+ players' combos to find the two competitors before every match - and that doesn't factor in the players who won't come prepared, who hosts will have to wait on to submit their list before they can start the tournament. I could also see parents taking issue if their kid comes with one combo and gets shut down from the get-go by players who can easily counter them with full balanced decks. The nice thing about deck format is that by the time it's used, the remaining players are typically competitive enough that they have the parts to build a balanced deck with.
tl;dr it's a great idea in theory, but given the nature of the game and rising attendance, I don't think this could really play out the way you're envisioning it in reality.
Im heavily debating running a few unranked events to see how well what I’m envisioning can be implemented, though I know for sure that it’s possible.
It won’t take half as long as the time people seem to think it would take, it just requires a decent level of forethought.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - Kei - May. 18, 2018
Moving this to the "Discuss worldbeyblade.org" forum.
This is an interesting discussion, and something that's always been a subject of debate.
I think we need to be careful and not try to make Beyblade into something that it isn't: a game of of purely objective skill. There's plenty of that, but like RedPanda2 said:
RedPanda2 Wrote:a beyblade tournament is many things
but it’s never going to be a totally objective and exclusive display of pure skills
luck is always going to be a factor
but just like the rest of life,
thinking the right thoughts and doing the right things, still puts you in position to succeed
So, luck is one factor that needs to be accepted. There's less of it in Deck Format, but it's still present there too. Call it "RNG", call it "poker", it'll always be there no matter what as part of the game in both the current Group Stage format and in the Final Stage Deck Format. I don't view this as a negative. You'll win some and you'll lose some partially due to luck the more you play, but if there's anything I've learned over the past ten years of playing in Beywiki/WBO tournaments it's that ... the best players rise to the top. You don't have random people winning purely based on luck through the Group Stage. Sometimes it happens and an inexperienced player makes it (usually because they have good parts), but they almost always get eliminated in the first round of the finals because they don't have the skill in Deck Format to back up the luck that might have carried them to the finals.
That being said, even if we accept that there is a low possibility for people to get lucky enough to make to the finals based purely on that luck in the current Group Stage format, there are greater issues with the idea of implementing Deck Format for all matches:
1. The reality is that many players who enter tournaments don't have the ability to play Deck Format as it stands in a way that makes it worth the extra effort. A lot of times kids or someone enters and might only have one or two Beyblades ... you can still play Deck like this, but it seems like a waste of time in this case. Asking players to submit deck lists beforehand and to also be stuck with those Beyblades for the entire event wouldn't go well for sure as well.
2. Deck Format is too complicated and time-consuming for most players. Our events are already pushing the limits in their average length given that most parents who attend with their children don't want to be there all day (many TAKARA-TOMY events in Japan for instance are single elimination, which is too harsh ... but much quicker). Another reality is that most players who enter typical events are not competitive in terms of the combinations they use. Trying to explain an ultra strategic and complicated format to everyone at huge events isn't worth the effort or the time. Like The Supreme One said:
The Supreme One Wrote:The nice thing about deck format is that by the time it's used, the remaining players are typically competitive enough that they have the parts to build a balanced deck with.
Deck Format satisfies everyone posting in this thread. We're the type of players who have the ability and want to play it because it is more competitive, balanced, and strategic. I think most people reading this would agree that Deck Format is the better way to play Beyblade competitively.
But we can't forget that not every player who comes to our events has the exact same mindset or goals as we do. We might want them to be, but it's not going to happen especially with the way Beyblade is marketed and perceived outside of Asia. There's only so much we can do as a volunteer organization. I feel like a lot of players have as much fun doing free play as they do playing actual tournament matches when they come to our events.
As a result, implementing Deck Format for the Final Stage only was seemingly the absolute best compromise that could be made in terms of not only managing the length of our events so that they are reasonable, but so that we can satisfy the more competitive players as well (who will typically make it to the finals above the less competitive players regardless of the supposed "RNG" and "poker" of the Group Stage).
While one of the WBO's primary goals is to promote Beyblade as a competitive game, we can't escape the fact that not everyone who joins our events is or wants to be competitive. Given this, I do strongly believe that our current format blends consideration for tournament brevity, differing player expectations, with competitively focused aspects like Deck Format relatively well.
I also believe that we shouldn't be afraid of the role that scouting and prior knowledge/experience can play in the game. Of course someone who walks into a new community has a lower chance of doing well (although it is not impossible; I've traveled to New York, Los Angeles, Osaka, and Tokyo and won tournaments in each place; if you are skilled and understand the metagame well enough this type of disadvantage can be overcome sometimes). In any sport or game you would be at a disadvantage if you knew nothing about your opponent. Players with experience are rewarded because they are able to make informed decisions based on that experience.
(May. 17, 2018 9:15 PM)EpicTurtwig Wrote: I propose that we do away with the group stage as it is now, it can remain a double elemination bracket, but for the sale of competitivity MUST have a deck involved. For the sake of time we could have bladers submit a decklist, and have all bladers not be able to switch decks, increasing the need for knowledge of roles and counters and skillful deck building, while remaining 2/3 (which I assert is a good move, 2/3 should remain the staple of groul stage) my phone is starting to lag about how long this post is, so i’ll leave a TL;DR and will say my further points as responses when the questions arise.
2/3 is definitely needed for the Group Stage. I agree on that. However, the issue is using our Deck Format with that ... what makes our version of Deck Format so great is the length of time it takes. You can't win two rounds and be victorious. There's always a chance for a comeback even at 4-0. It's the back-and-forth aspect that makes it great. Shaving that down to three points nearly eliminates that tug of war to the point where it would be like ... "why are we even doing this?".
If anything, I think TAKARA-TOMY's Deck Format works better for a 3 Point Win structure. But then that begs the question of whether or not we want to introduce two different Deck Formats. And even TT's Deck Format still would add a level of complexity to the Group Stage that I don't think I'd be comfortable with.
The only scenario where I can see us allowing full Deck Format events is in the future when we figure out how to implement the ability for Organizers to impose participant caps on their events (there will be limitations on when you can do this, how you can do it, and how often you can do it). This way, full Deck Format events could be used for tournaments where mostly experienced players are expected to attend.
Another tweak we could potentially make is bring back hiding Decks like we did during testing of the format in order to help shave off the amount of time it takes to complete the match by being able to remove the inspection phase. Still, for the other reasons I've stated, I do believe the format would still be too complicated/long for the Group Stage.
Also, funny how we've gone from a thread about removing Deck Format to implementing it for both stages in the span of less than a week hahaha. If anyone is interested in the history of Deck Format and how it came to be what it is, check my post here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-Should-Deck-Format-Finals-be-gone-from-WBO?pid=1436268#pid1436268
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - BladerGem - May. 18, 2018
In response to what Kei said,
Apart from either a participant cap, an age limit, or both, at the moment I can't see how we'd be able to make a tournament consisting solely of deck format last a fair amount of time.
Another problem with the current time constraints is that, (as I'm sure others who stayed until the end noticed), at the previous tournament, several people who made it to the semi-finals ended up being no-shows, giving their opponents an easy ticket to the finals.
It's one thing to win by dumb luck. But winning because you could wait out some kid's parents is kind of... wrong.
Also,
(May. 18, 2018 7:06 AM)Kei Wrote: 1. The reality is that many players who enter tournaments don't have the ability to play Deck Format as it stands in a way that makes it worth the extra effort. A lot of times kids or someone enters and might only have one or two Beyblades ... you can still play Deck like this, but it seems like a waste of time in this case.
The reality is, quite a fair number of the kids attending (our tournaments, at least) borrow parts anyways, so does it really matter how many beyblades they have?
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
@[Kei] I believe that trying to cater too widely is the downfall of many systems, you said yourself that free play brings many of the kids the same joy as an event, then why should they join the event in the first place. It seems like there is a disconnect between competitive players and casual players, and that is what the RANKED barrier is supposed to be for. I hadn’t been able to outline it here, because my phone began to lag at the size of the post, but when talking to our community members the other night it seemed like the general consensus was the same: Ranked is for competitive players. There really should be more unranked “Quick Match” sort of events where the rules are less strict, theres no world ranking involved, and those who want to spin some tops can do that. Ranked and competitive environments need to be worthwhile to those with competitive mindsets, and I’m sorry I just can’t agree with you that the group stage takes much skill at all. You enter with a safe combo or two, and pray you don’t get randomly countered. That’s not skill in my book. Definitely the finals do, and that’s what this discussion is about. I propose that the next event or two of our Northern California Community would be unranked, so you guys wouldn’t have to worry about us, but I propose that we run it in a way that minimizes the feelsbad countering of the group stage, as a sort of real world testing in a community with a consistently decent sized turnout. I think that if implemented correctly time will not be an issue, and that this change would assuredly bring a greater level of satisfaction to even those who lose, because their losses will feel REAL, and like they only ever lost because the opponent was better, or at least have a more fantastic story to tell afterwards.
You’ve said yourself you’d implement it fully if it were up to you, I propose we give it a shot for ya, and see if we can hammer out ways to make it work.
There is a strong distiction between making Beyblade into purely skill, and rolling over and accepting RNG as a part of the game and doing nothing about it. Competitive games have systems in place to reduce rng, that doesnt mean eliminate it entirely, but just cause it can’t be erased doesnt mean we shouldn’t try and mitigate it to the best of our abilities.
I’d love to actually speak to you about this sort of thing in a conference of sorts, i’m not very good with words over a forum setting, I prefer personal connections and conversation.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - Kei - May. 18, 2018
(May. 18, 2018 8:13 AM)BladerGem Wrote: Another problem with the current time constraints is that, (as I'm sure others who stayed until the end noticed), at the previous tournament, several people who made it to the semi-finals ended up being no-shows, giving their opponents an easy ticket to the finals.
It's one thing to win by dumb luck. But winning because you could wait out some kid's parents is kind of... wrong.
I’ve never seen this happen in my experience. People who make it to the finals always play their matches.
(May. 18, 2018 8:13 AM)BladerGem Wrote: The reality is, quite a fair number of the kids attending (our tournaments, at least) borrow parts anyways, so does it really matter how many beyblades they have?
Fair enough. It is true that many kids end up borrowing parts. Still, trying to explain deck format to younger kids and have them play it in a relatively fast manner in addition to everything else that is happening during a large event is just asking for trouble and a longer tournament length in the end.
EpicTurtwig Wrote:I believe that trying to cater too widely is the downfall of many systems, you said yourself that free play brings many of the kids the same joy as an event, then why should they join the event in the first place. It seems like there is a disconnect between competitive players and casual players, and that is what the RANKED barrier is supposed to be for.
We are indeed trying to cater widely with our current rules. That’s because the WBO has always been, and will always be, about promoting competitive Beyblade and being open to everyone. We don’t have the luxury of considering things like age limits or participant capping with no restrictions because our community isn’t large enough for that and it goes against what we stand for. Beyblade has proven itself to be a game in which players of all ages can succeed, and we intend to keep our policy reflective of that.
Our tournaments are also places for people to connect. Trying to put ranked events behind some sort of barrier (by making them more complex, adding an age limit, participant cap, etc) would only lead to fragmentation. We don’t want that because we want and need our community to be as inclusive as possible. 50+ player tournaments won’t last forever, trust me. I’ve been through this back during Metal Fight Beyblade.
I acknowledge that maybe something is lost for both sides (those that want ultra competitive events and those that want more casual events), but all things considered I strongly believe we’ve done a good job of balancing these two desires. And I also think that in the case of many kids, they might not be equipped to play competitively, and they might get a lot of enjoyment out of free play, but that doesn’t meant they don’t want to compete in a structured, ranked environment. A lot of kids always ask about how they did, what their rank was, when their battles will be processed (soon! haha) and so forth.
EpicTurtwig Wrote:There really should be more unranked “Quick Match” sort of events where the rules are less strict, theres no world ranking involved, and those who want to spin some tops can do that.
Unranked events are an option and do exist, but the issue with this is that I believe 100% of our Organizers are also players who enjoy playing competitively. As a result, hosting unranked events is uncommon (not including Club Format, which is automatically unranked). Unranked events are also currently not eligible for prize reimbursement, which would mean players participating in them would have less of a chance to win prizes.
Ultimately, we want to push people towards playing ranked because we want to promote Beyblade as a competitive game. So, offering some kind of incentive to host unranked events doesn’t make sense for us. Maybe hosting more unranked events would help satisfy certain players, but it’s unrealistic because of where the interest of all of our Organizers lies.
EpicTurtwig Wrote:Ranked and competitive environments need to be worthwhile to those with competitive mindsets, and I’m sorry I just can’t agree with you that the group stage takes much skill at all. You enter with a safe combo or two, and pray you don’t get randomly countered. That’s not skill in my book.
If you’re praying you don’t get randomly countered, then you probably don’t have a lot of experience in the community you’re playing in. Like I said before, it should be expected to have a harder time when you have less experience with your opponent(s). Getting randomly countered is always a possibility regardless, but the chances of it happening are much lower the more experience and knowledge of the metagame that you have. Luck will always play a part in Beyblade, but if you have your finger on the pulse of the metagame at any given time, even with minimal knowledge of your opponents you can still make educated guesses and use combos which will give you a good chance to win.
In terms of the group stage, I can count on one finger the amount of times I’ve felt ‘cheated’. And that was when an inexperienced player was given a combo by another more experienced player that I was unaware of. My choice of Beyblade was based on the knowledge I had of that inexperienced player, not the knowledge that they were borrowing from someone else. We took action after this and implemented our rulings regarding borrowing parts and helping before/during matches.
I think to say the group stage doesn’t take much skill at all is unfair. It’s true that is requires less than Deck Format (simply because there are less choices to make), but what it does do is test your knowledge and experience. If you see those things as a negative and merely as “poker” or “RNG”, then I’m not sure what to say.
We wanted to challenge players in a different way through the introduction of Deck Format, but that doesn’t mean we felt the current Group Stage format was worthless competitively. Far from it.
EpicTurtwig Wrote:I propose that the next event or two of our Northern California Community would be unranked, so you guys wouldn’t have to worry about us, but I propose that we run it in a way that minimizes the feelsbad countering of the group stage, as a sort of real world testing in a community with a consistently decent sized turnout. I think that if implemented correctly time will not be an issue, and that this change would assuredly bring a greater level of satisfaction to even those who lose, because their losses will feel REAL, and like they only ever lost because the opponent was better, or at least have a more fantastic story to tell afterwards.
You’ve said yourself you’d implement it fully if it were up to you, I propose we give it a shot for ya, and see if we can hammer out ways to make it work.
The issue here is that we have tried it in the past. We did an eight person all Deck Format test event in 2016 and it was great, but even that I remember the general consensus being that it took a little bit too long. I can only imagine how that would translate negatively to a 50+ player event.
I’m willing to consider allowing it for small capped events in the future (which will be limited), but as a general change for all events I think it would not work, and it appears pretty much everyone else who has replied so far agrees.
I welcome you to do an unofficial event testing your idea as I’d love to hear about it, but I don’t think we can authorize doing an official unranked event with this different format at this time.
That being said, I also welcome a continued dialogue on this. I’m happy that you care enough to want to talk about this as it never hurts to question our decisions and try to make things better if possible.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
@[Kei] I think you are misunderstanding much of what i’m saying, especiallly when it comes to my use of the word “Poker”. Poker is skill, because you have to bluff, and figure out information, but it’s POKER skill, not Beyblade skill, and I think the latter should be celabrated more in a Beyblade event, rather than a Poker event. I heavily disagree with participant caps and age restrictions, but I also disagree with dumbing things down to cater to kids. Kids are smart, and should not be counted out, too many people nowadays seem to forget about when they were kids, the world wasn’t handed to them. Not a single time in my own life can I remember being happy that something was dumbed down, we figured things out for ourselves if we cared about them, and succeeded based on our own merrits. The challenge is a reason to improve, and I think making things easier in the long run is beneficial to no one. If the WBO is about getting people more involved with Competitive Beyblade it needs to be more of exactly that: Competitive Beyblade. And there should be no pulled punches on the competitiveness. I think the lack of unranked events is in part due to the way things are structured. If the “Ranked” events have essentially the same structure why wouldn’t you only do Ranked events? If there’s an actual “oh my goodness, Ranked is actually harder” realization, then those who want to be competitive will join that one, those that don’t will join casual leagues. I think it takes more dedication on organizer’s parts to set up both kinds of events, and really drive home the difference between the two. As it stands people who aren’t really interested in playing against experienced “pros” and the like are still playing in ranked events, and are dissapointed when they go up against someone much more skilled. When I say “Competitive Barrier” I mean mental barriers. Using other real world examples, theres a large difference between Friday Night Magic, and the Grand Prix, and even in something like Overwatch, theres Competitive modes, but lots of people who know they don’t stack up against the pros prefer to play QuickMatch.
Right now there is nothing higher than “ranked” and I think there should be. Maybe not change the baseline for all events, but I think new events should be added that encompass this idea, that very clearly label themselves “COMPETITIVE MATCHES”and act as such, so that players joining know: this MIGHT take a while, bring your A-Game, and this is going to be tough, on purpose. I know theres a way for this to be done and I’m going to be dedicating a significant amount of my time to finding it.
Sorry about formatting, I use WBO almost exclusively on Mobile.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - Cake - May. 18, 2018
Beyblade represents an interesting strategic challenge. The majority of directly competitive sports and games offer continuous opportunities to alter your strategy throughout the game, and allow you to guide your players/pieces/units in response to the opposition on the fly. Beyblade is, at its core, an unusually deep game of rock-paper-scissors, and, as a result, inherently has almost no opportunity to make alterations to your strategy mid-round or even mid-match outside of the deliberately strategic structure of Deck Format. Once you've picked your Beyblade, there's nothing you can do to alter your matchup aside from altering your launch, or occasionally making use of mode changes if applicable. After launching, there's nothing you can do whatsoever. As a result, Beyblade strategy is more or less entirely predictive in nature; unlike other games where it's possible (though usually still disadvantageous) to switch strategies in the face of a bad matchup, allowing for some back-and-forth counterplay, in Beyblade, strategy is entirely based on those initial predictions. In other games, scouting and analysis of your opponent's strategy can take place mid-game, and players who gave never seen each other before can take time to play cautiously and probe each other's responses and behaviors, then commit to a counterplay strategy. In Beyblade, outside of Deck Format, this kind of on-the-spot analysis is impossible, which makes battles with unknowns frustrating, whether it's a veteran playing against a newcomer or vice versa.
The heavy dependence on scouting makes another issue much more problematic - mixups and deception are fairly easy to pull off and come at little cost. The only information you have on your opponent to work with is their historical behavior, but there's nothing stopping them from changing things up completely at any time. This leads to a lot of circular mindgames, as it's not good to spam one combo the whole tournament because you open yourself up to counterpicking, but at the same time counterpicking can be risky because your opponent could just as easily pick something completely different or even counter-counterpick you!
My past insistence on certain aspects of Deck Format (most importantly, the deck reveal and switching limitations) have been attempts to limit (but not eliminate!) some of the mindgames and sheer guesswork involved, reduce (but not eliminate!) the heavy dependence on prior knowledge of your opponent's habits, and make strategic decisions have more persistent consequences between rounds. Deck Format is, as a result, certainly a far more competitive and strategic system than the usual qualifier matches. In a perfect world, I'd like to see some steps taken to reduce the "poker"-like predictive mindgames in favor of more strategic counterplay in qualifying matches as well, but especially given how the increasing popularity of Burst is leading to some huge events, a fast and simple match system is definitely preferable for organizers :P
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 18, 2018
@[Cake], We’re trying to make this world as close to perfect as we can, that’s always the goal.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - OldSchool™ - May. 18, 2018
If you have 50 people show up for an event and do Deck Format for the Qualifying stage, it will be TWICE as long compared to a Double Elimination, if not longer.
3 hour qualifier becomes 6 hours +.
In the finals with 8 bladers, as a judge I have to repeatedly explain the Deck rules to even experienced bladers near EVERY MATCH. Now imagine that for 50 players. It boggles my mind.
In an ideal world, even if everything ran suppa smooth, Deck Format Qualifiers would still add at the least 1 hour compared to Double Elimination.
I love the idea of it, always have, it's just not feasible. Sadly.
Scouting may help, especially if you mostly play against the same Bladers but that does not give a tremendous advantage. Look at Scott, he's traveled to many events outside Toronto and managed to place 1st at many of them.
As to the comparison to Poker, there is a reason why the top Poker players stay at the top. Same can be said with Bladers.
*Small event turnout Deck Format may be possible (16 or less). The explaining every match is still a huge hurdle. Especially to small children.
**Actually, Deck format in Qualifiers may actually be disadvantages to near-everyone who is too young to understand the competitiveness of it. They will likely lose each and every match they play. That would be awful!
(May. 18, 2018 8:13 AM)BladerGem Wrote: Another problem with the current time constraints is that, (as I'm sure others who stayed until the end noticed), at the previous tournament, several people who made it to the semi-finals ended up being no-shows, giving their opponents an easy ticket to the finals.
It's one thing to win by dumb luck. But winning because you could wait out some kid's parents is kind of... wrong.
How is this possible? Bladers who made it to the Finals bracket were no-shows during Finals?
(May. 18, 2018 2:17 AM)EpicTurtwig Wrote: It wouldn’t be any where near 10 hours. Still best 2/3, no “replay” same as it always was, except that players bring the decks with them for each round.
Explaining the rules of Deck every during every match adds a LOT of time.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 19, 2018
@[OldSchool™] I’m gonna have to heavily disagree with you on the time constraints issues, I know that there is an efficient way to run events so that time will be similar to what it always is, in addition, the point of COMPETITIVE should be “this is tough stuff, this is gonna be as hard as possible on purpose” there should be a level of event beyond what we have, if normal events wont change, that’s fine, but then something should be added that fits that ultra-competitive area. Not having that is holdinf Beyblade back as a whole, and I will personally test all of the things I suggest, i’ll put in the legwork and work to make this work, myself. Unranked and without worry from you guys.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - OldSchool™ - May. 19, 2018
(May. 19, 2018 1:30 AM)EpicTurtwig Wrote: @[OldSchool™] I’m gonna have to heavily disagree with you on the time constraints issues, I know that there is an efficient way to run events so that time will be similar to what it always is, in addition, the point of COMPETITIVE should be “this is tough stuff, this is gonna be as hard as possible on purpose” there should be a level of event beyond what we have, if normal events wont change, that’s fine, but then something should be added that fits that ultra-competitive area. Not having that is holdinf Beyblade back as a whole, and I will personally test all of the things I suggest, i’ll put in the legwork and work to make this work, myself. Unranked and without worry from you guys.
Group stage match:
-2 bladers show up
-show beys to judge
-GO GHOOT!
-repeat x3-5 times
Deck match:
-2 bladers show up
-show beys to judge
-judge takes apart each bey and checks for no repeating parts
-bladers choose a bey
-GO SHOOT!
-if the bladers know the deck rules, horray!
--judge - do you want a rematch?
---yes.
GO SHOOT!
---no. choose a new bey or keep same. this adds 5-30secs
GO SHOOT!
-repeat x3-10 times
Then there is when one or both bladers do not know or forget part of the deck rules. I've lost count how many times I've had to explain the next step after each and every round in a match.
Now think how much more difficult it would be to run a deck tournament where half the players are children.
I'm not saying it can't be done. I'd love for this to work.
I just don't see how it would not take twice as long if not longer to run a deck format event vs double elimination. The math simply does not add up.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - EpicTurtwig - May. 19, 2018
(May. 19, 2018 1:53 AM)OldSchool™ Wrote:(May. 19, 2018 1:30 AM)EpicTurtwig Wrote: @[OldSchool™] I’m gonna have to heavily disagree with you on the time constraints issues, I know that there is an efficient way to run events so that time will be similar to what it always is, in addition, the point of COMPETITIVE should be “this is tough stuff, this is gonna be as hard as possible on purpose” there should be a level of event beyond what we have, if normal events wont change, that’s fine, but then something should be added that fits that ultra-competitive area. Not having that is holdinf Beyblade back as a whole, and I will personally test all of the things I suggest, i’ll put in the legwork and work to make this work, myself. Unranked and without worry from you guys.
Group stage match:
-2 bladers show up
-show beys to judge
-GO GHOOT!
-repeat x3-5 times
Deck match:
-2 bladers show up
-show beys to judge
-judge takes apart each bey and checks for no repeating parts
-bladers choose a bey
-GO SHOOT!
-if the bladers know the deck rules, horray!
--judge - do you want a rematch?
---yes.
GO SHOOT!
---no. choose a new bey or keep same. this adds 5-30secs
GO SHOOT!
-repeat x3-10 times
Then there is when one or both bladers do not know or forget part of the deck rules. I've lost count how many times I've had to explain the next step after each and every round in a match.
Now think how much more difficult it would be to run a deck tournament where half the players are children.
I'm not saying it can't be done. I'd love for this to work.
I just don't see how it would not take twice as long if not longer to run a deck format event vs double elimination. The math simply does not add up.
That’s why we’ll test it for you to figure out how we can make it work.
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - BladerGem - May. 23, 2018
One way that we can make things run at least a little bit faster would be to have more stadiums, no?
I recently ordered a Burst Standard type stadium the other day so that practice results would better translate into tournament results, I should get it sometime in June. Once I get it, I guess I'll start bringing it to tournaments?
RE: Group Stage and the Competitive Problem - OldSchool™ - May. 23, 2018
(May. 23, 2018 3:08 AM)BladerGem Wrote: One way that we can make things run at least a little bit faster would be to have more stadiums, no?
I recently ordered a Burst Standard type stadium the other day so that practice results would better translate into tournament results, I should get it sometime in June. Once I get it, I guess I'll start bringing it to tournaments?
We ran our last 2 events in Toronto with 5 and 6 stadiums, each with their own dedicated judge. It did save a good amount of time.