Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

How to make it fair for the West Coast and everyone else next year

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K values

The rational for the ranage of K values is that certain tournaments SHOULD count for more than many others. Battle Roads and City Champs at 8 and 16K are still relevant. Players would be able to build rating through playing and doing well in many of these. The real point though is that winning a 30 player city champs tourney shouldn't be considered as big an accomplishment as winning a regional. Thus you get the point disparity. States should count twice as much as a city as the states tourneys are twice as important.

You could argue why play in lower K value events. From a rating standpoint you would be correct if you didn't care about playing for fun. If all you cared about was playing for rating then you would only play in States, Regionals and then Nationals. Battle Roads and Citys in my opinion were worth too many rating points this year. They helped several players to qualify for the bigger events (Nats and worlds) so that they did not play in Nats if qualified for worlds already. There has been an outcry from the player community that doing well in the bigger events should mean something. What I am suggesting does just that. It also takes the competitive pressure off of doing really well in Battle Roads which in turn will result in a less competitive tournament. More fun for the newer players. More opportunitites to play.

It really shouldn't be possible for a player to qualify for worlds by not playing in nationals. This system would balance out the system. In theory the world championship is the best of the best playing off to see who is the world champ. There should be a road that one needs to travel to get there. Nationals should be part of that road.

my opinion

Tom Shea
 
Nopoke is correct.

Any K<20 is too small to make an impact on the season ratings. The good players will sit out, and start playing when the K increases, and they can win some easy points.

Any K>40 is too large, and favors those who get lucky over anyone else.



If Pokemon uses ELO next year (an entirelly different debate), it is important they decide on Ks which are not too high or too low.
 
Tom I know part of the reason for increasing K values is as a mark of prestige and to hopefully attract more players. However from a players perspective what does it matter as an indicator of realtive skill if a match is played at the smallest battle road or the biggest nationals. Its still a match between the same pair of players. Yet one of them doesn't count with a 6:1 K value ratio.

Though players probably don't realise it we have a sliding scale effectively just due to the temporal effect that causes the points gained or lost from early seson games to be attenuated significantly. By a factor of four in my son's case. This temporal effect is just one of several reasons why battle roads after nationals were not a good thing this year in Europe.

A really big K value at USA nationals will generate so much ill feeling because players will feel compelled to play. Compelled to play in a single game swiss format knowing that the bulk of the field in the swiss will finish the day with a par score of X-X. That it could easily be them with a bit of bad luck. That they could have games where the only action they get to make is to draw a single card.
 
Ratings

NoPoke I can see your point. One of the biggest differences that exists between Pokemon and other ccg's that use a rating system is that ratings don't reset after each year like they do in Pokemon. That said I am still of the opinion that Battle Roads and Citys need to be worth alot less points than States, Regionals and Nationals. I do know that when a rating system is designed one has to decide what it is that you want to reward. If the goal is to reward players for playing in smaller tournaments and foster the ability to go to worlds by NOT playing in Nationals then Pokemon should give Battle Roads and Citys k values that are close to states and regionals. Then they should downplay the k value of Nationals. In that scenario a players consistant performance over a season would be the most important thing.

Under that situation you will have players who do really well at Regionals and Nationals who don't win a trip complainning about that and wanting an invite to Worlds(as we do this year). You also make it possible for a player to bypass nationals to get to worlds based on rating. That can be a viable system as long as that is what we want to promote. Under this system we will have players playing battle roads like they are state level championships. We further put local stores in the middle running these tourneys often times without a highly experienced judge. This seems to not be optimal for a beginner level tourney.

If we graduate the k value curve what you are talking about does happen. A poor performance at regionals or nationals would knock one out contention for the world championships. That situation is very much like going to the Olympics. If one does poorly at the US Nationals they don't get to go for the gold at the Olympics. This does seem to work.

I do know that there is not a system that will make everyone happy. Discussion like ours is healthy for the game as it gives Pokemon USA a chance to see different viewpoints. I think that we really need to look at what it is that our rating system is susposed to reward. Once we know that we can move forward to setting up a system that does just that. I also know that part of the solution CAN"T be for PUI to simply increase the number of trips on the line at regionals or other events. At the end of the day someone has to pay for these trips. It would seem to be very selfish for us to simply expect Pokemon USA to pick up the tab for another 60 or so trips.

Tom Shea
 
meganium45 said:
Prime, prime, prime....

One thing has been proven...higher numbers do not mean more difficult fields...

You know that...shame on you.

Vince
Click to expand...

What I asked was a question of an idea I had. I wasn't saying it should be done, but it was just an idea that popped into my head that made sense.

Numbers alone don't prove how hard an area is, but the higher the attendance, the more chance of there being more skilled players in the area. One problem people had with Nationals was that there were over 400 people in 15+ and they only cut to the top 32. Because there were so many people there, there were a lot of skilled players, and it was easy for a good player to lose 2-3 games in that kind of environment.

Regionals might not be the best place to alter the invites, because they are region based, but there should be some advantages of participating in tournaments with higher attendance than participating in smaller events. Winning a 10 person battle road should not equal winning a 40 person battle road.

That's the only reason I mention prizes varying depending on attendance.
 
Look to the motivation for the complaints to see what may be wrong.

Others did better than xxx at battle Roads. Were these small battle roads or were they big events that put many grander named tournaments to shame? The name of a thing is less important than what it actually is. 7-0 at any tournament ought to make a big change in rating.

Sitting out: If you are sitting because you have earned a high enough rating that you no longer have to take part then that is a reward that you earned. Earned, it was not handed to you.

Sitting out: If you are sitting out because of an adverse risk reward ratio then POP needs to carefully check that it has the balance of risk that the highest rated players experience is a fair match for the potential rewards of playing.

No FUN!/Stress. This one is tricky as it is inherent in any system that assesses long term performance that your past performance will follow you during the season.

geography/opportunity to play. Tricky to get right. Definately a case of impossible to please everyone. No one should say that POP didn't try with the 4 regions this year.

POP got a lot right with the design of a rating scheme tailored to its young player base.

Resetting the ratings each year. :clap:
Only premier events count. :clap:
Gently escalating K values. :clap:
zero-sum :clap:
non-linear :clap:
regions :clap:

The individual parts of the system can't be considered in isolation. With no mom-and-pop events in the rating system there isn't any need for a K=8 value. Resetting the ratings automatically introduces a reward component and gives new players a chance too. Moderate K values reward consistancy. Zero-sum keeps us honest, whilst non-linearity constrains run-away growth.

What can be improved:-
Risk-reward ratio.
Reducing the impact of luck.
K value determined solely by name.
Effect of geography/regions.

Probably Pokemons' greatest strength as a game is in the FUN. In the luck. But its greatest strength will also be its biggest weakness if the negative impacts of luck are ignored. Just using the name of a thing to determine the K value is probably not quite the right balance. I don't think that a big change is needed but enhancing the K value for well attended events (+4) and reducing it (-4) for poorly attended ones could address this.

And what went wrong:-
Rated Battle Roads after Nationals had a big impact in Europe.
Player/parent Stress.

For all my son suffered under this years system I'd still give it an 8/10.
 
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I am not gonna support this better/less attendance adjustment since I feel it's who you beat vs. where you win. If 8 is auto reduction, where would the midway point be? Just try to find a compromise, I dare you... The grapes would be very sour if someone played in a 49 player event vs. a 50 one.

Why should I be penalized for playing a 10 player event (Brooklyn) when 45-ish played in one 20 minutes away (Manhattan)? I didn't choose to play in an event that was small so why should my wins count for less than the other event? 5 in Brooklyn had at least a 1800+ rating while in Manhattan only 3 maybe had a 1700+ rating. It's already punishment enough I can only play 3 rounds so why make me *never want to go back to the store again? >_>

*A problem that I think POP wants to avoid.
 
I threw it in to the mix because it is something that the DCI does. Always a good idea to examine what the competition does. The suggestion was purely from the point of view that the name of a thing doesn't tell you everything about it. Also there is an expectation from players that bigger events are harder. That one big 8 round event is worth more than two smaller 4 round events, even if they were both CCs.

You are correct that the negative impact of any proposal has to be considered and have made a good case for such corrections being inappropriate for store based tournaments. ah well circular filing system for that one :(
 
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Dci

No Poke the dci doesn't allow stores to get their Friday Night Magic events sanctioned at higher levels becuase of greater attendance in one area versus another. Wotc is a great compnay to look at as they have had ratings for a long time, I think over 10 years. I think that eventually there should be weekly in store tournaments that could be worked into ratings as well. Much like magic does.

The real question is what is Pokemon going to grow up to be? Are we a tournament game or a fun play game?

Tom
 
I would love bringing back local tournaments counting towards rating points. Just at a lesser K value like 8.
To further avoid corruption, only certain TO's will have permission as proven by past records.
If we don't rank them I'm still fine with it, but at least make them a part of league like in the Battlezone days.

Originally this game was intended for fun as PCL intended it to be when they first started.
When a player in Japan wins a local tournament, people around them consider he/she to be a great player and maybe even strong enough to be a champion someday.

Outside of there if you haven't won anything more than a Cities, you're condidered to be weak, a noob and undeserving of playing the game. Where did all the respect for lesser players go? That's just one reason I would like local tournaments meaning something again.
 
I would be against having local tournaments count towards rating points. You'd see people play in tournaments daily during the summer and rack up trips to worlds. Even with a k value of 8, if you go undefeated once every day for 2 months, that's how many points?
 
TomShea said:
Vince and I are not too far off on this one. I would recomend the following ratings values:

Battle Roads: 8K
Cities : 16K
States: 32K
Regionals: 40 K
Nationals: 48 K
Click to expand...


I wonder if the supporters of this type of wide range in K values realize how many tournaments you have to attend to get a rating that is 95% correct? This is the same question as asking what is the approximate value for three time constants worth of tournaments. The concept of a time constant should be familiar to every engineer out there and is probably covered in schools now.

Just how many tournaments do you think you have to attend at each of the above proposed K values to get close (within 95%) of what your rating ought to be?
 
The ranking system is dumb. If there are fewer events that offer solid trips, then so be it. Don't make every player gamble to play in the most prestigous event of the year. It's barbaric!
 
The ranking system was dumb THIS year, but it doesn't matter how you divide so few of invites to soooo many Worlds quality players in the U.S., people are going to get screwed.

Tom Shea & Eternal Fire - I realize you guys live on the East Coast, but you do have some assumptions (and facts) incorrect. First off, attendance on the West Coast is very high, but that does not mean by any standards that there are more points available than your side of the country. Take a look at our players, say lower than the T10 in California (a state as big as 4-5 of yours combined) and then look at the players lower than T10 in your states. Without even looking, I would be willing to bet your players have significantly higher ratings, even before U.S. Nationals.

We also do not have as many events as you guys seem to think. California had all of 11 Battle Roads, which several were scheduled on the same day as others. Also, most are in concentrated areas, and some of the State's best players have to travel several hours for events. Can that be fixed? No. But things can be adjusted in the rating (and invite) system to make up for our misfortunes over here.

In the end, the majority of the qualified players came from the Midwest, and most people who are knowledgable about the game will tell you that is the hardest area in the World. It's legitimate they got more players into Worlds than any other area, I wouldn't argue that. It just annoys me how people just assume the West Coast has it all and fail to look into things. I'm sorry Worlds is over here more often than not. The Midwest gets Nationals, which we get a grand total of 2 trips to (over 2K miles away). We still have to qualify for Worlds, remember that.
 
Ratings

Hello again everyone

Any time you have change there will be people that don't like it. This year there are fewer trips to Worlds. So naturally players are not going to like this fact. Pokemon USA came up with the really cool idea of GIVING players trips to worlds based on playing in tournaments. Again this is a really player friendly idea. Now we to the point of having to decide how ratings are going to work. Now comes the rub.

New England is on the East Coast. I don't want to see this discussion thread become a MY REGION discussion. You should know that besides being a PTO for Pokemon USA I am also a PTO for Wizaards of the Coast and for Tenacious Games. I also own a store called TJ Collectibles. I run lots of events. I have already been there and done that for this type of argument. Do you think that Pokemon is the first gaming company to implement a ratings system? If your area doesn't have enough events perhaps a few of you could become TO's and run some Battlegrounds and Ctiy Champs. I would be willing to help you. The key is how we as a community come up with ideas to implement that are good for the system.

Smaller states in New England means that we do get smaller attendances which does in fact lead to fewer rounds of swiss and less rating points for the winners. Things do balance out in the end. To say that a state tourney with 96 players is worth 40 K and a state tourney with 63 players is worth 36 K is simply foolish. The players in the larger event will end up playing more rounds of swiss which does mean that they are already playing for more points than the people in the smaller state. To deny people from states such as Rhode Island, Delaware and/or Montana is simply unfair.

At the end of the day this blacklash is simply because last year PUI gave away more trips than this year. NOBODY GOT SCREWED! SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T GET A TRIP.
There are many great players who don't get to go to worlds. There are many great runners who don't get to go to the Olympics too. If you look at the players going to worlds it seems to have a really good distrubition of players across the country who made it. I run many other tourneys for companies giving away far less in prizes than Pokemon USA. Add to that the fact that the tournies are FREE to you guys.
Many of our tournaments that qualify players to go to larger events cost anywhere from $15.00 to $30.00 per player.

Pokemon has the nicest player rewards system that I see in the industry. They are great to you guys with cool Trophies, nice give aways and FREE TOURNAMENTS. So at the end of the day I say to all of you who claim that your area doesn't have enough events, GET INVOLVED. Become part of the solution. If you need help feel free to email me for my contact information. I will help you.

Tom Shea

"Don't Worry Be Happy"
 
Sure wish I could have the honor in playing more of your events Tom. The amount of praise players tell me of events they played in plus the qualiy post above makes me sure of it. I hope to get the chance next season. ^_^
 
I am not going to say that the system is unfair for the West Coast; I am grateful to have any tourneys for my son to play in at all.

Because of travelling distance, we can only attend the smaller tourneys at the closest league, although our City and Regional championships in Santa Clara are larger than most State championships. Santa Clara is 2 1/2 hours away from where we live.

My 10 year old son and I live in Ukiah, CA. These are the distances to the 5 closest State championship locations for us:
Irvine, CA 8 hrs 12 min
Clackamas, OR 9 hrs 47 min
Henderson, NV 10 hrs 27 min
Auburn, WA 12 hrs 15 min
Mesa, AZ 13 hrs 12 min

We were not able to attend any State championship because of the costs associated with such distant travels.

Now, say we lived in Milford, MA for example, here are the travel times for several nearby State championships:
Milford, MA 0 hrs 0 min
Johnston, RI 0 hrs 48 min
Manchester, CT 1 hr 23 min
Rochester, NH 1 hr 56 min
Brooklyn, NY 3 hrs 48 min
Cedar Grove, NJ 3 hrs 53 min
Newark, DE 5 hrs 43 min
New Holland, PA 6 hrs 13 min
Presque Isle, ME 7 hrs 3 min
Rockville, MD 7 hrs 23 min
Woodbridge, VA 7 hrs 51 min

Before anyone suggests that no one would travel from Milford, MA 7 hrs 51 min each way to play in Woodbridge, VA, remember that the closest State Championship to my son is farther than that.

I think Scizor was trying to point out some geographical inequities, and offer possible solutions (or at least constructive suggestions for consideration). Most have embraced the comments in the spirit intended, as a way to improve the game for all by way of making the game opportunities fairer for all. For the few, perhaps winners of the geographical lottery, who have derided the initial post, the thread in general, and the suggestion of making the game more fair for West Coasters in specific; I recommend that you look at the travel numbers above. If you think that a person living in Milford, MA has more and better opportunity withing Pokemon organized play than someone living in Ukiah, CA, then you will respond more positively to Scizor's post and help by offering real ways to improve the game opportunity for all.
 
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