Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Points Required to Qualify for the World Championships: 500 CP for Masters? WHAT!

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Here's the problem, the de facto reason why so many players are disincentivised: you have presented them with a system that claims to have two different ways to qualify for the 2014 World Championships (presuming they are not qualified from T4 at 2013's World Championships); yet seems only to reward one way - a high performance at Nationals. I doubt any of the Judges, TO's, LL's etc in favour of this erratic decision can justify the risk of spending so much money to travel, play and hope to get lucky enough to reach a CP amount close to 500, but then depend on a rather high performance at your Nationals regardless. The new system favours Nationals far too much; to the point of making the CP system obsolete. A player can spend a chunk on cards, travel fares, and so forth; reach some mark between 400-500, then get unlucky at their Nationals and have their work dashed by one unlucky day of play.

Maybe a miniscule Worlds is the aim here, and the company and staff are open to wisdom denied to the playerbase. Or maybe the company has tried to listen to the erroneous cries of players claiming the system is too easy to qualify in, and the time length on day 1 of Worlds this year, and tried (but - importantly - failed) to resolve both issues with a huge change to the Points system that renders itself obsolete, and in the process, drives the competitive popularity and viability of qualification to a rather low point.
 
Blue Blur said:
Here's the problem, the de facto reason why so many players are disincentivised: you have presented them with a system that claims to have two different ways to qualify for the 2014 World Championships (presuming they are not qualified from T4 at 2013's World Championships); yet seems only to reward one way - a high performance at Nationals. I doubt any of the Judges, TO's, LL's etc in favour of this erratic decision can justify the risk of spending so much money to travel, play and hope to get lucky enough to reach a CP amount close to 500, but then depend on a rather high performance at your Nationals regardless. The new system favours Nationals far too much; to the point of making the CP system obsolete. A player can spend a chunk on cards, travel fares, and so forth; reach some mark between 400-500, then get unlucky at their Nationals and have their work dashed by one unlucky day of play.

Maybe a miniscule Worlds is the aim here, and the company and staff are open to wisdom denied to the playerbase. Or maybe the company has tried to listen to the erroneous cries of players claiming the system is too easy to qualify in, and the time length on day 1 of Worlds this year, and tried (but - importantly - failed) to resolve both issues with a huge change to the Points system that renders itself obsolete, and in the process, drives the competitive popularity and viability of qualification to a rather low point.
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I'd expand that a little and say that for most players this year getting an invite will come down to getting T8 at Nats or T8 at grinders. I would say for the vast majority of players who are competitive but not fantastic at the game or in a super competitive area this will be only way they will be able to qualify. It's far easier to be consistent and lucky on any given weekend. It's much, much harder to be consistent and lucky over the course of a year, which is what is required to qualify this year.
 
I have played "hard core" for just about 10 years now. In 2012 I chased the invite and snuck in at 40th place to play in my first Worlds. Last year I did not go at it as hard and ended up with only about 230 points.....far from an invite. I was excited about the new season and getting started on deck building again after the first round of news but now I am seriously just thinking about taking up golf again. I have not even touched a deck in weeks and have no desire to invest in any cards. As someone said earlier....just too many changes at once.
 
Glaceon said:
Inconsistent as in minors are not allowed computer access for 6 hours straight.
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Not true whats so ever. While I may not play pokemon anymore, I still follow the game. And this comment is not true. When I was 15-17, on my days I didn't have school, I'd spend approximately 12 hours a day on a computer. While not all parents will allow it, mine did. Not to mention that was 8-10 years ago. Now a days, playing outside is a thing of the past for kids, and most minors do spend a majority of their time on some sort of technological device such as computers.
 
PokePop said:
To be honest, if this was the first year you were going to play, you weren't likely to have made 400 CP either, so what difference does it make not hitting 500 CP vs not hitting 400 CP?
The majority of players don't make 400 CP or 500 CP and yet they play, year after year.
They play the Pokemon TCG because they enjoy playing the Pokemon TCG.

If you were going to start playing this year, go ahead and start playing.
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Such a positive post by a PTO (and likes by other PTOs). Telling someone that they most likely won't do well their first season playing just screams SOTG, right? It's not like the guy who came 3rd this year in Masters at Worlds was a rookie or anything, right?
 
SMP88 said:
Such a positive post by a PTO (and likes by other PTOs). Telling someone that they most likely won't do well their first season playing just screams SOTG, right? It's not like the guy who came 3rd this year in Masters at Worlds was a rookie or anything, right?
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What would you rather, for people to sit here and pump up their tires and then shrug if a statistically likely brutal crashing back down to earth happens? There's a difference between being negative and being realistic. It's entirely possible that they could be the greatest player in the history of the universe and win a bazillion games, sure. But it's far more likely that they won't, if this is their first year playing.

Managing expectations is important. If you go in blindly swinging with the thought process that if you don't make Worlds, it's a waste of a season, then things likely aren't going to go well for you. The way I read it, all 'pop was saying is that if your only reason for playing is make-worlds-or-bust, you're going to have a bad time. If you were going to play because it's fun and a good social time, then by all means, go ahead and play, and you'll have a great time. Striving towards making Worlds is good. Deciding that you don't want to play at all (not saying that's the case with them, just saying it as a general thing) because you don't think you'll hit 500 CP is a pretty concrete way to make sure that you don't have a fun time playing.

If I decide to take up mountain climbing, to say "I'm going straight for Everest!" is foolhardy. Somebody somewhere out there is probably going to be a natural who would be able to do it, yes. Heck, maybe it's me. But it is far, far, far more likely that I would crash and burn. It's much better to work at it for a while, build your skillset, and ~then~ shoot for the top.
 
You guys do know they have the right to lower the limit when we get closer to worlds to allow more people to be invited right? Raising it to 500 with the new structure is just a way to make sure they don't have to many people at the end with an invite. Would you rather have people turned away at Worlds for too many people or people receiving invites to increase the size if its low?
 
Bilbo Baggins said:
You guys do know they have the right to lower the limit when we get closer to worlds to allow more people to be invited right?
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If they actually announced this were the case, less people would be upset. For example, if they said that they would lower the requirement to 450 CP if less than X number of people qualified, there would be much more incentive to play. But there is no proof of that. All we know is that 500 CP is the requirement.
 
And that they desire an approximate 128 player Masters tournament.
And that information is subject to change.

Indeed what people choose to do with that information is up to them.
At the moment, TPCi believes enough Masters just might make it to 500.
 
Pooka said:
If they actually announced this were the case, less people would be upset. For example, if they said that they would lower the requirement to 450 CP if less than X number of people qualified, there would be much more incentive to play. But there is no proof of that. All we know is that 500 CP is the requirement.
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If it got to a point where the number of invites they wanted to go out is much less than the invites they have with the 500 CP, I really think they would make an adjustment and starting going down the list. It's much easier to send invites out than to start denying invites for there being to many handed out.... Yes, it's not announced by them, but its highly likely that they would do so if it comes to play.
 
I would actually be more upset if the point threshold was lowered halfway through the season. I know I don't have the time or money to qualify at 500 points, but I do have that possibility if it were at 400. Thus, I've decided not to pursue a World's invite this year and to only go to local events. If after cities they come out and say that they're going to lower the point threshold to 400 or even 450 I would have lost half a season thinking I wouldn't have been able to qualify.
 
I'm curious about this though, because it's what I would advise people....wait until Cities are over to see how well you have done so far in the season, to see if it's worth working really hard for the invitation.

By that time, only Fall Regionals + Cities would have happened. Indiana is really the only nearby Regional to attend, given the additional dates. So go to Indiana.

For Cities, let's hope we have a Chicago marathon again. But would you have ordinarily travelled to many other Cities?

"Half the season" sounds like a lot, but 3 dates for States and 6 potential dates for Regionals still have to happen.
 
losjackal said:
I'm curious about this though, because it's what I would advise people....wait until Cities are over to see how well you have done so far in the season, to see if it's worth working really hard for the invitation.

By that time, only Fall Regionals + Cities would have happened. Indiana is really the only nearby Regional to attend, given the additional dates. So go to Indiana.

For Cities, let's hope we have a Chicago marathon again. But would you have ordinarily travelled to many other Cities?

"Half the season" sounds like a lot, but 3 dates for States and 6 potential dates for Regionals still have to happen.
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So, Easily $500 for Regionals and $800+ for a 6 day Cities marathon?

ehhhhh
 
losjackal said:
I'm curious about this though, because it's what I would advise people....wait until Cities are over to see how well you have done so far in the season, to see if it's worth working really hard for the invitation.

By that time, only Fall Regionals + Cities would have happened. Indiana is really the only nearby Regional to attend, given the additional dates. So go to Indiana.

For Cities, let's hope we have a Chicago marathon again. But would you have ordinarily travelled to many other Cities?

"Half the season" sounds like a lot, but 3 dates for States and 6 potential dates for Regionals still have to happen.
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I probably won't be attending fall regionals. I don't really want to travel 4 hours for points that will really mean nothing this year. For cities, I'll probably only be attending the weekend tournaments. The last 2 years I took days off of work to attend as many tournaments as I could. Since I don't need the points any longer, I'll be saving my vacation days to use for other purposes. I also won't be traveling to cities in Indiana or Wisconsin like I have the last 2 years. I attended 7-10 cities each of the last 2 years, this year I might attend 3.
 
This is completely being overshadowed by the decision on Gino sadly, but this limit is still something that concerns me for this upcoming season.
 
In looking over the formulas used to come to our CP targets, we found that we overlooked a key element in our calculations. Worlds targets will not be changed, however, some of the event point spreads will be updated shortly.

Do not expect Worlds to be as large as it was this year. But, this should ease some of the concerns. I'm not sure if the web team will be able to update the information tomorrow, but it should be done by early next week.

We will also continue to review, evaluate and update these numbers each year, based upon the information we have, as well as the goals set forth to us for Worlds.

Thank you,
Prof_Dav
 
Professor Dav said:
In looking over the formulas used to come to our CP targets, we found that we overlooked a key element in our calculations. Worlds targets will not be changed, however, some of the event point spreads will be updated shortly.

Do not expect Worlds to be as large as it was this year. But, this should ease some of the concerns. I'm not sure if the web team will be able to update the information tomorrow, but it should be done by early next week.

We will also continue to review, evaluate and update these numbers each year, based upon the information we have, as well as the goals set forth to us for Worlds.

Thank you,
Prof_Dav
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Dave, I'm certain that the community in general is very appreciative that your team is revisiting the Worlds invite points structure. Ameliorating the point threshold is something that was much needed and will make the goal of making Worlds more reasonably attainable. Thank you.
 
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