Possibility of New Reborn Online League

[mde2001]

Okay, Nova is now working with me to try and make this happen. We have decided to wait and view the poll a bit more before starting properly so if you are reading this please vote in the poll!

Challengers are likely to be the biggest problem as AuthorReborn pointed out. As he pointed out we might be able to attract some poketubers to challenge it which would be great for advertising.

Thanks to all that have expressed interest so far!

[Xiri]

Revival of the Reborn League? Count me in.

I can see some problems with this though - most of them outlined above by others. Informing Poketubers of the event sounds like a good idea - as lack of participation will just lead to yet another, failed event that has enormous potential. The most important thing would be motivation I guess - as both challengers and leaders will have to be constantly engaged throughout the event, and not back out halfway.

I would love to help, even though I don't have much experience in organizing these sort of events.

[Juniper]

Just to add to my previous comment (I have forgotten what I said and am too lazy to check)

I am interested in helping out in any way I can.

I have plenty of free time, especially on weekends.

I'm GMT though.

Also I would be interested in being a leader (Despite the fact I suck )

[Sheep]

As plenty of people have said before, there are a billion and one reasons as to why this might not work. The first thing I want to do though is to stress Huk's point about the importance of anonymity. I know this is no where near ready for anything yet but when it is the leaders have to be anonymous, so those of you that are volunteering, it's probably not the best idea to be doing that in public.

Activity is a huge issue with these sorts of things. We lost a ton of server activity when we made the change from PO to Showdown, and that hasn't recovered yet to the best of my knowledge. The reborn league was a massive deal that attracted participants like flies, and I'm skeptical that it can be replicated at the same scale in the near future.

Another thing this needs to be is hard. Because let me tell you, the reborn league was hard. I probably had around a 50% success rate in it, and I'm very competent at the least. It was hard enough to force you to think outside the box in order to win. I dunno who were the names behind the leaders but if you want to make this competition something worth remembering then yours are going to have to be just as good. As comparison I entered the excessum league when it started up, won 4 matches in a row, and then left because I was bored. I'm not trying to be cocky here, just stressing the fact that the leaders can't just be any Joe Blow off the street.

Finally this is going to be much much easier if all of the leaders can work in one time zone. And of course it'll be easier again if that time zone is the only time zone that truly matters around here, the American time zone. Makes it hard for people like you or me but when 90% of your active demographic has an easier time because of it you'd be stupid to try and do anything else. Trying to work different leaders from different time zones will likely only end with some leaders that people find they can't challenge due to the rigors of an everyday life.

[Ojama Yellow]

I'd be down for this if timezones would permit me and if I will have enough time.

[mde2001]

As plenty of people have said before, there are a billion and one reasons as to why this might not work. The first thing I want to do though is to stress Huk's point about the importance of anonymity. I know this is no where near ready for anything yet but when it is the leaders have to be anonymous, so those of you that are volunteering, it's probably not the best idea to be doing that in public.

Activity is a huge issue with these sorts of things. We lost a ton of server activity when we made the change from PO to Showdown, and that hasn't recovered yet to the best of my knowledge. The reborn league was a massive deal that attracted participants like flies, and I'm skeptical that it can be replicated at the same scale in the near future.

Another thing this needs to be is hard. Because let me tell you, the reborn league was hard. I probably had around a 50% success rate in it, and I'm very competent at the least. It was hard enough to force you to think outside the box in order to win. I dunno who were the names behind the leaders but if you want to make this competition something worth remembering then yours are going to have to be just as good. As comparison I entered the excessum league when it started up, won 4 matches in a row, and then left because I was bored. I'm not trying to be cocky here, just stressing the fact that the leaders can't just be any Joe Blow off the street.

Finally this is going to be much much easier if all of the leaders can work in one time zone. And of course it'll be easier again if that time zone is the only time zone that truly matters around here, the American time zone. Makes it hard for people like you or me but when 90% of your active demographic has an easier time because of it you'd be stupid to try and do anything else. Trying to work different leaders from different time zones will likely only end with some leaders that people find they can't challenge due to the rigors of an everyday life.

The point about anonymity is definitely a fair one. Even if we did implement a ban system for those who asked for battles outside of the official times (or something similar) it wouldn't be as effective as unknown leaders. We could trust most of the current members of the community to not harass leaders however we can't be sure people who would (hopefully) be attracted by the league would pay the same respect. While a couple of leaders would be known for organisations sake it would make sense to have the majority of leaders being anonymous. This would mean that when/ if we do get around to asking for applications it would all have to be done by PM.

The difficulty is an important point. We may not be able to replicate the immense difficulty of the Reborn league but there is little point to us making something if everyone who challenges it can win easily. The fun comes from the challenge so we'll need to find people who are as good at battling as possible.

The time zones thing is definitely a valid point. I wouldn't expect challengers from America to get into Australian time zones just to challenge me however given that we are planning to just do this on the weekend it wouldn't be a problem for me to battle people on an EST Saturday afternoon/ evening. The time zone difference is great enough that it would just be morning for me- I'm not a big sleep inner anyway. Nova and I were talking about time zones and discussing the possibility of having leaders make themselves available for European challengers as well (probably GMT availability). We haven't worked out details here but it is a possibility. So pretty much I think that leaders would have to at least be available on EST Saturdays or Sundays in order to qualify I think.

Thanks for the feedback.

[AuthorReborn]

So for all of you would-be-gym-leaders, I have a bit of advice for you: know your type. Know all the weaknesses, the strengths, the secondary typings and movesets, anything that could allow you to beat back even a team with a complete type advantage over you. And most of all, know the game. A lot of competitive pokemon's challenge comes from the simple turn-to-turn play that most people forget about- especially in leagues. Make plays when needed to guide you to victory and EQ on that Talonflame's Roost. Understand your foe, correctly predict them, and force them into positions where they have but one, easily exploitable option and you've won regardless of team match-up.

[Guest]

I don't know.

I do hope you make your own characters, and not rip them off of Reborn. I mean even if you loosely base a character off of say, Florina for example, people might pick up on it.

So if you're going to do it, start from scratch.

An online league would be cool but it would be interesting to see how many people actually participate.

I ran Excessum league (after it's 455th revival (numbers are exaggerated)) twice. First time it was successful initially, and then it died down to a point where we could run it no longer. Our characters were made from scratch, our teams were also made from scratch. Nothing was even loosely based off of Reborn (except for the fact that there were 18 gym leaders and there were lines for the leaders yaddi yadda). The second time it went okay but I didn't really have much involvement in it at all, it was ran by Noivy and Silver, I think, instead.

Make it challenging, make it interesting, advertise it and follow through

When my friend Dragonz and I ran it, we went as far as making custom trainer cards and badges, so there was that too.

Anyway, good luck.

[Kurotsune]

Well, the only thing I'd say to keep in mind here is that this wouldn't be a new reborn league.

Literally the only two ways a "new reborn league" can occur is if either it's creator decided to, or gave the permission for someone else to do it. If I recall correctly, I've seen Amethyst state she doesn't have the intention to do either.

Somewhat of a nitpicky post, but I just feel like it's important to make this clear; If you want to make your own league that's fine, and certainly no one would shut it down, but don't make it under the assumption or concept that it's the "new reborn league"; It'd be it's own beast, completely separate from Reborn and not really related to it in any way.

[mde2001]

Well, the only thing I'd say to keep in mind here is that this wouldn't be a new reborn league.

Literally the only two ways a "new reborn league" can occur is if either it's creator decided to, or gave the permission for someone else to do it. If I recall correctly, I've seen Amethyst state she doesn't have the intention to do either.

Somewhat of a nitpicky post, but I just feel like it's important to make this clear; If you want to make your own league that's fine, and certainly no one would shut it down, but don't make it under the assumption or concept that it's the "new reborn league"; It'd be it's own beast, completely separate from Reborn and not really related to it in any way.

By new reborn league really all we mean is a league similar to the reborn league for the members of the reborn community to participate in.

Do you know if Ame would be okay with us using a lot of the same rules that she had in the actual Reborn league (we'll obviously ask her some of these questions)?

[Flux]

By new reborn league really all we mean is a league similar to the reborn league for the members of the reborn community to participate in.

Do you know if Ame would be okay with us using a lot of the same rules that she had in the actual Reborn league (we'll obviously ask her some of these questions)?

Amethyst can't really own a set of rules, and I doubt she'd mind anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. The things we need to stay away from without her permission are the title, the characters, and her trainer cards, which I don't intend on using anyway.

[Amethyst]

You can use the rules as a model if you'd like. Some of them might need to be rebuilt for Showdown. We don't have half the functionality for league here that we did on PO.

I'm not opposed to fan leagues, so long as it's clear that it's not -the- Reborn league. I won't be able to offer much to it directly though.

Biggest problem with leagues like this is always going to be getting leadery people to be reliably available at the given time. Good luck.

[Felicity]

Last attempt of a spiritual successor, Excessum i believe, kinda died when showdown happened. I think there are reasons for that, maybe chat to those who did it?

[Juniper]

I'm just gonna throw some ideas at you all.

If you're not interested, don't read it

This might sound stupid and I'm sure it's flawed somehow, but for keeping track of battles, why can't each leader just have a separate thread, in which they post those who beat them? (It could all be done in a single thread too, it might be more cluttered that way though) Obviously there's the issue of anonymity with this, but if it's made very clear that only a certain amount of challengers are accepted per day, why would there be problems? I'm sure there'll be one or two people who don't read the rules and spam like crazy for a match, but as Mde said, they could just be banned from the league from breaking the rules.

Here's another idea (Considerably worse)

If people could just post something like "Challenge: 1", "Challenge 2" etc. on the leader's thread, (Each new person typing the next number) along with the date of the challenge being issued, that could replace a more complicated system. (It would probably be quite messy though, plus, if it's popular, people could be ninja'd or something)

As for this being difficult, I reckon some sort of "Tryouts" thing should happen for potential leaders (Providing there are even enough volunteers).

Get maybe 3 "Judges" who are actually good at Showdown,

get the potentials to battle the judges with their monotype team and let the judges decide whether or not they think that person and their team have the required skill/difficulty to be their respective type leader.

As for Usable tiers, I should think it wouldn't be fair for challengers to use full legendary teams,

I don't know if League is always OU or there's some sort of rules regarding this, but if it were up to me,

I would say that challengers should be confined to OU (Including OU clauses, etc.) and maybe the leaders should be allowed one non-legendary Uber (Maybe not, purely for difficulty) and are otherwise restrained to the same OU rules as the challengers.

Anyway, this is all the stuff I thought about today x_________x

Feel free to comment about it

[Flux]

I'm just gonna throw some ideas at you all.

If you're not interested, don't read it

This might sound stupid and I'm sure it's flawed somehow, but for keeping track of battles, why can't each leader just have a separate thread, in which they post those who beat them? (It could all be done in a single thread too, it might be more cluttered that way though) Obviously there's the issue of anonymity with this, but if it's made very clear that only a certain amount of challengers are accepted per day, why would there be problems? I'm sure there'll be one or two people who don't read the rules and spam like crazy for a match, but as Mde said, they could just be banned from the league from breaking the rules.

Here's another idea (Considerably worse)

If people could just post something like "Challenge: 1", "Challenge 2" etc. on the leader's thread, (Each new person typing the next number) along with the date of the challenge being issued, that could replace a more complicated system. (It would probably be quite messy though, plus, if it's popular, people could be ninja'd or something)

As for this being difficult, I reckon some sort of "Tryouts" thing should happen for potential leaders (Providing there are even enough volunteers).

Get maybe 3 "Judges" who are actually good at Showdown,

get the potentials to battle the judges with their monotype team and let the judges decide whether or not they think that person and their team have the required skill/difficulty to be their respective type leader.

As for Usable tiers, I should think it wouldn't be fair for challengers to use full legendary teams,

I don't know if League is always OU or there's some sort of rules regarding this, but if it were up to me,

I would say that challengers should be confined to OU (Including OU clauses, etc.) and maybe the leaders should be allowed one non-legendary Uber (Maybe not, purely for difficulty) and are otherwise restrained to the same OU rules as the challengers.

Anyway, this is all the stuff I thought about today x_________x

Feel free to comment about it

Regarding tiers, I believe the Reborn League allowed any OU Pokemon until you reached the X-League, in which case you were allowed one legendary/uber (With a few banned iirc.). The X-League leaders were allowed to use legendaries as well, so it made for a challenge. I'm not sure how strictly we'll follow this, or if we'll even have an X-League (We can just call it "Elite Four" or whatever we decide on.)

As for anonymity, I don't imagine it being a terrible problem for many of the reasons already stated. In any case, alternate accounts/server names would always be an option. Creating a persona would be fun anyway.

[Reignited'Light]

Creating a persona would be fun anyway.

Can confirm

[Anvilicious]

You're going to need a lot of administrators overseeing the league to make this work. If this grows, you won't be able to manage it manually. The amount of things you'll need to keep track of will overwhelm you and kill the league. I cannot stress enough how important it will be to have the league automated as soon as possible, if not right when it officially starts.

Also, although this league is born from the Reborn forums, it's not the Reborn League. I'm certain most people who'd been around during old league would find it presumptive and perhaps offensive of you if you imply that it IS the old Reborn League, when to them, it quite clearly isn't. So, while I do wish you the best on creating a fantastic league, make sure that you continue to distinguish it as something completely new and not Reborn.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Anvilicious

[Juniper]

There's always the option of keeping this low-scale.

You know, local.

It's not as though it's designed to make profit or anything, it just needs enough people to be worth running.

As for distinguishability, (Apparently, that's not a word)

I think it's been made relatively clear that this is definitely NOT the "New Reborn League" and is simply something with similar premise to create a similar experience to those who didn't experience it the first time and anyone else who's interested.

[mde2001]

There's always the option of keeping this low-scale.

You know, local.

It's not as though it's designed to make profit or anything, it just needs enough people to be worth running.

As for distinguishability, (Apparently, that's not a word)

I think it's been made relatively clear that this is definitely NOT the "New Reborn League" and is simply something with similar premise to create a similar experience to those who didn't experience it the first time and anyone else who's interested.

Yeah, we'll work on automation (if it is possible).

We aren't going to call it the new reborn league or assume it is a new version of the old league. It is really just a league for the community to enjoy!

[Notus]

Heyo. I entered Reborn shortly before the start of the League´s last season and tried my hand at it. It was the best pokémon experience I ever had, the thrill of those battles and the ammount of stuff I learned from them was immense. If you guys are set for doing something based on that, then I can only say go for it, and good luck! I´ll be surely playing when it starts running, though I´m afraid my life has been little too busy for me to effectively help on it. You´ll have a lot of work in your hands, as stressed above many times, but I believe it can work if planned carefully.

[Commander]

I'm going to be honest here. While I think the concept would be cool and neat, I don't see it working out. The amount of support needed and required would be tricky and keeping track of everything would be quite difficult. I suppose a battle log thread where people oversee the whole league would be best and the first thing you must do. That system can only handle so much, but it's definitely possible to keep track.

This is where it's going to fail. Who the leaders will be. There's just such a commitment that you can't just pick anyone to be a leader. It's like making a game with a team. If one person is super good at spriting let's say, but he doesn't listen or work well with the rest of the group, it'd be better to pick someone not as good who could do cooperate and work well. You need very committed and very skilled people to run as players. 18 is a very big number and higher numbers mean higher chances some kink is going to go into the system. Reborn has had 34 different leaders in it's three seasons with many, many problems. It may not be a bad idea to start out at 8 instead and work your way up.

[Milotic]

I'm going to be honest here. While I think the concept would be cool and neat, I don't see it working out. The amount of support needed and required would be tricky and keeping track of everything would be quite difficult. I suppose a battle log thread where people oversee the whole league would be best and the first thing you must do. That system can only handle so much, but it's definitely possible to keep track.

This is where it's going to fail. Who the leaders will be. There's just such a commitment that you can't just pick anyone to be a leader. It's like making a game with a team. If one person is super good at spriting let's say, but he doesn't listen or work well with the rest of the group, it'd be better to pick someone not as good who could do cooperate and work well. You need very committed and very skilled people to run as players. 18 is a very big number and higher numbers mean higher chances some kink is going to go into the system. Reborn has had 34 different leaders in it's three seasons with many, many problems. It may not be a bad idea to start out at 8 instead and work your way up.

Yea, I agree on some of your points. That's why I feel like there should be some type of test (more than just an application) or something for those who want to be apart of the leauge. Test their commitment and also their skills. If we want the leauge to be difficult to beat and everything to be organized I feel like something like this needs to happen, so the wrong people arent chosen. I would love to be apart of the leauge, but i'm more interested in being a challenger.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Milotic

[mde2001]

We're planning on having quite detailed testing for those who apply to be gym leaders on not only their battling skill, but their availability and so on. We are also planning on testing role playing skills so that it adds to the experience!

[Commander]

We're planning on having quite detailed testing for those who apply to be gym leaders on not only their battling skill, but their availability and so on. We are also planning on testing role playing skills so that it adds to the experience!

The only issue I'm seeing is getting enough applications and those who can be fit. Let's just take me for example (since I know I'm not going to sign-up). Obviously, I have all of the qualifications (I'm a roleplayer and I'm fairly good at battling) but time would be my biggest issue only being available two days a week. I just don't think you'll be able to fill all 18 gym leader roles with the right people nor the people with enough skills to make a very, very challenging league.

[mde2001]

We may have a problem with getting good enough leaders to be available but as we are only planning on needing them for a period of 1 to 2 hours on a weekend so it may not be too difficult. When we start to recruit leaders we'll see if this is an issue.