[SpaceGorilla]

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

In a tournament where all players are grouped together in a single division, you can either a.) make cutoffs equal to the average number of players in a given division until prize rounds or b.) do linear cutoffs based off of the total number of players in a given division. Admittedly, both of these results do not bode well for players who are at the bottom end of the divisional pool.

However, breaking away from divisional structure is logical because it legitimately showcases players at their current skill. You would never need to worry about accommodating for skill drops or skill boosts if divisional structure ceased to exist. If anything, the tournament experience would be improved because players would not have to worry about having to dodge a particular skill-set that they are bad at: you could pick a certain number of songs per round that emphasize multiple skills, which will inevitably guarantee that stronger, more well-rounded players will proceed further into the tournament.

Additionally, because there's no divisions, sandbagging would be considerably mitigated (not eliminated, though).

Another advantage to a divisionless structure is that players who get put in the lower-end of a division don't get the complete shaft, either. I've always found it absolutely strange that low-end players of higher divisions have to feel like they're completely worthless because they can't proceed past the early-game of the tournament, when the reality is that they are better than a large majority of users on the site. The argument that prizes aren't guaranteed for players in a division holds well here: you might be guaranteed a prize in your division when a player in the lower-end of a division isn't -- but, in a divisionless structure, you're playing at roughly the same playing field as your lower-end competitor due to both of you being exposed to large numbers of players both above and below you. The low-end D(x) player is going to enjoy being able to survive the tournament and have that tournament pressure for longer periods, and they'll be able to say that they made it to round y, where they beat out z% of the field (as opposed to being eliminated early and beating a much smaller group of players).

Divisionless structures guarantee that the best players actually get the opportunity to show themselves, and additionally guarantee a finish in the tournament that is representative of their skill level with respect to other players participating in the tournament. The tournament structure would of course require some modification, but it should be ideally done such that the average D(x) player gets eliminated roughly one round before the ideal D(x+1) player.

There are tournament structures that utilize an elimination-less format, if the concern is lower-level players being dropped too early. Swiss-style tournaments are not bad, but FFR's skill level is so incredibly vast that there will literally be a bunch of slaughter pairings, over and over and over again. A modified swiss-style structure that seeds off of skill rating can be created so that players of generally close skill can face off against one another throughout the duration of the tournament (see: McMahon-style swiss brackets) - the interesting thing about this is that it would break the traditional tournament style by actually using competitive pairings, and a bracket as well. The toughest part with that tournament style is accommodating for byes when the bracket doesn't have players equal to an exponential of 2.

There are many ways to contend with this situation, but I feel like FFR has grown complacent in divisional structure (and why shouldn't the community be? It's been the norm for 9 and a half years).

The proposition of this idea seems pretty strong, but I think believe that if a different official tournament style is in order, we would need to run a test tourney to see how the community reacts, and how effective the style is. Comparative analysis between divisional tournament and this bracket style would be necessary to deem one better than the other.

I say this because a quick change like that could cause "unrest" in the community; such is seen with the 'scorev2' changes the osu! developers are putting into place. A test with a considerable competitor pool would (I feel) be a good general indicator of how a change from divisional tournaments could benefit FFR.