Forum:Discussion

Forums: Index > The Arena > Discussion

Archives 1

This is the official discussion page for the Arena. If you have an idea for a competition, please create a level three subheading, and provide a basic outline of your idea, under the section titles 'Tournament ideas'. If you want to discuss a topic besides this, changes to policy etc, please do so under the 'General ideas' heading.

After the current Arena competition has finished, voting will be opened to decide which of the submitted competition ideas will be used for the next competition. Users are permitted to create and host their own Arena competitions with approval from the other users.

General ideas

Ideas on resolving "vote manipulating"

Recently, a few users have made it clear they do not like how certain part-time voters participate in certain battles. Some have accused them of "vote manipulating", which has clearly divided the community at the moment. Henceforth, I would like to start a civil discussion on how this issue (which has been occurring for years, I must say), can be resolved before it gets out of hand.

The way I see it, there are three main solutions:

• 1: Force part-time users to vote on every battle of a particular update, or at least half of them. The advantage here is that these users can simply write a small sentence or so for the other battles, while still participating in a close matchup.

• 2: Allow part-time users to vote only on one fight if they want to, but ask them to write a quality vote. By "quality", I do not mean a simple sentence like "Agree with X" or "Pit", or something along those lines. Raising some new points, writing a paragraph or so, or something similar, will be adequate.

• 3: Let users vote on which battles they want to discuss at their own leisure. Remember, as part of the Arena Forum rules, everyone has earned the right to vote on these tournaments, so they should be able to decide which battles they will and will not vote on.

I personally back the second option, since this will mean part-time users are not forced to participate in blowouts, but will still be contributing towards the excitement regarding close battles. What do you ladies and gentlemen think? SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 18:04, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we need to specifically rule or force people to do anything, all I ask is that you look like you care with your votes. The kind of votes I've complained about, such as "yep" 8 times or users only voting once in a random battle (sometimes in a whitewash too rather than close judges decisions). After all, this tournament is supposed to be fun, so please at least write a sentence or a light joke that shows this, rather than it being a chore. There's nothing wrong with saying you agree with what a certain user has written as a response, but don't do something like TG's vote in this battle. If you agree with what another user says, please say you agree with their reasoning, don't just go with your mates. After all, I have to read each response to check if they're valid an relevant for the battle at each update, so please write something that keeps me entertained at least. If you'll notice, despite some isolated incidents of very poor quality votes or reasoning, I haven't actually striked any votes this whole tournament (to my knowledge). We're here to have some fun, and not everyone can be as committed as others, but if you have the time, please try to vote in as many battles as possible. We value all opinions and the more the merrier. It's been a long tournament and we're getting to the meaty part pretty soon. Let's just enjoy the rest of the tournament and act like we are for the sake of everyone else reading it. We don't want another situation like Mortis vs Tiberius, where loads of people disagree with the result, but didn't vote, so it went the "wrong" way. It makes no sense to have one battle with 13 votes and others with 8, no matter how dull or one-sided they are. Jimlaad43(talk) 18:28, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

I don't think there's any one "right" answer, although Option Two is probably going to be the least controversial. I'd argue there should always be a significant reason for a vote, especially if it's close, or you disagree with it. If it's a fight like, say, Carbide vs Shapeshifter Mk.1 then OK, a "yep" vote or no vote at all is probably understandable (albeit we miss out on SO many hilarious comments), but that's not where this kind of "manipulation" comes from. CrashBash (talk) 18:32, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

This isn't about me is it? I don't typically vote in round 1 because the fights are almost always one-sided and I don't see much to add past what's already said, but I try to give good reasonings on my round 2/3 votes. Badnik96 (talk) 18:38, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

It isn't about you, when you vote you give decent explanations and try to vote in most of the fights open at the time. This is aimed at users who vote in a small percentage of fights in a round or don't give valid reasonings in their votes for various reasons. Jimlaad43(talk) 18:42, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

Yeah you're fine Badnik. It's literally just a tiny amount of users. For me I've already stated my thought, personally option 1 is my choice, at the same time I feel that maybe the tournament "admin" could be the one who decides the ruleset for the individual tournament...Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 19:22, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

I’d like it to be pointed out that I don’t agree with Nick and Toast blindly. I may have said so in that vote but I don’t. In fact, some of their opinions are so wildly out of sync with my own that we had to record Ultimate Countdown review podcast because I couldn’t be polite about their views on Big Cheese v Chaos 2. If it were up to me, every user would have to re earn their arena privileges every year instead of doing 300 once off. If we aren’t going to mandate users to contribute to the Wiki, I don’t agree that users should be forced to detail their opinions on a fight when others have said everything and they simply concur. Option 1 is just going to involve a lot of vote striking and a lot of bad blood. Option 2 slightly less so. Option 3 is the only real option and I will not be changing my behaviour. Toon Ganondorf (t c) 20:59, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Option 1 basically means that people don't have to write massive essays, they just have to make sure they don't just vote for one fight, which is where this whole "manipulation" thing comes from. Even just voting for a second fight should be a workable compromise. CrashBash (talk) 21:40, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

I personally do not believe this to be an issue. If there are legitimately suspicious voting patterns that negatively and deliberately destabilise the integrity of the tournament, or somebody purely agreeing with friends consistently, then yes, it becomes an issue. But as far as I'm aware, there's not been a situation where individuals deliberately colluded to force a specific agenda or result in a way that they did not honestly believe in. Ultimately, if you try to mandate very specific, small intricacies, then people will also be likely to explore other avenues or look for further 'problems' to complain about. We could end up having people complaining about instances like Bulldog Breed vs. Pulsar. Where an accusation could be made towards people voting Pulsar out simply because it's too similar to Magnetar, them simply wanting it out of the tournament because they don't want both Pulsar and Magnetar present, and then using Pulsar's reliability as the easy reason for voting for Bulldog Breed, but deep down they don't actually believe in that vote. You'll just never know people's motives, and if you overanalyse them, you're in danger of disrespecting a person's honest intentions. In an event like Ragnabot, people are mostly going to be focusing on pushing their own opinions forward that they believe in. It is a uniquely-massive tournament in terms of overall total of robots, with a lot of fights in each update, so it's natural for some fights to pass us by. Sure, if a fight only has four or five votes then we may need a minimum amount of votes before a fight is deemed valid for confirmation, but by the latter parts of the tournament, I'm sure things will revert into a normal Arena tournament where virtually everybody votes. Most people are just pacing themselves in preparation and do not have any underlying agendas. NJGW (talk) 22:31, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Nick in that I don't think this is something that should be looked into. In terms of policing everybody's votes it can very easily fall into subjectivity as to whether a vote is being designed to "manipulate" a result, and to be honest even in a tournament as vast as Ragnabot I can't think of that many battles that can even be considered for such a conversation, if we are referring to every time it isn't a whitewash, then we'd have to review every battle where it wasn't a clean sweep, with the minority calling for manipulation. As for the part-time voter thing, I assume I would be put into that category since I haven't voted every single round. If I'm being brutally honest, I just don't always have the time to log onto the wiki every day or so to vote in every round. The Ragnabot tournament is updated with such frequency that if you're away for a week you can miss an entire heat, so when I am around, I do try to make the effort and vote on every battle, but to be honest when your internet isn't great, or you're short on time, or you just don't want to get caught in an edit conflict, I admit a lot of my votes these days are far more brief than the essays I used to write years ago, particularly the one-sided fights, but when a battle is already 9 votes one way why does anybody care? I've never thought the voting practice we have really needed fixing, because where there is enough passion for any given draw, the explanations will come out, and if people can convey arguments they feel strongly about, then people can be swayed, and that's the beauty of the Arena forum. Datovidny (talk) 23:55, December 7, 2019 (UTC)

Tournament ideas

Alphabetical championships

We have had a lot of Series x, but it's aplhabetised! tournaments on userpages for the last few months, and it got me thinking about how we can do something like that as an arena tournament. Maybe we should do battles with each letter of the alphabet to find the best robot starting with each letter. A Heat for each letter with the best 8 (or less if there are only less) robots from each letter (eg: B - Behemoth, Black Hole, Bigger Brother, Bulldog Breed and more). We would add a heat for robots starting with a number too. They fight in a heat to declare a "best of the letter". Potentially it could then carry on to find the best letter (which would only ever end up as being C for Carbide though...). Thoughts? Jimlaad43(talk) 22:03, August 5, 2017 (UTC)

To be honest I'm hesitant to have any tournament with Carbide until Series 10/11 or future shownus it can be beaten. Toon Ganondorf (t c) 01:09, August 6, 2017 (UTC)

Carbide is a major worry as it's almost unbeatable. However this is a great idea to go ahead with. One idea could be to add every competitor into Random.Org and have what ones were there, use them in an alphabetised fashion. Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 12:04, August 6, 2017 (UTC)

An alphabetized Ragnabot isnt a good idea for the arena. (But userpages maybe...) --Jimlaad43(talk) 12:37, August 6, 2017 (UTC)

Fictional Game Tournament

We know how to judge robots in the arena, so why not host a tournament with all the fictional robots from the Robot Wars games? There's enough info on each page to work out what to say about each robot, and I'm sure some of you will do the fights when they appear to test the result. We could even switch up the arena each heat to a different in-game one! We're all experienced enough to come up with something good. Jimlaad43(talk) 20:28, April 15, 2018 (UTC)

Audited World Championship

I believe I pitched this one before, but have we considered a full audited World Championship featuring robots from around the world? Each heat would feature a different country naturally and the winner (or maybe end after round 2 to have two represenatives each) qualify for the World Championship final. We have UK, US, German, Dutch, and Wildcard (i.e multiple countries with only 1 notable rep; like say, Terror Turtle representing Canada) though we could MAYBE include Belgium since there's 8 bots there...but some are under the same team banner so that'd be hard to do. As such the 6th heat is one I'm struggling with. If/when anyone can come up with an idea of sorts I feel we could try this one. BizarroKing (talk) 02:13, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

We could make this massive by splitting England into Counties, or at least the 9 regions to even it up. The only issue I see with this is the tenuous links to some countries, and 1-robot countries. Obviously, robots like Killerhurtz and Cerberus that have represented single-robot countries IRL are fine, but when we try the whole King B Remix-can-be-Japanese thing that it might get odd. Still, we will find something that vaguely works for our purposes. Jimlaad43(talk) 12:54, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

Audited Series, Different Format

Admittedly this is more of a format idea as opposed to a specific tourney per say but what if we did an audited series with an altered fight format. An example would be audited series 7 having been formatted like series 3; using 4 1v1 battles instead of the 4 way eliminators. Maybe we can change things up and format series 3 like 6-7 using eliminators instead. It's an odd idea I know but I wanted to throw that idea out there. BizarroKing (talk) 02:13, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

Audited Series 7 with 1v1 fights in round one has already been done, and with so many poor machines in Series 3 that would be incredibly difficult to decide between in a melee environment, I'd be very reluctant to do melees.

It could be done, but with so many other ideas available I'm just not sure. Raz3r(talk) 07:45, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

Yea I know it was done already I was using it as an example. BizarroKing (talk) 21:30, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

Robot Wars: Battle Royale

I know I keep banging on about it, but I play and enjoy Fortnite. However, in Raz3r's latest blog about Series 10, he mentioned that the 10-Robot-Rumble was the original Battle Royale, which got me thinking. If that was with 10 robots, why can't we expand it to 100? Think of it, 100 robots enter the arena and only one can survive. Obviously, there would have to be a lot of changes and unique ways to run it. This is how I envisage it would run.

• The Arena would have to be massive. If it has all the hazards spread out all over the map - so many Pit of Oblivion's, some areas with low walls that can be used for OotA's and side strandings. Assume stuff like infinite roboteer visibility, no signal dropout or interference, infinite battery life and consumables like CO2 are automatically refilled after each battle (or maybe not, needing to find some on the map) etc. This means you can assume every possible elimination tactic is viable across the map.
• 100 robots from the show need to be selected. All will drop onto the map at the start spread out at random. Some in clusters, some alone.
• Robots close to each other will start to fight. Depending on how close every robot is, the battles could vary in numbers. Not every battle needs to end in a victory, it could be decided that both survive, or could become a house rule that judges decisions mean both robots turn away and flee after the battle.
• Damage from fights would have to be carried over, unless we can think of a viable game mechanic that allows repairs (Medpack on the map, after a certain amount of turn it's assumed to be repaired etc).
• A safe zone shrinks the game area, pushing all remaining robots towards each other. (Maybe call the danger area the CPZ, where they're susceptible to damage from the House Robots).

The map would show the position of all robots, and battles would have to be done normally on a separate page. This can be updated every round, allowing people to vote. One way to get robots to move independently around the map would be to combine it with a mini sweepstake, where different users can control specific robots and direct them to land somewhere at the start, and then move after the fight.

Robots get a kill count which counts how many robots they have knocked out of the battle, but the ultimate winner is last bot standing. This could be the best robot with the most kills (for example, Carbide could cream everyone and come out with a 15 kill victory), or it could be a passive robot that survives to the end and gets a lucky kill on the other survivor (for example, Barber-Ous 2'n a Bit could mosy about the map avoiding other robots, and find itself in the final 2 against a Firestorm that has scored 12 kills and Barber-Ous gets the votes, taking the win).

I doubt there has been a stupider tournament suggestion, but this would be a major format change which could be refreshing and very different and fun. it also gives every robot a chance of winning, as technically they only need to be able to beat one robot to be in with a chance of a Victory Royale! Jimlaad43(talk) 10:11, September 16, 2018 (UTC)

Comments (I know you have some)

Try running a smaller version on your userpage as an experiment. Then, its feasibility and entertainment value can be evaluated. On a similar note, I would like a modern robot combat game to have battle royale mode on it. 94.119.96.6 10:47, September 16, 2018 (UTC)

The Royal Rumble

Inspired by both BattleBots' Royal Rumbles and WWE's variants (as well as Jimlaad's suggestion above), I have a new, original tournament idea.

• This tournament will consist of thirty robots. Two robots will start in the arena, where the only ways to eliminate the other are via knockout (flip, break down etc), or an out of the arena. There will be no House Robots, no active floor flipper and no doom dial (meaning no pit).
• Every so often (perhaps a minute or less), another robot will enter the arena and do battle. This will continue until number 30 enters the arena.
• For each new robot that enters the arena, a new round starts. Users will vote on who will be eliminated from this round, if any. If more than fifty percent of voters believe X robot should be eliminated, it is removed from the battle. Users can also vote "no change" if they think all robots will survive to the next round.
• Once number 30 enters the arena, the voting format will become similar to Audited Series 10's 10 robot rumble, where voters rank robots based on when they think they will be eliminated.
• Think of this tournament as a combination of an Annihilator, BattleBots' Royal Rumbles and WWE's Royal Rumble. This is because not only will multiple robots be battling each other at once, they will not be doing so at the same time. This means when taking into account damage accumulated in each round, the robots that start at 1 and 2 are at a HUGE disadvantage while number 30 will be much fresher than any remaining competitors. This theoretically means that Carbide starting at number 1 could lose to something like Krayzee Tokyo, who is in 'fighting condition' due to entering at number 30 and may need one touch to take out a mortally wounded Carbide.
• The only issue I find is that we would have to assume that robots have unlimited power, which I think can be achieved.

I plan to create a userpage tournament to show the feasibility of this tournament. 94.119.96.6 10:47, September 16, 2018 (UTC)

Audited Series 9

I don't think we should do this just yet, but I feel this should at least be considered for a future competition. Basically, I'm proposing that, if we need to do another Audited series, then Series 9 is our best candidate. The most important change would be to the format - I'm not 100% convinced that the Round Robin format would work on the wikia and as a general format, it sorta sucked anyway. However, we do have another actual Robot Wars Series that featured 40 robots that managed just fine without a Round Robin. If nothing else, it'd be interesting to see how things may have gone under a different format.

There are two major reasons why I'm specifically proposing Series 9 over Series 8, which had the same format. The first is that I feel Series 9 had more alternate robots we could use, which could potentially mix up the meta game quite a bit. The second is that I think most of us will agree that it was the weakest of the reboot series anyway. And whilst I'm sure most of you will probably say "There's no point, Carbide would easily win anyway", I would simply respond with "would it?" and if your answer is still yes, "so what?". After all, our Audited Series don't always end up with the same winner even when it seems obvious, and even when it does, we still have fun doing it (see Audited Series 3 and 4, where Chaos 2 was always going to win). CrashBash (talk) 21:27, November 30, 2018 (UTC)

Comments

Honestly, I am not a big fan of Series 9; henceforth why I support this concept. Carbide easily winning is not an issue, seeing as Panzer Mk 2 won with no objections throughout its Audited Extreme Warriors 1 campaign.

Another reason to support this tournament is the bin candidates process; we could add in Big Nipper, Dantomkia, Eric (although that robot is clearly too OP for this tournament!), Gabriel (no Jimlaad, disliking the robot is NOT a valid reason to not include it), Gyrobot, Iron Heart 88 (where Toast will need to be careful when judging battles involving it :P), Mega Melvin, Prizephita, Ripper, Terror-Bull, Tough as Nails, Toxic 2 and TR2. Hence, I support this idea, although maybe after another original tournament. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 22:18, November 30, 2018 (UTC)

That and I can still see a few robots giving Carbide some issues. CrashBash (talk) 22:22, November 30, 2018 (UTC)

Series X but in league format

On a recent blog post of mine, CrashBash noted how Series 3 could have had a league format for its heats, by dividing "the robots into four, and the one robot who tops from each league meet each other in the final." Now that seems like a good concept for the arena forums!

Unlike with Series 8/9's head-to-head format, the benefits of this concept should involve no two robots facing each other twice. Also, instead of eliminating robots after just one battle, they all have at least three fights to contend with, which should prove entertaining. Heck, another great benefit with this concept is that we could utilise it for Series 3, 5, 6 and 7 quite nicely; come to think of it, Series 3 and 7 would be especially interesting under this format.

Now, some may ask "surely this format has the same issue as the head-to-heads, the problem of robots being crippled before their next battle?" In response, I say why not just have the robots always be one hundred percent, regardless of what happened in their previous fight. Henceforth, I think the heats, semi-finals and even Grand Final of a series would prove very interesting under this concept. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 14:20, December 14, 2018 (UTC)

Comments

• I think this could certainly be very interesting. It'd make an interesting alternate to our usual Audited series, especially if we keep the original competitors. CrashBash (talk) 15:06, December 19, 2018 (UTC)

All-Stars vs The Horde

A lot of robots are very good and could very easily defeat a lot of bad robots. However, they sometimes come unstuck in larger melees. Extreme 1's International Melee pitted two robots against Chaos 2, so what happens if we try to expand this concept. How many bad robots would it take to beat a robot like Chaos 2? The tournament host compiles a list of every robot in Robot Wars history without a win to their name. A powerful All-Star robot like Dominator 2, Apollo, Firestorm or Behemoth is chosen as the defender, and first fights one contender. Everyone votes for the winner and if the All-Star wins, the next round begins, with another contender added. The contenders work as a team to try and beat the All-Star. This process continues with another randomised contender added each round until the All-Star finally loses. And example round could be:

• 13 Black vs Terror Turtle: 13 Black won
• 13 Black vs Terror Turtle & Bot Out Of Hell: 13 Black won
• 13 Black vs Terror Turtle & Bot Out Of Hell & Banshee: 13 Black won
• 13 Black vs Terror Turtle & Bot Out Of Hell & Banshee & Doctor Fist: 13 Black won
• 13 Black vs Terror Turtle & Bot Out Of Hell & Banshee & Doctor Fist & Weber: The Horde won

A selection of All Stars needs to be chosen before the tournament starts so it doesn't go on forever, or it can be a filler tournament where there is an indefinite time before a host is ready for the next tournament, or we're waiting for another episode or such. I dunno, but this could be an interesting tournament. Thoughts? Jimlaad43(talk) 14:04, January 2, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

• I like tis idea, but I dunno if it would work for an arena tournament. A blog post sure but arena may be a bit hard.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 14:09, January 2, 2019 (UTC)

Lesser-used robot versions

For fantasy tournaments we do, or Ragnabot's, a robot usually has its best version chosen if there are multiple iterations of similar design philosophies. Take Firestorm for example, all 5 robots are pretty much the same, but always slightly better than the last one - meaning we like to use Firestorm 5. Others, like Wild Thing, have completely different versions which can all be used. But then there's robots like Barber-Ous, which are so famous as their 2 and 2'n a bit versions that the Series 5 Barber-Ous is ignored. How about a tournament for those odd, early versions of robots that usually don't get used in wiki tournaments, such as a Ragnabot? Jimlaad43(talk) 12:28, January 15, 2019 (UTC)

Ragnabot 3

A third Ragnabot will happen eventually, as we have two further series' of robots to add to the list of robots from Ragnabot 2. There has been a lot of success with Ragnabot's on userpages and blogs, so it is obviously still a popular idea. However, reboot robots seem to (understandably) have pretty much a monopoly over the higher placings. There are a few ways we can go about a Ragnabot 3, as will be discussed below.

• Standard Ragnabot format: All robots in the same format as before.
• Extended Ragnabot format: All Heavyweight/Main Series robots included, plus other weight classes to reduce the number of qualifier battles (See User:Jimlaad43/Ragnabot 3).
• Rebootnabot and Prebootnabot: Split the tournament up into Reboot robots and Classic series robots and run them parallel but separately. Whether they get combined at any point would be down to a consensus.
• Rebootnabot/Prebootnabot only: Only run one of these.

Obviously this is an early planning stage, so we'd have plenty of time before our appetite is ever ready for another Ragnabot, meaning a plan can be created well in advance. Jimlaad43(talk) 13:57, January 23, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

The standard Ragnabot format with Series 9-10 robots should happen at least once. We can experiment with ideas like another preboot Ragnabot in the future, but the definitive Ragnabot should take place as Ragnabot 3 with all heavyweights involved. TBH I can see us running the tournament later this year, we did start the last one in 2016 after all! TOAST 14:54, January 23, 2019 (UTC)

By my calculations, Series 7 league is going to take another 4 months to complete. Slotting one more tournament between it and Ragnabot 3 sounds ideal to me. Raz3r(talk) 20:51, January 23, 2019 (UTC)

I think we should make this a tradition: Ragnabot occurs every three years. Especially considering the first began in 2013, while the second started in 2016, making 2019 the perfect time for Ragnabot 3. I am considering either the standard or extedned Ragnabot formats, although I am going to conduct a feasibility study of both before deciding. Also, I propose that the tournament after Series 7 League and before Ragnabot 3 is Audited Series 9. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 21:09, January 23, 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't normally be keen on the idea of mixing multiple weight classes at once, but really thinking back about it, we do that already. Especially when you consider all the non-heavyweights from Series 1 and the three (I believe?) middleweights from US2, Nickelodeon and UK8. We may as well go the whole Warhog in that aspect...but I'd have to be insistent on two things.

• We shouldn't include a robot if we know next to nothing about it. Obvious example being Reckless Endangerment, where all we have is a single corner of its body - obviously that's going to make for terrible judging.
• Featherweights is as low as we go. Trying to include Antweights would just be stupid.

Beyond that, I could alternatively propose a Ragnabot for each of the other weight classes. I think we have enough to work for most of them, and it'd finally give the Antweights their time to shine (and there's 16 of them, so that makes for a nice simple tournament). CrashBash (talk) 09:35, February 8, 2019 (UTC)

Not that I'm planning to crash the Tag Team tournament already, but is Ragnabot 3 hosted by me the consensus for the next tournament after this? If it is, I would like to start planning everything early, like I did for Ragnabot 2, during the current tournament on my blog pages. Jimlaad43(talk) 16:20, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

I was under the impression that we were going to do Ragnabot 3 "in the summer"...and, well, summer has started, so I don't have a problem with that. CrashBash (talk) 16:24, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

I thought you (Jimlaad) hosting was the plan all along. So, feel free to go ahead with plans. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 16:24, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

Me hosting it is what I want to do, but I'm still making sure that's what everyone else is happy with. Jimlaad43(talk) 16:37, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

I'd never stop anyone from volunteering to be the host of Ragnabot, it's an unenviable task. Go right ahead. TOAST 17:02, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

Sure go ahead. I mean Tag Team will only be updated four more times anyways :P (second half of round 1, Quarter Finals and Semis/Grand Final). Next update will be Thursday to give a bit of a clue how long before the second update.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 17:52, June 3, 2019 (UTC)

Wikia Series 8 10th Anniversary

Seeing as we are coming up to the 10th anniversary, I thought why not propose a rerun of the first ever Arena tournament. Just a thought. Adster1005 (talk) 21:48, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

I have to admit, this needs to happen, before Ragnabot 3. The only issue is that this tournament will delay Ragnabot 3 further, as it will have to occur after Series 7 League. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 22:10, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

I'd also be hesitant as it would use pretty much most of the same robots as in the Series 7 league anyway. At least with a Ragnabot we have all the other robots as well. Jimlaad43(talk) 22:12, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

It's actually the 11th anniversary this year. Robot Wars Wiki was created in 2008. Raz3r(talk) 23:00, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but Wikia Series 8 started in 2009. ;). SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 23:04, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

Touche ;) Raz3r(talk) 23:12, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

Audited Third World Championship

I got this idea when JimLaad mentioned in his "Ranking UK Side Competitions" blog that the robots in the European Championship and the Commonwealth Carnage could have been combined to make a Third World Championship. I thought this might be a good competiton, as there are other robots that could potentially be included, having fought in Extreme 2 without entering the international events, such as Diotoir and Riptillion. Or, we could do it using Series 6 robots, which could allow for some interesting other robots, including Hydrotec and Supernova. Drop Zone mk2 (talk) 17:47, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

The Second-and-a-half World Championship. Jimlaad43(talk) 18:22, February 27, 2019 (UTC)

Third Wars Tag team

Thanks to SpaceManic's blog/findings (https://robotwars.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:SpaceManiac888/Interesting_(and_somewhat_disturbing)_revelations_about_Series_3#Tag_Teams_that_never_were) We know that there was meant to be a Tag Team for Series 3 of Robot Wars which never came to be. I thought a short (and I mean VERY short) tournament could be a Tag team that never was, using the proposed competitors and teams. Of course some would need to be sorted into teams but it would be quite interesting to see how things would have played out. Just a passing idea, it would be very short (maybe two Heats and a Final short) but don't know if it may spark interest so I'll let you think.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 12:17, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

1. Definitely a solid idea that would be fun, giving us a chance to do some Series 3 robots in a tournament. Jimlaad43(talk) 12:51, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

   Funnily enough my other idea was something like an Audited Series 3 :P But I may just do a personal "Third Wars Randomised" instead. Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 13:01, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

2. This certainly seems like it would be an idea that should be worth exploring knowing what we do. Considering though that one of the teams is Mortis/Killerhurtz and another is Razer/Panic Attack, we might need to consider doing something about them, although at the same time I'd be reluctant to just drop them. Maybe a special one-off battle between the two teams separate from the others, unless people feel they still have enough weaknesses in the S3 era to warrant inclusion. CrashBash (talk) 13:12, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

   Well the thing is there were loads of problems with those machines (aside from Panic Attack) at the time and IF this were to be one of the next tournaments, I should point out that this is technically based on what was meant to happen so...Plus as you can see below Space has pointed out that Chaos 2 and Cassius could have been a team therefore I wouldn't be surprised there would be a lot of "hardcore" teams. That said a one off battle (like the Ashes or War of Independence battles) is also plausible. Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 13:23, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

   We could, in theory, use the confirmed teams, humour the speculated teams, pair up the robots we know considered entering, and if there's any spots left, I'm sure we could create a few extra pairings based on information we know (for example, Pitbull and Suidical Tendencies since a member of each team came together in the semi-final, or Cerberus and Thermador since they became friends through meeting in Series 3). CrashBash (talk) 18:49, March 14, 2019 (UTC)

3. Link listing several tag teams. The discussion also mentions rumours of Chaos 2 and Cassius 2 teaming together, although this was never officially confirmed. Also should mention the fact that Spikasaurus and Schumey Too were also a tag team, and so need to be included. Good idea. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 13:35, March 11, 2019 (UTC)

Series 5 with Mayhems as first round matches

As we're nearly done with Series 7 League, may I venture an idea for what we do next? I suggest we do an audited Series 5, with twelve robots per heat, four three way melees in the first round with one winner advancing to the second round, which then carries on as per normal. I've checked, and there are enough Failed to Qualifies to make up the 144 robots we'd need, provided we don't do binnings, and we can keep the 24 seeds. Anyone else want to do this? Hogwild94 (talk) 21:59, May 10, 2019 (UTC)

48 F2Q robots seems a little ambitious to me. While there are enough on the Failed to Qualify list, some (the ones that have links at least) are quite difficult to judge. Which of the 48 F2Q robots are you planning to include? SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 22:14, May 10, 2019 (UTC)

We'd vote on them, but most likely the ones we know enough about to be able to judge fairly (ie, those we saw compete in Extreme and S4/6, if similar enough) Hogwild94 (talk) 22:24, May 10, 2019 (UTC)

It shouldn't be the end of the world to add the Extreme only robots, but 48 extras seems like a lot. What other smaller numbers are there that would still work as a format. Still, I think this can be added to the pool of tournaments to vote for next. Jimlaad43(talk) 06:23, May 11, 2019 (UTC)

Dutch Series 3

It's been a long time since we've used the Dutch and German robots on the wiki, and this seems like a logical follow-up to the German Series 2 we did a long time ago. UK Series 7 had so many new-and-improved Dutch and Belgian robots that I think we can quite comfortably put together a five-heat format using 2003-era Dutch robots and some of the best robots from Dutch Series 2. Seeing robots like Scraptosaur 03 and Twister S7 in their intended environments could be really fun, and it can even be seeded based on the Dutch Series 2 Grand Final, while the wildcards like Gravity and TAN would prevent the seeds from wiping everyone out.

Comments

• It's certainly an idea I'd be interested to give a try. I suppose the obviou issue would be would we be able to find enough robots to fill up the spaces? We had nine Dutch robots compete in UK7 by my count so they'd obviously all go in, as would Hard...and I presume Crushtacean/Krab-Bot? That alone makes 11, and then I think there were about five or six Dutch/Belgian robots that DNQ for Series 7. CrashBash (talk) 14:53, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
  • Then we just pick the remaining 15 from the heats of Dutch Series 2 to fill out the rest, it’s not the most realistic method but it allows us to use some robots we barely get the chance to vote on. TOAST 15:03, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
  • I believe there's 7 that DNQ for Series 7, going from here: Caesar, Deep Impact, PulverizeR, RCC 2, Slicer, Sniper, and Splinter. Of those, we've got practically no information about Deep Impact, pretty much only an image of Caesar, only 2 images of the updated Sniper, and a grainy qualifier video of RCC 2. Could be tricky to judge any of those 4. Combatwombat555 (talk) 15:28, May 24, 2019 (UTC)

BuggleBots Format

This isn't an idea for a new tournament, but more specifically a format we could potentially use. What if for a tournament we ran a similar set-up to how the web-series BuggleBots ran its tournament? I could actually see it working for Toast's aforementioned Dutch Series 3. CrashBash (talk) 08:03, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Debut Wars

A random idea that popped in my head was competition that can involve robots from all series in something called "Debut Wars". As the title suggest we use any robot (such as Razer, Behemoth and/or Supernova) but instead of using their most up to date version, we use their debut appearances (such as Series 2 Razer and Behemoth and/or Series 5 Supernova). Not only does this make things interesting but it allows some allstar robots to not roam too freely, e.g. Razer won't be able to self right, Chaos has no real flipping power, Behemoth will be very weak etc. Now truth be told I have calculated everything thus far but I'm sure we'll have enough for 12 Heats with six. Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 10:22, July 13, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

• I like the idea, but Storm 2 would win the whole tournament fairly easily so I'd suggest keeping them out (and maybe one or two others). Toon Ganondorf (t c) 10:29, July 13, 2019 (UTC)

Yeah it's possible one of two may get removed, maybe have a whole list of all debuties and allow everyone to decide on the ones to remove. The likes of Storm 2, Eruption and Carbide are obvious targets.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 11:39, July 13, 2019 (UTC)

• This just sounds like the Fantasy Audited wars when we find creative ways to hobble certain robots, like Behemoth (Grippers), Big Nipper (Claws) and Panic Attack Gold. Jimlaad43(talk) 11:38, July 13, 2019 (UTC)

Audited Series 5 with four way melees in first round

Something nice and simple to do once Ragnabot is over? Hogwild94 (talk) 19:12, July 30, 2019 (UTC)

Survivor Series

With WWE's Survivor Series PPV just around the corner, I had a look at the upcoming matches (some of which seem quite interesting, considering they will have NXT stars), where I suddenly had an idea. You see, Robot Wars actually has many comparisons to WWF/WWE; some of them include tag teams, triple threats (Mayhems), battle royals (10-Robot Rumble) and elimination matches (Annihilators). However, Robot Wars has never attempted something as ambitious as WWE's Survivor Series concept, which I think could work very well on the Arena Forums.

For those not fans of wrestling, let me explain the concept. You have two teams of typically five wrestlers on each side, under tag team rules. To win, a team must have at least one man/woman remaining, while successfully eliminating all the opponents on the other team, through means such as pinfalls, submissions, disqualifications etc. Since we have done Annihilators in the past, I think this concept under Robot Wars rules could work very nicely.

Let's have an example:

B-Team (Barber-Ous 2'n a Bit, Behemoth, Big Nipper, Bigger Brother and Bulldog Breed) vs Spin to Win (259, Disc-O-Inferno, Hypno-Disc, Supernova and Vader)

Suppose we have one minute intervals for each fight. If the two chosen robots (via Random.Org) were initially Big Nipper and Supernova, then chances are this fight will end in a draw, because neither will secure a knockout in that time. However, if the next two robots were Barber-Ous 2'n a Bit and Hypno-Disc, then, based on the fact the latter has beaten the former in a single blow, the demon barber would be voted out. B-Team would be down to four machines, but can still win the war.

However, this now presents a challenge for B-Team. Yes, the remaining four robots are generally known to be reliable. But against five spinners, will that be enough, especially as damage will be accumulated overtime? Ultimately, I do think B-Team would come out on top, but it is not going to be pretty, I will tell you that!

Henceforth, the main rules for this tournament would be:

• Only two robots face each other at one time, to fight for a duration of a minute.
• Robots can only be eliminated via knockout. Judges' decision are for wimps.
• Crucially, unlike in Annihilators, where every time a machine is eliminated the others get to be repaired, in Survivor Series, the battle continues until one team is left standing. This means every voter has got to speculate what damage may have been caused to each machine during their encounters against one another. Hence, losing a machine early on is a huge blow for its team.
• However, in the interests of this tournament, all robots' power sources will enable them to work indefinitely.

So, what do you ladies and gentlemen think? I might post my own Survivor Series tournament on my user blog to demonstrate how interesting this competition could be. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 17:01, November 13, 2019 (UTC)

Comments

This reminds me somewhat of the Attrition Battles used in King of Bots. I'd certainly be interested to see how those sorts of things would be decided. CrashBash (talk) 17:14, November 13, 2019 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I was thinking the other day about how the King of Bots Attrition format could be implemented for certain Robot Wars competitions. I'd be intrigued to see how this format would work in a forum tournament, especially on the back of CrashBash's comparison. VulcansHowl 17:40, November 13, 2019 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Space, if this tournament was given the go-ahead, by my understanding of your rules there would need to be three voting columns, right? One for voting in favour of each robot and one for voting a draw (I.E. neither robot can knock each other out within a minute). CrashBash (talk) 18:39, November 14, 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, something like below:

Bigger Brother	Supernova	Draw
Votes for Bigger Brother	Votes for Supernova	Votes for Draw
Winner:

Just to clarify, if you think Bigger Brother will win, continue to vote for Bigger Brother. Likewise if you think Supernova would win. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 17:51, November 16, 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. BTW, in this case I'd probably vote for a draw, because I don't think Bigger Brother's defenses would break, or Supernova's reliability issues play up, within just one minute. CrashBash (talk) 18:09, November 16, 2019 (UTC)

Post-Welterweight Championship

As the Welterweight Championship draws to a close, it is time to decide which tournament will start the new year off. Looking at the ideas above, I believe Fictional Game Tournament, Audited Series 9 and Series 7 but in league format are my favourites. Currently, I support Series 7 but in league format, seeing as I think it would be fun, and would utilise Series 7 for the first time in ages on the forums. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 10:34, December 24, 2018 (UTC)

I have posted the last battles of the Welterweight tournament, so it's time to start deciding what we do next. My vote for the three options SM888 proposed up above is the Fictional Game Tournament, followed by AS9. Jimlaad43(talk) 09:58, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

I kinda wanna give the Series 7 League a try. Might be interesting especially if we don't cut anyone like we otherwise would an audited series. CrashBash (talk) 13:24, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

I too would be interested in the Series 7 League, but rather than 32 heats of 4, perhaps 24 heats of 5, cutting 8 robots? Just an idea I'd like to expand on should this win. Raz3r(talk) 14:00, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

I think what Space had in mind was 16 heats of 8, with two league tables in each. CrashBash (talk) 17:03, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

That is true, although the other suggestions are very good. On another note, I am willing to let someone who has never hosted a tournament before have a chance to host Series 7 League. After all, I think it is fair to give someone else a chance, seeing as I feel a little guilty over the idea of hosting this tournament just a few months after A Fantasy Audited War 3 (which lasted several months). SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 18:29, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

I don't think you should feel guilty about taking 'opportunities' from others - if anything, I'm surprised that so many people are happy to host a tournament, I knew from the very beginning that I only ever wanted to take part without hosting, and having volunteers handy to host is always a good thing no matter how often they have done so previously. I'll also throw in my support for Series 7 League while I'm here. TOAST 18:48, December 26, 2018 (UTC)

Well, just wanted to ensure that most people get a decent chance to host if they so wish. Anyhow, Series 7 League is beating Fictional Game Tournament 4-1 currently, so this tournament might be set up soon after the Welterweight Championship ends. On another note, we might need to discuss how seeding (if any robots will be seeded) is going to work. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 17:01, December 27, 2018 (UTC)

Well, that depends on a few things, namely what we're going to do with Terrorhurtz and Thunderpants. Even if we keep the roster exactly the same as in the actual Series 7 (which I can't help but be relatively insistent on if nothing else as a differentiation between this and the Audited series we do), we'll still need to do something with them. CrashBash (talk) 16:25, December 28, 2018 (UTC)

For Thunderpants, we could just utilise its Series 7 Qualifier. It is not much, but it is something that we can use to judge it. As for Terrorhurtz, my plan is to keep it, but with its Extreme 2 specifications. Ideally, I too want to keep all robots for this tournament. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 16:32, December 28, 2018 (UTC)

Use Hot Pants. Jimlaad43(talk) 16:39, December 28, 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I vote to give the Series 7 league a shot too, though I'm also up for Audited Series, Different Format, or Audited Series 9, which we'd definitely need a new format for. Hogwild94 (talk) 19:08, December 28, 2018 (UTC)

In that case, I am just going to start the process of setting up the discussion page. I will post it once Jimlaad officially ends the Welterweight Tournament. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 19:49, December 28, 2018 (UTC)

Post-Series 7 League

As Series 7 League reaches its climax, I think it is appropriate to discuss what tournament should come next. Now, Ragnabot 3 is inevitable, and I want it to start this year, but not immediately after Series 7 League. After all, Ragnabot is best suited during the Summer holidays. Henceforth, I propose that we start a small tournament that, similar to Runners-Up Rumble, will be a stop-gap before Ragnabot. Therefore, I am going to support Third Wars Tag Team, since it will be a fun but brief tournament to debate on. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 16:02, May 21, 2019 (UTC)

• Well, I'm not going to vote for my own idea, as I'm not that sorta person. I do wonder if maybe we can do Audited 3rd World Championship if we want something smaller. CrashBash (talk) 17:24, May 21, 2019 (UTC)
  • How big would Audited 3rd World Championship be, I wonder? Sounds like a good idea, providing that it is a small tournament. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 16:12, May 23, 2019 (UTC)
    • If you want to use a baseline for Audited Third World Championship competitors, I can offer up a decent selection of foreign machines from an old tournament of mine. The UK machines would probably be different, but I don't see why we can't include some stronger German or US machines myself. 32 is a number that could be easily met. Raz3r(talk) 21:54, May 23, 2019 (UTC)
      • Gonna vote for my own idea in Dutch Series 3. TOAST 02:50, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
• 3rd Wars Tag Team takes my fancy out of the smaller tournaments. Jimlaad43(talk) 07:16, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
  • Diotoir, I believe you will be hosting if 3rd Wars Tag Team wins? That would be the preferred option. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 08:28, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
    • I believe so, never really hosted before other than on my blog :P. To be fair I don't mind if either Tag team or Third World Championship get chose to be honest.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 12:07, May 24, 2019 (UTC)
• How about the Robot Wars World Cup since there is a reasonable number of countries for the tournament. Lewis05 (talk) 19:10, May 25, 2019 (UTC)
  • I will probably set up a poll tomorrow, containing the four tournaments proposed above. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 18:31, May 25, 2019 (UTC)

Poll

Well, let's determine which tournament is next.

Third Wars Tag Team

1. Some great ideas here, but Third Wars Tag Team just edges out the rest. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 08:09, May 26, 2019 (UTC)
2. It'll be fun, I will admit that because of a VERY busy schedule with Assignments it won't be every four/five days. That said it'll be interesting to go ahead and create a tournament on the arena forum for the first time.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 08:28, May 26, 2019 (UTC)
3. Lets give some pre-weight increase robots a chance to shine before their inevitable annihilation in Ragnabot 3. Jimlaad43(talk) 09:17, May 26, 2019 (UTC)
4. If the idea is to "do a quick tournament before Ragnabot 3", then this is our safest bet. Beyond that, I do feel it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it. Although I will say I'd be most interested to do Dutch Series 3, so consider that my secondary vote. CrashBash (talk) 14:04, May 26, 2019 (UTC)
5. I'd love to do both DS3 and Audited World Championships at some point, but I also don't want to miss out on them whilst I'm doing Camp America all for two months! This series will be shorter, and I can afford to miss a chunk of the Ragnabot 3 qualifiers afterwards. Raz3r(talk) 14:27, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   If I'm running Ragmabot 3, the qualifiers may just be 10ish slam dunk battles as I'll get the numbers right. Jimlaad43(talk) 15:04, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   I’m a bit confused. By my count there’s going to be at least 700 machines and we can only have 512 for the 32 heats. Or are you adding other weight categories to the equation for this one and giving us an extra heat round with 1024 machines? Raz3r(talk) 18:23, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   I believe the idea is Jim wants to use the other weight categories (except the Antweights, obviously). I get the logic - we already use the other-weight robots in the main competitions, so why not go the whole-hog? CrashBash (talk) 18:55, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   Yeah, check out the last Ragnabot I did on my userpages. I was able to add all the lower weight class robots that fought in the main arena, and make the first round of the Quarter-Finals 3-way melees where either 1 or 2 robots go through. It means we only need around 10 qualifiers, and I might rig them so robots like Pain, Parthian Shot, Daisy and Ellies Little Pink Bot fight and lose in them against robots that should beat them. That said, if that isn't what we want to do, I'm open to suggestions. Jimlaad43(talk) 19:27, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   I was imagining either that or three Ragnabots of sorts - one for the featherweights, one for the combined lightweights and middleweights, and one for the combined heavyweights and superheavyweights. Obviously the former two would be smaller, but by my own calculation they still have over 32 robots in each. But I don't mind either way. CrashBash (talk) 19:33, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   The only issue with that is I hate qualifiers, so any excuse to reduce them is good. Making it 10 and using it to get rid of some never-moving free passes like Thunderpants seems like the best way to get as many robots as possible into the main tournament. Jimlaad43(talk) 19:36, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   I personally would be in full support of a wide-range weight class Ragnabot. NJGW (talk) 06:45, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

   Including antweights? ;P Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 06:49, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

   Well, full class of those who competed in THE actual arena (although an Antweight Ragnabot could work...we have sixteen of them). CrashBash (talk) 06:50, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

   To be fair I was joking but the idea of an Antweight rumble with every antweight does sound like fun.Diotoir the son of nemesis (talk) 07:05, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

6. Given the choice, I'll usually pick the option involving the earlier series.Hogwild94 (talk) 17:55, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

   Well, Third Wars Tag Team wins. Diotoir, feel free to set up the basepage. SpaceManiac888 (Talk) 11:42, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

Dutch Wars 3

1. We haven't really done anything with Dutch robots in a while, I'm liking Dutch Wars 3. Combatwombat555 (talk) 09:03, May 26, 2019 (UTC)
2. I will of course back my own idea. TOAST 01:53, May 27, 2019 (UTC)
3. yeah, as another fan of the Dutch Battles I have to side here. NJGW (talk) 06:43, May 27, 2019 (UTC)

Robot Wars World Cup

1. In this tournament you’ll have countries from Ireland-South Africa, France-Japan (Rob Knight & Arthur Chilcott now live in France, King B team member Natsuko Hori hailed from Japan). A better choice, would you’s agree. Lewis05 (talk) 9:27, May 26, 2019 (UTC)