Data ASB Feedback & Game Issues Thread (New Proposal Handling System in OP)

Frosty said:

Don't get me wrong, I really like CAP and the CAPs (I watch the process ever since Revenankh), but they aren't the reason we do ASB. The CAP project aims to know more about the metagame by creating new pokemon to explore other aspects about it and for that the new pokemon are essential, obviously. ASB aims to give its player a pokemon game that isn't the pokemon we all know. For that, new pokemon are 100% irrelevant. If you get them, great. If you don't, great as well.

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I think you sort of misunderstood my point. The reason I think a "homebrew" CAP project would be fun is not because we add a new Pokemon to the meta. It'd be as if you thought that the point of the CAP process is adding a new Pokemon to the OU metagame. I believe you've been in CAP too long to think this is true. The point of CAP is and always had been the process itself: the fun, sparkling discussion that spawns from the myriad aspects of the game. I personally think there would be a lot to discuss about the ASB metagame because of how deep this game is, and this is why a CAP process aimed for ASB would be overly fun in my opinion. The fact the created Pokemon is added to our available roster is just a "side-by effect", an accomplishment that somewhat completes the process. But the fun is in the process itself.

If you choose to sever our boundaries with CAP (decision 1) and create our own fakemon project (decision 2) we will have a really big risk of the fakemon project overtaking the Battling part. In other words, I think there is a HUGE chance an ASB fakemon project ending up derailing everything. We would be another CAP that happen to do their own weird version of pokemon as well.

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I think CAP itself taught us that, here in Smogon, popularity matters a lot more than Pokemon purity. I don't really see Smogon calling us out on that. So, what? Why should the OU metagame have the right to make a research project to explore the game (and even have it in the most "theory-heavy" group of forums of the site) and we wouldn't? Why should they even care?

I don't mean to sound negative, but in the end, we will spend a big amount of energy creating a new pokemon (CAP is there to prove that it isn't something easy...at all) that will add...very little to how we play ASB.

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The time we spend making a new Pokemon would be full of discussions about what works or doesn't work in ASB, and it would teach us a lot about how we play ASB. I honestly don't understand you here.



EDIT: Since there has been a lot of misunderstanding about it, let me clarify: my main point is NOT to discuss whether we should implement our own CAP project or not. My main point is whether we should sever our boundaries with CAP or not - and, if we do, how we should go about it. This means that if, for example, you want to propose a "third way" beyond the two I proposed, you're allowed and encouraged to do so.

Honestly I fully agree with zarator here, the cap meta is just far too different a concept from ours here that its something that MUST be addressed. I think that working on a CAP metagame of our own would be a truely exciting project. However I know that if we were to start such a process that it would be best if we designed the process very slowly and surely. I think we have slight problems with jumping into decisions without enough consideration in the past (only slightly but it is still there), so we need to really reign things in if we were to pursue such a project. However I think a project, if done correctly, could be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things we've been able to accomplish since ASB's creation. Either way this was a great thing to note, good job Zarator :)

As a CAP PRC member i can safely say if asb starts making "asb caps" i am quittin

I realize this sounds a bit harsh but i'll elaborate on just how retarded this is when i have the time

I must play contrarian here...

So, Aurumoth may be broken. May be. Even then, there are still ways to beat it, and it is far from ensuring a win. In the entire duration of ASB, if something was overpowered we would never override precedent and ban it, but merely change mechanics to make it work. We may have to do this with Aurumoth by nerfing one or more of its abilities if it does prove broken, but it is hard to ensure as all we have is theorymon.

I view breaking with CaP as a major step away from where we need to be going over such a minor issue that can be circumvented by either nerfing abilities or declaring it a legend by ignoring the preevolution stage. Granted, this raises complications in and of itself, but my point is that other options do exist.

As for the idea of making our own fakemons, CaP has now made upwrards of ten and still has problems. The problem would be compounded in ASB, as the lack of many key users (to the extent of CaP) and the possible bias of several high ranking users to make a Pokemon better or weaker based on how it matches up to thier gym raises even more complications. I strongly oppose this method.

As far as not including further CaP's, I also oppose it. The CaP's are one of the many reasons that Smogon ASB is unique, and it would make no sense to randomly cut off the influx after successfully inserting three for a total of fourteen Pokemon already in the game.

tl;dr

No fakemons, don't break off from CaP, nerf abilities or declare Aurumoth legendary but include it

Okay pwnemon actually just said what I was about to say

I can understand and support severing ties with CAP beyond what we currently have implemented, but making our own CAP is momumentally stupid

Like with pwnemon, it is not an exaggeration for me to say that if we start making our own CAPs I'm quitting then and there.

Zarator said:

I think you sort of misunderstood my point. The reason I think a "homebrew" CAP project would be fun is not because we add a new Pokemon to the meta. It'd be as if you thought that the point of the CAP process is adding a new Pokemon to the OU metagame. I believe you've been in CAP too long to think this is true. The point of CAP is and always had been the process itself: the fun, sparkling discussion that spawns from the myriad aspects of the game. I personally think there would be a lot to discuss about the ASB metagame because of how deep this game is, and this is why a CAP process aimed for ASB would be overly fun in my opinion. The fact the created Pokemon is added to our available roster is just a "side-by effect", an accomplishment that somewhat completes the process. But the fun is in the process itself.

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If you say that the point of a fakemons project is the fun of the process itself and if you say we need a project of our own, you are saying we need the fun the process brings.

ASB is already good enough if you just want to have fun. If you think the new pokemon is just a "side-by effect" , then you are adding to my point: a fakemon project would add pretty much nothing that the game doesn't already has. We already have fun (I sure do).

Also, you seem to forget that such project brings a shitload of headaches for something we already have (fun).

zarator said:

I think CAP itself taught us that, here in Smogon, popularity matters a lot more than Pokemon purity. I don't really see Smogon calling us out on that. So, what? Why should the OU metagame have the right to make a research project to explore the game (and even have it in the most "theory-heavy" group of forums of the site) and we wouldn't? Why should they even care?

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wait what? I don't get you.

I am not saying we can't have our fakemon project. I am saying it is not worth it and the end result has a big chance of being bad.

I don't anyone here is arguing that we can't. I am saying we shouldn't.

zarator said:

The time we spend making a new Pokemon would be full of discussions about what works or doesn't work in ASB, and it would teach us a lot about how we play ASB. I honestly don't understand you here.

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the feeling is mutual <_<;.

We come to ASB to play. Not to learn how to play. There is a difference.

Every Fakemon project brings a crapload of attention and many risks (big chance of a derailing). We are what we are because we just play the game. If we implement a fakemon project, much will change. Our fanboyism will grow. And the end result is something I fear a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I never said the process isn't fun or interesting or whatever. What I said is: the downsides of implementing such a project far outweigh (IMO) the upsides. It is not worth it.



And just to be clear, I agree 100% with you that the insta-implementation of all CAPs is something we must change, as they have a big chance of screwing the metagame, as they aren't tailored for it (although I am not sure severing the boundaries is the best option...I would prefer to just adjust them to our metagame) BUT the second discussion is something I disagree. If I want to have fun creating a fakemon, I'll go to CAP. I come here to have fun playing the game. I don't think mixing both is a good idea. I'd almost go as far as siding (sorta) with Pwnemon: if ASB makes a fakemon project, and if it ends up taking a big part of the ASB community, I will just go to CAP as they do it much better.

ALSO, we must do each step slowly. We must first decide our position about future CAPs. If we decide to sever the boundaries, we must let the dust settle to decide anything else. If you bring both discussions to be done at the same time, it won't be very...productive.

From what I'm getting from your post and the general gist of the IRC discussion I see the following points as arguments for stopping the addition of CAPs to ASB:I think that these two reasons are reason enough to stop adding the new CAPs into ASB. What I don't think is that these are reason to start creating our own CAPs and implementing them into ASB; Pwnemon and Texas have, however summarily, essentially grasped what I want to say.Now that that's all done, I have a different proposal, one that I think was brought up in one of the IRC conversations. Since the CAPs are no longer healthy for ASB, we might not want to implement them anymore, but that in no way means we have to replace it with a different Pokemon-creating mechanism. Instead, it'd be much simpler and less of a hassle to just leave the ASB metagame as is. We don't need to add anymore CAPs if they're being influenced to the degree that they are, and we don't need to add any Pokemon period. Maybe we could go as far as to retroactively erase existences of the Necturna and Mollux families in ASB if we determine that they too have been influenced by ASB to the point where it's no longer healthy; however, while that's up for debate, it's pretty clear that we don't need to be putting anymore stuff in.

Ultimately, I think I am in agreement with Engineer Pikachu. Like signature moves, ASB-specific CAPs are something that (to me at least) seem neat in theory but would have various practical problems. For one thing, I imagine any ASB version of the CAP project would surely get bogged down by the movepool stage.

I don't agree with retroactive removal of any already implemented CAPs though, since people actually put counters and battles and time and effort into those.

hmmm, i think i misunderstood the 2nd proposal earlier, I was under the impression that we would take the CAPs that were being made and tweak them so that they fit into ASB better. Wouldn't this kind of cover all bases of remaining attached to CAP, not having our meta rocked by asb-wise broken mons, and let us have the fun of (very) mildly customizing the CAPmons to work with our system without having to deal with the overwhelming task of creating new pokemon?

Im agreeing with people saying we shouldn't be creating our own mons, for several reasons.

1) Many people in asb are somewhat biased to something that would help them in some aspect (an ice mon that beats pyroak for glacier, a pokemon that beats ludicolo for me, etc.). Unlike in cap, there is much more incentive for this sort of thing.

2) It makes joining asb harder, especially if we got a significant buildup of these fakemons, new users would struggle to understand the game more than they already do, and lets face it, this is already a significant issue for us.

And when I started writing this I had a few others things that I've forgotten about...

Anyways, about splitting ties with CaP:
Im very torn on this. I think it would be good for the flavor and logic of cap, because we wouldn't get things that were blatantly affected by asb, but it would also decrease participation in cap, because asbers would be less likely to participate. I don't agree however with the argument that caps may be broken in asb. The nature of asb is not that nothing is broken, I could argue that there are actually quite a few mons in asb, not just caps that are broken.

It seems that the community consensus is to not start making our own CAPs, for legitimate reasons. So, I propose we go back and focus our discussion more on the main point. Namely, should we cut our bonds with CAP or not? So far there have been several interesting posts about this, but there is still a lot of room to discuss further IMO.

I think we should not sever ties with CAP, but instead alter certain CAPs like Necturna and Aurumoth to make them not OP.

If we disconnect from CAP, we lose one of the things that make our ASB unique. It would also eventually drive the metagame into being boring and predictable, much like what would happen if GameFreak stopped making new games.

But if we leave the CAPs unchanged, the metagame could become over-centralized, leaving few species viable, similar to what the Ubers or Balanced Hackmons metagame is like. That too would get rid of one unique facet of Smogon's ASB. (Apparently it's no longer CAP ASB)
Both of these extremes hurt the game and diminish the fun factor here.

[BOX][09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%IAR> zarator
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%IAR> has put up a radical proposal
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%IAR> to sever our ties with cap
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%Objection> well, a radical proposal with two parts
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%dogfish44> howdy DK
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:03] <%IAR> and for ASB to make their own caps
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:04] <%Objection> one being no longer implementing the regular CAPs and one being us implementing our own CAPs ... dammit iar
[09:32:52] Deck_Knight [17:04] <%Objection> This may or may not have been influenced by Aurumoth
[09:32:53] Deck_Knight [17:05] <%IAR> All I would have to say is keep going as it is, but not implement Aurumoth
[09:32:55] Deck_Knight [17:05] <%IAR> either that
[09:32:56] Deck_Knight [17:06] <~Deck_Knight> That's a stupid idea and I hate it. Veto.[/BOX]
I think there is your answer to this entire proposal. . .

But yeah, imo, just keep going the way we have been going. Aurumoth is only "broken" in theory, but in reality, I reckon it will just die to anything with Inferno, Chandelure in particular, even with Illusion. At least implement Aurumoth is all I have to say (Contrary to what I said in the quote).

I would've at least liked if DK could post here, read my own post, or something like that. But whatever.

zarator said:

Should we sever our bonds with CAP Project?

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My answer to that is a tentative "yes". Note that my reasons below would be based on my personal, honest observation and thus may be flawed.

Thus far, the only "affiliation" ASB has with CAP is that we "borrow" their fakemon products to be implemented in our own semi-codified ASB metagame (the prefix "semi" is present because the ASB Council still deals out patches and hotfixes to deal with certain issues over time). Therefore, I think we should make it clear that:-

ASB has nothing official to do with CAP whatsoever.

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CAP Project is meant to be a competitive research project that discusses the current trends of the OU metagame. To quote DougJustDoug from here (sorry you'll have to dig quite deep on this one),

It's about the project, not the pokemon

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So if there are users who participated in CAP with intention otherwise, then something is fundamentally wrong over there. I'm not saying there aren't - I'm just saying more experienced Smogon users (which practically means everyone with a username and a 3-digit postcount on this forum) should know better. Therefore, I think we should reiterate that there are no ties between ASB and CAP - ASB-ers simply implement CAP products into the ASB metagame to create more diversity and thus, have more fun. ASB can choose not to implement CAP products, ASB users can post in CAP projects on their own (heck, I only post in CAP and ASB, so I should know), but if I may, I'll go as far as to say that ASB and CAP are different entities, and should anyone harbor misconceptions that they are affiliated, then that notion should be quelled as seen fit. When you're on ASB, you're an ASB-er - and when you're on CAP, you're a CAPper, with each project's best intentions at heart depending on the role you play.

ZhengTann are you aware that Deck Knight cast the whole thing off?

People asked for a post (I've been busy as hell the last week, this is probably the first day I've been home before midnight) so I might as well start.

1. The assertion Aurumoth is broken is laughable on its face.

Let's look at it again, piece by piece:

Abilities:



Enable this and allow every Gyro Ball user to walk all over you with GB SPAM, as they'll be up to 15 BAP on the second use, AND they'll be constantly lowering your defense as they smack you with it. Disable this and you obviously are operating without any ability. The extra speed doesn't even help you because thanks to No Guard, you can't Dodge!



Attacks Aurumoth can use this with: Megahorn, Zen Headbutt, Focus Blast, Will-O-Wisp, Stun Spore
Attacks Aurumoth is going to hate getting hit by all the time: Eruption (doubles), Fire Blast, Heat Wave (doubles), Inferno, Zap Cannon, Hurricane, Head Smash, Stone Edge, Rock Slide (doubles), Inaccurate status moves.
Strategies Aurumoth can't use because of this: Dodge, Double Team

No Guard is not an inherently good ability. In fact without any really excellent moves to abuse it with, No Guard is a massive liability.



So basically for one round Aurumoth can pretend to be another Pokemon. One of the things that bugged me about Aurumoth was the fact that so many of its moves were unique. This means if you want to abuse something like Dragon Dance, Tail Glow, or Quiver Dance, you *must* be going second or you will give Aurumoth away. You can use some of its generic special attacks, but really, if you want to mimic anything physical, you really only have Close Combat, Zen Headbutt, and X-Scissor for common moves. This brings up a problem I should mention right away: Close Combat is probably the worst fighting move in ASB. Every time you use Close Combat you are increasing the damage your Pokemon receives. At least you can use Superpower against strong special attackers and not care that much about the attack drop if you get a real type advantage with it, but unSTAB Close Combat is just an invitation to have that strong Base Attack Power overwhelmed by incoming fire.

In conclusion, Aurumoth is going to be a somewhat decent attacker that will not have any option BUT to attack, because its abilities basically mean it can masquerade as something else for a single round, seeing as it has no immunities to avoid damage with. It's Special Defense is highly exploitable, its abilities are excellent in standard play but are gimmicky to downright detrimental in ASB, and because of how its polls went it can barely use Illusion properly.

Aurumoth had serious problems from a CAP perspective, but anyone arguing it is broken is out of their damn mind. Metagross and Hydreigon are infinitely scarier than Aurumoth will ever be, and even with the 4x weaknesses most of the other pseudo-legend Pokemon are far more dangerous offensive monstrosities.

2. Relationship between CAP and ASB

As far as severing ties to CAP, it's all or nothing - either we implement NO CAPS or we implement ALL canonical ones. Since this ASB is being hosted on Smogon and as ASB is a Smogon affiliated project, and one in which I am a not insubstantial contributor, until I am given a directive from DougJustDoug to sever ties between ASB Pokemon and ASB, I will not do so - I think it adds a uniqueness to the forum, is non-arbitrary (save the 5th Gen stuff we added to 4th Gen mons), and I made the rules as I did exactly so it would be completely deferential to the CAP Forum in regards to exported content.

Some UC Proposal

Okay, so there has been talk of making a round-based UC Payout that could be applied to battles that end in DQ, end normally, & apply to sub-reffings. So I had an idea that may or may not go down well with users.

Basically, the idea is that instead of trying to base it on rounds & differ on the format, I thought it would be a better idea to base the whole UC Payouts on actions. That is, for a universal format...

1. The ref gains 0.1 UC each time a Pokémon has completed its action.
2. The ref gains 1 UC for each KO reffed irrespective of format (Only applying to the final referee of a match).
3. The final payout is always truncated, unless the amount of UC a ref would get is less than 1, in which case, round to 1.

This means, assuming all Pokémon in a battle survive a round, a ref can gain 0.2 UC per action in Singles, 0.4 UC per action in Doubles, 0.6 UC per action in Triples, etc. Resulting in a maximum of 0.6 UC per round in Singles, 1.2 UC per round in Doubles & Triples.

After looking around, one issue with this though is that this can result in generally decreased payouts for the ref, especially in 6v6's with one-sided affairs. Another is complexity, but that always arises with this sort of pay. Finally, arena induced Pokémon, which can always be discounted if needed. Here are some Sample pays for some recently completed matches under this format:

• Match 1 (2v2 Singles): 29 Individual Actions, 2 KO's, 4 UC.
• Match 2 (2v2 Singles): 26 Individual Actions, 2 KO's, 4 UC.
• Match 3 (6v6 Doubles): 93 Individual Actions, 11 KO's, 20 UC.
• Match 4 (5v5 Singles): 80 Individual Actions (77 w/o Arena effects), 7 KO's, 15 UC (14 w/o Arena effects).
• Match 5 (2v2 Doubles): 47 Individual Actions, 3 KO's, 7 UC.
• Match 6 (2v2 Singles): 49 Individual Actions, 3 KO's, 7 UC.
• Match 7 (6v6 Singles): 68 Individual Actions, 9 KO's, 15 UC.

So you can get where I am getting to, & this obviously needs some ironing out, given it is a rough idea. Thoughts?

In response to IAR's Ref Compensation Proposal

As a referee (albeit quite new) who had already been through a few DQs, I can understand the outrage behind battler-DQ compensation. I also support a universal reff's compensation that covers all contingencies - regular matches, subreffing, and battler-DQ. Thus far, our current system disregards the third aspect - but you need not hear me harping about it again, as I'm sure you've been through it yourselves.

However, whether we're discussing payouts per round (as suggested by Obj) or per action (as above by IAR), there is an important thing that has to be kept:-

Lines in IRC said:

[18:20] <IAR> that issue is basically a "oh noes less uc" issue
[18:36] <IAR> there needs to be a fine line though between scaling & counter farming

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So I think most ex-reffs who are now Council Members (Engi in particular leaps to my mind with 3*10^8 m/s) would err on the side of caution (read: creating a formula that results in generally reduced payout). But, there's a (slightly stupid) question I'd like to ask - should we encourage short, one-sided flashmatches with lol flavour (think BURN THE BELLSPROUT - sorry Glace), or should we encourage long, well thought out, strategically balanced matches where battlers give everything they got and referees dedicate themselves to stay on top of their reffing game all the time?

It sounds irrelevant, but the next (again, uncalled for) questions is the crucial link - for the new reff compensation formula, should it lean towards rewarding short flashies, or long matches, or stay neutral? And after the alignment is decided, how can it be achieved?

I supposed that's all I have for now.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear.

KOs are a poor measure of how long a battle has lasted for and how much effort the ref has put into the battle. What happens if you have a battle where 12 pokemon are sent out and only 2 or 3 are KO'd? The KO measure suggests a shorter battle than what actually happened and you have yet to show that the per action payout compensates for this - I notice that your example battles contain none that ended in player DQ with a number of KOs less than the match size. Have you considered instead changing the KO bonus to a mons sent out bonus (which is slightly more accurate) or basing the bonus on match size and having it affect the per-action payout (which is much more accurate)?

That said, I believe I have a better idea. Between us, Dogfish44, Engineer Pikachu, Seven Deadly Sins (who did some data mining to help us work out appropriate figures) and I have worked out the following system (note that the actual numbers can be tweaked - these ones were mainly chosen as seemingly appropriate figures that could be used to demonstrate the principles of the system):

• 1 UC per round for singles matches
• 2 UC per round for doubles matches
• 2.5 UC per round for triples matches
• For singles matches larger than 3v3, the final ref gets a bonus 0.1 UC per round per match size above 3v3 (4v4 singles effectively gives the final ref 1.1 UC per round, 5v5 singles gives 1.2 UC per round, etc.)
• Formats larger than triples ... let us get back to you on that one
• All UC payouts are unrounded

Reason being: Doubles tend to last for about as long as a singles of half the size, or half as long as a singles of the same size, while both doubles and triples have rounds of the same size but require more effort per round due to move targeting and multi-target moves like Earthquake, and this bit applies more to triples than doubles. Furthermore, when ~75% of the recent completed battles are 1v1s and similarly short matches, it's clear that there needs to be an incentive to do longer battles, since otherwise it's better to ref two 3v3s than it is to ref a 6v6, since even though you could get the same overall reward from them, you get part of the reward sooner if you ref two 3v3s. The only accurate measure of how long a battle has lasted for, however, is the number of rounds or actions that have happened in the battle. Number of KOs and number of pokemon sent out are both inaccurate - you could potentially have a 1v1 last for 10 rounds and a 3v3 last for 7 rounds. Therefore, an incentive to ref longer battles of larger sizes is provided in the form of an increase to the per-round payout. Doubles, triples and battles of larger formats, however, tend to not last long enough to gain much from this incentive, although such an incentive could be added if called for.

There is one major issue with a round-based payout though. What if a single round just lasts one single move? Then you can gain X UC for virtually no effort at all, resulting in a more inaccurate reflection of how much effort was put in. Another issue with Objection/Engineer/SDS' proposal is that it has the potential for tower matches to be too lucrative. 2.5 UC per round in Triples is way too much to pay, especially if said Triples Match ends up being slower-paced towards the end, as it can be since it is only 2 actions per round. I remember a few 3v3 Triples matches I have played lasting well in excess of 5 Rounds, & the first KO happening within the first two rounds. Also, Doubles paying as much per round as raids—even though zarator highlighted earlier in the thread that they clearly require more effort, due to threat matrices, creating slates, specials, etc.—is also another indicator that this (currently) proposed round-based payout system is too lucrative. Tower Matches, being able to be reffed by anyone, should never be as or more lucrative than any roleplay in CAP ASB, otherwise, where is the incentive in becoming a ref for a roleplay, or even reffing a roleplay, when you can clearly earn more UC in the Battle Tower?

Now...

Objection said:

KOs are a poor measure of how long a battle has lasted for and how much effort the ref has put into the battle. What happens if you have a battle where 12 pokemon are sent out and only 2 or 3 are KO'd? The KO measure suggests a shorter battle than what actually happened and you have yet to show that the per action payout compensates for this - I notice that your example battles contain none that ended in player DQ with a number of KOs less than the match size. Have you considered instead changing the KO bonus to a mons sent out bonus (which is slightly more accurate) or basing the bonus on match size and having it affect the per-action payout (which is much more accurate)?

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Firstly, the sample of matches I chose were recent ones that were not cherry picked. Though if you want some cherry picked battles that had such...

• Match 1 (4v4 Singles): 24 Individual Actions, 0 KO's, 2 UC
• Match 2 (4v4 Doubles): 33 Individual Actions, 1 KO, 4 UC
• Match 3 (3v3 Doubles): 24 Individual Actions, 1 KO, 3 UC
• Match 4 (3v3 Singles): 12 Individual Actions, 0 KO's, 1 UC

The point with DQ is that it is not supposed to pay as much, since the battle is incomplete. Addressing your other points...

• KO Bonus was included as a measure to make tower matches less profitable than other things, like size. While it is true that KO Bonus may not fully indicate "effort", since a match can have a lot of switching without KO's, it does, on the other hand, encourage longer, closer matches as opposed to one-sided matches, which tend to be shorter.
• Size Bonus (Or mon sent out bonus), on the other hand, is not that accurate a measurement either; For example, a 6v6 Singles could see all Pokémon see play in 6 Rounds, but then result in DQ the next round. This then brings an issue of someone being paid too much compensation for DQ. If we do decide to go with such a bonus though, then I would definitely only put the scale at 0.5 per mon seen play in order to prevent lucrativeness (Especially in 1v1 Singles), which also explains truncated payouts.
• With raising the number for longer battles, this may seem like a solid option. If this is the option I decide to go with, it would probably be put at either 0.1 + ((#Pokémon per side - 1) ÷ 100) per action, or 0.1 + ((#Pokémon per side - 1) ÷ 50) per action. One choice that needs to be made is that you can either have this or the KO/Size Bonus. The incentive to ref longer matches is already covered by KO Bonus, since there is a higher chance of more KO's occurring, & battles are going to last longer. Size Bonus, if put at 0.5, can also work, & also reduces payout by some margin, but its issue is that it can lean itself to shorter matches being more likely to be played, with reduced incentive.

Finally, an alternative with matches ending in DQ is to simply drop the whole bonus thing & only compensate on #actions. The increased payout for longer matches comes to mind here as an option, as it can be integrated into #actions & stop any potential bullshit that can arise with KO/Size Bonus.

Basically with the three options:

• KO Bonus: Rewards closer matches (by score-line), but not necessarily great for DQ Compensation (Which can be resolved by dropping the bonus).
• Size Bonus: Rewards switch-heavy matches that end in DQ, very consistent payout in matches that go to completion, but not as great as KO Bonus for rewards in a completed match.
• Increasing proportional payout according to size: Probably the better of the three options, as it is virtually the two options combined, in a way, though it does not offer as much as Size Bonus can with DQ, & usually offers considerably less UC in longer matches than KO Bonus. Possibly considering a change to this system, barring more feedback.

So basically, if we are going to create a payout system that rewards effort above all else, how about combining the proportional payout per size with the payout based on actions, since if we are going for accuracy, then it is pretty obvious that those two combined can provide optimum accuracy in terms of effort. Obviously, final payout should be truncated imo, so it means the ref has to earn their UC...

EDIT: Just did some calcs with the proportional payout added to the action formula, with payout being UC = # actions × (0.1 + ((#Pokémon per side - 1) ÷ 100)) formula, with results truncated. The seven sample matches I listed in my previous post pay out 3, 2, 13, 11, 5, 5, & 10 UC Respectively.

DOUBLE EDIT: The same matches reward 3, 3, 18, 14, 5, 5, & 13 with the formula at UC = # actions × (0.1 + ((#Pokémon per side - 1) ÷ 50)). Take your pick...

/ME eats popcorn while waiting for his terribly-constructed argument to be shot down.

Well like I said earlier, the actual numbers used in either of the systems can be adjusted if necessary. If you have suggestions for better numbers for the round-based payout, feel free to suggest them. Bear in mind that 1.5 per round for doubles was considered too little in the discussions I participated in, yet it is more than what your system pays.

I'll address the rest of your post later.

Below is a log of discussion concerning referee's UC payouts, mainly between me, Pwnemon, Dogfish44 and Objection. Ignore the first few lines if you will - I only put them there because the discussion happened at midnight and I figured we all need a smile after dog said, "Happy New Year my ass" a few minutes before this happened (sadly mibbit already scrolled past that).


tl;dr

• Dog supported payout per action as the more accurate method, and I agreed as well.
• Obj was concerned about less ref payouts under the new formula.
• Obj and dog went against truncating the payouts.
• Obj suggested no rounding of refs' UC payouts, just as it is with approvers (which I supported but Pwne disagreed with) for accuracy.
• This proposal went from refs' DQ compensation, to overall ref payouts, and might snowball into overall UC payouts in the near future.

Once again, Happy New Year, don't make too much resolutions, and remember to always have fun!

IAR's Official Referee Compensation Proposal (Semi tl;dr)

Let me get some things straight first.

Prize Claiming Thread OP said:

Prize Compensation:

1 Universal Counter for every 10 posts approved. Sufficiently large posts may count as 2 or more posts. You may approve your own posts, but if you do so, you must also approve any non-approved posts above you. Self-approvals also do not count towards additional UC.

Click to expand...

1 UC per 10 Posts Approved =/= 0.1 UC per Approved post. Just like how you only gain 1 UC for every four TLR Scenarios reffed, not 0.25 UC per TLR Scenario. There is a reason why you always see me say "x claims approved gives me y/10 Claims Approved." This is why I do not like the idea of leaving UC unrounded, & there is no such thing as claiming "Half a CC", or "Half a (X)C." Why should UC be any different? Which also leads to my initial stance on truncating UC in my proposal, not for consistency, but I have always been against the idea of claiming half UC's & treating half a UC as 0 UC, which also lead to my argument with Frosty over an unapproved claim. It was also a measure for lower pay, but that is beside the point.

That is not why I am posting here though, but rather, to formally post my proposed changes to the Referee Compensation.
[BOX]Overview
Referees will be compensated for time reffing a standard battle based on how long the referee has reffed a battle, measured by individual actions. Battles must have been played to completion before any rewards can be claimed, whether it be through the natural end of a battle, a player DQ, or a Draw by mutual agreement. This formula can be used for any battle of any length & any size, able to be used for brawls, melees, & any other type of battle you could think of, as well as being able to handle cases of sub-refs, DQ's, & Draws by Mutual Agreement.

Formula for UC Payout
Referee's will be compensated with UC for a match which follows the following formula:
[BOX]UC = #IA × (0.1 + ((#PPS - 1) ÷ 50))[/BOX]
Where #IA represents the total number of Individual Actions that the referee reffed throughout the battle, & #PPS represents the maximum #Pokémon one player can use for the match, for example, if the match was a 4v4 Singles, then #PPS would be 4. The final pay for the UC is rounded normally. If the formula would amount to 0 UC, then the UC compensation is rounded up to a minimum of 1 UC. Referees are expected to show full workings when showing how much UC they get in the prize section for convenience of approvers.

Individual Actions
An Individual Action is defined to be where a Pokémon completes its action in full for the action, whether it be through attacking another Pokémon with a move, inflicting status on another Pokémon, or failing to act due to Sleep, Freeze, Confusion, Attraction, Combo Cooldown, or anything else other than being KOed. In plain English, this equates to under normal circumstances, 2 Individual Actions per action in Singles, 4 in Doubles, 6 in Triples, etc. An example will be given later.

Pokémon Per Side
As mentioned before, Pokémon Per Side is a simple thing to grasp. Pokémon Per Side is represented as the agreed maximum number of Pokémon that either player can use in any particular match. For example, if the match was a 1v1 Singles, irrespective of the number of Pokémon a user brings to the battle, the player can only use one Pokémon in the battle, & hence the number of Pokémon per side is 1. Another example will be given later.

An example of how to work out the UC you get From a match
[BOX]Match that this example was taken from
The example match is a 4v4 Doubles, & despite one user bringing 6 Pokémon (This is a Gym Match, but for the purposes of this example, this is treated as a standard match), that user can only use 4 Pokémon for the battle, so #PPS in our Formula is set at 4.

Round One sees 4 Actions completed Action One (One was a self-hit, but still counts), another 4 completed Action Two, & another 4 completed Action Three (Even though one Pokémon failed to act due to Torment). In total, 4+4+4=12 Individual Actions were recorded Round One.

Round Two sees 4 Actions completed Action One (Combo Cooldown still counts as an individual action), another 4 Actions completed Action Two (Fly still counts as 1 Individual Action, & the KOed Pokémon already acted that action), & 3 Actions completed Action Three, since the other Pokémon is not in the battle any more. In total, 4+4+3=11 Individual Actions were recorded Round Two.

Round Three sees 3 Actions completed Action One (The other Pokémon was KOed before it could act, & its action, whatever it was, does not count as an Individual Action), another 3 Actions completed Action Two, & another 3 Actions completed Acton Three (The KOed Pokémon had already acted). In total, 3+3+3=9 Individual Actions were recorded Round Three.

Round Four sees 4 Actions completed Action One, another 4 Actions completed Action Two (The KOed Pokémon had already acted), & only 2 Actions completed Action Three (The other Pokémon was KOed before it could act). In total, 4+4+2=10 Individual Actions were recorded Round Four.

Round Five sees 3 Actions completed Action One (One trainer only had 1 Pokémon left, & Sky Attack counts as 1 Individual Action), & 2 Actions completed Action Two (Sky Attack must be fully executed for it to count as an Individual Action, & the battle ends with the last Pokémon from one side KOed). No Actions were completed Action Three, since one side had no Pokémon left. This also marks the end of the match. The Final Round saw 3+2=5 Actions Completed.

At this point, the match is over, & it is time to claim. #PPS as we worked out earlier is 4, & #IA is equal to the total number of Individual Actions that the referee reffed throughout the battle. This is the aggregate number of actions reffed across the 5 Rounds the battle raged for, which means in total, the battle lasted 12+11+9+10+5=47 Individual Actions. Therefore, #IA in our formula is set at 47.

With both variables set, it is time to plug our numbers into our formula, & we get:
[BOX]47 × (0.1 + ((4 - 1) ÷ 50))=7.52 UC[/BOX]
According to the formula, though all payouts are rounded normally, so our final pay rounds up to 8 UC. Being a Gym Match, there is an extra 4 UC added for being a 4v4 match to make it 12 UC, but let us assume this was a standard match.[/BOX]

What happens if a match ends up having to be completed by a sub-ref?
Same as normal, but instead, calculate payments for all refs who reffed a match. #PPS remains the same, but #IA will be different for each ref, based on the number of actions each referee reffed over the course of a match. for example, say a you sub-reffed a match. The match lasts 27 Actions, but you reffed 15 Actions to the original ref's 12 Actions. That means #IA will be set to 15 for your pay, & #IA will be set to 12 for your pay.

What happens if a match ends in DQ or Draw by Mutual Agreement?
Follow the normal formula, with #IA being equal to the number of Individual Actions you reffed before the match ended prematurely. Just remember that if a match has not had two rounds of reffing before being called this way, no awards are awarded.[/BOX]

Aims of this proposal:

• To provide an accurate time-based payout system that awards more UC the longer a battle rages: Achieved through measuring battle length through Individual Actions, arguably the most accurate form of measurement for battle length & referee effort. The more Individual Actions reffed, the more UC earned.
• To provide a flexible UC formula that can be applied to any situation for a tower match: Because the unit of time for UC pay is Individual Actions, this can easily be achieved, & will handle sub-ref cases, DQ cases, & will be able to cover larger formats like brawls & melees far easier than what a round-based payout can achieve.
• To be able to scale matches to award more UC for larger battles: This is handled through the scaling proportion of the UC formula (The 0.1 + ((#PPS - 1) ÷ 50) part). This equates to 0.1 UC/IA for 1v1's, 0.12 UC/IA for 2v2's, 0.14 UC/IA for 3v3's, etc. A 1v1 Singles needs to last at least 15 IA (2.5 rounds at least) for the ref to claim more than 1 UC from them, which is a plus in a way, since it can act as a deterrent from playing 1v1 Singles.
• To lower the amount of UC a ref can earn from a Standard Tower Match on average, & increase the incentive of reffing Role-plays: As I said before, Tower Matches can be reffed by anyone with an ASB account, so naturally, tower payouts should be lower. Otherwise, where is the incentive to ref RP's when Tower matches clearly pay more? This is also a proven fact, with the example match being worth 12 UC (excluding Gym Bonus) compared to 8 UC under my system. Also the seven examples given in my first post on this matter are only worth 3, 3, 19, 14, 6, 6, & 14 UC with this formula compared to 2 (DQ), 4, 20, 18 (w/o subrefs), 4, 4, & 23 UC under the current system. There are three examples where this system pays more, yes, but the longer matches in the sample battles can pay considerably less UC than the current system.

Also if anyone wonders why, 0.1 was chosen as a minimum pay per IA because it is a nice number that prevents tower matches from paying too much, & also works against shorter matches. If the average 1v1 Singles match lasted 2 rounds, then a ref will only gain 1 UC from average from 1v1 Singles matches. Furthermore, 0.1 minimum can also reflect similar pays for matches with the help of scaling, though lower on average.

So yeah, that is my proposal. Any questions? Any thoughts? Do not be afraid to ask.

All this shit is way too fucking complicated. There is no problem with the current system except for when a battle ends by DQ. Fix just that problem, and leave the rest alone.


Like Jesus fuck I'm not signing up for math class when I choose to ref a battle.