Smogon Premier League II - Week 2

[Eternal]

Uh, what? Since when is Pokemon a "spectator sport"? Sure, people open their matches up in the finals of tournaments for others to watch/record, but nobody has ever been forced to allow spectators or announce their matches in any tournament. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's poor strategy to allow spectators before the finals of a tournament, due to the heavy threat of scouting in this game (you know, the game that is heavily influenced by team matchup?). What you're suggesting here is the exact opposite of what has typically been done in the past; when one player doesn't want spectators, the other usually (by usually, I mean I have never heard of any other case) honors it. You can't force people to allow spectators if they don't want to.

I agree with Phil. This is a team tournament, but the difference is that your team is not the one battling for/with you, you are the only one battling. I see no reason to force the opposition to allow scouting if they don't want to. Scouting is as limited as it can be through the restriction of spectators. Having a notion that everyone's team is going to be revealed anyways because of your opponent sharing logs is not helping this situation in any way. Sure you might say that since this is a team tournament everyone and their teams should cheer for their teammate, but this can be done through their respective team's IRC channel. Every team has an IRC channel. Every tournament I've played in, I've always respected by opponent of whether he/she wants to allow spectators or make the battle private regardless of it being a team tournament or not.

By the way, I'm not agreeing with Philip because I don't want my opponents to scout my team. I really don't care if anyone scouts my teams, I tend to use different teams every round. I'm agreeing because it is logically reasonable.

 

[Solace]

tay hasnt been on since 3am my time yesterday, so activity post i guess?

sent him a PM yesterday at 8:30am, so he hasnt been on to see it...

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Does PO/Shoddy not have an "Ignore Watch Chat" option?

So how would you like if you pressed ignore specs and then you think you're making great moves but then I'm over here sitting telling him what it looks like you're going to do when he didn't even think of that?

 

[LonelyNess]

I agree with Phil. This is a team tournament, but the difference is that your team is not the one battling for/with you, you are the only one battling. I see no reason to force the opposition to allow scouting if they don't want to. Scouting is as limited as it can be through the restriction of spectators. Having a notion that everyone's team is going to be revealed anyways because of your opponent sharing logs is not helping this situation in any way. Sure you might say that since this is a team tournament everyone and their teams should cheer for their teammate, but this can be done through their respective team's IRC channel. Every team has an IRC channel. Every tournament I've played in, I've always respected by opponent of whether he/she wants to allow spectators or make the battle private regardless of it being a team tournament or not.

By the way, I'm not agreeing with Philip because I don't want my opponents to scout my team. I really don't care if anyone scouts my teams, I tend to use different teams every round. I'm agreeing because it is logically reasonable.

This is not forcing scouting. As I said, there is a way to accommodate the player who wishes to disallow spectators because he's worried about scouting. You can play on a different server, you can play using different names, you can just not tell anyone except teammates. There are ways of preventing scouting WITHOUT preventing teammates from viewing matches.

And as far as the worries of ghosting: if folgorio wants to ghost, he's going to ghost, regardless of whether or not his team is actually in the battle - he can just copy / paste the log into #carlsucks, wait 10 seconds for his team to pick his move and then make it. You guys are so worried about ghosting when, to be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure it doesn't even happen. There's a thing people have called "competitive pride". Do you know how shitty it would feel to not even be making your own moves in a tournament match? Why even join the tournament if you're just going to have someone play for you? I am unconvinced that even a single match in the Smogon Premier League has been legitimately ghost-battled. You're all so worried about something that isn't even happening.

Why you guys are so obstinate to a ruling that will literally change nothing while at the same time has the ability to make both parties happy is beyond me. It's like you're just whining for the sake of whining, now.

 

[Philip7086]

LN, you're ridiculously naive if you think ghosting doesn't happen. Also, do you know how much harder it is to follow a match from copy/pasted text as opposed to sitting in the match watching yourself? Not to mention the extra time it takes to do so in battles that should have timer clause on. I don't see how you can even attempt to argue that it makes no difference in terms of ghosting whether or not there are spectators allowed. You are absolutely not making both parties happy, as this has never been the norm at all and you're forcing users who prefer battling in private to not do so if their opponent wants spectators. This ruling makes absolutely 0 sense.

 

[LonelyNess]

Why should the player who doesn't want spectators take precedence of the person who does when they're just "preferences"

Why are his desires more justified than the person who wants to let their teammate watch?

Why should you get to overrule HIS desires in favor of your own when YOUR desires can be met AT THE SAME TIME.

There are two reasons for not wanting spectators:

You're worried about scouting - Ok, then do as I've said, play on a different server, play not with your forum names, don't tell anyone except teammates that you're playing.

You're worried about ghosting - If your opponent is going to ghost, he's going to ghost regardless of whether or not they're actually in the battle. If you can't copy paste a log into an IRC chat in less than 5 seconds (actually time it you know where you say out loud 'one one-thousand'), then I question your ability to actually use a computer....
-___-

So both of the reasons for disallowing spectators can be accommodated via means OTHER THAN DISALLOWING SPECTATORS (or simply can't be prevented period).

Once again I say, why would we be more restrictive when we don't HAVE to be more restrictive.

 

[Umby]

So how would you like if you pressed ignore specs and then you think you're making great moves but then I'm over here sitting telling him what it looks like you're going to do when he didn't even think of that?

Wouldn't really matter to me, honestly. I'm playing the game to the best of my ability. If my opponent relies on the comments/help of others to the extent that he can't make decisions for himself, that's his personal issue and an indication of his ability as a player. Regardless, even if you or anyone else call me out on a move, it just becomes my mission to become less predictable or work around whatever you throw my way.

PS: I ignore specs in all tournament matches.

 

[whistle]

LN, you're ridiculously naive if you think ghosting doesn't happen. Also, do you know how much harder it is to follow a match from copy/pasted text as opposed to sitting in the match watching yourself? Not to mention the extra time it takes to do so in battles that should have timer clause on. I don't see how you can even attempt to argue that it makes no difference in terms of ghosting whether or not there are spectators allowed.

phil you seem extremely versed in the mechanics of ghost battling and certain that it happens... is there anything you'd like to tell us

 

[Synre]

Mostly just posting because LN is NAGGING me but my opinion here is pretty obvious and ghosting has nothing to do with it. I suspect incidents of ghosting are greatly exaggerated; I would be reasonably surprised if it happens at all in this tournament at all in the sense people in this thread mean it. I think it is normally an excuse for getting outplayed by someone people think they are better than but didn't come up with the win against. I do expect opposition to have some level of collusion in a tournament like this regardless of specs being on or not during big moves; I don't think that's something you're going to stamp out of an event like this because it's a pretty decent part of what team tournaments are. To me that is something we can tolerate but is a big difference from actually having a teammate play for you, which is obviously unacceptable. I'm really not sure why people are so paranoid about us doing that, we don't, we haven't, and there is rarely anyone who actually plays pokemon well enough to do it on my team online even if we wanted to this season since we're all pretty busy during the school year.

There isn't much motivation to own a team if I can't watch any of the matches. If I wanted to not-watch a team I'm managing I'd run a fantasy golf team or something.

 

[Bluewind]

Why are his desires more justified than the person who wants to let their teammate watch?

Simply because the person who allows their teammate to watch wins/loses nothing outside of the possibility of being ghost battled (lol), while the person who wants to disallow spectators has his team revealed. Summing it up, the person who allows specs doesn't win a thing (theoretically; that is in a world that SPL is a tournament in which people trust each other's battling capabilities and don't do ghosting); while the person who doesn't want specs will no longer be able to use that team and risks ghosting (and let's be very blunt, it does happen). Logs spread you say, but it's much more easy to tell one person not to spread the log than a whole team; not to mention people shouldn't be pressured to play on other servers.

 

[B-Lulz]

who gives a shit about being ghosted, if you win you win, if you lose shut up.

GO SHARKS

 

[Stellar]

Thank you Brits for a fun and challenging week!

 

[Kinneas]

GG Ruiners and good luck in the rest of the tournament!

 

[spies]

There's also nothing "technically" stopping me from ghost battling.

It is really noticeable when specs are disallowed though (as it happened to me last year hehehe)

 

[6A9 Ace Matador]

posting 2 say i agree w/ lonelyness SPLs fun since your teams and managers watch the battles, if specs clause is on all the time it'd detract a lot from the tourney imo no teams are going to ghost battle unless their managers are (BAN ME PLEASE) and their players suck so just leave that argument out imo

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

Mostly just posting because LN is NAGGING me but my opinion here is pretty obvious and ghosting has nothing to do with it. I suspect incidents of ghosting are greatly exaggerated; I would be reasonably surprised if it happens at all in this tournament at all in the sense people in this thread mean it.

In the same vein, should the rule be changed to make "no spectators" the first option, I suspect that the number of people who would disallow spectators against their opponents' wishes would not be a huge one.

 

[Synre]

The people demanding that they get preference with disallow specs sort of disproves that theory I think.

 

[Atticus]

i tried to play but the game wouldnt let me, gg reach....

 

[gene]

what a game, what a week

 

[reachzero]

Crit Atticus' ___, QUAGSIRE got it, won, gg.

 

[locopoke]

wilson got smacked, ban rankurusu

 

[wilson46]

noob'd out by locopoke, tfp and good job.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

BIGS may not be able to flinch for dick but at least we got the heart of the criticals

 

[Heysup]

wait do some people not ghost??

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Wouldn't really matter to me, honestly. I'm playing the game to the best of my ability. If my opponent relies on the comments/help of others to the extent that he can't make decisions for himself, that's his personal issue and an indication of his ability as a player. Regardless, even if you or anyone else call me out on a move, it just becomes my mission to become less predictable or work around whatever you throw my way.

PS: I ignore specs in all tournament matches.

Lol yeah right. Don't give me that bullshit. NO ONE cares about "indication as a player". If you see someone say something you didn't think of you're def considering that shit. Anyone here will agree to that. And IF ppl cared about "playing to their own abilities" only then we'd see ppl give up their lucky wins