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Proposal Let me participate in SPL

dice

dice

is a Tiering Contributoris a Tutor Alumnusis a defending SPL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
I know a policy thread hates to see me coming.

*What I want to flag is that my signup wasn’t an attempt to game prices, manipulate an auction, or mislead anyone about availability. I'm being transparent: I don’t have the time/energy to start, and I don’t want to play games this year. At the same time, I still want to be involved in SPL in the way I can be involved: prep, building, scouting, and being active in team chats. That kind of support role has existed informally forever; plenty of people have effectively been drafted primarily for behind-the-scenes value, even if nobody said it out loud. See: Will of Fire, BluBird, et al.

*The problem is that the current rule treats “support-only” the same as bad-faith benching, even when 1) everyone involved knows the intent upfront, and 2) teams are explicitly willing to spend for that value. In my case, there’s also an awkward asymmetry: because I’m competent across tiers, there’s no “quiet” way to list a tier for subbing without it being read as potential playing intent, so full transparency becomes the thing that gets punished. I am quite literally being punished for historical competence when I just want to participate in the tournament as a bystander, like tens of people do every year. There are managers who are more than willing to buy me knowing that I do not wish to play.

*If the stance is “no support-only signups, period,” then okay, at least that’s consistent. But if we’re going to be consistent, it’s also hard to ignore that every year teams spend on bench slots that never touch the field. The difference is just whether the intent is stated plainly. Almost every team drafts their own jester. Vibes are important. And managers certainly do not trust or want a lot of these people to play even if they are signed up to do so.

*My proposal isn’t “let me break the rule.” It’s: create an explicit mechanism for support-only participation that doesn’t involve tier signups at all. Call it an advisor/consultant designation, make it clear they can’t be fielded, and let managers opt into that openly. That solves the “poisoning the well” concern while acknowledging the reality that SPL teams value prep and activity.

*If that’s not something TDs want, I’ll take the ruling and move on. Honestly, I think you should consider an exception for this year and rework sign-ups moving forward. I’m just asking that we recognize the actual gap here: the policy currently discourages honest communication and doesn’t really address the bench-value behavior it’s trying to target. This website already has retention issues, and this would help allow aging players like myself to participate in a way that feels decent. IMO JJ0LIE saying something to the effect of "I'm not available during the weekdays" while signing up to play is far more egregious of a price-fixing issue/case than me stating: hey I want to participate but I don't want to play at all.

*If you don't want to make a mechanism for this, at least let me participate, like this is actually really weird to me IMO and a misstep by the TDs. FYI no TD reached out to me prior to this decision being made to talk this out normally. I should have articulated this prior to my attempts but I did not think it would blow up like this. Eager to hear thoughts. I have played this tournament since SPL 4, and I am an honest actor here, like wtf? Thx.
 
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dice said:
I know a policy thread hates to see me coming.

I get the clarification, and I understand why TDs don’t want managers signing up players who don't intend to play.

*What I want to flag is that my signup wasn’t an attempt to game prices, manipulate an auction, or mislead anyone about availability. I'm being transparent: I don’t have the time/energy to start, and I don’t want to play games this year. At the same time, I still want to be involved in SPL in the way I can be involved: prep, building, scouting, and being active in team chats. That kind of support role has existed informally forever; plenty of people have effectively been drafted primarily for behind-the-scenes value, even if nobody said it out loud. See: Will of Fire, BluBird, et al.
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Why not just help teams for free then im sure if you dm managers they be fine inviting you to the server to help their players
 
1) let dice participate in spl, there's no poisoning of the well or whatever and plenty of people say tons of bullshit in commencement etc, dice was also one of the more honest actors here and punishing that is whack

2) do not endorse future cases with things like a dedicated support signup

3) if u don't want this to be replicated, and u don't want sv players tierlocking into rby or whatever to effectively sign up to substitute, nuke tierlocking

Excal consider this,
with sincerity
 
Not opposed to this proposal but I do feel like there will be some unintentional, indirect consequences of adding support-only sign-ups that should be addressed here.

First, there should be some sort of expected value from a purchase that a support slot complicates. Usually, drafting a player means that, at minimum, you are drafting someone willing to play the game for the length of the tournament outside of the weeks of foreseeable inactivity listed on their signup. It’s usually clear if a player is cancering/not contributing enough to the team and TDs can respond accordingly. A support slot doesn’t come with any of these guarantees and any attempt at measuring support activity gets complicated and hard to deal with. Also, it’s realistic for someone really wanting to support the Cryonicles to support less when drafted to the Bigs, even without any malicious intent.

I also think that the addition of a support slot would unintentionally make it harder for newer players to get involved in tournaments like SPL for two reasons. First, the currency spent on a top player bought purely for their support cannot be spent on a cheap, new player. We all like seeing 3k players pop off, but a proposal like this one takes away this opportunity for these newer players. Second, many newer players get involved in these tournaments by providing valuable support to a team that needs it, even if they went undrafted, leading them to getting drafted in future tournaments. By normalizing drafting exclusively support slots, fewer newer players will get the chance to make a name for themselves through their support.

I really don’t hate this idea and can see some value in including support-only sign-ups, especially if that means people will be more honest in their sign-up posts, but I personally don’t think it’s worth the risks outlined above. I’m also not a huge fan of barring dice from this SPL, since unofficial support slots have always existed and he’s realistically only being punished because he said that part out loud.
 
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leoperi said:
Well i dont know if id feel worthy or anyone worthy to win any kind of reward if i dindt played any game. Id be fine helping any friend if they ask me to not because im expecting them to reward something back , i belive teamtours are similar thing .
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Every basic ass bitch can get a super bowl ring when the team they work for wins. There is more to winning than actually playing, for a team tour. I feel like this is a problem that solves itself. If managers don’t think its worth drafting someone solely for support, then they will just not pay for that player. If they think its worth it… that’s on them. It’s their money to spend. I just don’t see why it would be an issue if the player signing up is transparent about their intentions of not wanting to play.
 
Dice getting banned in this SPL is just the monthly elephant in the room for the TD team LOL.

He basically signed up to be part of a team and contribute as he wants, literally the whole time we have this. When we are planning a team (from managerial perspective), its basic to consider taking players that we only want for general help on specific slots, do scoutings, tests, etc, and at times we are very sure we wont start these people in the whole tournament, there are roles to everyone. If a manager wanna spend 3-10k on a benchwarmer Dice thats down to contribute, then just let em do it and lets see if it works, he let everyone know about his intentions in a very transparent fashion. A winning team is not only made of elite starters and any player with simple experience knows how everyone can be revant in their way.

A possible issue would be having Dice pricefixing hard his ass, but its not like he added his main gens on his signup anyway.
 
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Hey, I found a way for you to get exactly what you want.

Excal

Thread 'SPL XVII - Manager Signups'

You've been waiting for it, it's finally time for SPL manager signups!

The hosts this year are UT, goldmason, Ticken, Excal, and shiloh. Only post in this thread if you would like to signup to manage, any other kind of posts will be deleted and your posting access in Tournament Policy may be revoked. Everyone (past, assistant, and new managers alike) is required to sign up if you wish to manage, no exceptions. Managing teams of up to 3 members are allowed to sign up. Auction will be scheduled for weekend of the 3rd-4th of January and Week 1 will start on...
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Maybe next year

(Seriously though, it is called player signups for a reason. You don't wanna play, but be on a team, manage...)
 
It doesnt work, there will be "support players" who will want to end up in X or Y team and if they get upbid by team Z then what ? They will not help and team Z will have lost money? It's hard enough to incentivize players to care, most players will not grief considering they are the ones playing and if they refuse to play they will be held responsible.
However nothing prevents support players from not supporting if they wish to and it'll be an absolute pain to deal with policy wise.
This is also just normalizing stupid shit like bidding 1c on your friend so he can get a trophy for free, some other team wanna upbid? Good for them they just lost some bucks. Also there would need to be a limit of support players? Lmao
Don't make your life worse, stick to the simple and fair concept of : you sign up to play the god damn game.

Oh and btw I'd apply this logic to managers if I were the one to choose but at least there's not bidding involved there so there's less room for collusion. And tier locking never made sense imo.

Edit: if the td team really wants to shoot themselves in the foot (which would be weird considering that they didnt gaf about any of my classic post) then at the very least make it so there would be 1-3 support slots introduced but you can't just add this like that out of nowhere, the rules dont allow it. I think it'd be a terrible idea though.
 
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Is there a problem with the idea of signing up with no tiers played? You could not play if you wanted to, but you're still held to the same expectations of activity. You'd do the same job for any team and everyone involved is perfectly aware, no pricefixing involved. The only logistics issue I see with this is the possibility that a team will be lacking in playable subs in an emergency (their fault really) or that they don't have enough players to field according to eligibility rules (which already can happen so I don't think it would be an issue).

sure, you can say "it's player signups and you're expected to be playing" but that's really just semantics, i would like to know if tds have a more specific reason why a binding support-only signup would be a bad idea
 
Conceptually I can't find any issue with what Dice is suggesting. The transparency and clarity of intent in signup is something to support in a world where price fixing can and does happen and there is clear value in managers drafting slots for their support potential.

That being said this thread hasn't sat right, mainly because there's far too much discussion about dice participating specifically which is largely irrelevant to the overall policy at hand.

I think what Dice has proposed as a policy solution in the OP is the correct approach, add a selection option to the signup sheet that identifies as Support Only and is a mutually exclusive selection from any other tier entry.

The singular risk that I see is a player signing up to support with the secret intent of ghosting or otherwise abusing the system i.e. Mazar and frankly that's a separate policy risk that could happen in any form of signup structure.
 
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(Speaking as myself and not on behalf of TDs, obviously...)

I empathize with the proposal and agree with some components of it. I can see it being frustrating to want to sign up to bench, be unable to, and then see players participate the exact way you want to. In theory, we could modify our signups and allow players to sign up to bench, which would fully restrict them from playing games, allowing managers to opt into sacrificing a bench playing slot for a player who can't hit the field but would provide value in other ways. We could hold these slots to the same activity standards we do any other player; we have punished inactive bench players before. A positive of this system would be making the tournament more inclusive to older veterans and help with player retention as you mentioned. This is a system I would personally be open to discussing.

That said, there are some issues. Those players you mentioned who've been drafted to bench (Blubird as one example) are still signing up to play the game. Even if they bench the whole tournament, they are still willing and able to start and have not expressed publicly that they aren't. Currently, our signups do not support signing up to bench and this isn't something we can change or make an exception for this year. You cannot both sign up with the intention of benching/not playing and list a tier you're willing to play. The signup thread has said in bold font: "If you would not consider seriously playing a tier in a tournament, do not list it". This has always included signing up to bench, but from this situation we clarified that because understandably that has ambiguity. Yes, the TDs could have reached out to you, but you could have read the signup rules and contacted TDs as well. We know your signup did not have malicious intent which is why you weren't infracted.

The Tournament Director's job is to make tournaments the best they can be. Allowing bench signups, while increasing inclusiveness, may not accomplish that goal. We've had several complaints about how adding third managers has reduced player pool quality. I think many seasoned players would sign up to bench, which may also have that effect. SPL is the tournament people are supposed to show up for and commit to. Signing up to not play may not embody what makes this tournament so prestigious and competitive. There's a lot more than that but my point is that rather than answering the question: "are there any issues with this system?", the more important question is: "would allowing players to sign up to bench only improve our tournaments as opposed to the status quo?"

The other issue not mentioned here but subtly implied is that SPL (and all of our tournaments) require serious commitment from the playerbase. 9 weeks regular season + potential playoffs is a really long time relative to how much effort players put in. We ought to, at some point, have a conversation about exploring alternatives to making our tournaments more inclusive if player retention is considered a serious issue, like reducing the length of these tournaments (ie. making SPL 8 teams and 7 weeks/having teams play each other in groups to reduce length while preserving the 10 teams). This could also address the issue of our congested tournament schedule and all the overlap between tournaments.

Overall, I empathize with the proposal. No system is perfect and you've accurately identified a flaw with more valuable players not having the luxury to customize their experience. But imo with the current system the decision taken was warranted and don't think making an exception for this year makes sense.
 
While there are many, including myself, who are seeing dice’s transparency as the correct thing to do to let the managers know before the auction; this is still punishable. This isn’t a matter of intent, but a matter of impact. Dice’s intent is far from price fixing, but what he is doing still is. Great player + great metagame knowledge is usually a high value bid. Dice declaring he isn’t playing may lower his draft value regardless of his intent, sadly.

The simple solution is just help the team he wants to support the most while not being officially on the roster. However, dice has already stated:
dice said:
Because if I'm helping a team win, I want a trophy.
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Which is true, can’t get a trophy with the winning team if you weren’t drafted by them. This sucks and I hate that dice’s integrity is being punished here. But these are the policies we have to abide by when it comes to a player’s draft value. I think having the option to declare as a support/non-playing pick is a good idea. Although, I have similar concerns that others have stated above.

- “Support players who will want to end up in X or Y team and if they get upbid by team Z then what?” - Reymedy

- “A support slot doesn’t come with any of these guarantees and any attempt at measuring support activity gets complicated and hard to deal with.” - Protista

- “The only logistics issue I see with this is the possibility that a team will be lacking in playable subs in an emergency (their fault really) or that they don't have enough players to field according to eligibility rules.” - RADU

And to add to it, how would this be implemented in player signups? Just extra check boxes on the player signup form? Would the budget have to be adjusted? Would the minimum player count be adjusted?

Ideas that I can think of right now would be a separate signup thread for support picks. That comes with its own complexities like how can you prevent someone from signing up as a player AND a support pick, how would managers draft support picks, etc.

Another idea is adding the support pick option to player signups and there’s a sort of filter that shows the support pool and allowing managers at the end of draft pick from the said pool or they can use their nom during draft as a no cost support pick. But this idea still directly goes back to Reymedy’s concern above. On top of the discussion of should support picks have a price or be free picks and if you can draft them during the auction or after the auction. It’s a big mess.

There are potential ways to implement a support option but there are very complicated pros and cons to discuss that may or may not end up being worth it.
 
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