regarding ties via simultaneous timeout on the ladder

[HSA]

Hi, I’ve had the pleasure of playing my fair share of 1000 turn games on the OU ladder. In my most recent one, I was alerted to the fact that my opponent and I could agree to tie via simultaneous timeout before ever reaching the turn cap. Given our ongoing Official Ladder Tournament, I figured I should point out some issues with this.

a) It introduces a tie mechanic that the community agreed should not exist in ladder games. This should be fairly self-explanatory. Every time the issue of ties in endless battles has been brought up, we’ve hesitated to add any sort of draw mechanic in order to prevent ladder cheating by “friends who would abuse the feature.” While I don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment, it’s the reason for the lack of the offer draw feature in the status quo.

b) If we want an “offer draw” feature to exist it definitely should not force players to rely on the timer. Allowing players to draw creates a warped prisoner’s dilemma—you’re forced to rely on your opponent to get the desired outcome (tie without waiting 2 hours). The issue is that there’s no risk in allowing your timer to run down to 5 seconds before clicking, especially when you know your opponent is thinking the same. Either he didn’t and you collect your points or he did and you know he had no intention of tying you anyway and can now carry on to 1000 turns.

“But HSA, we Pokémon players are gentlemen. There’s no dilemma here!.” I personally don’t think I can assume any Pokémon player is a rational actor, especially given the pixels currently at stake (thanks OLT). Example: In the game I referenced above, my opponent (we’ll call him mewt0utamer for anonymity) decided it was in his best interest to timer stall me after realizing that neither of us had any possible way of winning the game. mewt0utamer was fully prepared to spend 4 or more hours at his computer in the hope that I would leave just to have any chance at claiming his sweet 20 elo. yikes.

only way to actually resolve this is to introduce some sort of td-enforced deterrent but I don’t think that’s something we want

c) This exclusively benefits players who are actually in a position to collude. Points a and b are non-issues if you refuse to offer or accept draw by timeout. However, this means that this feature only serves to help players who are friends with (and can therefore trust) other players on the ladder. Context: this feature was originally pointed out to me by friends of mewt0utamer, who also have accounts at the top of the OU ladder. If you get a ladder match against a friend, you can just agree to tie and leave the game with a minimal gain or loss of ELO. This seems like an issue given a majority of high ladder games are played with ionext on.

Regardless of whether or not the feature is abused by friends who merely don’t want to play each other, it’s important to remember that OLT is a tournament whose qualification is gated by time. There’s a meaningful difference between having to play 1000 turns (at least an hour even if both players are switching back and forth from turn 1) and having to wait 2.5 minutes. Even those who are in a position to use the feature “fairly” are gaining an unfair advantage over those who aren’t.


not sure exactly how to deal with this but these two routes seem most logical

a) remove the feature. i’m not sure what would replace it, but the status quo is untenable, at least in my opinion

b) decide we actually do want to be able to draw games and just choose to monitor the games that are drawn, whether it be via a button or some endless battle clause


tl;dr: have ties or don’t, but don’t include a pseudo offer draw feature that only benefits those who are in a position to collude

 

[Arcticblast]

when the meta allows games that physically cannot reach completion if played optimally, I’m not sure the timer is the problem you should be looking at

 

[nui]

I’m a little confused, I fail to understand the point of this post.

If you encounter someone timerstalling you on ladder you can report this to a global staff member on PS! And they will issue a battle ban which prevents the user from playing new battles for two days. If you’re participating in OLT this is probably the worse punishment you can receive considering every battle counts.

If you’re found to deliberately abuse this system by allowing early ties and forfeits you’ll be punished by the TDs. Not to mention even attempting a gentleman’s agreement is risky considering your opponent could troll you and take the points and you could do nothing about it.

There is literally no incentive in “colluding” the risks are incredibly strong for anyone wanting to qualify for OLT. I’m really sorry that you have to deal with a 1000 turn battle but that seems like a separate issue and not this pseudo tie thing. Also correct me if I’m wrong if both players time out on cart then those conditions are considered a “draw”.

 

[DoW]

Endless battle clause is effective in some situations, but was never intended to handle situations where the optimal play for both sides is continuous switching (with no hazards). However, just always giving players the ability to lose doesn't cut it when people are playing competitively, because playing competitively means you never take that option (and in any case, there's a button at the top right with an x on it).

I think there is an issue with allowing people to tie a game as soon as they start playing, as it reduces competitiveness by meaning the better player won't win if they have some reason not to play their opponent, such as being their friend or being tired of playing that particular player. Certainly the whole point of the ladder is that you play whoever you're paired up against. Therefore I think a draw button being available at the start of the game is not the solution here.

The way chess handles this issue is by only allowing players to offer a draw after a certain number of turns. This still allows players to play very cautiously and then offer a draw at the first opportunity, however a) if the number of turns is in the hundreds this won't be very appealing and b) both players will have a chance to gain a winning (or at least better) position in that time, in which case they won't accept the draw. I think the idea of a draw button being available after 200 turns would require players to be extremely dedicated to their collusion for this to have many issues. Other options perhaps include the option to draw being given after a certain number of switches with no moves made and no HP lost.

If these options are taken (or even if not), I think the current behavior for simultaneous timeouts should change, as people would continue to use this method. It wouldn't be difficult to implement something like the following:

If both players run out of time on the same turn the game will automatically determine the winner using the following conditions in hierarchical order. This should also be applied by the tournament staff for any game that is not finished when match time is called and the final turn has resolved:
1.
Whoever has the most Pokémon remaining wins.
2.
If both players have the same number of Pokémon remaining, the player with the highest ratio of total HP remaining / total maximum HP for all Pokémon in his or her party wins.
3.
If there is no clear winner from conditions 1 or 2, then the Player with the highest total HP remaining wins.
4.
If there is still no clear winner, the game will be a draw.

The final clause could perhaps be replaced by a coinflip if people started playing this system, e.g. by timing out at the start of the game after bringing the same team.

Finally, there have in the past been cases where players are unhappy because they lose Elo ranking points due to a draw. This is expected behavior - if you're higher ranked than someone then you're supposed to be better than them; if you then only succeed in drawing rather than beating them, you didn't do as well as expected, and therefore lose ranking points. It's possible that advertising this fact would help prevent people from drawing without good reason; it would also be possible to treat a draw as 1/4 of a win rather than 1/2 a win, causing an overall loss of ranking points but still being better on both players than them losing. However, if the above suggestions for preventing players from offering a draw until further into the game are taken, I don't think this will be necessary.

 

[Zarel]

I once considered making simultaneous timeout a loss for both players, to discourage it. I've already written half the code for it. I could finish that.

I don't currently have an objection to an "Offer Draw" feature after ~100 turns. I objected in the past, but that was because it's very exploitable as the only alternative to an unlimited-length game. Now that we have the 1000-turn cap, which by the current timer is a 2-hour cap, the game is no longer unlimited-length, so I don't mind speeding up the end with an "Offer Draw" button.

And also, I'm still echoing what everyone else is saying. Please please please just fucking fix the meta not to make "endless double-switching" the optimal strategy ever.

 

[ABR]

It's not a metagame issue. Endless games have existed as far as back as gen 2, so it has nothing to do with regenerator or anything of the sort. If you really want there to be less endless games then your best bet is probably undoing ohko clause but I don't think anybody wants that.

Either gamefreak designed pokemon wrong, or our clauses are wrong, or nothing is wrong but we just need to accept the fact that some games are endless. Assuming the latter most, which I do personally subscribe to, we might as well enable speeding up the inevitable by allowing an offer draw. This mechanism could include the following features:

1) You can only request after x turns
2) You can only request after x minutes
3) You can only request x turns/minutes after the previous request

 

[Arcticblast]

just because it’s already existed before doesn’t mean it’s healthy or something we should support

to use an extreme example, slavery used to be legal until people realized it was bad

 

[Tony]

just because it’s already existed before doesn’t mean it’s healthy or something we should support

to use an extreme example, slavery used to be legal until people realized it was bad

 

[PDC]

as the local sjw this is a terrible example to question tiering law

 

[Zarel]

It's not a metagame issue. Endless games have existed as far as back as gen 2, so it has nothing to do with regenerator or anything of the sort. If you really want there to be less endless games then your best bet is probably undoing ohko clause but I don't think anybody wants that.

Either gamefreak designed pokemon wrong, or our clauses are wrong, or nothing is wrong but we just need to accept the fact that some games are endless. Assuming the latter most, which I do personally subscribe to, we might as well enable speeding up the inevitable by allowing an offer draw. This mechanism could include the following features:

1) You can only request after x turns
2) You can only request after x minutes
3) You can only request x turns/minutes after the previous request

The games have a time limit of one hour, which at the absolute fastest possible in-game playing speed works out to around 300 turns.

You guys explicitly voted to repeal that limit. You don't get to blame Game Freak for this.

(Also, endless games haven't become a serious problem until gen 6-7; I never used to get complaints about this until recently.)

 

[PDC]

alright i'll respond seriously

to be fair, the endless game "crisis" which has for some reason been a hot-button issue despite its seemingly easy solution is probably derived at least somewhat from regenerator based stalls which eliminate the need for PP usage in healing and amount to a completely passive strategy being optimal in some matchups. however, the "endless game" is not birthed from this ability and instead can be found in essentially every generation if you look hard enough for it. it is a theoretical best-case scenario which arises whenever using PP results in a losing position -- which can be found in nearly every generation's playbook somewhere if you look hard enough.

the difference between the earlier generation's and 6-7 is regenerator (specifically in this context of 6-7) and the fundamental change of stall deriving the elimination of permanent passive damage from weather, the arrival of defog, and probably some other factors which i am too lazy to dig up. abr is incorrect to say that regenerator has not substantially contributed to this situation, but his statement claiming its possibility in 1-5 is certainly truthful.

in the best interest of competitive pokemon and its viability, prior tiering councils decided time limits outside of the conventional thinking timer were contrary to the ideals we set out upon. games can go for hundreds of turns and have an inevitable conclusion that is not "endless;" i have been playing for nearly a decade, and have witnessed games of all generations meticulously breakdown as the hours go on -- a 5 hour long game is not an "endless" one, merely an extended circumstance which most likely has win conditions available, and in which infinitely switching leads to a definite loss. having an overarching timer limit extinguishes this possibility and area of competitiveness. in a different arena in which deadlines do not span weeks, i believe this would be fairly implemented, but not here on smogon.

trying to stay true to what i define as competitively objective for the sake of problems like these has certainly been a place of conflict over the years. when i belonged to the OU council, i believed in principled tiering which sought to truncate expectations of fun being the endgame. if a game is truly to be competitive, it cannot ignore that functioning optimally is not synonymous with chaotic subjective machinations of "fun" or "desirable." i, like the rest of the ou council, decided that these features should be removed from the iteration of the game we are playing to make it as competitive as possible.

smogon's medium of competitive pokemon intrinsically differs from gamefreak's conception. our idea of tiering being based off of usage, the idea of a fluid system of bans and clauses, and relative comparability in philosophy leads me to believe that even if the decision to remove the timer allowed for the possibility of endless games, it was done for the sake of competitiveness over our medium. i do not believe that our metagame would be developed nearly to the level it is today without the removal of a time limit as myopic as one hour -- the possibilities of style and creativity would be limited severely.

gamefreak decided that under their medium of non-simulated gameplay and live-tournament based gameplay that they should limit the existence of games that would technically go on forever. that's fine. we decided differently, and unless our ethos changes to that of complete deference to in-game abstractions distant from pure mechanics, this decision to limit an inherently competitive aspect of the game should not be validated. it is healthier to see a metagame play out under what we believe our objectively the best rules and clauses than to alter it and eliminate large sections of what makes it diverse and a "good competitive game" in the first place.

we have a solution in an "offer draw" button, and in the case of tournament games, endless games where win conditions do not exist should probably be forcibly tied. honestly, i don't see how this has become such an exaggerated issue over the years when the solution seems incredibly simple.

 

[cityscapes]

after these posts it would kinda suck if the thread died without anything happening so i figured i'd post

yesterday, i got into an endless battle on the ladder. fortunately, everyone else involved was super nice about it (shoutouts Quote) so i'll post the replay here: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-834244161. unofficial meta, i know, but it still holds the same relevance in regards to endless battles.

first off, there are several flaws with the "fix the meta" approach. this has been discussed in earlier posts that are better than this one, but i have a couple things to say about it.

banning regenerator, for instance, would hugely shake up the meta for no reason other than to maybe prevent a few of the extremely rare endless games on ladder, but in doing that, it would also prevent many more non-endless games from taking place. endless games are the final and undesirable knot at the end of a hypothetical string of progressively longer, but still very much competitive, games that can end. crudely chopping at the string with bans is something we, as a competitive game, don't want, and it doesn't even fix the problem-- in a "best-case" stall vs stall game where neither team has any hope of damaging the other, you can trace the problem back to hazard removal, magic bounce, poison heal, and even leftovers.

i don't think that anyone disagrees with this really, but unbanning ohko moves is obviously not an option either, because it opens up a whole new uncompetitive can of worms far larger than the one it was originally meant to fix. i'd rather draw .05% of the time (the above replay was my only drawn game out of ~2000 this gen) because of an endless game than win/lose much more often because of whether or not ohko moves hit. similar unban options like broken offensive threats and shadow tag would have other ridiculous effects.

basically, "fixing" the meta by banning or unbanning elements to weaken defensive play would prevent many longer games containing wincons and might still allow for potential endless ones, making it overall an undesirable method.

and i really do believe that an "offer draw" button is definitely needed on the ladder. tying back to the point the op made, both of us were intentionally taking the extremely risky and noncompetitive option of not inputting a move. adding a risk-free draw button would solve this problem, and it would also mean less people calling ps mods as a side benefit.

some people have said that an offer draw button offers potential for abuse. i don't think there's really an issue, because if you're on the ladder playing competitively, you can simply not agree to draw in non-endless games, and making a 100 or 150 turn limit before the button appeared would deter most agreements by friends by encouraging them to play out the game. the ability to draw games without relying on timer is by far the best solution to the problem of endless games, so we should take action and add the draw button.

 

[Zarel]

I don't currently have an objection to an "Offer Draw" feature after ~100 turns.

Once again: I have no objection to an "Offer Draw" feature. Get a programmer to write it, and I'll add it in.