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SPL X - Commencement Thread
- Thread starter Saria
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SPACE FORCE meeps
I'm going to offer my own, individual, 2 cents on the subject of Menci's sellback and subsequent tournament ban.
As a precursor, I have not seen the full logs from the Raiders server or the pms between Menci and his managers. I have, however, gathered a fairly good idea of what went on and trust the judgment of the hosts involved here. To clarify, I trust the hosts to uphold and enforce the rules put in place, and I believe that the rules were upheld in this specific case.
That being said, I question the way our rules are set up in the first place. Right now there's an (IMO) unreasonably high standard we are holding players to. Team contribution and help from substitutes are good and often expected, but they should stop there. They should not cross over into the threshold of being mandatory and by extension banworthy for not being met. A player is bought as a player of whatever tiers they sign up for. In Menci's case, he signed up for SM OU and BW OU. His minimum, obligatory contribution should simply be playing either of those tiers should his managers want to start him. It's obviously nice if he helps out more beyond that but it's a bonus, not a given.
Going forward, I'd like to see these rules officially clarified and/or changed accordingly. If the rules change, it is on the basis that the current setup is improper/unfair. If the current setup is unfair, then it was unfair to ban Menci, and his sellback/tourban can be undone. Fixing mistakes is always healthy.
So, yes, free Menci.
As a precursor, I have not seen the full logs from the Raiders server or the pms between Menci and his managers. I have, however, gathered a fairly good idea of what went on and trust the judgment of the hosts involved here. To clarify, I trust the hosts to uphold and enforce the rules put in place, and I believe that the rules were upheld in this specific case.
That being said, I question the way our rules are set up in the first place. Right now there's an (IMO) unreasonably high standard we are holding players to. Team contribution and help from substitutes are good and often expected, but they should stop there. They should not cross over into the threshold of being mandatory and by extension banworthy for not being met. A player is bought as a player of whatever tiers they sign up for. In Menci's case, he signed up for SM OU and BW OU. His minimum, obligatory contribution should simply be playing either of those tiers should his managers want to start him. It's obviously nice if he helps out more beyond that but it's a bonus, not a given.
Going forward, I'd like to see these rules officially clarified and/or changed accordingly. If the rules change, it is on the basis that the current setup is improper/unfair. If the current setup is unfair, then it was unfair to ban Menci, and his sellback/tourban can be undone. Fixing mistakes is always healthy.
So, yes, free Menci.
Que discriminados estamos los jugadores inactivos. >.<
wow i cannot believe the team raider for doing this.. the nice guy cryonicles would never do such a thing. i will take this situation as on opportunity to clear our name and show that all of our soldback players were worthy of being sold back
at the end of the day, danilo understood our decision and had only this to say
at the end of the day, danilo understood our decision and had only this to say
Not everyone is as intelligent or able to learn a new tier as quickly as you.
Your comment has no relevance to the issue, if anything the fact that menci dedicated 15h to become competitive in a tier goes to show his positive attitude/team spirit. Which is the point
Your comment has no relevance to the issue, if anything the fact that menci dedicated 15h to become competitive in a tier goes to show his positive attitude/team spirit. Which is the point
Diophantine
Banned deucer.
Why was my post deleted
Ok whats ur point? Ofc people are more upset about injustice if it directly affects them, doesnt even mean that you wouldnt care otherwise as proven by the other people who liked his post or have been vocal about this issue despite not being on team germany (void, z0mog, FLCL to name a few).
If prep is going to be expected of players, then it should be something players state beforehand in their signup post. One list for tiers they play, one list for tiers they prep for. If I get subbed out of GSC, why the hell would I learn SM UU or try to prep for that.
no i'm not learning a tier in 24h. i'm gay, not a turbo-autist
no i'm not learning a tier in 24h. i'm gay, not a turbo-autist
its just a stupid joke dude dont be so dense lol
Kinda surprised the joke didn't.... go over your head too
Kinda surprised the quality of your posts went down like that
manlet defense forceKinda surprised the quality of your posts went down like that
Menci's video is lacking important details, claiming blatant lies (eg, the timeframe for his "short" period of inactivity has changed at least 3 times in the past 2 days and not once has matched the hard evidence), or strawmanning the RBY point ignoring the whole context behind it. I'm not going to nitpick every single small detail just to say that "I'm right", because this is mainly a matter of policies, etc which can be fairly subjective. What's not subjective is the fact Menci isn't a victim of the "cheating raiders", they tried everything in their power to get him to do anything whatsoever and he didn't cooperate at any moment; he wasn't just a "bad teammate", he was a liability that did nothing to not get kicked out from a team that gave him multiple chances. Unless everyone involved wants to do a full disclosure, I'm not focusing on this case again.
The rules in the signup thread and in the general tournament rules talk about expecting some level of activity and contribution from the players. It's vague by design because this is a lot more complicated than people think and some flexibility is needed. Most of the TD team, myself included, think that a player need to actively contribute to the success of the team, be it by playing their games, testing, building, giving team feedback, dumping teams, scouting, working on team wide game plans and maybe some other things I can't remember right now. People who start have an "advantage", but they are starting because they earned their slot and sadly, not everyone can be a starter. I also believe players need to listen to their managers and to some extent 'obey' them. You cannot be forced to play a tier you don't know or like, but if your manager asks you to help in what's supposed to be your strongest area, you should at least try working with your team. For me the "team" aspect of team tournaments is important. A team isn't a group of individuals doing their own thing and not caring about anything else. As someone who has played in multiple official team tours and participated in plenty of team competitions outside of Pokémon, this is how I see things.
If we stick to "players need to actively contribute to the success of their team", some rules and policy should be updated or changed to try to fix any problem regarding "clarity" and to cover a wider range of potential cases. This is something we are already working on and will directly address a large part of the concerns brought up.
Some people have suggested going with "player aren't required to do anything, except play if they are starting or get subbed in". This is seemingly more black and white and easy to enforce, but it really is a lot more complex than that and can have a significant impact in how team tours work in Smogon. Using that definition would make team tournaments a lot more individualistic to the point the word team would hold no weight. The individual becomes the only focus, the success of the team is a secondary factor and managers only functions are drafting and sending lineups.
If the player is the only element that matters, some rules and safety nets for teams will need to be adapted to fit the "new" definition.
What's stopping X player, who perceives their team as weak or simply doesn't like it, from saying: 'Trade me or I'm not playing unless you absolutely need me to sub in". This person would be within the rules, because, despite refusing to be a starter, they are willing to play if absolutely required. Do we give managers the power to force players to start? Because if we do, the definition no longer is "player = plays if needed". You do nothing about this and a single person can ruin a team, not only by not contributing but also by giving reasons for other members of the team to try to jump ship; not all players are 3K "disposable" members. Maybe we could add a "don't ask for trades" clause? I mean this could help with this specific example I gave, but what happens when the situation is more complex than "x player is literally asking for a trade"? At this point we are not talking in hypothetical cases, as this has happened multiple times in Smogon's history. The clearest example of this for me was SPL 3, when I saw this happen twice and one of those was me manipulating the dumb system to force BIGs into trading me without saying "I will not play for you" once. If I tried the same today I would get punished and I would deserve it, but if we go with the "new" definition that kind of behavior would be completely within the rules. You could add clauses and create new precedents, but you can't keep the ideal of "player = plays if necessary" if you start forcing players to contribute / play for teams they don't like.
Another problem is sellbacks. No one is going to disagree with "person maliciously sabotaging their team deserves to get punished and soldback", so let's not focus on that kind of cases. If the only thing we expect from players is to be willing to play when required, then neither Get This Money nor Menci can be soldback. Neither explicitly said "I will not play" and the only difference between each is the linecount, but both contributed nothing regardless. If having an arbitrary number of lines matters, then you are expecting more from players than just playing, and if they don't then there's no difference between 20 and 20000 lines as long as none of those is "I will not play". Let's say we use the player plays definition and we make sellbacks more lax again because no one will ever say "I will not play" if that gets them punishment, making the current policy on sellbacks irrelevant. How do we define what's sellback-able? Do we just let managers sellback anyone they wish to remove from their team? Do we make it so only players with less than X amount of games can be soldback? If the only thing you expect from a player is to play, you either make a minimum requirement of played games or you let managers do whatever they want, otherwise we have to create a list of things we expect from players which goes against the entire point. Either way, saving funds for midseason becomes a joke unless we change how sellback credits work, again.
The wokest option, regardless of what definition gets used, is killing sellbacks and midseason, forcing managers to deal with whatever they drafted.
These would be the biggest general issues that need to be addressed (it's likely I'm missing some) and regardless of how that's done, the chances of unpredictable consequences showing up later on are fairly high. Using the "player aren't required to do anything, except play if they are starting or get subbed in" is doable but require more work than "Lmao I'm right because I say so". I'm not going to get in the way if the community at large wants that, but I strongly believe that is necessary to preserve the team aspect in team tournaments, and that cannot be done if you don't expect players to contribute to their team's environment.
The rules in the signup thread and in the general tournament rules talk about expecting some level of activity and contribution from the players. It's vague by design because this is a lot more complicated than people think and some flexibility is needed. Most of the TD team, myself included, think that a player need to actively contribute to the success of the team, be it by playing their games, testing, building, giving team feedback, dumping teams, scouting, working on team wide game plans and maybe some other things I can't remember right now. People who start have an "advantage", but they are starting because they earned their slot and sadly, not everyone can be a starter. I also believe players need to listen to their managers and to some extent 'obey' them. You cannot be forced to play a tier you don't know or like, but if your manager asks you to help in what's supposed to be your strongest area, you should at least try working with your team. For me the "team" aspect of team tournaments is important. A team isn't a group of individuals doing their own thing and not caring about anything else. As someone who has played in multiple official team tours and participated in plenty of team competitions outside of Pokémon, this is how I see things.
If we stick to "players need to actively contribute to the success of their team", some rules and policy should be updated or changed to try to fix any problem regarding "clarity" and to cover a wider range of potential cases. This is something we are already working on and will directly address a large part of the concerns brought up.
Some people have suggested going with "player aren't required to do anything, except play if they are starting or get subbed in". This is seemingly more black and white and easy to enforce, but it really is a lot more complex than that and can have a significant impact in how team tours work in Smogon. Using that definition would make team tournaments a lot more individualistic to the point the word team would hold no weight. The individual becomes the only focus, the success of the team is a secondary factor and managers only functions are drafting and sending lineups.
If the player is the only element that matters, some rules and safety nets for teams will need to be adapted to fit the "new" definition.
What's stopping X player, who perceives their team as weak or simply doesn't like it, from saying: 'Trade me or I'm not playing unless you absolutely need me to sub in". This person would be within the rules, because, despite refusing to be a starter, they are willing to play if absolutely required. Do we give managers the power to force players to start? Because if we do, the definition no longer is "player = plays if needed". You do nothing about this and a single person can ruin a team, not only by not contributing but also by giving reasons for other members of the team to try to jump ship; not all players are 3K "disposable" members. Maybe we could add a "don't ask for trades" clause? I mean this could help with this specific example I gave, but what happens when the situation is more complex than "x player is literally asking for a trade"? At this point we are not talking in hypothetical cases, as this has happened multiple times in Smogon's history. The clearest example of this for me was SPL 3, when I saw this happen twice and one of those was me manipulating the dumb system to force BIGs into trading me without saying "I will not play for you" once. If I tried the same today I would get punished and I would deserve it, but if we go with the "new" definition that kind of behavior would be completely within the rules. You could add clauses and create new precedents, but you can't keep the ideal of "player = plays if necessary" if you start forcing players to contribute / play for teams they don't like.
Another problem is sellbacks. No one is going to disagree with "person maliciously sabotaging their team deserves to get punished and soldback", so let's not focus on that kind of cases. If the only thing we expect from players is to be willing to play when required, then neither Get This Money nor Menci can be soldback. Neither explicitly said "I will not play" and the only difference between each is the linecount, but both contributed nothing regardless. If having an arbitrary number of lines matters, then you are expecting more from players than just playing, and if they don't then there's no difference between 20 and 20000 lines as long as none of those is "I will not play". Let's say we use the player plays definition and we make sellbacks more lax again because no one will ever say "I will not play" if that gets them punishment, making the current policy on sellbacks irrelevant. How do we define what's sellback-able? Do we just let managers sellback anyone they wish to remove from their team? Do we make it so only players with less than X amount of games can be soldback? If the only thing you expect from a player is to play, you either make a minimum requirement of played games or you let managers do whatever they want, otherwise we have to create a list of things we expect from players which goes against the entire point. Either way, saving funds for midseason becomes a joke unless we change how sellback credits work, again.
The wokest option, regardless of what definition gets used, is killing sellbacks and midseason, forcing managers to deal with whatever they drafted.
These would be the biggest general issues that need to be addressed (it's likely I'm missing some) and regardless of how that's done, the chances of unpredictable consequences showing up later on are fairly high. Using the "player aren't required to do anything, except play if they are starting or get subbed in" is doable but require more work than "Lmao I'm right because I say so". I'm not going to get in the way if the community at large wants that, but I strongly believe that is necessary to preserve the team aspect in team tournaments, and that cannot be done if you don't expect players to contribute to their team's environment.
Again, why not have players sign up for tiers they play and tiers they support separately so that we don't have this issue. Some players are more interested in/adapted to playing, whereas others lean more toward support. Something like this:
Since I'm not totally clear on this, if a player refuses to play a tier they didn't sign up for, is that held against them?
I'm more-or-less fine with the rule as-is, but I would think that at least adding this information to signup posts would set more clear expectations for players, managers, and TDs who have to make calls.
Since I'm not totally clear on this, if a player refuses to play a tier they didn't sign up for, is that held against them?
I'm more-or-less fine with the rule as-is, but I would think that at least adding this information to signup posts would set more clear expectations for players, managers, and TDs who have to make calls.
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