Proposal Give Activity Wins for Missed Times

[ninjadog]

Pretty simple, I believe if an opponent misses a scheduled time without warning you should be free to take the activity win no matter when in the week it occurs. I think this was discussed a few years ago but nothing ever came from it so bringing it up again.

It's extremely frustrating when you put aside time to play a series or a game and your opponent completely disrespects your time by just not showing up and then you're expected to reschedule. If it happens on a Sunday you can take act, the same should apply if it happens on a Wednesday, I generally prefer playing on weekdays but this honestly turns me off scheduling for then because it's happened so many times. Even if it happens on the weekend people will try and guilt you into playing and monitor your discord activity (and talking on discord doesn't mean you can play), just let people take the win. Obviously things come up in which case you can just let your opponent know ahead of time and request to reschedule rather than no-showing. And also often you make plans for later in the week expecting to have all your games scheduled only for you to be the one who ends up having to play at an inconvenient time because your opponent didn't show on a Tuesday.

I know people will say the point of tours is to play games not to hand out act wins or whatever, but this is a hobby and people shouldn't be expected to put aside additional time for it than they'd already planned if an opponent doesn't turn up, and it's really a matter of respect more than anything. Of course if you still want to play after your opponent misses you're free to play and reschedule. I think at absolute worst if people don't feel comfortable with an act win given outright you should be able to name 1 single time and if they can't make that, too bad.

 

[Coconut]

we're at a point in tournaments where, at least for individuals, there is another one coming shortly. yes, losing because of actual serious emergencies sucks but there are enough tournaments on smogon where that really it shouldn't matter anymore.

 

[Luigi]

you should be able to name 1 single time and if they can't make that, too bad.

that's how it works already (or should anyway, not sure if the current td team is implementing it like this)

 

[Master Chief]

that's how it works already (or should anyway, not sure if the current td team is implementing it like this)

I'm gonna ratio this post since quite clearly this is not how I see the TD team implementing things currently. Let's use an example, shall we...

I consequently won the g1, after which this happened:

Hide

I apologise for the messy image since my laptop froze cuz of greenshot to take a proper screenshot but the point comes across anyway. Now what does getting up and leaving in the middle of a bo3 constitute? In my opinion, it very much consitutes missing the agreed upon window or some form of it for which I need to make effort to reschedule. When I bring this point across to the TDs, this is the response I get:

Rabbit — Today at 4:22 PM
im not getting mad specifically at you but how is what transpired with luigi fair
like if the rules allow that, they need to be changed

[4:23 PM]
i really dont think unless both parties agree to it that a bo3 series like that can be paused and resumed days later
[4:23 PM]
and his reason wasn't even great, 'i need teams cuz you know the teams im using rn'

[4:24 PM]
ur asking me to make two windows of availability to accomodate his bullshit excuse, it's not fair and I think there should be an amendment saying that if both parties don't agree to pause a bo3 in the middle, leaving for longer than 15 mins or 30 mins should constitute the equivalent of a forfeit

Finchinator — Today at 4:33 PM
It’s literally Monday morning and I’m on vacation/LoA and you’re complaining about scheduling for a round with six full more days. If you want to contest for activity be my guest but there’s no way you established multiple times 24h apart and followed the full scheduling guidelines and came up with only now as an agreeable window

You can literally sum up finch's response very simply by him saying 'you scheduled for early in the week', you therefore must have multiple windows of availability and you need to reschedule to another window despite the fact that you agreed to now as a current window. I'm going to cite Ninjadog's verbatim ' Pretty simple, I believe if an opponent misses a scheduled time without warning you should be free to take the activity win no matter when in the week it occurs '. Getting up and walking away in the middle of a best of 3 should absolutely not count as any different than just missing the scheduled time altogether. Finch's primary counter argument is 'no way you established multiple times'. That should not matter if you agree upon a window whenever it may be and clearly does not reflect the attitude of the TD team in this case

 

[Finchinator]

If you schedule properly and your opponent does not show up without clear warning, you should get the activity win in an individual tournaments. I agree with this. We should absolutely be considerate of people’s time when they come to an agreement by our guidelines. This is important and I am sure we can discuss enforcement and maybe even editing our guidelines to fit this.

This Rabbit-Luigi situation is not that given everything I was shown prior to my response though — I had not seen those screenshots he posted even. I do not think both sides formally scheduled properly/fully on a Monday morning for a Monday morning and was sent no proof of this whatsoever, so — seeing as I am on LoA due to vacation and I am not even the host of that tournament — I went with the most simple and rational response. Assigning an activity win on a Monday morning without any evidence presented when I’m on a major crunch for time while on phone and not even the host seems awfully shaky. So I did not do that.

This thread is not for anyone to make this about their individual activity case though; it is for the larger community. I implore others to post how they feel and where we can be better because there’s always room to improve! And for fucks sake, it should not be derailing my time on vacation and being put on blast for an out of context PM. Let me live my life for once ;_;

 

[ABR]

miss time with no heads up / comment = L

miss time with heads up / comment = u gotta do what the unmisser says (within reason)

idek exactly how it works now but the above is how it should work. life happens and that’s ok, but be courteous and take literally 15 seconds to notify ur opp so they don’t waste extra time

 

[Tony]

And for fucks sake, it should not be derailing my time on vacation and being put on blast for an out of context PM. Let me live my life for once ;_;

My man all you have to do to live your life for once is to log out for once. You could be sipping mojitos on your meticulously established vacation yet instead you're posting in the Give Activity Wins for Missed Times thread. Come on brother it's not all your problem to solve at all times. Go have some fun and relax, please.

As for the thread, ninjadog and ABR are right as far as I'm concerned. It's a matter of respecting your opponent's time and you can send a quick message on either discord, the forums or even asking a friend to pass it along using whatever device is nearest in almost all cases you need to reschedule. Like most things we love making a big deal about, this really doesn't need to be that complex. Rooting for rabbit in game 2.

 

[Bughouse]

Leaving mid Bo3 is definitely a problem and should be heavily discouraged. I’ve had it happen to me before by an infamous and now banned user where they then tried to activity fish for the win or at least get it called a coin flip. If this isn’t already in the guidelines for how hosts/TDs review such cases I’d recommend adding a presumption of bs fishing if the party who loses game 1 and then dips insists it is not possible to get the rest of the series done.

obviously you can’t just make a blanket rule that in such cases winning game 1 always counts as winning the series otherwise the winner becomes incentivized to dodge, and I also don’t think a rule that once you start the series you have to play straight through is necessarily wise since some game 1s can last hours lol and people should not be obligated to keep playing if they’re no longer free right then. I do think carving in there very specific exceptions to the norm and codifying something like “pausing mid Bo3 is always allowed with the agreement of both players, but if disagreed upon is only allowed when…” would not be a bad idea.

Even without a bright line rule though, I think at least a presumption against the person who dips mid series is pretty fair for how this most often plays out. And I think that in this specific case Luigi’s reasoning of wanting to get new teams is not a legitimate reason to pause mid Bo3 for more than idk 15 minutes to find or build a team. I wouldn’t want to apply a non existent rule retroactively, so imo they should still finish the series in this case, but this is exactly the type of nonsense that should be rooted out. Scheduling is obnoxious enough already without having to try to do it twice.

 

[Plague von Karma]

If you miss the scheduled time, that's your fault. You have the opportunity to reschedule at any given time, and if you fail to do so then, again, that's your fault. It takes less than a minute to just go "Hey man I may not make it to your time, mind if we reschedule?", if you somehow can't muster even that long to give your opponent a crumb of respect, then I'm sorry, but you should probably look into time management. When entering a tournament, you should be fully intent on, y'know, playing the game. If you can't do that, you should take the L.

--

While it's going off-topic, I want to talk about the Luigi thing.

In virtually any competitive sphere I have ever been in, leaving during a BO3 is seen as a forfeit.

I'm talking anything from fighting games to card games to whatever. Virtually anything. You people are insane.

Once pairings are up or you otherwise know who you're fighting week-by-week, you have all the time in the world to prepare for them. So when going into that set, you should have made good use of your time and prepared accordingly. This is not controversial, it's doing your due diligence. You entered the tournament knowing you are probably going to be facing people with threatening time zones you probably can't even count to, so you should treat them appropriately. Before you go into your set, have a snack, drink some water, stuff like that does wonders.

The issue is, from the leaving onwards, both players now have more information than they did before. In my opinion, this should not be present, and defeats the purpose of the prep phase. Perhaps you could argue that given both players have this information, it's fair, but I respectfully disagree, because it's likely one player absolutely did more prep than the other and now it's blown up in their face because they've wasted hours of their life. Sure, you could build during the game, but if you manage to do that while coming up with moves and not absolutely murdering your timer, if anything, you'd have my respect for the titanium tits 'n' balls you must have had to even attempt it.

Springing this on someone is not ok for any more than like 10 minutes; if it goes into days, I would even argue that it's not just a plain as day game loss, but also infractable. Pokemon games can sometimes be quite quick and thus someone may have to make concessions, so even this amount of time loss may be enough to screw the busybodies over. Additionally, even more than like 8 minutes is enough to completely psych people out, and I know a few dickheads who do that on purpose, but I suppose you can't really enforce that far. This type of behaviour I'm outlining doesn't just piss on time, it also just feels grossly uncompetitive and unsportsmanlike. This is a hobby, let's encourage an actually enjoyable experience that rewards good sportsmanship, yeah?

You scheduled yourself a deadline to make the best teams you can, get a read on your opponent, stuff like that. If you fall into the trap of doing an "rfn" and start going "damn, I should have prepped", that's your fault, even scheduling should be done intelligently. This goes both ways. Once you're in, you're in. See it the fuck through, you child.

 

[RampageWebber]

This situation is not closely related to the proposal but I am sure it is worthy to be discussed. Most people probably faced it at least once.
What if someone miscalculates the timezone and doesn't show up on the scheduled time?

For example, you and your opponent have 11 hrs difference. (The miscalculation happened more frequently for 11/13 hrs difference in my opinion). You are supposed to play 10pm/11am on same day due to different gmts. You or your opponent showed for 1hr earlier/later (or even more)
For 1 hour later case, it's clearly an Activity Call since you waste your opponent 1 hour.
Then what about 1 hour earlier case? You or you opponent showed on 9pm/10am and waited 30mins~1hr.
If you can wait longer and finish sets, everything is fine. But what if you need to leave before actual schedule time or during BO3 because of something else? And Sometimes you are forced to reschedule because of your opponent's mistakes which is more annoying.
I don't think this can be directly count as miss/no miss. So the question is that what's the activity decision to show up on the inappropriate time, typically for show up early, leave early case?

No matter the decision of hosts and TDs. If you can't/don't want to do the simple math, please just use the timezone converter and make everyone's life easier. It is your responsibility to check the schedule and show up on time.

 

[Dorron]

This situation is not closely related to the proposal but I am sure it is worthy to be discussed. Most people probably faced it at least once.
What if someone miscalculates the timezone and doesn't show up on the scheduled time?

For example, you and your opponent have 11 hrs difference. (The miscalculation happened more frequently for 11/13 hrs difference in my opinion). You are supposed to play 10pm/11am on same day due to different gmts. You or your opponent showed for 1hr earlier/later (or even more)
For 1 hour later case, it's clearly an Activity Call since you waste your opponent 1 hour.
Then what about 1 hour earlier case? You or you opponent showed on 9pm/10am and waited 30mins~1hr.
If you can wait longer and finish sets, everything is fine. But what if you need to leave before actual schedule time or during BO3 because of something else? And Sometimes you are forced to reschedule because of your opponent's mistakes which is more annoying.
I don't think this can be directly count as miss/no miss. So the question is that what's the activity decision to show up on the inappropriate time, typically for show up early, leave early case?

No matter the decision of hosts and TDs. If you can't/don't want to do the simple math, please just use the timezone converter and make everyone's life easier. It is your responsibility to check the schedule and show up on time.

If you make a mistake scheduling and you show at the wrong time then it's totally your fault and it should be handled as a standard schedule negligence. Respect other people's time. I can simply miss a schedule and say it was due to the timezones and a mistake I made when using the timezones converter and get away with it? What if this had happened on a Saturday/Sunday?

Just schedule well and everything will be fine, it's not that hard. Totally supporting giving act win after the first misschedule even if it's on Tuesday.

 

[Aqua Jet]

A) Bumping
B) I support ABR's proposal here

 

[Sabelette]

Can this please be implemented? There was a case in a tour I'm in right now (not calling out host) where someone got called an "act fisher" and coinflipped for trying to claim act for missed time. Because they said they had Sunday availability initially, the host expected them to reschedule to Sunday instead of taking the act win. I often offer weekend times on Monday so I can get a reply early and then plan my weekends so whatever days I didn't schedule for I can go out and do other things, but this means if I offer Friday-Sunday, someone schedules with me for Friday and misses it, now I'm on the hook for canceling my irl plans to play Sat/Sun or giving up a tour win, which makes me hesitant to post my full availability.

I think ABR's proposal is good, if you have an emergency or can't make it just let the person know and reschedule to something that's convenient for them, if you miss without a heads up then opponent should be allowed to take act if they want it.

 

[Finchinator]

A) Bumping
B) I support ABR's proposal here

I think ABR's proposal is good, if you have an emergency or can't make it just let the person know and reschedule to something that's convenient for them, if you miss without a heads up then opponent should be allowed to take act if they want it.

I am not sure what people think the rule is Sabelette Aqua Jet, but for individual tournaments, what ABR said above is already very close to the actual rule.

miss time with no heads up / comment = L

miss time with heads up / comment = u gotta do what the unmisser says (within reason)

idek exactly how it works now but the above is how it should work. life happens and that’s ok, but be courteous and take literally 15 seconds to notify ur opp so they don’t waste extra time

Right now if you are on at the (properly) scheduled time and you do not receive a response for 15 minutes, you can claim activity. If you receive one saying they will be late, it bumps to 30 minutes. Technically if both players agree to reschedule, they can with leverage being given to the party who was online at the time, too. For more, I quote the below from here:

Individuals
- If Player A and Player B agreed on a time, and Player B failed to show up, Player A must have checked in via the same medium used to schedule, citing the server and PS name, if different from forum username. They must have waited for at least 15 minutes before leaving. If Player B communicated their delay, this period may be extended to up to 30 minutes.

If any hosts misunderstand the rule or apply it incorrectly, feel free to appeal to me (or another TD). People do this pretty regularly and it leads to overturns I make like this. I get PMs like this a few times every month and review calls with players or hosts regularly to ensure people are not having their time wasted for nothing. Hosts are entitled to make mistakes are they are humans, too, and already doing a thankless job -- many of them understand and improve with time, too! So we are happy to work together here.

What Luigi said in his post above here is 100% correct about it already being the rule, and the TD team does implement it like this.

If you ever have a situation where you are on at the scheduled time and contact your opponent, but they are not online for 15 minutes and do not warn you at all (or 30 minutes despite prior warning), you are entitled to an activity win. If the host does not give you one, feel free to PM me and I will happily discuss it with you and the host if/when appropriate!