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Referee Training Program

akela

akela

This thread will be moderated to keep discussion focused.​
As indicated in This thread, we are planning on creating a referee training program.


The goal of this discussion is to create a list of requirements of the referee training program and what trainees will need to fulfill in order to be declare competent enough to partake in unsupervised reffing.

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What follows is a list of notes I made pertaining to what I feel a trainee needs to show competency in:

Tutors will be paid. How much is up for discussion. But they will be paid, since they are effectively reffing the battle as well and spending the extra time double checking everything.
Refusal to fix mistakes will result in instant failure.
Refusal to post RNG rolls or calculations will result in instant failure.

Refusal to post RNG rolls or calculations in a legible format after being whitelisted will result in your whitelist status being revoked.

Will need to show competency regarding:
Multi-Hit Moves
Super Effective Damage
Resistances
Critical Hits
Same Type Attack Bonuses
Ranks exceeding 6
Accuracy/Evasion modiers
Stat Changes
Move Combos
Counter/Bide/Etc
Protect/Detect/Etc
Evasive Agility/Teleport
Damaging Evasive
DQ Proceedings
 
"Super Effective Damage" and "Resistances" can probably be lumped together into one requirement called "Type Effectiveness." You may also want to add in "Abilities" and "Held Items" under the competency requirements, because those are things I know I missed quite often when I first started refereeing.
 
Yeah combos and held items are annoying. You should probably also include something about rewards at the end of a battle. (Also, geodude is alive?)
 
Arena effects might also want to be included, as well as legal/illegal subs. Naturally for subs they wouldn't have to be perfect, but at least a basic knowledge of what's legal and (more importantly) what is blatantly illegal should be necessary.

As for how much the tutors are paid, half of what the actual ref is paid seems like a decent starting point. Some people might want it lower, I don't think it should be much higher but maybe so. But yeah, this seems like a good starting point for now.
 
I feel that ethics should be considered as well, since this is a prerequisite for self reffing.

I just have absolutely no idea of how that would be explored.

Also, I think they also need to get the gist of substitutions. Sure we won't demand that they can distinguish (il)legal substitutions (because we can't). But they should understand how substitutions work, the sub classes, how "not" can't be used with an attack (or whatever it is called) clause or that a chance clause can't mess with priorities in certain ways etc. There are a lot of stuff in the air about subs, but there a lot that isn't, that is already clear in the current rules we have on the handbook. And those rules every ref must know.
 
akela got pretty much everything that's slightly different or unique to ASB, so I just sorted everything into categories-ish

IMPORTANT: Damage Formula (includes crits)
Special Moves: Multi-Hit Attacks, Multi-Target Attacks, Combinations
Stats: Stat Decay, Accuracy and Evasion, Rank Differences
Types: STAB, Weakness / Resistance Modifiers
Miscellaneous: DQ Procedure, Subreffing, Arenas, Using the NDA, Substitutions and Sub Classes

I feel that most new referees will be mostly familiar with Pokemon mechanics, so there's really no need to go over some moves such as Counter; the NDA is clear enough that whoever reads it should be able to understand instantly how a given move works. Same goes for abilities and items, really. IMO the program should be more of a "let's guide you through the hard part and have someone dedicated to helping you" thing instead of a "let's babysit you through finding things in the NDA and reading them" thing.
 
Don't forget about statuses (sleep, freeze, confusion, paralysis, etc.), and special combos (ones that work differently from normal), and some other things that were missed. I think these should be the categories and required topics:

Standard battle: Damage Formula (includes crits), combinations, statuses, visible calculations/RNG roles, timely reffings (probably, barring LoAs, 90% of reffings within DQ time)
Special Moves/Events: Multi-Hit Attacks, Multi-Target Attacks, Special Combinations, special move effects (ghost-type curse, leech seed, etc.)
Stats: Stat Decay, Accuracy and Evasion, Rank Differences
Types: STAB, Weakness / Resistance Modifiers, Special STAB effects
Substitutions: Sub legality, sub mechanics (such as subs that would be stuck in an infinite loop if considered), considering subs in reffing
Other: DQ Procedure, Subreffing, LoAs, Arenas, Using the NDA, PM orders vs post orders
 
What do you mean by Special combos Mulan?

Both lists look pretty good to me, though Mulan's could use some trimming (mostly on stuff that anybody playing the games would already know [special move effects] and stuff that is only tangentially related to reffing [LoA]).
 
Current Requirements:
Battle: Damage Formula, Critical Hits, Visible Rolls and Thresholds, Statuses
Moves: Multi-Hit Attacks, Multi-Target Attacks, Combinations
Stats: Stat Decay, Accuracy and Evasion, Rank Differences
Types: STAB, Effectiveness
Substitutions: Sub Legality, Sub Mechanics, Referee discretion
Other: DQ, Subreffing, Arenas, Using the NDA, Brawls, Willingness to Fix Errors


Removed unnecessary redundancy from the requirements. Combinations covers Special Combinations. Using the NDA covers Special Move Effects (which are explained in the NDA). The exception to this is STAB, which will require additional explanation for newbies.
 
Maxim said:
What do you mean by Special combos Mulan?

Both lists look pretty good to me, though Mulan's could use some trimming (mostly on stuff that anybody playing the games would already know [special move effects] and stuff that is only tangentially related to reffing [LoA]).
Click to expand...

By special combos, I mean combinations that are determined differently from the usual, like Mean Look + Hypnosis or Fury Attack + Peck.
 
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