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Dominion => Dominion Online Championship 2022 => 2017 Championship (archived) => Topic started by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 02:27:28 AM

Title: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 02:27:28 AM
I have a lot of questions.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
1.2 You also need an account with 20 rated games played (by September 15th).

How do I find out how many rated games I have under my account? I want to know what criteria will be used for the tournament. If I don't have enough, is it acceptable for me to just start a rated game and resign it just to get my numbers up? How will I know if some of my rated games get erased because I've inadvertantly played them against a troll account whose games were redacted?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
1.3 Each person may only enter once.
1.4 Shuffle iT employees as well as people who have been permanently banned may not participate in this tournament.

How can these rules be enforced? I don't think it's a good idea in general to have rules that cannot be enforced. There is an "entry fee" in the form of the subscription requirement so perhaps this rule is redundant.

Also, it's been unclear for a long time what constitutes a Shuffle iT employee. I've already seen people sign up who have made several (very useful) posts here and elsewhere referring to Shuffle iT as "we" -- this should probably be more specific.

Will additional checks be made to see if these rules will be followed when people are actually going to receive prizes? What proof will I have to show in order to collect winnings that I have followed these rules? Will I need to share personal information? If this is the case, what will be done if someone has been found to be in violation?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
3.2 Some players will receive byes in round 1

I assume the players given byes will be the ones highest rated on the leaderboard?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
4.3 Both players get to start 3 games. Alternate the starting player after each game.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
7.3 Play rated games for documentation purposes.

There is no way to specify starting player for rated games.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
4.5 If the 7th game is a tie according to the dominion rules, the 2nd player in that game wins.

This rule is pretty awful. I'd suggest something different, but I know it won't go anywhere. Can I at least use rule 7.2 to ask my opponent to agree to something more sensible? Or does rule 7.2 only apply to other things in section 7?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
6.2 If your opponent has not communicated with you before Wednesday, 12 UTC in the week you are supposed to be playing, please contact the moderators.

Will the moderators (not forum admins, but the people in charge of making decisions for this tournament) have access to PMs sent through these forums? If not, how will they be able to see who has attempted communications in case of a dispute?

Also, where can I find a list of moderators? I assume this post is the "official" list, but at the moment it doesn't match the moderators of this sub-board. Which one is the list? Can that list be changed after signups close?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
8.3 Some games may be streamed by third parties.

I don't know what the intent of this rule is, but it's worded in a way that could lead to some really strange situations. This rule needs to either be scrapped or made much clearer. How can a third party stream a game if spectator mode is turned off? Will this be done even without the permission of the players? Where will they be streamed? Will there be commentary?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
8.4 From Quarterfinals onwards, every match will be streamed. Organizers may influence the scheduling to ensure no overlaps.

Is there an expectation of cooperation from players who reach the quarterfinals? What is the nature of that cooperation, and what are the consequences if that cooperation is not given? Where will the match be streamed? What information about the players will be shown? Will there be commentary? Who will be doing the commentary? What visibility will the stream have into the game? Will spectator mode need to be enabled for these games? If so, what measures will be taken to ensure that one's opponent isn't "sniping"? Can players possibly be penalized for the extra constraints on when their match can be scheduled due to organizer influence to reduce scheduling conflicts? Are the "organizers" different from the "moderators"? If so, who are the organizers and what other roles can they play in the tournament?

In general, this section (section eight) of the rules looks like it hasn't been thought out very well. A lot more detail and thought needs to be given to this section because as I'm reading it right now, I don't really understand what it's trying to say. If I sign up for this tournament, I want to know what's expected of me instead of having a nasty surprise that isn't something I agreed to when I'm really close to the money.

There needs to be something at the very least addressing the tournament's stance on collusion during play; either with people in person (such as two people sitting at the same computer, making decisions together) or with people in the chat or other types of spectators. The tournament should have a stance on stream watching, and if that's OK or not. Whatever the stance is, it should just be made public and locked in before signups close.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
10.3 [...] contact your moderator [...]

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
11.2 If there is a conflict, please contact your moderator, who will have the final say on the issue.

Will each player/match have a specific moderator assigned to it? Will the team of moderators have any outside influences? Particularly, will any Shuffleit employee be able to influence any moderator's decision at all, publicly or privately? What evidence will the moderators be taking into account when making decisions at any point? Can VODs of live streams or videos taken privately have any influence on this? Chat logs? If any of this can help the moderation team, it would be nice if that could be stated here so that I can be set up to have this if the need arises.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
current moderators are: Deadlock39 and irrationalE

When will this group of moderators be finalized? When it is finalized, how will I know that it is finalized?


...


OK I think that is all of my questions for now. Thank you in advance for your answers.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: JW on 11 August 2017, 03:19:39 AM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 02:27:28 AM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
1.2 You also need an account with 20 rated games played (by September 15th).

How do I find out how many rated games I have under my account? I want to know what criteria will be used for the tournament. How will I know if some of my rated games get erased because I've inadvertently played them against a troll account whose games were redacted?

Under the "Leaderboard" page it shows a few rows with the inputs into your rating.  There's a row that says "Games" and shows a number of games. Presumably that is the number of games that count on your rating, and that's what will be used to determine eligibility.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 04:26:40 AM
Quote from: JW on 11 August 2017, 03:19:39 AM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 02:27:28 AM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
1.2 You also need an account with 20 rated games played (by September 15th).

How do I find out how many rated games I have under my account? I want to know what criteria will be used for the tournament. How will I know if some of my rated games get erased because I've inadvertently played them against a troll account whose games were redacted?

Under the "Leaderboard" page it shows a few rows with the inputs into your rating.  There's a row that says "Games" and shows a number of games. Presumably that is the number of games that count on your rating, and that's what will be used to determine eligibility.

Excellent. I assume it's only 2-player games that count? And that it's just a coincidence that I have the same number of games displayed for the 2P leaderboard as I have for the 3-4P leaderboard? Another data point on this to verify would be nice.

It says I've played 16 rated games. If I just resign 4 rated games against random people will that be acceptable?
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
Hi Adam,

I really hate partially quoting lots of comments that already have quotes in them, so I just refer to them by the numbers the question is about, I hope you don't mind.

1.2: The amount of rated games you played should be visible on the leaderboard. People signing up who don't yet fit the requirements will be informed about that. Playing against a smurf of yours to game the leaderboard is forbidden by the site, not the tournament.

1.3-4: It's not in my place to disclose how those people can be spotted, and you're right, it's probably impossible if they know what they're doing. However, the rule is in place to a) stop well-meaning people from doing it and b) to have grounds for disqualifying people should they be found out (our favourite troll isn't very secretive about their identity, for example).

Shuffle employees are either paid by Shuffle it and/or have access to the live servers. Currently that is Stef.

3.2: Yes, the bracket will be fully seeded, therefore the highest rated players will receive byes in round 1, should there be any.

4.3: I'm not a 100% about this, but I'm pretty certain you can do this when creating a table. I'll test it again tomorrow (or you're welcome to). It would be a pretty big oversight it that were true.

4.5: I'd be glad to hear about it!

6.2: I recommend saving your messages to your outbox if you fear you could be screwed by this. Usually the only ones that aren't communicating with their opponents aren't on the forum at all. And if a forum admin is needed to sort accusations out, I'm sure they'll help. After all, it's their tournament.

8.3: This isn't really settled yet, but it's possible that we're able to restrict the spectators to the streamer. I don't assume this will happen often if at all before the QF's.

8.4: The level of cooperation expected is that you'll find a time where the game can be streamed. Due to the few matches left at that point, there is a little bit more freedom possible in scheduling to compensate. This point is in the rules to clarify that this isn't optional. If there is no way to stop other spectators from joining at that point, we might have to cancel the stream, of course. Otherwise, it'll run with several minutes delay, so "sniping" doesn't contain any useful information.

Watching third party or your opponents stream isn't allowed regardless, I will add that to the rules. Consulting with other during your matches is forbidden aswell.

11.2 Having well documented evidence is great! Feel free to submit any of this should you run into an issue.

regarding moderators: They don't necessarily have to match the forum moderators, they're solving interpersonal issues two players have, that's all that isn't settled as of now. I can't promise you now when all moderators are known, it really depends on the number of signups. I wont be moderating, if that helps :)

Also yes, moderators will be assigned to games, so you know who you need to talk to.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 05:19:12 AM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
Playing against a smurf of yours to game the leaderboard is forbidden by the site, not the tournament.

Understood. This is not what I was suggesting though. I'm asking if it's OK for me to just automatch against someone in a rated game and then resign right away just to meet the requirement. Is this considered abuse? Should I just buy Estates and Curses until the game is over instead? I don't want to play rated games is what I'm getting at, and I'm going to do as little as possible to meet this requirement if I decide I want to play in this tournament. I also don't want to break any rules.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
4.3: I'm not a 100% about this, but I'm pretty certain you can do this when creating a table.

If this is possible, then at some point before people start playing matches, it would help to have some directions on this. I looked for this feature for about 30 seconds and I didn't find it.

...but why is it possible to specify start player in rated games? I feel like that shouldn't be allowed and it can only lead to abuse. That's a different discussion though.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
4.5: I'd be glad to hear about it!

I would suggest that if the seventh game is a tie, an eighth game would be played with the opposite starting player. As long as ties continue, more tiebreaker games are played and starting player alternates.

...but the real question I had here was about the clause in 7.2 -- can I ask my opponent to change stuff that isn't in section 7? Or are we only allowed to agree to change things in section 7? In particular, I'm concerned with the part about rated games; I don't want to play with cards that have known bugs or debilitating interface issues and I think the only way to do that is in an unrated game.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
6.2: I recommend saving your messages to your outbox if you fear you could be screwed by this. Usually the only ones that aren't communicating with their opponents aren't on the forum at all. And if a forum admin is needed to sort accusations out, I'm sure they'll help. After all, it's their tournament.

What I'm worried about is exactly this situation: now a forum admin (someone who isn't a moderator) has a part in resolving this conflict because they are needed to gather PMs or something. If there are any circumstances where someone outside of the moderator list is going to have anything at all to do with resolving conflicts, then they should be put on the moderator list.

Seems like the obvious thing to do is to give tournament moderators forum admin access, is this possible? If that's not going to happen and other forum admins could have a part in resolving conflicts in the tournament, I want to know about it before I sign up, so that I can just not sign up.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
8.3: This isn't really settled yet, but it's possible that we're able to restrict the spectators to the streamer. I don't assume this will happen often if at all before the QF's.

OK, an update on this when it's settled would be great.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
8.4: [...] Consulting with other during your matches is forbidden aswell.

So this means that it's forbidden to sign up with my account, for example, and then have my friend sitting next to me, helping me out while I'm playing? If this is the case, that should be explicitly mentioned in the rules.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
regarding moderators: They don't necessarily have to match the forum moderators, they're solving interpersonal issues two players have, that's all that isn't settled as of now. I can't promise you now when all moderators are known, it really depends on the number of signups. I wont be moderating, if that helps :)

It seems you know what my issue is here. If certain people could be moderating the tournament I don't want to be a part of it. If I sign up, and now I have my first matchup and all of a sudden there's a new moderator in town who I believe will not operate with integrity, then it needs to at least be OK for me to exit the tournament.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
Also yes, moderators will be assigned to games, so you know who you need to talk to.

Will the moderator for a specific game be making decisions for that game by themselves, or could they be influenced by other moderators?
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Personman on 11 August 2017, 07:49:37 AM
QuoteIf this is possible, then at some point before people start playing matches, it would help to have some directions on this. I looked for this feature for about 30 seconds and I didn't find it.

...but why is it possible to specify start player in rated games? I feel like that shouldn't be allowed and it can only lead to abuse. That's a different discussion though.

You're conflating "automatched" and "rated". You can't change any settings in automatch, but you can set any game created at a Table to be rated (a checkbox that becomes available once you click Advanced Settings). Thus, you can play a rated game with a fixed starting player, and with any particular cards you want. You can also change the sets from cards are randomly drawn. I don't believe you can exclude specific cards at the moment, which is pretty unfortunate. It would be great if this feature were added, so that players could agree to play matches that don't have Possession, for instance.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: markus on 11 August 2017, 10:03:53 AM
Quote from: Personman on 11 August 2017, 07:49:37 AM
I don't believe you can exclude specific cards at the moment, which is pretty unfortunate.

A way to do this is the familiar cards feature. You would have to trust though, that your opponent doesn't mark cards unfamiliar that you want to possibly be included.
All this can be done when creating a Table using the Advanced Options.

Regarding game 7, I think that it is kind of a win if the second player gets to a draw. So I would be rather worried that it's too big of an advantage to be the (random) first player. But I don't think that there's a way around which doesn't involve potentially playing a lot more games.

Regarding the integrity of the leaderboard, I find it interesting when someone wants to give away some free wins to opponents but worries about setting the starting player.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 01:42:56 PM
Quote from: markus on 11 August 2017, 10:03:53 AM
Regarding game 7, I think that it is kind of a win if the second player gets to a draw. So I would be rather worried that it's too big of an advantage to be the (random) first player. But I don't think that there's a way around which doesn't involve potentially playing a lot more games.

The game rules have called the result of the game a draw. I don't see why the tournament rules are attempting to change that. The tournament rules should reflect the game rules as closely as possible.

Any game with draws has the possibility of needing lots of games to break a tie. I think that the very small chance of this happening is worth the integrity you gain by actually respecting the result given by the game.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: jsh on 11 August 2017, 02:09:41 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 01:42:56 PM
Quote from: markus on 11 August 2017, 10:03:53 AM
Regarding game 7, I think that it is kind of a win if the second player gets to a draw. So I would be rather worried that it's too big of an advantage to be the (random) first player. But I don't think that there's a way around which doesn't involve potentially playing a lot more games.

The game rules have called the result of the game a draw. I don't see why the tournament rules are attempting to change that. The tournament rules should reflect the game rules as closely as possible.

Any game with draws has the possibility of needing lots of games to break a tie. I think that the very small chance of this happening is worth the integrity you gain by actually respecting the result given by the game.

You should propose a better solution, then. I agree that it's not a perfect one, but I also don't want to play 8 or 9 game sets.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 02:19:06 PM
Quote from: jsh on 11 August 2017, 02:09:41 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 01:42:56 PM
Quote from: markus on 11 August 2017, 10:03:53 AM
Regarding game 7, I think that it is kind of a win if the second player gets to a draw. So I would be rather worried that it's too big of an advantage to be the (random) first player. But I don't think that there's a way around which doesn't involve potentially playing a lot more games.

The game rules have called the result of the game a draw. I don't see why the tournament rules are attempting to change that. The tournament rules should reflect the game rules as closely as possible.

Any game with draws has the possibility of needing lots of games to break a tie. I think that the very small chance of this happening is worth the integrity you gain by actually respecting the result given by the game.

You should propose a better solution, then. I agree that it's not a perfect one, but I also don't want to play 8 or 9 game sets.

I proposed what I think is the best solution. It prioritizes respecting game results over the extremely low possibility of having to play a few more games.

In terms of competitive integrity my solution is perfect. It's only an inconvenience in a really small number of cases that works against my solution, and this is unaviodable because Dominion has ties and the tournament structure does not allow for ties.

The current rule disregards the game rules/results. I fail to see how it is better.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Ingix on 11 August 2017, 03:15:46 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
3.2: Yes, the bracket will be fully seeded, therefore the highest rated players will receive byes in round 1, should there be any.

Any chance to have that changed to a (uniformely) random selection of players instead? Byes are (in this case) a technical necessity so I don't see why the better seeded players should have an advantage here,
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: funkdoc on 11 August 2017, 03:44:45 PM
in fighting game tournaments, it's normal for the byes to go to the top seeds in each bracket.  i have no problem with that because they've earned it through previous results.

also i'm with Adam on the tie issue.  they're so rare that it wouldn't add much time overall.  and hey, an 8th game would balance the number of starts again!
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: dan on 11 August 2017, 07:17:40 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 August 2017, 05:19:12 AM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
Playing against a smurf of yours to game the leaderboard is forbidden by the site, not the tournament.
Understood. This is not what I was suggesting though. I'm asking if it's OK for me to just automatch against someone in a rated game and then resign right away just to meet the requirement. Is this considered abuse? Should I just buy Estates and Curses until the game is over instead? I don't want to play rated games is what I'm getting at, and I'm going to do as little as possible to meet this requirement if I decide I want to play in this tournament. I also don't want to break any rules.

Well, I can't imagine anybody would encourage that!

The rated game requirement helps with the initial seeding.

And, with 7 game matches, 20 rated games is pretty modest (you already have 16)!
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 02:33:17 AM
Quote from: jsh on 11 August 2017, 02:09:41 PM
You should propose a better solution, then.
Or if not him, someone should! I will be that someone.

I prefer playing the extra 8th and 9th and endless games, but I'm there for you with the tough answers, in this case to the question, but what if we really need to stop after 7 and compute a winner. Proposal crossposted from the discord thing where you've already seen it.

There are three tiebreakers:
1. fewest turns over the match wins the tie
2. most wins over the tournament, not counting game 7's, wins the tie (yes you can factor in draws)
3. highest rated player wins the tie

Fewest turns is the regular Dominion tiebreaker; people are used to it and everything. If a match ever comes down to this tiebreaker well it will feel as fair as not playing another game possibly could.

Failing that well if it's not round 1 then maybe one player has been beating other people by bigger margins. That seems reasonable in this desperate situation. If you have byes the fairest thing is to not count those rounds, though I think for Magic they treat them as sweeps. You got the bye because you were higher ranked and we're going to be down to that in a minute anyway, so maybe that's reasonable.

Failing that, we want a competition of the best players, and have more data we can draw from. The predictive value of ranking has gotta exceed the predictive value of who went second in a game with equal turns.

Stef sounded interested in these changes for a future tournament, but unconvinced that they were important enough to implement immediately. So there you have it.

There may be other issues I would desperately want to comment on if only I hadn't merely skimmed the rules and thread. Those of you who don't want me solving more problems can breathe a sigh of relief.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 05:40:31 AM
Quote from: Ingix on 11 August 2017, 03:15:46 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
3.2: Yes, the bracket will be fully seeded, therefore the highest rated players will receive byes in round 1, should there be any.

Any chance to have that changed to a (uniformely) random selection of players instead? Byes are (in this case) a technical necessity so I don't see why the better seeded players should have an advantage here,

That's a necessary consequence of a fully seeded bracket, so no, that can't be done. We could not seed the tournament instead, but that leads less fairness, in my opinion.

About the tie breaker:

Funnily, last year when we held a similar tournament I actually included your proposal Adam for the Quarterfinals and beyond. I chose to cut because I think it's actually less fair.

I don't have any data for this, but I think it's known to most people who played on a high level that 1st player wins more often than the second player, and even if the rules were changed that all current ties would be awarded to the second player, first player would still be favourable. (Wins 1p>Wins 2p +Ties)

I think that would still be true if the both players adapted to this rule change. Now, playing an 8th game instead of awarding the second player a win takes even more of their chances away to win the match. So this rule tries to give the coin flip who starts the game the least amount of weight, given a limited timeframe. My personal favourite would be to add two games every time until one set doesn't end 1-1, but I don't think we can expect anyone to play that much.

Personally, I'm not too invested about this, I just would like the disadvantaged person to have the smallest disadvantage possible. And I think playing an 8th game slightly increases that disadvantage over the current rule.

To DVX: Regarding your other tiebreakers, I don't quite follow why those would be better tiebreakers. The only thing I can think of is to avoid confusion about the Dominion rules? We have roughly a 52-46-2 % situation on our hands (maybe even worse for the second player). Why no just give this small possibility of a tie to the player who's being disadvantaged in that very game instead of picking a metric that didn't have anything to do with the match?

Back to Adam: The rules under section 4) should be the same for everyone, I'm afraid. We can gladly continue the discussion about the point above, though.



Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: TheDetour on 12 August 2017, 05:51:24 AM
Definitely think that the 7th game should be the end of the match.  People do have real lives and there's nothing constructive about playing 10+ games of Dominion just to break a tie.

That being said, if I enter, I certainly will not complain if I am victim of this.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: jsh on 12 August 2017, 06:53:59 AM
Quote from: TheDetour on 12 August 2017, 05:51:24 AM
Definitely think that the 7th game should be the end of the match.  People do have real lives and there's nothing constructive about playing 10+ games of Dominion just to break a tie.

That being said, if I enter, I certainly will not complain if I am victim of this.

Agreed 100%, speaking as someone likely to play lots if rounds and thus potentially tiebreak...
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: markus on 12 August 2017, 09:05:23 AM
I fully agree with drsteelhammer's reasoning. (I was about to post the same).

Regarding the fewer turns over the whole match: a usual 2 player game ends on the turn of the winning player - and I wouldn't resign on my own turn in that case. So after 6 games with equal number of starts and wins, the number of turns taken will be the same. And if game 7 is a draw, they also took the same number of turns. So the criterion will usually not break a tie.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 12 August 2017, 03:51:36 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 05:40:31 AM
Funnily, last year when we held a similar tournament I actually included your proposal Adam for the Quarterfinals and beyond. I chose to cut because I think it's actually less fair.

I don't have any data for this, but I think it's known to most people who played on a high level that 1st player wins more often than the second player, and even if the rules were changed that all current ties would be awarded to the second player, first player would still be favourable. (Wins 1p>Wins 2p +Ties)

I think that would still be true if the both players adapted to this rule change. Now, playing an 8th game instead of awarding the second player a win takes even more of their chances away to win the match. So this rule tries to give the coin flip who starts the game the least amount of weight, given a limited timeframe. My personal favourite would be to add two games every time until one set doesn't end 1-1, but I don't think we can expect anyone to play that much.

Personally, I'm not too invested about this, I just would like the disadvantaged person to have the smallest disadvantage possible. And I think playing an 8th game slightly increases that disadvantage over the current rule.

To DVX: Regarding your other tiebreakers, I don't quite follow why those would be better tiebreakers. The only thing I can think of is to avoid confusion about the Dominion rules? We have roughly a 52-46-2 % situation on our hands (maybe even worse for the second player). Why no just give this small possibility of a tie to the player who's being disadvantaged in that very game instead of picking a metric that didn't have anything to do with the match?

This logic is a slippery slope, though. Dominion is an inherently unfair game because there is variance, along with the first player advantage. Why do you want to try and correct some of it by using data that you don't have (and probably doesn't exist) but you don't want to enforce identical starting hands?

It's not the place of the tournament organizer to attempt to balance out unfairness that they see in the game by changing the game rules, it's the place of the tournament organizer to get in the way of the game rules as little as possible in determining a winner. The whole "coin flip" argument you make doesn't hold because games of Dominion aren't coin flips, they are opportunities for a skilled player to beat a less skilled player, which is kind of the whole point of the tournament. Playing tiebreaker games is the best way to provide "fairness" in this capacity.

Even DXV agrees that the best tiebreaker in terms of "fairness" (which I think means having the more skilled player win more matches, in the context of this conversation) is my suggestion. It seems that if people are so concerned with their time and want to put a hard cap on the matches at seven games, the best solution is to have the tournament rules reflect what keeps the most in-game integrity intact and allow people to shorten matches (DXV has a list of suggested tiebreakers they could agree on!) if they want to.

Let's assume 256 entries to the tournament, so there will be 256 matches played. Let's be really conservative and assume that half of them will end 3-3 after six games. So we have 128 matches that go to a 7th game. If 2% of those games end in ties, we'll have about 2.5 extra games of Dominion played, throughout the course of the entire tournament, meaning that the average player will play 0.02 extra games of Dominion using my tiebreaker rule as opposed to something that caps the match at 7 games. The impact of this method is much lower than it originally appears, but you end up with a much better structure as a result.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 04:19:59 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 05:40:31 AM
To DVX: Regarding your other tiebreakers, I don't quite follow why those would be better tiebreakers. The only thing I can think of is to avoid confusion about the Dominion rules? We have roughly a 52-46-2 % situation on our hands (maybe even worse for the second player). Why no just give this small possibility of a tie to the player who's being disadvantaged in that very game instead of picking a metric that didn't have anything to do with the match?
Aside from the board (which yes does matter), the advantage of going first is that maybe you will get an extra turn. But we know the game is a tie, and that was already used as a tiebreaker; no-one got an extra turn.

This is an old thing, from people arguing about tiebreakers for single games of Dominion. The example I used back then was, getting to go first is like finding a lottery ticket on the ground. When we tie, your lottery ticket didn't pay off. Some people still like to punish the person for having found that ticket. I do not.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 04:32:01 PM
Incidentally you could split off all this discussion into a "Rules Discussion" thread if you want to keep the Rules thread itself pristine.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 05:03:07 PM
In constructed Magic: The Gathering, going first is an advantage (at some points in history, a gigantic one). Their giant tournaments that pay good money do not use who went first as a ranking tiebreaker and never have. What they use is:

1. Match points
2. Opponents' match-win percentage
3. Game-win percentage
4. Opponents' game-win percentage

#1 is just how well you're doing, don't be fooled. #2 is a nice tiebreaker, did you play against people who are doing well. There's more data there in Swiss than in single-elim but it's still something. After that they devalue draws in case that helps.

One thing to consider is, what will feel satisfying in the finals. Here it is, the finals. It goes to a 7th game and it's a tie. People are obviously going to want to see an 8th game played. But no, we need to wrap things up, 7 games is plenty, someone argues somehow. What tiebreaker could you possibly use there that wouldn't feel awful and stupid? I put it to you that the regular Dominion tiebreaker of fewest turns is the only thing even remotely acceptable. Anything else and it's, why didn't you have a real championship. There is more attention paid to the finals than to the semi-finals, more to the semi-finals than to round one. Still if it's obviously bad in the finals, why is it acceptable earlier? Those earlier games also decide who wins the championship. The finals match-up could have easily been the semi-finals instead due to how the pairings fell out. If there's a dark horse, a new online player that seeding doesn't place appropriately by skill level, the finals match-up could have happened instead in round one.

I do think it would be reasonable to let the players decide what to do after the 7th game. If both want to play the 8th game, they play it. If neither does, they use the tiebreakers (turns, match record, ranking; you could throw in opponents' match record before ranking). If just one does, that player wins the "they wanted it more" tiebreaker. I like that tiebreaker because it's right in line with the kind of person who will do well in the tournament anyway: the kind that plays a ton of Dominion. If you don't have time for an 8th game, I don't see how you had time to play enough to be good enough to make the finals.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: jsh on 12 August 2017, 05:12:32 PM
A lot of games have shorter matches early in the tournament (often because there is a time crunch to finish in a weekend or something). Given that, it seems acceptable to me that the finals could have different rules. I agree you'd probably want to "play it out" there.

This is all up to the TO, of course.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: heron on 12 August 2017, 05:41:35 PM
I'm with drsteelhammer on this. It's already a disadvantage to be the second player in the 7th match, why don't we try to give them a slight leg up? And possibly save some time while we're at it? The rules of dominion aren't sacred or anything; if everyone agrees to play a different way that's fine. Of course in this situation not everyone agrees, so that's a bit of an issue, and while we can't really tell how everyone feels because most people aren't commenting, right now it seems we are reasonably divided on the issue.

The only convincing argument against the current rule that I could think of is if it were common for there to be kingdoms where it was much easier to tie than win. I don't think that is common at all though.

I can see where Adam is coming from though. His argument of "we should follow the rules of the game" makes plenty of sense, but I think Adam and I just prioritized our values differently.

Regarding two players agreeing on a different tiebreaker: I don't really have a problem with it, but maybe someone would try to complain if they do this and lose because of it, so make sure to document the agreement.

Although I usually agree with things Donald says, his tiebreaker suggestions make no sense to me. I could be misunderstanding something or being dumb though.

1. fewest turns over the match
Suppose that both players fight to the end in all of their matches, and every end the game if it would cause them to lose (which is an even better idea than usual with this tiebreaker). Then the only way for this tiebreaker to come into effect is if 2 ties occur when it player A started the game, and 0 ties when player B started; or 3 and 1 (to understand this, consider: If there are no ties, the number of games player A wins when player B starts is equal to the number of games that player B wins when player A starts). In which case, the player who tied a lot when they went second will win the tiebreak. So... this is a really convoluted variant of the current rule, which usually won't even come into effect, and randomly punishes people who don't understand the rule and resign during their turn.

2. most wins over the tournament, not counting game 7
This doesn't really work since each match ends at 3.5. People who tied once and got a score of 3.5 instead of 4 are randomly punished.
I guess you can go with least losses instead, which works sort of well. Benefits the better seeded player.

3. highest rated player wins
I mean ok I guess. This would be kind of disheartening to the lower rated player though, and punishes good players who don't play online a lot (like Adam, it seems?)
I mean they are already hurt by the seeding so maybe that's ok but idk.

So uh those are my thoughts. Option 1 seems bad unless I made a math mistake, which is possible; options 2 and 3 help the higher seeded player which I don't really like.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 06:01:57 PM
To Adam: I didn't mean the game is supposed to be a coin flip, I meant the starting player is a coin flip for the 7th game. The rule that is set in place now tries to give the 2nd player the biggest space to outplay their opponent. Also, it doesn't really change the rules of the game. We could call the score 3,5-3,5 and the game wouldn't be changed at all, just the scoring would.

A comparison would be European football: In elimination rounds, there are 2 games, one at Stadium A and one at Stadium B. If they both score the same amount of goals, the first tiebreaker is to award the team that scored more goals in the other's stadium (I think that's a bad rule, it's just to show how other games change the scoring without changing the game).

I do agree we wont get the variance out of dominion, but starting player is a lever we have to pull into one direction or another, so we can try and do our best here.

I also agree with you this discussion will probaly never matter for the tournament, but that doesn't really make the decision easier (only easier to ignore)

to DVX: Analogies are a difficult to not be misleading, so you'll have to endure me poking yours a little. Firstly, this is  zero-sum game, not one person against an unkown entity that sells lottery tickets. So there are two people who look at the same money in their pockets, but you give one of them a dagger and tell him to get the other person's money out of theirs. And this current rule basically tries to give the second player a few seconds to run away.

Also, you know a lot about the game, so you will know that there is more to starting than having a 50% chance of having one more turn. You also have good chances to curse them a shuffle earlier; attack them earlier (Militia-Silver mirror openings have a great chance of making the 2nd player very sad). There are also contested piles, it's a lot harder to end up with 2 Saunas when you're starting the game.

So my made up data was the most conservative estimate I dared to make, it looks a lot more grim honestly.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 06:38:51 PM
Quote from: heron on 12 August 2017, 05:41:35 PM
1. fewest turns over the match
Suppose that both players fight to the end in all of their matches, and every end the game if it would cause them to lose (which is an even better idea than usual with this tiebreaker). Then the only way for this tiebreaker to come into effect is if 2 ties occur when it player A started the game, and 0 ties when player B started; or 3 and 1 (to understand this, consider: If there are no ties, the number of games player A wins when player B starts is equal to the number of games that player B wins when player A starts). In which case, the player who tied a lot when they went second will win the tiebreak. So... this is a really convoluted variant of the current rule, which usually won't even come into effect, and randomly punishes people who don't understand the rule and resign during their turn.

2. most wins over the tournament, not counting game 7
This doesn't really work since each match ends at 3.5. People who tied once and got a score of 3.5 instead of 4 are randomly punished.
I guess you can go with least losses instead, which works sort of well. Benefits the better seeded player.
Having not really read the rules, and I still haven't, I was under the impression that you always played the full 6 games. If you stop once someone wins 3.5 or 4, and why wouldn't you, then yes, it's not much of a proposal.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 12 August 2017, 06:50:47 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 06:01:57 PM
to DVX: Analogies are a difficult to not be misleading, so you'll have to endure me poking yours a little. Firstly, this is  zero-sum game, not one person against an unkown entity that sells lottery tickets. So there are two people who look at the same money in their pockets, but you give one of them a dagger and tell him to get the other person's money out of theirs. And this current rule basically tries to give the second player a few seconds to run away.
I still like mine better!

Going first means maybe you will get an extra turn. If you didn't then you didn't. The extra turn tends to make you win rather than tie (especially when tying means you lose, so you will avoid ending it in what will not actually be a tie). No tiebreaker rule comes into effect when there's no tie.

Where the tiebreaker rule comes in is where the players had equal turns. In that situation I don't need to reward the player who went second.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 06:01:57 PM
Also, you know a lot about the game, so you will know that there is more to starting than having a 50% chance of having one more turn. You also have good chances to curse them a shuffle earlier; attack them earlier (Militia-Silver mirror openings have a great chance of making the 2nd player very sad). There are also contested piles, it's a lot harder to end up with 2 Saunas when you're starting the game.
In fact I said "Aside from the board (which yes does matter)." By "aside from the board" I meant "obviously the exact cards in the match can vary the starting player advantage, and by "(which yes does matter)" I meant "no really, I actually understand this." The board may reward the first player via an attack they draw on turn 3 or whatever. It also may not! It may not do that at all.

This particular topic, as applied to Dominion games rather than matches, has come up before! I have endlessly considered it and argued about it. So I am pretty sure: I am that guy who does not want a tiebreaker based on turn order. I hate it. I successfully got it out of the game itself back when. If there were official tournament rules they would not possibly include a turn-order tiebreaker, and your tournament would be unsanctioned if it had it.

And I mean, that's fine; I don't mind people running unsanctioned tournaments with rules I hate. I am just here in this thread because I like to solve problems, and this problem was presented, of how to have the fairest possible tiebreaker when you can't actually play another game.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 12 August 2017, 07:28:48 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 06:01:57 PM
I do agree we wont get the variance out of dominion, but starting player is a lever we have to pull into one direction or another, so we can try and do our best here.

But the designer of the game had the chance to pull that lever and he decided not to. Now that's part of the game. You can pull lots of other levers too and the designer of the game decided not to pull those levers either. The game rules state these levers should not be pulled, so why pull them?

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 06:01:57 PM
I also agree with you this discussion will probaly never matter for the tournament, but that doesn't really make the decision easier (only easier to ignore)

That's not what I was trying to say -- I'm saying the only downside to my suggestion (more time) is so small, and the upside is that you don't have to change the game rules. The upside seems far better than the downside here, I feel like in a game with ties you're never going to get the downside smaller than this.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: markus on 12 August 2017, 11:50:21 PM
I would be all up for playing the final with an even number of games until one player has won more. If it takes 20 games, it's going to be legendary.  8)
And I wouldn't mind that also in earlier rounds, although I understand that you want to have some upper bound.

But I don't see how playing an 8th game only after a draw is fairer than the current rules. If you could choose to go first and have to win, or to go second and a draw suffices, who would want to go second?

With an odd number of games, one person will have to go first more often than the other. Ideally, you want the choice of first player in the last game to not affect the win probabilities ex ante. Having the rule that a 3.5-3.5 is enough for the second player makes this choice a bit less relevant.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 04:01:49 AM
Quote from: markus on 12 August 2017, 11:50:21 PM
But I don't see how playing an 8th game only after a draw is fairer than the current rules. If you could choose to go first and have to win, or to go second and a draw suffices, who would want to go second?
Given a choice between two bad things, people can pick the one they prefer, and it may even be that everyone will pick the same one. That doesn't mean that offering people that choice is as good as it gets.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: markus on 13 August 2017, 10:52:59 AM
Quote from: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 04:01:49 AM
Quote from: markus on 12 August 2017, 11:50:21 PM
But I don't see how playing an 8th game only after a draw is fairer than the current rules. If you could choose to go first and have to win, or to go second and a draw suffices, who would want to go second?
Given a choice between two bad things, people can pick the one they prefer, and it may even be that everyone will pick the same one. That doesn't mean that offering people that choice is as good as it gets.
In my opinion the other options presented to determine a winner after 7 games are even worse. Because in those cases winning the coin toss to become 1st player is more important. And I don't want a coin toss to decide / shift the chances too much.

For Dominion, of course, this is not an important discussion as draws are unlikely nowadays. (I had 12/1000.) The much more influential rule is that the first player in game 7 is determined by coin toss - and nobody seems to have complained about that.  8)
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 04:26:37 PM
Quote from: markus on 13 August 2017, 10:52:59 AM
Quote from: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 04:01:49 AM
Quote from: markus on 12 August 2017, 11:50:21 PM
But I don't see how playing an 8th game only after a draw is fairer than the current rules. If you could choose to go first and have to win, or to go second and a draw suffices, who would want to go second?
Given a choice between two bad things, people can pick the one they prefer, and it may even be that everyone will pick the same one. That doesn't mean that offering people that choice is as good as it gets.
In my opinion the other options presented to determine a winner after 7 games are even worse. Because in those cases winning the coin toss to become 1st player is more important. And I don't want a coin toss to decide / shift the chances too much.

For Dominion, of course, this is not an important discussion as draws are unlikely nowadays. (I had 12/1000.) The much more influential rule is that the first player in game 7 is determined by coin toss - and nobody seems to have complained about that.  8)
Obv. if the players are equally matched, luck will decide things.

You could have the higher ranked player go first in game 7.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Ingix on 13 August 2017, 11:26:31 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 12 August 2017, 05:40:31 AM
Quote from: Ingix on 11 August 2017, 03:15:46 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 11 August 2017, 04:39:26 AM
3.2: Yes, the bracket will be fully seeded, therefore the highest rated players will receive byes in round 1, should there be any.

Any chance to have that changed to a (uniformely) random selection of players instead? Byes are (in this case) a technical necessity so I don't see why the better seeded players should have an advantage here,

That's a necessary consequence of a fully seeded bracket, so no, that can't be done. We could not seed the tournament instead, but that leads less fairness, in my opinion.

Of course it is possible to have a fully seeded bracket after the first round, even with random first round byes:

1) Determine the random set of people to get first round byes.
2) Pair the other players of the first round according to their seed numbers (highest vs. lowest, etc.)
3) Assume no upset in the first round, then order the first round byes and the virtual first round winners according to their seed numbers and you get the fully seeded bracket for the second round.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 11:34:54 PM
Quote from: Ingix on 11 August 2017, 03:15:46 PM
Any chance to have that changed to a (uniformely) random selection of players instead? Byes are (in this case) a technical necessity so I don't see why the better seeded players should have an advantage here,
I don't understand. Assume no byes. The highest ranked player is paired in the first round against the weakest player. Why is that? No don't tell me, just keep the reason in your head. Now: whatever the reason was, doesn't it then apply naturally to byes too? The bye is an even weaker player.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Ingix on 14 August 2017, 12:35:05 PM
A bye can't win games, which even the lowest ranked player can do in theory. If you just want to find out who the highest ranking player is, then look it up in the rankings. If you want to find out who wins a tournament, let the players play.

If for technical reasons some players advance the first round without needing to play, then either make players earn that (I think I remember one could earn byes for MtG Pro Tour Qualifiers 15 years back), or make it random. Of course, being highest ranked is a form of 'earn it'.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 14 August 2017, 04:49:59 PM
Quote from: Ingix on 14 August 2017, 12:35:05 PM
A bye can't win games, which even the lowest ranked player can do in theory. If you just want to find out who the highest ranking player is, then look it up in the rankings. If you want to find out who wins a tournament, let the players play.
Obv. that would be great (for example if two players are tied after 7 games), but it turns out, we've got these byes to assign.

Quote from: Ingix on 14 August 2017, 12:35:05 PM
If for technical reasons some players advance the first round without needing to play, then either make players earn that (I think I remember one could earn byes for MtG Pro Tour Qualifiers 15 years back), or make it random. Of course, being highest ranked is a form of 'earn it'.
Magic does have ways to earn byes. It also assigns byes to the best players. The Magic people have put more work into this than I have (argument by authority), and my "we pair the best against the worst in round one" argument doesn't appear to have been demolished to me (argument by looking at your argument).
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: heron on 17 August 2017, 11:38:01 PM
Is there any protocol for what we should do if we get into a stalemate with possession/donate?
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Beyond Awesome on 18 August 2017, 04:24:39 AM
Have both players agree not to play possession that game.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: JW on 18 August 2017, 05:56:09 AM
Quote from: heron on 17 August 2017, 11:38:01 PM
Is there any protocol for what we should do if we get into a stalemate with possession/donate?

Agree to a draw?  For ranking purposes, one player resigns and then you start a new game which the other player immediately resigns.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Rabid on 18 August 2017, 06:27:33 PM
Quote from: JW on 18 August 2017, 05:56:09 AM
Quote from: heron on 17 August 2017, 11:38:01 PM
Is there any protocol for what we should do if we get into a stalemate with possession/donate?

Agree to a draw?  For ranking purposes, one player resigns and then you start a new game which the other player immediately resigns.
It should be either a draw (0.5 vs 0.5)
Or void (0 vs 0)
Either option is fine, just needs to be in the rules.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Polk5440 on 23 August 2017, 06:51:26 PM
I agree with Adam the tournament rules as originally written left something to be desired.

I was under the impression there was going to be a "tournament mode" or some such equivalent in the client that would essentially force adherence to most rules before an official tournament with actual prize money is offered. The f.ds rules plus moderator discretion is fine for a for-fun tournament with no actual monetary prize. Doing something with stakes that way is risky. 

In any case, this is not happening, so I would suggest (in addition to the rules thread) having instructions that outline WITH PICTURES IN CLIENT how to set up a tournament game and how to contact your opponent for matches. Where do I click? What options do I need to turn on/off?

Why is this important? The tournament currently assumes very detailed reading and 100% familiarity with everything in the most recent version of the client and a 20 game min does not ensure this. I've played hundreds of games and I still don't know exactly how to implement everything the rules ask of me without fishing around for a while. Having important instructions like "turn off spectator mode" buried in walls of rules text and further not telling me how to do this is risky. Some participants may not be fully aware of how politely agreeing to certain things ("Do you mind if I have spectator mode on?" "Sure!") could be abused or even that they should/should not be doing certain things.

So, in short, more direct guidance and more guardrails to prevent problems would be helpful!
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 01:59:35 PM
Is there any update to Section 8 of the rules? There's about two weeks left until signups are closed and I don't think that section is acceptable as it stands; it hasn't been addressed since my initial post.

Specifically, it should be clear what 8.3 and 8.4 actually mean:

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
8.3 Some games may be streamed by third parties.

This rule as currently worded doesn't actually say much, except that it goes against the recommendation set forth in 8.1, so it really needs to be something different.

Who are the third parties? Will spectator mode be used as the perspective for this stream? How do we reconcile that with rule 8.1 (does the software support only adding certain people as spectators outside of the friends list)? Will there be a delay? Will there be commentary (and if yes there are about a billion questions related to commentary which should be addressed)? If I were writing the rules I would put in a provision that people can't stream or spectate matches unless authorized by all players and a tournament moderator in the case where a match will be streamed, and I wouldn't want anyone but a moderator streaming the match so that I know all of the proper precautions are being taken.

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
8.4 From Quarterfinals onwards, every match will be streamed. Organizers may influence the scheduling to ensure no overlaps.

"Organizers" should definitely be "moderators" at the very least. Most of the questions that apply to 8.3 apply to this as well, but in addition:

Will it be required to have matches streamed at this point? What will happen if a player is unable or unwilling to have their match spectated/streamed? What, if any, are valid reasons for a player to refuse to have their match streamed? If a player wants to stream the match themselves, is that acceptable? What about taking video and uploading it later (after the match result has been confirmed)? If a player does not want to have their match commentated at all, or by specific people, is this a valid reason? What kind of influence will the organizers/moderators have on scheduling the match? Is there a possibility that after successfully scheduling several matches, a player is removed from the tournament because they are not flexible enough to schedule a match with unknown people?

I don't want to get to the quarterfinals of the tournament, then find out that I'm forced to have my match open to spectators, streamed with no delay by an unknown "third party" who could be anyone, commentated upon by people who have said inappropriate things to/about me in the past, or removed from the tournament because I'm unwilling to play a match at 3AM or something.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: tufftaeh on 29 August 2017, 03:46:44 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 01:59:35 PM
I don't want to get to the quarterfinals of the tournament, then find out that I'm forced to have my match open to spectators, streamed with no delay by an unknown "third party" who could be anyone, commentated upon by people who have said inappropriate things to/about me in the past, or removed from the tournament because I'm unwilling to play a match at 3AM or something.

Luckily, there is an easy solution to avoid all this: just don't play in the tournament at all.

I will play for fun and I trust in the organizers to do their best, so I accept all their rulings in advance.
(Maybe that's actually something which could be added to the rules: "All decisions of organizers are final and cannot be appealed.")
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 06:21:48 PM
Quote from: tufftaeh on 29 August 2017, 03:46:44 PM
Luckily, there is an easy solution to avoid all this: just don't play in the tournament at all.

Not playing is what I'll do if the rules aren't to my satisfaction. On the other hand, I like money and the rules are close enough to being good enough for me that I thought I'd bring this stuff up. Even drsteelhammer said himself in this thread that some of section 8 still wasn't decided yet. I think all of the suggestions I've actually made are good changes to the rules, and I think a lot of the questions I've asked are things that deserved clarification.

It's a little baffling to me that you seem to be arguing that it's better to turn people away from the tournament than it is to write a better rule set. I thought the whole point of this tournament was to draw people in and get them to buy subscriptions so more people would be the main goal.

In my experience running a total of 8 Dominion tournaments in my life, I've found it's really helpful to write the rules before the tournament starts, and have the rules be really good. The benefit is that when these situations come up (as is likely to happen given an entry pool this large), it's transparent and clear that the people in charge aren't putting personal bias into their decision because the decision was made before we knew which people were involved. It's a much better situation for everyone involved, but most of all, the organizers themselves!

Quote from: tufftaeh on 29 August 2017, 03:46:44 PM
I will play for fun and I trust in the organizers to do their best, so I accept all their rulings in advance.
(Maybe that's actually something which could be added to the rules: "All decisions of organizers are final and cannot be appealed.")

There are people here using the terms "organizers" and "moderators" -- I want to make sure I'm clearly defining who I'm talking about when I use these words. If this is not what other people mean, then please correct me.

Organizers/TO - drsteelhammer
Moderators - Deadlock39 and irrationalE (whatever is on the list at the bottom of this post (http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=2039.0))

There is a statement in the rules to the effect of what you said about the moderators

Quote
11.2 If there is a conflict, please contact your moderator, who will have the final say on the issue.

And I trust the moderators. On the other hand, I do not trust drsteelhammer. I'm not going to get into the details but the way the rules are written, drsteelhammer doesn't actually have any authority other than the fact that he writes the rules (which is a good thing, both for my personal preference, plus it's good practice). If he writes rules that are good enough for me then I'll join, and in a way I'm helping him because if he writes rules that are good enough for me, I'd say they're probably good enough for anyone -- that way he ends up with the best rules! Everyone wins!

On the other hand, changing the rules after the tournament starts is a huge no-no for me, so having vague rules that give the organizer authority to make "judgment calls" is not something I'm OK with (this is the moderators' job), particularly when I don't trust the judgment of the organizer. With well-written rules, though, this situation should not come up.

With regard to streaming/spectating in particular, it's a sensitive subject to me so while it may not seem important to everyone, the contents of section 8 of the rules are extremely important to me. In fact, whether or not I participate in the tournament hinges on what those are, because everything else out there seems good enough.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:05:29 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 06:21:48 PM
It's a little baffling to me that you seem to be arguing that it's better to turn people away from the tournament than it is to write a better rule set.

Not at all. I certainly agree that it is better to have good rules beforehand. But it seemed to me that it might be impossible to write rules which could be acceptable for you personally so I suggested the only remaining solution.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Cave-O-Sapien on 31 August 2017, 05:12:20 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 06:21:48 PMthe contents of section 8 of the rules are extremely important to me. In fact, whether or not I participate in the tournament hinges on what those are, because everything else out there seems good enough.

Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:05:29 PM
Not at all. I certainly agree that it is better to have good rules beforehand. But it seemed to me that it might be impossible to write rules which could be acceptable for you personally so I suggested the only remaining solution.

Taking statements at face value, it seems like Adam has a very specific request that doesn't seem unreasonable at all. You think it's impossible to clarify rules 8.3 and 8.4??
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 05:14:59 PM
Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:05:29 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 06:21:48 PM
It's a little baffling to me that you seem to be arguing that it's better to turn people away from the tournament than it is to write a better rule set.

Not at all. I certainly agree that it is better to have good rules beforehand. But it seemed to me that it might be impossible to write rules which could be acceptable for you personally so I suggested the only remaining solution.

I think I see what happened here. I said this:

Quote from: AdamH on 29 August 2017, 01:59:35 PM
I don't want to get to the quarterfinals of the tournament, then find out that I'm forced to have my match open to spectators, streamed with no delay by an unknown "third party" who could be anyone, commentated upon by people who have said inappropriate things to/about me in the past, or removed from the tournament because I'm unwilling to play a match at 3AM or something.

and I said it in first person. While many of the things I've brought up about the rules are concerns for me personally, I'm certainly not suggesting that the rules be changed because of what I want. I'm suggesting they be changed because the rules will be better as a result.

I want this version of online Dominion to succeed, and so I want this tournament to succeed. Having good rules will increase the chances of that. I may or may not play in the tournament but I don't think that should have anything to do with which rules are changed.

PPE: looks like I'm kinda-sorta ninja's by Cave-o-sapien.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
Quote from: Cave-O-Sapien on 31 August 2017, 05:12:20 PM
Taking statements at face value, it seems like Adam has a very specific request that doesn't seem unreasonable at all. You think it's impossible to clarify rules 8.3 and 8.4??

Not at all. But I think that the answers to Adam's specific questions are almost all obvious common sense.

I'm not making the rules but here is my guess what they currently mean implicitly:

Quote8.3 Some games may be streamed by third parties.
Up to the round of 16, this can happen only if both players agree on the specifics.

Quote8.4 From Quarterfinals onwards, every match will be streamed.
The matches will be streamed in spectator mode with delay and commentary. Moderators will decide about the commentators. If a player is unable or unwilling to have their match streamed or commentated by the selected commentator, they forfeit the match.

QuoteOrganizers may influence the scheduling to ensure no overlaps.
Moderators will undertake reasonable effort to consider both players' time zones and other commitments. If a moderator decides that one player's missing flexibility is responsible for not getting the match played during the scheduled week, that player forfeits the match. This can apply to both players of one match.

In other words: Moderators do sensible things and if necessary, they take the hard decisions.

Does this help?
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 06:27:16 PM
Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
Does this help?

If the rules actually said this, or if the organizer posted this, it would help. There are other interpretations of the original rules as written, though. I could go through and point out places where it could be different but that doesn't seem necessary (if you want it though, I'll do it).

I think that none of it is "obvious common sense" so if you're trying to say I don't have common sense or that I'm missing something obvious, then I would just respond by saying that I think you should think about it a bit more. It's very possible for this to not get talked about, and then someone makes the quarterfinals, finds out they have to have their match streamed or else they forfeit, is not OK with that for whatever reason, and it turns out they've not only wasted their time playing in the tournament, but beaten other people who no longer have a shot at the money, when the best course of action would have been for the rules to have been clearer and have them not enter the tournament in the first place. By the current wording of the rules, everything is fine if they just stream all of their matches themselves from their own perspective, for example.

So yes, there is a need for an organizer to explicitly state these kinds of things, because there are multiple interpretations.

As for some of your interpretations, a couple of them have actual issues:

Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
The matches will be streamed in spectator mode

This is in direct conflict with

Quote from: drsteelhammer on 05 August 2017, 04:06:16 PM
8.1 Spectator mode should be turned off unless both players agree to allow spectators.

so which one do you go with? At the very least you have to explicitly state somewhere that you're overriding section 8.1, but that rule was in place for a reason: if a player is worried about their opponent seeing their hand somehow, 8.1 protects them, so without the ability to only allow certain people to spectate games (other than the friends list, which is not going to work here), there's a conflict here.

One way to resolve the conflict would be to have the match streamed after it is over using the replay feature.


Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
Moderators will decide about the commentators. If a player is unable or unwilling to have their match streamed or commentated by the selected commentator, they forfeit the match.

If the moderators want the authority to make people forfeit matches, it's pretty good practice to do it as objectively and transparently as possible. You don't want to get into the situation where this was the rule, we get to the QFs and the mods decide "OK we're having AdamH do the commentary" and all of a sudden people would rather forfeit the match. It could easily be seen as a move done by those dastardly evil mods -- "MWAHAHAHAHHAHHH I want Joebob to lose the tournament and I know he hates Adam, so I can make him forfeit by telling him Adam will commentate!!!!!" when it could have all been prevented by just listing all of the commentators before the tournament started. If I was a mod, I would want that rule to be written before the tournament starts so that I could just point at the rule and everyone's life is easier (except for people who join the tournament without reading the rules first. There's no helping them by making better rules, sadly).
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 31 August 2017, 07:06:35 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 06:27:16 PM
Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
Moderators will decide about the commentators. If a player is unable or unwilling to have their match streamed or commentated by the selected commentator, they forfeit the match.

If the moderators want the authority to make people forfeit matches, it's pretty good practice to do it as objectively and transparently as possible. You don't want to get into the situation where this was the rule, we get to the QFs and the mods decide "OK we're having AdamH do the commentary" and all of a sudden people would rather forfeit the match. It could easily be seen as a move done by those dastardly evil mods -- "MWAHAHAHAHHAHHH I want Joebob to lose the tournament and I know he hates Adam, so I can make him forfeit by telling him Adam will commentate!!!!!" when it could have all been prevented by just listing all of the commentators before the tournament started. If I was a mod, I would want that rule to be written before the tournament starts so that I could just point at the rule and everyone's life is easier (except for people who join the tournament without reading the rules first. There's no helping them by making better rules, sadly).
It seems likely that commentators will be top players who have been eliminated from the tournament; thus it's not possible to specify them in advance?

I am just posting to say though, that if you are in a Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour, and make the quarterfinals, the match will be filmed, and there will be commentary, and you will have no say in any of that. And they have had players eliminated in earlier rounds do commentary, thus not possibly specifying them ahead of time. And that has all worked out, no-one ever forfeits to avoid that.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 07:23:07 PM
Quote from: Donald X. on 31 August 2017, 07:06:35 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 06:27:16 PM
Quote from: tufftaeh on 31 August 2017, 05:55:05 PM
Moderators will decide about the commentators. If a player is unable or unwilling to have their match streamed or commentated by the selected commentator, they forfeit the match.

If the moderators want the authority to make people forfeit matches, it's pretty good practice to do it as objectively and transparently as possible. You don't want to get into the situation where this was the rule, we get to the QFs and the mods decide "OK we're having AdamH do the commentary" and all of a sudden people would rather forfeit the match. It could easily be seen as a move done by those dastardly evil mods -- "MWAHAHAHAHHAHHH I want Joebob to lose the tournament and I know he hates Adam, so I can make him forfeit by telling him Adam will commentate!!!!!" when it could have all been prevented by just listing all of the commentators before the tournament started. If I was a mod, I would want that rule to be written before the tournament starts so that I could just point at the rule and everyone's life is easier (except for people who join the tournament without reading the rules first. There's no helping them by making better rules, sadly).
It seems likely that commentators will be top players who have been eliminated from the tournament; thus it's not possible to specify them in advance?

I am just posting to say though, that if you are in a Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour, and make the quarterfinals, the match will be filmed, and there will be commentary, and you will have no say in any of that. And they have had players eliminated in earlier rounds do commentary, thus not possibly specifying them ahead of time. And that has all worked out, no-one ever forfeits to avoid that.

I of all people don't mind being filmed, but I think it would be a good idea to explicitly state it in the rules if the organizers want to be able to kick someone out of the tournament for any reason, especially if they necessarily have to make a deep run to get there and there might be higher scrutiny.

One idea is to have a pool of people to choose from, and only choose people who have been eliminated so far.

But yeah in Magic, do they really have people who played in the tournament commentate? I thought that with any competition of that kind of scale they would have dedicated commentators. It would seem weird to me but I'm not educated on the issue.

But as for this specific tournament, yes the commentary situation is a significant concern of mine. It comes from the fact that the TO and other people I suspect are involved in the tournament (organizers, but actually not any of the moderators, which is a big deal) have had a significant issue in the past related to commentary. Given that that's happened, regardless of my personal feelings about it, it seems like a smart idea to at least say something more specific in the rules to prevent a similar situation from getting bad in future tournaments that they run, like this one.

That plus the rule as currently worded gives this particular power to the organizers, and not the moderators, which seems like an oversight.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Cave-O-Sapien on 31 August 2017, 08:30:01 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 07:23:07 PMIt comes from the fact that the TO and other people I suspect are involved in the tournament (organizers, but actually not any of the moderators, which is a big deal) have had a significant issue in the past related to commentary.

I have no idea what you are talking about, but this statement is a little concerning to me. It sounds like there is some history here that goes beyond rules clarifications.

Could someone elaborate on this in an objective manner? I don't need to know the entire Sordid History of Dominion Tournament Commentary, but I'd like to have some idea what is being referenced.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 31 August 2017, 08:32:38 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 07:23:07 PM
But yeah in Magic, do they really have people who played in the tournament commentate? I thought that with any competition of that kind of scale they would have dedicated commentators. It would seem weird to me but I'm not educated on the issue.
I don't know if they do this today, but they definitely did in the murky past, at multiple tournaments IRL. You are correct that you could potentially list all such players ahead of time; "if Mic doesn't make it he's agreed to commentate." I don't see why anyone would then decide "oh therefore I'm not playing." Absolutely anyone can comment after the fact anyway.

I don't see how real-time spectating / commentating possibly works for an online tournament with a cash prize; there's no way to stop the players from spectating, and incentive for them to do so. I would just ban it even if both players agree to it; then no-one has to worry about it, and no-one is that awful person who thought their opponent might cheat. As noted you can see the games after the fact.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: dan on 31 August 2017, 10:24:42 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 07:23:07 PM
But yeah in Magic, do they really have people who played in the tournament commentate? I thought that with any competition of that kind of scale they would have dedicated commentators. It would seem weird to me but I'm not educated on the issue.

There's this guy, or perhaps legend, Luis-Scott Vargas who is a professional player, writer, game designer, and (for now) a professional commentator.

He used to play in major events, make the top 8, lose, and the jump in the commentary booth just a couple of minutes later.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: dan on 31 August 2017, 10:46:24 PM
On 8.4 - perhaps the games could be recorded and streamed later? This helps with scheduling and protects against sniping
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: jsh on 31 August 2017, 10:50:13 PM
Quote from: dan on 31 August 2017, 10:46:24 PM
On 8.4 - perhaps the games could be recorded and streamed later? This helps with scheduling and protects against sniping

A ten minute delay would be fine? Unless the players take ten minutes per click, which is against the rules. :)
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Burning Skull on 01 September 2017, 02:19:54 AM
Quote from: Cave-O-Sapien on 31 August 2017, 08:30:01 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 31 August 2017, 07:23:07 PMIt comes from the fact that the TO and other people I suspect are involved in the tournament (organizers, but actually not any of the moderators, which is a big deal) have had a significant issue in the past related to commentary.

I have no idea what you are talking about, but this statement is a little concerning to me. It sounds like there is some history here that goes beyond rules clarifications.

Could someone elaborate on this in an objective manner? I don't need to know the entire Sordid History of Dominion Tournament Commentary, but I'd like to have some idea what is being referenced.


There was a League Championship match, and it was announced beforehand that Donald X in pair with someone else will be commenting.
That "someone else" turned out to be not Adam.
That is the issue.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 02:35:47 AM
Quote from: Burning Skull on 01 September 2017, 02:19:54 AM
There was a League Championship match, and it was announced beforehand that Donald X in pair with someone else will be commenting.
That "someone else" turned out to be not Adam.
That is the issue.

This is a pretty inaccurate description of the issue.

But that's not particularly relevant to the fact that the rule should be made more specific.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 01 September 2017, 06:27:44 AM
Updated rules 4.7 to include a section about stalemates. Feedback is welcome there.

Also updated 8 to clarify some things and removed the previous 8.3

I deleted every use of "Organizer" in the document which was just an oversight and not an intended distinction. It appears only once in there mentioning the prize pool, which was recommended to not violate gambling laws in certain countries.

Also, I don't want to overstate my role here; I'm just bothering people about how this tournament could be run without any major trouble and happen to post the results.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 02:12:21 PM
Excellent. I think section 8 is very much improved. For this tournament it seems that the plan is to have matches streamed on replay mode, then?

Also, I assume there are no officially "tournament-sanctioned" commentators, since there is no mention of that in the rules?
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 01 September 2017, 03:09:28 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 02:12:21 PM
Excellent. I think section 8 is very much improved. For this tournament it seems that the plan is to have matches streamed on replay mode, then?

Also, I assume there are no officially "tournament-sanctioned" commentators, since there is no mention of that in the rules?

What do you mean by replay mode? I don't think there is a replay mode currently. Im not 100% certain of the technicalities used, but I think there will be a way that only the streamers can join the spectator mode.

You're also right about the commentators, as you said scheduling is hard enough so I think assigning streamers now will only make it more difficult.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 03:17:38 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 01 September 2017, 03:09:28 PM
What do you mean by replay mode? I don't think there is a replay mode currently. Im not 100% certain of the technicalities used, but I think there will be a way that only the streamers can join the spectator mode.

The only way I know of to allow certain people to spectate a game and exclude all others is using the "friends only" spectator mode. So a player would have to clear off their friends list and add only the moderators or streamers or whoever. I don't think this is reasonable to ask of people.

If there is some other way, I'm not aware of it.

The replay mode I'm referring to would be where people take a game number, then I think you can just click through each of the decisions made -- I guess you could do that one stream. I am not as familiar with this feature, but it seems like the only thing you could really do if you wanted to cast a tournament game after-the-fact. It doesn't seem that great, since you'd have to keep the results quiet until that stream/video was released for there to be any suspense at all, but there is some upside. If some guy is taking a long time to think, you don't have to wait for it, you can just have the commentators say whatever they want to say and then move on when they're done. You could also rewind if needed.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: jsh on 01 September 2017, 03:19:23 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 03:17:38 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 01 September 2017, 03:09:28 PM
What do you mean by replay mode? I don't think there is a replay mode currently. Im not 100% certain of the technicalities used, but I think there will be a way that only the streamers can join the spectator mode.

The only way I know of to allow certain people to spectate a game and exclude all others is using the "friends only" spectator mode. So a player would have to clear off their friends list and add only the moderators or streamers or whoever. I don't think this is reasonable to ask of people.

If there is some other way, I'm not aware of it.

The replay mode I'm referring to would be where people take a game number, then I think you can just click through each of the decisions made -- I guess you could do that one stream. I am not as familiar with this feature, but it seems like the only thing you could really do if you wanted to cast a tournament game after-the-fact. It doesn't seem that great, since you'd have to keep the results quiet until that stream/video was released for there to be any suspense at all, but there is some upside. If some guy is taking a long time to think, you don't have to wait for it, you can just have the commentators say whatever they want to say and then move on when they're done. You could also rewind if needed.

It's been discussed (not here) that Stef will implement a method of only a single person being able to spectate the match (the streamer). The details aren't set in stone yet AFAIK, so that is probably why the rules aren't clear on it either. All we know is it's what's happening.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: AdamH on 01 September 2017, 03:43:05 PM
Oh that's neat.

I have no further comments on the rules.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: flopcakes on 11 September 2017, 03:01:15 AM
Can we switch to a 2-3-2 format? I think it's a little more fair.

This isn't about familiarity with sports: the player who gets advantage in Game 5 should not be the same one who gets that advantage in Game 7. With the current rules (or a 2-2-1-1-1), you're effectively giving clinch advantage to the same player twice.

The order of the first four games doesn't matter because any logical format will give each player two first-turn games.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: drsteelhammer on 12 September 2017, 04:29:03 AM
Quote from: flopcakes on 11 September 2017, 03:01:15 AM
Can we switch to a 2-3-2 format? I think it's a little more fair.

This isn't about familiarity with sports: the player who gets advantage in Game 5 should not be the same one who gets that advantage in Game 7. With the current rules (or a 2-2-1-1-1), you're effectively giving clinch advantage to the same player twice.

The order of the first four games doesn't matter because any logical format will give each player two first-turn games.

This is a best of 6, so the order shouldn't matter regardless. One player could start the first three games and then the other player could start three.

The first player in game 7 is determined randomly.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: flopcakes on 12 September 2017, 09:49:34 AM
The rules say that you don't play any more if you get 3.5 wins - it's really just a best-of-7 with three times as many words.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Mic Qsenoch on 12 September 2017, 04:00:15 PM
Quote from: flopcakes on 12 September 2017, 09:49:34 AM
The rules say that you don't play any more if you get 3.5 wins - it's really just a best-of-7 with three times as many words.

3.5 would not win a best of 7.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Quote
10.1 If you disconnect during a game, use the reconnect feature. If your opponent is disconnected, do not make use of the "make resign" feature. This will not be counted as winning the game.

11.2 Keep in mind that in a competitive situation such as this tournament, players take a long time to consider a play. Do not make use of the "make resign" feature if your opponent is thinking.

This is just asking for trouble. If we're not supposed to use the "make resign" button, there should be a tournament mode (see my earlier post) that turns this off.

Quote
10.2 If the disconnect takes an extended amount of time, write down the game number and reload the game (latest decision) at a later date.

Where are there instructions on how to do this?

Quote
10.3 If reloading the game fails, complete the remaining games of the match first. If no player has reached 3.5 points after completing the remaining games, contact your moderator about the lost game.

How do we contact our moderator?

--

Also, if my opponent and I speak different languages, how do we schedule matches, ask opponents to explain themselves, or otherwise interact if it's not built into the client? It seems like this tournament is multi-lingual and there is no requirement to conduct everything in English.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: irrationalE on 13 September 2017, 01:55:05 AM
Quote from: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Quote
10.3 If reloading the game fails, complete the remaining games of the match first. If no player has reached 3.5 points after completing the remaining games, contact your moderator about the lost game.

How do we contact our moderator?

Send a PM. (At least for me. And you will probably get a faster response sending a PM on f.ds, but I will consistently check this forum as well once play begins)
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 13 September 2017, 03:28:18 AM
Quote from: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Quote
10.1 If you disconnect during a game, use the reconnect feature. If your opponent is disconnected, do not make use of the "make resign" feature. This will not be counted as winning the game.

11.2 Keep in mind that in a competitive situation such as this tournament, players take a long time to consider a play. Do not make use of the "make resign" feature if your opponent is thinking.

This is just asking for trouble. If we're not supposed to use the "make resign" button, there should be a tournament mode (see my earlier post) that turns this off.

Unfortunately there is not bandwidth to make this type of improvement at this time.

The make resign is a feature designed to allow players to end matches when their opponent abandons a match without resigning. It is not appropriate to use this feature to force a game clock on your opponent if a complicated situation occurs.

It is important to understand that situations where it would be appropriate to take the amount of time required to trigger this condition in Dominion game should be incredibly uncommon, however, if a situation arises that does take a player this amount of time, the correct action is to discuss the cause of the delay with your opponent, and if necessary, your moderator.

Quote from: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Quote
10.2 If the disconnect takes an extended amount of time, write down the game number and reload the game (latest decision) at a later date.

Where are there instructions on how to do this?

I will attempt to get instructions for reloading a game posted before the start of the tournament.

You can ask the moderator, or any other member of the forum who is experienced with this feature if the situation arises and you do not know how.

Quote from: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Quote
10.3 If reloading the game fails, complete the remaining games of the match first. If no player has reached 3.5 points after completing the remaining games, contact your moderator about the lost game.

How do we contact our moderator?

You can contact your moderator via PM on this forum, or via any other method they provide.

If I am your moderator for a match, you may also contact me via private message via discord, or f.ds in addition to this forum if you prefer.

Quote from: Polk5440 on 12 September 2017, 05:31:55 PM
Also, if my opponent and I speak different languages, how do we schedule matches, ask opponents to explain themselves, or otherwise interact if it's not built into the client? It seems like this tournament is multi-lingual and there is no requirement to conduct everything in English.

If you cannot communicate with your opponent, please let your moderator know immediately, and we will work to find someone to assist with communication.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 13 September 2017, 03:37:09 AM
Quote from: flopcakes on 11 September 2017, 03:01:15 AM
Can we switch to a 2-3-2 format? I think it's a little more fair.

This isn't about familiarity with sports: the player who gets advantage in Game 5 should not be the same one who gets that advantage in Game 7. With the current rules (or a 2-2-1-1-1), you're effectively giving clinch advantage to the same player twice.

The order of the first four games doesn't matter because any logical format will give each player two first-turn games.

You can request this format from your opponent before your match. It is required that the starting player for the 7th match be random, but if your opponent agrees to this format, you can instead determine the start player of the first game randomly and play in the 2-3-2 order. This fulfills all rules requirements with each player playing 3 starts, and the starting player of the 7th game being determined randomly.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 13 September 2017, 06:06:19 AM
I've updated the rules with a link to instructions on how to reload a prior game.

The updates made yesterday also some additional information regarding the requirements for declaring a game a stalemate.  Additions were also made to the Sportsmanlike Conduct section, including the section discussed above.

All other changes made in yesterday's update were only to improve clarity in some places.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Polk5440 on 13 September 2017, 06:18:47 AM
Thanks!
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Donald X. on 13 September 2017, 10:51:07 PM
So here is a proposal for a way to allow spectators for this particular tournament, provided that it's trivial for Stef, which he'll at least quickly know, and that the cons don't seem to outweigh the pros for people.

- just before the tournament starts, turn off visibility of hands to spectators, across the board, all games
- turn it back on after the tournament is over (weeks later)

Notes:
- since there is no interface needed, no new "tournament mode" option (a better solution for down the road), this should be an easy change
- spectators will still be able to see some hidden information, e.g. Native Village mat, but it seems minor enough to not encourage desperately trying to cheat this way
- spectators in non-tournament games will not be able to see hands! That's a downside; I don't know how much that matters.

I have no horse in this race but there you go.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: yed on 20 September 2017, 06:47:08 PM
Can we play the second round this week?

I will be out of country with limited internet next week, so I would prefer playing the match early.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 20 September 2017, 11:28:44 PM
Quote from: yed on 20 September 2017, 06:47:08 PM
Can we play the second round this week?

I will be out of country with limited internet next week, so I would prefer playing the match early.

In order to keep things organized, we would prefer matches are not played early for organizational reasons, but if you have a need to do this, and your opponent is known, you can reach out to them to begin discussing your match schedule. If it is necessary to play your match early to complete it on time, you can let the moderating team know when you plan to play and report your results directly to us so that we can properly record the match when the round two matchups are officially posted.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: sty_silver on 21 September 2017, 03:34:45 PM
I have another rules... not so much a question as a thinig to think about.

Let's suppose you agree to allow undos for every choice that does not provide new information, as encouraged in the rules.

If I play a complicated KC hand now, I'll probably always start by playing a bunch of cards that do not draw. The less stuff is left on my hand, the less complex my remaining decisions are. No harm, you can always undo. Similarly with hands that remodel a lot. Just start remodeling, and you'll have an easier time seeing what you want to do.

This might be okay (in fact I think I'd like that, though I'm not sure). But it's probably not what some people have in mind when they agree to allow undo-without-information. Is this behavior intended? If not maybe you should add a step restriction (I know you just encourage behavior, but still). Also what about if your turn ended?

Independent, a rules question: are you allowed to agree to ignore cards with your opponent, or is this considered poor sportsmanship? Stef and I did it once in the dominion league.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 21 September 2017, 07:39:12 PM
I think playing a large chain of cards that don't draw to gain information potentially about something like if it is possible for you to empty piles with a chain of remodels is a bit outside the scope of "no information". If you are playing non-drawing actions in a King's Court chain first, that just seems like sub-optimal play to me, but if all you gained were coins actions and buys, and perhaps miscounted something, I would probably allow an undo even if it was several steps. It's a bit of a subjective area.

I certainly hope that no one attempts to abuse a "allow all undo's that don't provide new information" agreement for something like the first example. If the situation occurs, and your opponent feels you are breaking an agreement by denying it, you would need to contact your moderator who can make the judgement call. In the case of any dispute, you can save the game number, and have one player resign with the intent of resuming the match later as described in the rules for handling disconnects. You should also complete the remainder of your 6 games to attempt determining a winner without the disputed game.

If your turn ends, it is a bit harder to undo, but I would still encourage making it happen if your opponent accidentally clicked Duchy instead of Province.

Agreeing to ignore (preferably exclude) cards is fine, and is explicitly mentioned in the rules (7.2).
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: sty_silver on 21 September 2017, 08:11:38 PM
Yeah, the KC thing was a bad example.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: sty_silver on 21 September 2017, 09:16:08 PM
Quote from: Deadlock39 on 21 September 2017, 07:39:12 PMAgreeing to ignore (preferably exclude) cards is fine, and is explicitly mentioned in the rules (7.2).
It's not quite the same, you might only wish to ignore a card after you see the board.
Title: Re: Rules Discussions
Post by: Deadlock39 on 22 September 2017, 05:47:24 AM
Quote from: sty_silver on 21 September 2017, 09:16:08 PM
Quote from: Deadlock39 on 21 September 2017, 07:39:12 PMAgreeing to ignore (preferably exclude) cards is fine, and is explicitly mentioned in the rules (7.2).
It's not quite the same, you might only wish to ignore a card after you see the board.

Sure, I don't consider this significantly different from excluding a card. Excluding is a better option to take because then you don't have to make verbal agreements at the beginning of a match, but it is still fine within the rules as written in my opinion.