Ladle 38+: Aliases (and a bit Seeding and Team Changes)

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Flex
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Ladle 38+: Aliases (and a bit Seeding and Team Changes)

Post by Flex »

I guess it's too late for SP and SPD to vote. I think we would have voted for no seeding, but I guess we're also willing to give seeding a try. We're not against fair match-ups, but with the way the Ladle seems to allow teams to be so flexible, seeding seems like pretty much a hit and miss game.

I'll read the guidelines and stuff later, but I have one quick question though. How do you determine the seeding based on anonymous player names and different team names nearly every Ladle? Also how about those people switching to different teams nearly every Ladle? I'm talking about those not wishing to be seeded and using that as an advantage.
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ppotter
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by ppotter »

arilou wrote:So just when people start to give up on what seems like a redundant and predictable lineup along comes another system to encourage more participation.

No more Merged Super (X , ARROW) teams beating up on less capable teams opening round to get their practice in. You look at the lineups in the last ten ladles and they hardly look random. Has TX ever played CT opening round? I can't seem to find that.
http://wiki.armagetronad.net/index.php? ... ast_Ladles

how odd :/ we Almost ALWAYS play a former champ in the opening round.
Well seeding makes it more likely that the best teams will end up "beating up on less capable" teams in the opening round, at least until we get 20ish teams or more.
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sinewav
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by sinewav »

Flex wrote:I'm talking about those not wishing to be seeded and using that as an advantage.
And what is this "advantage" are you speaking of? I don't think it matters a whole lot if a team wants to forfeit their seed. It just increases the chances of the other seeds getting a bye in the first round. Even if all the teams forfeit their seeds we still randomize the brackets. And seeding also doesn't ensure a team's first round will be easy - it just makes it more likely to be easy. I think people forget how much of a role randomization plays in this. And what you are describing is actually an issue with aliases, not seeding.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by PsYkO »

SP is always late to vote xD Guess we don't travel often in these parts.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by freako »

Little question about the rules,

What if this situation happens?

-Team 1 has six players signed up

Team 1: Player 1, Player 2, Player 3, Player 4, Player 5, Player 6

After that Player 7 and Player 8 join (That's the 2 max changes)

Followed by the 2 people joining, Player 3 decides to leave the team and play for another team (That's a third change)

Is Player 3 in this occasion forced to stay on Team 1?


(And yes this situation actually took place)
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epsy
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by epsy »

Well, he could be just somewhat staying as a substitute. But no teamchange for him though.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by syllabear »

thats easy to get around. Player who leaves simply says "i didnt want to be on that team, hence I am a free agent"
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Flex
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by Flex »

That's a good question. That's why I'm in favour of adjusting the rules a bit. After the brackets have been set - unique players should not be counted as team adjustments.

Maybe to tighten the rules a little bit more to compensate for that; we can increase the minimum team player limit to 5 and also add in a slight rule to introduce balance. Any uniquely added player is not considered an adjustment. Giving freedom for teams to not use up all their adjustment chances or for open teams to add in later players in etc.

Of course there is a loophole with this rule adjustment, being that aliases can fill the whole team, but I'm sure we'll come to conclusion on that matter. As for me, I believe aliases are just pathetic and going with it makes you look like a fool, this is the Ladle - don't turn it into some silly worthless tournament.

SP likes to add a second team, but if it ultimately affects our flexibility and performance - like it did this Ladle - we will reduce to one team to ensure we are not over stretching ourselves. That means the Ladles that we do have more than a few players we won't risk adding a second team, just for safety. If anyone does think it matters, then for the benefit of future Ladles - more teams being more fun - we need to adjust the rules to suit everybody fairly. It's not just for the benefit of SP, and I'm sure it's not just SP who prefers this, but also other teams that can go with two teams.

We don't gain any legal advantages by having two teams. We simply do it just so more of us can play depending on who turns up. Also we invite people that are interested in playing for us so we're also introducing more people into turning up for Ladles. That's something I don't want to stop.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by sinewav »

Flex wrote:Any uniquely added player is not considered an adjustment. Giving freedom for teams to not use up all their adjustment chances or for open teams to add in later players in etc....As for me, I believe aliases are just pathetic and going with it makes you look like a fool, this is the Ladle - don't turn it into some silly worthless tournament.
It's very hard to define unique, but I like your idea. And I understand how aliases are troublesome, but sometimes they are harmless and clever. Unfortunately I don't have anything to add to your suggestions right now but we should definitely keep the dialogue going. Maybe defining what a unique name is, or what an alias is will help us uncover a way to manage our problems with them.

Of course, we can always go the other direction and abandon player sign-ups altogether. We'll still need a Team Leader though.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by PsYkO »

The thing about aliases is that I've read reasons why they are bad and reasons why they are not bad...but no reasons for why they are good, and I can't really foresee anyone with good reasons. Aliases will stay put until they are used as a loophole, which could have been used today. I think everyone is just looking the other way when it can indeed cause problems, especially for the new rules that are being put into place.
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by wildcat »

Alias are ok if you login with your real ID (which isnt a alias then right?) I dont like the idea of teams creating an account here just for the ladle. This makes it very easy for someone from a losing team to join up using the ID and password for the alias.

I like the seeding idea. All sports use seeding for tournaments. Its the fair thing to do to reward teams that practice more.

Im happy either way though. I just love the game :)
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by sinewav »

PsYkO wrote:The thing about aliases is that I've read reasons why they are bad and reasons why they are not bad...but no reasons for why they are good, and I can't really foresee anyone with good reasons.
I'll show you a good reason now. Today in Ladle, Team Unknown used aliases and they weren't for any other reason but to have fun with our team name. Rather than use a tag (usually name.uNk, but could easily be uNk_name), we all chose words that ended in "unk": Drunk, Sunk, Kerplunk, Cyberpunk... It was a fun way show team unity without a tag. I think it would be hard to prove we had any sort of advantage using aliases, especially since we were all logged in with our common names and playing the positions you would expect us to play.

However, creating forum accounts to hide your identity is a slightly different matter. But players who win under aliases get no glory. Remember, we keep a record of past Ladles on the wiki. Wouldn't you want to be recoded correctly for historical purposes?

:!: Does anyone have experience with tournaments in a different game (halo? cod?) that they can share? How are aliases managed in other game environments? Can we learn from them?
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by PsYkO »

sinewav wrote:
PsYkO wrote:The thing about aliases is that I've read reasons why they are bad and reasons why they are not bad...but no reasons for why they are good, and I can't really foresee anyone with good reasons.
I'll show you a good reason now. Today in Ladle, Team Unknown used aliases and they weren't for any other reason but to have fun with our team name. Rather than use a tag (usually name.uNk, but could easily be uNk_name), we all chose words that ended in "unk": Drunk, Sunk, Kerplunk, Cyberpunk... It was a fun way show team unity without a tag. I think it would be hard to prove we had any sort of advantage using aliases, especially since we were all logged in with our common names and playing the positions you would expect us to play.

:!: Does anyone have experience with tournaments in a different game (halo? cod?) that they can share? How are aliases managed in other game environments? Can we learn from them?
I honestly can't see that as a good reason for allowing aliases. And if that is the best you got than you are definitely looking away from the unbalanced nature of a Pro vs Con chart.

The only other tournaments I've played in in games other than Tron: Halo and AoE 2 and 3, smurfs were/are rampant and looked down upon. Elite players would create a new account to gain a competitive advantage to catch an opponent off guard.

Competitive Advantage: The two main factors of performance are raw skill and strategy. Raw skill is fairly easy to counter with your own raw skill, however, someone can get caught off guard of another player's strategy. Aggressive/passive play... Attack up front or flank... Favorite weapon/unit/hiding locations. Obviously there are more variables when dealing with other games,

Advantage in relation to Tron: Armagetron is its own animal. Ex: Xyron and akira switch names/both use unknown names during an organized match. Everyone knows just purely based on their name, that Xyron is a more aggressive player than akira. You have to watch your backend more, focus on sealing more, focus on speeding up more to counter his speed. Akira you have to be more maniacal with your planning and attack strategy. Look at how much information I just came up with off the top of my head purely based on the words "Xyron" and "akira". I immediately transferred that information and now I am going to act and adapt my play style accordingly.

In terms of tournaments: Half and half. Some tournaments allowed smurfs and some didn't. The more official ones (set up by administration rather than independent clans) prohibited smurf names, mostly due to the competitive advantage. There was an instant that I was involved in a clan war and found out a couple weeks after we lost that one of their members didn't show so they gave an account to someone very skilled.

Advantage in relation to Tron: As the rules are now, the potential for this exists with allowing teams to just signing up smurf names is the freedom to mix and match your players (not on the challenge board).

Security: Signing up one known captain and say 7 smurf names, like some teams do, allows for a security blanket. To give an example, one of our members didn't show up for the ladle, but because we have on the challenge board our actual names, we were pretty much screwed for a little bit. If we signed up all smurfs, than we could get away with saying "Oh yeah Player X on challenge board is Player Y in game" and no one would know, this is an advantage. You sign up your team at your own risk and it is your responsibility to make sure you have enough members to cover your ass. Admittedly, we screwed up with our numbers this ladle (first time in like 20 appearances though), luckily dlh said it was ok for us to sub eggcozy. I find subbing someone and going through an admin to do so far more legitimate than signing up smurfs.
Flex
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by Flex »

Well said. You stated pretty much the exact obvious of what the main advantages of by going under alias. Like beating a dead horse, did someone have to really explain every little detail just so the point can be transfered across? People should know this already. I find it hard to believe the majority are not aware of this or they must be aware! But at least you said what was needed.

SP isn't fighting a defensive battle here either, we can also go under alias. Already team Unknown, ID clan did it last Ladle (37). I hope it was only just because of a response to another team going under alias and not for personal preference. I also hope it doesn't get repeated. Once the gates open, there will be a hard times to turn back, but now the big picture remains; what happens to Fortress and the Ladle as a whole once we accept smurfs/aliases as a norm and everybody starts doing it.

Not to get too nostalgic. The passion for Fortress and the Ladle dies when the honor dies. And while I'm at it - clans are the living, breathing entities of any community. People need to join clans or at least proper stable teams with at least some attachments and promote growth to excite the outsiders which in connection comes from competition and competitiveness!

PsYkO, maybe the AoE/AoC attitude is making us biased, lol. I played that for like 6 years and the first website I visited online was Zone.com! :p
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Re: Ladle 37 Voting Thread: CLOSED

Post by syllabear »

I think we will simply hit an impasse until we can take a step back and look at the whole 'alias' situation in its entirity. So far, all the posts are generalising it as using aliases or not. However, there are infact, several different ways of using aliases, some which are acceptable in my eyes.


First there is what unk did: Using aliases, but also logging in and showing GID, so its fairly easy to see who is who. I'm ok with that.

Then there is changing your names on the day to aliases, and not showing GID. I am not ok with that, and as far as I am aware, it is against the rules of the tournament, since you are not playing with the 'same players' as that were signed up on the challenge board.

Some would argue unk's method is similar, but as long as opponents are in some way aware of their enemy's identity (i.e. by showing real GIDs that match those who were signed up for the team), they are OK.

Then there is signing up a bunch of aliased players, either with or without smurf logins as well, which is technically still allowed, but I think that we are getting to the point where its simply old. Sure you had your fun with smurf names, but I think this voting period will mark at least the beginings to rules to combat aliases such as this.

Finally, and one that nobody so far has really touched on, is players on the same team switching names. For example, Flex and Psyko are playing on SP, and decide they'll call themselves Psyko and Flex respectively. They can even trade their login information for GID, or just have one person logged in as the real user, who ops the rest of the team. Technically this is still allowed, since you are using the names provided on the challenge board. This is probably where alias will be heading, and there might have been a bit of this already going on this ladle. I think that again, unless real GIDs are used, its pretty bad (i.e. Flex can play with Psyko's name, but he has to use his Flex login)

So how do we combat this? Best way is make a new Authority, @ladle or whatever, and have teamleaders only able to make one account per person. Admins/mods can IP/whatever check their accounts, as well as use their own discression. Players must login to their @ladle GID before playing a match. Violators banned from ladle forever, or a very sustained period of time.

And also, people need to grow up and stop using immature tactics to get an upper hand.
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