Ladle 130 - October 3rd

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Cadillac_
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Ladle 130 - October 3rd

Post by Cadillac_ »

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syllabear
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Re: Ladle 130 - October 3rd

Post by syllabear »

There are two main things I wanted to address - rules and behaviour, if you're interested in just one of these go to the subheading.

The Rules
I think this is mostly in hand now, Deli and Sine seem to be doing a good job of starting to canvas for opinions and making a plan going forward. However I think it is just as important to look back at what has been done (poorly) in the past.

One of the clear issues was how the three-way tiebreak was handled. The decision on Sunday was based on a paragraph written by Vov in July this year under the "Challenge Board" heading of the Challenge board:
Tie breakers are as follows: 2 teams = head to head result, 3 teams rock paper scissors = highest score where they lost in the tiebreak, if extra matches are somehow necessary they are 1 match to 100 points in the finals' server.
The first issue is of course, no matter Vov's best intention, there was no consensus on this rule. It was suggested by over in the ladle discord channel, repeated by Vov, liked by Deso and then added to where it is now. From my understanding this is not how we make rule changes or add new rules - hence my reputation a few months ago as someone who pushed polls for everything. I don't think Vov should be punished for this. I also don't think this is how things should be done. However, maybe going forward people don't mind if some changes are added by players with little or no discussion? Certainly from the response I got to previous questions/polls about ladle format it does seem even team captains dragged their feet on making decisions.

The second issue with this particular rule is that it is so vague. It suggests that head-to-heads decide tiebreakers, but it also says that if necessary matches to 100 can be played. So which is it? It also says that for 2-way tiebreaks the head-to-head score result is also used. We haven't had this situation since July when Vov put it on the wiki. However, it nearly happened in ladle 128 and I think most people were (or at least I was) under the impression there would be a tiebreaker played between WTF and UNK for the second finals spot

Finally regarding this edit - its in the wrong place. There is an operations page exactly for rules. I look at the challenge board more than most people (Cadillac excluded) but I never thought to read this section for any rule updates. There is an operations page for this exact reason. This does kind of lead into the state of the operations page - it needs a large rework/update, but I am sure this can be looked at by deli/sine and whoever else ends up assisting with deciding on the rules.

Another point to note - Deso is the last person to add anything of substance to the operations page. In July he added a completely unnecessary and inflammatory section. This may well be a good natured jab at MYM but I think it's not the right place for it:
It is recommended that C tier players improve their skills in sumo to be able to withstand the scourge of super teams ruining ladle competition.
Interestingly the edit before this exactly a year ago is a rule guide for round robin, but only for 4 team ladles. This does state that 3 way ties will play each other. From looking through discord, Deso states that there was some agreement among team captains at the time about this rule. I know it specifically refers to 4-team round robins, but if it was indeed voted on, then it is actually rule precedent and means that the way this ladle was handled was actually against the rules.

Behaviour
Everyone knows I played with MYM this ladle. Some people seem to think I did it because I was desperate for a ladle win. In reality there hasn't been many people watching my casts or VODs, which makes me less inclined to do it. I've also found playing the game more fun recently and just wanted to fort. I posted as much in tron-media in early September. Nobody asked me to play for them so the day before ladle I put my name in free agents. It was just a happy coincidence that Jericho was adding mYm shortly afterwards and snapped me up to save any of them having to play in defence.

If that doesn't convince you, while still in their discord I suggested they should accept the ladle loss as a type of punishment for the decision to forfeit against paradigm, and as an olive branch to the community. This would hopefully encourage others to also come forward and be honest about their actions (see below). I felt very uneasy at the time about the decision to forfeit, but being a guest on the team and the weakest player I didn't feel comfortable speaking up - and I genuinely regret this.

That being said, there was no malice in the decision to forfeit that match by mYm. I can't remember who suggested it, but the idea was to try and speed up ladle as wolf was only available for a short while longer and may be able to play the finals if it was played sooner. To me, most/everyone else in the voice chat sounded really unsure about the decision, but it did make sense and so I think we all just went along with it. Of course several assumptions were made - firstly as that would be our only loss, we were "guaranteed" at least a playoff chance for the finals (since at most paradigm would win their remaining match, and other teams would have more losses than us). Nobody considered unknown winning against both teams, because we'd played them and they just didn't feel strong enough. Obviously these assumptions were not smart, and like I said above, I think the just punishment for that stupid decision was that mYm don't get to win this ladle despite almost being a dead cert.

It's now pretty much public knowledge that some players on paradigm and RnR threw matches to prevent mYm from getting to finals. Whether this was done to "punish" them for their forfeit decision, because of jealousy or dislike of their players, or to make a finals easier, there is no excuse for this behaviour. Some of these players have either avoided the discussion on discord, or outright lied about it, before later either admitting or justifying their behaviour. At the end of the day, only the players responsible know what they did or why they did it. So far magi of all people seems to be the only person who has actually given anything resembling an apology yet, despite being probably (one of) the least responsible. The rest of you know who you are and I think it is about time you just say sorry for what you've done.

Further to this, the behaviour of both unk and paradigm, as well as a select few from other teams in the immediate aftermath of unk's round robin win was also poor. You almost entirely ignored mYm players (when you weren't making smug comments about how they "failed" to make finals) like a group of children excluding someone they don't like. What was stopping representatives from each team going to chat about it in a private discord like adults?

At the end of the day there is a person behind each user. I don't think anyone here is a genuinely bad person, and there's nobody in this community (before Sunday anyway) that I didn't like or respect, and trust to be honest and act in good faith. Maybe I'm completely wrong about all of this, and my impotent rage about the unjust treatment of my team meant I interpreted the actions of others in an excessively negative way. But if I'm right, I would once again encourage people who know deep down how and why they behaved to take the high road and just own up and maybe apologise, if not for your actions, but for the way it impacted your fellow tronners.

I'm also a bit disappointed by the way Thump's suggestion about some kind of pact or promise to play ladle in good spirits going forward was mocked. Sure it's not a water tight solution, but maybe the reaction to it is more of a reflection on the players who shot it down. I would be more than happy to sign such an agreement.
The Halley's comet of Armagetron.
ps I'm not tokoyami
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sinewav
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Re: Ladle 130 - October 3rd

Post by sinewav »

syllabear wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 10:38 pm...I am sure this can be looked at by deli/sine and whoever else ends up assisting with deciding on the rules.
Delinquent and I are spearheading an initiative to solve these problems before next Ladle and we look forward to your input. I think your post just touches the surface of issues we've been neglecting and hopefully we can tighten up the tournament with some new guidelines and new incentives for good behavior. I'm deliberately ignorant of all but the most obvious details of this disastrous Ladle, and I don't want to know who said what to whom because I like everyone in this game and I don't want to put on my public shaming suit. :P

We'll make this better.
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Re: Ladle 130 - October 3rd

Post by Word »

I guess having some low-level drama is an indication that the ladle is still entertaining and healthy!
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sinewav
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Re: Ladle 130 - October 3rd

Post by sinewav »

I persuaded a few Ladle Enthusiasts to form a discussion group and we tried to sort out a few problems with Ladle procedures. The group brought the following topics to a vote on Discord in a poll that lasted from October 31st to November 6th and was open to all players, not just Team Leaders:

Forfeits are:
(3) Allowed under any circumstances, whether both team agree or not.
(2) Allowed only if Team Leaders agree.
(12) Allowed with a penalty (the match is recorded as 150-0).
(1) Never allowed (unenforceable).

Ties will be resolved in one of three ways:
(2) The team(s) with the highest losing score against the other tied team advance to the finals.
(8) The team(s) with the largest score differential against the other tied team advance to the finals.
(3) For each team in the tie, sum the score differential off all winning rounds and subtract the differential of losing rounds. The team(s) with the largest result advance.

There are a few unresolved issues and this poll was regrettably sloppy, but hopefully someone will continue the discussion. Either way, we are in better shape having done this work!
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