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

[sinewav]

Yes the pros and cons are obvious, but like sylla said, the way aliases are used give them different weight. Because of this, it's hard to claim and imbalance; there is a little subjectivity to it. But regardless of that, there is a more important issue everyone is sidestepping - defining an alias.

There has been a lot of talk recently about @ladle. This is a move in the right direction I think. But there are some questions that need to be answered first:

1) Who manages @ladle?

2) How do we prevent the same player from having multiple @lade accounts?

3) How does this affect new players and new teams?

- - - - - - - - -
Here's my personal opinion about aliases since I've never really voiced it: I don't care either way. I think aliases are fun and playful. I've never thought anyone who used them was a lesser person for it. This is probably because it doesn't affect me as a player. I'm a goalie. My job is to keep everyone out of the zone. I don't care of your name is Ban Ki Moon, you're not getting in. Also, it's in my personality to treat every enemy as the greatest challenge. I don't who you are; you're not on my team so I want to kill you and I'll do everything I can to make it happen.

However, I want the game to be fun for all. I aliases are a problem, then get rid of them! It's more important for everyone to have fun.


Hey moderator! This might be the beginning of a worthwhile discussion. Maybe split?

[wildcat]

I really dont see how Team Unk using the UNK names gave us any advantage. /players clearly showed who each person was. If its a problem though, I dont care to use my real name. Even though my name was WildcatUnkizzle which really isnt hiding anything

[PsYkO]

Team uNk I don't see as a competitive advantage because you still contained your real name and that is pretty easy to decipher. The TOTAL smurf name and/or "NO DUDE WE HAD OUR FIRST LETTER IN OUR SMURF NAME EVEN THOUGH 2/6 WASN'T EVEN THE FIRST LETTER YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT!!!ONE" (Yes...that really did happen, =/) require a lot more to determine who they are then a what unk did. If you apply it to any of my detailed reasonings, than you would find that you couldn't get away with any of the other loopholes. Your names are still recognizable and unique.

I define and alias/smurf as a name that is created for a tournament that is NOT the same name that the player is widely known as. I see where you are going sine, with grey areas and such. But I think it is pretty clear judging from the challenge board which players are using smurf names and which players are not.

Kind of like what happened last ladle...All that needed to happen was "Just don't do it again, idiots or there will be consequences". I'm really hopeful (although I may be mistaken) that this community is competent enough to understand when they are using a smurf and when they aren't. IMO there is NO good reason from a tournament standpoint to use smurf names.

[sinewav]

Everyone please chill. We have a good conversation going, let's not ruin it.

I define and alias/smurf as a name that is created for a tournament that is NOT the same name that the player is widely known as. I see where you are going sine, with grey areas and such. But I think it is pretty clear judging from the challenge board which players are using smurf names and which players are not.

Yes, but sometimes there are legitimate new players and new teams. I remember the first time I saw TU: (Tronners Unlimited? Is that the name?) I thought it was a smurf team because I had never heard of them or seen them. But that was because they were all from CTWF, somewhere I rarely go. Wouldn't they be pissed if we were like "o u can't play smurfy, gtfo!"

We will get this worked out soon I think. A registered Ladle authority (@ladle) with a built-in check that ensures a single IP can't have more than one registered name should work well... except when two people actually share an IP. That I have no solution for, haha!

[PsYkO]

I think @Ladle can work and the exemptions to that are so few that it wouldn't cause too many headaches. I don't think it should ever come to a level of "You used a player who used a name that isn't his normal one thus you are d/qed" but if it gets to a level that it is looked down upon (like it is in most other games) I think the solution will work its way out eventually.

Before moving further on this subject, maybe have a vote (even though I doubt it will be passed) to tell players to sign up and play with their normal names. I'm quite confident that if the team leaders know that their challenge board must be accurate and representative of the names of people on their team, the problem will be fixed to an extent that everyone will be happy. @Ladle may be in the works for the future, but not the near future. The more people you have and the more competition there is in the tournament, the more people will try and get the upper hand and plan for loopholes.

[owned]

Also second; I know I'm a bit late on this, but after talking to people, it appears there may be a bit more opposition to the seeding that was suggested by this vote, as evidenced in-topic by ID and SP both most likely having voted against it (giving the no-seeds 5 votes). I was wondering, when will we see a re-vote to keep the same, change, or get rid of the seeding system agreed to here?

Note that even had those two teams voted for no seeds, the outcome would still be the same. Look at the rules.
But, if enough people feel the need to vote again on the seeding topic, then they should bring up another voting discussion topic and post why they think there should be no seeding. Then we would vote again.

[syllabear]

As for the seeding... We can at least try it, since theres enough interest. We'll see how it goes in L38, and if it is rubbish, then we can revote about.

[PsYkO]

Back on topic:

SP voted no for seeding but I would have voted yes, individually. The thing is, to both sides of the argument, no one knows how the seeding will work. It is all about experimentation at this point. I love that we are experimenting with the ladle because it will only get better.

[Eckz]

...the problem will be fixed to an extent that everyone will be happy...

Response to Alias Suggestion: So far it has only been Flex and yourself who have not been happy. Why must rules be made to make the ladle satisfactory by your standards?

[PsYkO]

...the problem will be fixed to an extent that everyone will be happy...

Response to Alias Suggestion: So far it has only been Flex and yourself who have not been happy. Why must rules be made to make the ladle satisfactory by your standards?
!

Can the mods please split this thread? =/

Trying to go back on topic yet again.. Actually all of SP doesn't like it (EDIT: I don't want to say all... I haven't posted a poll or anything, I just haven't heard a SP say that they don't mind it, just ones that say it carries many cons), and I wouldn't put it past some other people in the community. Many people, IMO, are held up on the concept whether or not it is or is not a competitive advantage, and for the most part it is clearly opinionated. However, I am using this forum to try and give my insight on why I hold my opinion, possibly sway others, and put forth hypothetical solutions in which, at a later date, smurfs can clearly **** some things up.

Everything concerning the ladle is decided by popular vote, majority, democratic vote, whatever you want to call it, and that's the way it should be. In no way am I saying, "It should be this way because I want it to be this way" moreso "Here is my opinion on why the cons of smurfs are way greater than the pros" to try and convince others in an intelligent and thought-provoking conversation.

I've seen two positives put forth about smurfs, well actually one postiive and one anti negative. Goody (anti negative) in another post said there was no competitive advantage and sine/unk (in this thread) said they liked how it was more fun for this ladle. Goody's I don't agree with and Sine/uNk's I don't see that as very substantiated, if you want the ladle to be more fun, get a teammate that can tell good jokes

[sinewav]

Ok look, it's not just SP that has an issue with aliases. I remember this being a problem as far back as L-19 with players other than Flex and PsYkO, and I'm sure people complained even before that. The opinions SP are just as valid as everyone else's. And I'm sorry it wasn't obvious to everyone, but we were having a constructive conversation.

If a mod reads this, maybe he can split up the posts my me, sylla, Flex and PsYkO can have a serious discussion and leave this thread to die in flames.

[sinewav]

I spent some time researching aliases in past Ladles to try and determine if there really is a competitive advantage based on actual wins in our tournament. It's a bit inconclusive. (Maybe someone can do a better job than me because I'm a novice at this type of work.)

Criteria:
I only used the names on the Challenge Board unless I knew for sure aliases were used in-game: 20-Plus, 20-Plus, 37-Unknown, 37-Immortal Dynasty (I don't know for sure, but taking SP's word for it).

I defined "aliased team" as one where the majority of players were completely unknown, or had significantly altered their popular name (adding/removing letters/characters, reordering, case changes, 1337).

Process:
I collected two data sets: one shows the round level (did they advance?), and the other shows match level (how did they do?). A no-show (2) counts as a loss. I then compared the win/loss ratio for both sets.

Conclusion:
At the round level, aliased teams performed about 30% better than the teams they faced.
At the match level, aliased teams did only 20% better than their opponents.

It doesn't seem significant when considering the following:
The instances of "Team Binary" and "Vowel Appreciation" were made of players who were likely to win without aliases. The two instances of "Plus" in Ladle 20 makes it even more confusing since both teams faced each other, negating any advantage an alias would have had (but was included in the data set). And the fact is, at the time Plus was doing well without aliases anyway.

I would go as far as to say that aliases provide no significant advantage in Ladle based on the past Ladle history. The majority of aliased teams did not do well, or didn't show up at all. The teams that did do well, would likely do well anyway.

Afterthoughts:
The frequency of aliased teams does seem to be increasing slowly, starting with Ladle 16. The only team I did not recognize was TiP in Ladle 4, who didn't show up anyway. It seems likely this was a legitimate team, but I'm sure someone who was there at the time could tell you better. I remember a discussion about TUI and aliases, but I don't know enough of the Ladle history to comment about it. From a data collection standpoint, they are a legit team, having several instances of play.

Please note I did not write this post to say "so-and-so" is wrong or "what's-his-name" is right. I thought it would be helpful to present this information considering the topic of aliases in Ladle has reached a seemingly problematic stage. I welcome peer review and alternate interpretations of this work.

[PsYkO]

Unfortunately I have to leave soon or else I could back this up with more data.

A) Those results you found actually are significant. In statistics, significance is the last thing you want to conclude if you don't do the mathematical procedures (confidence intervals, post hoc tests, etc.). Significance is determined a lot by sample size (which in this case, is fairly small).

B) There are so so many factors involved in ladle matches (skill... hello?) that any numbers coming out of any statistical equation can be very misleading, even though what you found could actually be considered as a statistically significant competitive advantage, which is what I think.

C) It's hard to define whether team A beats team B purely because of using smurfs. But I can tell you very specific times in which I died because I thought a smurf was someone else and adjusted for their playing style. Now you come up with all of these situations:

Smurf kills me but my team still wins
Smurf kills me and my team loses
Smurf wouldn't have killed me, but I would have died later in the round
Round win, round lost
Smurf wouldn't hav ekilled me, and I stayed alive for the rest of the round
Round win, round lost

These situations are basically stupid to look at because tron is such a fast paced and even the slightest subtlety can change the outlook of the game (yes, smurfing is a subtlety). If I center, that round changes IMMENSELY. If I get caught up with someone in the middle and it takes me 1 second longer to get to the enemy zone, everyone else in the enemy zone is 1 second ahead which may change my entire tactic, where I turn, which side I take. The smallest thing can change the outcome of a match.

[pike]

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.

/me buys you syllabeer

I don't have any problems with players using aliases. There's one condition though: show your GID. Imagine the size of the drama if someone would play in TeamA under one alias, and when his team will lose he will join TeamB with other alias.

[sinewav]

But with so many factors in fortress, couldn't this also be true?

Lag kills me but my team still wins
Lag kills me and my team loses
Lag wouldn't have killed me, but I would have died later in the round
Round win, round lost
Lag wouldn't hav ekilled me, and I stayed alive for the rest of the round
Round win, round lost

I don't see how we can really prove aliases are an advantage unless we do an experiment. Should we set one up? An alias tournament? (we would need a separate thread)

I wonder if we should turn the discussion to @ladle and try to answer the important questions about it. Who will manage it? How do we prevent more than one name per IP? Can the IP's be checked at the time of Ladle (like a filter that only let's registered IP's in)?

I would also like to discuss abandoning player sign-up altogether as a possibility. I don't see the harm in it.

There is one idea I had this morning, and that was to change the time we fill the brackets. My suggestion is to leave the Challenge Board completely open until one hour before Ladle. At that time we freeze the Board and random/seed the teams. No more changes. No players who aren't already on the board can play. Sure, it doesn't solve the alias problem, but it's a different approach to running this event and would let us eliminate a lot of the current rules that no one really cares about following anyway.