teal6
Moderator
On the back of the joke I made yesterday in the SPL thread, this is something that has been bugging me for some time. We in the TD Channel have been discussing it back and forth for a little while, but I think that this is a subject that the community should be able to comment on as well.
Personally I think that our current setup for activity is a bit bogus and needs to be more clearly defined. As things stand, the system gives incentive to lie to avoid community backlash in situations where the chorus of players deem the activity inappropriate. While I personally have never had an activity problem (I have lost to activity, but never once contested an act loss) I think that the current rules assume a flexibility of schedule that's completely silly.
Right now we sort of seem to use these "common sense" activity guidelines that are not well written nor very public. I'll use a personal example of what I think was a pretty unfair activity situation for me in an individual a few years ago but many users would have attacked me if I took the win:
In Smogon Classic II Top 16 I was paired against denisssss. At the time I worked a pretty rough schedule as I had recently moved to California and was doing heavy work in my career. Denis and I scheduled for Sunday night which was fine for me, the weekdays were what proved to be problematic. After missing the scheduled time by about a half hour, Denis came online and we played the first game of the series. He subsequently went AFK for another 20 minutes or so, and then came back and said he had to postpone the rest of the series. I was given until Wednesday to complete the series.
Now, I was able to be online after work Mon-Weds. However, from my point of view, it was completely unfair to have to play this - at the time I was working literally in the middle of the desert and would come home completely exhausted and feeling like garbage. I wasn't going to call activity, so I acquiesced to play, but just as I had expected I felt like shit during the games (which is why I specifically had scheduled for when I did). I don't think this was a fair situation for me, really, but if I had attempted to take an activity win the backlash would be absurd.
In order to protect players from similar situations I believe we should codify our rules better to avoid these situations.
In team tournaments the situation is similar. Right now, it behooves a manager to force their player to lie if they have an adverse situation in which they actually log onto the computer. If your Discord goes green, no matter the circumstance, you will be bombarded with messages to play. I know that even when I'm out with friends and drinking and doing whatever I'll instinctively click the Discord app - am I obliged to play at 1AM blacked out if my opponent missed the time prior?
I'll stop rambling at this point and sum it up:
I understand that making stricter activity rules will be unpopular. I understand that the "common sense" crowd will want nothing more than to "get games done". From a player perspective and from a fan of Pokemon perspective I feel exactly the same. But in my role as Tournament Director I think the more we leave to discretion the sloppier and more inconsistent our tournaments will be. In turn, I think it is best to have a discussion with no mud slinging about what appropriate activity currently is, could be, and should be. By codifying this we will lift the burden from the player and get rid of the incentive to lie, hide and dodge if we take it out of the players hands - something I think is incredibly unhealthy for our tournaments (team tournaments in particular).
Personally I think that our current setup for activity is a bit bogus and needs to be more clearly defined. As things stand, the system gives incentive to lie to avoid community backlash in situations where the chorus of players deem the activity inappropriate. While I personally have never had an activity problem (I have lost to activity, but never once contested an act loss) I think that the current rules assume a flexibility of schedule that's completely silly.
Right now we sort of seem to use these "common sense" activity guidelines that are not well written nor very public. I'll use a personal example of what I think was a pretty unfair activity situation for me in an individual a few years ago but many users would have attacked me if I took the win:
In Smogon Classic II Top 16 I was paired against denisssss. At the time I worked a pretty rough schedule as I had recently moved to California and was doing heavy work in my career. Denis and I scheduled for Sunday night which was fine for me, the weekdays were what proved to be problematic. After missing the scheduled time by about a half hour, Denis came online and we played the first game of the series. He subsequently went AFK for another 20 minutes or so, and then came back and said he had to postpone the rest of the series. I was given until Wednesday to complete the series.
Now, I was able to be online after work Mon-Weds. However, from my point of view, it was completely unfair to have to play this - at the time I was working literally in the middle of the desert and would come home completely exhausted and feeling like garbage. I wasn't going to call activity, so I acquiesced to play, but just as I had expected I felt like shit during the games (which is why I specifically had scheduled for when I did). I don't think this was a fair situation for me, really, but if I had attempted to take an activity win the backlash would be absurd.
In order to protect players from similar situations I believe we should codify our rules better to avoid these situations.
In team tournaments the situation is similar. Right now, it behooves a manager to force their player to lie if they have an adverse situation in which they actually log onto the computer. If your Discord goes green, no matter the circumstance, you will be bombarded with messages to play. I know that even when I'm out with friends and drinking and doing whatever I'll instinctively click the Discord app - am I obliged to play at 1AM blacked out if my opponent missed the time prior?
I'll stop rambling at this point and sum it up:
I understand that making stricter activity rules will be unpopular. I understand that the "common sense" crowd will want nothing more than to "get games done". From a player perspective and from a fan of Pokemon perspective I feel exactly the same. But in my role as Tournament Director I think the more we leave to discretion the sloppier and more inconsistent our tournaments will be. In turn, I think it is best to have a discussion with no mud slinging about what appropriate activity currently is, could be, and should be. By codifying this we will lift the burden from the player and get rid of the incentive to lie, hide and dodge if we take it out of the players hands - something I think is incredibly unhealthy for our tournaments (team tournaments in particular).