In discussion with other Doubles players about Smogon's tournament rules and general guidelines, I came across an unusual ruling that I think merits serious revising concerning so-called "objective timesavers". Quoted from the post:
The first problem I have with this is that knowledge of these timesavers aren't required to be made public to both players. Nothing in this ruling is restricting a player from messaging their whole team on Discord for assistance with any of these! The definition of ghosting provided earlier in the post rules out voice calls at least, presumably due to a lack of documentation. But what restricts having a bunch of players working away in the background, providing calcs and mechanics information on request and replays / RMT without even needing to request? Maybe someone on the team will know how this niche mechanics interaction works, or can quickly test it on the side and tell you!
My second problem is the devalue of timer management. The player who is able to determine the optimal decision to make in a reasonable amount of time ought to be advantaged over the player who is not able. But making informed decisions often requires information that takes additional time to collect. Suppose I'm playing and U-turn from Lando chips my mon. There isn't any need to have that information immediately (it just left the field), but it is advantageous to know that info in the future. By asking a friend or teammate, "can you calc if that's offensive lando", you save time and can focus on the immediate board state post U-turn. Surely this also falls under "doing a calculation that was requested by the player". But this takes away from the skill of timer management. Rather than taking up time early game to find out this info, you can just ask a friend to do it for you, which gives you more decision-making time. I don't see how you could argue that objective timesavers aren't objectively beneficial to the player receiving them, because having more timer is advantageous. Because I think time management during a game is a valuable skill, I think allowing timesavers from sources not originating from the player devalues this skill.
My third problem is a few of these definitions seem dangerously slippery to me. Suppose I ask my team, "hey, are there any replays of my opponent using this team with their Heatran set revealed"? I don't see how it violates the current objective timesaver rules for my teammate to give a replay with that information, especially given that replay sharing can even be done unprompted. Regarding damage calculations, there is also nothing here in the rules about requesting a specific calculation. What restricts me from asking a friend, "hey, what's the minimum and maximum amount of defensive investment they have to have to only take 40% from this first hit and 5% from this second hit". This is useful information that would tell you a lot about a mon's EV spread and inform decision-making, but is time consuming to do mid-game. With a friend helping out, you can obtain nuanced information like this that would otherwise be probably inaccessible. Presumably, there's no problems sharing with a friend the exact amount of damage your mon took from an attack as well; they have your paste and can reverse engineer the damage rolls exactly. Or consider mechanics! Here's some sample questions that I think fall within the scope of the current definition:
Fourth, it seems to me that such a rule violates the spirit of the motivation behind punishing ghosting: that is, players ought to play their own games individually. Tournaments are supposed to test individual skill, and allowing outside influence, at all, is problematic. Why is allowed for a person to share an RMT or replay with a person who might not have otherwise known that information? Just because information is public doesn't guarantee every person has accessed every possible public resource, or would know every mechanic there is to know. While there is no reason you can't have all of this assistance before the match, I think it goes against the spirit of the game to allow outside help during the match, period.
My proposal would be as follows:
I have a few problems with objective timesavers that I think are independent issues. This thread isn't motivated by any particular abuses of objective timesavers, but rather because I think their allowance generally is flawed.On the ruling of calculations and other timesavers:
Player-requested calculations and other objective timesavers* are allowed. The driving force behind allowing objective timesavers is that these actions require only minimal effort and/or the information is publicly available and easily accessed by the player in the context of the battle. The act of giving other players this information is largely considered negligible and only exists to save time.
* It is incredibly important to understand that only objective timesavers that provide trivial information are allowed. There are ways that players can provide seemingly OK information that implies a move, thought process, or a route of action; this is not allowed and is considered ghosting.
If you're not sure if an action is acceptable or not, look at this list:
Requesting that a teammate do a calculation for you to save time: Allowed
Doing a calculation that was requested by the player: Allowed.
Linking the player a RMT of the team they are facing: Allowed.
Linking the player a public replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Allowed.
Pointing out that their timer is low: Allowed.
Asking about a mechanic: Allowed.
Answering an objective question about mechanics: Allowed.
Doing any calculation that was not requested by the player: Not Allowed.
Speculation of any kind, such as (this Landorus has to be scarf): Not Allowed.
Linking the player a private replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Not Allowed.
Linking the player a private importable where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Not Allowed.
Suggesting moves of any kind: Extremely Not Allowed.
The first problem I have with this is that knowledge of these timesavers aren't required to be made public to both players. Nothing in this ruling is restricting a player from messaging their whole team on Discord for assistance with any of these! The definition of ghosting provided earlier in the post rules out voice calls at least, presumably due to a lack of documentation. But what restricts having a bunch of players working away in the background, providing calcs and mechanics information on request and replays / RMT without even needing to request? Maybe someone on the team will know how this niche mechanics interaction works, or can quickly test it on the side and tell you!
My second problem is the devalue of timer management. The player who is able to determine the optimal decision to make in a reasonable amount of time ought to be advantaged over the player who is not able. But making informed decisions often requires information that takes additional time to collect. Suppose I'm playing and U-turn from Lando chips my mon. There isn't any need to have that information immediately (it just left the field), but it is advantageous to know that info in the future. By asking a friend or teammate, "can you calc if that's offensive lando", you save time and can focus on the immediate board state post U-turn. Surely this also falls under "doing a calculation that was requested by the player". But this takes away from the skill of timer management. Rather than taking up time early game to find out this info, you can just ask a friend to do it for you, which gives you more decision-making time. I don't see how you could argue that objective timesavers aren't objectively beneficial to the player receiving them, because having more timer is advantageous. Because I think time management during a game is a valuable skill, I think allowing timesavers from sources not originating from the player devalues this skill.
My third problem is a few of these definitions seem dangerously slippery to me. Suppose I ask my team, "hey, are there any replays of my opponent using this team with their Heatran set revealed"? I don't see how it violates the current objective timesaver rules for my teammate to give a replay with that information, especially given that replay sharing can even be done unprompted. Regarding damage calculations, there is also nothing here in the rules about requesting a specific calculation. What restricts me from asking a friend, "hey, what's the minimum and maximum amount of defensive investment they have to have to only take 40% from this first hit and 5% from this second hit". This is useful information that would tell you a lot about a mon's EV spread and inform decision-making, but is time consuming to do mid-game. With a friend helping out, you can obtain nuanced information like this that would otherwise be probably inaccessible. Presumably, there's no problems sharing with a friend the exact amount of damage your mon took from an attack as well; they have your paste and can reverse engineer the damage rolls exactly. Or consider mechanics! Here's some sample questions that I think fall within the scope of the current definition:
- If two Pokemon switch in after a double KO and one takes Stealth Rock damage before the other's Intimidate, asking "does that mean <mon damaged by rocks> is faster"?
- If Kartana gets a Speed, rather than Attack boost, asking "how much Attack does that Kart have to get a Speed boost"?
- If a Flying-type Pokemon is Yawned, but Misty Terrain is active, and you ask "does using Roost mean I won't get slept?"
- If my opponent dodges Sleep Powder, asking, "does that rule out Safety Goggles?".
Fourth, it seems to me that such a rule violates the spirit of the motivation behind punishing ghosting: that is, players ought to play their own games individually. Tournaments are supposed to test individual skill, and allowing outside influence, at all, is problematic. Why is allowed for a person to share an RMT or replay with a person who might not have otherwise known that information? Just because information is public doesn't guarantee every person has accessed every possible public resource, or would know every mechanic there is to know. While there is no reason you can't have all of this assistance before the match, I think it goes against the spirit of the game to allow outside help during the match, period.
My proposal would be as follows:
- Consider requesting / giving calcs, sharing public replays / RMTs, and requesting mechanics information as ghosting.
- I feel most strongly about mechanics information. I don't see how that isn't in effect telling players what to do based on how an interaction works.
- I'm not asking for communication to be completely banned, but for communication contributing to player success in a game to be disallowed.
- Many of these could be considered "lighter" versions of ghosting and warrant less punishment, but still be generally against the rules.
- Alternatively, allow these things, but require the request be public knowledge to both players, such as in the game chat.
- Requesting information is still possible, but comes at the cost of your opponent knowing you asked about it, and responses are publicly available to the opponent as well. It's not behind closed doors.
- Response: Abuses of objective timesavers would be ruled as ghosting by TOs anyway.
- Counter-response: I think the objective timesavers as they are currently stated just are examples of ghosting (i.e. not playing the match yourself as an individual and receiving help from an outside party). They are ghosting in their current form, and the rules should be revised to reflect this.
- Response: Objective timesavers are helpful for people in certain circumstances x (e.g. playing on a phone which means calcs take longer).
- Counter-response: I can't think of circumstances x that would warrant the advantages receiving third-party assistance entails. If you're playing on your phone for a tournament set and can't do calcs as fast as on a computer, that's just a consequence of using that kind of technology and not something that I think should be bypassed by allowing another to do it for you.
- EDIT: I was PMed that a good set of circumstances could be things like a person with vision issues asking for help because their assistive technology doesn't work well with the damage calculator. I think this is perfectly reasonable and is a valid exception, so long as the opponent and probably the TO is aware. I could imagine other situations like this where the opponent agrees to allowing third-party help due to special circumstances, while still generally disallowing objective timesavers.
- Response: Objective timesavers are only supposed to offer trivial information. But your examples are non-trivial.
- Counter-response: Modify the objective timesaver definition and examples provided so that my non-trivial cases would be more clearly forbidden. They do not currently seem to be.
- Response: Changing this rule doesn't stop people from obviously ghosting, e.g. in a private voice call where they can do way worse than these.
- Counter-response: Right, but at least our rules more accurately define and disallow ghosting.
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