How should DCs be handled in tournaments?

[Citrus]

How do you feel disconnections should be handled in tournaments? I have seen some mixed opinions on squidboards as well as Twitch chats.

 

[Deleted Member]

DCs should never benefit the losing team, or be incentive.

 

[Aweshucks]

It's tough to find the sweet spot between too strict and too lenient. If you're too strict, you end up punishing teams for something that is beyond their control. On the other hand, if you're too lenient, teams may get away with things they otherwise wouldn't, and sets may take much longer than expected.

I'd love to hear other people's opinion on this one.

 

[LockeExile]

DCs should never benefit the losing team, or be incentive.

You don't know for sure who the "losing team" is until the match is over, at which point the match has already been affected by a d/c. Sure it can be pretty obvious that a team is going to lose and would have lost even with a fourth member - or a team was going to win until they lost a member - but there's a very fuzzy line and a lot of room for debate, which can't happen in the midst of a timeboxed match.

If the rule allows a replay then a d/c can "benefit the losing team" if someone on the losing team disconnects.
If the rule doesn't allow a replay then a d/c can "benefit the losing team" if someone on the team that would have won disconnects so they lose instead.
And there's no way to reliably and definitively determine whether a team "would have won", which is why replays exist.

 

[Vitezen]

I'd say that you can be lenient on DC's as long as they occur before the teams start fighting for mid, so basically the first 15 seconds of the match MAX. Restarting a match because someone DC'd two seconds in? Fine. Restarting because they DC'd mid-match? No.

 

[Power]

Long Post:
I don't believe any elite team has disconnected on purpose, but the possibility is still there. It is a nuisance nonetheless.

If the lead is obvious in one teams favor at the time of DC (Opponent disconnects), I believe the team with the lead should take the game or play it out. I have seen many 100-4 (random number) matches get restarted because of a DC. Could a comeback be made with the 4th person? Very possible... I guess that brings up an issue in this point. At what point should speculation cease and whether or not it is worth it in regards to what a team could have or wouldn't have done when a disconnect occurs?

If the player on the winning team disconnects than I feel that the match should not automatically go to them, obviously. A restart is up to them if they decide to have one, (the off chance that they win 3v4) I feel that this type of rule set benefits the leading team much more than the losing team, granting them a free match if they try to 3v4. Once again, the lead has to be substantial.

A problem with that is that some may find it troublesome to take photos .. and abuse of the technically no repercussions match. (Although the dominating lead wouldn't give off that impression)

Some questions I feel we need to ask ourselves is...
Who will receive most of the benefit from Disconnects?
In what situation should one side be favored over another?
Do disconnect restarts affect sets in a negative way? Is this simply something we have to accept for online tourneys?

Having a neutral stance imo isn't arguable in Q2 because there will always be a team that dominates 100-3 or some other number like that once a disconnect occurs. This resets the match, giving both teams insight into the composition and tactics, reducing the other teams efforts, whether or not it was luck, to zero. The leading team is punished. I have seen people respond with, "if they did it once, they should be able to do it again" which I feel is a flawed take on the situation because high level play is not simply stomping on randoms. A lead of such magnitude is much less likely to be overcome than a 50-50 match, should the efforts of the leading team go to waste? If the tide could easily turn in the restart is this debate of "100-4 domination, no restart." even relevant?

Here are some basic ideas I can come up with (not saying I am supporting them, just brainstorming some points that may contradict each other)

If you restart regardless of who disconnects and when:
(ONLY 1 D/C per set allowed, further d/cs, the match is played out)
-Weapons/gear can be changed if leading team is dominating and losing team disconnects
-Weapons and gear cannot be changed if the match was close (Even more Tricky territory)
-New host, maybe a restart of internet by the disconnecting player.

Problems:
-Score is not always the best indicator of dominance, a team may just be on the brink of making a solid push or have exceptional map control and are waiting for the counter to catch up if they were behind. In such cases I guess the best ruling would be to restart the match.

If a match is restarted...

-An entirely new game type is selected (A predetermined game type by T.O's if Disconnect occurs for the first time)
EX: Round 1 has the D/C map/mode of Walleye Tower, if a Disconnect occurs and a restart happens, this game type will be played instead. Problems with repetition and if it is worth it will arise.

Sorry for the long, unorganized post. I was mainly rambling on about things.

One thing that should be made clear, for all tournament organizers... make your disconnection rules as clear as possible. We don't need any more chaos added into an already tricky subject.

 

[Ultramus]

SCL rules are currently the best, if you DC within the first 30 seconds, restart, otherwise you play it out and move on. I've lost a few matches in SCL because of this and I don't mind at all. It limits abuse, makes the tourney run faster, and avoids the fact that a restart isn't fair to either team really. DCs happen and that sucks, but it is better to just play it out, change hosts if needed, and move on. I absolutely hate having to replay a match.

 

[jamesrcade]

Half stealing what Symph said in the chat because I think it's a good idea but first thing that can be done before a match is played is to do a test match (any map and say TC or RM). This goes on for at least 3 minutes and will see if there are any noticeable issues of lag or DCs - it also has the benefit of being handwarmers if people want that. If it seems ok, carry on as normal - if not try a different host. If the same player keeps DCing maybe they have a problem.

After that matches are played out even if a DC happens. If a DC happens, that team can sub that player out in the next game or continue on and hope it doesn't happen again.

DCs suck, but it makes it way more complicated than it should be if you have to replay games. Having to provide pictures to the TO or other team adds more time to what is already a long process, plus if there are rules about keeping the same load outs on replayed games that can be tricky to keep track off. If everyone has a stream of their team it might be more feasible but that isn't something that should be expected of teams.

 

[Aweshucks]

SCL rules are currently the best, if you DC within the first 30 seconds, restart, otherwise you play it out and move on. I've lost a few matches in SCL because of this and I don't mind at all. It limits abuse, makes the tourney run faster, and avoids the fact that a restart isn't fair to either team really. DCs happen and that sucks, but it is better to just play it out, change hosts if needed, and move on. I absolutely hate having to replay a match.

SCL rules are slightly more complicated than that but you've got the basic idea. You can restart the match if a player DCs within the first 30 seconds or if multiple players DC at any time, but each team is only allowed to restart one match per set in this manner (we also try to keep track of who uses this rule often so that it isn't abused). Also, if people from both teams DC, then the match is restarted without penalizing either team.

Half stealing what Symph said in the chat because I think it's a good idea but first thing that can be done before a match is played is to do a test match (any map and say TC or RM). This goes on for at least 3 minutes and will see if there are any noticeable issues of lag or DCs - it also has the benefit of being handwarmers if people want that. If it seems ok, carry on as normal - if not try a different host. If the same player keeps DCing maybe they have a problem.

It sounds alright in theory, but in practice adding 3 minutes of testing/handwarmers to the beginning of each set will take sooooo much time. Definitely not my favorite solution

 

[Fightersword]

SCL rules are currently the best, if you DC within the first 30 seconds, restart, otherwise you play it out and move on. I've lost a few matches in SCL because of this and I don't mind at all. It limits abuse, makes the tourney run faster, and avoids the fact that a restart isn't fair to either team really. DCs happen and that sucks, but it is better to just play it out, change hosts if needed, and move on. I absolutely hate having to replay a match.

I'm glad you like them.

yeah a lot of thought went into the d/c problem. We came to the conclusion that there really wasn't an optimal solution for reasons I think I've touched on in other places. Our ruleset is the way it is to make sure teams aren't totally screwed over by D/Cs, but also so that things keep moving at a decent pace and so people can't really abuse the rule, at least that much. It's not really possible to abuse that effectively because you can only do it once per round and as we've said many times, we are watching for teams with abnormal D/C rates. Unless nintendo steps up and offers better online functionality, IMO this is really the best we can do. I would Like a better rule, but most rules or edits to the current rule that are fairer in theory that I came up with would be impossible for us to enforce or otherwise extremely unfeasible.

If all things were controlled for and we TOs had omniscience on everything that went on in every match, then the "fairest" rule would take into account the match time, which team seemed like they were going to win, etcetra. Such control over what happens would make it very easy to call when a D/C match should be restarted and when it shouldn't, and would be nearly impossible to abuse. Many people in this topic have brought this up in some form or another. Optimally, that would be the best solution to the d/c problem. However, the way things are would make such a thing an impossibility to enforce. We don't have spectate, and even if we did it would be very hard to have enough willing people for tournaments to keep an eye on every game to watch for D/Cs to make calls. Asking people to take pictures in the middle of a match as close to when it happened as possible would be absolutely ludicrous, especially since we may call against them causing them to waste time that could be spent playing taking a picture. This is also why SCL has steered away from *much* time related ideas on D/C rules: we have the clause at match start because it doesn't waste much time and because it makes some sense. Even than requires a lot of good faith in the teams to be able to enforce very effectively.

What I'm trying to say is, though an optimal solution to the problem is able to be thought up in discussions, it is impossible to enforce these rules that are, agreeably, the most fair way of doing things.

 

[Damandatwin]

SCL rules are slightly more complicated than that but you've got the basic idea. You can restart the match if a player DCs within the first 30 seconds or if multiple players DC at any time, but each team is only allowed to restart one match per set in this manner (we also try to keep track of who uses this rule often so that it isn't abused). Also, if people from both teams DC, then the match is restarted without penalizing either team

this sounds pretty good. the most important thing as far as i'm concerned is to do away with the "if someone on your team DCs you get a free restart" because it is way way way way way too easy to abuse, whereas if the team who has their team member DC is penalized (by having to play a 3v4) the potential for abuse still exists* but at least it can't be done by anyone who isn't brain-dead.

*: you can still theoretically abuse the system through the use of packet analyzing tools like Wireshark to block certain IPs. however you need specialist knowledge to do this so i personally wouldn't be concerned about it yet (not that there's much we could do to stop it anyway).

 

[Fightersword]

this sounds pretty good. the most important thing as far as i'm concerned is to do away with the "if someone on your team DCs you get a free restart" because it is way way way way way too easy to abuse, whereas if the team who has their team member DC is penalized (by having to play a 3v4) the potential for abuse still exists* but at least it can't be done by anyone who isn't brain-dead.

*: you can still theoretically abuse the system through the use of packet analyzing tools like Wireshark to block certain IPs. however you need specialist knowledge to do this so i personally wouldn't be concerned about it yet (not that there's much we could do to stop it anyway).

yeah we know about the potential for IP blocking stuff. We doubt it would ever happen, but if it seems like a team has opponents consistently getting D/Cs regardless of who they play against then we'll try our best to look into the matter.

We put the limit to D/C related restarts simply because we know it can be abused like you mentioned. It's also why we're watching for teams that seem to have D/Cs fairly often. We also prefer proof but we know that's hard to enforce and a person can just shut off their wifi to get such a thing anyway rather than turning off their wii U. The first 30 seconds rule and the *at least 2 rule* also tries to limit abuse and mostly keep things moving. First thirty seconds is kind of a good ballpark estimate for if you'r ejust getting screwed over. Of course that includes at match start. And there's also the clause about random D/Cs from both teams = a free restart because splatoon does that sometimes.

We'd prob just make them play it out if you could rejoin mid match, but you cannot. Even then splatoon matches are so bloody short we'd have to be careful. Ideally we'd be able to watch for the exact time the person(s) D/Ced and how the match was carrying on, as well as all the other specifics, but that's impossible to consistently enforce. Ultimately it does fall on the player to make sure their connection is stable, but we know that there are many times where D/Cs cannot honestly be attributed to the players so we offer a little bit of leniency to try and keep things fair without allowing people to abuse the rules.

A perfect solution? no. But it's the one that I believe has worked best so far. If we had omniscience of everything that happens in every match then we would definitely update the rule to be more precise and exact. But that's unenforceable. Even if everyone had a stream we'd need at least 8 TOs to watch all the matches without missing anything, which means we'd need 8 TOs + 2 TOs on the floor (which is what we have now, me and aweshucks typically) to communicate with players and make decisions, update the brackets, etc. That's a 400% increase in manpower to enforce one rule for small SE tourneys. That's if every team was streaming, which we know would never happen.

That's what it really comes down to in this discussion: what's the fairest rule that can be instituted that doesn't require too much good faith and is reasonable to enforce. It's really the last two points of that that decide the D/C rule.

 

[Damandatwin]

just to clarify when i was talking about the "if someone on your team DCs you get a free restart" i meant the version where you get a free restart regardless of when they DCed; i think your strategy is basically as good as it's going to get with the tools we have.

 

[Fightersword]

just to clarify when i was talking about the "if someone on your team DCs you get a free restart" i meant the version where you get a free restart regardless of when they DCed; i think your strategy is basically as good as it's going to get with the tools we have.

yeah I knew what you meant, I was just clarifying what we do and why to you and anyone who wants to know.

I think ND's tourney ran your version. IDK how well that did because everyone was focused on other issues the tourney had.

 

[Rockin]

This is my prespective of it.

If teammate from Team A DC the first 4 minutes in, then the match should be resetted, and both teams check their connection status before playing again. If the same or different teammember from Team A DCs again, that team is DQ and Team B wins the round.

If Teammate from Team A DCs when there's a minute left on the clock, the match plays out. At this point, it's crunch time in point game, and should be played off as normal.

Both teams are given 1 'lifeline' before considered being DQed. Both teams are ONLY able to switch teammate if they're completely unable to connect. However, if this comes to past, the DCed player is not allowed to play the following rounds afterwards (of the entire set).

 

[Smarty1two]

From my experience, most accidental DC's are either at the beginning of a match or about half way, anything after that I would be suspicious.