FFG Floor Rules

This whole thread is a hilarious parody of the gun control debate.

10 Likes

This is not a place to discuss politics. Please don’t even bring it up.

7 Likes

I just thought it was a funny coincidence, don’t be weird.

I think Kyle had the best response to this by a long shot. The tournament structure should be designed to encourage people to play their games in an enforceable and fun way. I’ve posted in this thread “against” IDs because (1) they are against the rules. If we wanted to enforce those rules we could, we’re just lazy, like in Josh’s example. And (2) I disagree with the idea of doing them; I would never myself offer or take an ID intentionally.

However, I don’t think IDs should be against the rules simply because I think it’s a waste of my time as the TO to enforce it. Instead, fix the tournament system by giving incentives to play the games to the best of your ability. Make IDs worth less total points, make sweeps worth more total points, fix timed wins and ties, and put in benefits for being higher seed in the elimination rounds, etc.

16 Likes

I wasn’t being weird, that stuff can get out of hand extremely fast.

I clearly feel ID’s should be made legal. That doesn’t mean they have to be worth the same as a split. You could legalize them and make them worth 1 pt each. This might lead to people being more open about doing it, if they were very certain one point would lock a spot in the cut. If they weren’t, a lot easier to sign the slip at one game each and get the full 2 points, so I doubt it would be very effective.

The one worry I have (and what I was trying to get at with my last point, which was poorly stated) is that 2 skilled, but not tournament savvy players could play each other, not knowing that they could ID into the top 8, because they don’t know enough about the structure to figured it out.

I think the most equitable way to allow IDs would be to have the tournament software do them automatically. If you can guaranteed ID into the top 8, then the software will do it for you. You will still get a match for the last round and are encouraged to play it for fun and posterity if you like, but you are not required to.

I just don’t like the idea of some skill other than playing the game, such as an understanding of the tournament structure, influencing players’ abilities to make the cut. That’s what I meant by hurting community growth.

This is 100% false. It is one of the hardest cheats to catch in the game because the two players who are playing are not trying to catch one another.

You’re right. In magic, usually like, at least half of the top 8 split to get in. In netrunner, it would usually be 2 people max in a top 8, and maybe 4 in a top 16 who could do it, because you effectively play 2 rounds of swiss at once, so it’s much harder to find a safe time to ID. Also actual ties come up all the time. Netrunner is a MUCH BETTER game to allow splits in.

You can’t really make IDs worth less points than an unintentional split, or you run into the same issue, and if you make a sweep in one match and then a get-swept in another worth more than two splits, you’re just adding unnecessary variance to the tournament structure. It’s not like it’s harder to win 2 games in a row vs the same person than it is to win 2 games in general, and you shouldn’t be rewarded more for it.

You can’t allow concession and not allow splitting, because then 2 friends will, a huge amount of the time, concede to game 2 when they win game 1 in a situation where ID was reasonable. At this point, you actually are helping out well-connected players. I think this is the best moral reason for allowing IDs; that players should be allowed to concede. As I said before, you’re already inviting this scenario softly by banning IDs because one friend, without any agreement, can just choose to play badly, or more strongly, play in such a way that they certainly won’t win.

11 Likes

Good point. There’s less and less reason to play 2 game rounds…

it’s astounding to me that i cannot make the distinction between agreeing to split a match and ignoring the rules of the game clear. i have doubts that at least some of you see these as analogous situations or would consider the punishment equitable

[quote=“Xenasis, post:233, topic:5257”]
There are a lot of “but if we cracked down, maybe people would cheat in secret!”, which is exactly how every other cheat works. This doesn’t mean we catch it all, but it does mean that it’s nothing special and it’s still possible to catch people who try and cheat secretly.
[/quote]this is inaccurate. you can police any other form of cheating. unless you administer a polygraph, you cannot police splitting

[quote=“Xenasis, post:233, topic:5257”]
Whatever way you want to look at it, banning IDs does make it less likely for people to ID and makes it enforceable to catch people that do cheat.
[/quote]again, for some reason it appears the people criticizing my platform are actively ignoring the points that i make.

although the rule makes it less likely for each player to intentionally split, it guarantees a significant divide between the fairness offered to players by giving a significant portion of them an opportunity to cheat

[quote=“Xenasis, post:233, topic:5257”]
Anyway, whatever your views on IDing are, regardless of whether you think it should be legal or not, IDing at an event where IDing is illegal is blatant cheating, should not be regarded as acceptable, definitely not encouraged, and may prevent people who deserve to be in the cut from being in the cut. If you are in a situation where you see two people ID, report it. Don’t complain about IDing happening if you’re happy to let people ID. If I saw somebody next to me shuffle cheat, I’d report that too; cheating is cheating and we shouldn’t be content with allowing any cheating. Despite my views, I’d be happy to ID in a tournament where IDing is legal if I thought it gave me the edge, but IDing when it’s not legal? That’s cheating. Do not encourage it.
[/quote]your position strikes me as one that comes from the perspective of someone who exists somewhere where reporting this type of thing as you see it can have a meaningful effect on how often it occurs. this seems to be consistent with what i’ve seen from Brits in this thread (largely stating they have never seen anyone do it). i’m glad that somewhere the rules are being followed often enough that by fixing a few outliers, you can cut out the majority of said cheating. in America, i’ve seen countless examples of players asking for splits, splitting around me, talking about how they or their opponent offered to split after, etc.

if you are operating from this perspective, you can understand how if you report someone in one of these circumstances, all you really do is knock otherwise deserving players out of a spot for contention, move two other players up (put them in a spot where they are likely to have a conversation about splitting), and make the two players you reported likely to conceal their methods from you next time. it is somewhat likely that you do not even have an effect on the amount of intentional splitting going on that day at that tournament, and in the long run, all you’ve done is make it more difficult for people to police it

1 Like

@anon50033301 I think the distinction is that some of us would like to encourage playing the game vs. playing the tournament system.

Creating a rule against an action that you cannot prove is an important act because it defines who you are (in this case an organization). That is all you can do because as many say if someone decides that they wish to cheat they will. That doesn’t mean that indeed it will happen, only that it can. What you can control is who you are and how you would respond to it if it was provable.

4 Likes

[quote=“ericbtool, post:250, topic:5257”]
I think the distinction is that some of us would like to encourage playing the game vs. playing the tournament system.
[/quote]i believe players who have put themselves in a situation where throwing a game guarantees them entry into a desirable position in the tournament have already fulfilled the “playing the game” incentive to the extent that it is difficult to claim they “played the tournament” to get in

9 Likes

This pretty succinctly sums it up.

1 Like

Two comments:

  1. I think the poll from SSCI should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally voted against IDs because I thought we should follow FFGs tournament rules, not because I have strong feelings about IDs one way or the other, and I’d be surprised if I was the only one.

  2. I’ve been playing in America since 2013, played in a lot of tournaments, and Ive never seen anyone even discuss breaking the ID rule.

3 Likes

then it is just a matter of philosophy. This is not really a subject that i’m emotional about.

If the point of a tournament for you is to maximize your chances for top-whatevering by manipulating the outcome when you can then I could see how partaking in these actions seems quite logical. I don’t understand it nor agree but it seems to work for you and that’s something I can’t control. At the end of the day it’s just a card game so there is that.

My own take is that I play in tournaments to compete. If i’m not competing then I’m wasting my time. If I’ve earned the right to play the better players then I want to see how I fair against them. The point of the game to me is to play it, not to use as a vehicle for some other need. This neither makes me better nor worse than others, it’s just my outlook.

When I’m knocked out of the top-whatever I want to watch the best players for that day, not the best players on average or people who have some A:NR renown or are my friends (although the latter certainly is a nice thing). That makes the spectating more enjoyable for me. Other people who enjoy spectating might feel the same way.

Have fun

  • Eric
2 Likes

[quote=“ericbtool, post:254, topic:5257”]
The point of the game to me is to play it, not to use as a vehicle for some other need. This neither makes me better nor worse than others, it’s just my outlook.
[/quote]In your last two posts you have implied enforcing the rule is a measure of control over defining yourself and that others are using the game as a “vehicle for some other need.” At all junctures you have ignored the point that I have made and others have echoed, which is that we believe the fairest and most accurate way to compete is to act to give everyone an equal field of competition.

In this post, you deem it necessary to state your philosophy makes you no better than those who disagree with you. On the contrary, I believe your entire position is rooted in reducing my motive to the most ignoble, arbitrary, results-oriented motive. And in this, you have proven you are of higher character than my misrepresented position is.

1 Like

It sounds like playing one side solves a lot of these issues. We’re already doing that for double elimination. Chess does it. The only problem is you might play less of one side, but again, we’re already living in that world for elims.

Interested to see some results if someone tries it for a local tournament.

If you are avoiding a competitive experience by ID’ing then you are satisfying a different need. The words seem pretty flat to me I didn’t color them with meaning.

I feel I must state my own philosophy so that the person I am debating with can understand where my (and possibly another’s) viewpoint comes from so that they may in turn debate from a more informed position.

“At all junctures you have ignored the point that I have made and others have echoed, which is that we believe the fairest and most accurate way to compete is to act to give everyone an equal field of competition.”

This confuses me because the whole point of ID’ing is to avoid a competitive experience based on the fear that it may dilute your chances of making the cut. What seems fair to me is to play the games and see what you earned that day.

I don’t wish to keep on going. We have a different way of looking at it and that’s that. I just wanted to respect the time you took to reply by doing so in turn.

2 Likes

When, as previously discussed, that barrier is frequently as low as sweeping two rounds of Swiss (something I have done despite never winning a tourney), then you’ve kinda gotta guard against gaming the system

1 Like

So the more friends I have at a tournament, the more likely I am to be able to get an intentional split, right?

I need to come up with some sort of secret code I can slap on a nametag for Worlds.

Many people in this thread do not believe this. It seems as simple as that.

3 Likes

Yeah, I would add that the issue isn’t really that you get through by conceding a game, it’s that you get through by having a game conceded to you.

If the cut is eight wins, and you won six Netrunner games and had two thrown for you by your last two opponents, it seems odd to argue that you “played enough Netrunner” to get through. If on the other hand you won eight Netrunner games then threw all your games to your last two opponents, it would be equally wrong in terms of contriving results (if you didn’t want to play those matches, you should probably let the TO know rather than losing them artificially), but at least you’d be able to claim that you’d “played enough Netrunner” to get through.