ECL 4 - Rules and potential changes.

[OxtreeLAT]

In light of the recent events I feel like it's time to take a closer look at the current regulations and their purpose. As Finnish Roosters demonstrated, there are still some cancerous teams in this community that will try to further their cause at all costs. Their lack of class, sportsmanship and fair play is evident to everyone. As seen in their post-game comment - they have the "if it's not in the rules, it's a fair game" mindset. To keep teams like this in check we need to refine the current rulebook and the way it's used. 

Rules should be considered as a tool that the staff can use in order to enforce basic standards and behavior. Not "be all, say all" kinda deal. The final decision and authority should still come down to the staff. In unique circumstances where there are no rules covering the specific situation, they should still have the ability to make a ruling that the teams are required to follow. A recommendation that they can just ignore - that's not good enough. Currently it looks like the staff's hands are tied by the very same rules that are supposed to be there to help them. The result? A situation where a team(Finnish Roosters) essentially can chose whichever solution suits them the best, completely ignoring fair play, sportsmanship and the core goal of the regulations - providing fair, competitive environment. As seen, our community clearly isn't mature enough to be able to look at these things objectively and come up with a reasonable solution.

The glitches will come and go and the staff needs to have the ability to react on the fly, implement new rules if required and enforce them accordingly. It's a game, there will be bugs. Same with the rulebook and loopholes in it. The community clearly isn't able to deal with it and seeing how some people behave - simple A-Z regulations in my eyes don't work.

As such I urge people to start an early discussion about the current rules and the potential changes to them for the upcoming ECL 4.

For example, a thing that somehow slipped everyone - Gs bunny hop bug(https://clips.twitch.tv/thecreasetv/CalmDogUnSane). If something like this happens, will it be treated the same as the situation between SSG vs FR where it's up to the opponent to decide what they want to do? All down to whenever or not the other team is understanding and values sportsmanship/fair play enough to clear the puck? Seems a bit fucked up, especially when we've seen what Finnish Roosters would do with the "read the rules, it's not there" mindset.
 

Edited December 19, 2016 by OxtreeLAT

[J-Foppa]

I really wished OxtreeLATs post was written by someone else (billy?) cause even if I agree to some points there is no way of getting around the fact that a lot of members will only view it as whining. 

I don't know if it was removed or perhaps never implemented in the first place but I have a vague memory of a pretty general prohibition of exploiting the game mechanics (such as he hidden stance for face offs). I'm not entirely sure your situation would be covered since FR didn't really exploit the game, they just didn't care that EA gave you the finger. However...seeing recent discussions in other matters like keep playing against a bot etc I think most people would agree that it's not fair play to keep playing against a bot and certainly not when a player freezes. I don't see any reason not to implement a rule that would include such situations. Although it's not as clear cut perhaps which type of situations should be included. For example I'm an expert at the chop-glitch where after I tried a chop my guy turns into a severely handicapped person with no ability to move other than just gliding. Would that be a glitch? I'd say yes...but if opponent used that to to their advantage would it be an infraction? Probably not.

I think the discussion could be good...if we leave SSG and FR out of it

Edited December 19, 2016 by Egyptologen

[tbnantti]

I agree! In a perfect world there wouldn't be any vagueness in rules. So maybe it does need a revamp. A glitched out goalie definitely needs to be added to the rules.

As for the FR v SSG case, only SSG broke the rules by leaving the game. 

[Billy44205]

If I'm not mistaken the staff have already demonstrated the ability to amend rules on the fly when issues were brought up, such as the arena props thing. So that's a non-issue imo.

Now, should there be a rule about players freezing similar to players disconnecting? Sure why not? I think everyone agrees here. It's a little unfair to blame them for not having the amendment ready when this was the first instance where people complained about this glitch in any significant way. Non-issue.

Should the rules be updated? Of course. For instance the disconnection rules are written for NHL16 at a time when club challenges were not possible. And let's face it, the people who chose to give one team the choice between leaving immediately and waiting till the end of the period, those people were wrong. Since once again everyone seems to be in favor of leaving games right when people disconnect it should be the rule in the future. There's a few items like this that need rethinking. The book is already updated every season. Could it be done better? Sure, and I myself complained about the rulebook updates that I believe are retarded. But at least the process is ongoing, it's just a matter of resources on the task imo. Issue? Meh, kinda but not really...

Back to the FR vs SSG incident, I have not followed the story that much but if the staff made a ruling about this occurrence of the freezing glitch, at least it sets a precedent for the remainder of the tournament, or as I said they can just add a rule like they have already done in this very tournament. If they don't do either of these things, THEN you can complain about the staff. Yay! 

 

One last thing: The staff already has plenty ernough power, and in fact I would advocate for them to have less, but that would come with more accountability from other people. I have written in the ECL wishlist thread that I wanted to see a board of team GM's that would be, among other things, tasked with approving rulebooks and rule changes on the fly throughout seasons. I think it's time people embraced the rulebook which is the key to this tournament structure, rather than take it for granted and then complain about détails. Of course, if you've already embraced it, you are free to complain about it to your heart's content and in a constructive way. Like I do lol.

[imosi]

39 minutes ago, Billy44205 said:

 

One last thing: The staff already has plenty ernough power, and in fact I would advocate for them to have less, but that would come with more accountability from other people. I have written in the ECL wishlist thread that I wanted to see a board of team GM's that would be, among other things, tasked with approving rulebooks and rule changes on the fly throughout seasons. I think it's time people embraced the rulebook which is the key to this tournament structure, rather than take it for granted and then complain about détails. Of course, if you've already embraced it, you are free to complain about it to your heart's content and in a constructive way. Like I do lol.

This is a great idea and I think the staff has thought of having a board if I'm not completely wrong.

[OxtreeLAT]

2 hours ago, Billy44205 said:

If I'm not mistaken the staff have already demonstrated the ability to amend rules on the fly when issues were brought up, such as the arena props thing. So that's a non-issue imo.

Now, should there be a rule about players freezing similar to players disconnecting? Sure why not? I think everyone agrees here. It's a little unfair to blame them for not having the amendment ready when this was the first instance where people complained about this glitch in any significant way. Non-issue.

Should the rules be updated? Of course. For instance the disconnection rules are written for NHL16 at a time when club challenges were not possible. And let's face it, the people who chose to give one team the choice between leaving immediately and waiting till the end of the period, those people were wrong. Since once again everyone seems to be in favor of leaving games right when people disconnect it should be the rule in the future. There's a few items like this that need rethinking. The book is already updated every season. Could it be done better? Sure, and I myself complained about the rulebook updates that I believe are retarded. But at least the process is ongoing, it's just a matter of resources on the task imo. Issue? Meh, kinda but not really...

Back to the FR vs SSG incident, I have not followed the story that much but if the staff made a ruling about this occurrence of the freezing glitch, at least it sets a precedent for the remainder of the tournament, or as I said they can just add a rule like they have already done in this very tournament. If they don't do either of these things, THEN you can complain about the staff. Yay! 

 

One last thing: The staff already has plenty ernough power, and in fact I would advocate for them to have less, but that would come with more accountability from other people. I have written in the ECL wishlist thread that I wanted to see a board of team GM's that would be, among other things, tasked with approving rulebooks and rule changes on the fly throughout seasons. I think it's time people embraced the rulebook which is the key to this tournament structure, rather than take it for granted and then complain about détails. Of course, if you've already embraced it, you are free to complain about it to your heart's content and in a constructive way. Like I do lol.

Yes, they have demonstrated their ability to change the rules and adapt when it comes down to relatively easy subjects where there's little risk of backlash from the community. That said, when it's about something that will rough feathers - they play softball. From what I've heard, in the case between SSG and FR it changed. Instead of issuing an actual ruling and adapting, they went with a recommendation where the side that benefited from the glitch could still keep the advantage and completely disregard their recommendation. Now looking at the game report - the score stayed the same and goal was deemed as a good goal. I don't know about you, but in my eyes that's far from a "non-issue" when the staff recognizes that there's something wrong, but can't enforce it and leave it up to the teams to decide. We've clearly seen multiple times that this community isn't ready for something like that.

Basically they've set a precedent where if a member of a "Team X" gets stuck in an animation(worst case scenario it's G) and the "Team Y" scores, directly benefiting from this bug, it's up to "Team Y" to decide if they count it as a good goal.

At the end the main thing that I want to get is a clear indication of staff's position. As you said - at one point they have the power to change things, yet at another their hands are tied. This is crucial for integrity of any future tournaments as there are plenty of people who have the mindset of "if it's not in the rules, it's a fair game". People basically need to know if the administration can enforce a ruling even in the cases when something pops up that's not in the rulebook... Or are we looking at a situation where everything needs to be covered in the rulebook and there are no rulings that can be made if the regulations don't cover said incidents.

Anyway, I have a feeling that Kenu's report will shed some much needed light on these recent events.

Now to GMs - I'm personally all for giving the actual players more ways to have their voices heard and give them a chance to mold this tournament to their liking. That said, the staff should still be solely responsible for enforcing the actual rules. Also with the current division system, if something like that comes to life, every division should be represented, not just the "elite".

Edited December 20, 2016 by OxtreeLAT

[J-Foppa]

5 hours ago, OxtreeLAT said:

People basically need to know if the administration can enforce a ruling even in the cases when something pops up that's not in the rulebook... Or are we looking at a situation where everything needs to be covered in the rulebook

Definitely no!

"Nulla poena sine lege (Latin for "no penalty without a law") is a legal principle, requiring that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law. This principle is accepted and codified in modern democratic states as a basic requirement of the rule of law.^[1]"

There can't be actions taken without the support of rules. This does not mean that rules need to be exhaustive. They can be specific or general, including excluding, exhaustive non exhaustive, its about writing the right type of rule for a certain situation. 

[OxtreeLAT]

1 minute ago, Egyptologen said:

Definitely no!

"Nulla poena sine lege (Latin for "no penalty without a law") is a legal principle, requiring that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law. This principle is accepted and codified in modern democratic states as a basic requirement of the rule of law.^[1]"

There can't be actions taken without the support of rules. This does not mean that rules need to be exhaustive. They can be specific or general, including excluding, exhaustive non exhaustive, its about writing the right type of rule for a certain situation. 

I disagree. This isn't court. There are things in this game that are gamebreaking and if they aren't covered in the rules and staff just lets them slide/doesn't fix them, they essentially punish the teams that become the first victims of them. The core principle of the rulebook should be to provide a fair and competitive environment where teams can compete. That's it. Sadly I didn't see it happening in the incident between SSG and FR where essentially one team was punished due to an in-game bug/staff's oversight.

If rules prevent them from giving fair and sportsmanlike rulings within the spirit of the rules... Something's clearly wrong. Either way I've made my case. I just wonder how the community would react if there was a case of G getting stuck and giving up GWG in an elimination game. Funny how perspective works.

[J-Foppa]

28 minutes ago, OxtreeLAT said:

I disagree. This isn't court. There are things in this game that are gamebreaking and if they aren't covered in the rules and staff just lets them slide/doesn't fix them, they essentially punish the teams that become the first victims of them. The core principle of the rulebook should be to provide a fair and competitive environment where teams can compete. That's it. Sadly I didn't see it happening in the incident between SSG and FR where essentially one team was punished due to an in-game bug/staff's oversight.

If rules prevent them from giving fair and sportsmanlike rulings within the spirit of the rules... Something's clearly wrong. Either way I've made my case. I just wonder how the community would react if there was a case of G getting stuck and giving up GWG in an elimination game. Funny how perspective works.

What are you disagreeing with? I said things need to be covered by the rulebook to be applicable. Rules and law is essentially the same thing. The difference is rules applies to certain people for certain things where law applies to everybody within its reach.

Rules can cover everything if they are smart enough. For example name a possible glitch similar to SSGs that would counter a rule that said "any goal occured through a glitch not triggered by any of the participating members, shall not count"

Just an example

[OxtreeLAT]

2 hours ago, Egyptologen said:

What are you disagreeing with? I said things need to be covered by the rulebook to be applicable. Rules and law is essentially the same thing. The difference is rules applies to certain people for certain things where law applies to everybody within its reach.

Rules can cover everything if they are smart enough. For example name a possible glitch similar to SSGs that would counter a rule that said "any goal occured through a glitch not triggered by any of the participating members, shall not count"

Just an example

I disagree with the idea that staff should only be allowed to make a ruling if there are rules that cover said situations. I feel like the solution of having vague rules would only be there as a "checkmark" and it would still leave a room for people to argue the "it's not in the rules, it's fair game". You're essentially adapting the same thing I'm asking for, just with a vague set of rules to go with it.

Here's an example. If I remember correctly in one of the Pro League finals for Rainbow Six Siege in Bank - a professional esports scene - there was an invisibility glitch that happened during one of the matches. No rules covered said situation, they contacted the admins and Ubisoft developers(in our case it would be the staff), asked for their decision and they canceled that whole round. The players themselves had no say in this decision.  And that's an esports competition with serious prize pool of $75 000.

Actually, here's a link to the video:

The whole thing starts at around 1 hour 50 minutes. The build-up is rather slow as the casters don't have the information right away, but they start discussing the actual bug and the solution at 2 hours 5 minutes and then 2 hours 13 minutes. Would love to see what @Kenu take on this is.

Bottom line - this example shows how things like these are handled in a professional environment. I don't understand why we need to reinvent the wheel and try to make things even more complicated by potentially leaving room for other issues.

 

Edited December 20, 2016 by OxtreeLAT

[Billy44205]

Yeah I don't trust NHLGamer staff enough to gladly surrender too much power to them. Also we don't have access to EA Vancouver devs lol.

Also according to this :

http://cdn2.esl.tv/fileadmin/user_upload/Rainbow6/Tom_Clancys_Rainbow_Six_Season-3_Rulebook_2016.pdf

The rulebook for this Pro League is 22 pages long. So much for general guidelines...

I'm basically on Egyptologen's side on this matter, although I guess I can live with admins voiding (note that they don't punish the team, they just void one game) results such as the FR vs SSG game. Maybe. Then again this is one tricky thing because isn't it like, way easy to fake a goalie freeze glitch and us it to your advantage? I dunno, I'm not interested in getting into the specifics and it's someone else's job.

[J-Foppa]

1 hour ago, OxtreeLAT said:

You're essentially adapting the same thing I'm asking for, just with a vague set of rules to go with it.

I was hoping I didn't have to go into a deeper explanation but here we go.

The rules are not vague. The one I just took as an example is a non exhaustive general rule to adress the issue that EA glitches that have a serious impact on a teams ability to defend themselves, should not be responsible for goals. Now this is the aim of the rule. As with any rule there needs to be an aim, or a goal so to speak. So once the aim is established you need to decide what type of rule would suit the need. Sometimes the rule needs to be specific to exclude other similar situations or behaviour, but sometimes the rule needs to be non exhaustive so it doesn't exclude similar situations that still falls within the aim of the rule. This does not make the rule vague. 

Admins will always play a key roll because they are the ones interpreting the situations according with the rules. But to say for example  - your behaviour is bad even if it is not in the rules, lets have admins decided what to do - is not very appropriate. In that case we might as well just have a vote in such instances (where people will vote what is in their team's best interest). Or we just go back to the old "tgma decides" and no one knows what is right or wrong until admins made their decision.

[OxtreeLAT]

39 minutes ago, Billy44205 said:

Yeah I don't trust NHLGamer staff enough to gladly surrender too much power to them. Also we don't have access to EA Vancouver devs lol.

Also according to this :

http://cdn2.esl.tv/fileadmin/user_upload/Rainbow6/Tom_Clancys_Rainbow_Six_Season-3_Rulebook_2016.pdf

The rulebook for this Pro League is 22 pages long. So much for general guidelines...

I'm basically on Egyptologen's side on this matter, although I guess I can live with admins voiding (note that they don't punish the team, they just void one game) results such as the FR vs SSG game. Maybe. Then again this is one tricky thing because isn't it like, way easy to fake a goalie freeze glitch and us it to your advantage? I dunno, I'm not interested in getting into the specifics and it's someone else's job.

Not surprising since you've always seemingly had a beef with the administration. In my eyes they have done a great job with all the previous tournaments and with their track record I truly can't see a reason why they can't be trusted(otherwise we're starting to look like bunch of people with tinfoil hats).

Sure, it is 22 pages long, but as you can imagine, a tournament that has a prize pool of $75 000 requires a significantly more rules and regulations. Also nowhere did I mention "general guidelines". Say whatever you want, but the core principle is there - admins still have the final say. Sure, we don't have access to the developers, but there are plenty of times when a bug is clearly evident and there's no need to "call EA Sports".

Also from what I hear nobody was asking to void the whole game. The only question was whenever or not the third goal scored by FR was gonna be disallowed/allowed, continuing game where it left off. That's it.

Also I don't see how something like this could be used to gain a significant advantage. Sure, you'll get a break, but as seen in the past with player disconnects - the time remaining and any PK/PP scenario from the previous game stays valid.

Hell, now that we're talking about it - what if a goalie disconnects when there's a skater on a breakaway? Will it again come down to the common courtesy and sportsmanship of one side or will the staff finally get to do something about it?

Edited December 20, 2016 by OxtreeLAT

[OxtreeLAT]

7 minutes ago, Egyptologen said:

I was hoping I didn't have to go into a deeper explanation but here we go.

The rules are not vague. The one I just took as an example is a non exhaustive general rule to adress the issue that EA glitches that have a serious impact on a teams ability to defend themselves, should not be responsible for goals. Now this is the aim of the rule. As with any rule there needs to be an aim, or a goal so to speak. So once the aim is established you need to decide what type of rule would suit the need. Sometimes the rule needs to be specific to exclude other similar situations or behaviour, but sometimes the rule needs to be non exhaustive so it doesn't exclude similar situations that still falls within the aim of the rule. This does not make the rule vague. 

Admins will always play a key roll because they are the ones interpreting the situations according with the rules. But to say for example  - your behaviour is bad even if it is not in the rules, lets have admins decided what to do - is not very appropriate. In that case we might as well just have a vote in such instances (where people will vote what is in their team's best interest). Or we just go back to the old "tgma decides" and no one knows what is right or wrong until admins made their decision.

That's fine with me. All I want to see is that at the end of the day we don't reach another SSG vs FR situation where admins are only able to recommend a course of action where one of the involved parties can just chose whichever solution fits them the best, completely ignoring the core principles of the rulebook - providing fair and competitive environment for all teams. That's all.

Otherwise if there's another issue like this where a team suffers due to an in-game bug and it not being covered in the rules - you can expect the same wall of text. Tho I guess in that case it will be easier... More of a "copy/paste" kinda deal. 

[J-Foppa]

10 hours ago, OxtreeLAT said:

what if a goalie disconnects when there's a skater on a breakaway? Will it again come down to the common courtesy and sportsmanship of one side or will the staff finally get to do something about it?

This is a situation that would need a specific rule. Thankfully I've yet to seen this scenario but I guess it's just a matter of time before it happens. 

I dont think there's been a great need for in-game rules in the past. I remember a dive-glitch -rule back in NHL12 or 13, but mostly teams have showed a great deal of sportsmanship. Maybe It's just a coincidence for this tournament but I've seen a few instances where winning is more important than playing "fair". 

Is there a shift in people's attitude towards each other or is it perhaps coincidence? 

Maybe there is a greater need for admins to create stricter rules regarding in-game situations? I much prefer when people/teams solve stuff without the need of a rule book but obviously you can't count on that. Which is why the rule book is important.

Regarding goalie disconnect I wouldn't mind viewing it as a penalty. 2 min for a dc. Penalty shot if it was a breakaway. Or perhaps maybe not an automatic penalty but a rule saying something like - if the dc happened when the puck was in your own zone, the opposing team had a scoring chance or whatever it would result in a penalty. 

Hopefully a rule that would never have to be enforced...but the same could be said about SSG - Roosters

Regarding glitches, I think a fairly general rule would cover that. EA glitches that causes a clear disadvantage to one team should not impact the result of the game. Then it's up to admins to interpret those glitches.