Conquer Club

benga wrote:Can it be removed?

Or can we have some sort of vacation mode that we can activate?

I would love to have break now and then...

I merged this from Suggestions. Guys, this is one tournament and I already said we don't have a final word yet. This one tournament isn't and auto tournament. This one tournament isn't all Championships. We're talking about one tournament. Just wait for now.

Glad to hear you guys are looking into this. Not surprised at all by the responses though. Not really sure why you seem surprised at the response. I think everybody just wants this addressed and fairly. A 1v1 tourney with this sort of gameload and this sort of duration ... well it's almost inevitable that a person will be away at some point in the tournament. Considering that most of these games come up on a daily basis means that you could get DQ'd from all games in one day if you have a sitter. So, that's why you're hearing so much response on the issue. People are rightfully worried about how it affects them.

A vacation mode is an excellent idea

I have idea about how sitting in general can be solved, not only for this tournament.
You should implement "vacation mode" for X days per year (let's say 60~90 days per year per player would be reasonable). Then, every player can turn on and off his "vacation mode" by writing start period (day/hour) and end period. In that timeframe, all his games should be frozen, so nor him nor his opponent would be able to play a game. Minimum duration of the mode should be 24 hours from the time when mode is turned on. Bad side of this is that opponent who is not in vacation would have frozen games here and there, but there are many positive sides of this suggestion, including that sitters would practically not be needed anymore and all turns would be played by account owners.

Also, I think there is an loophole in rules:

No tiebreaker games will be played. Ties are broken as such:
Head to Head games played throughout the tournament
Number of Wins going second
Seed at start of Round
Player Score at Time of sign up

Looking at how the system of the tournament is made, I suppose in every or almost every round there will be some tie breakers, so this rule is very important. However, the underlined first tie breaker rule is easy applicable when there is tie between two persons. However, in this tournament format, there will much likely always be tie between 3 or more persons, and in that case we would not have equal amount of games played among tied players throughout the whole tournament. For example, if player A faced player B 2 times, and player C 3 times, but player B faced player C only one time, how will then be applied the tie breaker rule? Player A has 5 games played, player B has 3 games played, and player C has 4 games played, so their head-to-head statistics will not be comparable. And do not forget, ties will happen in every or almost every round, and this is the first tie breaker rule, so this is one very important question to solve in advance.

Vacation mode would be a great idea though I think 60-90 days is excessive.

For this tournament a possibility would be to set an amount of time coverage is allowed. These turns would have to be taken by 1 person not entered in this event and that person could only cover for 1 player.

josko.ri wrote:I have idea about how sitting in general can be solved, not only for this tournament.
You should implement "vacation mode" for X days per year (let's say 60~90 days per year per player would be reasonable). Then, every player can turn on and off his "vacation mode" by writing start period (day/hour) and end period. In that timeframe, all his games should be frozen, so nor him nor his opponent would be able to play a game. Minimum duration of the mode should be 24 hours from the time when mode is turned on. Bad side of this is that opponent who is not in vacation would have frozen games here and there, but there are many positive sides of this suggestion, including that sitters would practically not be needed anymore and all turns would be played by account owners.

Also, I think there is an loophole in rules:

No tiebreaker games will be played. Ties are broken as such:
Head to Head games played throughout the tournament
Number of Wins going second
Seed at start of Round
Player Score at Time of sign up

Looking at how the system of the tournament is made, I suppose in every or almost every round there will be some tie breakers, so this rule is very important. However, the underlined first tie breaker rule is easy applicable when there is tie between two persons. However, in this tournament format, there will much likely always be tie between 3 or more persons, and in that case we would not have equal amount of games played among tied players throughout the whole tournament. For example, if player A faced player B 2 times, and player C 3 times, but player B faced player C only one time, how will then be applied the tie breaker rule? Player A has 5 games played, player B has 3 games played, and player C has 4 games played, so their head-to-head statistics will not be comparable. And do not forget, ties will happen in every or almost every round, and this is the first tie breaker rule, so this is one very important question to solve in advance.

I am not worried about this. That's why there are additional tiebreakers. Obviously, I can't give you the answer to your Player A, B, C hypothetical, because you didn't tell me who the winners were. But, I tiebreak there is easy enough to figure out.

shoop76 wrote:Vacation mode would be a great idea though I think 60-90 days is excessive.

For this tournament a possibility would be to set an amount of time coverage is allowed. These turns would have to be taken by 1 person not entered in this event and that person could only cover for 1 player.

For vacation mode, sitter mode, etc. It's all a better idea than what we have now. I'd love for something to be implemented, but right now, we've got nothing and that's probably not gonna change in what I can see at this point. So, we'll have to construct rules without that.

For sitting this round, I'm going to give everyone a pass. Moving forward in the tournament, you will be allowed a sitter for two sets of games. This does not mean two rounds. You can have a sitter at two different moments in time. These "moments" are limited to a 24 hour time period. I will ask for some help from the C&A team in spot checking people from time to time.

I hope this will work for everyone involved.

Thanks Chap

Graceless_ wrote:Thanks Chap

Ditto.

My games still aren't showing up as finished on that scoreboard page for some reason. I have 5 games completed with 3 wins, but on the scoreboard and in the game list, it looks like those games are still ongoing.

agentcom wrote:My games still aren't showing up as finished on that scoreboard page for some reason. I have 5 games completed with 3 wins, but on the scoreboard and in the game list, it looks like those games are still ongoing.

You are special because you used sitter ho screwed all your games so obviosuly also screwed the scoreboard

josko.ri wrote:

agentcom wrote:My games still aren't showing up as finished on that scoreboard page for some reason. I have 5 games completed with 3 wins, but on the scoreboard and in the game list, it looks like those games are still ongoing.

You are special because you used sitter ho screwed all your games so obviosuly also screwed the scoreboard

I think bW might have missed me asking about that because it was all the same PM as the sitter stuff along with other things. I'll revisit it.

Just seeking clarification. Can the two sittings be in the same round or do they have to happen in separate rounds?

Jippd wrote:Just seeking clarification. Can the two sittings be in the same round or do they have to happen in separate rounds?

That does not matter. Either is fine.

https://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=13918406

this game has finished for some time now-- all my other games are being updated but not this one! Why is that? lol I should be up a point

josko.ri wrote:

agentcom wrote:My games still aren't showing up as finished on that scoreboard page for some reason. I have 5 games completed with 3 wins, but on the scoreboard and in the game list, it looks like those games are still ongoing.

You are special because you used sitter ho screwed all your games so obviosuly also screwed the scoreboard

haha

One of my games did update for some reason. But just one. I have a few others that have finished.

Not counted, but finished:

Game 13918148
Game 13918431
Game 13918433
Game 13918434
Game 13918306

Oh and I gave some thought to this sitter rule. I'm still not thinking that it's the best practice. I think that you need to look at the bigger picture especially in this huge and fairly important site tournament. What you want to do is have the sitter rules here be compatible and synergistic with (a) site rules; (b) best practices; (c) your enforcement abilities; and (d) common sense. I think that there is a policy that does this.

If I were running the tournament, I would send a PM to all users about sitting rules regardless of what you decide. You don't want to have to revisit this next round when other players who haven't read the thread come back and discover that the sitter rules are different for this tournament. But I would first consider everything in this thread and try to ensure that you get it right the first time and only have to send one PM.

Second, I would encourage people to announce the sitting of turns by making that mandatory for this tournament. People should find sitters who announce that they are sitting. You should be DQ'd from any game where the sitter doesn't announce the sitting in at least one game against every unique opponent. However, you should allow a grace period of the next round for the person to come back and announce that the last turn was sat for. There should also be a common sense override of not taking away a certain win for this rule to avoid the most unfair of results, "just to make an example" out of somebody. If the game is virtually over at the time of the unannounced sitting, then the person should get a pass in the interests of fairness. This latter exception should be seldom invoked because it requires a judgment call, which you want to avoid having to make. The opponent's "testimony" that the game was already decided should carry some weight in making this decision but should not be dispositive of the issue. (My spell checker doesn't like "dispositive" ... I guess that's lawyer speak for "the final word on the issue.")

Third, RANDOM spot checks should be done to ensure that this rule is not violated. Players should be informed of this in the aforementioned PM. Also, you would want to investigate any claims of sitting abuse that might pop up in this thread, but those are unlikely because the opponent will seldom be able to spot a sitting violation.

Fourth, unfortunately it is not very workable to have a brightline standard for when sitting becomes too much sitting. A person who gets in a car accident or something, may require a sitter for more than a couple days. That's just life. Instead, you will have to work with the C&A team and use common sense and a subjective approach to determine what constitutes abuse. There just isn't any way around this for a tournament with this big of a gameload, with these types of games (1v1) and with this duration. This difficulty is enhanced by the fact that only random spot checks are the only tools that you have to catch people. Things will come up, and people will need sitters. In many cases, it's unlikely that a sitter will know to just miss a turn rather than follow best practices, declare the sitting, and take the turn. Again DQ'ing someone from all or most of their games in one round (which is a very likely result) is just too harsh a penalty for people with a legitimate excuse.

On the other side of the coin, while working with C&A, if you discover that a person was taking some of their turns, but not all of them, perhaps leaving a couple crucial turns on King's Court II to their sitter who specializes on that map, shouldn't be given a pass just because they haven't used up their allotment of free passes for sitting. (With the 24 hour rule, and the fast-paced nature of 1v1 games, a sitter could end up taking multiple turns in that 24-hour window.) The way the rules are written right now, I don't see that common sense override but instead a loophole that allows someone to try to game the system, hope they don't get caught, and then if they do claim that it was one of their allotted sittings.

A rule like this best fits the four criteria mentioned above. It encourages best practices, takes into account the limitations of your enforcement ability, is compatible with the rules of the site, and utilizes common sense to avoid the most unfair results and practices.

agentcom wrote:Again DQ'ing someone from all or most of their games in one round (which is a very likely result) is just too harsh a penalty for people with a legitimate excuse.

No. It's not too harsh. It's how it has to be. If you need excessive sitting, then you didn't win the games yourself. This is too much. Remember, these are only being forfeited for purposes of the tournament. The games still play out as normal. I won't back down from that and bigWham feels stricter than I do.

As I already stated, random spot checks will be done.

I feel like too much is being made of this rule. How much of an issue will this really be? What if gigantic emergencies happen? What if my computer crashes? What if I take too long to take my turn and then I'm still out drinking? What if I just forget? Maybe it's just me, but figure it out. I don't ever remember using a sitter and I've taken vacations, I've had children born, I've had computers crash and family die. I've had surgery, I've been in car wrecks, I've had the power go out, and bad weather happen. If you need a sitter more than what the rules have stated in my last post on the subject, then that's tough. I already had to talk bigWham into being that lenient. This is his tournament series, his idea, his baby, and his site. So, I can't do any more than has already been done.

chapcrap wrote:

agentcom wrote:Again DQ'ing someone from all or most of their games in one round (which is a very likely result) is just too harsh a penalty for people with a legitimate excuse.

No. It's not too harsh. It's how it has to be. If you need excessive sitting, then you didn't win the games yourself. This is too much. Remember, these are only being forfeited for purposes of the tournament. The games still play out as normal. I won't back down from that and bigWham feels stricter than I do.

As I already stated, random spot checks will be done.

I feel like too much is being made of this rule. How much of an issue will this really be? What if gigantic emergencies happen? What if my computer crashes? What if I take too long to take my turn and then I'm still out drinking? What if I just forget? Maybe it's just me, but figure it out. I don't ever remember using a sitter and I've taken vacations, I've had children born, I've had computers crash and family die. I've had surgery, I've been in car wrecks, I've had the power go out, and bad weather happen. If you need a sitter more than what the rules have stated in my last post on the subject, then that's tough. I already had to talk bigWham into being that lenient. This is his tournament series, his idea, his baby, and his site. So, I can't do any more than has already been done.

And thank you for that, chap. And for all the effort you're putting into this tourney.

i think the 2 sitting periods in case of emergency throughout the tournament is a good compromise. People will just have to make the decision going forward when enrolling in championships of whether or not they can commit to being able to take their turns 99% of the time throughout the tournament. For people that prefer RL or miss turns a lot because they have issues frequently happen then maybe this isn't the tournament for them. For people that do want to play but may have an oops every once in a rare while where they need sitting then this 2 sitting periods should cover that.

I'm the only one out of the 128 people still scoreless

With regards to my 2cents on the sitting issue, I regret letting a clanmate time out rather than covering his turn because of the nonsensical nature of the rule :/

Even clans aren't as harsh, which is saying something considering the furore that occurred over coverage being extended from 1 hour to 2 hours!

chapcrap,

You are doing a hell of a good job here. Much appreciated!

I also think the new rule is just and fair. I, myself, just travelled to Bangkok on a 16 hour bus ride. Arrived in a Bangkok that is under state of emergency, and had to rush to play my games in this tournament by myself. I had a sitter take care of the other 200 games, but I manged to play the tournament games and a few others by myself.

Before my trip I was a bit annoyed by the "no sitter" rules, because I may have ended up with no internet in Bangkok for a enough hours to have to forfeit the tournament. But these 2 times "emergency" will make it much better for me. I will stil try to play all by myself, but I know that if something REALLY bad happens....I can use a sitter 2 times in maybe a 6 month period. Thats good and also fair.

One thing you can do to avoid the scenario someone outlined a few posts back, is to say a sitter is only allowed to play a game with less than 12 hours left on the clock. This way a sitter will not ping-pong and play out entire games in a 24h period. He will just cover in emergencies and wait for the player to get back online.

People on 4 & maybe 5 points in round 1 will be feeling the heat right now. Where is the cut likely to be ?

I think it's pretty clear, you will need to win half your games to ensure you advance. There will be some who make it with 6 wins, but I wouldn't want to rely on the tiebreaker.

just to warn the sitters and remind the entrants, call the tournement 1v1-no sitters
the same way some tournements are called "whatever-12 hour fog rule" not elegant but helpful to the law abiding

t4mcr53s2 wrote:just to warn the sitters and remind the entrants, call the tournement 1v1-no sitters
the same way some tournements are called "whatever-12 hour fog rule" not elegant but helpful to the law abiding

Yeah, I hope this idea hasn't been lost in all of this.