ESOCommunity

I would like to question a few admin decisions about todays series between me and uhlan:



First of all here: Game is restarted at 1:55 after I get a native rifleman which is extremely crucial because it is preventing the opponent from FBing in the middle. If you look at here, I've got slightly better hunts but very slightly. Both players have 2 herds to be herded to the base.

(Sorry for the timeline on the picture, didn't know how to put it off. Uhlan has his 2nd hunt at the timeline bar which can be hard to see)

Could be also that the animals simply walked there. I can't check because my record is overwritten.

And then to the pampas sierra. This game won't be restarted, even though the casters realize immediately spot the mine situation:


If you look at the mines, I'm clearly missing one base mine and even middle mines are slightly on his side. If the Iowa game is restarted at 1:55, how is this not restarted immediately?

And of course we had the absurd situation in Malasiya where they notice that Uhlan doesn't have Water flag after 8 minutes of play.

But my only question, especially concerning the pampas. Were they really miscalculating the gold mines or was it a biased decision making?

Inb4: Didnt matter at all. Iowa restart perhaps lost me the game after the rehost my whole strat is denied by the native warrior.
In Pampas game it could have decided the game.
In Malasiya Uhlan water shipments could have turned the game.

Totally, quite a farce. In the end, not sure if me or uhlan suffered more but especially Pampas decision feels very shady to me.

would've been bad if the series finale ended because of the obvious mine screw...
not only his 2nd mine (somppus) is in very risky spot his 3rd mine aswell is very far.

For the record, casters didn't notice shit on Malaysia. Literally never. They eventually noticed scores of people who did in fact notice were telling them.

Also, both of the other decisions are absolutely shocking, indeed.

princeofkabul wrote:would've been bad if the series finale ended because of the obvious mine screw...
not only his 2nd mine (somppus) is in very risky spot his 3rd mine aswell is very far.

Second mine location is irrelevant to the decision, though.

Summary:
G2: Caster offers Uhlan possibility to restart a game at 8 mins because he doesn't have a water waypoint. I'm not sure if this decision is even following the rules. It's very bad for Uhlan and fucked up situation, but still at 8 mins after I've got a very good start? I must thank uhlan for not taking this offer.

G3: My very good Iowa (native to deny FB) start gets restarted at 1:55 because "unfair hunts" which do not seem to be unfair. We have an equal amount of hunts, my hunts are maybe a bit closer (could be because they walk randomly). I lose the next game to his native warrior. Or atleast it denied my normal strategy for a low hunt map.

G5: I'm clearly missing a BASE mine, two middle mines are both on his side and the game does not get restarted.

i dont think its biased, but it's definitely poor in most cases. that's what you get when top players dont do the casting. no offense to radix, cuz i liked his casting otherwise actually

umeu wrote:i dont think its biased, but it's definitely poor in most cases. that's what you get when top players dont do the casting. no offense to radix, cuz i liked his casting otherwise actually

I think decisions by Radix were simply lack of experience.

But Mitoe, how does he not see the Pampas situation? I don't want to make any final conclusions but he is a very good friend of Uhlan...
Luckily it didn't decide the winner but it could have.

Sorry Somppu. I was hesitant to do another restart after we'd already done so many, and because hunts were about as balanced on that spawn as we could ever possibly hope for, and mines are (usually) not a major determining factor until very late in Brit mirrors I decided it was ok to play.

The correct thing to do would've been to ask you if you were okay with playing it out, but honestly didn't occur to me at the time. It wasn't a bias thing (I believe I had already restarted for poor hunt and mines the 2 previous restarts for you specifically), but more because I was worried about continuing restarts and possibly playing on an even worse spawn, or getting you and Uhlan into another flame war/standoff thereby resulting in delaying the game for another potential 5-10+ minutes, or not even finishing the series at all. If yours and Uhlan's positions on the map had been swapped, I still would've opted to let the game continue, which I recognize is not the best possible action now—but hindsight is always 20/20.

Either way, I'm sorry if I didn't make the best possible decision in the heat of the moment; please forgive me and try to remember that I haven't done a lot of casting until recently and don't always have a perfect solution to all problems in the moment.

somppukunkku wrote:

umeu wrote:i dont think its biased, but it's definitely poor in most cases. that's what you get when top players dont do the casting. no offense to radix, cuz i liked his casting otherwise actually

I think decisions by Radix were simply lack of experience.

But Mitoe, how does he not see the Pampas situation? I don't want to make any final conclusions but he is a very good friend of Uhlan...
Luckily it didn't decide the winner but it could have.

i dont think mitoe is the type of person to do it on purpose. maybe unconsciously, but anyway, its not always so straightforward. These type of decisions are often debatable, as we can see with the garja thread of a few weeks ago. anyway, its over now. i guess you won?

Mitoe would never use his adminship to alter a tournament match in any biased way, no. If I could, I'd literally bet my life on that.

What we have is an unfortunate choice of decisions and a preying on a new caster, perhaps not unwarranted, but be it I say the lesson is already well learned.

I want to just take a moment to thank Radix for taking 10 hours of his weekend day to allow us all the opportunity to watch these tournaments games. I enjoyed his casting and look forward to watching/hearing more of him in the future :) Casting is surprisingly draining. Watching is relaxing, casting is the opposite.

Anyone in their right mind would have still missed the missing water flag. Monitoring a 2 min delayed chat as a caster is nearly impossible with everything else to keep up with, not to mention he was POV -- camera control. Perhaps one person in the chat noticed it -- and then everyone in the chat was made aware of it. Offering the restart is a bit folly, yes, but who the fuck ever supposes a water shipment flag might be missing?

I'm excruciatingly partial to casters in these scenarios. Casting is both one of the most rewarding and nerve-wracking things I've done, believe it or not (perhaps testament to a lackluster living). I'd much rather have a caster return learning from whatever mistakes than miss out on a caster from ever returning. The more content we can deliver live, upholding quality, the better. This is only achieved by a growing and welcoming of inexperienced individuals, particularly in our climate, which itself can be so, so harsh, and public. This is all very public. It's rather off putting as a caster. When it takes such noticeable effort, prolonged effort, selfless effort, and still the very real possibility of being castigated.. well.. I try not to cast much nowadays myself, is all.

Sry Somppu, I hadn't taken your native into account or else I wouldn't have restarted. I just wanted the hunts to be fair, tiny disadvantage, and created a larger disadvantage inadvertently.

Radix_Lecti wrote:Sry Somppu, I hadn't taken your native into account or else I wouldn't have restarted. I just wanted the hunts to be fair, tiny disadvantage, and created a larger disadvantage inadvertently.

It's really tough making decisions on the spot, based on a set of rules you have barely been exposed to, never having played in a tournament yourself. Not to mention the players forcing you into a decisions, like when Uhlan instantly resigned, which he is not allowed to according to the rules(?) (Do they not state that it is up to the caster, and not the players, to rehost in a hosted series?)

It's really nice of you to step up and deliver content, which may otherwise, perhaps not be delivered. Thank you for that.

On an aside note, the homecity waterflag on Malaysia, on both UI and non-UI version is bugged in a non-negligible occurency.
I haven't been able to really figure out why since it's the same waterflag code used in other maps and I don't have that much time to look at it, but it means that this got to be checked carefully when the game starts.
I also got my part of responsability here.

Radix_Lecti wrote:Sry Somppu, I hadn't taken your native into account or else I wouldn't have restarted. I just wanted the hunts to be fair, tiny disadvantage, and created a larger disadvantage inadvertently.

thats part of the game tbh. I also remember a game i had vs garja where we rehosted, and he got 2 native warriors which basically decided the game in age1. whenever rehosting, you can never ensure that the treasure distribution is going to be fair. in fact, treasure distribution is almost never fair. arguments for removing it have been made, but most ppl think it adds a too entertaining factor in the game to remove. which i suppose is true in many ways. when you rehost you accept the possibility that treasures go against you. that's not something you can complain about afterwards. just like you cant turn down a rehost offer (even though that offer shouldnt have been made in my opinion.) and then complain about the bug after (not saying uhlan did this, he was quite cool about it, the bug that is. he went mental about somppus strat rofl)

About Iowa: honestly, the native rifleman shouldn't matter at all. This is like saying "I had a TP start with germany and they decided to rehost, it's so unfair". I can understand it's frustrating, especially in a tense tourney match, but it's wrong. What only matters is: was a rehost needed or not? Clearly here, there was indeed no rehost needed. If you rehost that hunt situation, you might as well rehost every Iowa spawn, honestly.

But at the same time, you can't expect casters to never do any mistakes. It can happen to call for a bad rehost, or to not rehost a bad spawn. Especially, I believe Radix doesn't have much casting experience, so it's understandable. Either way, I don't think any bias was involved.


About Pampas, I don't have anything to say since Mitoe already made a detailed post.


About Malaysia: honestly, even if it was 15 min in the game, I would call a rehost for that. It's just so unfair that uhlan wasn't able to ship warships (especially with 2 warships cards in deck) and you were. It's literally not playable. Then of course, the caster should actually notice that earlier, and rehost early on. But let's face it, how many casters would actually check the water flags? It's not something that you usually check.

I just so happened to check it because I know that Malaysia ui 2.2b spawns without water flags. Also I remembered Riki saying that it can be that one player spawns without water flag on ui 2.2c. But because Radix isn't so much on ESOC and probably also doesn't know the ESOC maps that well, you can't really blame him for that. Although casters should always keep an eye on the casting discord channel/on the chat, where I was spamming about that water flag at 1 min in game or sth; but I know I myself never do it, because I'm busy talking about the game, so again it's understandable.

zoom wrote:

princeofkabul wrote:would've been bad if the series finale ended because of the obvious mine screw...
not only his 2nd mine (somppus) is in very risky spot his 3rd mine aswell is very far.

Second mine location is irrelevant to the decision, though.

truu

Mitoe wrote:Sorry Somppu. I was hesitant to do another restart after we'd already done so many, and because hunts were about as balanced on that spawn as we could ever possibly hope for, and mines are (usually) not a major determining factor until very late in Brit mirrors I decided it was ok to play.

Especially the way I play brit mirrors, it's extremely crucial. If I would have run out of the gold mines before getting the cannons, I would have lost.

Mitoe wrote:
The correct thing to do would've been to ask you if you were okay with playing it out, but honestly didn't occur to me at the time. It wasn't a bias thing (I believe I had already restarted for poor hunt and mines the 2 previous restarts for you specifically), but more because I was worried about continuing restarts and possibly playing on an even worse spawn, or getting you and Uhlan into another flame war/standoff thereby resulting in delaying the game for another potential 5-10+ minutes, or not even finishing the series at all. If yours and Uhlan's positions on the map had been swapped, I still would've opted to let the game continue, which I recognize is not the best possible action now—but hindsight is always 20/20.

Yes I kind of agree - but still if the series that already took 3.5 hours and it could have been decided by a missing base mine, it's better do a 1-minute rehost.
But anyways, I believe you, because it's you and your quite good reputation, that you didn't do it on purpose. But please next time more careful.

Kaiserklein wrote:About Malaysia: honestly, even if it was 15 min in the game, I would call a rehost for that. It's just so unfair that uhlan wasn't able to ship warships (especially with 2 warships cards in deck) and you were. It's literally not playable. Then of course, the caster should actually notice that earlier, and rehost early on. But let's face it, how many casters would actually check the water flags? It's not something that you usually check.

So basically, you imply that Uhlan should have been given 2 chances to win the G2.The game was basically over at 15 mins. First without water point and then with it? Of course, if he would be winning the game would continue.

I was fucked by the admin decision 3 times but luckily Uhlan didn't abuse the one chance.

But I guess it was only coincidence.

Isn't the underlying problem simply that most of the maps in the pool arent made for competitive tournaments? The standards of most of the people here as to when a map is fair and the average map spawn just means you're going to have to be rehosting a lot. Sometimes people look at the 5th or 6th hunt, which is really rarely relevant. But then it still feels bad when the game is determined by that. And to be honest, I think people have been on the receiving end of maps not being rehosted and then losing because of a mapscrew. I personally am almost 100% convinced I lost one game because of a map screw (2nd hunt was out on the middle of the map on siberia) with zutazuta and samwise being the casters (I think samwise even admitted that) which does feel bad. But hey, shit happens. The worst one was the water flag case probably, although I can imagine somppu would've won that anyways, and then fortunately the pampas sierras one didnt end up mattering.

In the end if one would try to optimize this stuff, then the maps would have to be rewritten or get tournament versions. It's just so bad for the viewer experience that you're stuck between rehosting 1-5 times or something or that you have to have competitive series played out on unfair map spawns.

but jeruma randomness is a blessing for so called competitive game!

Jerom wrote:Isn't the underlying problem simply that most of the maps in the pool arent made for competitive tournaments? The standards of most of the people here as to when a map is fair and the average map spawn just means you're going to have to be rehosting a lot. Sometimes people look at the 5th or 6th hunt, which is really rarely relevant. But then it still feels bad when the game is determined by that. And to be honest, I think people have been on the receiving end of maps not being rehosted and then losing because of a mapscrew. I personally am almost 100% convinced I lost one game because of a map screw (2nd hunt was out on the middle of the map on siberia) with zutazuta and samwise being the casters (I think samwise even admitted that) which does feel bad. But hey, shit happens. The worst one was the water flag case probably, although I can imagine somppu would've won that anyways, and then fortunately the pampas sierras one didnt end up mattering.

In the end if one would try to optimize this stuff, then the maps would have to be rewritten or get tournament versions. It's just so bad for the viewer experience that you're stuck between rehosting 1-5 times or something or that you have to have competitive series played out on unfair map spawns.

Currently, only way to optimize them is set hunts to fixed state, which nobody wants, cause it completely eliminates random factor.

Atomiswave wrote:

Jerom wrote:Isn't the underlying problem simply that most of the maps in the pool arent made for competitive tournaments? The standards of most of the people here as to when a map is fair and the average map spawn just means you're going to have to be rehosting a lot. Sometimes people look at the 5th or 6th hunt, which is really rarely relevant. But then it still feels bad when the game is determined by that. And to be honest, I think people have been on the receiving end of maps not being rehosted and then losing because of a mapscrew. I personally am almost 100% convinced I lost one game because of a map screw (2nd hunt was out on the middle of the map on siberia) with zutazuta and samwise being the casters (I think samwise even admitted that) which does feel bad. But hey, shit happens. The worst one was the water flag case probably, although I can imagine somppu would've won that anyways, and then fortunately the pampas sierras one didnt end up mattering.

In the end if one would try to optimize this stuff, then the maps would have to be rewritten or get tournament versions. It's just so bad for the viewer experience that you're stuck between rehosting 1-5 times or something or that you have to have competitive series played out on unfair map spawns.

Currently, only way to optimize them is set hunts to fixed state, which nobody wants, cause it completely eliminates random factor.

quite many want fixed maps, me included.

princeofkabul wrote:

Atomiswave wrote:

Jerom wrote:Isn't the underlying problem simply that most of the maps in the pool arent made for competitive tournaments? The standards of most of the people here as to when a map is fair and the average map spawn just means you're going to have to be rehosting a lot. Sometimes people look at the 5th or 6th hunt, which is really rarely relevant. But then it still feels bad when the game is determined by that. And to be honest, I think people have been on the receiving end of maps not being rehosted and then losing because of a mapscrew. I personally am almost 100% convinced I lost one game because of a map screw (2nd hunt was out on the middle of the map on siberia) with zutazuta and samwise being the casters (I think samwise even admitted that) which does feel bad. But hey, shit happens. The worst one was the water flag case probably, although I can imagine somppu would've won that anyways, and then fortunately the pampas sierras one didnt end up mattering.

In the end if one would try to optimize this stuff, then the maps would have to be rewritten or get tournament versions. It's just so bad for the viewer experience that you're stuck between rehosting 1-5 times or something or that you have to have competitive series played out on unfair map spawns.

Currently, only way to optimize them is set hunts to fixed state, which nobody wants, cause it completely eliminates random factor.

quite many want fixed maps, me included.

Really, i remember some discussions in the past, there was big riot when someone recommended fixed hunt/mines maps. Most ppl like random element, even in tourneys which i find weird. Having to rely on luck, and not skill is not good in competitive environment....

somppukunkku wrote:

Kaiserklein wrote:About Malaysia: honestly, even if it was 15 min in the game, I would call a rehost for that. It's just so unfair that uhlan wasn't able to ship warships (especially with 2 warships cards in deck) and you were. It's literally not playable. Then of course, the caster should actually notice that earlier, and rehost early on. But let's face it, how many casters would actually check the water flags? It's not something that you usually check.

So basically, you imply that Uhlan should have been given 2 chances to win the G2.The game was basically over at 15 mins. First without water point and then with it? Of course, if he would be winning the game would continue.

I was fucked by the admin decision 3 times but luckily Uhlan didn't abuse the one chance.

But I guess it was only coincidence.

When I say 15 mins, it's an example. My point is that this kind of bug should always mean a rehost imo. It's not like a "bad spawn", it's a clear bug. Honestly this should probably be rehosted no matter what uhlan says about it. But then again, it's just very awkward that this bug was noticed so late in the game. It should have been noticed earlier, I'm not denying that.

In the end uhlan got fucked pretty hard in the malaysia game, so I think it makes it kind of fair.

Kaiserklein wrote:

somppukunkku wrote:

Kaiserklein wrote:About Malaysia: honestly, even if it was 15 min in the game, I would call a rehost for that. It's just so unfair that uhlan wasn't able to ship warships (especially with 2 warships cards in deck) and you were. It's literally not playable. Then of course, the caster should actually notice that earlier, and rehost early on. But let's face it, how many casters would actually check the water flags? It's not something that you usually check.

So basically, you imply that Uhlan should have been given 2 chances to win the G2.The game was basically over at 15 mins. First without water point and then with it? Of course, if he would be winning the game would continue.

I was fucked by the admin decision 3 times but luckily Uhlan didn't abuse the one chance.

But I guess it was only coincidence.

When I say 15 mins, it's an example. My point is that this kind of bug should always mean a rehost imo. It's not like a "bad spawn", it's a clear bug. Honestly this should probably be rehosted no matter what uhlan says about it. But then again, it's just very awkward that this bug was noticed so late in the game. It should have been noticed earlier, I'm not denying that.

In the end uhlan got fucked pretty hard in the malaysia game, so I think it makes it kind of fair.

He was given a possibility to judge his situation in the game so he can either continue or rehost. I think that's an advatange.

Atomiswave wrote:

Jerom wrote:Isn't the underlying problem simply that most of the maps in the pool arent made for competitive tournaments? The standards of most of the people here as to when a map is fair and the average map spawn just means you're going to have to be rehosting a lot. Sometimes people look at the 5th or 6th hunt, which is really rarely relevant. But then it still feels bad when the game is determined by that. And to be honest, I think people have been on the receiving end of maps not being rehosted and then losing because of a mapscrew. I personally am almost 100% convinced I lost one game because of a map screw (2nd hunt was out on the middle of the map on siberia) with zutazuta and samwise being the casters (I think samwise even admitted that) which does feel bad. But hey, shit happens. The worst one was the water flag case probably, although I can imagine somppu would've won that anyways, and then fortunately the pampas sierras one didnt end up mattering.

In the end if one would try to optimize this stuff, then the maps would have to be rewritten or get tournament versions. It's just so bad for the viewer experience that you're stuck between rehosting 1-5 times or something or that you have to have competitive series played out on unfair map spawns.

Currently, only way to optimize them is set hunts to fixed state, which nobody wants, cause it completely eliminates random factor.

Having the same fixed state every time isn't the only way, by far. There's a lot of freedom in coding resources; one can just make them less random or even randomly choose from a set of "fixed" balanced spawns. Afaik the current amount of randomness on ESOC maps is simply intentional (deemed sufficient) and/or easier to implement.