Update on Tournament Rules Decision

theres no rule that says they have to fight. Even if there is it ended during the last tournament.

People seem to be stopping just short of suggesting anet go to their homes, beat up their mothers, and shoot their dogs.

It's amusing, really.

Because ArenaNet already set the precedence for themselves by completely removing Team Quitter [QQ] from Guild Wars History, permanently setting their ladder rank to N/A and their rating to 1000, and removing all cape trims they may or may not have received.

And this is for a guild that didn't even carry out the ladder manipulation - all they did was ask in All Chat.

Now, let's consider the case for Rebel Rising [rawr] who:
1. Asked in All Chat.
2. Actually carried out the ladder manipulation.

What do you think would happen then?

As far as other guilds receiving gold trims, it's clear that gold trims should be reserved only for the #1 guild in a monthly automated tournament; no guilds outside of Rebel Rising [rawr] achieved this during the January mAT.

Due to this infraction, it is either pertinent to:
1. Re-play the mAT.
2. Do not distribute any rewards including cape trims to any guild, regardless of what they finished.

There is no "default winner" unless a referee was clearly present and active during the mAT - and this is certainly not the case. Rebel Rising [rawr] and Survival Rate [zero] were both allowed to play through all of the Single Elimination rounds which changes the structure of placement drastically. Giving "default awards" to any guild is seriously demeaning. Either give a chance to every guild again or don't distribute any prizes at all.

unfortunately, replaying the mAT is not an option. they didn't replay the mAT a few months ago that had more than half of the participants disconnecting, so there's no chance they'll replay this one.

not distributing the rewards hurts every guild involved OTHER than rawr, simply because they already have a gold cape and don't really give a damn about the other prizes. this obviously defeats the purpose of punishing them in the first place.

more extreme penalties such as banning will basically destroy what's left of the american gvg scene, which is something to be avoided.

what will they do? probably just slap them on the wrist by taking away tournament points. that's the only thing they can do at this time.

This has been going on in hero battles for a very long time, of course its effected the outcome of HB mATs. Nobody cares one bit.

This argument is trivial to say the least.

Yet it was the safest move for both teams so I don't blame them.

It's unfortunately what must be done. There are only two logical options here.

I wish they would ban both guilds from ever competing in a tournament for the next 6 months, any infraction of that ban by smurfing in another guild would result in a permanent ban.

That is how they should settle this problem.

Ban any of the players and sh*t would ensue. High end PvP isn't as active as most people think; let's not be hasty and kill it off all together. Happens all the time in HB, yet no one cares. All of a sudden since it's GvG, people care? I don't care if HB is dead, GvG isn't as popular as it used to be with fewer players advancing to high level PvP, and more high level PvPers leaving the game.

If two guilds are the american gvg scene, then maybe it needs to be destroyed. Might freshen things up.

Uhm... lotsa emotions in here...

Strictly speaking we have no tournament rules at the moment, as was pointed out correctly. Hence, you can't violate any rules that are non-exsitant. Common sense however *should* tell us to carry on with the existing rules...

Some methods of "punishment" i've read so far carry the air of hostility - do people want to remove [rawr] from mAT's to increase the chances that other guilds can also win ? I remember that somebody asked where the sportsmanship has gone. With those "demands" it's clearly visible that there is NO sportsmanship left, on BOTH sides. Sportsmanship works boths ways, if you hadn't noticed so far.

Ah well - whatever the outcome will be, there will be people being happy, unhappy, smugly grinning, raging, ...

I'd rather they tackle real issues, like removing Heroes from Player vs Player, that's more important than raging about something that didn't change the outcome of the tournament a single bit.

But that's my personal opinion, feel free to disagree

In terms of precedent, it would seem to make sense to have a more severe punishment, but I question if the first precedent/punishment is fair, and I also question how useful it would be to ban en masse people who participated in ladder manipulation. A large handful of players, especially high-end PvPers, have 2-3 accounts and sometimes more. I'm not sure it would make these people go away if their one account was banned.

I think it's more pressing to preempt ladder manipulation instead of always dealing with problems after they happen. While it's too late now, the focus should be on fixing a broken system. It should be broader than GvG, too; possible manipulation of the system in all facets should be corrected. As with the "duping scandal," I think a large part of the onus should be on ArenaNet. While it's ideal to say that players should be expected to act out of goodwill despite any circumstances, it is a far cry from what we all know as reality. In other online games, methods of duping have been practised in very similar fashion - part of making a successful game is learning from other games' mistakes. I don't encourage & condone ladder manipulation or duping, but I can't pretend like I don't understand wanting to "make your own luck."

I would much rather see infracting guilds be forbidden to participate in tournaments instead of individual account bans. Account bans don't make people go away, and I don't think it diminishes their reputation as much as disassociating prestige from guilds like rawr would do. Even as we speak here, we associate this problem with the guild name, not the individual players.

Nothing will happen except rawr and zero will be unallowed to take part next month. If anything, you can expect zero, most likely, to suffer more than rawr. After all, you can't have a Rawr Cup without rawr...

We'll see what will happen though.

Till then, unless this "fiasco" causes problems for PvE, I could care less what happens. PvP is none of my concern until it affects PvE in some way...

Alright so, next time, they'll make it look like an actual fight, kill each other and stuff, except mysteriously leave the guild lords alone?

There's good reason that ANY competitive game which has a draw condition (like chess), allows you to declare intentional draws- you can't stop them. If you don't like draws, award double loss instead- accidental draws are virtually impossible in GvG/HB anyway.

Nothing in the rules stipulates that both teams must fight for the duration of the match. That would be completely silly, anyway, since teams need to run to different parts of the map, sometimes you need to hold for morale boost, and back when you had the VoD mechanic, teams were basically agreeing not to do anything until VoD. In this case, the tournament standings ultimately weren't adversely affected, and both teams were playing to win the tournament, even if that meant not playing for the win in that particular match.

Furthermore, the game mechanics fully support the draw. Intentional draws are a part of other competitive games, so if ANet intentionally programs in a draw mechanic, it's absolutely wrong to punish the players for using that mechanic.

For those who don't know, here's how the game works currently: if both teams have the same "aggressiveness" (basically a measure of the amount of damage done to the opposing Guild Lord) at the end of a normal GvG match, the game ends in a tie. If you're competing to win the tournament, and you know that this is the game mechanic, you will employ it to your advantage if the situation calls for it. It's no different from, say, choosing to run Protective Was Kaolai instead of Heal Party for your party heal. Whether you run perfect counters to everything the opponent tries to do (i.e. playing to tie--which is a perfectly legitimate strategy in other competitive games where a win is not necessary, but a loss will hurt) or you conga, you're still achieving your desired outcome. This wasn't like some big exploit, and neither team intentionally lost the match. Frankly, the strategy for both sides seemed like a brilliant move, since neither of them needed to win (a draw would've sufficed), and taking a gamble to win outright would've risked taking a loss. And nowhere in the tournament rules does it specifically say that Intentional Draws are not allowed.

The way this is shaking down feels more like the developers got mad that they designed a crappy draw mechanic and want to punish the players who gave it the most exposure instead of taking all the blame themselves. Meanwhile, they do nothing to punish those who sign guilds up with the intention of never competing and thereby give another guild a 1-0 record (and that definitely affects tournament standings). That's pretty petty and it certainly would not speak well for Guild Wars (or Guild Wars 2, for that matter) as a competitive platform.

Edit to add: And as Foxbat indicates, if you just pretend to fight it out, you get the draw anyway. If rawr and zero wanted to be dishonest about it, we wouldn't even be having this discussion and there'd be nothing done about the draw mechanic.

this however, sets a dangerous precedent. if this behavior of idling for draws is allowed, everyone will do so and hope for a dice roll placing. it is after, the path of least resistant, and gives a much better chance to get into the final 8 than most guilds can really hope for.

lol I love how people actually care about this. I myself didn't even hear about this until today when I got on gw guru and saw the post. People have brought up how this happens in HB frequently. The thing i love about this the most is that people only care about this because it was in GvG, which makes up only a percentage of PvP anyways. Why should they do anything about this when they don't even fix the rest of PvP.

Generally the only time people draw in competitive swiss, is when they are sure it will put both of them into the playoffs. (or else, they are splitting a prize in the finals, etc.) If there's any doubt, it's going to be played out. There's no reward for both teams to bargain on, if the dice will ultimately favor only one.

wait so you mean two teams who were already going to get silver anyway had a little fun.... playing a game is about fun GUILD WARS IS SRS BIZNZ. and anyway... a tie results in no change of rating which means there is no rank change which results in GUESS WHAT.... NOTHING there is no ladder movement involved in this harmless fun.

Doesn't matter. Rules are rules. They agreed upon the terms when they started playing.

Getting a tie round one and winning the rest of the matches will get you easier matches than waiting till the last. Hero Battles 101!

As mentioned above, the rules are outdated and precedent (every Hero Battles AT ever) says that no one gives a shit about draws. Why is this an issue?

You're debating an issue that's already been ruled on. The rules were decided to be broken and now they're just deciding on consequence.

And, of course, we need the person who goes "lol who cares just let it go". This isn't one of those issues - you need to realign yourself with what is important and what isn't.
This is a little more important.

OK, here's my thoughts on it, which you may or may not agree with. I'll admit my bias up front, I picked rawr first in the tournament house, and I'd like my z-keys, though that's not really that big of a deal, being pixel change.

Anyway, if the rules are not already clear on 'ladder manipulation' (and I suspect that means cheating more than the 'screwing around doing a conga line for a draw' kind of action) and the penalties for such, then Anet really doesn't have much recourse. If the 2 teams are within the letter of the law (if not the spirit), then Anet's only choice is really to just change the rules so it can't happen again, and not punish the guilds. It's not fair to legislate and then punish retroactively.

If the rules on what ladder manipulation is are clear, and doing a conga line to a draw is considered ladder manipulation, then the guilds should experience the penalties listed for doing that. If there are not penalties already listed, then you can't really do much more except warn them not to do it again and create penalties for ladder manipulation in future months. A law without a penalty is pretty worthless.

The most obvious solution to prevent this in the future is to eliminate tie situations, since this wouldn't have happened if they weren't able to fight to a draw. Either they have to re-fight the round if there's a draw, or some other tie-breaker solution has to be created. It's not going to eliminate all silliness/amusement (depending on your point of view), but it'll solve this from happening again.

the general outrage over the rawr vs zero draw makes me laugh. guild wars is the only game i know of where intentional draws in tournaments that allow draws to occur is considered unsportsmanlike conduct.

Intentional drawing is not an option in Guild Wars. Intentional drawing in other games has the option of not even playing the game at all (that is, you don't even enter the match); instead, before the game, you ask to intentionally draw and just don't play the game altogether. Is there a button in Guild Wars that says "Click here to Propose/Accept an Intentional Draw"? No. There isn't. Did the match start? Yes. Therefore, it's illegal.

What [rawr] and [zero] did is similar to playing a basketball match and sitting around for 4 quarters, neither team trying to shoot a basket. Maybe, even, both teams start running laps around the court. It's possible, then, to "draw" the game, but that sure as hell wasn't legal.

This discussion is starting to do what I hoped it wouldn't - go completely off topic.

Firstly, it is not about Hero Battles, and how intentional draws have occurred the whole time, it is about GvG - specifically the rawr/zero incident.

Secondly, this issue directly affects PvPers. I have nothing against PvErs, but this issue really doesn't affect you, so I don't want it to be derailed because of it.



As for me, I hope they have worked out a fitting punishment for rawr and zero. The only problem is that most of the ideas mentioned so far aren't really going to affect anyone. Taking away RPs might be the only option, but by now I imagine rawr/zero have cashed all of them in to avoid this.

My rationale is that if something were to happen to the top guilds, new guilds would move in to take their places. Let's just assume the two guilds were broken up and the players in them scattered among the remaining guilds. In theory they'd take their experience with them and help improve their new guilds.

Until a top tier reestablished itself, there would be a race to see who replaces them. If one or two teams didn't take the place of the banned teams, the competition for the top segment would make things interesting.

Also your analogy is flawed. It would be more akin to dissolving the largest governments in the world and watching as new governments form to take their place. IE you couldn't have modern Europe if Rome didn't disintegrate. You couldn't have the US, Australia, and Canada as separate countries if the British empire didn't break up.

the way in which a draw is achieved is irrelevant. if a draw is allowed to occur by the intended mechanics of the game and there are no rules prohibiting it then it's legal. unless you think anet accidentally programmed the ability to draw this means what rawr and zero did is legal.
of course you could argue that something that is allowed to occur by the intended mechanics of the game which no rules prohibit isn't necessarily legal, but then you'd be wrong.
edit: also what makes you think there has to be a button explicitly stating that you want to do something for it to be legal? is there a button that says "click here to win the match"? no, the winner of a match is decided by what you do in the 28 minutes set aside for the game. a draw is decided in the same way and no more illegal than winning a game.
if you think players should be forced by the rules to play their best in a tournament that's just absurd. such a rule would be by no means easily enforceable and, even if it were, it is principally unsound anyway.

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree. Not that I'm a lawyer, but I don't think there's a legal binding that forces people to play their best. Contractual bindings maybe, and there's definitely legal issues with deliberately losing, but would be even be having this conversation if, as another user said, they were more deceptive about what they were doing and pretended to fight without either side doing anything to win?

You are wrong.
A draw is allowed to occur if and only if it is the result of a fairly played match in Guild Wars. An intentional draw is never legal in Guild Wars; the concept of intentional drawing is that no match ever takes place - you don't waste time and manipulate game mechanics to force the draw. No game ever allows that.

The way in which a draw is achieved is completely relevant. The only way an intentional draw is ever legal is if a button specifically says "Click here to Request/Accept an Intentional Draw" (in Guild Wars). Otherwise, it is illegal.

This isn't a debate, because this is the right answer.

There isn't a debate as to whether forming a conga line is "playing your best" or not. This is about [rawr] vs [zero].

This is copied straight from a post by Awowa on the RR site.

Despite the burning torches and pitchforks you all seem to be waving around, perhaps this shouldn't be a witch hunt. There are serious issues with the game mechanics, and all the time that has been spent discussing a 'punishment' should have been spent fixing this tiebreaker issue. Whether or not you believe what Awowa said (or if you think this is a great conspiracy freezkeyslul) there are many aspects of this to look at. This is not a straight black and white 'You broke the rules, you will suffer' case.

if two chess players decided to intentionally stalemate rather than "pressing the draw button" by offering and accepting a draw would you be against it? there can't be rules in a game governing how poorly players are allowed to play.

and how is rawr vs zero not about forming a conga line and not playing your best? that's what they did to intentionally draw and that's what this entire thread is about.

Two professional chess players making stupid moves for the entire game is a violation of sportsmanship rules, which, in Guild Wars, happen to be part of the official rules.

In chess, there is a "draw button" to press. In Guild Wars, there is no "draw button".

i don't consider intentionally drawing to be unsportsmanlike conduct. i consider unsportsmanlike conduct to be anything that is against the rules or done for no other purpose than to ruin other players fun. saying that intentionally drawing is against the rules because it is unsportsmanlike conduct and therefore unsportsmanlike by my definition is circular logic so i won't accept that.

i recall you saying that the manner in which an intentional draw is achieved is completely relevant (or something to that effect). if achieving an intentional draw through poor play is illegal in guild wars surely you must think it should be illegal in chess? i don't accept your idea that intentional draws are only legal if there is an explicit "button" of sorts by which to achieve it, so i don't agree that intentional draws through poor play are made valid in chess by the availability of a draw button but should be illegal in guild wars due to the lack of an explicit function to achieve the same effect.

This is actually against the rules of Chess, and both players would be actioned, for the same reason the two guilds are being actioned: it is unsportsmanlike conduct and is against the spirit of the game.

People too easily get stuck on this concept of "the rules", that they forget the concept of sports themselves isn't necessarily about the rules, but the SPIRIT of which those rules were made under, that guide the idea of sportsmanship and the spirit of the game (competitiveness). There's no specific rule in Football (American) that states if both teams just circle around forever it is against the rules, but a ref (in this case, ArenaNet) will start handing out violations to players because they destroying the spirit of the game with their actions. If it continued, the ref would DQ both teams. If you stall a Chess match, the same thing would happen.

I havent read all the thread here(so apologies if this has already been suggested), but I believe draws should be removed from both GvG and HB competitions. In place, something along the lines of the Snowball ATs - ie:- the team(person) that does the most damage (scores the last point) wins, if no damage is done (np point is scored), then both receive a loss.

As far as penalties are concerned - well, I guess their was some manipulation of the final 16 playoff places (either by placing or other guilds missing out) but the trouble is many of the things suggested hurt the GvG area as a whole... maybe ban the two guilds and the players from this months MAT (although this would suck for my predictions..lol)?

As far as Rawr not being on the list, I just wanted to clarify somthing - it is when a guild "qualifies" for the mat, not register - that they appear on the Xunlai listing - Many teams/HB players, do not qualify by getting their QPs until later in the month and so its always best to do your predictions as close to the monthlyAT as possible.

As an aside.. isnt it about time for a full reset of the GvG and HB ladders anyway?

I think it's pretty clear that [rawr] and [zero] were only conga partying during the match because they know how badly this game is currently balanced, so instead of duking it out normally, they were holding a chess match online to decide who would be the victor. Unfortunately chess takes a lot of time to play when it is played by skilled people, and it seems they overshot the match timer before they could complete their chess game. A shame, really, but it's not their fault.

Don't punish them, ArenaNet. Just balance things better so we wouldn't have to decide tournament winners with a slab of checkered marble.

stalemating isn't stalling a game, it's a game that is forced to end in a tie due to a number of possible reasons. and there's a clock in football that would force the teams to play or receive a delay of game penalty. in chess if two players are playing a game and end up in a stalemate how do you decide that they weren't playing their best? there's no good way to enforce a rule that you have to play your best at all times so such a rule should never exist.

Hm wait let me get this straight...

People are mad that 2 guilds tied when:

A. It wasn't against a rule
B. They both would have advanced anyways
C. This happens with regularity, yet this is the first time people outrage

Sounds fair to me.

a) Depends if it could be called ladder manipulation or mAT manipulation (dont know = not my call but anets)
b) Are we sure about this? Im sure someone could do all the calculations, but things were pretty tight at the bottom of the 16 ( with three guilds 16,17 and 18 on the exact same score if I remember).
c) Not sure Ive seen it in GvG (or at least possibly effecting qualifying) - definitely not being available on observe with members doing a conga.