DISCUSSION : requirement to post replays privately vs. publicly in tournaments. Please read!

Options​

i'll start with saying i prefer option B by a mile. there are enough strategic reasons for not wanting to post replays publicly. sharing replays privately also does not prevent users to go and look for the replays themselves in the replay database, in which they must be saved either way. i feel that posting them publicly in the thread should not be a necessity. so, assuming the host is not corrupt (lol), sharing them privately and getting a confirmation that way should suffice.

I'd prefer optional and/or private. This addresses if the result was in dispute otherwise its irrelevant and encourages counter teaming.

Not everyone has 3 teams and I myself have actually made several alts to mitigate CTing. This shouldn't be a thing and I've had people try and counter team me in tours before because they can search your username.

Replays is one of the worst features on showdown imo, you should at least be able to delete them if you're featured in the battle. Shoddy battle log system was much better and wasnt stored permanently and optional if you wanted to copy and paste it.

Just a heads up that us BSS will be discussing this as a team separately and ultimately making the decision officially as a team but will certainly take into consideration how the community feels about this before deciding anything as it does affect you guys.

Personally, I think that counter teaming is less of a problem here than on sites like Smogon but I don't enter enough tournaments to speak from experience. I think if someone really wanted to counter team they would spectate on an alt or in incognito. Like I said though I don't think that people on PC care to do that(I never have).

For what it's worth though I do think that if it is a concern I would be willing to be in favor of the private option, but I don't think optional should be an option at all. At the very least the tournament host needs to have access to the replays in any event of a dispute. If a tournament host is participating in the tournament itself we can find a 3rd party to send the replays to.

Castform said:

Just a heads up that us BSS will be discussing this as a team separately and ultimately making the decision officially as a team but will certainly take into consideration how the community feels about this before deciding anything as it does affect you guys.

Personally, I think that counter teaming is less of a problem here than on sites like Smogon but I don't enter enough tournaments to speak from experience. I think if someone really wanted to counter team they would spectate on an alt or in incognito. Like I said though I don't think that people on PC care to do that(I never have).

For what it's worth though I do think that if it is a concern I would be willing to be in favor of the private option, but I don't think optional should be an option at all. At the very least the tournament host needs to have access to the replays in any event of a dispute. If a tournament host is participating in the tournament itself we can find a 3rd party to send the replays to.

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i think he meant optional public, required private! so if you want to post them publicly that would be okay, as long as if you don't you at least DM them privately. that's how I read it.

anyhow, whether counter teaming is a problem or not doesn't really matter for me, it's just that it makes it too easy. CT'ing will always be a "problem" because people can just look up the replays or like you say, spectate with an alt. If they want to go through the trouble to do that then that's fine of course, but it feels like it's being made easy when they're just posted in the thread.

it makes sense to me to at least try and prevent CT'ing by something simple as not requiring to post the replays publicly. and I really only have one team, so for me the entire tour would be ruined.

One reason to have replays be public is that without that rule, people who know other participants in the tournament are at an advantage because the private information may be shared between those people. If the games can be spectated, people with spare time scouting cause a similar issue.

Does this apply to PC's tournament community? No idea, but it has come up in communities for other games, and the above was the justification for public information.

mgriffin said:

One reason to have replays be public is that without that rule, people who know other participants in the tournament are at an advantage because the private information may be shared between those people. If the games can be spectated, people with spare time scouting cause a similar issue.

Does this apply to PC's tournament community? No idea, but it has come up in communities for other games, and the above was the justification for public information.

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but control only reaches so far, there's nothing stopping people from sharing information privately anyway, no matter what is ultimately decided, or using alts to play games and thus disable people from looking up their replays, there are countless ways to go around the rules from either sides, so that should not be grounds for making a decision.

i think it should be looked at purely from a standpoint of which is more convenient and fair, not what people might do when the rule is in place, because people are free to do what they want. ultimately it's about being able to confirm the victory which is easily possible by DM'ing the host.

i don't expect people sharing replays between them, but if they want to do that then i don't see a problem with that. if that means they are at an advantage, does that mean that anyone who doesn't look at publicly posted replays is at a disadvantage? that doesn't make sense.

I think there are a few issues to address here: alts, replays, and counter-teaming.

First of all, I think alts should be communicated in some way, best in the forum signup post. If not, we can get situations where two combatants (both of which wish to not be scouted) both use alts that can't be confirmed. Not saying anyone will do this, but I think there is definitely possibility for people to claim that they've won when they really haven't. This is why we need to be more careful about confirming the alt accounts that people use.

Yoshikko said:

but control only reaches so far, there's nothing stopping people from sharing information privately anyway, no matter what is ultimately decided, or using alts to play games and thus disable people from looking up their replays, there are countless ways to go around the rules from either sides, so that should not be grounds for making a decision.

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"People are just going to break rules so let's just not have them in the first place". That's why you have as much public information as possible. There are preventative measures that our community can take to avoid meddling by participants or TOs. A public replay system eliminates a whole lot of possible meddling and underhanded methods - and I think the transparency is extremely valuable. It's a statement to say, "hey, we're doing the best we can to ensure that competitive integrity is maintained."

Yoshikko said:

i think it should be looked at purely from a standpoint of which is more convenient and fair, not what people might do when the rule is in place, because people are free to do what they want. ultimately it's about being able to confirm the victory which is easily possible by DM'ing the host.

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The purposes of replays extend beyond having the TO confirming the win for you. Again, these are preventative measures and public proof of your win. Say I win vs Lustful_Lucario12 or something, and I tell the TO. Isn't it possible that Lustful_Lucario12 claims in the thread that he won? Now the TO has to step in and say that I've won. Now the TO can do so with proof of replay or without replays. If the TO posts without replays, it's not very good publicity because you can claim that I'm in cahoots with the TO. The TO can also choose to post replays...so why not just save the trouble and post replays in the first place? Of course, I don't think that this situation is going to happen with a high probability (mostly cuz our battle server is dead), but why not take that preventative measure?

Yoshikko said:

i don't expect people sharing replays between them, but if they want to do that then i don't see a problem with that. if that means they are at an advantage, does that mean that anyone who doesn't look at publicly posted replays is at a disadvantage? that doesn't make sense.

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There's a huge distinction between what you describe here. Say Ann won versus Bob and Cathy won against David and no replays are posted. If David is good friends with Ann, then he can share his replays with Ann so that she can see what Cathy uses or what her playstyle is like. If Bob and Cathy aren't good friends, then Cathy is naturally disadvantaged. Cathy doesn't have a choice to view the replays - she literally can't view them. It's not her fault she's put into the disadvantaged state. Public replays gives everyone the option to study their opponent.

Now regarding publicly posted replays, I do agree that people who scout their opponent have an advantage (assuming their opponent does not scout them). But there's no inconvenience placed for you, preventing you from looking at your opponent's replays. It's all public knowledge, and not taking that into account is one's own stubbornness or ignorance - you can choose to view and can choose not to. Other stuff, like Pokémon movepools and stats, are public knowledge as well. If someone doesn't make the most out of that, then they deliberately put themselves in a disadvantaged state.

Yoshikko said:

anyhow, whether counter teaming is a problem or not doesn't really matter for me, it's just that it makes it too easy. CT'ing will always be a "problem" because people can just look up the replays or like you say, spectate with an alt. If they want to go through the trouble to do that then that's fine of course, but it feels like it's being made easy when they're just posted in the thread.

it makes sense to me to at least try and prevent CT'ing by something simple as not requiring to post the replays publicly. and I really only have one team, so for me the entire tour would be ruined.

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Ok so you're fine with people looking at replays but you just want to make them work for it? You say it's going to happen anyway, but then you also don't want to post replays...which really confuses me because you kind of invalidate your own point.

Anyway, regarding counter-teaming, I don't think it's a problem or a bad thing. It's part of teambuilding, which is a measure of skill along with the actual battling part. If someone builds a team only to cteam your team, but the cteam is very poorly built (doesn't work against other teams or loses to a single threat), then you can just switch teams. That's why cteaming isn't even a problem, it's because either the team is so bad and you just switch teams on them, or it's a functional team at which point you can't really be certain that they're cteaming you (plus you can still switch teams).

I also think it's unfair to players who actually put time into studying their opponents if replays weren't shared. Everyone is on equal footing and can study each other, just like normal sports or games. It's not unfair to anyone to have replays posted, since everyone has the same information.

5qwerty said:

"People are just going to break rules so let's just not have them in the first place"..

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there are no rules saying people can't look up replays. you haven't convinced me with any of your arguments why replays should be required to post publicly.

also, no one can claim they won when they haven't, because they still have to send the replays to the tour host/mod. so how would that work lol