Pokémon A dilemma that theoretically could occur in future tours; looking for rules for similiar situations

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

Some days ago a situation came to my mind and I wasn't able to draw a final conclusion to the fictional dilemma I came up with. Since The Global Tournament Team has been established recently, I would like them to think about the following situation and tell me how a situation like this should be handled/what player and manager are allowed to do. Of course, other people can also share their thoughts.

Player P (I will call him "P" from now on) is playing GSC in a team tournament. He has a Cloyster with Ice Beam and Explosion, his opponent has a paralysed Zapdos. That are the last pokemon of each player. P is now wondering whether he should take the guaranteed draw with Explosion (we are assuming that an Explosion double KO results in a tie according to the rules of the tour), or if he should take the risk and attack with Ice Beam. He would like to consult his manager (called "M") to ask him under which circumstances he should take the risk/draw.

Here are some additional factors that could influence the situation:
- it is the first game of the week
- it is the last game of the week, the score between the teams is 3,5 - 3,5 because of one draw
- it is the second last game, the other game that has to be completed started at about the same time as the GSC game, the score is 3-3 at the moment, P has no idea who is favored to win the other game
- M is the inferior GSC player and not known to play this tier
- M is the superior GSC player and has much more knowledge about the tier
- P tells his manager: "

Spoiler: Calcs done by P

Ice Beam from Clyoster is a 2HKO, Zapdos has a 52,5% chance to hit Thunder despite paralysis, additionally I can crit Ice Beam. My opponent should click Thunder and not Rest since he has better odds at hitting the Thunder despite para than he has with sleeptalking because hitting Thunder with S-Talk is only ~23,33% likely. He could also find Rest in his sleep, but that doesn't do anything when he finds it at full health; when he finds that later, he has to take an Ice Beam after that, in which case he is again in 1HKO range from Beam. If he finds Hidden Power then he loses so if he doesn't find Thunder on the first S-Talk turn, he constantly risks getting critted when he finds Rest in his sleep and that move just resets everything. Hp does nothing and is equally likely as Thunder but the latter move could miss. So basically to calculate the odds for the sleeping Zapdos, (should he incorectly choose that), we have to calculate two things: S-Talk Thunder on the first turn and what would happen on the following turns. As I said, ~23,33% for the first. After that, if we disregard things like Ice Beam crits or Zapdos restlooping Cloyster in his sleep, we could simply not account for Rest because that resets the whole thing. So like he only could get Thunder or Hp. The chance to hit Thunder then would pratically be 35%, the chance to get Hp or miss 65%. But since he would have two attempts instead of one, he would lose when he gets neither (23,33 Thunder on the first turn, 35% Thunder after that; as I said, for simplicity we said that Rest on the not first turn is simply a reset). That means he would have a ~50,16% chance to win if he chooses to Rest AND gets it in spite of the para. Since moving at all is equally likely no matter what he chooses, we could compare that 50,16% with Thunder's 70% directly. So as I claimed earlier, choosing Thunder is clearly better than choosing Rest for him which means that he still has a 52,5% chance to win if he plays in the best possible way, 47,5% chance for me to win. But wait, now that I have proven that using Thunder is better for him, let me also add the possibility of getting a crit into that calc. The chance that I don't crit on the first turn is 15/16. So in order for him to win he needs to rely on 15/16*52,5% which is ~49,21875%. [I know that no one would have the time to explain their calcs like that in a tour game; it would simply take too long]

That means I have a chance of 50,78125% to win by using Ice Beam and a 100% chance to draw by using Explosion. What do you want me to do?"
- P tells M the odds of the outcome just like in the post above but made a mistake in his calculations, M seemingly does not realise that and seemingly makes his advice depending on the calcs P gave him
- P tells M the odds of the outcome just like in the post above but made a mistake in his calculations, M does realise the mistake in the calculations and now would be able to make his advice based on the right calcs, so basically he could make a suggestion to do something because of reasons P didn't consider (don't forget, M could also just pretend to have not seen the mistake)
- P tells M the appoximate odds without providing concrete calculations for them; they 1. are about right or 2. they are comepletly wrong
(- in P's calculations he disregarded the pps each player has left (we can assume that he had 16 Ice Beam pp/more than Zapdos has S-Talk), but in case he only had much fewer, Zapdos chances to outstall Cloyster by getting Rest in his sleep would increase; but that would simply fall under the definition "P made a mistake in his calculations")
- M could have seen P's opponent using Protect on Zapdos in a previous replay (something I have never seen a somewhat good player using in GSC on Zapdos) and that could also influence his decision
- P asks M in the battle chat so that everyone can see what they are discussing during the game

TL;DR: A player wants to ask his manager if and under what circumstances he should take a guaranteed draw or play for a win under the risk of possibly losing the game. While the player's intentions are understandably and not immoral, it can be practically difficult for him to ask because the manager can make his advice dependent on things the player has overlooked.

Tagging the Global Tournaments Team because I am very interested in hearing their opinion about this Lutra, Ortheore, Disaster Area, Sceptross, Peasounay

Ps. If that exact situation would have occured in my game, I probably would have asked my manager in the battle chat. However, another problem could be that in other situations, when both players have more pokemon, it gets much closer to clear ghosting.

 

[Lutra]

I would discourage any communication between the manager and player during a battle - about the battle. I'd want to make it as clear as possible that the player can take full responsibility for their battle decisions, and keep players as safe as possible from accidentally ghosting.

I'd probably give a warning in this case, that the player should have the freedom to make their own decisions and relying on their team is looked down upon. I wouldn't punish harshly.

 

[Sceptross]

I would personally consider this situation mild ghosting. The manager is effectively telling the player the best option to take in that situation. The player should make these kinds of decisions themselves, in my opinion, even if it's a "strategic" decision.

With this in mind, I would probably act just like Lutra - a warning / a 1-2 week ban if it's not the first time.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

First I would like to say that I strongly support to discourage people from communicating with teammates/managers during the game outside of the battle chat because it is a very easy way to avoid all kinds of uneccessary trouble. Whether or how hard communication between them should actually be punished should still depend on the concrete situation obviously.
I still think that the situation is quite tricky. What if the player doesn't ask the manager/teammate but they say something like "I believe in you, you must win this!"? That would basically be something that could also be said at the beginning of the game to motivate the player, just in this situation it gets dubious.
I guess that could be a slight variation of "player and ghoster agreed on a code before the battle to give and receive tips in a cryptic way" which should actually deserve harsh punishment since that would be "planned ghosting". In the case I descibed above they did not agree on a code before the game but the manager/teammate is saying something that could easily be interpreted as "suggesting a move in a subtle way".

Oh, a different situation that came to my mind: What if a random person joins the battle and suggests a move? I have seen that happening before in ladder battles. The person who does that might not be aware that it is a tournament game and also does not neccessarily root for either player. I mean, what if they say something like "Player X should do Y" (and that might or might not be a terrible advice)? If they are not involved in the pp community and are not known to be friends with either player (or even if they are known to be friends with one of them), what should the TD team do? Punishing the player that was "ghosted by random person" seems unfair for the "ghosted" player since he is not in control what random people say in the battle chat (we could encourage players to always turn on modchat + when they play on the main server to reduce the chance of that happening but that does not really feel neccessary). Also theoretically someone who roots for the other player could deliberately give player X an advice in order to get him punished.
In short, I don't really think that "random person gives some random advice" can and should be punished but on the other hand, player X could actually benefit from that. I know that situations like these are not very common but it would be nice to have rulings for them, just in case they happen.

 

[sulcata]

That really doesn't seem like ghosting at all. The player knows exactly what options are available and the likelihood of each outcome of his actions (although advising with calcs and probabilities was already determined to be fine anyway iirc). Any advice in this situation has almost nothing to do with the game itself and more to do with the team. The whole point of ghosting is to prevent one team from gaining an unfair advantage by using one drafted player to play/ghost multiple games. Asking the manager seems completely reasonable, especially if taking the guaranteed tie could make a difference in qualifying. There's literally no reason to ban this exact scenario. If anything this is exactly what a manager should be doing.

Protect on Zapdos and other situations are extremely uncommon. Even if it is the case, there's nothing wrong with the manager saying "take the draw" or "go for the win", provided they don't reveal information about the battle.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

Protect on Zapdos and other situations are extremely uncommon. Even if it is the case, there's nothing wrong with the manager saying "take the draw" or "go for the win", provided they don't reveal information about the battle.

The problem is that the manager, if he usually would suggest to go for a draw, is now more likely to say that the player should go for the win because "Go for the draw"="use Explosion" and "Go for the win"="Use Ice Beam". Using Ice Beam into a possible Protect is better than exploding into Protect, something that the player would not have considered.
Additionally, this was just an example for something that the player didn't know about.
We could also pretend like this was part of a bo3 set and the first game. Now the outcome of this single game would not have a similiar impact as if it were a bo1. Now a player should probably use the move that has statistically a better outcome for him (if the single game would determine the outcome of the week and the team is 3-4 behind, then there would be no reason to go for the draw when there is the slightest chance to get a win left, even if the player is 90% likely to lose or can for a 100% draw, he should go for the 10% win in that situation).

 

[deluks917]

This illustrates why I think the rule should be:
-- Do not talk to anyone except your opponent while you are playing your games (close discord, etc)

In team tours I post my game in the team chat and then I close discord. This is the simplest way to do things. It also allows your teammates to freely discuss the game.

 

[Lutra]

I guess for your second situation, the random player needs to be alerted they must stop, or face minor punishment. If they aren't actually a random player, that would need to be treated however ghosting will be treated.

Edit: I guess forcing matches to be played on PP server might help this situation.

I think people give managers far too much credit/responsibility to be honest, which seems kind of dangerous to me. They draft the team, pick the lineups and primarily act as the team messenger between other parties. I'd hate for people to rely too much on managers and then you get managers trying to encroach on players who don't interact enough (kind of what happens in SPL) and then bad atmospheres result or good atmospheres which involve ghosting/cheating against other teams because the boundaries of what is allowed slowly get pushed in a negative direction to be in a competitive situation as possible.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

This illustrates why I think the rule should be:
-- Do not talk to anyone except your opponent while you are playing your games (close discord, etc)

In team tours I post my game in the team chat and then I close discord. This is the simplest way to do things. It also allows your teammates to freely discuss the game.

I agree, that is something that should be heavily be encouraged by managers and tournament hosts. During the wcopp I did the same: posting the link to the game and then closing discord (it would also be rather distracting for me to see messages popping up). In the situation I described, the communication could also happen publicly in the battle room, hence everybody could see what the player and manager are discussing and in my opinion, asking when to go for a draw is nothing that should be illegal per se, only the fact that the manager could make their advice based on other things than the player is what makes this situation tricky.
Also I am still not sure if we should make a difference between: "I have a X% chance to win by doing this and a 100% chance to draw by doing that. What should I do?" and "Should I risk it or should I take the draw?".
In the first sentence the player already gives the odds of the outcomes (but as I said, what if they are slighly wrong?), in the second one he does not talk about the odds which would not make it clear whether he actually knows the probabilities of the outcomes of the possible decisions.

 

[CALLOUS]

Players should not be communicating about the battle while it is going on with ANYONE other than their opponent. No one whatsoever. If a player directly asks ANYONE what line of play to take while the battle is going on it is ghosting which is cheating.

That said, I see absolutely zero harm whatsoever in a manager instructing a player, prior to the match, “This is our situation this week. If the opportunity for a draw comes up, take it”.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

That said, I see absolutely zero harm whatsoever in a manager instructing a player, prior to the match, “This is our situation this week. If the opportunity for a draw comes up, take it”.

But what is when for example the two last games start at about the same time while the score is tied? If one game would end in a draw, the other one would be the decider. I am pretty sure that it is not forbidden to watch games while playing a tournament game, hence the player could look at the other game before making his decision. But what if he has no idea about the other tier that is played? Is he allowed to ask anyone (manager/teammate/friend) "How likely is it that my teammate will win his game?". That would still basically be the same question as "Should I take the draw?" because there is no reason why he should not accept the draw when it would guarantee that his team will win the week. And of course, should the teammate be in a really bad position, then he would probably have to go for the win.
I mean, yes, of course a player should speak with his team/manager prior to the game when situations like the one I described could happen about what he should do in that case, but it still might not be possible to have a plan for any situation.
Maybe a tie would only gurantee the team advancing when another team loses (similiar to when the outcome of the week also depends on the game of a teammate).

TL;DR Should a player be allowed to speak with teammates about other games while he is playing?

 

[CALLOUS]

But what is when for example the two last games start at about the same time while the score is tied? If one game would end in a draw, the other one would be the decider. I am pretty sure that it is not forbidden to watch games while playing a tournament game, hence the player could look at the other game before making his decision. But what if he has no idea about the other tier that is played? Is he allowed to ask anyone (manager/teammate/friend) "How likely is it that my teammate will win his game?". That would still basically be the same question as "Should I take the draw?" because there is no reason why he should not accept the draw when it would guarantee that his team will win the week. And of course, should the teammate be in a really bad position, then he would probably have to go for the win.
I mean, yes, of course a player should speak with his team/manager prior to the game when situations like the one I described could happen about what he should do in that case, but it still might not be possible to have a plan for any situation.
Maybe a tie would only gurantee the team advancing when another team loses (similiar to when the outcome of the week also depends on the game of a teammate).

TL;DR Should a player be allowed to speak with teammates about other games while he is playing?

I had a lengthy discussion about this exact kind of thing in one of my Pokémon Talk videos and everyone involved largely agreed that it’s an extremely difficult issue to deal with for a plethora of reasons, among the biggest of which are the facts that there is soooooo much grey area regarding what kind of communication should be allowed and what kind of communication should not combined with the fact that ghosting rules are extremely difficult, if not outright impossible in some cases, to enforce. If someone really, truly does not want to get caught coaching/ghosting, they won’t. Unfortunately, part of having team tours is conceding that after a certain point we have no choice but to rely on the honor system and people having integrity and doing the right thing and of course, inevitably, there will always be that handful of people who will not.

In an ideal world I think you’d try to make the rules as black and white as possible and take as much grey area and discretion as possible out of the equation. Basically, a few extremely straightforward, no grey area starting points would be as follows-

1. Players are not to ask anyone whatsoever what play to make at any point while the game is going on.

2. Reversing that, no one is to offer a player in a game suggestions and/or instructions as to what play they should make while a game is going on.

3. Taking points 1 and 2 further, no one should be pointing out any information pertaining to the battle to the player while the battle is going on and likewise the player should never request this information. Examples include I think his last move/set/last Pokemon is probably X, if Y move did that much damage he must be holding Z item, I don’t think your opponent is going to make play X here or based on X information his ability must be Y. These things are all technically different from suggesting a play and/or line of play, but they’re still “helping” mid battle even if they’re not outright ghosting/coaching and it’s still cheating.

Basically, the absolute simplest way to sum it up is that no one should be communicating with players who are in a battle in any way, period.

 

[Ariel Rebel]

Difference here is that the player knows the odds of winning/drawing. The player is basically asking the manager how well the rest of his or her team stacks up against the opposing team.

I am slowly gravitating towards the position where I don't care because if a team really wants to get away with ghosting, it will.