Rejected Reminding players of low timers should be considered ghosting

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In tournament matches, both players are often on a timer. They start off with having 5 minutes / turn but as they use up more time, this amount will slowly decrease. As such, by teammates or friends, players will be reminded of their low timer as seen here in an ompl game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8stabmons-1554782605

Per tour policy, this is not currently considered ghosting, but per technically should be considered ghosting. An outside person, is reminding players of a tournament mechanic that

1. They might not be familiar with if new to the scene
2. They might not realize or forget because they are tunnel visioned into their game

Although arbitrary, such action can impact the course of the game from a third party member and can also take pressure off a player to worry about timer getting too close. A player may also, from fear of forgetting about timer, communicate to their team / friends before a match to remind them of a low timer in chat. This can effect the way they play and a potential result of a match. It is not the spectator's responsibly to keep track of time, but the players. Any such action or transfer of responsibility, by technicality should be considered ghosting.
 

Merritt

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Speaking personally, not on behalf of the TD team.

Saying that you want people repeating information that is in the battle chat to be considered ghosting is a pretty hard sell to begin with. This is not an external party providing information or observations that a player could reasonably fail to make. An ability to know that the timer is low is not a valuable skill - timer management is a valuable skill but players being reminded of a low timer does not provide a meaningful advantage in their ability to manage their time.

It is also pretty lame when games are lost by timer and making more games end lamely would kinda suck.

The fact that you want to specifically target new players is pretty appalling to me too.

i dont support this proposal if it wasnt clear
 
Yes, but say you're at a chess tournament, watching the world championship's and Magnus Carlson's timer gets to 5 seconds and you yell "TIMER". How would that be viewed as? Completely unreasonable. Some thing applies to pokemon. After all, they are both a competitive turn based game.
 

Wigglytuff

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In tournament matches, both players are often on a timer. They start off with having 5 minutes / turn but as they use up more time, this amount will slowly decrease. As such, by teammates or friends, players will be reminded of their low timer as seen here in an ompl game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8stabmons-1554782605

Per tour policy, this is not currently considered ghosting, but per technically should be considered ghosting. An outside person, is reminding players of a tournament mechanic that

1. They might not be familiar with if new to the scene
2. They might not realize or forget because they are tunnel visioned into their game

Although arbitrary, such action can impact the course of the game from a third party member and can also take pressure off a player to worry about timer getting too close. A player may also, from fear of forgetting about timer, communicate to their team / friends before a match to remind them of a low timer in chat. This can effect the way they play and a potential result of a match. It is not the spectator's responsibly to keep track of time, but the players. Any such action or transfer of responsibility, by technicality should be considered ghosting.
OM tournaments that do not count towards/reward ribbon are not obligated to follow the tournament policy rules so if you believe "yo timer is low" to be on the same level as "double switch here," the respective communities and hosts are welcome to implement this change into the next edition of OMPL!
 
Saying that you want people repeating information that is in the battle chat to be considered ghosting is a pretty hard sell to begin with. This is not an external party providing information or observations that a player could reasonably fail to make.
I'm not sure how I stand on the overall point being made, but I disagree strongly with this reasoning and I just want to comment in case it's applied to anything else.

In my experience as a player (admittedly not a good one) it can be quite easy to miss stuff even if it is announced in the chat, especially in a high pressure moment.
The example I have in mind are abilities which announce themselves eg teravolt, especially in metagames where the abilities can change. I regularly miss these announcements or just don't think about the consequences of it and someone repeating them in chat would for sure give me an unfair advantage.
 

phoopes

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I disagree with the OP.

Per tour policy, this is not currently considered ghosting, but per technically should be considered ghosting. An outside person, is reminding players of a tournament mechanic that

1. They might not be familiar with if new to the scene
I'm pretty sure it's expected that all tournament players are familiar with the Tournament Rules and General Guidelines, which are pretty explicit about the timer always being on and that it's a loss if you let it run out.

2. They might not realize or forget because they are tunnel visioned into their game
To me this just seems like the fault of the player. As Merritt said there's already messages in that chat saying that your timer is at x seconds left, so someone repeating that information that you (should) already know doesn't seem like ghosting to me.
 

Heroic Troller

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Speaking personally and not behalf of the team as well.

Completely agree with XxSevagxX, any information no matter how much obvious, written all over the place, small or simple that isn't thought of from the player itself is akin to ghosting, simple as that. Timer being low is an information in itself, how many times did we see timeouts because the player was on the tab for calcs? Many and it isn't right to be given by anyone else, as the player should effectively be alone from start to finish.
 
Speaking personally and not behalf of the team as well.

Completely agree with XxSevagxX, any information no matter how much obvious, written all over the place, small or simple that isn't thought of from the player itself is akin to ghosting, simple as that. Timer being low is an information in itself, how many times did we see timeouts because the player was on the tab for calcs? Many and it isn't right to be given by anyone else, as the player should effectively be alone from start to finish.
I honestly sorta understand the sentiment but with this logic, I feel like you'd have to ban players from stours lobby or basically anywhere that has public discussion during games (which a small part of me is fine with but lol). I say this because I know I've def forgotten stuff during games that I've been reminded of by lobby or public chats. They did nothing 'wrong,' they were just discussing the game with information that was already made available to me that I just blanked on. Like if someone in lobby goes 'well he can't poltergeist cause slowbro's been knocked' and I'm only reminded about it because of lobby, according to your definition is that not ghosting as well? It wasn't 'thought of from the player itself' but this was info available to me just like the timer is.
In an ideal world tho sure no info at all is given to players but idt this is worth everything else that might come with it like what ziozio brought up.

timer management is a valuable skill but players being reminded of a low timer does not provide a meaningful advantage in their ability to manage their time.
kinda disagree with this part tho, if you need to be reminded of your timer you p clearly haven't managed your time properly up to then so it could def provide an advantage lol
 

Finchinator

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I do not think we need to enforce this, and I think enforcing this would cause more bad than good.

I get that the concept of eliminating external influence is a good one, but this is taking it too far. Also, the OP targets new players, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I largely echo the sentiment of Merritt.
Yes, but say you're at a chess tournament, watching the world championship's and Magnus Carlson's timer gets to 5 seconds and you yell "TIMER". How would that be viewed as? Completely unreasonable. Some thing applies to pokemon. After all, they are both a competitive turn based game.
That’s a professional tournament held IRL. This is an online Pokemon simulator with hobbyists. We absolutely take this seriously and the competitive nature of our game should not be downplayed, but this is not an apt comparison.
 

CrashinBoomBang

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That’s a professional tournament held IRL. This is an online Pokemon simulator with hobbyists. We absolutely take this seriously and the competitive nature of our game should not be downplayed, but this is not an apt comparison.
Nevermind that this parallel doesn't quite work. I think if you had gone to the latest chess world championships to YELL "LMAO did he just blunder" when Nepomniachtchi blundered his piece it would have gone over quite poorly as well whereas that's pretty much standard etiquette in the Smogtours chat.

I don't see this as a problem at all, but if Something is done about it then I'd much rather just see an option where you're locked out of the Smogtours lobby during tournament games or something. I don't think restricting the chat or what can be said is a step in the right direction, especially when, past a certain point, players can't read the main chat anyway (because all the info in it will be considered ghosting). Just take the short route and instate some kind of lobby lock if at all possible, although I still don't see this as an issue :worrywhirl:
 

adem

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Yes, but say you're at a chess tournament, watching the world championship's and Magnus Carlson's timer gets to 5 seconds and you yell "TIMER". How would that be viewed as? Completely unreasonable. Some thing applies to pokemon. After all, they are both a competitive turn based game.
specifically addressing this, while following up on finches post

with some1 typing “timer” in a match, it is in the same general area as the actual timer warnings by ps itself, if you happen to glance at the chat and see the reminder message from a spectator, you will see ps’ timer message at the same time. When compared to someone shouting timer out loud in an irl chess tournament, which even if you are not actively looking at the clock / timer, you will still hear it regardless (not even going to get into how this actively disturbs the players concentration, much much more than someone typing it out in a chat).

sorry if this didnt come out as well as it did in my head, but basically you will need to actively look at the battle log/chat section to see the messages and while doing that you’ll see the timer messages at the same time, but in a irl chess match regardless of if ur looking at the clock or not you’ll still hear that warning and know your timer is going down.

i really dont think its that big of a deal, since regardless you will have to look at the chat anyways to see either message, the extra warning just ig makes it easier to see / notice, but i would say a better solution would be to make the timer messages have a bolder font possibly or have it ping you automatically (maybe start this when it drops to like 30, since it could be annoying for earlier times) so you’ll know even if you swap tabs. regardless idt banning this is the way to go, all this does is make more potentially interesting tour games lost by time out which im sure neither the spectator, the opponent, nor the player wants.
 

Boat

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People say stuff like "BOAT, TIMER" because their name highlights in the battle and provides a notification if they're on a different tab. Make the timer highlight / notify when it reaches 10 / 15ish seconds, and I think people spamming "timer" becomes largely unnecessary. Also it's definitely not ghosting, not even close.
 

Berks

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much better than the chess tournament comparison in my opinion is a comparison to the shot clock in basketball. while a team doesn’t lose if their shot clock hits zero, they do lose out on possession and the opportunity to score. audiences screaming the countdown at full volume once the shot clock hits ten is 1) super fun to be a part of; 2) not telling the players something they couldn’t already know by literally looking up at the clock; and 3) rarely, if ever, actually impactful. if a player is so bad at managing timer that they constantly need “timer, timer!”, they’re either nicknaming themselves Low Timer Lily or they’re most likely gonna lose anyways. this is harmless.
 

Greybaum

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Echoing adem here. It's absolutely ghosting, technically speaking, but showdown sends automated warnings in the exact same window where this 'ghosting' takes place. Playes are meant to have these warnings, the current implementation of it just happens to be imperfect and spectators are filling in. Making the notifications more obvious is a far more constructive way to go about this. I don't think punishing people for "timer" does anything except force more unwanted timeouts.
 

dex

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Nothing should be done to prevent people from reminding others about their timer; it's a pretty nitpicky thing to complain about. Something I do think could be seen as more of an issue is an outside party asking a player to turn off the timer if their opponent is low on time. Obviously, this doesn't impact games played on smogtours, but asking a player to turn off the timer publicly in their match puts them in an awkward position where turning off the timer is a straight detriment to them but they look like an asshole if they don't. As I said, this more impacts smaller, non-official tours, but I've seen this multiple times, and it's always left the subjected player frustrated. An explicit rule about this would be helpful.
 
Truly the most 5d approach to hammering out ghosting I've seen in a while

Can we ban people for hyping up plays next?

Does me saying up on a hazard click as a joke constitute ghosting? After all it might affect how players manage rocks and defog pp :sphearical:

This looks like a solution to something that's not really a problem to 99% of players
 
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BT89

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April Fools was 3 weeks ago.

OK, but in all seriousness, I agree with the general consensus here, this is a bad idea. It doesn't really solve anything and will generally lead to more bad than good in 99% of potential time-out scenarios. This can lead to otherwise cool and interesting tour games going to shit because oopsies! Player X forgot to look at the timer! I also think that targeting players that are new to the scene with this clause is a pretty awful intent.

Echoing adem here. It's absolutely ghosting, technically speaking, but showdown sends automated warnings in the exact same window where this 'ghosting' takes place. Playes are meant to have these warnings, the current implementation of it just happens to be imperfect and spectators are filling in. Making the notifications more obvious is a far more constructive way to go about this. I don't think punishing people for "timer" does anything except force more unwanted timeouts.
+1, I think this idea solves this issue way more efficiently without forcing awkward time out scenarios. It preserves PS "etiquette" while also subduing the effects of the pseudo-ghosting.
 
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