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Improvement of the 60 mins Time Limit Rule


gbwead

Question

I just lost a duel because of the 60 mins time limit rule. After 20 mins, the duel was over, but because it was 4v5, my opponent had this artificial win condition (because of the time limit rule) that allowed him to win if he survived for 60 mins. So the rule that is designed to prevent endless stalling encouraged my opponent to stall an unwinnable game. I understand the need for a rule to prevent tournaments from lasting forever, but that doesn't mean the rule needs to reduce the game to something as simple as whoever has the most mons would have won. There are many ways to make the 60 mins time limit rule better:

1. Instead of looking first at the number of mons alive and then at the sum of % of hp on these mons, why not look at these two criteria at the same time? The number of mons alive is an arbitrary value that does not really reflect who is the most likely to win. For this reason, the following formula would be better imo:

 

(sum of the HP% of all mons of player 1) x (number of mons alive of player 1)
vs
(sum of the HP% of all mons of player 2) x (number of mons alive of player 2)
 

I do not see why the number of pokemon alive should be a criteria more important than the % of hp of all mons. There are tons of scenarios where the number of pokemons alive is more important than the % of hp of all mons and there are also tons of scenarios where the % of hp of all mons alive is more important than the number of pokemon alive. Looking at both criteria at the same time rather than one and after the other gives a much better picture of who is the most likely to win in stall matches. 

 

2. At 55 mins, both players could get the option to extend the 60 mins limit for an extra amount of time. In the event, the player that chooses to extend the time limit loses, this player ends up with a big penalty (money penalty, temporary tournament ban, etc.) Temporary tournament bans are already common practice for bad sportmanship on the ladder, so I think it would be more than fair for people that would abuse extensions.

 

3. The following suggestion is quite complex and requires probably more thoughts, but it can somewhat work imo:

 

(Total dmg inflicted by Player 1 / Total HP recovered by Player 2) x (# of pp left of Player 1)
vs
(Total dmg inflicted by Player 2 / Total HP recovered by Player 1) x (# of pp left of Player 2)
 

This formula is based on the assumption that, with all the PP used in 60 mins, Player 1 was able to inflict a certain amount of permanent dmg and whatever amount of PP remaining for Player 1 reflects on the amount of permanent dmg Player 1 will be capable of inflicting long term.


I do not believe any of these suggestion will be able to predict perfectly who the winner should be long term, but determining the winner based on these suggestions would be more accurate imo. 

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I don't see how average hp is any less arbitrary is the the thing. Just because your doing a bit of math doesn't make picking a winner more accurate. Number of pokemon at least encourages players to attack to try and get the advantage as appose to average hp which encourages healing and further stall. And sure in your situation where your opponent already had the advantage he can just park the bus, but really thats already the point of stall anyway so nothing really changes. 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, DaftCoolio said:

I don't see how average hp is any less arbitrary is the the thing. Just because your doing a bit of math doesn't make picking a winner more accurate. 

Both are arbitrary so that's why it doesn't make much sense to prioritize one criteria over the other which is the case now. 

 

19 minutes ago, DaftCoolio said:

Number of pokemon at least encourages players to attack to try and get the advantage as appose to average hp which encourages healing and further stall.

I'm not sure that's the case. If you don't attack your opponent and only heal yourself, you're not taking the advantage no matter what time limit rule is in place.

 

21 minutes ago, DaftCoolio said:

And sure in your situation where your opponent already had the advantage he can just park the bus, but really thats already the point of stall anyway so nothing really changes. 

My opponent was 3 turns away from losing, so the only advantage he had was the one the time limit rule gave him at 15/20 mins (a win condition that would not exist otherwise). That really has nothing to do with stall and just taking advantage of a flawed system. 

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4 hours ago, gbwead said:

Both are arbitrary so that's why it doesn't make much sense to prioritize one criteria over the other which is the case now. 

 

I'm not sure that's the case. If you don't attack your opponent and only heal yourself, you're not taking the advantage no matter what time limit rule is in place.

 

My opponent was 3 turns away from losing, so the only advantage he had was the one the time limit rule gave him at 15/20 mins (a win condition that would not exist otherwise). That really has nothing to do with stall and just taking advantage of a flawed system. 

"it doesnt make sense to prioritize one over the other" then why are you suggesting to prioritize your one? And yeah under the current number of mons rule if u dont attack your opponent your not taking the advantage but if you attack you are, which encourages players to attack each other. 

 

Dont get me wrong the ideal solution is to let the battle just play out, and so anything other than that is imperfect. At the current time limit, regardless of how the winner is decided, there will always be a way to game the system. Its not so much the method of how the winner is decided but the time limit rule itself, your opponent would have always dragged it out to 60mins because thats his best chance of winning. 

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9 hours ago, gbwead said:

I just lost a duel because of the 60 mins time limit rule. After 20 mins, the duel was over, but because it was 4v5, my opponent had this artificial win condition (because of the time limit rule) that allowed him to win if he survived for 60 mins.

This implies that you had the duel in your advantage after 20 mins. But you couldn't finish it within 60 mins. That doesn't really sound like an advantage then.

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5 hours ago, MKS said:

This implies that you had the duel in your advantage after 20 mins. But you couldn't finish it within 60 mins. That doesn't really sound like an advantage then.

Having an advantage doesn't mean that the game has to be finished within a specific period of time. When you are running certain kinds of stall that are passive, and are maybe facing opposing stall, these duels will take longer to finish. You can perhaps beat your opponent because you have "pressure" as your ability on most mons, and as a result you can deplete your opponent's PP and win, but that's a strategy that takes time and can also be delayed by the opponent simply switching about (only after a certain time limit do you not get time back for switching about).  

 

--------------

 

I do agree with gb that the current rule needs some modification because it allows undeserving folks (people who weren't able to win the game at all) to advance, which isn't fair. That being said, I don't think an automated decision should always be made in such a situation. I think staff intervention is necessary as the staff can then extend the battle for 5 min longer if the staff feels that the game can be completed within a certain period of time, or staff can determine who the winner should be by evaluating the situation (need to have comp knowledge) and that way determine if another player is engaging in bad faith where they are trying to advance by relying on the timer because there is no other way to do so. 

 

It doesn't seem that farfetched to me because showdown tours are hosted by actual people who preside over the entirety of the tour and they can always consult with another staff team (tournament director team) if they need assistance with making a decision. This also used to be the case in MMO before automated tournaments became the norm. 

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11 hours ago, DaftCoolio said:

"it doesnt make sense to prioritize one over the other" then why are you suggesting to prioritize your one?

How it works now:
1. Whoever has the most pokemon alive wins.
2. If the players have the same amount of mons alive, the player with the highest sum of total HP in % wins.

Both criteria are very arbitrary and we should not prioritize one over the other and I believe looking at them at the same time (without priority for one or the other) would be better. Basically, these two variables should be looked at the same time instead of independently and conditionally. 

For instance, after 60 mins we get the following scenario:
Player 1 has 4 pokemon alive; 3 pokemons pretty low at around 30% and 1 pokemon at 100% (that can't switch and is getting pp stalled because of it).
Player 2 has 3 pokemon alive; those 3 pokemon are all at 90%.

With what I'm suggesting, 
Player 1 would get the following score: (30%+30%+30%+100%) x 4 pokemon alive = 760

Player 2 would get the following score: (90%+90%+90%) x 3 pokemon alive = 810

Player 2 would here win because even though he has less pokemon alive, there is a realisitic possibility that he's in a better position in a 60 mins stall game. I'm by no means claiming that in all scenarios my rule would predict the right winner, just that it would be more accurate imo.
 

11 hours ago, DaftCoolio said:

Dont get me wrong the ideal solution is to let the battle just play out, and so anything other than that is imperfect. At the current time limit, regardless of how the winner is decided, there will always be a way to game the system. Its not so much the method of how the winner is decided but the time limit rule itself, your opponent would have always dragged it out to 60mins because thats his best chance of winning. 

I also believe people will try to game the system no matter what the rule ends up being, but that doesn't necessarily mean the system should be easy to abuse. I can't believe I am about to say this, but if the time limit rule was RNG based it would be harder to game the system. What I mean by RNG based here is basically having multiple possible rules that could determine the winner and not knowing in advance what that rule is. Do I need more pokemon alive? Do I need more HP on my mons? Do I need more PP? Without knowing in advance what rule will determine the winner, players will most likely be playing to win instead of playing to keep the status quo.

Edited by gbwead
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Instead of the 1 hour time limit, is there any way we could simply start the agressive timer sooner in duels? The sooner the agressive timer kicks in, the sooner the duel should end. The current time limit encourages stall to an undecent degree and makes the game quite uncompetitive.

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