Announce post #3295: Year 500 Bloodbath(s)

Autoposter

1/7/2022 at 20:55
Ictinus, the Architect
Everyone
Year 500 Bloodbath(s)

Hi folks,

Just a quick post to announce the following:

The ally_follow artifact power is now disabled during non-team arena events.

I've listed a second Year 500 Bloodbath for Friday 14th at 20:00 GMT (essentially the exact day/time of the first one, just a week later), under EVENTS 334. Winners of the first Bloodbath cannot play in this one, however!

Going forward, if there's an issue with arena games or any of the Year 500 games that is known, you should assume that it has not been reported and report it.

While I'm told the ally_follow matter was brought up in the past, this predates me and without a bug report on the subject, I have no knowledge of the problem. Needless to say such things will be high priorities for fixes in the future.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 16th of Variach, in the year 500 MA.

Iesid

I appreciate the attempt at trying to make right what a group of players found unacceptable.

I will say that I think the damage is done (for some people) and another Bloodbath is not likely to fix it. The response during the actual event really burnt some people. Nothing here in this post is really dispelling the impression that it was okay to circumvent arena event mechanics. Nobody is really getting punished - they already collected their points and their placement credits. Now, I don't need anyone to be subjected to punishment to feel like this was 'made right'. To me, there is very little to make right: I just dislike having my time wasted and ally_follow exacerbates the possibility of that in a bloodbath. I should have known better than to expect something enjoyable out of that gametype, but I was willing to take it on faith that I was wrong about my impression of that specific arena game. Unfortunately, the experience here just wasn't that - and it has made me once again reluctant to participate in things that aren't The Duel or City Champions.

My suggestion, though, is that I think you guys should consider a revise of your policy on non-interference when stuff is already midway. To be clear in what makes me think so: we mentioned a couple times that they were literally grouped and following one person in an arena event/bloodbath. I scrolled through my log of the event to find timestamps:

The event commenced at 15:04:12.
The first public complaint was at 15:13:26, less than halfway through the event itself. That was less than a third of the event's duration, even.
The entirety of Spirit's participants checked out between those two timestamps, with myself being the last to leave at 15:14:48 - once again, not even halfway through the event, barely a third of the way through.

At all points of complaint, we were not that far in. You could have ended the event, made the change, and started again.I understand your hesitance to close the bloodbath prematurely to make this adjustment - after all, 7 people would have felt wronged by it and they would be complaining in our stead - but you burnt a lot of folks in the way this was handled and, in the end, you made the change after the fact anyways. It's almost as if trying to have your cake but also eat it as well, because you made an express statement with that change while not upholding it when it was at its most evident as a problem.

Czcienn

Wasn't there, but I don't like the precedence this sets. Essentially you're saying we should just abuse whatever bugs/loopholes we can find because there will be no consequences for it and at worst you'll just be rewarded for it and not get a second chance to be rewarded for it that everyone else gets.

Saltz

If an artifact or an ability is found too strong/unhealthy for a competition, this could be the way to handle it. Disabling it for future competitions, adding it to the long list of arena_blacklist. But that's not the case here. Sportsmanship can be discussed here as well, between players. But none of these should be the first topic to address from the administration, a player intentionally broke the rules of the event and not only were they allowed to do just that but they were also rewarded for it in the end... That's unfortunate.

Teani

To be honest, I'd rather see the focus of discussion being sportsmanship at this point. Highlight good sportsmanship rather than bad behavior and people might come around a bit more easily and the game feels more positive in general.

Rhyot

Two points here...

Fist, this is why any arena event is absolute garbage unless it can specifically be made into a 1v1 or 1 v PVE, such as Bait the frog or Champion duel with the winner/losers bracket. Teaming is going to occur and it will always devolve into spirit/shadow tether tribalism (much to the ire of everyone).

Second point, there's a lot of pot calling kettles here. Now I've got no stake in the outcome here, because I don't participate in any yearly events except GH anymore nor do I care who wins.... but this seems like a very one sided complaint. If Spirit had the ally_follow artifact, I'm 10000% certain that they would have utilized it too in order to secure a win inside a Bloodbath event. Had that happened, we would not have seen everyone dropping out of the arena nor a spamming of ideas to blacklist ally_follow. Shadow would have just scratched their head and said "Well, that's kinda messed up. Let's keep killing them!! Strength in Slaughter!! May we never know peace!!" 

I think yall need to take a step back and look at the realism factor here and see the hypocrisy for what it is. There's something that can be said about sportsmanship, however sportsmanship is an irrelevant topic. Shadow only does what Spirit would do to them if it were possible, just as Spirit does what they feel Shadow would do to them. As the golden saying goes, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." 

That's my two cents. 

Xavin

So what you are saying is that the people competing from the Spirit tether have no right to be upset because someone from the Shadow tether blatantly abused a bug in a manner that was complained about in the past and the only thing that happened was the admin shrugged their shoulders and said 'it'll be fixed for the next one'?

Church

Bug abuse is bug abuse no matter who does it and should be treated accordingly by everyone.

I can't speak for every player but if anyone had suggested this usage to me I would have said "lol no you should bug that."

Xavin

Gonna double post here @Rhyot, but if you're going to talk about the golden rule, and it's a 'do unto others' situation, would y'all -want- Spirit blatantly abusing a bug for an edge?

Rhyot

I mean, Spirit did get a lot of solo wins in Orrery because of the use of WF/Shapeshifter bug combinations. Shamans would songline people into instakill rooms that had monoliths. 

So, it's not that anyone -wants- it to happen... it's more that it -is- going to happen. You use the resources that are available to you. 

Xavin

So you're saying two wrongs make a right? You're going to sit here and claim that shadow has never pulled shenanigans like that in orrery either?

What do the help files say about bug abuse? Because bug abuse is bug abuse no matter what way you cut it. Especially when there are moderately large amounts of credits on the line.

Edit: And considering the barrage BS I was on the receiving end of just the other day for taking an in character action during the starfall, I think it's hilarious that people on the Shadow tether are actually trying to justify the abuse of a bug.

Rhyot

I never said Shadow hasn't pulled shenanigans. I also never once said it was a bug, so that's your own interpretation. Ictinus only said that there was never a bug report put in for it either.

So either it was a bug and was never reported, which makes it not a bug. OR it was just a general unwritten player rule to not use ally_follow (a 200 credit artifact that literally anyone can buy) inside arena events like this. Either way, you use the resources available to you.

Xavin says:

Edit: And considering the barrage BS I was on the receiving end of just the other day for taking an in character action during the starfall, I think it's hilarious that people on the Shadow tether are actually trying to justify the abuse of a bug.

And this right here, sir, is tether tribalism. While I am pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about, that situation is completely polar opposite to what is going on now. As such, off-topic to the conversation at hand.

Xavin

Hah, how is it? It's not really off topic because it was an out of character reaction to something that was entirely in character when you're calling the people bothered by the bloodbath situation hypocrites because they're reacting to what is literally bug abuse.

Bug abuse shouldn't be rewarded with honors lines, credits, or participation points. Bug abuse actually should be punished. Everyone who benefited from that bug being abused should at the very least not be getting credits, participation points, or honors lines from participating in that bloodbath. Y'all want to defend bug abuse by saying 'spirit does it to' but get outraged when spirit acts in character during an event? I'm calling bs.

Church

Rhyot said:

So either it was a bug and was never reported, which makes it not a bug

edit: great mentality 5/7 explains everything

Xavin

Church said:

Rhyot said:

So either it was a bug and was never reported, which makes it not a bug

edit: great mentality 5/7 explains everything

This. And if you can't use the FOLLOW command in a bloodbath, why in the ever-loving hell would you think that it's not a bug to be able to use an artifact to get all of your allies to follow you? If your line of thinking is that 'well there's no bug in so it's not a bug' then consider how the admin would react to someone using an unreported bug to generate millions of gold.

Iesid

idk, complaining about/pointing out tether tribalism just after posting an idyllic theory about how Shadow would have reacted to this sure seems like hypocrisy...

Re: sportsmanship - I think the game's definition of 'sportsmanship' was put on full display yesterday. It clearly is the intended mindset, since admin distributed points and gave it a pass. I will keep that in mind going forward.

Wjoltyr

I distinctly remember something involving Spirit, the orrery, a bucket of blood and an otherwise inaccessible area to play keep away with the globe. But nothing to see here when Spirit is the 'bug' abuser? (My personal perception is that it is a loophole.)

You come out ahead if you choose to participate. Shadow will be down 1-4 of its best combatants. Spirit will be able to fight amongst themselves for credits, honors, and placement points while also getting a free participation point for their trouble. But perspective. 

And yes, that should be your mindset going forward. HELP 15.5 FWIW. Using org gold in gold auctions is within these rules, for example. I'm sure I can come up with more if you want. 

Xavin

So your opinion is that "bug abuse is fine"? Can we get that in writing? Actually come out and say it?

Kurak

I am going to make two observations here. First, you can still do the exact thing as ally follow with emperor tarot or spamming web and path track. Second, it does not really look like an egregious bug usage. It looks more like a bit of bad sportsmanship, a thing I have been seeing from all the Tethers throughout the games.

I felt that Bloodbath 500 was going to devolve into a Deathball game and opted out for that reason. I think everyone should reexamine their behaviors during these games. And also we should keep reasonable expectations of Admin. I personally believe they took the most reasonable approach in handling this problem.

Tetchta

Ictinus

What happened in the Bloodbath was an unfortunate oversight that has now been fixed. I appreciate that this was something that apparently came up in previous games, but as I said in my original post - I have no knowledge of prior games, and can only act on what's in front of me.

In this case I don't really consider it bug abuse any more than I consider other questionable tactics used in these very Year 500 games (feeding words to people in Walker's Tongue, deliberately allowing people to steal eggs from your nest during egghunts to bypass restrictions on sharing, kiting dozens of hostile mobs into enemies during no-PK survivors, teaming in non-team arena games in general) to be bug abuse.

None of these are sportsmanlike tactics; all of them are against the spirit of the game but they've all happened in the last week. Obviously two wrongs don't make a right but most don't have mechanical solutions and require the participants to play honestly and in the spirit of the game. Considering this widespread unsportsmanlike behaviour on all sides across various game types, the best we can do is close loopholes and address issues as they come up.

Ultimately, I opted not to cancel the game but instead fix the issue and run a second one. This is in line with similar situations that have happened in the past. It is not an endorsement of bug abuse and interpreting it as such is an extremely reductive take.

I'm going to close this thread now before it devolves further into petty arguments. If you want to talk to me more about this, you're welcome to contact me directly.