2013 International Challenge (OVER!)

Carl

or Varl
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
If you're waiting more than a few minutes for a match then you should reset and try again. I've never had issues queuing in these things. That's also a pretty huge amount of DCs... can't say I've seen many people with that large of a percentage. DC'ing is still definitely out there but that's the most extreme example. Your experience sounds more like an anomaly and less like the norm.
 

voodoo pimp

marco pimp
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
If you're waiting more than a few minutes for a match then you should reset and try again. I've never had issues queuing in these things.
My experience has been the same. If I ever wait more than a few minutes looking for a match, I disconnect from Wi-Fi, connect again, and almost immediately get one.
 
If you're waiting more than a few minutes for a match then you should reset and try again. I've never had issues queuing in these things.
Day 1 and 3 were perfectly fine for me, it was just Day 2 which seemed really sluggish until after a certain hour where I started getting matches now and and again.

That's also a pretty huge amount of DCs... can't say I've seen many people with that large of a percentage. DC'ing is still definitely out there but that's the most extreme example. Your experience sounds more like an anomaly and less like the norm.
Main trend I tended to note was bulk of the DCs were all on the last day of the event. I actually went for most of Day 1 with only 4 DCs (my first 4 games actually) and around 11 wins and 1 loss. Day 2 I won probably somewhere region of another 9 and knocked up 1 loss and 1 DC but all the matches came much later in the day.

It was on the final day where I kept getting DC'd on like the plague and was forced to play as many games as possible (They came thick and fast thankfully) to try even it out. Hell I think I even deliberately threw a match near the end of the deadline to save time at the expense of rating just to try get my number of finished matches up and even out the DC percentage.
 
Rankings out!
Oh my gosh, I got a weird rank: I'm #666, with 1654 points (there are 12 other people that have the same points than me, from 661 to 673)
 

Expert Evan

every battle has a smell!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Good news is I'm in the rankings at 641th place with a 1656 rating. While I didn't participate in many matches this time and had a good match against hockeyguy605, I almost thought my 10%+ opponent disconnect rate would disqualify me again, but fortunately was not the case this time.
 
We have the 226th rank in the senior cup. It would have been a bit better but we had to stop before the disconnect rate would have gone overboard.
 
402nd place masters! Not bad at all, Jan's I came just past 1200th place. My only qualm is with those dastardly dishonourable disconnecting dudes, it really gives me a sinking feeling to have my time wasted like that, especially when my opponent can offer me a good challenging battle... It often seems to be Japanese players as well which is a shame.

Tbh I wish I could have played more matches as well, but I was busy this weekend... Can't wait to see if I got any championship points, the guy in 16th place (EUR) according to nuggetbridge didn't even have that many more points than me!
 
461 Place in Masters 1683 rating

I had so many d'cers i didnt think i would place in ranking. they need a better solution for all of the disconnects

Overall i had an interesting time testing my team.
 
Disqualified again with a 1760 rating in Masters so I've been cheated out of a ranking again. Feels utterly bullshit when the European 16th placing apparently only had 1790 rating, I would've easily surpassed that if even half the ragequits against me had registered. Interestingly the 1st place crown for the entire competition this time went to the Italians.
 

Level 51

the orchestra plays the prettiest themes
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
Oh cool, 86th place with only 1688 points.
Shows you how shitty all the groups except Masters are, doesn't it haha
At least I managed to top Singapore n_n (first out of 2 is still top -.-)
 

froggy25

Bye RNGmon
is a Researcher Alumnus
Disqualified again with a 1760 rating in Masters so I've been cheated out of a ranking again. Feels utterly bullshit when the European 16th placing apparently only had 1790 rating, I would've easily surpassed that if even half the ragequits against me had registered. Interestingly the 1st place crown for the entire competition this time went to the Italians.
The same happened to a friend of mine, I'm glad I didn't waste too much time in this.
 

Braverius

snowls
is a Past SPL Champion
Anyone who's complaining about getting disqualified and has no idea what their DC% is should probably reconsider complaining. Sure, the system's broken, but we've been fully aware of this for 6-8 months. You've had time to adapt to it and understand what to do about it, there are ways to easily assure yourself of a ranking. If you're complaining and don't even have an accurate DC percentage, you have no basis for it, even if you didn't disconnect on anyone purposely. How do you know what happened, where the issue lies, and how close you were to likely getting rated without knowing any information on what your DCs looked like?

Note: Pretty sure any DCs as soon as the trainer card comes up count towards your percentage. Keep tabs on all of those. Many times it's your own internet connection that is the problem rather than the other player's (I know mine has often been the issue even though I didn't want to admit it.)

I do feel bad for anyone who plays honestly and does not DC on anyone, yet gets removed from the rankings. However, you have to play to what we have, we know what the system is, and while it is frustrating, complaining on this thread will do absolutely nothing to help fix it, nor will it do anything to get your ranking back. I'm very sure Nintendo and TPCi have heard about these issues on numerous occasions. Keep good track of your DC% and if you can, drop a dozen or even more games at start to make your DC rate a nonfactor. There are many things you can point the finger at, but at the end of the day, getting a rating is the vast majority of the time under your control.
 
I'm pretty sure that D/Cs are based purely on number. I only did about 7 battles and was D/Ced in about three of them, yet I was still ranked, albeit pretty low. Maybe more attention is given to the higher-ranked D/Cers. I don't know.
 
They also look for "irregular patterns", so it isn't based entirely off an arbitrary calculation.

I was disqualified, annoyingly, from the first tournament - but managed to rank in both the last two with less disconnections (I found) overall. I came in the top 16 of Europe in the last one too. Maybe I'll try to get further in the next one.
 

Braverius

snowls
is a Past SPL Champion
I'm pretty sure that D/Cs are based purely on number. I only did about 7 battles and was D/Ced in about three of them, yet I was still ranked, albeit pretty low. Maybe more attention is given to the higher-ranked D/Cers. I don't know.
No, this is not true. I played 201 matches and had 38 or 39 disconnections, not sure whether one during searching was a trainer card DC or not, but that would have easily knocked me clean out of the rankings if that was the case. Baz is right, but I don't know if they just do that manually for the top 200-300 finishers or have a system that does it. Either way, managing your rate and keeping it below 15% (20% for a more risky bar) is the best thing you can do.
 
I doubt I got to play 10 games in this one. I was out for a yugioh tournament on the weekend, so I could only play on friday morning and monday afternoon, but I was tired as hell on monday... so I only had one good game and I think I've posted it before in here already.
 

froggy25

Bye RNGmon
is a Researcher Alumnus
Anyone who's complaining about getting disqualified and has no idea what their DC% is should probably reconsider complaining. Sure, the system's broken, but we've been fully aware of this for 6-8 months. You've had time to adapt to it and understand what to do about it, there are ways to easily assure yourself of a ranking. If you're complaining and don't even have an accurate DC percentage, you have no basis for it, even if you didn't disconnect on anyone purposely. How do you know what happened, where the issue lies, and how close you were to likely getting rated without knowing any information on what your DCs looked like?
When you play an online tournament with a game you paid, as a customer you should not accept these kind of things to happen.

TPCi tells players to register and play in those internet tournaments. They actively encourage them to come and play in those tournaments, even using incentives like Championship Points to lure people.
It is TPCi's to ensure the tournament runs smoothly and is fair to everyone.

It is not up to the player to keep track of his D/C count and to use countermeasures to not get DQ'd because of a too high D/C count, like dropping several battles at the start to reduce the D/C%.
When you run a tournament, you can't tell to one of your customers who bought your game that your DQing him because he has a high D/C count, even if all of his D/Cs were caused by his opponent.

If I am Blizzard for example, and I ban you from Starcraft servers because several of your opponents cheated, merely because you were involved in more incidents than your opponents... you're going to sue me.
As a tournament organizer and as a company respectful towards its customers, TPCi's online system should be able to determine accurately who the cheater was. And they shouldn't use non-relevant information to determine who should be punished.
And yes, the D/C count is a non-relevant information.

I can't even understand how TPCi can show such disrespect to its customers by telling them to come and play ("join the fun", as they say) to win championships points for the world championships, and then giving out utterly unfair DQs because their online battle system is shitty as hell.

Keep good track of your DC% and if you can, drop a dozen or even more games at start to make your DC rate a nonfactor. There are many things you can point the finger at, but at the end of the day, getting a rating is the vast majority of the time under your control.
I mean, that's ridiculous to have to do this just to get a ranking. You're not in the tournament to waste your time AND your ranking by dropping games right at the start just to make sure you don't get D/C in this tournament.

What makes things even worse is that they had the stupid idea to give out Championship Points in these "tournaments".
 

Carl

or Varl
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
TPCi tells players to register and play in those internet tournaments. They actively encourage them to come and play in those tournaments, even using incentives like Championship Points to lure people.
It is TPCi's to ensure the tournament runs smoothly and is fair to everyone.
TPCi tells people to play in these tournaments because not everyone can make it to the in person tournaments. This is their way of "appeasing" the average player by being "inclusive" to everyone. It's their option to host online tournaments - I think they're being more than fair by even having WiFi invitationals as an option.

It is not up to the player to keep track of his D/C count and to use countermeasures to not get DQ'd because of a too high D/C count, like dropping several battles at the start to reduce the D/C%.
When you run a tournament, you can't tell to one of your customers who bought your game that your DQing him because he has a high D/C count, even if all of his D/Cs were caused by his opponent.
You didn't pay money to play online. You paid money for the game cartridge. I look at the online features as being an added "bonus" to the RPG that I purchased. Competitive battling is a small part of the pokemon title, it just happens to be the best part.

No player needs to keep track of their record as they play. That's a completely optional, albeit beneficial, exercise that you can take to help ensure you don't have any issues making the rankings.

If I am Blizzard for example, and I ban you from Starcraft servers because several of your opponents cheated, merely because you were involved in more incidents than your opponents... you're going to sue me.
As a tournament organizer and as a company respectful towards its customers, TPCi's online system should be able to determine accurately who the cheater was. And they shouldn't use non-relevant information to determine who should be punished.
And yes, the D/C count is a non-relevant information.
At the end of the day, this isn't TPCi's online battle system. My understanding is that they have no idea who did disconnect and who didn't, just what battles it happened in. I don't know for sure how they decide who gets ranked and who doesn't but fault Nintendo's online system - TPCi is just playing the cards they were dealt.

I can't even understand how TPCi can show such disrespect to its customers by telling them to come and play ("join the fun", as they say) to win championships points for the world championships, and then giving out utterly unfair DQs because their online battle system is shitty as hell.

I mean, that's ridiculous to have to do this just to get a ranking. You're not in the tournament to waste your time AND your ranking by dropping games right at the start just to make sure you don't get D/C in this tournament.

What makes things even worse is that they had the stupid idea to give out Championship Points in these "tournaments".
The tournament is a grind fest and a complete waste of time even if nobody gets disqualified. You're rewarded for quantity in these things and quantity requires a time investment.

It's debatable whether it's more fair to disqualify people or more fair to let cheaters run wild. Obviously the online system is broken and that was Braverius's point. By now people should know this and, if they choose to play, should do what they can to counter act this... be it by counting DCs, throwing matches, etc.

Giving out CP for these was not a good idea, no question, but to be upset at this point (we've had, what, like 4 of these now?) is a little silly. I understand your frustration but you're upset at a broken system that we've known for months is broken.
 

froggy25

Bye RNGmon
is a Researcher Alumnus
You paid for the game AND the internet options. This includes playing online (and to that crappy Dream World too).

Well, if most Pokémon players think like you, I understand why this game has a so horrible online system. They don't need to improve, most players are "happy" with it !
 

Carl

or Varl
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
I'm not "happy" with it and I don't believe very many are. But by now most people have at least realized the limitations, terribleness, etc. and that it can't / won't be fixed until gen 6 (hopefully).
 

Firestorm

I did my best, I have no regrets!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
You paid for the game AND the internet options. This includes playing online (and to that crappy Dream World too).

Well, if most Pokémon players think like you, I understand why this game has a so horrible online system. They don't need to improve, most players are "happy" with it !
It has a horrible online system because it can't be fixed until the next generation. We've already communicated our problems with it before and they've heard it. Posting bold, underlined whining on a Smogon thread for your fellow players who also know that the system is broken fixes nothing.

In any case, they seem to be working as well as they can within the constraints. I'd rather see people get disqualified for a high disconnection rate than what we had before where people who were known to disconnect a lot were placing highly in the rankings -- though it doesn't look like enough people were disqualified this time in many cases.

There's things you should do on your end to lessen the chances of being disconnected on as well.
 

Braverius

snowls
is a Past SPL Champion
Just adding to what Carl said about froggy's quote. That shouldn't be seen as an even possible rationalization for being irritated about these tournaments.

When you play an online tournament with a game you paid, as a customer you should not accept these kind of things to happen.
So if you should not accept these kinds of things, what action have you taken?
What laws did they breach?
Why did you buy the game again not knowing that there was a clear answer as to whether or not they'd fix the system?
Why not just ignore the tournaments and enjoy the parts of the game that you like?

TPCi tells players to register and play in those internet tournaments. They actively encourage them to come and play in those tournaments, even using incentives like Championship Points to lure people.
This makes it sound like you don't even play in them, how do you know how they work if you haven't played in them?
They do have a system, even if it is flawed, so why not use it to give players practice in a more fun, concentrated manner than typical simulator or GBU grinding? I personally prefer these over simulators for practice.
For those who want the berry, they can run 5 times. The extremely vast majority of those will not have two DCs in 5 games, and I doubt they DQ anyone that plays that few and doesn't DC often. Also, the amount of CP this gives is so minimal that finishing 16th place at a 70-150 person REGIONAL is worth TWICE the points of a FIRST PLACE finish among over 1,000 competitors. That argument is completely invalid.

It is TPCi's [responsibility] to ensure the tournament runs smoothly and is fair to everyone.
It's as fair as possible right now. While I don't like the system and hope they repair it, what else can they possibly do right now with what they have? They invest in other things like putting the live events together, which are a much bigger deal and much more fun than a shoddy online tournament. Even with a nearly flawless system it wouldn't even come close to the regional/national/world championship series events.

It is not up to the player to keep track of his D/C count and to use countermeasures to not get DQ'd because of a too high D/C count, like dropping several battles at the start to reduce the D/C%.
When you run a tournament, you can't tell to one of your customers who bought your game that your DQing him because he has a high D/C count, even if all of his D/Cs were caused by his opponent.
What if this is their system they would rather have instead of making a better one and having to increase the price of the game? What if a more advanced system isn't possible on the 3DS? There are a lot of things that we do not know. Sure, it would be much appreciated if they'd share these drawbacks with us, but they're not entitled to that. You purchase the game knowing these things, yet you complain when the obvious thing happens.

If I am Blizzard for example, and I ban you from Starcraft servers because several of your opponents cheated, merely because you were involved in more incidents than your opponents... you're going to sue me.
I'm not as experienced with SC or SC2 stuff, but I'm assuming the stakes for that type of thing are a TON higher. Here, you're playing for a maximum of 10 championship points which will at the very most affect two or three players in the ENTIRE circuit, and likely will not affect anyone. And if it does affect someone, you give someone a 1 in 32 theoretical chance of winning a prize of ~$2500, split between 32 people being less than 100, and assuming they slid into the event last place probably even less. You cannot statistically use this as an example of illegal actions, it's dealing with less than $100 of theoretical money that has a rare chance of ever even happening in the first place.

As a tournament organizer and as a company respectful towards its customers, TPCi's online system should be able to determine accurately who the cheater was. And they shouldn't use non-relevant information to determine who should be punished.
And yes, the D/C count is a non-relevant information.
We've found out through practice that it's typically better to at least have SOME restrictions on who to punish. It's so sketchy right now, but the best way they've been able to counteract the DCing is to form a community-based support for not DCing, and I think when it comes down to it that's going to be the heart of the problem anyways- people who can't take a loss. Fix that problem and you can at least work with what you have until they make a new system.

I can't even understand how TPCi can show such disrespect to its customers by telling them to come and play ("join the fun", as they say) to win championships points for the world championships, and then giving out utterly unfair DQs because their online battle system is shitty as hell.
Again, like I stated above, the CP amount is practically irrelevant.

I mean, that's ridiculous to have to do this just to get a ranking. You're not in the tournament to waste your time AND your ranking by dropping games right at the start just to make sure you don't get D/C in this tournament.
This is where I'm going to play the "life isn't fair" card. I don't care enough about such a minimal amount of CP to worry about this, but if someone does, there are steps they can take to increase their chances of getting CP. I know the argument is that this issue shouldn't be there in the first place, but sometimes you have to take what you have and harness it. I'm sort of a perfectionist, but at the same time I've been able to understand that nothing is going to be completely flawless, and you have to do your very best to work around the flaws and get what you want out of it.

What makes things even worse is that they had the stupid idea to give out Championship Points in these "tournaments".
I think this is the third time you've said this, and again, it's an incredibly minimal amount. INCREDIBLY minimal.

tl;dr, if you're going to complain, you should probably have already taken action about the product/service you're complaining about, as well as being experienced with the product as well. If you buy a product knowing the risks and logical expectations that come with buying it, and they are par with what was expected due to history / "promises," you have no reason to complain. If you want it to be better, ACT UPON IT. Complaining here will not move this along or justify anything. If it's not worth your time, DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT or simply find a more practical way to enjoy what you purchased.


Also I somehow missed this tidbit:
You paid for the game AND the internet options. This includes playing online (and to that crappy Dream World too).

Well, if most Pokémon players think like you, I understand why this game has a so horrible online system. They don't need to improve, most players are "happy" with it !
You paid not knowing the details about either. If you wanted to know the details, you could have asked before you bought it, or returned it if you didn't like it. I never really use the dream world at all, but it seems like a cool idea. I have no clue what you're saying is better than this that's currently available, though. If you want it to be available, by all means pursue that endeavor, but if you aren't going to do the work, then don't complain about what other people have done and set the bar way higher than it was ever asked to be / ever has been set at.

We're CONTENT with it? No, we're just not complaining about it on a forum which accomplishes absolutely nothing toward getting the problem fixed. I've been talking with one of the event coordinators for a bit now about it, and he's very much expecting this to be upgraded next release. He understands the frustration, but there is only so much they can do about it with just a DS game chip and the tighter budget with a slowed world economy to run the servers. We won't know until then, but these tournaments regardless are not a big part of the VGC circuit anyways since there's no way to tell if it's really YOU playing, or someone else. Online play is really not the best way to do things, and I think they understand this and keep the premier events up to par rather than pooling their efforts into an online game, since it's more accurate, more social, and more fun for the vast majority of people.
 
If I am Blizzard for example, and I ban you from Starcraft servers because several of your opponents cheated, merely because you were involved in more incidents than your opponents... you're going to sue me.
Not trying to get technical about this, but it wasn't exactly the best example. Blizzard usually doesn't do anything against Maphackers / Drop Hacks unless the person is High Masters / Grandmasters and many people report him / her. Also, they actually have a "system" of telling who cheated or not.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 1)

Top