Sunday Community Skirmish #26 (Signups for Sunday 2nd November)

[Velvet]

There is a unique tradition practised by a mysterious sect of monks, its origins lost in the mists of time. Every Sunday, they would rise from their deep contemplation of the universe to duke it out in homemade airships across a variety of exotic locales. Largely forgotten for centuries, now that the airship is mainstream, the sect have gone public, encouraging any young men and women who will listen to participate in violent weekend air battles. At least it gets them off the streets.

This signup thread is for the Skirmish at 8pm UTC on Sunday 2nd November (example: Britain is currently on UTC) The event is normally streamed at Fourth Oracle's channel as well as Xemko's (Russian) stream. Other streamers are involved when possible/necessary. The details of all streams will be made clear on the day of the event.
The event follows the same 2v2 deathmatch, single elimination, best of 3 format that you should be used to. Teams should consist of 8 players - please only sign up if you are confident of your ability to turn up with a full team.

Signups should be posted in this thread and include a Steam/Skype contact and team name. Signups close at midnight (UTC) on Friday the 31st October. Please try to avoid last minute signups.
The bracket and map rolls will be available soon after signups close. (brackets at http://goiocommunity.challonge.com/)
Participants will be contacted when their matches are starting, although it's encouraged to consult the bracket and keep track of the streams so you have a decent idea of when you will be playing.

Time Limit Rules
Every match has a base time limit of 15 minutes. However each Bo3 has a "reserve" time of 10 minutes; if a match runs past 15 minutes it will draw on the reserve time for that Bo3. If a match passes 15 minutes and all reserve time has been expended, it will end immediately. Hopefully this will prevent the long matches that mess up our scheduling without the inflexibility of a flat reduction to the old time limit. We're open to tweaking the numbers or reverting to the old system if this doesn't work out.
If a match is left tied by this system the Bo3 will continue regardless. In the case of a tied Bo3, the result will be decided by scores, or failing that a coin toss.

Teams are allowed 5 minutes of lobby time after their game is scheduled to start. In a situation where a team do not make a fair attempt to be ready within this span it may be counted as a forfeit depending on whether the event is already running behind schedule.

Substitution/Disconnect Rules:

• Nobody may play for more than one team on the same day.
• The match referee is authorised to call pauses and allow substitutions midmatch at their own discretion. A guideline is about 2 pauses/substitutions per team per match. However if both teams are happy to have a pause or it otherwise seems appropriate in the circumstances the referee can allow as many pauses as necessary.
• In the same way it is up to the referee to judge when a match restart is appropriate. Generally restarts should be avoided if kills have already been scored, however it is still an option in situations where lag/disconnects are severely affecting the progress and/or outcome of a match.
• The timer may be reset or bonus time may be added in situations where time has been lost for reasons beyond the teams' control eg. disconnects or match restarts.

Communication Abuse:
Participants are asked not to use ingame chat in a way that may cause offence or is otherwise inappropriate. It is at the discretion of the match referee to ask players to stop using chat and if necessary penalise teams with a match forfeit for persistent inappropriate communication. The referee is also authorised to restart the match in a situation where an individual player is causing trouble and needs to be removed. As with any match restart, the referee's decision should be made taking into account the current situation. In the case of a restart the scores are not reset; the new and previous lobbies should have their scores added.

Newcomer Bias:
The bracket may be altered to ensure that particularly newer teams are not exposed to a first match against a massively more experienced team.

The usual reminder: Please only sign up if you are confident of your ability to produce a full team of 8 players.
(note you don't actually have to provide a roster to prove this. We'll take your word for it.)

As noted before, it may prove necessary to run matches offstream if the number of participants exceeds what available streamers can handle.

[Velvet]

We are adding a few new rules with regards to surrendering.

- Surrenders can only be made if a game is already in reserve time.
- A team cannot surrender if doing so will cause the end of their Bo3.
- If a team surrenders the enemy team is considered to have scored 5 points. The surrendering team's current points are also noted. (this is relevant for Bo3's which are decided by score)

[Dementio]

- A team cannot surrender if doing so will cause the end of their Bo3.

I am sceptical about this.

[GeoRmr]

- A team cannot surrender if doing so will cause the end of their Bo3.

I am sceptical about this.

No!

THEY MUST BE TORTURE STOMPED. MAKE THEM SUFFER UNTIL THE END.

[Velvet]

The rationale behind this is that a surrender is an unsatisfying conclusion for viewers and to some extent the participating teams.

[Skrimskraw]

- A team cannot surrender if doing so will cause the end of their Bo3.

I am sceptical about this.

It basicly means, that you arent allowed to surrender if you are in game 3 of the best of 3.
its not good for streaming if games are being cut short. Ofcourse we arent going to beat teams down if they want to throw their best of 3, just ask the ref and we'll decide.

We dont want to turn surrendering into a legitimately tactical way to win, so we are just protecting the event, and the streamers from games being cut short.

[Velvet]

Over concerns the previous wording of this rule isn't entirely clear it's being reworded to: "A team may not surrender if their surrender will result in them losing a Bo3."

[Dementio]

Making sure that the audience has something to watch is ok.
If it is ok even when the SCS gets (almost) pointlessly delayed, because one team can't surrender if they so desire is up to debate. Considering that the SCS can turn out to be rather late for european players, a delay for the audience's sake is totally justified (<- slight sarcasm).
Another thing up for debate is how the team feels that wants to surrender that one match out of 3, but isn't allowed to. For the audience 1 match is cut short, yes, but it's not the only match to watch is there? And isn't there a slight chance that there is a match directly after the surrendered one, which means there is close to no difference for the audience with the exception of mild disappointment? For the team, however, they have to deal with unnecessary bad moral "We are going to lose this, let's surrender and go to the next map." "But wait! We are not allowed to, remember?" "Let's just suiced for 5 minutes then.", is something that could be a thing, I imagine.

we are just protecting the event, and the streamers from games being cut short

In which I conclude my above stated opinion:
There is little difference for the audience, mild disappointment at worst.
The unability to surrender could unnecessarily delay the matches for the poor european players or simply create bad moral for a team, in which said team might just give up this whole SCS thing in the worst case, which could be avoided easily.

We dont want to turn surrendering into a legitimately tactical way to win.

"A team may not surrender if their surrender will result in them losing a Bo3."

If I am not mistaken this means: In order to make to make sure that surrendering doesn't turn into a legitimately tactical way to win, you make a rule which says that the surrendering team can't lose a Bo3 through surrender? This sounds a bit strange.
And why can't they lose through a surrender? Isn't this what surrender is?

[Skrimskraw]

We had some feedback regarded towards the possibility of surrendering being a usefull tool if we didnt make some sort of rule in that matter.

Personally I proposed the no surrender within the first 15 minutes of game time, the reasoning behind this is that it´s both a let down for the team winning, the streamers/casters aswell as for us the organization when teams dont want to finish their match.

the rule about giving the other team 5 kills were proposed by lueosi through a conversation with me. The reasoning here was to prevet last game of best of 3 to be thrown. Lets say that first map its 5-1 to team A, next map its 3-3, last map Team A is down 4-0 but manages to get 2 kills, meaning they reach a total of 7-6 kill difference, and they just surrender in order to progress. this is something we do not wish to be part of our event, we had no rules for or against it prior, we do now.

the rule about not surrendering the last match is to uphold the standard of the games we have had so far. Teams are getting more and more concious about the ability to surrender, which by itself is a totally legitimate thing to do if you want to save extra time, but other than that we feel as if it is unfair to everyone participating or viewing.
It is a fairly long event, but through the weeks we have managed to cut down on time immensely through faster and more efficient organization, aswell as teams helping us staying true to the time limits. I think its fair rulings that we to a large extent disallow surrendering.

lets say a team has 3 players drop midgame, they are not coming back. No the referee is not going to say keep playing. If the team this happens to at this point decides to throw in the towel and call it a day, We will say that this is fine. But we really dont expect any teams to give up even if they are down 0-4 in the defining game, unless there is a really big reason for this.

This event was never intented to be the pinacle of high competitive play. Insinuating that other participating teams are just upholding the event from progressing is not something that goes through our mind. We are doing this for the teams, all of them, not just the winning ones.

[Mean Machine]

I'd say I'm leaning towards "not able to surrender" option. Because not being able to surrender is another tactic by its own to use for winning team. Let's say team A is in 4:0 lead. Now, they can decide what tactic to use. Do they want to finish this fast and get the last kill so they will have more time left for next match or do they think that less time for next match would benefit them? (example: they lost 5:1 one match but won 5:0 second match, so they have more kills = which means win in a case of tied Bo3) If so, team A could play that match defensive and wait for enemy to approach, since they are forced to make a move because they are losing (even if they know they will lose they might want to finish it off asap to save more time for next match). 

I hope this makes any sense

[GeoRmr]

We dont want to turn surrendering into a legitimately tactical way to win

Am I the only person who actually has no problem with surrender being used like this? I think its a delightful meta-strategy that deserves to exist in its own right - I also find the powerful statement a team makes by surrendering to be just as interesting as additional gameplay. (Many times when the situation has been grim I've advised my own team to surrender but have thus far never convinced them - even though ultimately no good came from the extra few minutes play in these matches)

Of course a surrendered game should count as 5 kills to the enemy team, but I really see no point in the other two rules.

_{I remember a time when casters frequently complained about excessively long matches - I wonder if surrendering would be more welcomed if competitive teams started using it earlier in GoI history.}

[Alistair MacBain]

I cant remember any situation previously in competetive guns of icarus where surrendering was considered. Cant see in every teams mind but not in my time as player and not in my time as ref/organizer.
I understand the intend of surrendering a game in reserve time. Thats fine for me as reserve time might be better suited for games that are close or winable for the team on the loosing side.
However during standard time i dont see a point to surrender in the scs.
Standard time is just 15 minutes. Its not to long. This isnt a exhausting 45min-1h time limit. Its a short 15 minutes. And guns of icarus doesnt really have a snowball mechanic.
Its not like other esport titles (starcraft, dota, lol) where its hard to not possible to come back.
After dieing twice (1 with each ship) your back to full and in most situations on the upper hand as your opponent most likely took permahull damage. Yes there are a few forced meatgrinds where you barely get out but even in those you often got a slight chance and those forced meatgrinds usually end in short games anyway.
The current existing ruling ... not in the last match, not during standard time and loosing 5:x sounds reasonable and ok for me.


And i can remember alot of talks from teams that said that a win by timelimit was unfullfilling and they wouldve rather won by score and not by time.

[Velvet]

On an unrelated note, forgot to make a big thing of the times this week:

The USA is ending DST this week so the time will back to normal for Europeans and unchanged for Americans.

8 PM UTC | 3 PM EST | 9 PM CET

[Extirminator]

Ryders signing up!

[DJ Logicalia]

The, currently under government surveillance, duo of Star Bubble Epidemic and The Bards, Starbard is signing up

STARBARD!      To boldly go where some people have gone before, but we kinda wanted to see it too

Also, the return of "The Starbard" now ft. Howie Mendel