Sunday Community Skirmish: Are official pauses needed?

[Lueosi]

Skrimskraw brought it up a few times now, so let's gather some opinions:

Please argue: Are official pauses (granted by referee) needed and why or why not? What are the benefits of having official pauses and what are the benefits of not having official pauses?

[Hunter.]

I don't see a reason not to have them - so if someone can convince me that way I can change. Also - it would be nice if we could have a automatic pause upon lobby start to make sure everyone is loaded before the match starts. But that is just me.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

They are necessary for all the d/cing that happens in this game, where if we can get a pause, we should.  Unfortunately, the client is in no position to accommodate them right now and they are a much better idea in theory than in practice, where ships float, target, and sometimes even fire.  The benefits include stopping the timer while people reconnect and preventing taking advantage of that.  THe drawbacks are the downtime on stream and the difficulty of actually pausing properly.

[Hunter.]

After a chat with Guras - I have decided there is plenty reason to remove official mid-game pauses until the client can accommodate them - however this could be compensated by having an auto-pause on game start ending when both teams are ready or on a 1 minute timer. Therefore if there is lag the lobby can be restarted on a connection and both teams have time to load in. Just my 2 cents there.

[MightyKeb]

I think the best way to go about this is to have the teams unofficially agree on pauses.

Right now, there's a clear rule: In engagements/when spotted, you can't pause. Outside, you can. But Ive witnessed my fair share of situations where the engagement wasnt considered to happen even if spots went down. If a pause is called and a team feels as if it'll give the other team an advantage they can adjust accordingly during the pause because some ref won't yell at them for moving an inch. The only problem I can see with this is that if it is "unofficial" then the timer will still be up.

[BlackenedPies]

If a captain disconnects it's polite to wait and keep balance. In order for this to work there needs to be clear rules on when pauses are allowed, for example only if the team is unspotted. If there's significant movement the ref should call them to a specific area (in match chat), example top right quadrant B3 facing North. Ref reminds crew not to buff or chem if they see activity.

There should be a time limit for pauses: 30 seconds (or 1 min), and a max limit of 2 pauses per player. I don't think pauses are necessary for crew. Game client limitations are irrelevant besides the fact that captains may not see the pause. The ref can send a PM and order back to position.

Stricter rules, no crew pauses, pause limits. Be polite, pauses are ok.

[GurasOguras]

Okay. First of all - I Hate politics, but when it's about future of competitive I feel I have to say something.

I don't have much time, so I will be brief: I have my reasons to say that official pause rules are bad as it is no way that referees are able to control that at the game level. Another thing is that pausing is always unfair for either the one team or for both, since engineers are able to do stuff that they normally couldn't do like overbuffing etc. I remember in previous game versions pauses also were allowing me to load heatsink into flaregun that normally wouldn't be possible, but in current let's just put that buffing as example. But the most important thing for me is that you can't pause clouds - obviously one of the most important elements in competitive gameplay. I remember plenty of cases when ref called pause during sneaking/spotting phase which occured ships losing cloud cover as they were not permitted to move along with them. Pauses can ruin whole engagement. Refs are not able to controll it properly, and finally you can get DQ just because of such stupid thing like missing chat message, because you have discussed tactics with your crew. If someone moves disqualify him! But... but someone may say, that we shouldn't disqualify teams just because they have stopped few seconds later than other. My opinion on that is - If you can't controll how or when ships will stop, then this shouldn't be case. Also things like "Move back to the point where you've been when pause was called" is just not silly, but completely stupid and screwed up idea. You can't keep rule that is not even able to function and be fully enforced.

However for those who will start talking "What about when someone disconnects" - Let's keep it as gentleman agreement between teams, not official tournament rule.

TL;DR
If you can't pause clouds, you can't pause ships.


I have full trust in Skrimskraw's competitive organizing experience. At first I had no idea like everyone else, but he did persuaded me about rightness of his words.
EDIT:

Ref reminds crew not to buff or chem if they see activity.

No. As a engineer specializing in buffing i can tell you that is not okay as buffs are constantly going down. Keep in mind game timer is still ticking and it's not frozen. Telling someone to rebuff whole ship from the beginning few seconds before you're about to engage is just not okay.

[Thomas]

Overall I think pauses are necessary, but whether they are official or unofficial really depends. How would they function if they weren't official? Team captain only, or anyone on the opposing team? Is there a possibility for the opposing team to not go along with the pause?

Official pauses are kind of nice, in that they "can't" be ignored (according the rules). The ref also does a quick check to make sure the pause is valid (usually making sure a player is actually missing on one of the teams from a disconnect/crash). This makes it slightly less likely for a team to call a pause abusively. The ref can also make sure teams aren't engaged (and preferably not about to engage). Official pauses also have a time limit, to make sure the game keeps moving and everyone isn't waiting around 5+ minutes for a player who's just having a really bad day with their connection.

For unofficial, it might be a little faster in the call. When it comes to official pauses, someone has to request it, then the ref has to actually call the pause. Then they have to say they're ready for an unpause, the ref checks if the other team is ready, and the pause is off. It's quite an annoying series of steps, especially if you have a ref that's not paying attention or a little slow, or even on a little power trip. So unofficial pauses might start and stop faster, rather than a potentially significant delay from the request to the pause/unpause.


In unofficial pauses, you still have all the problems of an official pause (minus the disqualifications, which I haven't seen happen); people buffing, loading up ammo, etc. You can't pause clouds/ships, but I also don't think Muse will ever put something like that into a game, even if it does support competitive play a lot. (Maybe we could convince of a vote-pause option?) It sounds easy to just tell everyone to 'get a better connection scrub', but is that the kind of competitive community we want to support? For more competitive tournaments, I could see having no official pauses, but the SCS is more of a casual-competitive scene that supports teams of all skill level (and connection quality).



Personally I think the official pause is a little better. Even if teams try for a gentlemen's agreement, some teams just won't allow the other team to pause if they feel they have an advantage. When official pauses get screwy, it's usual a referee issue. Having refs paying attention to the match, checking the chat, not tabbing out, and making sure it's not just a moving cloud preventing a pause before calling it.

[Skrimskraw]

there are absolutely no tools in order to control or call pauses correct.

there are no consequences for teams that move around during pauses, and they are often called without reason or wrongly.
It is something that varies from referee to referee meaning that you cannot rely on it.

the argument for people dc'ing is somewhat valid, but pauses cant be called during engagements anyway. + honestly the players participating are required to have pc's and connections that cna play the game. its really the team's own fault if someone dc's.
the only valid pause reason that I see is a gentlemans rule.

i think it would be better to remove the pause function to avoid confusion between refs and teams, because often teams themselves call off pauses and start moving, before the referee recognizes that the pause is over. its annoying for the ref and have no consequences.

it would be better to remove it and if teams are thinking about the timer running out during an unofficial gentleman pause, then just raise the game time to 22 minutes or something like that.

[BlackenedPies]

Alright I'm convinced. No official pauses. Clouds are the reason.

I'm used to two buff engis who run and buff but only having one during a pause would skew balance. I'd say there shouldn't be engagements during a captain d/c but there are too many potential problems. The only solution is gentlemen agreements to stop movement/not engage.

[Skrimskraw]

do people even know the pause rules?

there are no rules about buffing or spotting during pauses.

[BlackenedPies]

I was always told to cease chem and buffs

[Kamoba]

I've had to call for a pause before as a crew had DC'd and have paused when opponent's have called for a pause..
Personally I think everyone in the community is mature and polite enough to adhere to pause rules but...
One scs me and Fynx found ourselves in the middle of the enemy spawn, we'd just downed one of.their ships and were turning to face the next but a pause was called, during the enemy respawn timer, the enemy respawns and a.few moments pass before pause is called off, they have both ships in battle where originally they would have had one, we came out victorious and yet the pause was a major disadvantage for us as it was a situation which allowed (by coincidence) our opponents to not have any respawn timer..

Just one example of how a pause can ruin someone's day in the right scenario. But we can't add rules for every single variable that may occur...

So I'd say pauses should stay, if the rules are clear and simple and very easy to understand without confusion or people bickering about X or Y, or pauses removed...

For now no vote until I decide, but pauses can effect the balance of the match.

[DJ Logicalia]

I like all these arguments, but all it takes is one team to request a pause and the enemy team to not want to take it for endless salt and tons of drama. Official, enforced pauses take that out of the equation. There are a lot of great arguments here, but I keep coming back to the "what if"

[MightyKeb]

I like all these arguments, but all it takes is one team to request a pause and the enemy team to not want to take it for endless salt and tons of drama. Official, enforced pauses take that out of the equation. There are a lot of great arguments here, but I keep coming back to the "what if"

Same reason how suggestions versus stopping hardcounter lobbies tend to be exploitable by teams aswell. It would still be faster regardless if both teams agreed, and if they didnt then I dont know, at worst we may have to enforce a warning/disqualify system for a lack of sportsmanship.