FFG double standard with cheats...

By shotbyscott, in X-Wing

Indeed. If he's happy, I'm ok with it. But FFG better make sure he is very happy.

This is really a PR disaster for them as I mentioned. People lose their entire careers over mistakes like this in other business fields. FFG should treat this just as seriously.

8 hours ago, Kalandros said:

Intent should NEVER matter -

Intent has to matter. There absolutely is a difference between a mistake, an accident, and cheating. I didn't see the incident in question but there are many things that could happen in this game where intent is the only thing separating cheating from pure accident. An accident should never be punished in the same manner as a cheat.

This was definitely not an accident. Its all on tape. It was deliberate.

12 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Thing is, with the German player the intent was clear. His opponent went to the bathroom, he took the chance. Here he took his dial in the same motion that revealed it and might have subconciously changed it seeing just how wrong his move was.

The real issue here is the treatment of the player who got cheated. FFG should compensate for his travel and admission cost and also apologize with something. A custom set of templates that says "We are sorry" would be ideal.

More or less. In the Worlds case it was to correct what could could be called a "novice" mistake with his own ships. Still it was intentional and deliberate so he shouldn't be let off the hook.

9 hours ago, wfain said:

Intent has to matter. There absolutely is a difference between a mistake, an accident, and cheating. I didn't see the incident in question but there are many things that could happen in this game where intent is the only thing separating cheating from pure accident. An accident should never be punished in the same manner as a cheat.

Not the case here: he bumped his JMs one into another and then realized his HWK gonna bump too so he will be with no attani tokes - thats where the dial acrobatics begin - right after he bumped his second JM.

30 minutes ago, Vitalis said:

Not the case here: he bumped his JMs one into another and then realized his HWK gonna bump too so he will be with no attani tokes - thats where the dial acrobatics begin - right after he bumped his second JM.

Hwk didn't even need to bump. Look like it had a 3 bank dialed, which is red. So not only did he adjust to be able to get 3 focus tokens, he ALSO avoided stressing everyone

After watching the replay multiple times, how anyone can say it was accidental is beyond me. Picked up..moved, looked at...moved again. What a low life sack of ****. The TO who officiated this as a warning should never TO again.

12 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

After watching the replay multiple times, how anyone can say it was accidental is beyond me. Picked up..moved, looked at...moved again. What a low life sack of ****. The TO who officiated this as a warning should never TO again.

Did you notice the second jumpmaster being turned as it's template was put down?

As for the first decision, it was probably made before seeing the video

Edited by jokerkd

Which, in an age of almost instant replay is a huge mistake.

There are instances of dial manipulation at other lower level events where the offender received months long bans from the game.

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

After watching the replay multiple times, how anyone can say it was accidental is beyond me. Picked up..moved, looked at...moved again. What a low life sack of ****. The TO who officiated this as a warning should never TO again.

is video online? Link?

20 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Thing is, with the German player the intent was clear. His opponent went to the bathroom, he took the chance. Here he took his dial in the same motion that revealed it and might have subconciously changed it seeing just how wrong his move was.

I feel like subconsciously calling you an idiot for that statement. ;-)
Alas, I will refrain from doing so, because that would be a rather lame and irrelevant excuse and not prevent my incoming forum perma ban. Besides people take such things personal far to easy. ;-)

Besides, there is a second issue. Instead of losing the game, the guy won this one and got one auto-loss the round after. Which basically is no punishment at all. His punishment was trading a win in round 3 for a loss in round 4, which he may or may not have lost anyway too. That is actually a really good trade for him. Managed to get him into the cut as well. But hey, what do I care, the bad judge calls in the past already have killed any intention to attend FFG events with FFG judges. :)

13 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Indeed. If he's happy, I'm ok with it. But FFG better make sure he is very happy.

This is really a PR disaster for them as I mentioned. People lose their entire careers over mistakes like this in other business fields. FFG should treat this just as seriously.

What makes Michal happy, might be insufficient if it hits you next time. The art of business and scamming is the same trick: Make the customer happy, while ripping him off. ;-)

And I am not saying that FFG will do anything like that, I am saying that happiness of one customer is hardly a good base to objectively judge a solution.

Edited by SEApocalypse
8 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

I feel like subconsciously calling you an idiot for that statement. ;-)

You don't want to understand, do you? Might. I said might . For the record, I do not think it is likely that the player in question didn't want to cheat. I do however firmly believe in the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and won't make any assumptions I am not qualified to make, unlike the choire of voices you just fell into.

As long as there is any reason to doubt the ill intent, further descisions have to be reviewed well, which is something that takes time . Ultimately the offense is bad enough that a ban can be justified, but that is not something that should be decided on the spot.

Was the situation handeled badly? Yes, and it dictates a set of guidelines to be added to the tournament regulations. This is what should be taken from the incident, not some stupid internet witch-hunt.

22 hours ago, shotbyscott said:

ok If it true the HWK cheap onl go a 1 game loss and still made the cut then FFG have a serious problem. There was a German player who got a 1 year all ffg events ban for the same thing ....... but if you are American at worlds its ok to cheat or what ??????????

he should ´get at least the same punishment

He was awarded a loss for that game AND a loss for his round 3 game (his previous round).

Was what said German player did THE SAME... EXACT SAME?

I believe in the instance of the german player from Worlds 1 was caught cheating... He wasn't SEEN to cheat by however many hundreds of people were watching the stream and the thousands and thousands that have watched the replays. A 1 year ban would have probably done him a favor, as I doubt he'll be able to play again.

Edited by boomaster
34 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

You don't want to understand, do you? Might. I said might . For the record, I do not think it is likely that the player in question didn't want to cheat. I do however firmly believe in the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and won't make any assumptions I am not qualified to make, unlike the choire of voices you just fell into.

As long as there is any reason to doubt the ill intent, further descisions have to be reviewed well, which is something that takes time . Ultimately the offense is bad enough that a ban can be justified, but that is not something that should be decided on the spot.

Was the situation handeled badly? Yes, and it dictates a set of guidelines to be added to the tournament regulations. This is what should be taken from the incident, not some stupid internet witch-hunt.

Intent is irrelevant for the first reaction. A major rules violation happened, it's on tape, the judges were informed on time about it. Intent might adjust the amount of punishment. Furthermore, "innocent until proven guilty" is not helping here either. Because the proof is on tape. The intention is not on tape, true, but that may or may not relevant for the overall penalty, but not for the first reaction of the judges. Handling out on a premier event a simple warning and a desirable trade is no punishment at all, not even for an honest and accidently game changing mistake.

Innocent until proven guilty only can apply in this case to the intention, but not to the basic rules violation. Intentional or not, I can not flip the board either to prevent a bad situation and win the game when I am ahead in points. A judge call and the framework of the tournament rules have to account to make those cases undesirable and at prime events expecting a certain standard of quality in play is acceptable. Again, this is not a game night kit tournament situation, but the highest level of X-Wing competition there is.

For the witch hunt: I totally agree, actually I even reported some of the worst witch hunters, because this kind of behavior is unacceptable, especially the calls for violence over an stupid X-Wing game. Prime event or not. and intentional or not.

Furthermore, and not comes the part where we might disagree: Innocent until proven guilty is a a short form and in this case potentially misleading. Proof only needs to be beyond reasonable doubt. "As long as there is any reason to doubt the ill intent" does not really cut it, that reason needs to be plausible to count, the simple word of the accused never can and never should be enough when overwhelming proof suggests otherwise. This definition of prove is important, because we can not proof anything with 100% certainty, but plausibility and beyond reasonable doubt at the other hand is rather easy to proof and does not require a confession. And a tournament DQ for example should have a rather low hurdle for plausibility of ill intent, unlike for example a perma ban. It is always a weighing of interests, in this case the tournament integrity and the interests of the opponent of the rules violator vs the personal interests of said player who violated the rules.

Anyway, the call is made, so the discussion is mood anyway. And as I am not getting tired to say: No one changes the opinion of someone else on the internet, so we can merely exchange our thoughts on the subject anyway. which means I am done here. Enjoy X-Wing and fly casual.

22 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Thing is, with the German player the intent was clear. His opponent went to the bathroom, he took the chance. Here he took his dial in the same motion that revealed it and might have subconciously changed it seeing just how wrong his move was.

The real issue here is the treatment of the player who got cheated. FFG should compensate for his travel and admission cost and also apologize with something. A custom set of templates that says "We are sorry" would be ideal.

ea6d4a8908b62bfdbda65c6a29995cb1_were-so

4 minutes ago, Smutpedler said:

ea6d4a8908b62bfdbda65c6a29995cb1_were-so

Alex Davy doing that wouldn't go amiss, either.

10 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Intent is irrelevant for the first reaction. A major rules violation happened, it's on tape, the judges were informed on time about it. Intent might adjust the amount of punishment. Furthermore, "innocent until proven guilty" is not helping here either. Because the proof is on tape. The intention is not on tape, true, but that may or may not relevant for the overall penalty, but not for the first reaction of the judges. Handling out on a premier event a simple warning and a desirable trade is no punishment at all, not even for an honest and accidently game changing mistake.

Innocent until proven guilty only can apply in this case to the intention, but not to the basic rules violation. Intentional or not, I can not flip the board either to prevent a bad situation and win the game when I am ahead in points. A judge call and the framework of the tournament rules have to account to make those cases undesirable and at prime events expecting a certain standard of quality in play is acceptable. Again, this is not a game night kit tournament situation, but the highest level of X-Wing competition there is.

For the witch hunt: I totally agree, actually I even reported some of the worst witch hunters, because this kind of behavior is unacceptable, especially the calls for violence over an stupid X-Wing game. Prime event or not. and intentional or not.

Furthermore, and not comes the part where we might disagree: Innocent until proven guilty is a a short form and in this case potentially misleading. Proof only needs to be beyond reasonable doubt. "As long as there is any reason to doubt the ill intent" does not really cut it, that reason needs to be plausible to count, the simple word of the accused never can and never should be enough when overwhelming proof suggests otherwise. This definition of prove is important, because we can not proof anything with 100% certainty, but plausibility and beyond reasonable doubt at the other hand is rather easy to proof and does not require a confession. And a tournament DQ for example should have a rather low hurdle for plausibility of ill intent, unlike for example a perma ban. It is always a weighing of interests, in this case the tournament integrity and the interests of the opponent of the rules violator vs the personal interests of said player who violated the rules.

Anyway, the call is made, so the discussion is mood anyway. And as I am not getting tired to say: No one changes the opinion of someone else on the internet, so we can merely exchange our thoughts on the subject anyway. which means I am done here. Enjoy X-Wing and fly casual.

I am not defending the descision made on the spot here, but the fact that no future ban kind of penalty has been given out, yet. The way the situation in the tournament was handeled was bad and should prompt an implementation of strict guidelines. Talking about changing opinions is moot when we basicaly are of the same opinion anyways, you just are too combatative to notice.

With no set floor rules (like they have in Netrunner) judges are forced to make decisions by themselves that can be arbitrary in nature - too lenient or too extreme. If there were floor rules for X-wing, then if an infraction occurs it is up to the judge to determine if that was so and apply the appropriate punishment. Since there is no written guidelines on the appropriate punishment then the judge bears sole responsibility of his decision.

If the punishment was spelled out directly in a document then the player base could take their objections of that rule/punishment and petition it to be changed if it isn't appropriate. But without this it then becomes every judges decision that is up for debate and the judging then becomes the focus of the communities outrage when it is deemed too arbitrary, as in this case.

Could you imagine a football game where there was no set yard penalty for a given infraction but it was determined on the spot by the head referee? It was 15 yards last time so why is it 5 yards now? The fans reactions would be just the same as they are now for this quagmire.

3 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

You don't want to understand, do you? Might. I said might . For the record, I do not think it is likely that the player in question didn't want to cheat. I do however firmly believe in the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and won't make any assumptions I am not qualified to make, unlike the choire of voices you just fell into.

As long as there is any reason to doubt the ill intent, further descisions have to be reviewed well, which is something that takes time . Ultimately the offense is bad enough that a ban can be justified, but that is not something that should be decided on the spot.

Was the situation handeled badly? Yes, and it dictates a set of guidelines to be added to the tournament regulations. This is what should be taken from the incident, not some stupid internet witch-hunt.

3 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

All I could find was this, but this is more than enough

https://clips.twitch.tv/SparklyFantasticCrowBrainSlug

"innocent until proven guilty"? LOL

1 minute ago, alien earth said:

"innocent until proven guilty"? LOL

Commence heavy eye roll. Please read.

2 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Alex Davy doing that wouldn't go amiss, either.

And Frank Brooks doing this...

78503cfd2818358a2fbcd8d17a9b06e57ba3a134

Hmmm...

Intent doesn't matter.

Incentives that are created do matter.

We need established penalties or 'floor rules' for judges to go by because 'on the spot' calls are inconsistent.

Where were y'all on the dial-peeking thread?

2 hours ago, Sergovan said:

With no set floor rules (like they have in Netrunner) judges are forced to make decisions by themselves that can be arbitrary in nature - too lenient or too extreme. If there were floor rules for X-wing, then if an infraction occurs it is up to the judge to determine if that was so and apply the appropriate punishment. Since there is no written guidelines on the appropriate punishment then the judge bears sole responsibility of his decision.

If the punishment was spelled out directly in a document then the player base could take their objections of that rule/punishment and petition it to be changed if it isn't appropriate. But without this it then becomes every judges decision that is up for debate and the judging then becomes the focus of the communities outrage when it is deemed too arbitrary, as in this case.

Could you imagine a football game where there was no set yard penalty for a given infraction but it was determined on the spot by the head referee? It was 15 yards last time so why is it 5 yards now? The fans reactions would be just the same as they are now for this quagmire.

To add a little more.

We had an example of this occurred last year with what happened at Ranaoke. The new rule allowed for intentional draw games to be taken. Top players in the final round took it and locked out any last round changes to cut positions. The community was angry and demanded a rule change. That rule has since been changed to final salvo to deal with a draw game.

Now we have a player changing his dial during the activation phase (cheating) and receiving a warning penalty that gets upgraded to a Game Loss. What rule do we have to challenge for this infraction? We don't. We can only blame the judge for an inadequate adjudication. We can look at other instances of cheating that netted players being banned for significant amounts of time from all FFG game systems, not just the ones they cheated at. And these were store and regional level events - not Worlds! This points to a decrease in severity instead of a standard level for handling cheating infractions.

Organized Play must come out with what it constitutes as cheating and what infractions occur when it is observed during a game. Then the community can support it or demand for change.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Commence heavy eye roll. Please read.

yep my bad english kicks in, sorry