@Lance3rd: It was mentioned previously, but MOV has a good amount of time in with Ken. He played him seriously. He knew he could win with Ken as much as he could with Chun.
The problem isn’t inherently in the choice of character, but how the player performs. Of course, there are also instances where collusion can be detected by character selection (Wong picking Phoenix point, for instance), but the biggest indicator of a person’s motives is their performance. MOV won and played seriously in doing so. That’s why there’s a marked difference between MOV & others, or even Wong picking Dan and winning vs. Wong picking Phoenix.
MOV could’ve picked Sean and if he was playing seriously, then I don’t think people would’ve had as much problem with it as if he picked Sean and just jerked around.
My thoughts on this matter otherwise, the second the Tournament Organizer EXPLICITLY tells you not to do something and you do it anyway it’s the ultimate show of disrespect.
I’m not going to get into the whole heart of the matter with collusion or anything because it’s late and I know I’m likely on the wrong side of the consensus when it comes to that big debate but the matter of Frosty Faustings, to me, is its own level of isolation. It’s one thing to do this sort of thing when there are these vague rules or nonchalance about it. That’s when the gray area shows up and the huge debate starts like it has here. The FF problem has no such issue.
The TO went out of its way to say it wouldn’t be tolerated and to not do it. NO MATTER how you feel about the subject, when the TO lays down the law, you follow it explicitly or you don’t play in the tournament. Simple as that. They bust their asses to bring these events to you, a job I do not envy in the absolute slightest, the last thing they need are assholes who think themselves above the TOs.
In the end, regardless of anyone’s feelings toward GF splitting or collusion or the Morality behind Playing it Out or not, the TO is the law. If they’re lenient then you do whatever, they feel you earned the spot and earned the right to do what you want by getting that far. If they go out of their way to tell you to play it out or shit will hit the fan, you fucking play it out and not act like a 5 year old crybaby rebel who heard a rule they didn’t like and breaks it anyway to lash out.
In my opinion, before we completely get to the heart of collusion and all that crap, what must first be addressed is respect towards tournament organizers because too many times these days we’re seeing players who think themselves above the TO’s who run the event and think of themselves as the only reason that the event gets play. It’s about time that shit gets cut out. THAT’S the real issue to take from this story.
A probably better example would be XXX being told at a tournament not to pick his Sakura team in MvC2. While he was confident he could soundly thrash his opponent in the GF with that team, the choice to deliberately sandbag down to a deliberately inferior team (2:8 matchup that he wins solely off of his skills) vs playing some alternate team he believed to be equivalently or more viable was what tripped the bullshit detector and forces him off of that team in those tournaments.
My understanding is that this happened multiple times to this player in multiple venues. (Edit: And, again, this is why you haven’t heard of this before: it just was handled pre-match and players moved on normally.) It also illuminates what is probably the best guiding light in this nebulous and horrible area of adjudication: does the player honestly feel that the alt team in question provides a better matchup? I play alt teams to mind-check my opponent first: if they fail the mental check it’s a 9:1 matchup in my favor, if they’re smart it’s 5:5 and we move on to game 2 and counter-team accordingly. Historically MvC2 players regularly switch to alt teams because people have serious relevant experience with alt teams and they provide better matchups. There are tons of ways to validate playing alt teams, and only a very few ways to invalidate it - such as clearly and visibly dicking around playing it. Play it like you mean it. :tup:
In this example the players were told to stop dicking around and play it out with their mains and they did that and then got punished anyway, so what did they play it out for? To avoid even worse sanction? I think that’s ridiculous and I think that authority is not self-justifying. Nobody thinks “because I’m in charge and I said so” is a good enough reason for anything. Authority should be challenged constantly and if it can meet the challenge then we live with it, but don’t defend it reflexively. In this situation I would have extended my middle finger because I don’t like being told what’s up. It makes me sad when people reflexively defend an action by an authority figure whether out of some belief that punishing assholes will lead to better outcomes, or a belief that it’s more important to stand up for a hierarchy or a chain of command, when it’s almost always more prudent to be critical of authority and not to give them the benefit of the doubt. There is a gradual trend away from hierarchy and authority and toward freedom and democracy. This is is a process called civilization, it’s why kids don’t call their fathers “sir” anymore, and why we don’t have kings, and why husbands cannot legally beat their wives, etc. I’m being dead serious, the general trend is toward the abolition of authority in every sphere of life. Some rules are necessary, yes - but the point is they have to justify themselves as necessary, they are not self-justifying.
I agree that no TO wants to be put in a situation like this but to say that “someone had to do something!” is just bs, nothing had to be done, nobody is better off for that decision except for the guy who came in 3rd place, got bodied by these two bros and comes out richer for no reason at all other than the MISTAKEN belief that these guys had a duty to put on a show and should be punished for failing to deliver, when in fact, they didn’t owe anyone anything. The stage was theirs and IMO they should have been well within their rights to say “We’re splitting the pot, no grand finals, we’re not even gonna play, now give us our money.” Because they were the only two competitors left in the tournament - there is no other interest here, except theirs.
The part about trusting TOs to organize a tournament but not trusting them to be fair in applying rules like this: who here has NEVER been to a tourney where the TO pulled some BS, or changed things last minute, or refused to pay up immediately, etc?
You sound like that type that would’ve not only encouraged Pete Rose to not only bet on the sport he managed in, but to throw games for the bets he placed on the sport he managed in.
You can make a very good case for rules governing that kind of behavior because of the ethical and competitive implications, but, again, a fighting game tournament is not like a baseball league and shouldn’t be. I don’t expect what I say to be popular but I don’t see anyone else saying it, and it needs to be said. The burden of proof is always on those who wish to use force or authority - we should not leap to their defense, but should rather insist that they are held to the highest standards in exercising that authority and justifying its necessity. If the justification is not found to meet the qualification of necessity, the use of force/authority should not be sanctioned. I will always oppose any kind of “punishment” as a matter of course because I believe in people and I think it’s seldom necessary.
The sports world is a notorious holdout against the anti-authoritarian trend. It’s no coincidence that it’s also a holdout against other progressive social trends. I don’t think it should be emulated. And I’m a hockey fan.
Regardless if they corrected their actions afterwards or not, the act was already carried out, damage already done and they got bopped for it. End of story. Consider them lucky that the TO didn’t DQ them on the spot and take away ALL their winnings rather than just the pot bonus. If they still continued to act like dumbasses after getting told-off, then a ban from future events could’ve been another possibility as well. It’s hardly as bad as you’re making it out to be, especially when this rule is about the only form of global authority that the FGC actually has resorted to. If you havn’t noticed, this community is incredibly disorganised and fragmented with no real governing body to force authoritative control over the whole scene.
And this *“GF only matters to the two people playing in it” *mentality is incredibly narrow-minded. There are other stakeholders to consider here, and the players, nor the TO’s, nor the spectators/“pot monsters”, nor the sponsors are above anyone else. It’s a symbiotic relationship that keeps this community running and they’re all equally important with equal amounts of interest in the tournament. Sure the players have the right to do their own thing, but that doesn’t excuse them from facing the consequences of their actions either. If you act like a dumbass, be prepared to be treated like a dumbass as well.
In those cases, that means we’ve identified a scumbag TO and wouldn’t we actually be better off them anyway?
Just playing devil’s advocate here, but have you ever seen a player sandbag in pools, or in an event they didn’t much care about? Of course you have. So I just want to know, why is it okay to sandbag in those situations, but not in a grand finals where you stand to gain nothing? I understand your desire to have everyone play their hardest, but you simply can’t force someone to care, and as long as pot splitting is legal (which we all agree it should be) there will be situations where the players don’t care. If they don’t give a shit, they won’t play their best no matter who they pick. You’re not asking them to play, you’re asking them to pretend.
I’m not sure what I said that made you feel this was a logical response, but sorry, it’s flown over my head. If it wasn’t clear, I oppose cheating in all forms.
To be even more clear, I’m not even saying the TO at this event didn’t have the right to do what he did. My point was that he overreacted, and that most attempts to exercise some form of authority (especially to punish) are overreactions, and that our task as bystanders who want to promote critical thinking and personal responsibility as well as community responsibility (I assume that people have such an interest, I could be wrong) should not be to reflexively defend such actions with such crude, simplistic and even downright anti-intellectual statements as “that shit has to stop so I’m glad somebody meted out some punishment for it.”
And just for the record I am 100% opposed to the coercive public education system (and most coercive private education systems as well), so tell the principal and state education board where to shove it while you are at it.
I wasn’t aware that the entire tournament is really only a prelude to the hype of grand finals and that an anti-climactic grand finals is analogous to shitting on a balcony. Even still, they played the match out as the TO directed, but because they let it be known that they basically consider themselves co-champions, everything is fucked now, even though they played it out?
This can only stem from an entitled fan mentality, and I blame pro sports for creating this mentality. Sports teams have an interest in making their fans, who are non-participants, feel like participants. Feel like they matter. It’s all about the almighty dollar.
It’s not like there are not people taking the position that supporting the growth of the FGC means catering to fans and fan mentality to some extent.
They only missed out on the pot bonus afaik, how is that equivalent to ‘everything is fucked’? If a TO puts in a pot bonus out of his own pocket, and people fuck around in GF, I think he’s well within his right to not give it to them.
I just don’t understand how people are ‘disrespected’ by players colluding in GFs (with one exception). I don’t understand why the players in GFs owe anybody a show.
IMO you pay your tournament entry for a chance to compete for the top spot. I don’t think you pay it to watch other people’s matches. Is this pure competition or is this sport for entertainment? If Grand Finals always happened in a separate room with just the 2 players playing seriously and an adjudicator (no spectator access, streaming or match replays), would people still feel ‘disrespected’ because they didn’t get the show they’re somehow entitled too.
On the other hand, I think a TO has the power to decide on whatever rules he likes and those who don’t like don’t have to attend. Likewise a bad TO will see his tournament series become unpopular and die out/lose money so his power is limited. If a TO wants to ban collusion for hype reasons or growing his tournaments or whatever that’s fine. HE IS THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO FEEL DISRESPECTED IF PEOPLE MAKE A MOCKERY OF HIS RULES.
I was a TO for my Smash scene locals and I banned colluding so I’m not saying it should be allowed, but the idea of people feeling ‘disrespected’ sickens me.
I think the FGC has too many people who derive a sense of entitlement when there is none.
Oh great, now this is an argument about misuse of authority?
How many more bullshit arguments are you going to pull out of your ass?
Not again.
People in GFs don’t necessarily owe anyone a “show”, but they owe people an actual competitive match. There is a difference. No one is complaining because “WE WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED WAH.” People are complaining because acting like total dicks is bad.
And what about the other players who also put time and money into an event?
If the tournament rules officially disallow it, then they should be punished. If not…well I guess people can do anything that is within the rules. However I don’t understand it…collusion seems like something for weak minded pussies rather than competitors. In any competitive contest the point is to win, to beat the best not cowardly kiss and throw the match to split the pot later.
To me the easiest way to prevent collusion is to annihilate them in pools so that they don’t have a chance to pull their crap.
Step it up, people. Weed out the pretenders and save your game by the book, rather than cry foul after the fact because you let them waltz to Grand Finals.
How isn’t it? Webster defines Collusion as "secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose ". Granted, the brothers told people that they were going to troll but they still had an illegal agreement to cooperate with one another begin with. That and the sexist insult at the end of your comment isn’t completely necessary.
I see where you are coming from, but that is a small scale solution to a large scale problem. People shouldn’t be colluding/trolling and disrespecting those who run the event to begin with. That and this solution somewhat ignores the TO, the other auxiliary people helping run the event and the stream viewers (Yes, they’re important). Yes, I agree that the FGC could step it up, but there must be more infrastructure to stop this very thing from happening.