Justice Challenge

Ciaran

I think pairs of contestants should be allowed to submit themselves as 'allied' and thus be seeded as far apart in the bracket as possible.  I don't know how much of a headache this would be for making the brackets, but I suspect that if we limit it to pairs it should be relatively easy to manage.

Would this be a possibility?

Malayn

Why?

The most fair is a random assignment. Otherwise people can have novices and other people jump in to make their lives easier and give a bunch of people random credits This is no bueno.

EDIT: When are they posting the rules for justice though.

Thalkros

Yeah uh, Justice has always been the most fair and least difficult to manage event. Except for when Hyde beat Morbo a few years ago and they decided to pull a Robin Hood Men in Tights moment and gave Morbo another shot.

And aren't the rules the same in HELP ASCENSION RULES?

Shaddus

So what you're saying is that the admin should stagger debaters between north and south so that the competition is between one side or the other, and not between competitors regardless of "side"?

Othero

It's a solo event, not an org event.

Deichtine

Totally random seems the best way for it.

Shuyin

While we're at it, can I get seeded against noobs only for War.

Falaeron

Shuyin said:

While we're at it, can I get seeded against noobs only for War.

Make War teams random. Make Shuyin team up with the noobs.

Karlach

Fixing Justice brackets from anything but a random seed means you could potentially fix later rounds.

Random is fair, and if you wipe out your mates to get to the top, so be it.

Ciaran

Surprising backlash.  It's not a huge deal to me, but I just think it's lame to have to knock your training partner out in early rounds.  I'd love to see the strategy for how you can 'stack' the bracket so you only face noobs.

AFAIK every bracket has two sides.  If pairs choose to be on opposite sides it would just mean they meet in the finals if they make it that far, instead of potentially knocking one another out earlier.

Unless the north only sends two contestants it wouldn't be a north v south thing.

Whatevs! Don't do it then if it's so unfair.

Edit: To clarify, you wouldn't get to choose what side of the bracket you'd get put on.  I would like someone to explain to me how this hypothetical system could be gamed?  I know it probably won't get implemented at this point, but I'm just curious from a logic standpoint.

Phoebus

I don't see what's so surprising about it. I get that it does suck if your side's best debaters all have to eliminate each other instead of the competition early, but that's the way it goes, sometimes. Randomness is really the only fair option. Asking for people to be able to choose someone they don't have to debate isn't fair, it's plainly self-serving, and encourages gaming the event to get a lineup where your best guys don't have to risk debating each other too soon.

Ciaran

I'm asking, please explain to me how it allows someone to game the event?  It means there's just one person that you know you won't see until the final round.

I'm not interested in gaming the event, and I'm fine with it being random.  I'm just trying to understand the logic at this point.

Phoebus

You can literally guarantee your two best debaters don't knock each other out in an early round. That is absolutely giving your side an advantage.

Ciaran

Yes, every side's best two debaters would have the option not to knock each other out in an early round.

If your side has the best two debaters in the game, your side already has an advantage...

So, erm, I don't see who's getting a leg up.

Edit: To hopefully clarify.  
"You can literally guarantee your two best debaters don't knock each other out in an early round. That is absolutely giving "-every-" side "-the same-" advantage."

Fyler

Not really. If your side has the 3rd and 4th best debators, and the other side has the 1st and 2nd, you're basically creating a scenario where the 2nd best can't actually win 2nd. Basically guaranteeing 1st and second place don't go to the same "side," which doesn't happen in any other event. 

I don't think the suggestion makes much objective sense. Seems like a lot of headache for something that's inevitably going to get called rigged by someone.

Shaddus

Edit: To hopefully clarify.  
"You can literally guarantee your two best debaters don't knock each other out in an early round. That is absolutely giving "-every-" side "-the same-" advantage."

If everyone has an advantage, then nobody has an advantage.

Why not just say that each organization can nominate one person? Only six people, Justice is done in five minutes.  Boom, over, finished.

Falaeron

Unless they change the format, a completely random draw is the fairest way to go. Justice is full of RNG anyway. 

Kaimanahi

This might be a bad analogy, but this looked like a good reason to practice statistics (sorry if it's wrong). Let's talk about jelly beans.

Imagine that you have two kinds of jelly beans: apple and booger flavors. You have 10 apple-flavored jelly beans, and 6 booger-flavored jelly beans. You put them all in one bag, and you have to randomly draw and eat two jelly beans. You pick the first one out of the bag and have a 10/16 chance to pull a good jelly bean. Let's assume you got your desired outcome, and you enjoy your apple jelly bean. Then on the second draw, you now only have a 9/15 chance to pick an apple jelly bean. In the end, the probability of you pulling two good jelly beans is 10/16*9/15 = 37.5%. If you follow a similar methodology, you learn that you have a 50% chance of pulling one apple and one booger jelly bean, so you have an 87.5% of at least having one good jelly bean when you pull two out.

Now imagine that you separate the jelly beans into two equal bags; each bag has 5 apple and 3 booger beans. You have to pull one jelly bean out of each bag. You now have a 5/8 chance of pulling an apple flavored bean out of each bag, which means the probability of you pulling an apple out of both bags is 5/8*5/8 = 39%. The probability of getting one apple and one booger is 47%, so your probability of getting at least one apple jelly bean is 86%.

The probability of your desired outcome - eating no boogers, or at least eating the least amount of booger flavored beans - is almost equivalent between the two methods. You will find this to be the case for any amount of jelly beans.

Translation: It doesn't matter if the sides are distributed between two brackets. The only way to "game" the event is to flood the competition: the more people playing on your side, the greater the probability of you winning. To an extent, debating is less about skill and more about probability, so I think this is a fair way of thinking about it.

Shuyin

You're assuming the apple jelly beans are all equally delicious.

Ciaran wants to leave the tastiest jellybeans last.

Translation: not all debaters are equally skilled, so if you can purposefully make your best debaters go as far in the bracket as you can without them actually potentially competing for it, the chances of your side winning increases dramatically.

Falaeron

More importantly, they should ban the resolution that increases your ego by 25%.

Kaimanahi

The jelly beans have the potential for equal deliciousness.

Even if you look at it from the perspective of splitting up the tastiest jelly beans, you have also split the grossest booger jellybeans among the two populations.

I don't really buy that you're manipulating the probability, but I also don't think that there's very much basis for asking for split pairs.

Ciaran

Shuyin, you are saying that, but I don't think you're following the hypothetical rules to their logical conclusion.

If this rule change were implemented (which it won't be, but that's beside the point) my debating buddy and I can control only one thing.  That we won't see each other until the finals.  We can't change who we will see before the final rounds, and we have no control over who gets put into one side or the other side of the bracket.  Unless I'm missing something (and the collective forums have thus far failed to point anything out) there would be no way to game the system to give yourself a better chance of reaching the finals, beyond avoiding that one person.  There's no way to "purposefully make your best debaters go as far in the bracket as you can" by anything other than them winning debates fair and square.

Ciaran

Falmiis said:

More importantly, they should ban the resolution that increases your ego by 25%.

By my reading of the rules it is not allowed.

"

DISALLOWED

 + Passive ego regeneration and max ego increases from skills outside the buff

     system from sources not listed above (i.e. does not show on BODYSCAN)
"

Falaeron

Nah, if you know you are very good at debating relative to the rest of the pack and you know your buddy is also very good, by pairing up you do increase your chances of advancing very slightly because you have one less "good" person you could be paired up with. 

Is it going to be game-changing? Probably not. Is it necessary? Also probably not.

Ciaran

Yeah, it's no big deal really. I thought it was a good idea because it would allow us to avoid the heartache of knocking off a buddy early.  The people have spoken, though any complaint that the idea comes from wanting to stack the odds are baseless.

Falaeron

Ciaran said:

Falmiis said:

More importantly, they should ban the resolution that increases your ego by 25%.

By my reading of the rules it is not allowed.

"

DISALLOWED

 + Passive ego regeneration and max ego increases from skills outside the buff

     system from sources not listed above (i.e. does not show on BODYSCAN)
"

 
It would probably be allowed under: 
+ Any preparatory or permanent buffs (karma blessings, racial benefits, etc)

     acquired before your debate.

Resolutions are not skills.

Shuyin

Yeah, I don't buy the "potential" argument because it's not the reality. Can anyone be TA? Sure. But how many can realistically be TA given the constraints and rules of competition? Less than a handful.

Further, this is also still a competition, and everyone will eke out every advantage they can no matter how "small".

That's the entire basis behind some artifact purchases too, in fact.

Ciaran

Ok, so if we can't avoid bracket-screwing one another, can we make justice double elimination?

Just a thouuuuught

Enyalida

Double elimination would be cool. 

Karlach

It was double elimination at one point.

Dunno why we changed it.

Lerad

Maybe it's considerations of time. It does take significantly longer for double elimination.