S90 Spirit of Competition Punishments

[Beketov 9,103]

On 12/17/1992 at 5:27 PM, Will said:

15.3 - Spirit of Competition

i. Best Available Roster - General Managers are expected to put forth their best available roster, every game of the season. Managers found to be violating the spirit of competition within the league, especially, but not limited to, any form of tanking, will face punishment, at the discretion of the League Commissioners. Punishment will range up to, and including, but not limited to: Draft Pick Forfeiture, Salary Cap Fines, GM Dismissal.

 

It's weird to be pulling this one out but here we are. This rule has been in place for a number of seasons now and despite it being brought up to us a lot since it's creation (like literally any time a team starts a CPU 9 times...) I don't know if we've handed out a punishment for it since it's creation.

 

However we do expect our GM's to do their jobs and follow the rules and we can't be constantly making excuses for them not doing so. Obviously life happens and sometimes you have an extra bot start or two but we saw some cases this year that we just need to address.

 

For that reason, the draft lottery odds are being adjusted as a form of punishment for Warsaw ( @N0HBDY ) who played their bot goalie 8 extra times and Calgary ( @Ricer13 ) who played their bot goalie 3 extra times. In order to keep things fair to the other teams in the lottery (and not give an advantage to some over the others) we have decided that Warsaw will lose 15% odds of first overall pick and Calgary will lose 5%. This 20% will then be re-distributed as 5% each to the remaining teams in the lottery. That means the lottery odds this season are as follows:

 

1. New York - 25.0%

2. Moscow - 20.0%

3. Malmo - 17.5%

4. Chicago - 15.0%

5. Calgary - 12.5%

6. Warsaw - 10.0%

 

It is the hope of the league that this will be a one time occurrence and that it was simply a mistake on the part of the GM's rather than malicious tanking and no further adjustments to the rules will be made at this time so please don't prove us wrong and have to make this a seasonal thing that we punish more harshly.

 

- @Commissioner

[Josh 1,672]

48 minutes ago, Beketov said:

make this a seasonal thing that we punish more harshly.

 

inb4

[Doomsday 4,143]

Unfortunate that this had to happen, but establishing a precedent was absolutely necessary. 

[Frank 5,259]

Wait wasn't Warsaw at the top in percentage? That seems extreme, but what do I know. 

[Ricer13 2,824]

This is kind of joke. How about take a third round pick instead of rewarding other teams for something they weren’t apart of.

 

It also would have been nice to be approached about this before it was posted publicly as a common courtesy. 

 

 

[Ricer13 2,824]

3 games is a simple mistake. This is actual bullshit.

[Ricer13 2,824]

I want this decision appealed before any type of lottery happens.

[rory 1,945]

yikes can't imagine what the punishment would be if one of your buddies did it

[Banackock 8,143]

1 hour ago, Ricer13 said:

This is kind of joke. How about take a third round pick instead of rewarding other teams for something they weren’t apart of.

 

It also would have been nice to be approached about this before it was posted publicly as a common courtesy. 

 

 

3rds are useless though. They hold zero value in any trades. Losing 30th-48th overall does squat. I do find it weird though that the other teams get more %. Thats what makes it maybe a tad extreme to me. Unless you can’t do say 85, has to be 100. 
 

Im fine with the punishment though. Still get lotto picks instead of straight up losing a 1st or 2nd etc. Lesson learned. If you want to tank, do it smarter and abide by the rules. 

[Ricer13 2,824]

3 minutes ago, Banackock said:

3rds are useless though. They hold zero value in any trades. Losing 30th-48th overall does squat. I do find it weird though that the other teams get more %. Thats what makes it maybe a tad extreme to me. Unless you can’t do say 85, has to be 100. 
 

Im fine with the punishment though. Still get lotto picks instead of straight up losing a 1st or 2nd etc. Lesson learned. If you want to tank, do it smarter and abide by the rules. 

For a first time offender, who made an honest mistake and it being only 3 games….a 3rd is more than enough value.

[Nykonax 1,566]

feel like it's a little harsh for calgary, 3 games could definitely just be a simple mistake + not like it really impacted anything. extra bot games worth 6 points each and they're 8+ points between everyone else in standings.

warsaw makes sense, double amount of backup games is pretty excessive, but still think it only impacts NYA really. should just swap their odds and take off like 5-10% maybe. i don't mind the severe punishment to set precedent though so don't have to deal with this in the future

[McLovin 470]

27 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

feel like it's a little harsh for calgary, 3 games could definitely just be a simple mistake + not like it really impacted anything. extra bot games worth 6 points each and they're 8+ points between everyone else in standings.

warsaw makes sense, double amount of backup games is pretty excessive, but still think it only impacts NYA really. should just swap their odds and take off like 5-10% maybe. i don't mind the severe punishment to set precedent though so don't have to deal with this in the future

I strongly beg to differ. Dropping back 5 spots in the lottery for 5 extra games than Calgary is overkill as fuck, and seems malicious if I didn't know any better. I agree that this needs to be appealed and reviewed before implemented cause it's quite honestly bullshit

[KRZY 416]

3 extra bot games could have easily been a three game sim ( an easy mistake any GM could’ve made ) I think that’s extreme . Warsaw is valid in my opinion . Maybe the % lost is a little high but still a valid punishment . But ya Calgarys punishment is super harsh for a mistake anybody could’ve made 

[Frank 5,259]

48 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

feel like it's a little harsh for calgary, 3 games could definitely just be a simple mistake + not like it really impacted anything. extra bot games worth 6 points each and they're 8+ points between everyone else in standings.

warsaw makes sense, double amount of backup games is pretty excessive, but still think it only impacts NYA really. should just swap their odds and take off like 5-10% maybe. i don't mind the severe punishment to set precedent though so don't have to deal with this in the future

Warsaw's starter is literally worse than the bot. 

[Grape 739]

iirc, those extra 3 bot games for Calgary was against other lottery teams... 

[Spartan 4,531]

13 minutes ago, KRZY said:

3 extra bot games could have easily been a three game sim ( an easy mistake any GM could’ve made ) I think that’s extreme . Warsaw is valid in my opinion . Maybe the % lost is a little high but still a valid punishment . But ya Calgarys punishment is super harsh for a mistake anybody could’ve made 

It wasn't a 3 game sim situation. Funnily enough, on theme week day or TDL day, Bek posted the backup start count and tagged all GM's. Calgary was at 8/8. Later that week in a sim, the bot was played against Moscow but the starter was played against LA. So no, it wasn't a situation where the GM had a bot roll over by a game or two when the goalies changed based on the opponent.

[Ricer13 2,824]

10 minutes ago, Spartan said:

It wasn't a 3 game sim situation. Funnily enough, on theme week day or TDL day, Bek posted the backup start count and tagged all GM's. Calgary was at 8/8. Later that week in a sim, the bot was played against Moscow but the starter was played against LA. So no, it wasn't a situation where the GM had a bot roll over by a game or two when the goalies changed based on the opponent.

This is complacency on my part and I understand there should be punishment but the punishment does not fit the crime whatsoever. Conveniently enough, we are now punishing draft lottery percentages which complicates things even further instead of draft picks like previous incidences. It’s all very shady, I also feel extremely blindsided that this wasn’t brought to my attention before hand. 

[BOOM 8,818]

[KRZY 416]

36 minutes ago, Spartan said:

It wasn't a 3 game sim situation. Funnily enough, on theme week day or TDL day, Bek posted the backup start count and tagged all GM's. Calgary was at 8/8. Later that week in a sim, the bot was played against Moscow but the starter was played against LA. So no, it wasn't a situation where the GM had a bot roll over by a game or two when the goalies changed based on the opponent.

Fair enough , thank you for filling me in on the details and clearing it up so I understand it better

[FrostBeard 2,061]

Clearly, everyone here has strong opinions about this so here is mine.

 

I feel that this is a okay'ish punishment, that said, there are few talking points that are worth discussing.

 

Firstly, when it comes to the idea of "punishing by lowering draft odds" I think is the least heavy hitting of any potential punishment and it makes most sense as for a rebuilding team the goal is to get as high of a Lotto pick as they can and by punishing where it hurts the most is always the way to do it. Losing a 3rd or a 2nd for this wouldn't make sense as we could start a precedent where GMs in a rebuilsing season play their bot 11/12 times, lose a 3rd to potentially get a higher pick in the Lotto. As a GM, I would take that bet any day of the week knowing how "important" is a 3rd Rounder.

 

Secondly, when it comes to 5% loss in the draft odds, I feel like 3% for CGY and 10% for WAR would be a bit better of a punshment but I have never been against the principle "punish hard so it doesn't repeat".

 

 

[Daniel Janser 2,217]

3 hours ago, Spartan said:

It wasn't a 3 game sim situation. Funnily enough, on theme week day or TDL day, Bek posted the backup start count and tagged all GM's. Calgary was at 8/8. Later that week in a sim, the bot was played against Moscow but the starter was played against LA. So no, it wasn't a situation where the GM had a bot roll over by a game or two when the goalies changed based on the opponent.

I am certainly biased on the matter, not going to pretend otherwise. The match you are referring to (game 479 if I looked it up correctly) was the only one Calgary lost against Moscow in S90. And Calgary was shut-out 3-0. The backup goalie showed a respectable .925 saving rate, which is admittedly slightly lower than Cow's average of .928. I guess we can agree scoring zero goals has nothing to do with which goalie you play and further that you lose every game you do not score in. 

 

To me, playing the backup in this particular game did not make a change. 

 

Further Calgary has had a 9 points difference to Moscow and 8 to New York. Therefore, even if the Wranglers won their 3 extra bot games, this would not have changed their position in the standings (and with the above in mind, I think a solid case could be made, that at best 2 more matches would have been won (if they were not even won regardless, honestly I did not check). 

 

I think a just punishment, would be to check the extra bot games played and add 2 points for every game they lost with the bot and adjust the standings (and lottery chances) accordingly. I understand that this is more time consuming than just hand out the punishment as communicated by Beketov.

 

I agree with Ricer that the punishment does not fit the crime in this instance (I have not checked on the Warsaw case at all, so will not make any statements in that respect). On the other hand I get it that a precedence and discouragement need to be established...

Edited October 12, 2023 by Daniel Janser

[Banackock 8,143]

5 hours ago, Ricer13 said:

For a first time offender, who made an honest mistake and it being only 3 games….a 3rd is more than enough value.

[Beketov 9,103]

1 hour ago, Daniel Janser said:

I think a just punishment, would be to check the extra bot games played and add 2 points for every game they lost with the bot and adjust the standings (and lottery chances) accordingly. I understand that this is more time consuming than just hand out the punishment as communicated by Beketov.

We’re unfair AND lazy, I do always love that combination.

 

You’re considering this in a bubble as you’re considering only the how and why for Calgary. 2 teams were being punished, the severity needed to differ but the method being completely different doesn’t really fly and what you suggest wouldn’t have really been possible at all with Warsaw, let alone reasonable. It’s not about saying “every bot game must automatically be a loss” so we aren’t assuming that.

 

At the end of the day all the GM’s were tagged at the deadline, Calgary saw they were done, they saw the rule discussion, and then added more games anyway. Warsaw was already too far gone to be saved at that point but there’s a reason they are punished more harshly.

 

4 hours ago, FrostBeard said:

Secondly, when it comes to 5% loss in the draft odds, I feel like 3% for CGY and 10% for WAR would be a bit better of a punshment but I have never been against the principle "punish hard so it doesn't repeat".

10 and 3 doesn’t math, gotta be numbers that can be spread out to 4 teams since it has to equal 100%, we can’t just remove the odds from the equation. 10 and 2 would have I guess worked but let’s be honest, the specific numbers were never going to be what people complained about.

 

Can’t wait for Calgary to win the lottery anyway and all this to be pointless. I love waking up to drama fires.

[FrostBeard 2,061]

7 minutes ago, Beketov said:

10 and 3 doesn’t math, gotta be numbers that can be spread out to 4 teams since it has to equal 100%, we can’t just remove the odds from the equation. 10 and 2 would have I guess worked but let’s be honest, the specific numbers were never going to be what people complained about.

Ah, yeah, never thought of that and you are right. 

[Daniel Janser 2,217]

13 minutes ago, Beketov said:

We’re unfair AND lazy, I do always love that combination.

 

You’re considering this in a bubble as you’re considering only the how and why for Calgary. 2 teams were being punished, the severity needed to differ but the method being completely different doesn’t really fly and what you suggest wouldn’t have really been possible at all with Warsaw, let alone reasonable. It’s not about saying “every bot game must automatically be a loss” so we aren’t assuming that.

 

At the end of the day all the GM’s were tagged at the deadline, Calgary saw they were done, they saw the rule discussion, and then added more games anyway. Warsaw was already too far gone to be saved at that point but there’s a reason they are punished more harshly.

Never meant to accuse any one of being lazy or unfair (if I came across this way, this was not my intention at all). 

 

You are right that I am looking through a Calgary lense (and I admitted so in my very first sentence). I do not object at all to consequences for violating well established and long standing rules (especially since GM's were specifically notified of same well in time).

 

I accept that an in-depth analysis is close to impossible (or feasible). I trust you can see my perspective that even if Calgary won all three of the surplus bot games, it would not have mattered standing-wise and therefore the effective violation of the rule was miniscule (again, only went through the CGY part of the affair).

 

Hoping for RNG now, as you rightfully pointed out.