And no one is saying ban the entire team. Issue a warning and tell the offending team to break the offending object. Wait one minute. If no one listens, tell them its now first priority. Threaten to kick or ban the commander of the battle, probably by clan, if not by actual party owner, if he does not personally do it. It should be the entire team's responsibility to play fairly, but if no one is responsive, then make the parties with ownership responsible.
I think you're putting too much emphasis on pinning responsibility on someone. 'Someone' as in
anyone at all. I, for one, am not in the habit of punishing people for something they are not responsible for, and I would hope that the other admins do their best to refrain from doing that as well. It would be rather unfortunate if the parties responsible for hiring mercenaries and leading battles were also directly liable for the actions of
every single merc fighting on their side.
I mean, all I am really looking for is some pink text and some follow through. Mistakes happen, but they seem to keep happening to certain parties more than others. Clans who are mindful of the rules are getting screwed the worst, when it should be the other way around. Bring on some flying carpets. Keep people in check.
I feel as though there is a general lack of understanding about the systems in place (gameplay systems as well as rules applying to strat battles). More diligence is necessary, certainly, and being vocal about the rules (as admins) is never a bad thing, but it sounds as though you are suggesting punishment for its own sake, under the notion that it will "keep people in check"? I feel things haven't gotten that drastically bad.
You also act like bans aren't an every day thing. What we have is a bullshit system that plays favorites. In fact, its devolved into a meta game of seeing who can get who banned. Look at shit like this:
http://forum.meleegaming.com/na-%28official%29/ban-request-47843/
http://forum.meleegaming.com/na-(official)/unban-request-zeenerd/
Everyone wants to see what they can get away with. See who I can trick into hitting me more times, so they get banned. See which admins are their friends and will watch out for them. See which admins will shorten a ban behind another admin's back. Unfortunately, in my opinion, that's spreading into Strategus.
I think you're perceiving things in a slightly skewed way. The part about people testing the limits of what they can get away with may be a reality, but the rest? The system playing favorites, admins watching out for their friends, and the fact that that is spreading into strategus? It's a matter of witnessing problems more than dealing with them, from my experience. More to the point:
I have never seen a ban shortened by another admin without prior consultation, not only is that not condoned, it's entirely against our protocol. If it happens, that's a basis for reprimands. I, for one, have never "played favorites" with clanmates or other clans that I like just because I want to see them succeed. To some extent I actually hold my actual clanmates to higher standards than most outsiders - maybe that's bias, but I
know they know the server rules and therefore should be held accountable for breaching them. I also have never seen the other (current) admins refrain from warnings/punishment just because their team belongs to their strat faction.
Also, I'm surprised adoptagoat did not say anything then as there was chatter in both TS and in game. I suppose he is not always the most active admin, although I do remember him threatening to ban people for wasting lives at the end of the very last battle of Strat 3, which was at his fief, I believe. But that just goes to show what can happen when rules are selectively enforced. So bad on Adoptagoat for this one, bad on Shik and Tydeus on the one I mentioned before that was well documented. This is, of course, in contrast to Canary very quickly warning the defending team to not climb on aerial constructs in the battle his clan was attacking in and then not telling the Chevalier on his side to climb down when he got up there.
A matter of perspective, again - I will often warn people or instruct them to cease their potential rulebreaking using voice chat, as the message gets through quicker and more efficiently. This, of course, leaves the matter more controversial-looking publicly. If an admin is always on the same faction's team, you may never see warnings they issue to that (your enemy's) team, but that doesn't mean they're not also subject to the rule enforcement all the same.
Canary actually did tell him(in TS) to get down, and told the rest of the team not to ladder up there after he realized he was up there.
^
This is what happened, for example.
I still say there is nothing wrong with asking for consistent adminning before it becomes a way to meta game in Strat. Perhaps, in the future, we could have a rule where admins can't enforce against the enemy team except for the most blatant violations, especially if there are more neutral admins present. I don't want to see another CyrusHRE episode or maybe even something worse.
I don't believe we're truly seeing inconsistent administration the way you're implying. If we're enforcing the rules inconsistently it has to do more with lack of coverage than with bias and taking sides.
Cyrus was a case where he saw potential rulebreaking, issued legitimate warnings, then apparently ignored the revised actions of the team and began handing out blanket bans regardless, apparently as a measure to punish part of the team for their supposed intent to continue breaking the rules.
I also don't believe we should be ignoring rulebreaking just because it's happening on a team that opposes the admin's. It might be harder to deal with and enforce, but to ignore it would be even more inconsistent.
Basically what I'm saying is that I want more admins or more involved admins. I want rules enforced, if there are going to be rules, and I want us to be able to avoid selective adminning. But all if you guys in this thread are trying to debate that this is not a good thing.
The thing people are debating in this thread is mostly the way to enforce one specific rule, the "no siege equipment on flags" rule. Oftentimes if an admin doesn't take action it is because he can not directly witness the supposed infraction: if you're hired in a strat battle you can't easily spectate. Even if you are spectating the whole time, or are on the same team as the offending party, it's not as easy to determine who is doing what as you might think. We
won't blame people who aren't directly responsible for breaking rules because that would be
irresponsible.
More admins is a good idea; finding viable candidates is not an instantaneous process, however.
But of course the two biggest debaters are from Hero Party and Chaos. The first, when formed, had a Dev and two admins, the second with a Head admin and another admin. Oddly enough, those are the two clans I am subtly accusing of selective adminning. But of course, you guys seem to be enjoying your one sided admin decision.
Chaos actually has six total admins, with three of us being reasonably active. Before several folks left the clan, we had nine total. Hero_Party is currently bereft of admins/devs, just so you know. They haven't had any since sometime before the current issue arose.
I can't speak for Hero_Party, but if a Chaos member is debating how the rules are handled and how we enforce them, it might be because I've made sure they understand the rules, and they have seen and heard firsthand how rulebreaking tends to get handled and enforced.
Alternatively, you can just get rid of the rule. I mean, this one hasn't been THAT big of a deal yet, but then we're just going to see how far it can be taken.
I think this rule, most agree, exists for a reason. The problem we're having related to it now is largely due to the fact that otherwise-movable siege equipment is bugged and stationary.
edit: although there is a case to be made either way! It is merely one of the community-established rules without precedent or public comment from the devs (aside from its endorsement as what are to abide by for the moment)
The issue is that you don't know exactly who built it, and unless someone fesses up or there's some evidence, no one can really be punished for it. You can't just ban the Hospitaller leaders for it, and you can't just ban the entire team for it, the only thing that can be done is prevent it from happening again in the future.
This is pretty much the admin stance on this at present. We will try to be more diligent, and discuss the rule publicly so that everyone understands it better, but there's no guarantee that everyone will always be satisfied by our actions (or more likely lack thereof).
Let me sum up the situation: siege equipment placed over flags is against the rules. People sometimes build large-scale siege equipment near flags to the point where they cover them, even accidentally. Siege towers take a very long time to destroy; the axles and wheels of the siege towers apparently can not be destroyed.
But you see, the defenders in said situation were the offending party, and should be responsible for destroying the construct. They will most likely take a few more losses during the reasonable period of time they have to break it, but that is their punishment for building it in the first place.
You are seriously suggesting the entire defending team be punished for an act capable of being committed by a small group or even an
individual, and what's worse is that if it were done maliciously, the rulebreaker would be potentially be entirely successful in hindering his intended victim with that kind of rule enforcement!
pretty sure youd get a pretty epic ban if anyone saw you doing it, which someone prolly would considering how many people are around and how obvious it is when someone has a c-site in their hands and considering (at least on FCC side) only certain people are ever supposed to spawn with c-sites.
Unfortunately not all strat factions are as well organized, it is still a likelihood that it could go unnoticed in many battles.
The attacking team did not break any rules, and should not have to wait. You see, it is accountability of both the players and the admins I am asking for her. I am suggesting an escalating series of actions that the admins should take, starting with a general warning and outlining a reasonable amount of time to take corrective action. This series of actions should, however, become abbreviated with repeat offenders.
No, only the team that has miscreants on it should be punished for their mistake of hiring a particular person, do I follow you? Outside of that person being removed from the fight for breaking the rules, losing them a player, punishing the entire team for that is ridiculous - just as ridiculous as you'd agree forcing attackers to stop attacking for some duration of time (considering the battle time limit they're restricted by) would be.
If you "mistakenly" build on flags in five battles in a row, there's no reason you shouldn't be banned for at least some period of time. And again, it's impossible to prove intent on the confines of the internet, unless they use text chat to blatantly admit they are doing something wrong.
On an individual level, yes, punishment. It's almost impossible to determine fault based on orders or instructions, yes. So, okay, more warnings, make sure everybody understands the rules. More preventive measures, paying more attention, taking a closer look at on-going construction site usage in-game.
No to blanket punishment.
It's not hard to moderate it it all. When you die in Strat, you can just unclick the ready to spawn box and go look at whatever you want. Throw some show names cheat on, and you can even assign the people nearest the offending object to destroy it.
Is removing several players from the fight (effectively) using the threat of punishment really better than arbitrarily assigning blame and banning certain members of a team (or even the entire team)? It
is hard to moderate because we actually have to consider the consequences of issuing warnings, commands and threats like that. I don't think there will ever be a universally acceptable decision we can make when considering the current bugs and their effect on this rule.
If attackers are about to capture flags, it's bad when one can't go down. It's also bad when defenders are forced out of the fight to break something an unfortunate teammate of theirs created. Either one creates a lopsided scenario for a strat battle for the sake of fairness by way of the rules. We've all heard what happens when heavy-handed administration directly and entirely determines the outcome of a strat battle,
that is not ideal.
It is up to the admins to create a fair environment for everyone with the rules in mind. It isn't as easy as forcing strat teams into action, that's what will create exactly the kind of selective administration you're talking about. The best course of action, in this circumstance, is prevention.
REMINDER: Do not build things that will be on top of your flags!
Learn the size of siege towers and be careful not to put them too close.
Sorry for all the disjointed paragraphs and the monster post multi-quote text cascade.