Thread: Reffing Long Battles

Well, I just finished doing just that. I reffed a 4vs4 battle that lasted 3 hours and it was horrible.

In the past, I have suggested some sort of Time Clause to stop the Trainers from taking soooo long, but, it was too easy to abuse, so I thought, "If we can't make it so that Trainers get penalized for taking too long, maybe we could reward Referees for being patient."

So, this is what I suggest. Double Ref wages on each battle that lasts 2 hours or more. This is how:

When a battle is reffed on a Blast Chat (and only Blast Chats so that there will be a record/history of the battle) that takes 2 hours or more, once it's over and the ref logs the battle, the ref could ask an official to look at the Blast Chat's history to confirm that the battle took that long for a good reason (ex. Not because someone idled for 1 hour). The official would then post in the referee's log quoting the specific battle to approve the double wage for that one battle.

I don't think this fixes anything, but it is an improvement since reffing a single battle that lasts so long makes referees not want to ref anymore and seeing that their extra work was worth something might help motivate them to keep going.

Any thoughts on this?

An official can't necessarily see blast chat history unless they were there or if they have one of those kooky phone apps. Anyways, I vote no. Seems like it'd be too easy to be abused and a pain to keep track of.

Originally Posted by Eraizaa-kun

Well, I just finished doing just that. I reffed a 4vs4 battle that lasted 3 hours and it was horrible.

In the past, I have suggested some sort of Time Clause to stop the Trainers from taking soooo long, but, it was too easy to abuse, so I thought, "If we can't make it so that Trainers get penalized for taking too long, maybe we could reward Referees for being patient."

So, this is what I suggest. Double Ref wages on each battle that lasts 2 hours or more. This is how:

When a battle is reffed on a Blast Chat (and only Blast Chats so that there will be a record/history of the battle) that takes 2 hours or more, once it's over and the ref logs the battle, the ref could ask an official to look at the Blast Chat's history to confirm that the battle took that long for a good reason (ex. Not because someone idled for 1 hour). The official would then post in the referee's log quoting the specific battle to approve the double wage for that one battle.

I don't think this fixes anything, but it is an improvement since reffing a single battle that lasts so long makes referees not want to ref anymore and seeing that their extra work was worth something might help motivate them to keep going.

Any thoughts on this?

A lot of times I've had several referees refusing to ref for me because they claim my battles take a long time (and the one Eraizaa is referring to was one of mine), but also it seems like a lot of work for officials to have to do that. It also does seem like it might be a bit abusable and whatnot.

Just throwing some stuff out there, not quite sure how I stand on it.

While I do feel I should get more for reffing battles like this one and this one, this would have too many ways to exploit it unless someone has an idea to keep people from abusing it.

Most of the time, refs know who the battlers are that take forever, so they tend to avoid reffing for them. Aside from the people that typically take forever, battles over an hour are pretty rare unless its a gym or something. It's unfortunately when it happens, but it IS the ref's job to stick it out. Also abuse issues, etc.

Dock the pay of the guilty party and not increasing the refs?

if this becomes a thing, you should call it the AshK clause

>ashk joke here

Tbh though, long battles are bound to happen - as refs, you just have to do your job and finish reffing them them as you agreed to. As for extra pay, it sounds fair and we'd all like a little bit more $, but I think that refs are paid fine as is and it isn't worth the hassle to our officials.

Refs already get paid way more than battlers in most situations, especially in battles that would last longer. 4v4s+ pay more to the ref, and those are the ones that tend to take a bit longer. Besides, if you're not willing to be patient as a ref, then you don't deserve to be ref; it's a part of the job. :b

Well, right guys all have valid points. Still, this is just attempt #2. I'll keep trying. Eventually I'll find an idea that can work to solve the problem that are long battles. Because, I mean, I don't enjoy either reffing OR battling in those and I don't think many people do. They can be so draining.

Also, it was more of a coincidence that Ash K. was in that battle. I don't find him responsible for the length of at least that one battle I reffed for him today. It just happened.

Just saying, those counting wages already just take the refs word for it when counting. A ref could easily insert a battle that never happened. Long story short, don't abuse like I just said, but this idea changes very little. Even if a ref extends a battle purposely by reffing slowly, its still a 2 hour period of time the ref spent paying attention to the battle, where the battlers could have easily opted for a faster ref.

But who cares what I think, I'm not Head Ref anymore =P

This is one of those ideas I don't hate but I see no practical way of implementing it. What happens if someone refs for 3 hours but no official was online, so it gets skipped over? There would have to be some sort of application or way of asking us for double payment. It can be abused but we've already discussed that. Blast Chat's don't keep logs outside of what can normally be kept by anyone who's logged in - there's no online system, so it can't be proven that way.

Battles are never going to be fixed in duration. I'd love some sort of "3 minutes to send" rule, but even I find myself wanting more time to figure out a good move sometimes. Or I totally forgot the battle and was busy looking at anything from porn to pictures of cats and we all know what the middle ground is like.

tl;dr Good but impractical idea.

For me, I'd rather ref a long battle where both sides were taking time to send due to strategising and thinking ahead than ref a short battle that consisted of poorly-thought out moves and general headdesk behaviour.

Having said that, it is pretty ridiculous for a 4v4 to take 3 hours. I generally send a message if a battler takes more than 10 minutes to send a move, and hopefully after half an hour where only 3 turns have passed, they'll get the message.

Ok, guys let's be serious here.
1. You as a ref feel that a 1+ hour battle is way too straining on you, so you want more money. Mkay, I can relate to that. Though the problem is that matches that take that long, are generally not your average 3vs3, but more likely to be gym matches or tourney matches. These have better wages, thus making your point moot.

2. If a match takes 3 hours because either battler is taking ages to send a move, you as a ref have the right to encourage the slow battler to hurry up. If he continuously fails to do so, either because he's afk a lot or a really really slow thinker, you may ask if the match should be revisited at a later and more convenient time. If the battler refuses or continues to be ethically impaired, you as a ref have the right to demand a reasonable time period in which to send moves. Even if this is done in mid-game. Refs are obligated to ref matches, but they're not obligated to be enslaved to your timetable.

Conclusively, no wage increases, and no need for a Time Clause. it's already in place and it's called common decency.

I personally don't see the issue with implementing an optional time clause of some sort. As it is people have a set time to send moves in a FFA or their mon faints. We already have most of the rule variants that are used in the games themselves. Many tournaments for the games use a battle time limit and a command time limit. Usually something like an hour for the battle and half a minute for the commands. So, were this to be adapted to URPG battles could be set to a max time of two hours and commands set to a max time of two minutes or something.

Basically it would be an optional rule for people to use, so no one would be forced to use it. If you miss the command time you use struggle instead or something. If the battle hits the battle time without a winner the ref would call it based on number of Pokemon remaining. If that is even then it is a draw. Now before someone it all, "But someone will just stall to win." Yes. They likely will. And while that might be looked down on, anyone that has ever played any competitive game ever knows that it a legitimate strategy that will win if the opponent can't overcome it. So instead of worrying about it, overcome it and become better because of it.

I remember when we had three regular clauses. Sleep, Freeze, and OHKO. Now we have at least six that are used regularly, ACC/EVA and Species.

I have to agree with DU here. It's courtesy not to make a ref wait for 15 minutes while you choose a move. Speed-play would be cool for a tournament or something, where you had at most one minute to send each move. But it's not going to be implemented as any sort of clause or rule.

As a ref, I tell people to hurry up all the time. Usually its "Are you still here?" and they're just taking forever so I tell them to hurry up. Otherwise, tell the battlers you don't have that much time to waste waiting for them to send, and they should get another ref.