Need Project Magma Expert opinion

[bladesyn]

Dear Project Magma team,
As some of you may or may not know, major drama has unfolded in this year's myth world cup surrounding a trow terries game glitch:

Team Thundercox attempted to 6-flag Team HoHo on territories trow, but as they were tagging the final flag, Team HoHo was about a millisecond late to the tag.

The game ended and read 5-0 tcox.

The perm was non-existent.

Should this count as a 6 flag victory for thundercox? The film is here:

http://hl.udogs.net/files/Quick%20Uploads/trow_game.zip

The thread is here for the MWC forums. Will someone please make an official ruling?
http://mwc09.myther.net/forum/viewtopic ... 28&start=0

Thank you,
blade

[Myrd]

So what happened there, is that Myth records player statistics 1 tick after the game ends. The game ended when 6 flags were captured, but 1 tick later, when the final endgame statistics were taken, one flag was re-contested.

I will fix it in 1.7.1 so that the final end-game statistics are taken on the same tick as when the game ends, rather than one tick later (which was the cause of this anomaly).

[Zeph]

so the conclusion, TCOX wins with 6 flags

[Archer]

That's only the conclusion if scoring is considered to happen when the game ends. If you score one tick after, like the game does, they win with five flags.

(Though it looks like Myrd just declared the current behaviour a bug, so I guess you're right.)

~J

[Pyro]

Yeah of course it's a bug. There are 6 flags on that map with the gametype territories. It still had time left before it ran out of time. It ended sooner because one team captured all 6 flags. If it ran out of time and there was a contested flag the game would be in sudden death meaning it would be like overtime. So yea, it was a bug for sure.

[Archer]

Yeah of course it's a bug. There are 6 flags on that map with the gametype territories. It still had time left before it ran out of time. It ended sooner because one team captured all 6 flags. If it ran out of time and there was a contested flag the game would be in sudden death meaning it would be like overtime. So yea, it was a bug for sure.

The capture of all six flags was the trigger to end the game, yes; however, it is not unreasonable for the trigger to be "end game next tick", just counterintuitive. All six flags were captured which is what caused the game to end, but when it ended there was a contested flag.

Anyway, I'm just nitpicking.

~J

[Melekor]

It is unreasonable to collect the scores one tick after the end of the game. Have you ever heard of a game where the score changes after the game has already ended? The whole concept is nonsensical, because that would mean the game hadn't really ended in the first place. The scores must be collected instantaneously and simultaneously with the end of the game, otherwise you're changing the definition of the word "end".

[Zeph]

end=end+1

[Archer]

It is unreasonable to collect the scores one tick after the end of the game. Have you ever heard of a game where the score changes after the game has already ended?

Yes. See basketball, buzzer beater.

~J

[vinylrake]

Yes. See basketball, buzzer beater.~J

That's not the same thing at all. There is a significant difference between a ball being in the air as the end of game buzzer sounds counting as a point vs a person running toward a flag to contest but not getting close enough until AFTER the buzzer/end-of-game sounds. If you are going to say it's the same thing, you might as well argue for the end of game scoring to be done 2 ticks after the 'buzzer' or 10, or why not a minute later - the principle is the same.

If you were arguing for why a ball flying toward a goal when a fetchball end of buzzer sounds should count if it lands in the goal after the buzzer you would have a reasonable argument, but trying to argue that a unit not in range to contest a flag when the buzzer sounds should count in scoring because the scoring logic has a glitch is silly.

Melekor is right.

[Melekor]

It is unreasonable to collect the scores one tick after the end of the game. Have you ever heard of a game where the score changes after the game has already ended?

Yes. See basketball, buzzer beater.

~J

I can't quite tell if you're being funny or if you really missed the point :)

Buzzer beater just means that the game doesn't end while the ball is still in the air.

If the score can still change, then by definition the game has not ended.

[Archer]

Right. Likewise, in actuality, the game does not end when all flags are captured; it ends one tick after all flags are captured, regardless of the state of the game at that time.

This is no more unreasonable than the game of basketball ending when the ball touches down after the buzzer, rather than at the buzzer itself.

I don't think that way is better than the instant-end, and I believe it's worse because it's counterintuitive, but I want to be clear that it's on equal footing in terms of legitimacy.

~J

[Pyro]

Right. Likewise, in actuality, the game does not end when all flags are captured; it ends one tick after all flags are captured, regardless of the state of the game at that time.

Wrong. What the bug is doing is recording the score one tick after the end of the game. So the game does end when all flags are captured as it has always done, but the score was not matching this. In a normal Territories game, if the time is up and there is still at least one flag that is being contested, the game stays in Sudden Death. So if the map has 6 flags and one team has 5 and the other has 0 but one is contested, the game goes on until all flags are captured by a team. So the score always adds up to the total number of flags. With this bug, the total score from both teams was not matching the total number of flags on the map.

This is no more unreasonable than the game of basketball ending when the ball touches down after the buzzer, rather than at the buzzer itself.

I don't think that way is better than the instant-end, and I believe it's worse because it's counterintuitive, but I want to be clear that it's on equal footing in terms of legitimacy.

You must not be clear on how this is a bug. Let us say in a game of basketball, the score was 40-39. The buzzer sounds and the ball is not in the air. Clearly the team with 40 wins. However, what if the scoreboard kept recording the score a few seconds after the end of the game? The losing team decides to make a basket. The score ends up changing to 40-41. Would this be fair?

[Melekor]

Right. Likewise, in actuality, the game does not end when all flags are captured; it ends one tick after all flags are captured, regardless of the state of the game at that time.

This is no more unreasonable than the game of basketball ending when the ball touches down after the buzzer, rather than at the buzzer itself.

I don't think that way is better than the instant-end, and I believe it's worse because it's counterintuitive, but I want to be clear that it's on equal footing in terms of legitimacy.

~J

Are you essentially arguing that since we can't ever really know if the Bungie Gods intended the game to end
i) When a team captures all the flags, or
ii) One tick after a team captures all the flags,
Therefore both possibilities are equally likely and equally legitimate?

That kind of reminds me of the argument that Santa either exists or he doesn't, therefore the probability that he exists is exactly 50% :)

I personally thought it was obvious, but here's some evidence in favor for option (i):

-Game Over. The logic in the Myth code sets the game state to game over when a team captures all the flags. It even flashes "GAME OVER" in big bold letters in-game. In order for option (ii) to be correct, you'd have to believe that "game over" doesn't really mean game over, but instead is just some sort of glorified buzzer beater.

-Occam's razor. Option (i) is simpler and just makes more sense. Why one tick? Why not 2? 10? 500? It's completely arbitrary.

[ChrisP]

Having nothing invested, I'll throw in my 2 cents purely for academic arguments sake and say I tend to agree with Archer.

An event that causes the game to end is not the exact same thing as the game ending; one is the catalyst, the other the result. It's like pulling the trigger on a gun to shot someone at point blank range. For most intents and purposes it doesn't matter, but the target doesn't die from pulling the trigger - they die when the bullet hits them a micro second later. If I were the target, no matter the odds, I'd still like a chance to dodge the bullet.

6 flagging merely causes the game to end, and though it may be counter intuitive, there is no absolute logic that supports 6 flagging must end the game in the exact same 30th of a second. All you can do is guess what the designers intended or if they made a mistake, and that isn't quite the same thing as deducting the existence of Santa Claus. Even if "Game Over" does indeed flash in the same exact tic that the six flagging occurs (does it really?) that's strong evidence, but not absolute proof of what the designers intended. They could have shrugged and thought no one would be able to tell the difference anyway.

Evidence in the other direction is the fact that Bungie has done at least one other thing similar to this. The rules for LMOTH state that the winner is whomever holds the flag uncontested after the timer runs out. However, what really happens (at least in TFL/vTFL, not sure about M2) is that once the flag is uncontested, there is a random 0-5 second delay programmed in which allows the flag to be re-contested. Would adding 0-5 seconds after the buzzer make sense in basketball? No, but here a Bungie designer decided to do so in order to add an element which makes the game more exciting - and it does indeed make the game more exciting.

The game may not end when this happens in LMOTH, but the criteria for victory has been clearly met - and yet the results can be changed. It's not ridiculous to allow that maybe Bungie wanted to do the same sort of thing for Terries, and just didn't do it as well.

While I don't care about the six flagging event and agree it should be "fixed", I'd hate to see the LMOTH delay removed because someone was overly orthodox in interrupting the rules.

Were I running the tournament... well, first of all, I wouldn't set up rules that allow you to win matches despite losing more games, but that's besides the point - I might force a rematch, but I'd probably just go with the score as shown. Otherwise, you open the door to endless other complaints about things not behaving the way the loser expected. The game scored you, it's debatable if it's a bug or not, just accept the results for better or worse.

But I'm not running the tournament, and to my knowledge, no one weighing in here is either. Unless there is something in the code to objectively indicate it is a bug, Project Magma should probably not officially pronounce it a bug, and just let the tournament judges call it how they see fit.

Again, this is just my academic opinion for the sake of devil's advocate. I don't care if the behavior is removed or not and as for the tournament, I don't even know who is playing, much less care who wins/won.