The Ban/Protect Rule

(H/T Lieniitte for the core idea!)

What?



Also, Kaeldori and mmv says they'll try it out in the next tournaments they host!

Also, apparently protects were used in the Mod Wars tournament. this1guy says it worked well, and players didn't have trouble understanding the rules.

Also, apparently Will's Specialty Tournament had a rule in which bans could be used to "unban" the map that your opponents banned. youi says it worked well, and points out that it wouldn't really work unless the teams are given at least 2 bans each.

Why?
Two main reasons:

• Playing osu is most fun when you get to do what you're best at, and the current mainstream banning mechanic prevents both teams from doing exactly that.
• Watching osu is most fun when you get to watch players show off their best performances, and the current mainstream banning mechanic prevents the viewers from seeing exactly that. This seems especially important for OWC tournaments.
• Edit: Endaris offers "Niche skills aren't rewarded at all right now. If someone has a niche skill it is always going to be banned and the person with the most "meta" skillset will prevail."

(Also because everyone will ban the single AR8HD map against Norway in OWC2019, and that's just a shame!)

Perhaps the main benefit of being able to ban maps is to nerf "one-trick-pony" players, and to favour players who have a wide skillset. I think this is a good thing, but I think the main way to achieve that should be to have a varied mappool and a larger Best-Of winning condition (e.g. BO9). I think the argument for allowing players to play at least the single map that they're best at, is strong enough that it outweigh this consideration against it.

How?
If teams get to choose whether to ban or protect, then the first team to ban/protect can ban the opponent's favourite map. To prevent this, the winner of the roll are given the option to protect a map before the loser of the roll starts picking their ban/protect, and then they both just take turns banning/protecting.

+1, but this works better in tournaments where standard pooling is thrown out the window in favor of gimmicks.

I don't think the community will embrace this sometime soon but it will pick up traction. I hope to see a few tournaments use a format like this and hopefully grow.

I generally dislike the idea because it doesn't make sense to force players to play maps when they know they're going to lose them. Especially in cases when your opponent knows what your weakness is and picks it or if you're mindblocked on a map. The purpose of bans is to remove maps with the highest average possible point difference between the two players/teams, which is desirable for both players and spectators. If you allow protecting maps from banning, it kind of destroys that whole purpose, or at least diminishes it. I'm pretty sure people prefer to see very close maps rather than one team or player stomping the other one.

In conclusion, this idea doesn't make much sense from any viewpoint, unless you enjoy watching one team beat the other one by millions of points. I understand that you would want to play your best map but the rule you're proposing can also disable you from banning your worst map, which invalidates your main point. If I wanted to promote niche skills I would rather focus on adding more variety to my mappool.

Even without looking at other gamemodes, protecting a map basically can be summarised as a 100% predictable pick by the opponent in sacrifice for whatever their ban is.

I disagree because EVERYONE (including spectators) will know for certain what map will eventually be played since you wouldnt be protecting a map if you had no intention of playing it. Besides, even if a map was protected, imagine if you find out the opposing side was actually better at a particular map than you thought after playing a similar mod. It is a strategic waste of potential that could be better used on a ban instead.

It could work if the tournament was built around that rule, but you would need a specific set of situations/restrictions from a tournament end in order for it to work and i dont see it happening, at least not in the realm of the small Taiko community tournament scene.

Kondi wrote:

In conclusion, this idea doesn't make much sense from any viewpoint, unless you enjoy watching one team beat the other one by millions of points.

Having maps be close is fun, but watching players perform their very best is also fun. If they protect their best map, they can show off what they know best, and all the other maps in the match can still be close. Also, the match itself won't be any less or more close, since both players get to protect, and it doesn't favour either of them more.

Beat43210 wrote:

I disagree because EVERYONE (including spectators) will know for certain what map will eventually be played since you wouldnt be protecting a map if you had no intention of playing it.

I don't see why that would be a problem. I don't see how knowing some of the maps that will be played detract from interestingness at all.

I like it. Creates more diversity and different approaches towards ban/pick strategies. Will definitely take said rule into consideration for my next tournament.

Edit: Assuming an alternating ban system between 2 players, does that mean if the first player chooses to ban a map before the second player gets his choice, he can't choose to protect that same map anymore? I guess the unban thing could potentially work here as an option, if you feel that you have more chance on winning on your opponent's strongest map than he has on winning your strongest map, but what are the chances of you actually winning it.

If players get enough exposure to this system, they would realise that protecting maps wouldn't make sense, if they had the alternative choice to ban.

Assuming the alternating ban/protect system is used in the tournament and that players ban maps based on how much they think they will lose it to their opponent to the best of their abilities:

If you chose to protect, your opponent could just choose to ban the next map they feel like their most going to lose at, putting you at a disadvantage in the pool because your second best map will be banned while your opponent still has their first and second best map both open in the pool, putting you at a disadvantage.

This system would only work if players were given say one ban and one protect each, and don't have a choice between them, or as mentioned earlier are allowed to protect (or unban) maps that have already been banned by the opponent.

Then also there would be the point that the people above have pointed out, where it might be fun for you to play your strongest map but that is not the case for your opponents, or entertainment purposes like livestreams and such. It is pretty evident, when you allow players to pick their strongest maps freely, some maps really don't have to be played at all to know the result, like people getting 10 times of the opponents score, moreso if the opponent gets demotivated knowing it is a map he hates and knows he cannot perform well on. Such sweeps in maps, which are enabled by this protection system you propose, is not the most entertaining thing people want to see.

For the point about allowing players to show off their skills on the specific types of maps that have been banned against them, they already have the chance to do so in warmups, if they really wanted to. Therefore I believe sticking to the original system of only bans to be superior. Have a nice day

Just to reiterate: this format works best in certain situational / gimmick tournaments where players can leverage a certain skill they have an advantage over their opponent.

Normal tournaments most likely won't benefit from this since there are a lot of possible situations where this can be abused. like with what I did in a tournament I won second place with.

"Protecting" a niche map pick is almost always a win for the picker side, and I know it's fun for one side, but it's never fun for the other. Always consider the flipside when making new rulesets.

Edit 1: Two thoughts as I read the replies.

"Also, the match itself won't be any less or more close, since both players get to protect, and it doesn't favour either of them more."

The argument of both teams or players having the ability to protect to be fair isn't really completely "fair". Some teams or players do not have a niche skill to make them protect a certain map for themselves. And they shouldn't be disadvantaged by the idea of not having a niche skill just because. This is good to avoid certain lopsided sweeps, but why would you give the other person a free map win (provided he does well in his protected pick) if he's the inferior as a whole? Which leads to my second point:

"Having maps be close is fun, but watching players perform their very best is also fun. If they protect their best map, they can show off what they know best, and all the other maps in the match can still be close."

Well... Yes, if you consider it fun. Watching the disadvantaged side isn't. The idea is a double-edged sword at best: it is forcing both players to play one map they want, which in most cases they would win, and it would essentially turn BO9s into BO7s, BO11s to BO9s, and so on.

Normal meta tournaments don't fit this ruleset at all. Niche skillsets are niche and so does their maps. This applies for weird tournament pools though.

1.

uchuuj1n wrote:

If you chose to protect, your opponent could just choose to ban the next map they feel like their most going to lose at, putting you at a disadvantage in the pool because your second best map will be banned while your opponent still has their first and second best map both open in the pool, putting you at a disadvantage.

Thanks for the feedback, and good point. Had to think about it. But I think this counterargument doesn't work. To explain, let's step back a little.

To rationally choose what to Ban/Protect, you need not only know your own strengths, you need to know your strengths relative to your opponent's strengths. If you are 40 units of strong at map A and only 39 strong at map B, and your opponent is 39 units of strong at map A vs only 10 strong at map B, then your relative strength on map B is greater (39-10=29 relative units of pro), making it a better choice for you to Protect and for your opponent to Ban.


When you face a player who is roughly as good as you, you will usually find that your relative strengths vs your opponents on maps in the mappool have a wide range of positive and negative values. Your strategy to maximise the expected number of maps you win will be to estimate your relative strengths, and then choose to either Ban the map with the highest negative value (e.g. -7), or Protect the map with the highest positive value (e.g. +8). And if your relative strength on your relatively-best map is higher (e.g. 8) than your opponent's relative strength on their relatively-best map (e.g. 7), then you should Protect instead of Ban.

2.

Misery wrote:

Normal tournaments most likely won't benefit from this since there are a lot of possible situations where this can be abused.

Thanks for feedback! If you're referring to players with a single really strong niche skill Protecting their strong maps as "abusing the system", then I'm not sure why. That's the system working as intended. The point is to rebalance the tournament system so that specialised/niche players are more rewarded than they currently are. Or what do you mean?

3.

Misery wrote:

"Protecting" a niche map pick is almost always a win for the picker side, and I know it's fun for one side, but it's never fun for the other. Always consider the flipside when making new rulesets.

I've always considered it more fun to play the map I'm strongest at, than unfun to play the map I'm weakest at. So it matters more to me that I get to play what I'm strongest at, than that I can avoid playing what I'm weakest at.

@Mio Winter
I don't get how it applies.
Assuming you win all the maps you're stronger than your opponent at and lose all the maps you're weaker than your opponent at, protecting a map while your opponent bans would still put you at an disadvantage because you have less maps from the pool you're stronger at.

Using your method and protecting your most advantageous pick doesn't work because you didn't factor in the second strongest picks. Sure you would have an advantage because you're more likely to win your pick than he does on his strongest pick, but the chances of that happening are so rare because for something to be the strongest pick there usually is a huge score difference for a decently hard mappool, and also his second strongest pick would be left open while yours would be banned. He would have a higher chance to win more maps than you do, and match wins are determined by map wins, not map scores, so banning would always be better.

At best, this thing could only work on a once-per-set basis, even then it will depend on the structure and best of's. It would be alot more confusing for the audience/players tbh even if added to the right tournament, as not many other games have protects and bans. If experimented on, would have to be done great, or else everyone just calls it shit and drops any hope on this.