[exa_ | hl.rgl.gg]

Hey everyone.

This is essentially just an outline of things to clear some topics up, as well as changes that we will be looking to address to make sure that it is improved for following seasons or not repeated.

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Invite Prize Pool Split

Going into Season 3, the exact numbers of the prize pool were contingent on how the fees added up. For that reason, we were not particularly able to come up with an exact split during the preseason. As we opted for a player fee structure for this season, we were looking into paying out towards the lower ranked teams, which would allow them to get their money back to some degree. It has come to our attention that it may not particularly make sense to payout to teams that will not participate in 30% of the season. Furthermore, it seemed that players would rather have the fees go directly towards the top 3 teams only (with a registration discount or some incentive for the lower ranked teams).

With this being noted, we are looking to update the prize pool splits to reward only the top 3 teams and a reduced entry for the remaining teams (at this moment, we are looking into rewarding the 4th/5th ranked teams).

If this occurs, the new split would be as follows:

1. $700.00
   
2. $434.00
   
3. $266.00
   

Invite Payment

In this season, we had opted for the player fee structure as stated above. There was confusion as to how this would have been handled, specifically if you needed to have a substitute or ringer paid up. Furthermore, there was confusion as to how many players you needed paid up to be eligible for the match.

We understand that communication should have been better, as well as having more rules to specifically address these concerns. The rules for RGL HL, particularly, have been outdated and did not seem to address the roster transaction fees being shorter as the season goes on.

Currently, we do have the following rules for the payment structure, but we will go through them and make sure they are updated to avoid any possible confusions in the future.



This is to specifically address the possible consequences if an unpaid player participates in the match or the duration period for a player after a match if they had the unpaid status.

You can expect these updates in my future posts, as well as articles. I also plan to forward these changes to Invite team leaders individually through direct messages.

With that being noted, we are looking into also implementing the "team fee" structure that was used during the S2 Invite Playoffs for following seasons.


Ban Lengths for Behavioral Conduct

For each case that we must work with, we must come up with a conclusion in a swift matter before the matches occur the following week. For Season 3, we received a larger influx of reports regarding these cases, which prompted us to have to spend more time dealing with them.

As such, we investigate past cases and precedent, as well as looking into the context of each cases to determine the necessary punishment as necessary.

Some of our punishments that were issued were too harsh. We will be looking into re-investigating each of the cases that were opened this season and adjusting the ban lengths to a more reasonable length.

You can see examples of this below:

hypedad32  - Reduced to 2 weeks
fuzion - Reduced to 3 weeks
tgw - Reduced to 3 weeks
SpotlightR - Reduced to 3 weeks

The following players received suspensions for using racial slurs on match servers or on a platform connected to RGL. These ban lengths will be the new precedence for future cases revolving this.

It should be noted that repeat bans will lead to longer suspensions.


Roster Guidelines

This is something that is taken seriously in RGL. We take many preventative measures during the preseason, as well as try our best during the regular season to ensure that rosters are not intentionally sandbagging or stacking their rosters in lower divisions. However, there are specific rules that we are looking to address, specifically "Invite players" playing in Main.

Currently, we have a strict limit that prevents these players from playing in Main. We are looking to make this rule laxer, with allowing these players to offclass in Main, only if they are restricted to specific classes in matches. These restrictions will be posted publicly and players that decide to switch to their restricted class will be subject to penalties or match overturns.


Updating Rules

RGL HL Rules

The rules, specifically for RGL HL, can be updated to make it clearer, address more cases, be flexible, or just be removed entirely.

We plan to go through the entire ruleset during the offseason and fix this. If there are specific rules that you believe need to be updated or added in, please do not hesitate to contact an admin.

Here are some examples of the rules that we plan to update to do as stated above:


League [1009]

Playoff size is not set until we know how many teams are in each division. We then will make a decision on which bracket style we will use. We will not keep you in the dark and will have a tentative playoff structure announced before the end of the first week of regular season. You can see past playoff brackets by viewing the past seasons' league tables and clicking the View Bracket button.

The following will be added:

Playoff brackets may be tweaked according to the number of dead teams in the division throughout the season. Please keep up with the news posts accordingly.

Rosters [1004]

This entire section will have to be rewritten, to deal with the confusion that players had (was discussed above in the Invite Payment section). This will address penalties for unpaid players, deadlines for payment, etc.

Match Substitutes / Ringers [1006]

The player has not rang for the team more than three times

This is one of the criterias for the default ringer. It does not make sense to keep rules that are not being enforced.


Map Pool

This one will be brief, but I plan to host a map survey on the site to help determine the maps for the following season. There may be a preseason cup, as well, to help play test new maps.

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This is an outline of topics that I will be addressing and fixing. I will be forwarding this post to Invite team leaders.

[firepow]

I feel like the RGL Administration caved in towards the bans of SpotlightR, tgw, hypedad32, and fuzion. 

The people who are directly associated with these players have complained about their bans before. Such as spu replying to cinder about tgw's ban: "damn how can you say then when zoey delivered the news of tgw's ban to me and then said "take that [REDACTED]." Furthermore, how about when dope complains about fuzions ban providing no sufficient evidence: "wall gets fuzion banned and then spu picks up karl that is what we call a reverse (censored)." Finally, how about when pablo complains about tgw's ban by saying "Uh... so my friend got banned, Can he get unbanned?"

I would also like to point out all the people i have quoted are banned from the RGL forums, which really shows that these players don't have good intentions.

[asher]

I don't have anything against any of the banned players, I've never spoken to most of them personally, however, in any other league of competitive game or sport, you'd definitely see larger bans. If anyone just dropped the funny word in my local melee scene they'd probably not be welcomed to most tournaments and would almost undoubtedly be shunned from the local scene completely.

It's so fucking easy to just not say it, especially when the only places you can't say it are: in official RGL servers, RGL official matches, and on stream. There's no reason anyone should be failing to follow that rule and by not following it they're essentially saying they don't care about the rule to begin with. Just because the top players are complaining that you banned their friends too long doesn't mean it was the wrong choice.

[River]

It's so fucking easy to just not say it, especially when the only places you can't say it are: in official RGL servers, RGL official matches, and on stream. 

ya its easy to not type in chat, you also cant say it in scrims or in rgl discords

please adopt the *public rgl space* warning sign

[Bliztank]

The more lenient you guys are about this sort of stuff, the more it's bound to happen in the future. The only way forth is to apply proper discipline and not make exceptions about it. Going back to what Asher said, close friends tend to support each other no matter if they are in the wrong or right. It does not mean that you should show weakness and go back on your decisions; that will only solve the issue(s) temporarily while leaving the way open to future instances in the future with exceptions being expected. I'm also not necessarily talking about slurs either, in general the more you go back the worse things will become over time.

[asher]

you also cant say it in scrims or in rgl discords

any scrims? I just assumed that the "no saying it on stream" also meant other people's streams, which is how i figured spotlight got banned

also ofc you can't say it in rgl discords, idk why that'd be a surprise to anyone, especially considering discord themselves can crack down and delete your server if the server is large enough and gets reported

[River]

you also cant say it in scrims or in rgl discords

any scrims? I just assumed that the "no saying it on stream" also meant other people's streams, which is how i figured spotlight got banned

spotlight said it in a scrim and was banned bc crabf reported him (despite being on his team) iirc

[shaayy ^]

The more lenient you guys are about this sort of stuff, the more it's bound to happen in the future. The only way forth is to apply proper discipline and not make exceptions about it. Going back to what Asher said, close friends tend to support each other no matter if they are in the wrong or right. It does not mean that you should show weakness and go back on your decisions; that will only solve the issue(s) temporarily while leaving the way open to future instances in the future with exceptions being expected. I'm also not necessarily talking about slurs either, in general the more you go back the worse things will become over time.

The bans shouldn't have been 3 months in the first place and just about every admin agreed with that as well as the only player in the whole league who gets upset about the n word

If you genuinely think that 3 months for a word is justified then I just don't know what to tell you. It even says in the post that repeated offences will come with longer bans, so if they say it again then they get longer bans, so what's the problem? Them reducing the bans doesn't show weakness at all and it wasn't just troll posts from Pablo, spu and dope that got them to reduce the bans BTW. All them reducing the bans shows is that RGL staff can recognize mistakes and work out solutions to make the league better and more fair for everyone in it.

[Dimento.knd]

I personally thought 4 weeks/1 month was reasonable, that's an entire playoff run or a majority of the regular season by breaking a rule we have very much enforced and discussed multiple times. I think it's harsh enough and lenient enough and obviously we'd start banning longer if the same person continued to break the same rule.

Looks like it was decided for 3 weeks. I'm curious to see how this goes and support the choice.

[asher]

It even says in the post that repeated offences will come with longer bans, so if they say it again then they get longer bans

i know you weren't directly talking to me, but personally i misread the part about longer bans for repeated offences and that's my bad, i think the ruling is fine in that case.

i also wanna note that i dont really care if the word is said, i just find that people still breaking the rule despite knowing what will happen, and then crying about it later is really fuckin stupid on their part

[GreenKing 'ring]

Racism is a problem that RGL inherited from UGC, I and I don't think we should show lenience toward it.

[Aad | hl.rgl.gg]

Repeat offenders will obviously get longer and longer sentences. Personally have nothing against long term bans for those who feel like playing with an already lenient rule on such behavior.

[firepow]

...

The bans shouldn't have been 3 months in the first place and just about every admin agreed with that as well as the only player in the whole league who gets upset about the n word

If you genuinely think that 3 months for a word is justified then I just don't know what to tell you. It even says in the post that repeated offences will come with longer bans, so if they say it again then they get longer bans, so what's the problem? Them reducing the bans doesn't show weakness at all and it wasn't just troll posts from Pablo, spu and dope that got them to reduce the bans BTW. All them reducing the bans shows is that RGL staff can recognize mistakes and work out solutions to make the league better and more fair for everyone in it.

How is saying slurs a mistake?

[Flare]

I do not care about offensive speech, I do not care about "hate" speech, and most of all I do not care if someone gets angry in a scrim and says the absolute worst thing they can think of because I come from that antiquated school of thought known as "toughen up bucko".

That said, despite my personal misgivings about the rule against naughty words I do my best to live by it quite simply because I play in this league. If I broke a well-known, very publicly discussed and well-documented rule despite knowing full well what the consequences would be, and I only got a slap on the wrist ban of 3 weeks, I could hardly respect the authority that's supposed to enforce those rules. Worse still, I come out of this with the impression that the good old boys can all rally to the defense of their buddies and sway the powers that be in their favor, marking a clear line between the elites and the proletariat.

To clarify, I do not believe 3 months for a word is justified as I disagree with the rule altogether. But if you're going to have a rule, at least take it seriously, otherwise don't be surprised when people march right up to the thin line and start taking a shit all over it.

[nip nop]

its a shame people cant learn to be genuine and considerate to others

[exa_ | hl.rgl.gg]

As far as the ban lengths go (my views have been already stated in the original post), I want to reiterate that repeat bans will lead to longer suspensions.

There are arguments for both sides, for either the shorter or longer ban sentence.

At the end of the day, these bans were all 100% justified, as I literally have it written out in the rules, wrote so many articles about the exact same topic, and made it clear how we investigate these type of cases (specifically what counts as on-platform vs off-platform).

If it's a community problem, which it seems to be, we are trying our best to deal with the large influx of reports that we get every week. At a certain point, it feels like we are literally operating a daycare center, which is not what I particularly signed up for.

All I ask is people help us strive for a good-natured competitive environment. That’s all.

[shaayy ^]

...

The bans shouldn't have been 3 months in the first place and just about every admin agreed with that as well as the only player in the whole league who gets upset about the n word

If you genuinely think that 3 months for a word is justified then I just don't know what to tell you. It even says in the post that repeated offences will come with longer bans, so if they say it again then they get longer bans, so what's the problem? Them reducing the bans doesn't show weakness at all and it wasn't just troll posts from Pablo, spu and dope that got them to reduce the bans BTW. All them reducing the bans shows is that RGL staff can recognize mistakes and work out solutions to make the league better and more fair for everyone in it.

How is saying slurs a mistake?

The mistake I'm talking about is throwing a 3 month ban out without further discussion, since clearly after further discussion the bans were found to be 2 long and were reduced. I meant mistakes on their part not the players part

[CHUBBZ]

thanks guys i wont say it ever again lol<3

[firepow]

The more lenient you guys are about this sort of stuff, the more it's bound to happen in the future. The only way forth is to apply proper discipline and not make exceptions about it. Going back to what Asher said, close friends tend to support each other no matter if they are in the wrong or right. It does not mean that you should show weakness and go back on your decisions; that will only solve the issue(s) temporarily while leaving the way open to future instances in the future with exceptions being expected. I'm also not necessarily talking about slurs either, in general the more you go back the worse things will become over time.

The bans shouldn't have been 3 months in the first place and just about every admin agreed with that as well as the only player in the whole league who gets upset about the n word

If you genuinely think that 3 months for a word is justified then I just don't know what to tell you. It even says in the post that repeated offences will come with longer bans, so if they say it again then they get longer bans, so what's the problem? Them reducing the bans doesn't show weakness at all and it wasn't just troll posts from Pablo, spu and dope that got them to reduce the bans BTW. All them reducing the bans shows is that RGL staff can recognize mistakes and work out solutions to make the league better and more fair for everyone in it.

I would also like to point out that you were banned from the RGL Meme Discord for spamming the gamer word 568,754 times. 

Like sometimes I actually like you but other times I really don't. In this case I don't think you have good intentions.

And no, this isn't a cry for RGL staff to moderate non-rgl official platforms.

[perenne]

I'm goa be hoest, at first i thought roiej was trollig whe he suggested takig out the key ext to m, but this is actually very effective at makig me ot say the word