ESL to change player eligibility in sub regions - Page 5

From the ANZ/SEA StarCraft 2 Community - A region deprived of opportunity and burdened by server issues.

Executive Summary:-

The ANZ/SEA Starcraft 2 Community (the ‘Region’) by overwhelming majority agree that there needs to be significant changes to address the existing and emerging issues with “invaders” within the ESL Professional Circuit.

The ESL has the opportunity to manage and rectify one of the most inconsistent and often overlooked regions in esports.

These changes are required for the region because:

players from the Region have, since inception had limited opportunities to compete and perform in premier tournaments with limited exceptions;
limited opportunities in the Region have meant that players are inherently at a disadvantage for legitimate career progression within Starcraft 2;
due to the Region’s unique circumstances, players irrespective of their locale have always been at a geographical disadvantage;
due to the current ESL rules regarding there is a legitimate concern if the Region issues are not resolved in a satisfactory manner, there is concern that competitors will no longer wish to compete.

(collectively, “the Concerns”)

The representation of the Region submits that the following changes should be implemented to address the Concerns.
The ability to be able to enter a region qualifier should not be available as a matter of convenience, or “at-will” decision to select citizenship by a remote resident player. The principles of regionality (promotion of undeveloped regions, overcoming regional disadvantages) are undermined by players choosing region at whim without consequence. Competitive Region should be dictated by residency as a default, and limiting exceptions to admin discretion and manual application.
The countries that are normally considered to be the Middle East have technological and geographical ties closer to the EU, and have historically in SC2 and currently in other titles (e.g. DOTA2) EU basis for their online server qualifiers. We request that the SWA region be returned to its original grouping with the EU for qualifier regions.



In the following statement, we aim to discuss;

ESL’s rules & objectives with the Regions?
Should a dual-citizen get a ping advantage outside of tournament region
Should Dual-Citizens pick where they play, or play where they live?
ESL Objectives
Our concerns
SWA Region and server selection
Why accommodate a region with zero active players
Forces ANZ players to play all games on Singapore
Singapore Ping issues
Physically, Australian player base is further away from Singapore than Germany is to New York
Issues with routing to the Singapore server, high ping and spikes. Many ISPs route via North America before Singapore
Damage to Australia to Singapore internet cable (SEE HERE)
Why was ANZ/SEA expanded to include Pakistan
Without an active player base, this inclusion only serves the interests of dual-citizens.
It has been shown that Lahore reaches better ping in Europe, than it does to South East Asia.
The impact on the region from the inclusion of dual-citizens
Greater opportunity for Europeans to earn EPT points
Examples from other esports titles and sports
ESL CSGO rules
Dota 2 places middle east with European qualifiers (Pakistan)
Warcraft III ANZ Champs,
Restricted to ANZ. WC3 has considerably less ANZ players, and get their own bracket to play. Smaller region qualifiers
Recommendations
Play in country of residence
Play with ping advantage and server selection of player within home server
Ensure no issue to players living in Korea


Section 1: The ESL’s Objective and Rules with regional qualifiers

ESL’s Objective:
While this is unknown to us as consumers. ESL’s public position is :

1. “To create more opportunity for progression and participation than any other sport.”
2. “Grassroots amateur cups and matchmaking systems, defining the path from zero to hero as short as possible”
3. “We believe in developing local scenes that allow entry into global competition - and inspire them to become masters of esports.

It is the position of the SEA community that the ESL’s current public position is inconsistent with their actions within the Oceania region. This is because:

The current system does not create more opportunity for progression and participation within the Region’s Starcraft 2 community. Rather, it creates controversy that an outside observer would not reasonably expect to be present.

The system does not effectively achieve the ESL’s second objective for the Region. In the EPT’s current form, it is now more difficult to move from “zero to hero” as there are several mechanisms currently in place that prevent the ‘grassroots players’ to achieve ‘hero’ status within the Starcraft 2 ecosystem.

The ESL’s actions through its management of the EPT has and continues to hinder local growth, whilst simultaneously denying global opportunities to its players. It is clear that the local scene is currently suffering from a lack of opportunity in global competition. Since the changes to the EPT system, there is currently only one spot available for the Region. The Region risks becoming a target of foreign “raiders” who have no natural connection to the scene in the Region, seeking to leave their local ecosystem for additional opportunities at global success.

Whilst we accept that there are reasons for the international rules that are currently in place, it is clear through the sequence of events that have occurred within the Region, that the current rules are not sufficient and certainly do not meet the ESL’s current objectives. The reasons for which are stepped out below.


ESL’s Rules

The current rules state that the requirements for participation in a region are as follows:

Passport holders who are not currently residing within the region they compete in. This ruling is historic to StarCraft and we do not intend to change it. In order to understand our perspective, the lens required is to look at non-Korean players currently residing in South Korea. These players all hold passports from multiple regions they do not currently reside in, and if we were to change our ruling, we’d be required to remove this group from participating in their home region.

We will continue to accommodate participation of passport holders and encourage fair server conditions between competitors. For additionally transparency, we operate with two rules when evaluating conditions for players:

No player playing from inside their home region will ever be put at a ping disadvantage against someone outside the region.
No player playing from inside their home region will ever be forced onto a server that would not also be a valid choice for players both residing inside the region.

The first point and the second point is to prevent that players inside the region ever have to play with an unacceptable ping, or more precisely a ping that would not happen if all players were inside their home region. At the same time, we will still use that server which under these conditions minimises the disadvantage for the player abroad.
Section 2: Key Concerns

Ping Advantage

“The first point and the second point is to prevent that players inside the region ever have to play with an unacceptable ping”

Dual citizens receiving a ping advantage

Currently there is no position from the ESL on what is considered acceptable ping. Therefore, the Region’s native players are required to supplement their ping to service players that exist outside the competition’s natural jurisdiction. This creates an issue of equity whereby players from the Region are on less than favourable terms because they are required to play on Singapore to compete against players from Europe.

This is clearly inconsistent with the ESL’s position, which is to focus on players that are currently inside the competition’s natural jurisdiction. The community has collated some data from its competitors that indicate the majority of Australian and New Zealand players are able to achieve between 100ms and 300ms ping to the Singapore server. Most of the complaints raised by players in the Region is that the server consistently spikes their ping up to 1000ms. This is due to the NA centric routing preference for nearly all domestic ISP’s, and minimal capacity for domestic ISP’s to route directly to Singapore cost effectively.

In circumstances where the ESL has determined that players inside the Region should not “ever have to play with an unacceptable ping”, it is remarkable for the ESL to allow participation from EU based players to the Region. In almost all circumstances, it is a vastly poorer experience for players in the Region to play on the Singapore server and there is very little recourse that would allow them to compete in favourable server terms.

This decision has been subject to some controversy within the community and now that there are additional raiders entering into the Region, the position is untenable. A clear decision from the ESL regarding servers needs to be made so that there is no ambiguity or undue bias is required.

It should be self-evident that players from the EU should not be permitted to play in the Region, as most esports are unsuitable to be played cross-continent. We appreciate that this is a unique situation within the esports ecosystem and in some circumstances it functions well, we do not consider that it is appropriate for the EPT. A definitive decision and clear indications on the appropriate servers for players native to the Region need to be made so as to allow players:

Certainty on where the matches will be played;
Consistency on what they can expect from the matches;
Confidence in the decision making process of ESL

“No player playing from inside their home region will ever be forced onto a server that would not also be a valid choice for players both residing inside the region.”

In light of the submission above, it is apparent that the ESL and the EPT has either:

Failed to consider the definition of ‘valid choice’; or
Considered ‘valid choice’ on the basis of availability, and not viability.

In either case, it is readily apparent that the Singapore server is not a ‘valid’ choice for a significant portion of competitive players residing in the Region. It would be more appropriate in the circumstances for a definitive ruling on which server is to host games.


Dual citizens picking where they play
Our second concern is the choice of region, @ApolloSC2 states in his tweet on the 5th of June 2020 (see here) that

“Our primary focus is residency for choice of region.” Which suggests, players who have a choice of region, are to focus on their residency. The European players that have dual-citizenship and are playing within the ANZ/SEA qualifiers are electing to use a region outside of their residence. Again, a contradiction of comments made by ESL.

With respect, there is no room in the interpretation of the Rules that is consistent with Apollo’s position and it is demonstrably untrue. This does not mean that there is not an intention for residency to be a primary focus, but, as outlined above, the rules for residency were notably drafted for ‘exceptions’. If the ESL’s position favoured residency, then there would be more strict requirements (such as those outlined below) for participation.


Key Ping Concerns

SWA Region
The SWA region rules dictate that players from that region can play all of their games on the Singapore server, which gives those players a distinct advantage against Australian and New Zealand competitors To date, no active participants in the Region reside in the SWA Region. Rather, the SWA Region service is used as a means by “raiders” to achieve a bare minimum, playable ping from Europe or Korea. The SWA region does not naturally include Europe or Korea, as these areas both have native competitions available for the ESL. Whilst we appreciate that the ESL may take the position that this was an “unforeseeable” consequence, it is difficult to reconcile this position when it has been exploited by “raiders” over an extended period of time.

Singapore Server ping

While most players within the SEA region have a good connection to Singapore, this is not a concern for them. However, the connection to the Singapore server for Australian players is not a stable connection. This point is outlined previously. This is ameliorated by having at least one game in a best of 3 (in SEA vs ANZ) on the Sydney server under current rules. SWA region permits the player to have all three games on Singapore server, which results in any ANZ player potentially playing on worse ping than the player outside of the Region.


The impact on the region of Dual-citizens

Whilst we understand that there have been dominant players within the Oceana Starcraft 2 community, we are concerned that the current system does not positively contribute to the development of the Region.We refer to the likes of KingKong, TargA and other players of high quality that have enjoyed competition in the Region. The key distinction with players such as KingKong and TargA, is that although they were not from the Region, they lived and participated in local and national events. In short, they contributed their time and their effort into developing our local community.

The players that have come into our region are from England and domiciled in the United Kingdom. This impact has severely disrupted the native ecosystem that has developed around Starcraft 2 and not for the better.

Unfortunately, instead of providing healthy contributions towards the community, raiders have taken opportunities that would normally be awarded to successful players in the Region. Strong players such as Risky, who has achieved moderate success in Europe currently make local players feel like they will never be afforded the full opportunity to succeed.

The raiders, including Risky, can practice on low ping against the best players outside of Korea. By living in Europe, it allows competitors more opportunities to compete and to earn a reasonable living through Starcraft 2. The fact the few opportunities given to players in the Region are now being taken by players that should, for all intents and purposes, be considered Europeans has caused many players within the Region to quit, citing how hard it is within our region. European players are taking opportunities from domestic players, and it is very difficult, given opportunities to practice, for domestic players to catch up to Europeans, especially when qualifiers to compete outside of the region are being won by Europeans.

Greater opportunity for EU based players to earn EPT points
Perhaps the most prolific example of abuse of the EPT system is that Risky earnt the 1st seed and direct invite into the season 1 tournament via EPT points earnt from a tournament in Europe that would not be possible for players within the Region to attend. This gave him a point advantage for the qualifiers and seeding. The fact players within the Region have minimal opportunity to earn EPT points puts domestic players at a disadvantage that cannot be overcome without intervention from the ESL.





Section 3 Examples from other esports
These rules are vastly different than to the rules applied to SC2. And confirm a basis for our concerns.

ESL CSGO Rules
CSGO Ruleset (SEE HERE) states in Exhibit A, section 2.1 Home Country/Region:
“A Player’s home country is the country where his main place of residence is. “

https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/8/8b/ESL_One_CSGO_Rulebook_2019.pdf
“2.7.5 Country/Region of Qualifiers
Qualifiers for Intel Extreme Masters, including invitations, are usually restricted to a country, a region or a sub-region (we will call it region for the rest of the paragraph). Exceptions from this rule are possible, if ESL can be convinced that there is a valid reason why the team would be unable to attend all required parts of the qualifier in
their home region and why the team should be allowed play the qualifier in the region suggested by the team.This has to be requested actively by the team, and separately for each individual case.Examples for such reasons arei)There are no qualifiers in the home region(s) for the team and the team is willing to travel to the region of the qualifier to play it.ii)The team is taking part in (a) competition(s) in a region other than their home region(s) and has matches to play there before and after and in such close timely proximity to the qualifier(s) in their home region(s) that travelling back for that qualifier(s) would be unreasonable.iii)The team is staying in another region for good reason (esports-related) for a prolonged time that spans over the time of the qualifier for the their home region and it can be clearly shown that this condition has not been created to be able to take part in a qualifier that might be easier to qualify from.For all rule purposes, if such an exception has been granted, the respective region will be considered that team's home region for the entire event or (if that happens before the end of the event) until the conditions for the exception expire.”

“2.7.7 Physical location during online matchesOnline matches have to be played from the region of the competition or qualifier they belong to. An exception to this rule is only possible by written constent from ESL. It can only be granted if the participant can explain and prove having a valid reason to play from elsewhere. Valid reasons could be similar to the ones from ( 2.7.5 )”

ESL Rainbow 6 Siege Ruleset:
(https://pro.eslgaming.com/r6/proleague/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Rulebook_Pro_League.pdf)
“2.8.4 Physical location during online matches Online matches have to be played from the region a player belongs to. An exception to this rule is only possible by written consent from ESL. It can only be granted if the participant can explain and prove having a valid reason to play from elsewhere, and if his ping is below 130ms.”

Valve and DOTA2
https://blog.dota2.com/2018/11/regional-qualifiers/

Valve disqualified Pain Gaming for flying in just for the qualifier and then leaving again "We walked them through our reasoning, and what the purpose of regional qualifiers are, and why we thought that neither we nor fans would consider them an actual South American team."

Section 4 Our Recommendations

It has been long assumed that the objective of region locking and separation of qualifiers, is to;
Give local players and fans a representative to cheer for, developing interest for that region in following the event
Allow players within that region to develop and improve to a point they can challenge on the world stage.
We the fans and local players do not cheer for English citizens to represent our region. This should not come as a surprise, given the ESL concessions already made for the exceptional players currently residing in Korea. We do not feel it allows local players the opportunity to improve and grow within their region, or provide them with any sort of relevant recognition. These players are already supported by their home region, England.

Our recommendation for ESL’s consideration is that dual-citizenship holders play in the region of their country of primary residence. That is;
If a player has English and Australian dual citizenship and they are living in England, they play within European qualifiers (& vice versa).
If a player is living in Korea with only Brazilian Citizenship, they play in Latin America qualifiers.
A player from Australia residing in England with only Australian citizenship can play in SEA/ANZ qualifiers.
An English Citizen, living in Korea, plays in European qualifiers.
A Dual-citizen (England & Australia) living in Korea, play within the country of their primary residence.

Our intent is to allow for international travel and training, but avoid “region of convenience” decisions that adversely affect other regions.

We hope this ensures no issues for players hoping to travel to Korea and train and acknowledge that training brings talent and new skill back to the home region when that player returns and is a benefit to all regions.

Finally, some of the abuse of the current issues around residency have been exacerbated by the aggregation of new countries via “Rest of Asia'' (the ‘RoA’) status into the traditionally ANZ & SEA regions. This has created a frankenstein region that spans an actual third of the globe, and has created impractical situations.

Based on “best case” latency measurements Lahore in Pakistan is 50% closer to European servers than to South East Asian based servers. Historically players in neighbouring India had to apply for special exemption to play in the SEA/ANZ qualifiers, but with the current rule set this “apply by exemption” has become an exploitable default.

It is our final recommendation that countries in RoA that demonstrate more favourable ping be connected with other regions, such as Europe. While we understand that no country should be added to the Korean Region, due to the high level of competition within Korea, this can not be the same consideration for countries such as Pakistan. We determine that India is the border of any RoA region, as its ping is mildly better to Aus/SG than it is to EU. Whereas Pakistan’s ping is better to the EU.

We thank you for your time in considering our concerns.