Should +2's be switched to DNF's officially?

[Iwannaganx]

In HTM and QTM it's multiple turns, but in STM it's only one because you can think of it as one layer being twisted.

im soz im a noob wtf is HTM, QTM, and STM?

 

[Hazel]

im soz im a noob wtf is HTM, QTM, and STM?

https://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/Metric

"HTM; Half Turn Metric (or Face Turn Metric): Any face turn of any angle counts as 1 turn."
"QTM; Quarter Turn Metric: Only quarter (90-degree) face turns count as 1 turn."
"STM; Slice Turn Metric: Any turn of any layer, by any angle, counts as 1 turn."

 

[Iwannaganx]

what does the WCA use? QTM?

 

[Kit Clement]

Without video evidence, there'd be no way to retrospectively change old +2s to DNFs since +2 is not recorded in the database. So if a change were to be made, it would have to exclude all results before the change.

The regulations have changed significantly in the past 10 years. Should we invalidate solves from years ago because penalties have changed? Should we retroactively +2 Dan Knights for terrible timer stops like this?

I really don’t think this would be good. Roux/ M move EPLL users are already at a disadvantage since M moves don’t count as one move and are easier to mess up. Although I do understand the logic, I still think something that drastic shouldn’t be implemented as a +2 is a pretty good penalty for one move off.

This is actually a great argument for removing misalignment +2s. The penalty as it stands is currently not method neutral, and this would put CFOP/Roux on an even playing field.

I don’t think so because that would be horrible like what if you got your first successful blind solve but missed the last move by a R or something. It would be devastating.

People miss BLD solves by 1 move all the time, they might just execute one move wrong in the middle of the solve. Why should a 1 move error in the middle of the solve be any different than a 1 move error at the end of the solve?

I think the opposite is true. I think M-slice out by 50 degrees should not be DNF but should be a +2. As I have said before, the rule that M-slice counts as 2 is ridiculous, because it implies that a Roux solver doing E/M/E/M or E2/M2/E2 is getting 30+ TPS which is impossible. To count M or M2 as 1 move when calculating TPS, but then to count it as 2 moves for FMC and +2 is inconsistent.

If you think we should have this rule, I'm going to bring back a point I made in a thread over three years ago. Take a look at this cube, and tell me what the penalty should be in a world where we can be off by slice moves:

https://imgur.com/v6ax7m1

 

[AbsoRuud]

The regulations have changed significantly in the past 10 years. Should we invalidate solves from years ago because penalties have changed? Should we retroactively +2 Dan Knights for terrible timer stops like this?



This is actually a great argument for removing misalignment +2s. The penalty as it stands is currently not method neutral, and this would put CFOP/Roux on an even playing field.



People miss BLD solves by 1 move all the time, they might just execute one move wrong in the middle of the solve. Why should a 1 move error in the middle of the solve be any different than a 1 move error at the end of the solve?



If you think we should have this rule, I'm going to bring back a point I made in a thread over three years ago. Take a look at this cube, and tell me what the penalty should be in a world where we can be off by slice moves:

https://imgur.com/v6ax7m1

That cube requires 2 turns to solve. DNF.

 

[Kit Clement]

That cube requires 2 turns to solve. DNF.

False. It requires one slice move of 90 degrees to bring it to a solved position (as well as other adjustments <45 degrees not shown below). Only +2.

https://imgur.com/EWj1ssB

Did this exact same question in 2016, and another person fell for the trap. Judging these misalignments would become incredibly painful, and there's no good way to come up with easily understood and easily applied rules for allowing slice misalignments. Our rules work well because they use the next innermost slice as a guideline for whether it is misaligned or not. Slices on a 3x3x3 have no other place to look to, and you get weird crap like this.

 

[OreKehStrah]

False. It requires one slice move of 90 degrees to bring it to a solved position (as well as other adjustments <45 degrees not shown below). Only +2.

https://imgur.com/EWj1ssB

Did this exact same question in 2016, and another person fell for the trap. Judging these misalignments would become incredibly painful, and there's no good way to come up with easily understood and easily applied rules for allowing slice misalignments. Our rules work well because they use the next innermost slice as a guideline for whether it is misaligned or not. Slices on a 3x3x3 have no other place to look to, and you get weird crap like this.

If we were to change slice moves my proposal for judging would be to have a cube with a slice turned 45 degrees and the compare how close the edge is to being on the solved or unsolved side maybe? I know that isn’t a perfect way but I could be a start for when the slice is nearing 45 degrees.
Also it’s kind of silly in hindsight, but m moves being DNF actually was a factor in keeping me from switching to roux many years ago

 

[Cubinwitdapizza]

False. It requires one slice move of 90 degrees to bring it to a solved position (as well as other adjustments <45 degrees not shown below). Only +2.

https://imgur.com/EWj1ssB

Did this exact same question in 2016, and another person fell for the trap. Judging these misalignments would become incredibly painful, and there's no good way to come up with easily understood and easily applied rules for allowing slice misalignments. Our rules work well because they use the next innermost slice as a guideline for whether it is misaligned or not. Slices on a 3x3x3 have no other place to look to, and you get weird crap like this.

One thing you could do is remove slices from the wca. That would destroy roux yes and fast u perms but I feel like it would be worth it that it would be much less difficult for judges.

 

[MHCubes]

I understand what you are saying, but I think most +2's are unintentional. Maybe we could add a regulation that prohibits intentional +2's?

 

[KingCanyon]

There wouldn't be a way to know if it is intentional or not.

 

[efattah]

It is often said that the rules for DNF's are actually catered to the non-cubing audience. It was once brought up that a non-cuber can see a cube with one slice turned and see that is basically solved.

The question about whether or not M-slice counts as 1 or 2 moves could then be easily put to a vote by non-cubers. I can find 100 non-cubers and show them a cube with the M-slice off by 90 degrees and ask them how many moves does it take to solve it. I guarantee that more than 50% of non-cubers would say the cube is off by 1-move, but we can actually do the poll if you don't believe me.

Regarding 'weird' states of the cube at the end of the solve a clear and immediately obvious set of rules comes to mind but there is no point in me even bringing it up if people are so opposed to M moves.

 

[CarterK]

It is often said that the rules for DNF's are actually catered to the non-cubing audience. It was once brought up that a non-cuber can see a cube with one slice turned and see that is basically solved.

The question about whether or not M-slice counts as 1 or 2 moves could then be easily put to a vote by non-cubers. I can find 100 non-cubers and show them a cube with the M-slice off by 90 degrees and ask them how many moves does it take to solve it. I guarantee that more than 50% of non-cubers would say the cube is off by 1-move, but we can actually do the poll if you don't believe me.

Regarding 'weird' states of the cube at the end of the solve a clear and immediately obvious set of rules comes to mind but there is no point in me even bringing it up if people are so opposed to M moves.

I don't understand this argument. Why do how noncubers view things affect cubers' rules? It's already established that it gets messy.

as for the "puts Roux and CFOP on an even playing field argument", why are the ways we solve the cube even relevant? The technical reason for a plus 2 is that if the cube turns while hitting the table. I'd like to see you do this with a slice.

 

[xyzzy]

Regarding 'weird' states of the cube at the end of the solve a clear and immediately obvious set of rules comes to mind but there is no point in me even bringing it up if people are so opposed to M moves.

This is a bit hard to believe. State those rules and change my mind.

(I'm opposed to counting slice moves as +2, but mainly because we don't have a clean description of what "should" count as a +2 and what "shouldn't" when slice moves are thrown into the mix. I'd probably switch my opinion to "don't care" if you do have something good. I don't have a strong opinion on whether one move OBTM off should count as +2 or DNF.)

Spoiler

For bonus points: how would your rules apply to big cubes, pyraminx, megaminx, or square-1 (this one is already a gigantic mess with current WCA regs)? Special-casing 3×3×3 is easy mode; rules that apply generically would be more interesting.

 

[BMcD308]

In the imgur pic above, it appears that if the U and D faces are held still, I could move the M slice less than 45 degrees to match up the M and U layers. But then I would need to move the D face more than 45 degrees to match the now repositioned M slice, which would be aligned with the U face. So if I go the other way, I can hold the U and D faces still, and I can move the M slice less than 45 degrees to match up the M and D faces. Then it appears to me that I would need to move the U face more than 45 degrees to match the repositioned M slice. So wouldn't that still be a DNF? Or is the argument that I would do a 2-layer move of less than 45 degrees to line them up?

If the spirit of the rule is that I get a total of up to 45 degrees of turning of a single face at the end to have the cube perfectly aligned, I guess I don't understand why 45 degrees of M is any different. But if 45 degrees of M leaves me out of alignment, isn't that a DNF anyway?

[genuine, naive question here, sincerely not baiting you]


Looking at the WCA regs again, I think I see what you mean. I get as many "outer block turns" as it takes, and only the "resting" state of the puzzle is considered. So in your image, in the resting state when the timer was stopped, the U layer is within 45 degrees of the M slice, and the D layer is within 45 degrees of the M slice, so that would count as a solve. Am I thinking about this correctly?

 

[Kit Clement]

In the imgur pic above, it appears that if the U and D faces are held still, I could move the M slice less than 45 degrees to match up the M and U layers. But then I would need to move the D face more than 45 degrees to match the now repositioned M slice, which would be aligned with the U face. So if I go the other way, I can hold the U and D faces still, and I can move the M slice less than 45 degrees to match up the M and D faces. Then it appears to me that I would need to move the U face more than 45 degrees to match the repositioned M slice. So wouldn't that still be a DNF? Or is the argument that I would do a 2-layer move of less than 45 degrees to line them up?

If the spirit of the rule is that I get a total of up to 45 degrees of turning of a single face at the end to have the cube perfectly aligned, I guess I don't understand why 45 degrees of M is any different. But if 45 degrees of M leaves me out of alignment, isn't that a DNF anyway?

[genuine, naive question here, sincerely not baiting you]


Looking at the WCA regs again, I think I see what you mean. I get as many "outer block turns" as it takes, and only the "resting" state of the puzzle is considered. So in your image, in the resting state when the timer was stopped, the U layer is within 45 degrees of the M slice, and the D layer is within 45 degrees of the M slice, so that would count as a solve. Am I thinking about this correctly?

As the regs stand now, turns of up to 45 degrees are free, where you can get one turn of more than 45 degrees and it would still be a +2. I'm not sure if you're looking at the original image or the second image that shows a 90 degree turn of the slice from the first image, but the idea of the two images is that they are separated by a 90 degree turn, and the second image is in a "solved" state as all misalignments of outer layers are less than 45 degrees.

It is often said that the rules for DNF's are actually catered to the non-cubing audience.

I've never heard anyone say this. More often than not, non-cubers say "that's not solved" when there are any misalignments - see the comments of MBLD WR videos with penalty cubes in them.

Regarding 'weird' states of the cube at the end of the solve a clear and immediately obvious set of rules comes to mind but there is no point in me even bringing it up if people are so opposed to M moves.

Why even bring this up then? You don't convince people by claiming you have a great idea but it's not worth sharing because it will get shot down. As @xyzzy said, I'm skeptical that this idea would work well.

 

[NathanaelCubes]

As a Roux user, I think that counting M moves as +2s would not be beneficial overall for those types of situations. As Kit said, there wouldn't always be a way to judge how many degrees it is off by.

As far as changing +2s to DNFs, I think it is impossible to do so for the past results, but in the future, I think a DNF punishment is too strict. Especially for events like Multibld, where cubes get shuffled around a lot, DNFing cubes that are off by 46 degrees would be a huge disincentive for competitors, and also a disincentive to use non-magnetic cubes. It levels the playing field in MBLD to keep things the way they are.

As far as taking non-cubers opinions into consideration, I don't think that is a good judge of how we should treat +2s. For the records, I could easily see non-cubers not realizing a skewb off by one turn is only a +2, but it would be easy for them to see a megaminx is almost solved.

Also, changing +2s to DNFs would also put a lot more pressure on the judge or the delegate who makes the call on the solve if it is really close. I personally had an attempt where two delegates couldn't agree if it was a +2 or not at my last competition.

 

[Kit Clement]

As far as changing +2s to DNFs, I think it is impossible to do so for the past results, but in the future, I think a DNF punishment is too strict. Especially for events like Multibld, where cubes get shuffled around a lot, DNFing cubes that are off by 46 degrees would be a huge disincentive for competitors, and also a disincentive to use non-magnetic cubes. It levels the playing field in MBLD to keep things the way they are.

This is to me the best argument against removing misalignment +2 penalties. On one hand, you could say that MBLDers just need to be more careful when the place their cubes down, but at the same time, that will significantly eat into their time and fundamentally change the event at the highly competitive levels.

Also, changing +2s to DNFs would also put a lot more pressure on the judge or the delegate who makes the call on the solve if it is really close. I personally had an attempt where two delegates couldn't agree if it was a +2 or not at my last competition.

Solved vs. +2 on misalignments is already a huge difference and can put a lot of pressure on the judge. At high levels of fast events, getting a +2 is already the difference between a good/bad average, winning/losing, podium/no podium, etc. It may create more of these situations if there is no +2 for misaligment, but it doesn't create a new problem.

 

[2018AMSB02]

I am also against this change, especially in blind events. I have had some attempts in which I am really excited about finishing the solve when I think my execution went well, and I will completely forget about undoing my last setup move, and I will get a plus 2. If that was a DNF, that would be really disappointing. there are also events like Skewb where it is very easy to undershoot a turn as you stop the timer, and I don't think that that should ruin your average, and a +2 is still a big deal in skewb. I have also had pyraminx times with a +2 because I could not see the tip in the back, and the solve was still a generally bad solve because of the plus two, but If I was having a decent average, a DNF could really mess it up.

 

[Kit Clement]

I am also against this change, especially in blind events. I have had some attempts in which I am really excited about finishing the solve when I think my execution went well, and I will completely forget about undoing my last setup move, and I will get a plus 2. If that was a DNF, that would be really disappointing.

It would be a shame to forget a setup move anywhere in the solve. Luckily in this specific instance you get a success, somewhat unjustifiably. If this were a rule, be sure to actually solve the cube.

there are also events like Skewb where it is very easy to undershoot a turn as you stop the timer, and I don't think that that should ruin your average, and a +2 is still a big deal in skewb. I have also had pyraminx times with a +2 because I could not see the tip in the back, and the solve was still a generally bad solve because of the plus two, but If I was having a decent average, a DNF could really mess it up.

Seems like in either case +2 or DNF has the same effect.

The main tl;dr I get from your post is that you like the rules to be forgiving to make up for your shortcomings. Maybe you should just not mess up.

 

[cubeshepherd]

The main tl;dr I get from your post is that you like the rules to be forgiving to make up for your shortcomings. Maybe you should just not mess up.

I agree, and that is why I am a little more for the change, since it requires everyone to try there best and complete the solve in whole and not try to get "almost perfect"...although the +2 is at least something nice to have for that.