I don't think it is practical to remove the expel option, but at least code it so that you cannot expel someone with a less negative time differential than you
Who advanced?
Re: Who advanced?
I want to chime in here for support of changing the current system, and give my opinions as to why it is needed. It's important to note that I am a serious and competitive player. I try my best to win in all situations. I understand the spirit of the site and of our community, wholeheartedly. I think it's also important to note that I believe the overwhelming majority of people support that spirit of competition and camaraderie. I believe that tournaments, as opposed to arena, are the best medium for competition and serious players. Many times in many different hobbies, you will find that the serious and competitive players clash and are at odds with the casual and "fun" mindset players -- people who play to unwind, relax, and enjoy their time participating in the hobby they love. With that said -- I think that premise outlines my argument perfectly. The current system is really bad for both types of players. I want to go over why that is from the perspective of both types of players. I also want to examine what types of players abuse this system.
For the casual players, this robs them of a chance at competing and possibly overcoming players that are better. From my experience, most people who play tournaments strictly for the enjoyment are the types of people who like to challenge themselves, but also are okay with the outcomes. More importantly, what is most important to these players is that they get to finish the game - win or lose. If they are outplayed, great, they take the experience and say "wow, that was a really exciting game." Some of the best games I have ever played are the ones I've lost. There is no point in playing a game to not finish. That is an egregious waste of time. No one likes their time being wasted, especially the people who play to have fun. Not to mention, there's no better feeling than winning a very close game against several tough opponents.
For competitive players, I'd say the downsides are even more severe. This is not just limited to elimination tournaments - it's also a consideration in Swiss tournaments. As one of these players, the last thing I ever want to happen is the player who would not have advanced to be advancing. It makes it so that my next opponents are of lesser quality. The great thing about tournaments is that I get to play some of the best players out there, and it makes it so that I can potentially shoot up in ELO as well for getting a well earned victory. We put our ELO at risk by entering tournaments - given a random loss against a much lower opponent can destroy weeks of progress earned against strong opponents. We do this because it gives us an opportunity to compete and learn from the best.
In Elimination tournaments, it's possible we are eliminated very early without even finishing a single game. Therefore, we took all the risk, and didn't even get what we came for because of some random advancement system. We never even had a chance to compete for our spot to the next round. And this decision was made without our input. I cannot tell you how many tournaments in the past few months, where this exact scenario occurred and I was eliminated. There are some games that tournaments don't run super often, or you can't get enough players to fill a big and prestigious tournament (especially given that almost all the popular games have their arena modes set to 2 player - which sucks for people like me who need practice with 3p/4p for major real life tournaments). When you finally get the opportunity to play in one, and this happens, it ruins the experience for everyone. There have been so many tournaments where I was clearly in the winning position, I was set to advance, and my opponent, knowing they had lost - decided to time out the other player and take a coin flip chance at advancing - thus eliminating me. This is not fair. It's not fair to me, it's not fair to the other competitors who had to earn their spot, it's not fair to those competitors who have to play this person thinking that they won their previous round and are an adversary to be cautioned against. These are the same types of players that tend to kingmake or make sub-optimal plays. All of a sudden, the random turn order decided in the beginning of a match has more of an impact in multiplayer games. Because now you're dealing with someone inexperienced being either before you or after you in turn order (depending on the game this is important), as opposed to someone like myself with experience who would make the game a more fair experience. There are at least some moves that could be anticipated.
In Swiss tournaments, it can be devastating to better players to lose points. In some of these tournaments, only one or two people make the cut to the next stage of the tournament. I am playing a tournament now, it's a 4p Castles tournament. The first stage has 12 matches, with a layout of 6p for 1st, 4p for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd, and 0 for last. 8 players from each group qualify. I am currently first in standings, but I should have 4 more Swiss points than I actually have. Because in the two games that were timed out, I was clearly in the dominant position. The players in last place timed out the people ahead of them simply so they could secure a few more points when it became clear to them that 4 points were better than 0 or 2 points. This robbed the 3rd player a chance at the very least giving me a run for my money, or clearly earning the 2nd place. It also robbed the player who was timed out the opportunity to score any points. And it robbed me of being able to secure my lead in the tournament. If the cutoff were 4 players advancing instead of 8, I would be in serious trouble. I also, as a competitor, do not want to advance in a tournament because my fellow competitors were robbed of the opportunity of scoring maximum points. Obviously, the more rounds in a tournament, the less that this plays a determining factor. But when you have 3-6 swiss round tournaments, even a single time out "victory" could mean defeat if there isn't a specific cut off to the next stage. But most importantly in all of this, there are two players who have absolutely no say in this decision. If I had the choice to vote, I would always cast my vote at finishing the game -- unless it was going to be "abandoned", which is also not a fair system (albeit more fair than timeouts).
I don't see how it makes sense to enable people who would take it upon themselves to use the nuclear option when it is clear they've lost. That is not what our hobby is about. Not for the serious players, and not for the casual players. It is not like this is happening infrequently, either. Look at my profile, it's a constant stream of timeouts. I've initiated a few, either to avoid the unfairness of the game being abandoned, or someone being like -6 days even though their profile has said they were active a few hours ago playing a real time arena match or something. Also, having this option does not make a player's ELO as accurate as it can be. Even with being significantly higher ranked than my opponents, I would've still gained like 5-8 ELO for winning a 4p match. Instead, one player can elect to force me to 0 ELO while gaining a few ELO themselves (because they 'tied' with me). This further incentivizes them to time out another player because of the free ELO gain, thus inflating their actual rating.
I have a few proposals for solutions. I admit, I don't know how difficult they would be to implement. It's not my intention to be a nuisance in any way or demand some change. I am sure that the people who run this site are working very hard for very little, and I am more than appreciative for this site.
The first solution is to simply disable timing out. At least that would make the serious players be more conscientious about the time bank, knowing that the matches could go to abandoned. Another solution would be to force all other players to agree to time the individual out. That way, the power is not in a single person's hands. This would allow just one player the ability to protect the player being timed out. Some tournaments are not well planned out, the timers are a little silly. I've played a few for sure, and it was a fiesta. I'm an extreme example, but, I've stayed up three days in a row to avoid timing out of a few matches because I have a demanding work schedule and I want to win (and I don't want to lose 45 ELO by getting timed out). It's silly to think three months of hard work in a tournament could come down to the final match starting on a very bad day because of my heavy work load in real life.
Another solution is to allow the match to be continued after a player is timed out. This would solve elimination match issues. It would force the players to adapt to the lesser player count, but, if you are clearly in a winning position, it would be a very welcome solution to be able to finish the game. Ending the game when one player is timed out seems like a waste of a round.
Adding on to the previous solution, the ability for a game to continue to be played after someone is expelled would open up another option -- a maximum limit that a single player can go over their time bank. Or, the option to expel a player as soon as their time bank is expired. So, instead of setting an allotted amount of time as a tournament organizer, the system would set the time itself based on the maximum duration of the match. Let's say we have a 4 player match. The maximum duration for the match is set to 30 days. The system would automatically give each player 7 days. This would prevent one player stalling out the end of the match to hit the 'abandon' win criteria. Or, if you permitted each player to go -3 days. The time bank would be set to 4 days, and would automatically expel them at -3 days. The reason for doing this is so that they still get a penalty, and it would still allow all players to vote to expel them, and it would still force the action whilst putting a hard cap on it (so that each round had a chance of not going to duration). But realistically, it makes sense to just expel at the time limit and allow the game to continue. Personally, I like the idea of letting people go over in the good spirit of competition and giving the other players the option to expel if some fiesta thing is going on. In terms of programming, you could set the system to recognize a certain percentage based on maximum duration to allow for negative time. Or you could program specific sets of time based on maximum duration.
This option would also make it so that tournament organizers can't mess up setting time banks. I'm sure all of us that play tournaments have been in at least one circus tournament where the entire table, and entire tournament, is negative time. At least those are fun. Playing 28 days just to get the game negated is NOT fun.
These solutions would work in the spirit of the site. The site's TOS states: Do NOT run out of time. Do not kingmake. Do not stall at the end of the match. These solutions would naturally support the code of conduct as it is written. It would take away the options for bad actors to force the game to go in a state opposite of how it's currently headed. It would allow casual players to finish their games, and it would allow competitive players to do exactly what we want to do -- be judged by our decisions and not by luck. If I lose, it's either my fault or I took risks that just didn't pay off. Which in my opinion, is not luck -- it's a calculated strategic decision. But most importantly, it would allow more often than not the best players advancing to the next rounds, which benefits everyone who is competing.
Apologies for the length, like many others I am a little disappointed with how frequently this happens.
Also, for the most popular games... don't make arena mode exclusive to a specific player count. Have a separate arena ladder for 2p, 3p, 4p. Or something like Challengers, 2p, 4p, 6p, 8p. A separate ladder for each player count. Ark Nova, Azul, Castles, etc. I would love that feature and I'm sure a lot of people would.
<3,
Blindsy
For the casual players, this robs them of a chance at competing and possibly overcoming players that are better. From my experience, most people who play tournaments strictly for the enjoyment are the types of people who like to challenge themselves, but also are okay with the outcomes. More importantly, what is most important to these players is that they get to finish the game - win or lose. If they are outplayed, great, they take the experience and say "wow, that was a really exciting game." Some of the best games I have ever played are the ones I've lost. There is no point in playing a game to not finish. That is an egregious waste of time. No one likes their time being wasted, especially the people who play to have fun. Not to mention, there's no better feeling than winning a very close game against several tough opponents.
For competitive players, I'd say the downsides are even more severe. This is not just limited to elimination tournaments - it's also a consideration in Swiss tournaments. As one of these players, the last thing I ever want to happen is the player who would not have advanced to be advancing. It makes it so that my next opponents are of lesser quality. The great thing about tournaments is that I get to play some of the best players out there, and it makes it so that I can potentially shoot up in ELO as well for getting a well earned victory. We put our ELO at risk by entering tournaments - given a random loss against a much lower opponent can destroy weeks of progress earned against strong opponents. We do this because it gives us an opportunity to compete and learn from the best.
In Elimination tournaments, it's possible we are eliminated very early without even finishing a single game. Therefore, we took all the risk, and didn't even get what we came for because of some random advancement system. We never even had a chance to compete for our spot to the next round. And this decision was made without our input. I cannot tell you how many tournaments in the past few months, where this exact scenario occurred and I was eliminated. There are some games that tournaments don't run super often, or you can't get enough players to fill a big and prestigious tournament (especially given that almost all the popular games have their arena modes set to 2 player - which sucks for people like me who need practice with 3p/4p for major real life tournaments). When you finally get the opportunity to play in one, and this happens, it ruins the experience for everyone. There have been so many tournaments where I was clearly in the winning position, I was set to advance, and my opponent, knowing they had lost - decided to time out the other player and take a coin flip chance at advancing - thus eliminating me. This is not fair. It's not fair to me, it's not fair to the other competitors who had to earn their spot, it's not fair to those competitors who have to play this person thinking that they won their previous round and are an adversary to be cautioned against. These are the same types of players that tend to kingmake or make sub-optimal plays. All of a sudden, the random turn order decided in the beginning of a match has more of an impact in multiplayer games. Because now you're dealing with someone inexperienced being either before you or after you in turn order (depending on the game this is important), as opposed to someone like myself with experience who would make the game a more fair experience. There are at least some moves that could be anticipated.
In Swiss tournaments, it can be devastating to better players to lose points. In some of these tournaments, only one or two people make the cut to the next stage of the tournament. I am playing a tournament now, it's a 4p Castles tournament. The first stage has 12 matches, with a layout of 6p for 1st, 4p for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd, and 0 for last. 8 players from each group qualify. I am currently first in standings, but I should have 4 more Swiss points than I actually have. Because in the two games that were timed out, I was clearly in the dominant position. The players in last place timed out the people ahead of them simply so they could secure a few more points when it became clear to them that 4 points were better than 0 or 2 points. This robbed the 3rd player a chance at the very least giving me a run for my money, or clearly earning the 2nd place. It also robbed the player who was timed out the opportunity to score any points. And it robbed me of being able to secure my lead in the tournament. If the cutoff were 4 players advancing instead of 8, I would be in serious trouble. I also, as a competitor, do not want to advance in a tournament because my fellow competitors were robbed of the opportunity of scoring maximum points. Obviously, the more rounds in a tournament, the less that this plays a determining factor. But when you have 3-6 swiss round tournaments, even a single time out "victory" could mean defeat if there isn't a specific cut off to the next stage. But most importantly in all of this, there are two players who have absolutely no say in this decision. If I had the choice to vote, I would always cast my vote at finishing the game -- unless it was going to be "abandoned", which is also not a fair system (albeit more fair than timeouts).
I don't see how it makes sense to enable people who would take it upon themselves to use the nuclear option when it is clear they've lost. That is not what our hobby is about. Not for the serious players, and not for the casual players. It is not like this is happening infrequently, either. Look at my profile, it's a constant stream of timeouts. I've initiated a few, either to avoid the unfairness of the game being abandoned, or someone being like -6 days even though their profile has said they were active a few hours ago playing a real time arena match or something. Also, having this option does not make a player's ELO as accurate as it can be. Even with being significantly higher ranked than my opponents, I would've still gained like 5-8 ELO for winning a 4p match. Instead, one player can elect to force me to 0 ELO while gaining a few ELO themselves (because they 'tied' with me). This further incentivizes them to time out another player because of the free ELO gain, thus inflating their actual rating.
I have a few proposals for solutions. I admit, I don't know how difficult they would be to implement. It's not my intention to be a nuisance in any way or demand some change. I am sure that the people who run this site are working very hard for very little, and I am more than appreciative for this site.
The first solution is to simply disable timing out. At least that would make the serious players be more conscientious about the time bank, knowing that the matches could go to abandoned. Another solution would be to force all other players to agree to time the individual out. That way, the power is not in a single person's hands. This would allow just one player the ability to protect the player being timed out. Some tournaments are not well planned out, the timers are a little silly. I've played a few for sure, and it was a fiesta. I'm an extreme example, but, I've stayed up three days in a row to avoid timing out of a few matches because I have a demanding work schedule and I want to win (and I don't want to lose 45 ELO by getting timed out). It's silly to think three months of hard work in a tournament could come down to the final match starting on a very bad day because of my heavy work load in real life.
Another solution is to allow the match to be continued after a player is timed out. This would solve elimination match issues. It would force the players to adapt to the lesser player count, but, if you are clearly in a winning position, it would be a very welcome solution to be able to finish the game. Ending the game when one player is timed out seems like a waste of a round.
Adding on to the previous solution, the ability for a game to continue to be played after someone is expelled would open up another option -- a maximum limit that a single player can go over their time bank. Or, the option to expel a player as soon as their time bank is expired. So, instead of setting an allotted amount of time as a tournament organizer, the system would set the time itself based on the maximum duration of the match. Let's say we have a 4 player match. The maximum duration for the match is set to 30 days. The system would automatically give each player 7 days. This would prevent one player stalling out the end of the match to hit the 'abandon' win criteria. Or, if you permitted each player to go -3 days. The time bank would be set to 4 days, and would automatically expel them at -3 days. The reason for doing this is so that they still get a penalty, and it would still allow all players to vote to expel them, and it would still force the action whilst putting a hard cap on it (so that each round had a chance of not going to duration). But realistically, it makes sense to just expel at the time limit and allow the game to continue. Personally, I like the idea of letting people go over in the good spirit of competition and giving the other players the option to expel if some fiesta thing is going on. In terms of programming, you could set the system to recognize a certain percentage based on maximum duration to allow for negative time. Or you could program specific sets of time based on maximum duration.
This option would also make it so that tournament organizers can't mess up setting time banks. I'm sure all of us that play tournaments have been in at least one circus tournament where the entire table, and entire tournament, is negative time. At least those are fun. Playing 28 days just to get the game negated is NOT fun.
These solutions would work in the spirit of the site. The site's TOS states: Do NOT run out of time. Do not kingmake. Do not stall at the end of the match. These solutions would naturally support the code of conduct as it is written. It would take away the options for bad actors to force the game to go in a state opposite of how it's currently headed. It would allow casual players to finish their games, and it would allow competitive players to do exactly what we want to do -- be judged by our decisions and not by luck. If I lose, it's either my fault or I took risks that just didn't pay off. Which in my opinion, is not luck -- it's a calculated strategic decision. But most importantly, it would allow more often than not the best players advancing to the next rounds, which benefits everyone who is competing.
Apologies for the length, like many others I am a little disappointed with how frequently this happens.
Also, for the most popular games... don't make arena mode exclusive to a specific player count. Have a separate arena ladder for 2p, 3p, 4p. Or something like Challengers, 2p, 4p, 6p, 8p. A separate ladder for each player count. Ark Nova, Azul, Castles, etc. I would love that feature and I'm sure a lot of people would.
<3,
Blindsy