Setting a concede penalty

[BrigBother]

Hello, I love what you guys do, the tournament set-ups are *close* to being great, but where it falls down really hurts, I keep my fingers crossed for the future.

We discovered something playing in a private Strands tournament recently - an interesting game, but one where like Chess it's quite possible to find yourself in an unwinnable position and like Chess allows you to resign - there's a big white flag button, it seems like a legitimate way to end a game.

But.

The way BGA assesses this result is effectively 1-0 when the actual results if it played to completion may be something like 27-15, and as a 1 on 1 game and likely to be played as a Round Robin, or with a Round Robin element, points difference matters and here BGA is effectively incentivising resigning as that's always going to be a better result than seeing it through. If people want to concede in a game like this I don't have a problem with that - people only have so much life, but would it be possible in a future update to let the Tournament Organizer set the concession penalty for games like this? If it was assessed 25-0 (say), people at least have a decision to make, and it would eliminate many of my casual players feeling a bit guilty not realising it could effect the tournament so much.

[Meeplelowda]

The way BGA assesses this result is effectively 1-0 when the actual results if it played to completion may be something like 27-15, and as a 1 on 1 game and likely to be played as a Round Robin, or with a Round Robin element, points difference matters

I know that in the real world point differential may be a factor in a round robin tournament, but are you sure that it is on BGA?

[Jeronimon]

The way BGA assesses this result is effectively 1-0 when the actual results if it played to completion may be something like 27-15, and as a 1 on 1 game and likely to be played as a Round Robin, or with a Round Robin element, points difference matters

I know that in the real world point differential may be a factor in a round robin tournament, but are you sure that it is on BGA?

I know that it is for Memoir’44, I think that that would “translate” to other games as well.

[BrigBother]

The way BGA assesses this result is effectively 1-0 when the actual results if it played to completion may be something like 27-15, and as a 1 on 1 game and likely to be played as a Round Robin, or with a Round Robin element, points difference matters

I know that in the real world point differential may be a factor in a round robin tournament, but are you sure that it is on BGA?

It may very well if you're playing with a group stage with several qualifiers progressing as we are doing. There's going to be a cut-off for qualifying, we'd prefer it if people not getting through wasn't because their opponents lumped them with a bad score difference through nobody's fault. BGA's tie-break system is opaque at the best of times so it'd be nice if the one measure we can count on incentivised the correct things.

[megamau]

To me there should be only win/lose as in chess or draughts.
Points differential is a bad tie-breaker in Strands.

Somebody's strategy could be connecting two groups. In case of failure the two groups are small.
Somebody else could try to grow only one group even if there is no chance. When he loses his group is relatively big.
There is no reason why the second player should be encouraged.

Same thing applies to Go.
If I try for a big semeai and lose I should not be punished versus somebody that played out a losing (but close) endgame.

[Mathew5000]

The way BGA assesses this result is effectively 1-0 when the actual results if it played to completion may be something like 27-15, and as a 1 on 1 game and likely to be played as a Round Robin, or with a Round Robin element, points difference matters and here BGA is effectively incentivising resigning as that's always going to be a better result than seeing it through. If people want to concede in a game like this I don't have a problem with that - people only have so much life, but would it be possible in a future update to let the Tournament Organizer set the concession penalty for games like this? If it was assessed 25-0 (say), people at least have a decision to make, and it would eliminate many of my casual players feeling a bit guilty not realising it could effect the tournament so much.

I know that in the real world point differential may be a factor in a round robin tournament, but are you sure that it is on BGA?

Yes, BGA uses cumulative score differential as a tiebreaker between players with the same number of tournament points in round robins. This was discussed on the forums a few times, usually with the suggestion that head-to-head result be used as the tiebreaker for two players with the same number of tournament points in a round robin. See for example:

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22929
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23562
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27700

The OP raises an excellent point that I never considered. I'm not familiar with Strands but I've played numerous Kingdomino round-robins and am currently in a Wingspan round-robin. Those are both high-scoring games. It's entirely feasible that four players might have the same win-loss record in the round robin, and so the difference between winning the tournament and finishing fourth could be a single match where you lost by a huge score differential in a blowout. Players would get a significant advantage by conceding every match that they are losing, on the last turn.