Conceding 2 player games

[Romain672]

Why should someone play a game to the end if he can't win any more? In lots of games it's no fun if you're forced to just watch yourself losing. Honestly, it's more impolite to waste your opponents time if you know there is no way to win.

Because you want to see the final situation/the final score.
Because you want the feeling of finally taking advantage and get the beneficts of it.
Because you just don't care, and now the thinking is finished, you want to just play the few last turns in auto pilot.

[Han Shot First]

It would encourage the sort of poor behaviour you engaged in. Before agreeing to play a game you really ought to be familiar enough with the rules and interface to play - there is a training mode to allow you to play solo, so this is perfectly practical. If you turn up then don't play your opponent is quite justified in kicking you. Its right your opponent took the option to inflict a penalty rather than let you off in this case - I would not accept 'I have not learned how to play' as a legitimate reason to abandon a game.

Did you not read my post, or did you just misunderstand it horrendously. There was a bug. I was unable to make any move.

[For the record, I then played a few moves in training mode with a friend and had no problems. The next game I played completed without incident.]

[Han Shot First]

The main reason for disallowing an early concede is that this could and would be used for ELO cheating. One player would concede the game after a few moves and gift ELO to a friend or to his second account.

Thanks. That makes sense, and had not occurred to me. I guess I should not be surprised that people care about their elo that much. I'm interested in my elo as a measure of my standard of play. I do not understand why someone would want their elo artificially high. They would know it was not their true standard of play.

[Han Shot First]

Why should someone play a game to the end if he can't win any more? In lots of games it's no fun if you're forced to just watch yourself losing. Honestly, it's more impolite to waste your opponents time if you know there is no way to win.

Because you want to see the final situation/the final score.
Because you want the feeling of finally taking advantage and get the beneficts of it.
Because you just don't care, and now the thinking is finished, you want to just play the few last turns in auto pilot.

I think the point of view here depends a bit on your gaming background. My background is chess, which I played in a local league for over 20 years. In chess it is considered quite rude to play until checkmate, certainly in face to face games. It is polite to resign when you know you cannot win. So I have no problem with people who resign two player games. But I am interested to hear of other points of view. I find your reasons above interesting.

[Ehronde]

Why should someone play a game to the end if he can't win any more? In lots of games it's no fun if you're forced to just watch yourself losing. Honestly, it's more impolite to waste your opponents time if you know there is no way to win.

Because you want to see the final situation/the final score.
Because you want the feeling of finally taking advantage and get the beneficts of it.
Because you just don't care, and now the thinking is finished, you want to just play the few last turns in auto pilot.

Might be fun for the winner, but is it also fun for the loser? A game is a good game, if all participants have fun. Why should the loser continue a game he has no fun with?

There's a lot of reasons to continue the game to the end, but there's also a lot of reasons why it's okay to concede.

[Romain672]

I think the point of view here depends a bit on your gaming background. My background is chess, which I played in a local league for over 20 years. In chess it is considered quite rude to play until checkmate, certainly in face to face games. It is polite to resign when you know you cannot win. So I have no problem with people who resign two player games. But I am interested to hear of other points of view. I find your reasons above interesting.

I said it in first post: if you combine an abstract game (so remove some people playing for having a good time/a good thematic) and a competitive game (ie a game with many players playing 100+ games, so where you will find less people which just play casually), that will decrease a lot the number of people who wanna play until the end.

Did you not read my post, or did you just misunderstand it horrendously. There was a bug. I was unable to make any move.

[For the record, I then played a few moves in training mode with a friend and had no problems. The next game I played completed without incident.]

Game breaking bugs are really rare outside of alpha and beta games. If it was your first game, and you aren't using something weird (like mac or opera), there is a really high chance you didn't clicked where you needed to.
And if it was really a bug, that should be rare anyway, and already reported, or you can report it yourself: https://boardgamearena.com/bugs .

Might be fun for the winner, but is it also fun for the loser? A game is a good game, if all participants have fun. Why should the loser continue a game he has no fun with?

Personnally, I concede when I think it's lost. But since I'm not playing those abstract competitive game, I ask in chat if I can concede or if he wants to finish the game.
And I got both answers.

In hearthstone, you got the same thing: people which concede when they are lost in board, and people who don't.
Let's said you have a 'fireball' in hand which deal 6 damage to the opponent (your opponent don't know it), and monsters on the field which deal a total of 6 damage (your opponent know it).
You can either attack with your monsters first, and then play your fireball, which will make your opponent not concede because he doesn't know he has lost.
Or you can play your fireball first, and if your opponent react enough fast, he will concede before you got time to attack with your monsters.
Many players will be in both categories, even if I believe there will be more players which play their fireball first.

[Romain672]

And here is one of those: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 38#p122938

[Han Shot First]

Did you not read my post, or did you just misunderstand it horrendously. There was a bug. I was unable to make any move.

[For the record, I then played a few moves in training mode with a friend and had no problems. The next game I played completed without incident.]

Game breaking bugs are really rare outside of alpha and beta games. If it was your first game, and you aren't using something weird (like mac or opera), there is a really high chance you didn't clicked where you needed to.
And if it was really a bug, that should be rare anyway, and already reported, or you can report it yourself: https://boardgamearena.com/bugs .

Yes, I reported the bug. There are a few similar ones. The developer is very active and replied within a few minutes. Unfortunately this bug is not reproducible yet.

[Meeplelowda]

I do not understand why someone would want their elo artificially high. They would know it was not their true standard of play.

When have cheaters ever cared that their stolen status does not reflect their true standard of play or ability? Look at performance enhancing drugs in sports, using computer engines in chess, etc. Kind of by definition you can't both care about your rating being artificial and still be willing to cheat.

But there are still at least two kinds of cheaters: 1) the ones who want the respect and "glory" that the stolen status brings and thus don't want it to be known that they cheated their way to glory, and 2) those who just want to subvert the system and don't even care if it is blatantly obvious that they cheated. I find the psychology behind both types fascinating.

My background is chess, which I played in a local league for over 20 years. In chess it is considered quite rude to play until checkmate, certainly in face to face games. It is polite to resign when you know you cannot win.

I've yet to see anyone on here say they have a background in league chess and complain about conceding. To the contrary, we are the ones who are annoyed when you can't concede and go on living your life instead of being forced to play out a lost position.

I get that some people can only derive enjoyment out of seeing all the pixels manipulated on their screen until their eyes perceive a "real" win, and aren't satisfied with anything else. It seems like running a foot race and seeing your opponent twist their ankle and insisting that "no, you cannot withdraw from the race. I want people to see me beat you as you hobble along." Whatever floats your boat.

What I don't get is why conceding (resigning) is such a non-issue in chess and yet so controversial on BGA. I'm talking about 2-player games, of course.

[Romain672]

What I don't get is why conceding (resigning) is such a non-issue in chess and yet so controversial on BGA. I'm talking about 2-player games, of course.

I will repeat a third time, but for me it's just linked to thematic and abstracts games.

In chess, it should have the same problem in low elo with new players.
Players should complain about trying to block the other player, and should play the game until the end.
The second part is done, since mistakes are more important, the change for the other player to mess up is high, so many (new) players just never concede.
For the first part, how that would work to play without blocking the other player? That just does not. Blocking and playing against the opponent is a part of a game. And it will be the case of most abstracts games. So it doesn't make sense to complain about blocking the other player.

In games like Azul, you can play it solo, and ignore whatever the other player does. So Azul contrary to chess have this problem.