Community consensus / unwritten rules about blocking?

[Ceaseless]

and here we go! another person about to complain about blockers in the game. YES, YES I AM! I just played a game and we were evenly matched, it was literally coming down to the longest train 10 points. oddly we both started with the same ELO. I could tell I wasn't going to win. I just wanted to finish my last route. But NO, they used the last of their cars to block my final stretch.

"We were evenly matched" and you're over there thinking they're being rude blocking? They don't know for sure what your tickets are, so even if you thought you'd lose they couldn't have known if they would come out ahead at the end or not.

[Mr_Magic]

and here we go! another person about to complain about blockers in the game. YES, YES I AM! I just played a game and we were evenly matched, it was literally coming down to the longest train 10 points. oddly we both started with the same ELO. I could tell I wasn't going to win. I just wanted to finish my last route. But NO, they used the last of their cars to block my final stretch.

SO, yeah kind of sick of the people who just block you to be rude! I literally dropped my premium sub and when it runs out and I have less access to the games I love, I will probably drop my account completely.

Maybe! In the meantime, I am thumbing down players to avoid them. I suggest that as an option, thumbs down, "just my opinion" and "I want to avoid this player".

Presumably you lost, so a good strat for you opponent to deny you points

[Suoivax]

and here we go! another person about to complain about blockers in the game. YES, YES I AM! I just played a game and we were evenly matched, it was literally coming down to the longest train 10 points. oddly we both started with the same ELO. I could tell I wasn't going to win. I just wanted to finish my last route. But NO, they used the last of their cars to block my final stretch.

SO, yeah kind of sick of the people who just block you to be rude! I literally dropped my premium sub and when it runs out and I have less access to the games I love, I will probably drop my account completely.

Maybe! In the meantime, I am thumbing down players to avoid them. I suggest that as an option, thumbs down, "just my opinion" and "I want to avoid this player".

And, how was your opponent supposed to know the value of the tickets you were holding on to?

[moucro]

Which is a pretty bad strategy if you want to win!

if you're talking about what I said above:

Keep the ones that work easily together and the draw more and better tickets, duh.

then my win history would say you're wrong.

Drawing tickets is a very bad strategy because you lose 1 turn. In my opinion, if you have 2 small routes, the best strategy is to finish as soon as possible by taking the 6 blocks destinations without caring about your own routes, so that your opponent can't finish their routes in time.

[AmetheliaN]

Thank you all for your strategic opinions. Correct, neither player knows the others cards. However, I can see how a route comes together for my opponent and I try to work around to finish my line. I guess I am just a sore loser. Here I thought I was a nice player. Thank you all for explaining it to me so clearly. No one is being rude at all, I am just a bad strategist. I concede to the better players in the conversation.

Maybe instead trying to make a long route by connecting what I have I will just finish unconnected routes and hope for the best. I am at the point I will stick to my low ELO opponents.

I would hate to try and challenge myself!

[Kaladry]

Which is a pretty bad strategy if you want to win!

if you're talking about what I said above:

Keep the ones that work easily together and the draw more and better tickets, duh.

then my win history would say you're wrong.

Since you brought it up, your win history would imply they are right. Your win percentage, which is what I'm assuming you meant by win history, is nothing to write home about. That said, I dislike using that stat as a reference since it only says how a player is doing relative to their opposition. If someone has a win rate of 20% facing the top 100 players, they're playing better than someone who has an 80% win rate against people who are playing their first game ever. You need to check the player quality to help reduce oversights like that.

So I checked what sorts of players you're facing. Looking at the ratings after the game, your last game was against a 206, 177, and a 100. The previous one was against a 203, 4, and 1. The one before that a 228, 123, and 195, preceded by a 135, 80, and 56. You're not even allowed to lose points at 100 or lower. Even if we decide to bump those numbers up and say you're facing 100s, 200s, hopefully even 300s, we're talking very low-level games.

Oh no you took stats from only my two [at the time] most recent games where I happened to play low ELO people. 1. ELO isn't even a very good tell of someone's skill, especially if they're still under 100 as they're "new" to the game on BGA. 2. It's very volatile. 3. Two games for my stats? LOL you're completely laughable.
Four player games are where less blocking and true strategy occurs, I stay away from two player in the Arena unless I'm feeling in the mood because they're too simple. I don't care what the ELO is of who I play, I open a table and let whoever join me.

[Ceaseless]

if you're talking about what I said above:
then my win history would say you're wrong.

Since you brought it up, your win history would imply they are right. Your win percentage, which is what I'm assuming you meant by win history, is nothing to write home about. That said, I dislike using that stat as a reference since it only says how a player is doing relative to their opposition. If someone has a win rate of 20% facing the top 100 players, they're playing better than someone who has an 80% win rate against people who are playing their first game ever. You need to check the player quality to help reduce oversights like that.

So I checked what sorts of players you're facing. Looking at the ratings after the game, your last game was against a 206, 177, and a 100. The previous one was against a 203, 4, and 1. The one before that a 228, 123, and 195, preceded by a 135, 80, and 56. You're not even allowed to lose points at 100 or lower. Even if we decide to bump those numbers up and say you're facing 100s, 200s, hopefully even 300s, we're talking very low-level games.

Oh no you took stats from only my two [at the time] most recent games where I happened to play low ELO people. 1. ELO isn't even a very good tell of someone's skill, especially if they're still under 100 as they're "new" to the game on BGA. 2. It's very volatile. 3. Two games for my stats? LOL you're completely laughable.
Four player games are where less blocking and true strategy occurs, I stay away from two player in the Arena unless I'm feeling in the mood because they're too simple. I don't care what the ELO is of who I play, I open a table and let whoever join me.

I'm not entirely sure how you thought counting worked, but we've gone beyond the number two, lol. All four of the games I noted were with very low rated players. Anyone can easily check your profile to confirm, including games besides the 4 I mentioned. You bragged about an underwhelming win rate even when just paired against players still getting the hang of the game, whether they were just starting out or even played for a decent bit. That it's in a player count known for having far more variance than 2 player and as a result has a lower skill factor doesn't make it look any better. Elo does a decent enough job at general player skill, letting the performance across lots of games outline roughly how good a player is. Newer players with low game counts just have to play more games for the system to get a better idea.

[Kaladry]

Since you brought it up, your win history would imply they are right. Your win percentage, which is what I'm assuming you meant by win history, is nothing to write home about. That said, I dislike using that stat as a reference since it only says how a player is doing relative to their opposition. If someone has a win rate of 20% facing the top 100 players, they're playing better than someone who has an 80% win rate against people who are playing their first game ever. You need to check the player quality to help reduce oversights like that.

So I checked what sorts of players you're facing. Looking at the ratings after the game, your last game was against a 206, 177, and a 100. The previous one was against a 203, 4, and 1. The one before that a 228, 123, and 195, preceded by a 135, 80, and 56. You're not even allowed to lose points at 100 or lower. Even if we decide to bump those numbers up and say you're facing 100s, 200s, hopefully even 300s, we're talking very low-level games.

Oh no you took stats from only my two [at the time] most recent games where I happened to play low ELO people. 1. ELO isn't even a very good tell of someone's skill, especially if they're still under 100 as they're "new" to the game on BGA. 2. It's very volatile. 3. Two games for my stats? LOL you're completely laughable.
Four player games are where less blocking and true strategy occurs, I stay away from two player in the Arena unless I'm feeling in the mood because they're too simple. I don't care what the ELO is of who I play, I open a table and let whoever join me.

I'm not entirely sure how you thought counting worked, but we've gone beyond the number two, lol. All four of the games I noted were with very low rated players. Anyone can easily check your profile to confirm, including games besides the 4 I mentioned. You bragged about an underwhelming win rate even when just paired against players still getting the hang of the game, whether they were just starting out or even played for a decent bit. That it's in a player count known for having far more variance than 2 player and as a result has a lower skill factor doesn't make it look any better. Elo does a decent enough job at general player skill, letting the performance across lots of games outline roughly how good a player is. Newer players with low game counts just have to play more games for the system to get a better idea.

I have a bachelors degree in math thank you vey much but it doesn't seem like you can read??? I SAID I primarily play four player games, read that again if you didn't understand it the first time. So therefore I assumed from your ahem nine ELOs listed of my opponents that you listed my last three games. Which, as I ALSO said before, that I don't care who I play with so I just open a four person table and let whoever join. But I'll agree with one thing you said, that newer players the system is still adjusting their ELO to their skill, so obviously they can't be trustworthy so you can't say I'm playing unskilled people if their ELO is <100. I'm here to play for fun, not be sadistic as you apparently like to be.

[Ceaseless]

Oh no you took stats from only my two [at the time] most recent games where I happened to play low ELO people. 1. ELO isn't even a very good tell of someone's skill, especially if they're still under 100 as they're "new" to the game on BGA. 2. It's very volatile. 3. Two games for my stats? LOL you're completely laughable.
Four player games are where less blocking and true strategy occurs, I stay away from two player in the Arena unless I'm feeling in the mood because they're too simple. I don't care what the ELO is of who I play, I open a table and let whoever join me.

I'm not entirely sure how you thought counting worked, but we've gone beyond the number two, lol. All four of the games I noted were with very low rated players. Anyone can easily check your profile to confirm, including games besides the 4 I mentioned. You bragged about an underwhelming win rate even when just paired against players still getting the hang of the game, whether they were just starting out or even played for a decent bit. That it's in a player count known for having far more variance than 2 player and as a result has a lower skill factor doesn't make it look any better. Elo does a decent enough job at general player skill, letting the performance across lots of games outline roughly how good a player is. Newer players with low game counts just have to play more games for the system to get a better idea.

I have a bachelors degree in math thank you vey much but it doesn't seem like you can read??? I SAID I primarily play four player games, read that again if you didn't understand it the first time. So therefore I assumed from your ahem nine ELOs listed of my opponents that you listed my last three games. Which, as I ALSO said before, that I don't care who I play with so I just open a four person table and let whoever join. But I'll agree with one thing you said, that newer players the system is still adjusting their ELO to their skill, so obviously they can't be trustworthy so you can't say I'm playing unskilled people if their ELO is <100. I'm here to play for fun, not be sadistic as you apparently like to be.

You started by saying I was talking about your last two games, and now it's three. Just so you know, three does not equal two. So there's some shenanigans you've got going over there. But don't worry, both of those are still wrong. After I named your last 12 (not 9, we made it to the double digits folks), using the dark arts of division, we can see 12 divided by 3 (the number of opponents in a 4 player game) will leave us with 4 games.

I set some standards for my games. Players should be paired with those of similar skill levels, and a lot of players aren't familiar with rating filters. A player having their first rated game does not need to be set against someone hundreds of points above them. I understand players who play less popular games or who have ratings so high it's nearly impossible to properly pair them at a reasonable speed. That said, Ticket to Ride isn't exactly short on players, and we're talking starting level, so there's not going to be any pairing problems for them to find people near their level to play. By setting a basic ratings filter I let those players first get used to the game and work out the rules and basic strategy. Then by the time they're paired with me, they have some idea where to start.

As it happens, the basic rating filter also bans the vast majority of the toxic players from playing against me, and when combined with the fact I'm playing nearly exclusively in 2 player, the chances of me having a toxic game are nearly 0.

[Kaladry]

I'm not entirely sure how you thought counting worked, but we've gone beyond the number two, lol. All four of the games I noted were with very low rated players. Anyone can easily check your profile to confirm, including games besides the 4 I mentioned. You bragged about an underwhelming win rate even when just paired against players still getting the hang of the game, whether they were just starting out or even played for a decent bit. That it's in a player count known for having far more variance than 2 player and as a result has a lower skill factor doesn't make it look any better. Elo does a decent enough job at general player skill, letting the performance across lots of games outline roughly how good a player is. Newer players with low game counts just have to play more games for the system to get a better idea.

I have a bachelors degree in math thank you vey much but it doesn't seem like you can read??? I SAID I primarily play four player games, read that again if you didn't understand it the first time. So therefore I assumed from your ahem nine ELOs listed of my opponents that you listed my last three games. Which, as I ALSO said before, that I don't care who I play with so I just open a four person table and let whoever join. But I'll agree with one thing you said, that newer players the system is still adjusting their ELO to their skill, so obviously they can't be trustworthy so you can't say I'm playing unskilled people if their ELO is <100. I'm here to play for fun, not be sadistic as you apparently like to be.

You started by saying I was talking about your last two games, and now it's three. Just so you know, three does not equal two. So there's some shenanigans you've got going over there. But don't worry, both of those are still wrong. After I named your last 12 (not 9, we made it to the double digits folks), using the dark arts of division, we can see 12 divided by 3 (the number of opponents in a 4 player game) will leave us with 4 games.

I set some standards for my games. Players should be paired with those of similar skill levels, and a lot of players aren't familiar with rating filters. A player having their first rated game does not need to be set against someone hundreds of points above them. I understand players who play less popular games or who have ratings so high it's nearly impossible to properly pair them at a reasonable speed. That said, Ticket to Ride isn't exactly short on players, and we're talking starting level, so there's not going to be any pairing problems for them to find people near their level to play. By setting a basic ratings filter I let those players first get used to the game and work out the rules and basic strategy. Then by the time they're paired with me, they have some idea where to start.

As it happens, the basic rating filter also bans the vast majority of the toxic players from playing against me, and when combined with the fact I'm playing nearly exclusively in 2 player, the chances of me having a toxic game are nearly 0.

I'm sorry I skimmed all the ELOs because you were being ridiculous and I just said two then three, MY BAD, when it was really four sets of games. OH NO I'M SORRY. I really don't care about your terrible analysis of my play history and you're just making yourself look bad. I'm not going to read your comments if you're just berating me, I come here for fun and you're borderline harassing me right now. Might want to cool it. I'm not going to argue with a troll like you because you'll always find something stupid to continue on with, goodbye. Don't worry, I made sure we'll never play together.