people who concede when losing

[gems55]

That's all I wanted to check. I wasn't sure if leaving early/conceding meant that the actual score of the game wasn't used to calculate the rating change. If it did, a 1-0 loss would be much less damaging than a 32-10 loss, for example.

You're missing the point. Your Elo adjustment is based on the result--win, lose, or draw--of the game, the rating difference of the players, and scaling factors. But not the score. The score is never an input into the formula. So they are not using the "actual score" or any other score to calculate the rating change. It doesn't matter if you lose by 100 points or 1 point. And some games don't even have points, so how could Elo even be based on that?

That's literally what I wanted to check, because I wasn't sure the first time. Then I got that clarification. No need to go overboard.

[JohnnyCyclops]

In games with the opportunity for notable high scores, and which are often short in duration (I’m looking at you, standard Yahtzee!) I’d prefer my opponent not to concede, even if I have just rolled my third Yahtzee and am on 400+ points mid-game and heading for an obvious win. Please allow me the chance to make my best score.

[Lally1]

Yes, I see this a lot. People are conceding, even with just a second of the game left. It comes across as being a very sore loser and spoils the game - someone throwing their toys out of the pram and quitting just because they haven't won.
I get that some games need an option to concede as they reach stalemate but I can't see why this option needs to be present for other games.

[mrmivo]

It comes across as being a very sore loser and spoils the game - someone throwing their toys out of the pram and quitting just because they haven't won.

The board game I played online the most, for over twenty years now, is Go (elsewhere, not here). In Go, it is considered impolite, if not downright rude, to continue playing when it is clear that you can't win (outside of winning by our opponent running out of time). Players view this as poor sportsmanship and it is perceived as wasting the opponent's time and disrespectful. So by not resigning, the losing player is a sore loser. Apparently it's the same in chess.

I think it's mostly a "cultural thing" that determines how individual players view conceding/resigning lost games. It's probably similar to how different gaming communities have "evolved" to view "gg". In games like StarCraft it is seen as rude if the winner says "gg" first, in other competitive games the culture differs and nobody would think twice to say "gg" first as the winner.

[FrankJones]

It comes across as being a very sore loser and spoils the game - someone throwing their toys out of the pram and quitting just because they haven't won.

The board game I played online the most, for over twenty years now, is Go (elsewhere, not here). In Go, it is considered impolite, if not downright rude, to continue playing when it is clear that you can't win (outside of winning by our opponent running out of time). Players view this as poor sportsmanship and it is perceived as wasting the opponent's time and disrespectful. So by not resigning, the losing player is a sore loser. Apparently it's the same in chess.

I think it's mostly a "cultural thing" that determines how individual players view conceding/resigning lost games. It's probably similar to how different gaming communities have "evolved" to view "gg". In games like StarCraft it is seen as rude if the winner says "gg" first, in other competitive games the culture differs and nobody would think twice to say "gg" first as the winner.

I believe it depends on the game.

For games such as Go, or (especially) Chess, it's likely that both players realize when the game is over. Conceding is a way of acknowledging that the opponent has won. In Chess, there is no score, so what difference does it make whether a "mate in 2" is played to completion.

This is not analogous to a thematic strategy game such as Terraforming Mars, where it really does come across as poor sportsmanship and being a sore loser if the losing player plays it out until just before the final move (even when the outcome has been obvious lo before), and then is unwilling to play the final move to let the end credits roll, so to speak. Because, in Terraforming Mars, in that situation, the end-game screen and result appear no differently than it would if the player has quit on move 1. It does not show the score or the stats. It looks like an unearned win of an incomplete game. That is, to me, the equivalent of just shoving the cards and the board onto the floor when playing in real life over the board.

[Suoivax]

This is not analogous to a thematic strategy game such as Terraforming Mars, where it really does come across as poor sportsmanship and being a sore loser if the losing player plays it out until just before the final move (even when the outcome has been obvious lo before), and then is unwilling to play the final move to let the end credits roll, so to speak.

The thing is, that quoted part is completely subjective. I have zero problem with a conceding opponent at any stage of any game. Not poor sportsmanship,, not a sore loser.

[FrankJones]

This is not analogous to a thematic strategy game such as Terraforming Mars, where it really does come across as poor sportsmanship and being a sore loser if the losing player plays it out until just before the final move (even when the outcome has been obvious lo before), and then is unwilling to play the final move to let the end credits roll, so to speak.

The thing is, that quoted part is completely subjective. I have zero problem with a conceding opponent at any stage of any game. Not poor sportsmanship,, not a sore loser.

I understand it is subjective.

What I do not understand is playing out the final generation of a game like Terraforming Mars when the outcome is clearly decided already, only to them concede or quit during the final greenery placement. That final generation might be a couple of dozen turns each, possibly taking 2 to 3 times as long as a typical generation.

My subjective opinion on this matter is also probably influenced by the fact that in my experience, the people who do this have been disproportionately rude or lacking in sportsmanship in the chat.

I am curious, since, as you noted, this is subjective, what your definition or examples of "sore loser" would be.

[Romain672]

I think it's mostly a "cultural thing" that determines how individual players view conceding/resigning lost games. It's probably similar to how different gaming communities have "evolved" to view "gg". In games like StarCraft it is seen as rude if the winner says "gg" first, in other competitive games the culture differs and nobody would think twice to say "gg" first as the winner.

I disagree. I generally do one post on this kind of topic but I didn't that time.

For me it's mostly just casual vs hardcore.
Those who are 'hardcore', play more are more in the thinking part, understand more easily the lose situations, and play games which are more predictable (2 players) and more without thematic (abstract).
On the opposite, those who play 'casually' play less, play more for fun, can have an harder time seeing which player is winning, and play game more chaostic/random and with thematic.

And in the forum, you will mostly see hardcore players.
So on all those kind of posts, you get a casual player coming in the forum saying that they dislike when one hardcore player concede.
Then you got a lot posts from hardcore players saying sometimes that's it's normal and should be the case, other time that's is how it's done in chess or that it depend of games.
And I often feel the need to post myself to try to give arguments for casuals players.

At least that's how I see things goes.

[FrankJones]

Just to add to my previous post.

let's take a game like Carcassonne.

I'm still learning the game, having played it approximately 10 times. I learn by playing but also by seeing the end-game position. Did I put my farmers in the right places to score points for fields? Did I accidentally put two farmers in the same field, not realizing I linked them unnecessarily? Did the incomplete features score as I expected? Etc.

In Carcassonne and other games with various ways to score points, a lot of helpful information is shown in the final end-game screen, and in many cases, valuable stats as well. Which also helps add to the compiled stats that players can view.

Is there any good reason for and opponent to refuse to place the final tile, which takes a couple of seconds? No. This is not chess. Refusing to place that final tile is not culturally understood to be an acknowledgement of a game well played the way it is in chess. let's not equate laying down the king facing imminent checkmate with "I am going to deprive the opponent of seeing the actual end-game position and scoring because I lost and I don't feel like completing the game." There is nothing sportsmanlike in doing this. It's sore loser behavior. The only reasons for doing it are pettiness and spite.

It frustrates me that people keep coming back to the chess analogy as though it is in any way analogous to a complex thematic strategy game where the end-gam state differs dramatically if that one last tile is not placed.

In chess, the notation and "score" for a win exactly matches what BGA would display if a player concedes: "1-0" or "0-1". No information is lost.

Sure, anyone can justify anything by saying "Well, it's subjective". That's a lame argument, if it can even be called an argument. Much of life is subjective, but that doesn't preclude us from doing a legitimate analysis of whether a concession is standard or expected (as in an imminent defeat in chess) or petty and spiteful.

Let's not pretend anyone conceding on the final move of a complex thematic strategy game is doing it to "save time" or to "be a good sport by conceding when the outcome is obvious." That's nonsense, and I doubt anyone doing it honestly believes that.

The one most notable time an opponent did it to me, he made some rude remarks about how lucky I got. (In fact, he misplayed and probably could have won). But, hey, if it makes him feel better to see "1-0" in his history rather than the actual losing score, so be it. Nevertheless, the pettiness of the move was obvious.

Same with Terraforming Mars. AN opponent conceded when that player had no moves remaining and I was about to place the final greenery during the plant conversion stage.
Hmmmm. The player either:
1) Thought it would be a graceful acknowledgement of defeat by conceding, ruining the end-game position and score and statistics, or
2) Was being petty and didn't feel like granting the opponent the ability to see that information.

It's not difficult to figure out which one was the actual reason.

Sometimes logic and common sense can lead us to the correct inferences.

[FrankJones]

I think it's mostly a "cultural thing" that determines how individual players view conceding/resigning lost games. It's probably similar to how different gaming communities have "evolved" to view "gg". In games like StarCraft it is seen as rude if the winner says "gg" first, in other competitive games the culture differs and nobody would think twice to say "gg" first as the winner.

I disagree. I generally do one post on this kind of topic but I didn't that time.

For me it's mostly just casual vs hardcore.
Those who are 'hardcore', play more are more in the thinking part, understand more easily the lose situations, and play games which are more predictable (2 players) and more without thematic (abstract).
On the opposite, those who play 'casually' play less, play more for fun, can have an harder time seeing which player is winning, and play game more chaostic/random and with thematic.

And in the forum, you will mostly see hardcore players.
So on all those kind of posts, you get a casual player coming in the forum saying that they dislike when one hardcore player concede.
Then you got a lot posts from hardcore players saying sometimes that's it's normal and should be the case, other time that's is how it's done in chess or that it depend of games.
And I often feel the need to post myself to try to give arguments for casuals players.

At least that's how I see things goes.

I play several thematic strategy games, and the players I play against tend to be much more "hardcore" than "casual." And yet, conceding at end-game is almost unheard of. Why? Probably because it is generally understood to be an act of poor sportsmanship.

Conceding at 50% is one thing. That's an acknowledgement of "You're crushing me, I have no chance to win, let's not both waste our time."

Playing to 99% and conceding at the final move? No.

Subjective? Sure. But, a person could do any number of obnoxious things and then say, "Well, I don't consider my behavior inappropriate; you're just too sensitive and anyway it's all subjective."