Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[FrankJones]

Reasonable points have been made for being allowed to concede in mid-game in a hopeless situation. As noted in the post above mine, the end-game information would be meaningless if an opponent made random or suboptimal moves or just "passed" (in games in which one can pass) for the remainder of the game.

I haven't seen anything convincing regarding "last-minute" concessions, which was the original topic in this thread, especially if:

1) The game was obviously a lost cause at, let's say, 85% progression, but the opponent played onward until 95-100% progression only to then concede,

and/or

2) No communication occurs in the in-game chat. Communication can go a long way. "Would be it cool if I just concede?" "Well, I can't force you to stay, but I would appreciate if we could just finish out the last few moves, which should take less than 2 minutes." or "I'm working on a personal best here, and I would appreciate the opportunity to complete the game to its natural conclusion". or "I would appreciate being able to see the end-game stats and have them added to the statistics database for this game for all users to benefit from." or "Well, this is an abstract strategy game where nothing useful is gained from playing the game to completion, so, sure, concede if you wish."

I prefer some sort of communication.

How many people have been in this situation?

Game begins. You say something like "Hello" or "Greetings!" or whatever. No response.

The opponent goes into negative on time. No communication from the opponent. Shortly thereafter, the opponent goes into the negative again. Still no communication.

At that point, I am likely going to neutralize the game (if the outcome is unclear), or expel the player (if I am in a likely winning position). Because, I do not want to find myself unexpectedly pressed for time and making a rushed move that might cause me to lose, or, run out of time myself (because the game is now taking longer than expected to finish since my opponent is using too much clock) and risk having my non-communicating opponent expel me at first opportunity.

[Meeplelowda]

You wanna see by how many points you can win? What's the info worth if I just pass and stop making points?
You want to see if you can get some combo / set / game-specific achievement / highest score? What's that worth if I just let you have everything you want?

If you want useful end-game-stats: you can only have them if i keep playing the best moves. And that is much more effort than you lined out @tbhp. So it is much more than a random click once a day and that shifts the amount of impact by a lot.

In other words, whatever you've "achieved" may be more or less artificial depending on how long this went on.

[nik592]

Are those people going to feel a profound sense of loss that they will never be able to forget, that will always haunt them any time they think about it? No.

OK, fair enough. Someone conceding and me not getting to finish a game is going to annoy me in the moment, but it doesn't have that affect on me. Honestly, that feels like a lot, over a game. But sure, if that's how you feel.

As for your specific example, I'm sure most of us have experienced those games they don't really enjoy because they are still new at it, but this seems so insignificant I'm not sure why you think it even belongs to this discussion. If that happens then that's just a normal learning experience, I don't know why anyone would think this should give them the right to concede.

I'm not talking about a game where you're new at it and aren't enjoying it, I'm also talking about a game when you make a mistake that ruins the game for you. That doesn't necessarily happen to new players - I have had those kind of mistakes happen on BGA because of a misclick of one kind or another and a lack of undo. I usually don't assume that's entirely ruined my game, and wouldn't concede over it, but probably some would.

In any case, I'm done with this discussion. I'm pretty sure I've made my point by this stage, and if the above is how you feel when another player concedes (at any point in a game), well, I can't necessarily argue with that, but I can't say I agree with it either.

Although I will say, this:

You wanna see by how many points you can win? What's the info worth if I just pass and stop making points?
You want to see if you can get some combo / set / game-specific achievement / highest score? What's that worth if I just let you have everything you want?

If you want useful end-game-stats: you can only have them if i keep playing the best moves. And that is much more effort than you lined out @tbhp. So it is much more than a random click once a day and that shifts the amount of impact by a lot.

perfectly sums up why I don't want my opponent to just make random moves to finish out a game, and would much rather them concede (with a significant amount of game to go).

[Archisian]

That's a fair point, I guess there is technically something being destroyed, but I would question the good faith of a player who is complaining about that. I mean, if you've lost a game, it costs you almost nothing to just show up when it's your turn and take a few seconds to play some random move. Since you've lost the game, it doesn't matter what you do, you can just go through the motions, so is this slight loss of enjoyment a significant factor that should be taken into account when weighing things? I don't see how.

This is the crux of the issue. To you, it's no big deal to just go through the motions of an inevitable loss. To someone else, they may really dislike that. It's not a matter of it's on good faith or bad faith. I mean, would a person lie about that in that kind of situation? Or were trying to do something nefarious?

I have agreed with others earlier that on the very last turn in the game, I would find it to be uncouth. But it's only for that context. And there could be other factors I'm not considering (like needing to leave for some reason). In that moment, I would be choosing to be offended without any other evidence other than the fact that the person conceded on the last turn. The less of the game completed, the less I'm justified in thinking that the losing player was trying to do something to harm me. I guess I'll just ask you straight out: do you believe conceding in any situation should be prevented, regardless of how much of the game is completed?

[Andrei3009]

As already mentioned, early termination of the game can bring negativity to those who remain in the game, however, if the surrendered player has to play out the negative emotions, he will receive them. The surrendering person has a choice between the comfort of himself and another person. It all depends on how much you respect your opponent and how well you know him. In normal situations, I almost never give up, but when I decide to do so, I subconsciously take into account my attitude towards the other player and how much I don't want to continue playing, which outweighs what I do. For example, I am less likely to give up against those with whom I play a lot or who are just polite in chat.

I think I have enough respect for my opponents, but they are still strangers to me. I never give up in games in real life, because this is disrespectful to the person who came to play and who is most likely close to me; if I want to give up, I will ask how the opponent feels about it.

Back to bga, the players on the platform can be divided into two groups - competitive players and those who came to enjoy the game. I almost always play competitively and give up when I see that I can't win or it will cost too much effort (and usually have a small chance of success). In my opinion, defeat is the main punishment for those who surrender, and victory is the reward of the remaining players.

If someone is gonna be harmed in the situation, it should be the person who lost, not the one who won and is trying to play the game to its completion.

Therefore, if at least one player of the players is playing competitively , then both players must be ready and understand why someone is giving up. The only time when conceding can be wrong is when both players have come to play (as in the case of my experience playing in real life), but you never know what the opponent is playing for.

In conclusion, it's okay to give up, but you should always be prepared for the fact that the other is playing for the sake of the game, and vice versa, a casual player should be prepared for the fact that his opponent is playing competitively. Giving up towards the end of the game is no less acceptable, as it will show much more disrespect for the player, but it may occur if there are stronger reasons to end (for example, my game was lagging and I gave up to not deal with interface)

[Fuchur]

This is rather off-topic -- sorry.

I'll use the game "Earth" for this example.

A completed game logs the ... 8<

That is a large collection of valuable statistics.
For a completed game, any player can view those stats for that one game.
Additionally, any player who can view stats (apparently, it's a premium feature) can view his or her collective stats for all games of "Earth" played.
On the same screen, those stats can be compared to all players' averages, and to winner's averages.

As you've pointed out, some players can See These statistics , Others Don't.
. I'm Not convinced that thèse statistics can give you thé insight you need to understand why you Lost that particular game --- i havent Played earth more than two or three times and have nearly No Idea about how yo win that game, but i Guess there IS more than one way. Knowing the number of cards you Played doesn't Say anything about which cards you Played AT what moment, what synergies you we're able to create.
(Sorry for thé typos -- m'y phone keeps on to translate randomly some words into french and i haven't been able to turn that off)

So, if I may paraphrase your statement:

Actually, I cannot, because it was complete nonsense.

?? -- As i said i was having problems with my phone, keeping mixing up randomly my typing.

You basically said you don't know what you're talking about.

?? Are you able to read ?

you're "not sure these statistics give insight"?

In other words, you don't understand the game in question or the statistics.

?? In other words ?? Do you you understand english ?

It's totally okay to just slowly back out here by saying, "I don't know what I'm talking about, I have no experience with the games being discussed, and I don't understand the statistics."

No one would fault you. In fact, you would gain a lot of respect for acknowledging the facts and backtracking in the face of contravening evidence.

Or you can just continue to try to die on your hill of "I don't know anything about anything related to this topic, but I'll continue to argue anyway."

I mean. COME ON. At this point, you're clearly just arguing to argue.

I could combine the collective wisdom of the 10 smartest people ever to live and use that collective genius to make a point, but your response would simply be, "Well, I'm not sure I see it that way and it's subjective".

I would like to see that but i doubt that you came anytime in contact with smart people.

And no, it's not subjective.

In which case, WHAT. IS. THE . POINT. OF. THIS. DISCUSSION.

You don't understand the game I am referencing. You don't understand the value of statistics. And yet you have strongly formed opinions that your won't change.

I'm not good in that game but i have played it enough to know that there are a lot of interactions between the cards you play.

I'm working in the field of statistics, they can be powerful tools to understand their subject --- and the ones which you presented here are really trivial. There are surely games where even a simple counting of actions taken can help (and even detect a poor design) -- i don't believe you when you say it is helpful for earth.

Your attitude seems rather stubborn to me -- are you able to understand the point of view of other people ?

Hey, good your you, I hope that works out well for you in life. Let me know how it turns out.

As for the statistics part : The statistics that were described here were basic countings of who played which kind of action how many times and you were trying to get insight into the game by just comparing the relative weight of actions. This might be helpful to compare the performance of players with a wide ELO-gap; a beginner makes random actions while experienced players are able to choose correctly.

When it comes to players with equal skill, I don't believe you that this information suffices to understand why someone wins and the other loses : Games like earth or terraforming mars or arc nova or wingspan or Innovation or Mischwald or ... have to many different cards and much interaction between them. You have to create synergies between the actions you are doing, timing is important -- and nothing of this is captured in the simple statistics which were presented here.

[FrankJones]

I'm not good in that game but i have played it enough to know that there are a lot of interactions between the cards you play.

I'm working in the field of statistics, they can be powerful tools to understand their subject --- and the ones which you presented here are really trivial. There are surely games where even a simple counting of actions taken can help (and even detect a poor design) -- i don't believe you when you say it is helpful for earth.


As for the statistics part : The statistics that were described here were basic countings of who played which kind of action how many times and you were trying to get insight into the game by just comparing the relative weight of actions. This might be helpful to compare the performance of players with a wide ELO-gap; a beginner makes random actions while experienced players are able to choose correctly.

When it comes to players with equal skill, I don't believe you that this information suffices to understand why someone wins and the other loses : Games like earth or terraforming mars or arc nova or wingspan or Innovation or Mischwald or ... have to many different cards and much interaction between them. You have to create synergies between the actions you are doing, timing is important -- and nothing of this is captured in the simple statistics which were presented here.

1) So, you are telling a top 10 player (at the game in question) on this website that the statistics are trivial? No, they are not trivial. It is meaningless that you, as a bad player at that game (by your own admission), do not see the value in those statistics. And that was just one example. Other more famous games have made modifications made as a result of detailed statistical analysis by strong and elite players.

2) What was the point of your mentioning that you are working in the field of statistics? That does not make your opinions any more or less valid. You seem to believe that statistics in general for BGA games can never have any usefulness. This is what you have made clear to be your opinion from the beginning, and why I was hesitant to waste my time giving you a list.

Sure enough, I wasted my time giving you a list after you berated me for not doing so, and you responded with the exact dismissiveness I expected.

I have a background in statistics as well. I did not mention it earlier because it's not relevant to this discussion. The fact that the statistics for BGA games are not graduate-level in nature or calculation is irrelevant to the usefulness of those statistics. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistics and computational techniques can analyze statistics for a game to search for correlations and then further analyze to check the nature of said correlations.

[tbhp]

You wanna see by how many points you can win? What's the info worth if I just pass and stop making points?
You want to see if you can get some combo / set / game-specific achievement / highest score? What's that worth if I just let you have everything you want?

If you want useful end-game-stats: you can only have them if i keep playing the best moves. And that is much more effort than you lined out @tbhp. So it is much more than a random click once a day and that shifts the amount of impact by a lot.

That's a good point, but I'm not part of those who are against conceding for those kinds of reasons. I think a game's integrity should be preserved no matter what the opponent ends up doing. But that works as a good counter-argument for those who use the statistics argument. They are essentially asking that the player who wants to concede keeps playing normally, otherwise the stats are gonna be skewed.

[FrankJones]

You wanna see by how many points you can win? What's the info worth if I just pass and stop making points?
You want to see if you can get some combo / set / game-specific achievement / highest score? What's that worth if I just let you have everything you want?

If you want useful end-game-stats: you can only have them if i keep playing the best moves. And that is much more effort than you lined out @tbhp. So it is much more than a random click once a day and that shifts the amount of impact by a lot.

That's a good point, but I'm not part of those who are against conceding for those kinds of reasons. I think a game's integrity should be preserved no matter what the opponent ends up doing. But that works as a good counter-argument for those who use the statistics argument. They are essentially asking that the player who wants to concede keeps playing normally, otherwise the stats are gonna be skewed.

Keep in mind, I am making the statistics argument for games that are essentially over already - games that are conceded right at the end because the person conceding just doesn't feel like allowing the final credits to roll, so to speak.

I'm not a big fan of rage-quitting earlier in the game either, but my main gripe is with the end-game concessions. When someone concedes halfway through the game, my thought is, "Well, I would have preferred to play the complete game, but in the rare case someone is far enough behind as to now feel there is any chance, so be it, and at least it's only a half0-finished game that is being neutralized as far as the game stats and statistics".

When someone concedes right at the end, my only thought is, "WTH?? We couldn't just finish out the last couple of moves !?"

[tbhp]

This is the crux of the issue. To you, it's no big deal to just go through the motions of an inevitable loss. To someone else, they may really dislike that. It's not a matter of it's on good faith or bad faith. I mean, would a person lie about that in that kind of situation? Or were trying to do something nefarious?

They are either lying or not realizing that the inconvenience they are going through is not comparable to the damage they may be causing.

This is the equivalent of someone using the Mona Lisa as an umbrella because they didn't want to get wet, ending up ruining it. In the process of solving their issue with the rain, they are knowingly or unknowingly causing immeasurable loss to people who care about art.

I have agreed with others earlier that on the very last turn in the game, I would find it to be uncouth. But it's only for that context. And there could be other factors I'm not considering (like needing to leave for some reason). In that moment, I would be choosing to be offended without any other evidence other than the fact that the person conceded on the last turn. The less of the game completed, the less I'm justified in thinking that the losing player was trying to do something to harm me. I guess I'll just ask you straight out: do you believe conceding in any situation should be prevented, regardless of how much of the game is completed?

I agree that it's not as bad if the game is still in the early stages, but I don't see why a penalty shouldn't come in all cases. We already give penalties to people who got kicked out because they had personal matters that prevented them from playing within their allotted time (something I have my own issues with, since kicking out creates the same problem of not finishing a game properly), so given this, it shouldn't be hard to agree that conceders should be penalized too, even if they have problems beyond their control. Plus, they can always decide to just keep the game on, letting the other player decide if they'll kick them out or not. That's what I'd do if an emergency forced me to leave a real time game.