Remove table-restrictions for suggested players

[Silene]

The new restrictions on suggesting someone bugs me a lot. Here are 2 situations that are annoying:

1) I opened a game for 5 players. 3 players joined. Then I browse the player-list to have a look who to suggest for 5th player. I see a friend and want to suggest him but it says "cannot suggest because someone on the table doesn't want to play with this player".
What to do now? Should I remove the other players one after the other to see who is blocking me from suggesting my friend?

2) I like to use a group I am in to filter who can join my game. But there are some players I like to play with even though they are not in the group - so I want to suggest them to join. Problemː a) they don't even see my table because they don't meet restrictions, b) I cannot suggest them for the same reason.
How treat that problem? Is the plan to just don't filter and let anyone join and kick one after the other until I have a team I like? I don't feel like this is friendly behaviour to those I am kicking but it seems it's the way it should be handled by the technic.


The good thing is: I have a solution to both problems that I think could be easily implemented:

Let me suggest anyone. In the moment the table-host suggests someone it should be allowed to that person to join the table (so it becomes visible to him and he can join without any further action).
As for the players who red-thumped my friend: I think it should be table-host's decision to allow who can join and who cannot. So if the other player really doesn't want to play with my friend - he can leave - not a big deal.
I think it should be handled like this in real-time-games because there anyone has the chance to not accept gamestart if someone joined he doesn't like. Not sure about turn-based.

[demiurgsage]

I agree, this makes sense.

[Ankeszu]

+1
I really like the idea.
Current restrictions basically stops me from playing with more players.

[veme]

As long as it doesn't let ELO restrictions be bypassed, like allowing invited beginners to join a 'good or better' table. Non-members would have no way to be certain that they are playing against people of the appropriate skill.

[Silene]

As long as it doesn't let ELO restrictions be bypassed, like allowing invited beginners to join a 'good or better' table. Non-members would have no way to be certain that they are playing against people of the appropriate skill.

My suggestion is to remove restrictions for suggested players. So of course that goes for ELO too.

Anyone can check the other players before accepting game start (as I said my suggestion is basically for real-time-game where you have the chance to check). So you can always be "certain" .

If you want full control of who's gonna be suggested and can join - you'll have to host yourself. (But that is true with the current system too because you can't control the change of restrictions the host makes after you joined the table or the players he reserves a place for manually).

[veme]

Yes, I was afraid that was a part of your suggestion, which is why I spoke up.

I am not sure how a non-member is supposed to check someone's ELO before a game starts. You can see if someone is good/expert/master, but that is only a rough estimate, and will not tell you if you are dealing with a beginner. And even getting that much information requires you to either join the game and check everyone's badges, or to go to each player's profile. You could also join a game with karma restrictions you like to find players in the game who don't meet them, and just have to leave again.

I have no problem with your two specific examples: inviting friends even if someone else at the table doesn't want them (it's your table), and groups plus others (can be interpreted as just allowing players from multiple groups to join); but there should be a reasonable expectation that the settings associated with a table actually reflect the restrictions imposed on the players, so that you don't have to check each player individually every time you join a table. Especially when it comes to ELO, which you can't necessarily even check.

[sourisdudesert]

Thanks for your feedback.

To understand the reason why we restrict suggestion to players who can really join the table :

_ Some of you complained about table suggestions in general, which can be quite intrusive. In particular receiving suggestion for realtime games while you only play turnbased is a pain.
_ Some of you complained about receiving suggestion for table they could not even join. Some tables creators send dozen of suggestions without thinking, and this is a waste of time for everyone.
_ We really think finding the best suitable opponent and suggest him/her to join the table could be handled by an algorithm for 90% of you. In the future, we'd like to have an automatic matchmaking for those of you that just want to "find an opponent asap". That may make the suggestion system obsolete.

So, considering all of this, we decided to "fix" the most obvious flaw of the suggestion system, not to make it a perfect system, but at least to make it a "less flawed" system while waiting for something more efficient, less invasive, and way more simple to use.

[Silene]

Some flaws may be fixed and I appreciate that - but that fix produced other flaws.

To have any chance to get the players I like to play with to my table I have to open restrictions widely (before the recent changes it was possible to suggest and put in the players who show up manually but now it's practically impossible to get them to the table at all).

So the flaw "suggestions sent to tables I can't join" will most likely turn into "suggestions sent to tables i CAN join but will be kicked from after I joined". Which is even more frustrating than before. (But honestly I probably won't do it like that and prefer staying frustrated myself)

But really - my friends can't see my table anymore because some dude red-thumbed them and I won't even notice and wonder why they are not coming to my game... this feels not right.

[Jest Phulin]

But really - my friends can't see my table anymore because some dude red-thumbed them and I won't even notice and wonder why they are not coming to my game... this feels not right.

I think that feels better to people than "Hey, I got an invitation to a table from my friend, let's drop everything and go there -- Oh, wait, that player is at the table, I'm not going to play with them." And, from the other side, "I'm sitting at a table with an unknown, and now I'm supposed to play with this person I gave a red thumb to? I was here first."

[demiurgsage]

So, considering all of this, we decided to "fix" the most obvious flaw of the suggestion system, not to make it a perfect system, but at least to make it a "less flawed" system while waiting for something more efficient, less invasive, and way more simple to use.

That was a step in the right direction.
Another flaw of the suggestion system is that it's connected with "Games I want to play" section. The fact you want to see a game in your lobby doesn't mean that you want to receive the suggestions to play this game. Isn't an obvious fix to allow players to add a game to "Games I want to play" without receiving suggestions for this game?

As for the current suggestion probably a compromise is possible.
I think a table starter should have an option to bypass restrictions of players red thumbs. Maybe when someone tries to suggest a player to join the game and receive "cannot suggest" answer make an option for him to send an improve suggestion that allow this player to join anyway. The other solution is a table option that ignore red thumbs. As this option will be visible to all players, it will not cause problems.
Also I should say that already there is a tool to bypass some restrictions. The table administrator can add a player directly by writing his name and reserve a place for him. I don't know if it bypasses red thumbs. But actually it's less polite than a suggestion.