Game speed

[dhnyny]

I'm surprised that the slow/normal/fast times for real-time games have suddenly gotten so much shorter and that there hasn't been any announcement (that I've seen) of this significant change. In my opinion, "slow" used to be painfully slow, "normal" was very relaxed, and "fast" was comfortable and reasonable. But we had our choice among these options when we set up tables. I could understand adding a "very fast" setting for players who found "fast" to be too slow. But why speed up all the settings and make them all faster than what used to be considered "normal"?

[Liallan]

There have been tons of complaints that the speeds are too slow. However, some people want the normal and slow speeds, and perhaps like them the way they are. On the rare occasions that I play live, I want the "painfully slow" (because I don't find it painful and like to take my time).

I would think those complaints were coming from people who already have it on fast, but that doesn't mean everyone wants all the speeds to be faster. A very fast would do. If slow has gotten faster, that might make the difference of whether I ever play live again.

[sourisdudesert]

Hi

Yes a change has been made on speed, for the reasons you explained and another reason: the previous system was based on a complex algorithm which was primarly taken into account the % of players receiving a 'clock' mark. The new algorithm is based on the average time taken by all players for a move for each game, so it is way more appropriate.

Note that it does not mean that the speed is higher for all games - for some games it actually decreased.

We are still evaluating this change and making adjustments. There will be an announcement before the end of this year about all the changes.

[Meeple Fool]

Hi @sourisdudesert,

Thank you for providing some rationales behind the change.

However, if we use the average time taken by all players in a particular game to set the time limit, the implication is that 50% of the players will be having out-of-time penalty, which certainly is not ideal.

Moreover, even if we are looking at one particular player whose average turn time is the same as the average turn time of all the players in a game, setting the time limit to that average turn time is still problematic: throughout a game, 50% of the time, that player will be getting out-of-time penalty too! It is because some turns are easy and she is able to make a move very quickly, but other turns are tough and will take more time. So setting the time limit at average does not help on the easy turns since those go fast anyway, but seriously cripple the turns that demand more thinking with harder decisions.

Since I do not know the exact algorithm you are using, I cannot say for sure whether it has the problem I stated. My point is that if the average is not used in a thoughtful way, the new algorithm could be only covering 50% of the players 50% of the time. I would think the goal should be at least covering 80% of the players 100% of the time or covering 100% of the players 80% of the time.

Personally, I played 3 games after the new time limit is implemented and got out-of-time penalty on 2 of the 3 games. If this trend continues, my reputation will be tarnished in no time.

[sourisdudesert]

The new algorithm is more or less: average time +60%.

According to our models, it is covering 95% of players.

We've also increased the difference between the "normal" and "slow": slow is now +60% above normal.

If you are over time, I recommand you to use the new "slow".

[evisceror]

I'm not sure this new system is well adapted has all games, for example to the tarot has almost all 4-player games players all found short out of time because it is much more strategic that has 5 players where we can play fast without reflection (and most of the games on this site are made by 5 players that skews the average think time).

[sourisdudesert]

As we said, we are experimenting a little bit to find the best solution here, so at now it may be not perfect.

With the previous algorithm, for some games you had some ridiculous time profiles, like "5:00 + 5:00 / turn".

I just slightly increase the time for the next days to see how it goes. We will also probably adjust the algorithm so it takes into account the particularity of each game.

[Chamnix318]

I believe you may have inadvertently changed the time limits for turn-based games already in progress.

For example, previously if a game was started with a time limit of 2 days plus 8 hours per turn, you could accumulate up to 48 hours of time. For new games started with 8 hour turns, there is a 24 hour maximum accumulated time. It seems that if you drop below 24 hours of time in any turn-based game with 8 hour moves, then your accumulated time does not go back above 24 hours now even if that wasn't the rule when the game was started.

I don't think you intended this to happen because it would certainly be unfair to change the time limits if people expected something different when they joined the game. Hopefully you can correct this before too many people receive undeserved penalties.

Thanks!

[Meeple Fool]

@sourisdudesert

The average time + 60% addresses the first problem I stated. It covers 95% of the people on average. However, it does not address the second problem I stated because the average time is not necessarily a good representation of the actual usage model.

Let's take an example.
If a game could go generally pretty fast for 80% of the turns, e.g. 1 minutes, but there are certain portion of the game (20%) that demands a longer thinking time, e.g. 3 minutes.
80%:1 minute
20%: 3 minutes
The average turn time of the above game will be 1.4 minutes. Adding 60% to it will make the turn time limit 2.24 minutes. On the surface, it might seems that the 2.24 minute time limit is a good one as it provides a reasonable buffer to the average of 1.4 minutes.

However, in practice, for the 80% of those turns, people still complete them in 1 minute anyway, so it does not help the player at all or save any actual play time. But for the 20% of the turns who call for harder decisions and demand more thinking time, the player will most likely get the out-of-time penalty because the player has 25% less time to think.

Sure, it is a very simplified example but the central idea is valid.

[evisceror]

It's true that 5 minutes was a little too much like normal thinking for many games. In all cases I found that this experimentation is an excellent initiative and that some games will require a little adjustment to avoid too frequent time penalties.