Board Game Arena

Isn't the confirm just to make sure you didn't missclick? The countdown would basically help reduce the ability for players being able to use it as a way to review the position by making their move and looking to see if it's right. That way, they'd only have time to check they clicked the spot they meant to click rather than if it's the right move.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 20:26 Isn't the confirm just to make sure you didn't missclick? The countdown would basically help reduce the ability for players being able to use it as a way to review the position by making their move and looking to see if it's right. That way, they'd only have time to check they clicked the spot they meant to click rather than if it's the right move.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, but that is the problem.

In some games (A Feast for Odin), you can only review your move in the confirm state, since that is the moment when you finally placed your tiles, got your resources, and so forth. A timer prevents this.

Being able to review your turn in a complex game is good, since it helps avoid mistakes.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 20:30

Ceaseless wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 20:26 Isn't the confirm just to make sure you didn't missclick? The countdown would basically help reduce the ability for players being able to use it as a way to review the position by making their move and looking to see if it's right. That way, they'd only have time to check they clicked the spot they meant to click rather than if it's the right move.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, but that is the problem.

In some games (A Feast for Odin), you can only review your move in the confirm state, since that is the moment when you finally placed your tiles, got your resources, and so forth. A timer prevents this.

Being able to review your turn in a complex game is good, since it helps avoid mistakes.

Are you saying there are different confirm timers? The games I've played with review timers, such as Boop, haven't had this issue. You can see the full board without any issue, you just have a few seconds to check that you didn't misclick anything, but ideally the timer is short enough to avoid players checking if they misplayed.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 21:14Are you saying there are different confirm timers? The games I've played with review timers, such as Boop, haven't had this issue. You can see the full board without any issue, you just have a few seconds to check that you didn't misclick anything, but ideally the timer is short enough to avoid players checking if they misplayed.

Yes, some games have timers without the option to turn them off in real-time, and you can't see the final state to check misplays until the timer starts (as far as I know).

Most games are fine, so this may be more a concern for specific games. I've created a suggestion for Feast for Odin Norwegians, for example.


I absolutely disagree about misplay checking -- players already have a timer on their turn, and they should be allowed and even encouraged to check for misplays, which harm the game for everyone.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 21:21

Ceaseless wrote: ↑02 April 2024, 21:14Are you saying there are different confirm timers? The games I've played with review timers, such as Boop, haven't had this issue. You can see the full board without any issue, you just have a few seconds to check that you didn't misclick anything, but ideally the timer is short enough to avoid players checking if they misplayed.

Yes, some games have timers without the option to turn them off in real-time, and you can't see the final state to check misplays until the timer starts (as far as I know).

Most games are fine, so this may be more a concern for specific games. I've created a suggestion for Feast for Odin Norwegians, for example.


I absolutely disagree about misplay checking -- players already have a timer on their turn, and they should be allowed and even encouraged to check for misplays, which harm the game for everyone.

Check for misplays before they make their move, not after. I'm also not sure where you're getting that misplays are bad for the game, misplays are a significant part of the game. People slip up, make oversights, and the better player prevails for their ability to punish those errors and whose mistakes are more difficult to punish and happen with less frequency.

And yes, that's exactly what I refer to in Boop, you can't see what the board looks like from your move until the timer starts, and only get a few seconds to confirm your move. Ideally long enough to make sure you did what you meant to, and hopefully short enough you don't have enough time to further check if it's the best position. So basically enough to make the confirm not "oh sorry, I take that back" but just "oh, that's not where I meant to click." In other words, no actual thinking during the confirm button time, just "yeah, that was the move I planned to make".

Maybe the word "misplay" in GTSchemer's response should be "misclick", at least that's how I interpreted it. If you win because of an opponent's misclick that ruins their game and dramatically improves your position, is that really a victory and cause for celebration? If you lose solely because of your own misclick, is there anything to learn from that game? It's better if everybody makes the moves they intended to make, especially in a long game.

Champions of the timer have argued that it is a compromise between the desire of players to have a way to correct their move if they misclicked and the BGA Studio Guidelines rule of thumb to not allow undo or create undo/confirm states. A user preference for whether to have a confirm state or not is a compromise. A timer isn't a compromise, it is introducing a new element into the design. If some people want the lights on and some want them off, is it a compromise to turn on a strobe light?

It's very easy for us to sit comfortably theorizing and calculating the optimal number of seconds, but as you can see from the shared experiences on this thread, it is stressful being presented with an unexpected question in a new environment and having a very short time to react. "A few seconds" has a very different meaning for different people. A developer who knows rules of the game better than almost everyone on earth, knows BGA, and has designed the implementation would have a very different idea about how much time is appropriate to confirm than a person playing this implementation for the first time who is new to the game and/or BGA in general.

The problem isn't the number of seconds, it's that we are counting in seconds.

I'm reminded of a famous video from several years ago of Billy on the Street asking a girl to "name a woman...any woman" and the girl is flustered for several seconds, unable to answer a simple question because of the sudden pressure of a man screaming with a microphone. These timers are like Billy running up to you putting a microphone in your face and yelling "Confirm your move! you have 5 seconds! 4! 3!..." I wouldn't want to play at a physical table with someone who does that, why should it be the default here?

It does strike me as rather ridiculous when you have 48 hours to make your move and 5 seconds to confirm it. Perhaps it would be best if the timer allowed several minutes for confirmation in turn-based games.

paramesis wrote: ↑03 April 2024, 18:43 Maybe the word "misplay" in GTSchemer's response should be "misclick", at least that's how I interpreted it. If you win because of an opponent's misclick that ruins their game and dramatically improves your position, is that really a victory and cause for celebration? If you lose solely because of your own misclick, is there anything to learn from that game? It's better if everybody makes the moves they intended to make, especially in a long game.

Champions of the timer have argued that it is a compromise between the desire of players to have a way to correct their move if they misclicked and the BGA Studio Guidelines rule of thumb to not allow undo or create undo/confirm states. A user preference for whether to have a confirm state or not is a compromise. A timer isn't a compromise, it is introducing a new element into the design. If some people want the lights on and some want them off, is it a compromise to turn on a strobe light?

It's very easy for us to sit comfortably theorizing and calculating the optimal number of seconds, but as you can see from the shared experiences on this thread, it is stressful being presented with an unexpected question in a new environment and having a very short time to react. "A few seconds" has a very different meaning for different people. A developer who knows rules of the game better than almost everyone on earth, knows BGA, and has designed the implementation would have a very different idea about how much time is appropriate to confirm than a person playing this implementation for the first time who is new to the game and/or BGA in general.

The problem isn't the number of seconds, it's that we are counting in seconds.

I'm reminded of a famous video from several years ago of Billy on the Street asking a girl to "name a woman...any woman" and the girl is flustered for several seconds, unable to answer a simple question because of the sudden pressure of a man screaming with a microphone. These timers are like Billy running up to you putting a microphone in your face and yelling "Confirm your move! you have 5 seconds! 4! 3!..." I wouldn't want to play at a physical table with someone who does that, why should it be the default here?

It's not an unknown question though, you know ahead of time what the question is. "Did you make your intended move?" You have plenty of time to calculate what it should look like, what the board is, etc. All you are doing is saying "yeah, I hit exactly what I meant to hit". Billy basically sent you a note ahead of time with the question, let you give the answer, and it isn't until then that they go asking "are you sure?"

As for your compromise question, the answer is sure, that's a possible compromise. How reasonable it is will depend on the interests of the two crowds in question. Why do they want the lights on/off, etc.

King Hrothbeort wrote: ↑03 April 2024, 19:17 It does strike me as rather ridiculous when you have 48 hours to make your move and 5 seconds to confirm it. Perhaps it would be best if the timer allowed several minutes for confirmation in turn-based games.

I'm not seeing your point. Why compare two entirely different features? If anything the opposite correlation may be more accurate, since you have so much time to determine the move ahead of time, the concern for missclicks is much less and you don't need as much time for verification with functionally endless time to decide already. That said, I'd probably just lob the same timer for them all, even if you have lots more time to make your move and avoid missclicks, the same amount of confirmation time is probably fine anyways, no need to reduce it.

I could see a case for different confirm times for different games, games with very simple moves, such as Chess, where few pieces are moved, compared to a game where more things might get pushed around as a result of a game. (I do not refer to the complexity involved in deciding what move to make, as the goal is not to analyze anything about the position, just whether the move was played.) But a 90+30 chess game shouldn't take any longer to verify a missclick than 15+10.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 April 2024, 20:32

paramesis wrote: ↑03 April 2024, 18:43 Maybe the word "misplay" in GTSchemer's response should be "misclick", at least that's how I interpreted it. If you win because of an opponent's misclick that ruins their game and dramatically improves your position, is that really a victory and cause for celebration? If you lose solely because of your own misclick, is there anything to learn from that game? It's better if everybody makes the moves they intended to make, especially in a long game.

Champions of the timer have argued that it is a compromise between the desire of players to have a way to correct their move if they misclicked and the BGA Studio Guidelines rule of thumb to not allow undo or create undo/confirm states. A user preference for whether to have a confirm state or not is a compromise. A timer isn't a compromise, it is introducing a new element into the design. If some people want the lights on and some want them off, is it a compromise to turn on a strobe light?

It's very easy for us to sit comfortably theorizing and calculating the optimal number of seconds, but as you can see from the shared experiences on this thread, it is stressful being presented with an unexpected question in a new environment and having a very short time to react. "A few seconds" has a very different meaning for different people. A developer who knows rules of the game better than almost everyone on earth, knows BGA, and has designed the implementation would have a very different idea about how much time is appropriate to confirm than a person playing this implementation for the first time who is new to the game and/or BGA in general.

The problem isn't the number of seconds, it's that we are counting in seconds.

I'm reminded of a famous video from several years ago of Billy on the Street asking a girl to "name a woman...any woman" and the girl is flustered for several seconds, unable to answer a simple question because of the sudden pressure of a man screaming with a microphone. These timers are like Billy running up to you putting a microphone in your face and yelling "Confirm your move! you have 5 seconds! 4! 3!..." I wouldn't want to play at a physical table with someone who does that, why should it be the default here?

It's not an unknown question though, you know ahead of time what the question is. "Did you make your intended move?" You have plenty of time to calculate what it should look like, what the board is, etc. All you are doing is saying "yeah, I hit exactly what I meant to hit". Billy basically sent you a note ahead of time with the question, let you give the answer, and it isn't until then that they go asking "are you sure?"

Sorry, but this is a ridiculous response. Of course you don't "know ahead of time" you're going to get this ridiculous timer confirmation. Sure, I've seen it enough on BGA that it is no longer a huge shock when I get it in a game I haven't played before - but its guaranteed effect on me then is to get me to panic a bit, likely click the button without thinking anything through, then explore the UI options menu hoping against hope the developer was at least thoughtful enough to turn it off.

I'm OK with not getting the opportunity to confirm (assuming I didn't actually misclick), and I'm OK with getting it - but if I'm going to be asked to confirm, I want the time to consider it. And as others have said, it doesn't matter hugely even if that's 60 seconds - that might make me panic a little less, but still seeing seconds count down is at best annoying. If the developer considers it a reasonable courtesy to allow me to confirm that I really meant to do everything I did before ending my turn, great - but why not then trust me to do that check in my own time? Particularly in turn-based games, which are what I almost exclusively play (but even in real-time, it shouldn't slow down the game - I already have a clock ticking against me, so god knows why I need another one imposed on top of it).

Ultimately I'd turn the question on its head and asked: what is gained by this timer? The only gain I see is for people who might make their move, then shut down their browser/computer/app thinking they're done, without realising they're being asked to confirm. I guess such people might exist, although it seems like strange behaviour to me (if it's a game I don't know that well, then I always wait until it says it's waiting for another player to do something before moving on, because why wouldn't you? and if I know the game well, I probably know the BGA adaptation is going to ask me to confirm - and even if I don't remember, it's pretty obvious when it actually does that, closing the window after a fraction of a second without even waiting seems pretty weird to me). But even then, that's why games have timers, or (in non-competitive environments) chat windows that you can use to message the other players.

Really I don't complain too much as long as the developer makes the timer optional, because apparently some like it. But others should accept that many of us don't, and manage much better without. (In an ideal world this also wouldn't be the default, but maybe more prefer it that way than without, and in any case I can't complain too much if I only have to deal with it once.)

(By the way, you're final bit about the strobe-light analogy, which I didn't quote but have decided in the end to comment on, was the most ridiculous part of your whole reply. Someone wants it light, someone wants it dark. Maybe there's a compromise available there - a low/moderate amount of light perhaps. But how can you possibly suggest a sane compromise involves giving neither anything resembling what they want, while risking either/both of them having an epileptic fit? It's a bit of a stretched analogy so I don't want to dwell too long on it, but seriously - what the hell??)