Please Let Me Concede

[FrankJones]

There are a few reasons for it. The first one is I miscalculate which actions to do first, in what order, etc. Sometimes, I have really good cards, but I probably do them in the wrong turn order. I usually only realize this towards the end when I realized that I did something in the wrong turn order. It isn't always apparent in the moment. I try to take each turn as it's whole separate entity because something could potentially change on a dime. Only later did the "Well, I should have laid eggs first/taken food first/draw birds first/etc. on that turn." often dawns on me. But at that specific turn, how could I have known that was going to happen? It's asking me to have predictive abilities which I either do not have or the game expects you to have.

Regardless, the better players have a plan. I too sometimes lack a clear plan, but often it means I'm not thinking carefully enough. I have had plenty of games in which I felt I had no clear path in round 1, only to have an expert player review it and show me 5 things I could have done differently.

Another one is simple RNG, which usually goes against me. For example, I almost always lose the first round goal because my opponent, somehow either has all the cards in their opening hand, or they go first and draw a bird from the tray that fulfills that requirement. Sometimes, I do have birds that fulfill the requirement, but they are often bad and would put me in a much worse position later. For example, if the requirements birds with a nativity nest that has an egg and I have an Acorn Woodpecker and a Black-bellied Whistling Duck in my opening hand. I could play those cards, but those cards are terrible, so it's not worth investing 5 seed, wasting 3-5 turns (depending on what's in the tray) all just to hope my opponent doesn't have at least 2 birds to deny me winning that round. Now, the first round isn't always the deciding factor, but getting a hole early is very, very hard to claw back from. You have to hope the RNG gods will help you. And if you don't, well, what else could you have done? Not very fun to get screwed by RNG, unable to do much while you're opponent is cooking normally.

Ah, come on. You really believe this? The RNG is causing you this much difficulty? If we were to actually look at your games, I doubt this would be true. I suspect we would see that you win the R1 goal more often than you are suggesting, or, you are losing it in games in which you could have won it.

Or, maybe sometimes you cannot do anything about the R1 goal. So, start setting up for the other 3 goals. I really doubt that your opponents are consistently getting cards that give them the R1 goal and a good engine and set them up for the other goals.

RNG-blaming is something sub-250 Elo players usually do a lot of. You're at 388 Elo. Don't blame RNG. I don't believe that you honestly believe you are just chronically unlucky over 2200 games.

You could argue that on the first point, I could improve. But it feels like I'd have to know what cards my opponent potentially has. I've seen you say in responses to me saying, "What's the plan?" Well, I can't exactly have a plan because I don't have enough information most of the time to have a set plan throughout the game. I could be going along just fine, and then suddenly, my opponent plays an American Crow right next to their Spotted Towhee in the Grassland in early Round 2. All because they got lucky drawing the Crow or having had it in their opening hand, which I didn't know about. At point, there's nothing you can do to win unless you have cards that help you get a lot of food to throw down expensive cards to combat their double-action egg-laying and food gain on every turn.

Well, sometimes you see which cards your opponent takes from the tray. You say it's impossible to make a plan. Well, how to the 700 Elo players manage? They just get lucky RNG?

Yes, sometimes your opponent will play a series of high tier cards in the grassland, but you make it sound as though it happens every game and that's the main reason you don't win more. Again, I doubt this is true.

Okay, let's take for example someone who has an American Crow, Purple Martin, an American Robin, and a Barn Swallow in the Grassland by the end of Round 3. ... [Truncated] ... How could you say, at that point, that you had not lost the game in that scenario?

Yeah, you're going to lose that game. So what? Play out the final round with the goal of scoring as many net points as you possibly can.
Or don't, but you're missing out on what could be some strategic and tactical practice.

Or, you could continue to dismiss every possible suggestion for why you're stagnant, and continue to be stagnant. It depends on what your goals are for the game. Your other posts indicate to me that you want to learn and improve; that you don't like losing. Your intense aversion to losing seems to be part of your frequent early concessions.

And yet you are very resistant to help, constructive suggestions on how to improve.

You're a bit of an enigma.

[FrankJones]

As for the winner, when they know they've already won the game long beforehand, what other reason could they have to go through the final turn besides making themselves feel good? I don't buy the whole "suspenseful ending" when they are winning 100-50 in the final turns. Okay, the odds someone turning it around in that situation are like 0.00000000000024%, so yeah, they "have a chance." But c'mon, do I need to explain how ridiculous that is? "Be that 0.00000000000024%!" is NOT a good point, I'm sorry.

What is going on in your games that you seem to suggest these type of games happen often, or even just more than occasionally? I rarely have my own runaway grassland nor encounter an opponent runaway grassland.

If I looked at your last 50 games (which I won't), do you really believe that your somewhat outlandish claims of bad luck (and other such things you believe you cannot control) would hold up to scrutiny?

[tbhp]

As for enjoying playing the game, if they removed things like ELO and rankings, then I'd be fine with it. I'd enjoy games much more with less stress. But since that's never going to happen and people are going to care about their ELO and ranking to some degree, then, at least in my case, I can't simply "enjoy playing the game" when my ELO, win-rate and ranking are publicly available for all to see. Which means they can know how bad I am at playing.

I thought you only cared about winning but now you say you'd be fine if they removed those metrics, which is contradictory. Seems like you care much less about winning than FrankJones and I do, then. So it seems the actual issue is that you care too much about what other people think, and that is preventing you from enjoying the game. It's not that you are simply not able to enjoy game elements like I previously thought.

[tbhp]

The win rate and skill are likely correlated with playing the game to completion and watching their opponent's moves to learn from them.

I'm not sure about that. I would agree that there is a lot of value in holding onto games that are probably lost but that you might win if you come up with the necessary thought. This is something that both makes you improve at the game and has an impact on your Elo, considering that in order to reach the highest Elo levels, even small differences in winrates matter.

On the other hand, if you know a game is 100% lost, I'm not sure what can be learned from that, since what happens after that point is not illustrative of future situations where you'd have a chance to win, and observing your opponent isn't particularly helpful either since they are guaranteed to win, so at this point they are just wrapping up their game.

Of course, if the end moves involve a certain complexity you may still learn from watching, but that's not something specific to having lost the game, it's something you would also learn from the same way in any other game.

[tbhp]

My point is that it's degrading when you feel you MUST stay in a losing effort. That is my contention in all of this. If you want to finish a game because you want to, I have no problem with that. But if you feel you absolutely have to stay no matter what, then I'm asking what are those motivations for doing so. The loser is saying that they feel compelled in some way that they must do it. Why?

You bring up the subject of honor. Okay, honor, like sportsmanship, is a subjective viewpoint. People's definitions on those things vary. So, you could explain what "honor" means to you, and I can disagree with it. An argument based on a highly subjective viewpoint is not a good foundation for an argument to keep me staying in a clearly losing effort.

Let's use an analogy that I think is illustrative enough. Let's say you are invited to the marriage of your friends. It's not you who is getting married, so you aren't benefiting in that sense, but you are happy to see the couple getting married, the ceremony is beautiful and the party is a lot of fun, so you have a good time being present at that marriage.

So, that first version of the analogy is akin to finishing a game that you didn't win, but that you still find interesting in various aspects. Now, let's see the version where you still care about the people who invited you to their marriage, but you aren't having fun at the event because it's just not very well done and the people there are boring. Do you feel it's degrading that you feel you have to stay? No, you wouldn't see it like that I presume. You would still feel honored to be present at the marriage, and you would see it as your duty to make act of your presence. It's not something you would do reluctantly either, it's just that it fits within your values and you consider it normal that you'd stay for the full duration of your friends' marriage even if you don't personally find it very fun. At the end of the day, it's still a marriage. Its value is something much bigger than whether the particular event was well organized or not. It's about the meaning inherent to a marriage and that has to be respected in all cases.

Now apply that to games. Sometimes they are not about our own success, sometimes they are not very interesting, but they all deserve the same reverence from us. And most importantly, they involve someone else whose feelings matter. Your friends wouldn't like it if their marriage was ruined because everyone decided to leave. Similarly, you have to think of the state you're leaving your opponent in if you decide to just cancel the plans they had for the last moves of their game.

[Archisian]

Regardless, the better players have a plan. I too sometimes lack a clear plan, but often it means I'm not thinking carefully enough. I have had plenty of games in which I felt I had no clear path in round 1, only to have an expert player review it and show me 5 things I could have done differently.

Now, my question to you on this point is this: how could an expert player know all of those things at once all in that particular moment? I know in hindsight, you could have found better moves. But in the specific moment is the main issue I have when playing games. Do expert players know all that on a particular turn at the moment? If they do, is it only from experience playing or am I just not intelligent enough to get it?

Ah, come on. You really believe this? The RNG is causing you this much difficulty? If we were to actually look at your games, I doubt this would be true. I suspect we would see that you win the R1 goal more often than you are suggesting, or, you are losing it in games in which you could have won it.

Or, maybe sometimes you cannot do anything about the R1 goal. So, start setting up for the other 3 goals. I really doubt that your opponents are consistently getting cards that give them the R1 goal and a good engine and set them up for the other goals.

RNG-blaming is something sub-250 Elo players usually do a lot of. You're at 388 Elo. Don't blame RNG. I don't believe that you honestly believe you are just chronically unlucky over 2200 games.

Okay, a bit hyperbolic. I'll take this part back. But RNG can play a part sometimes.

Well, sometimes you see which cards your opponent takes from the tray. You say it's impossible to make a plan. Well, how to the 700 Elo players manage? They just get lucky RNG?

Right. The only information I can have is what cards they take from the tray. Everything after is an assumption.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you believe 700 ELO players do it?

Yes, sometimes your opponent will play a series of high tier cards in the grassland, but you make it sound as though it happens every game and that's the main reason you don't win more. Again, I doubt this is true.

I just gave that one as an example, I don't think that happens every game. The point I was trying to illustrate is that until your opponent lays down the card, unless you saw it from the tray, you don't know what they exactly have. And once you do, you'll know if you still have a chance or not.

Yeah, you're going to lose that game. So what? Play out the final round with the goal of scoring as many net points as you possibly can.
Or don't, but you're missing out on what could be some strategic and tactical practice.

Please, help me understand this point because you guys often say things like this. I actually genuinely don't understand.

You said that I would lose in that scenario no matter what. So how, exactly, does continuing to play and trying to get as many points in a clearly losing effort help me understand strategy and practice more. Like, if I did that particular strategy, I'd win in some other hypothetical scenario or something? I really don't get it. Maybe I'm not intelligent enough, I don't know. But, it seems to me, that all I'm doing is playing a strategy that may or not work in some other situation that is impossible to predict. The only thing I would know is that's not working in the current game we described.

Or, you could continue to dismiss every possible suggestion for why you're stagnant, and continue to be stagnant. It depends on what your goals are for the game. Your other posts indicate to me that you want to learn and improve; that you don't like losing. Your intense aversion to losing seems to be part of your frequent early concessions.

And yet you are very resistant to help, constructive suggestions on how to improve.

You're a bit of an enigma.

If you feel I'm being dismissive, I'm truly not. It's mostly because I don't understand either the suggestion itself or how it is applied in a certain context. For example, in some of the games I played, you had said I like I should have drawn this bird, played this bird, taken this food, laid eggs at this time, etc. And that's all and good, but what I want to know is, if you were in those exact moments, how do you know for sure that that was the correct play to make? The way you write, you try to use a bit of a Socratic Method to ask me questions to see if I can find the answer myself. Which I think is great! But for me, when it comes to games, it doesn't really work for me. I'm someone that needs detailed information for me to fully grasp something mechanically speaking.

So when I question a suggestion or try to relay experiences I have, I'm really not trying to be dismissive. It's really because I don't understand fully the suggestion and it's application in the context we are talking about at the time.

[Archisian]

As for enjoying playing the game, if they removed things like ELO and rankings, then I'd be fine with it. I'd enjoy games much more with less stress. But since that's never going to happen and people are going to care about their ELO and ranking to some degree, then, at least in my case, I can't simply "enjoy playing the game" when my ELO, win-rate and ranking are publicly available for all to see. Which means they can know how bad I am at playing.

I thought you only cared about winning but now you say you'd be fine if they removed those metrics, which is contradictory. Seems like you care much less about winning than FrankJones and I do, then. So it seems the actual issue is that you care too much about what other people think, and that is preventing you from enjoying the game. It's not that you are simply not able to enjoy game elements like I previously thought.

If there are no stakes involved, then no, I'm not that bothered by losing. If I'm hanging out with friends just chilling and playing board games, then I don't really care if I lose.

[tbhp]

Because, I believe, many people here aren't being all that honest when it comes to how they approach games. They DO CARE about winning and losing, they DO KNOW losing nets them nothing, they DO KNOW that clicking "end turn" on the final turn doesn't automatically increase their understanding of why they lost, they DO KNOW "just happy to be here" is incomparable to receiving a cash prize or being considered one of the best players in the world. They mostly want to feel sense of superiority over those who are honest about those things and want to call them "sore losers".

People are being perfectly honest. They've told you many times how much they care about winning (a lot more than you apparently since you said you wouldn't care if the site stopped being competitive). In this thread you are talking to people who are fiercely competitive and have been Elo leaders in several games, and yet you are acting like you are the only one willing to admit winning is so important when in reality you don't even seem particularly interested in being competitive yourself.

The difference is that for you the situation seems to be a binary "all or nothing" where if winning isn't achieved, then anything else that otherwise could have had value stops having value. As if the whole history and culture of a game revolves around what you've personally achieved in it. Well, most people who care about a particular game or sport care about all the things related to it, not just if they or their team won something.

Normally, the amount you care about winning should correspond to the amount you care in general and subsequently how much you care about your losses and the other games you didn't take part in. Caring about your achievements is inconsistent with not caring about the fate of every game, because your achievements are part of the overall game culture you exist in. If you don't respect your opponents and their games then how can you respect yours?

[FrankJones]

I don't know how the 700 Elo players do it. I'm not a 700 Elo player. Granted, I've peaked above 500, and I've only played 91 games.

The point is, expert and master level players find ways. Obviously, it's not easy, that's why most games have only a small percentage of players reach 500 Elo in any game, let alone 700 Elo.

To answer your other question: The reason it helps to play out the final round is to increase your practice and experience maximizing your efficiency and scoring in the final round.

Looking at your graph, your average Elo seems to be around 300, with occasional spikes upward to 400. This means there is no one thing you're doing wrong. You're likely making mistakes in your opening hand selection, your first round planning, and also your end game. Thus, getting practice in all phases is valuable.

Think about a difficult video game. The final few stages/levels/etc. are especially difficult. Not only because they are inherently difficult, but because we get fewer repetitions at those final stages because the game usually ends before we get there, and there's nothing we can do about it. In board games, unlike a video game, we get to play out that final stage even if we do poorly in the earlier stages.

I remember a game I loved to play a lot: SSX tricky on the game cube. A snowboarding game. I would try the first level over and over trying to nail all the key jumps and tricks. If I was having a bad run, knowing it wouldn't beat my top score, I still finished the run. Why? Because the last two jumps were the hardest, and if I kept resetting every time I missed an early jump, I would never get those last two jumps to land. And then I would finally do the perfect run up to those final jumps, but miss them because I hadn't gotten enough reps at those difficult final jumps.

[FrankJones]

Also, notice, the same page that had your Elo graph I have referenced also has your overall stats.

Comparing your stats to the winners' stats, you are averaging 17.12 points from EOR goals. 17.12 !!!!

22 is the maximum if you sweep all 4. Your average score for each of the 4 is higher than the winners average. So, no, bad RNG for the R1 goal is not causing you any problems. Which calls into question everything else you said. People cannot be relied upon to accurately state the details of their games correctly. We suffer from confirmation bias, elective memory, etc.

Granted, we can't know how accurate your stats are because some games to not correctly log stats from conceded or forfeited games.