Regarding upcoming update and closure of competitive features

[dschingis27]

As a consequence, 6x7 board size will be limited as a training mode only option.

That is a really bad idea. It would mean that I could play standard Connect Four only without time limits? Having the default in Training Mode is not a good idea. Is there any other game on BGA where the usual common way to play the game is only available in Training Mode?

I do appreciate the new boardsizes and the idea to have no Arena competition in the standard 6x7. But to take away the standard from normal mode and to take away the Elo of all players who play the game honestly is far to extreme.

[ufm]

This is nonsense. If players want to use solvers or other outside help, they'll find a way to do so in any game, whether it's completely solved or not. That's no reason to reduce 6x7 to training-mode only. Those players who don't cheat still enjoy their ELO rating, regardless of whether others cheat or not.

I heard similar arguments elsewhere. However, it's a straw man fallacy.
If a game requires deep and complex programs to solve which cannot be accessed through a minute of internet surf, I don't think it's a big problem.
Theoretically almost all games can be cheated with custom heuristic algorithm, brute force, or whatever stuff, but it's mostly implausible.
For instance, nobody worries about such a cheat in euro or party games, and many of abstract games in fact (of course I don't too).
Also, although there are more than 10 games on BGA with solvers which can be found by a single web search,
I didn't argue to put all of their competitive features down or reset ELO.
So in short, it's a game-specific problem and does not require a universal solution.

That is a really bad idea. It would mean that I could play standard Connect Four only without time limits? Having the default in Training Mode is not a good idea. Is there any other game on BGA where the usual common way to play the game is only available in Training Mode?

I do appreciate the new boardsizes and the idea to have no Arena competition in the standard 6x7. But to take away the standard from normal mode and to take away the Elo of all players who play the game honestly is far to extreme.

Again, ELO is a competitive feature per se. Competitive 6x7 in BGA has proven to be dysfunctional.
Can honest players crack top ELO ranking of Connect Four (the last top player had ELO around 1200) without solver?
Also, the essence of the game did not change.
Initially it might be painful for few genuine players with enormously high ratings (most of players below 300 will find their rating back soon).
However, without solver influence honest strong players can regain ratings even quicker and end up with higher ranks.

By the way, the first player advantage of 6x7 board size is well known.
6x7 has never been a good board size for competition regardless of its familiarity.

[dschingis27]

@ufm: But why should we restrict the standard Connect Four only to be played without time limits? This is the biggest concern I have. That would mean that I can play the standard version of the game only with friends.

[ufm]

@ufm: But why should we restrict the standard Connect Four only to be played without time limits? This is the biggest concern I have. That would mean that I can play the standard version of the game only with friends.

You don't have to. Training mode does not prevent non-friends from joining the game.
As I mentioned, most of 2 player training games actually end without quits in the middle.

Will those larger boards become available on bga?

I said so on the original post...

[Romain672]

There is a part of information you don't have btw: what would happen if the game was left alone for two more years with top players as 'cheaters'.
You would have 'cheaters' at the top of the ranking.
And below that you would find people who would complain about those cheaters. Would they still playing?
If no, what would happen to people below it?

It's possible the game could became unplayable in all levels.

[dschingis27]

@Romain, please specify which comment you are refering to. (Who is "you" in your comment?) It's actually hard to get what you want to say.

If things are changed as suggested by ufm, then cheating is pretty much solved entirely (except for multi-accounting which is a problem for all games). However, we would have the disadvantages mentioned by Gernot and me.

If things are only changed for Arena mode, then cheating is solved for Arena but will for sure still happen for Elo leaderboards. Changing things for Arena seems to be a very good idea, I don't see any good argument against it. The question is how much do we care for the Elo leaderboards to ban 6x7 to training mode.

[wontaketoomuchtime]

@ufm: But why should we restrict the standard Connect Four only to be played without time limits? This is the biggest concern I have. That would mean that I can play the standard version of the game only with friends.

You don't have to. Training mode does not prevent non-friends from joining the game.
As I mentioned, most of 2 player training games actually end without quits in the middle.

Will those larger boards become available on bga?

I said so on the original post...

If things go, conenct4 will probably become the (only) PvP game here, that the most played settings (and default settings) is only available in training mode, yet the game contains other settings, that can be played in normal mode. It is weird and different from the training mode games finished properly, because usually training modes are used for testing purpose/friends/non-pvp settings, which is not the case for connect4.

ufm how about making the new connect4 settings a separate game, and keep the current connect4 6x7 settings in normal mode? Like there are many many trick taking games on BGA, some with only slight rules differences, but they become another game, something like that

[ypaul]

I’m actually for creating a separate game too.

I disagree that 6x7 isn’t a good format to play competitively. It absolutely is for humans; just that there are the few that ruin it for all of us. As broken as the leaderboards might be for this game, there’s no denying that this game is really popular among players of all types of games, and it would be a shame if we take that away because I absolutely do believe that it could be a good gateway to some of the more-advanced pure strategy games.

I think it’s best to leave it as it is. Sure, in the context of BGA, it’s weird to have two versions of essentially the same game, but sometimes, there’s value in giving minimal support for legacy stuff.

For those that take these kinds of games more seriously, you’ll understand that having different-sized boards make them different beasts altogether. 13x13 (not available on BGA), 14x14 and 15x15 Hex, for example, are very different games as the strategy can change completely, and they each deserve to have their own individual ELO, but the BGA framework is unable to cater for that, so we’ll have to live with it. But the point that I’m trying to make is that there is most definitely the argument that these variants are different enough to warrant its own game either way.

[ufm]

I also want to have separate ratings for different game modes (player numbers, variants, expansions, etc.).
In many games rules and/or game plays themselves vastly change according to these options.
But that won't probably happen. It is way too complex to have such a feature for every game on BGA.
BGA implemented option rotation in Arena mode to solve that problem, but that solution doesn't work in this game as you see.

However, separating 6x7 as an individual game isn't an option.
Creating a separate game is allowed only when the similar but still different games were published independently (e.g. Oh Hell / Wizard / Rage).
In this case the game itself (regardless of actual gameplay and strategy) didn't change at all but only the board size. It doesn't qualify.
For instance, I asked admins to separate Caro from Gomoku but the request was denied.
In contrast, Pente is allowed to have a separate implementation (albeit the name is trademarked).

Maybe disabling only ELO ranks/ELO trophies and banning 6x7 in Arena, or just setting ELO change in 6x7 as 0 would be good alternatives.
But I don't think any of these are possible. Connect Four is an edge case. I'll ask admins nevertheless.

I disagree that 6x7 isn’t a good format to play competitively.

Compared to other board sizes, I meant.

[ypaul]

I guess if all else fails, making the ELO change zero is a decent compromise because it helps with the requests for retaining timed games.