Upcoming updates

[ufm]

BGA Gomoku was developed years ago, so there were rooms for improvement here and there.
Recently I took over as the maintenance developer to fix bugs and add highly requested features.


- Confirmation

Confirm/reset buttons are displayed after placing the stone.
Even a player places 5 stones in a row, the player must confirm the move to win the game.
Red actions (confirm and swap) are irreversible.
Confirmation uses BGA undo framework, so placing a stone and retracting it later will be displayed to the opponent while they are online.
Many abstracts implement confirmation through BGA undo and I hardly see major objections.

Players can switch this option from player preference panel below game screen. The default is 'No' now.
If this option is off, placing the last stone of a turn (equals every stone except swaps' first two stones and swap2's fourth stone from the second choice) or 'End Placement' button from the second turn of swap2 are also irreversible.

- Variants

Plenty of players asked to remove or separate Caro variant from Gomoku (and I personally agree), but it was explicitly declined.
Hence, I added description labels on initial game page, table lobby screen, and game screen.
Plus, Caro variant will allow overline win as well as unblocked 5 in a row.
Freestyle mode (Gomoku which allows overline victory) is also added.
The default option is the same as before, Standard.

- Board sizes

9x9, 13x13, 15x15, 19x19 (previous default and the only option) are available.
9x9 is available in only training mode.
Since worldwide official Gomoku organizations have switched to 15x15 long ago, the new default option will be 15x15.

- Opening rules

Current 'Tournament' option is renamed as 'Pro'.
Also, long pro, swap, swap2 openings are added.
No opening rule/pro/long pro will be unavailable in normal mode due to the first player advantage.
With these deprecated rules white cannot win unless black blunders.
The new default option will be swap2, which has been the official opening rule for decades.

- Statistics

New statistics regarding swaps and win ratio are added.

- Highlight last move

Red outline and gray box highlight last move. They can be turned on/off from user preference.



A sad news: Arena mode and ranking will be closed after this season.

While working with Gomoku I found and received some complaints about engine uses.
Indeed there were an influx of players whose moves exactly match lines of strong engines, and they went to dominate ELO and Arena.
However, adding opening rules and new board sizes does not solve the problem.
I have sent a few chosen active Gomoku Arena players a private survey form to address this.
As the result, Arena mode and ranking will be closed and associated trophies will be retroactively removed.
I apologize for any inconvenience of genuine players this may cause.
Normal mode games and ELO will be still available, without any ranking trophies.

[megamau]

Thanks for all the work done on this game. Really good and detailed.
I hope it will help creating a strong comunity of players here, attracting people currently on vint.ee or other more dedicated servers.

However I can not avoid to point out 2 things:

1) We need sitewide the possibility to resign in two-players gamess and have an hard clock (maybe fischer, but without having to "expeel other player"). Until that time, it will be difficult to attract serious competitive players here

2) Removing the "competitive" part (Arena and Trophies) of games where you find evidence of cheating is not a sustainable options. The more you check, the more you will find that cheating is not limited to a particular game. Now you have "nuked" Connect4 and Gomoku, but what about Chess, Othello, Draughts, etc. ?
We need to detect/expel the cheating players, not blocking any game in which there is cheating. Otherwise soon there will be no more Arena games.

[ufm]

1) We need sitewide the possibility to resign in two-players gamess and have an hard clock (maybe fischer, but without having to "expeel other player"). Until that time, it will be difficult to attract serious competitive players here

Forgot to mention it. After enough moves progression rate is set to 50%, so the game allows players to resign after that point.
I can't implement fixed time setting. I think you know it already: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=27237

2) Removing the "competitive" part (Arena and Trophies) of games where you find evidence of cheating is not a sustainable options. The more you check, the more you will find that cheating is not limited to a particular game. Now you have "nuked" Connect4 and Gomoku, but what about Chess, Othello, Draughts, etc. ?
We need to detect/expel the cheating players, not blocking any game in which there is cheating. Otherwise soon there will be no more Arena games.

Neither I have ever received complaints on those games nor I have interest in 'nuking' stuff unnecessarily. Not my matter.
For example, I'm working on Pente.
Dunno how it would be implemented though exactly, capture variant existed before Pente but Pente itself is a trademark of Hasbro.
Anyway, I won't disable or 'nuke' anything there.
I'll just implement multiplayer mode and optional rules which are least (or not) affected by current engines, then will leave it untouched.
The default will be D-Pente or Swap2-Pente 19x19, I guess.

Competitive feature of BGA Chess is already gone and I had nothing to do with it.
Besides, I contacted active Arena top players (whose moves do not match solvers) and admins beforehand and then reached this conclusion.
By the way, disabling ranking does not reset ELO automatically. ELO will be retained. Connect Four is an edge case.

We need to detect/expel the cheating players, not blocking any game in which there is cheating. Otherwise soon there will be no more Arena games.

First, 'there will be no more Arena games.' is a straw man fallacy: viewtopic.php?f=246&p=96327#p96196
Also, BGA is not the right place to attract serious competitive abstract players, especially if there are already established stable platforms.
I mean, why pro Gomoku players would want to play 'a serious Pro opening game' on 'a platform without any engine regulation'?
I don't expect BGA to attract players from playfive, vint.ee, playok, LittleGolem, or whatever sites you can mention.
Admins already decreed detecting cheaters impossible. BGA games with engines are 'all-you-can-eat' buffet for cheaters.
If enough players get dissatisfied, competitive features are goners. Frankly it's a lose-lose, but that's how it works for now.

[ypaul]

I love you for this! Thank you so much for bringing the much needed updates!

Regarding arena mode: I am of the opinion that unless and until we find an alternative, I see absolutely no reason to disable arena games.

[Lohoris]

BGA is not the right place to attract serious competitive abstract players, especially if there are already established stable platforms.
I mean, why pro Gomoku players would want to play 'a serious Pro opening game' on 'a platform without any engine regulation'?
I don't expect BGA to attract players from playfive, vint.ee, playok, LittleGolem, or whatever sites you can mention.
Admins already decreed detecting cheaters impossible. BGA games with engines are 'all-you-can-eat' buffet for cheaters.
If enough players get dissatisfied, competitive features are goners. Frankly it's a lose-lose, but that's how it works for now.

I have to say I totally agree with this line of reasoning.

If finding out cheaters is impossible, and there already are other pro venues where to play this game, keeping a fake arena mode that is actually riddled with cheaters would be only harmful.

[ypaul]

I think I agree with you in principle, but there needs to be some internal consistency here. Pretty much all combinatorial+perfect information games will be susceptible to this problem, yet we have Chess, Go, Xiangqi, Reversi, Checkers, etc still in the Arena despite the availability of very strong, if not unbeatable computer players.

I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I think you’re more likely to meet honest players than dishonest ones in a typical play session. Rather than removing all competitive opportunities from all of these sorts of games, I think it’s better to keep them here unless there are widespread complaints about this issue. As you might have seen from the Connect4 thread, people here in general seem to claim to really enjoy the game and want it to stay ranked, even though they are aware that it can be abused without any real consequences.

Since we don’t have any better solutions, just turning a blind eye to this is not necessarily the wrong approach in my opinion. As long as the majority of the players are still honest about their games and are still having fun, well, I don’t see the need to take it away from them.

[ufm]

I think I agree with you in principle, but there needs to be some internal consistency here. Pretty much all combinatorial+perfect information games will be susceptible to this problem, yet we have Chess, Go, Xiangqi, Reversi, Checkers, etc still in the Arena despite the availability of very strong, if not unbeatable computer players.

I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I think you’re more likely to meet honest players than dishonest ones in a typical play session. Rather than removing all competitive opportunities from all of these sorts of games, I think it’s better to keep them here unless there are widespread complaints about this issue. As you might have seen from the Connect4 thread, people here in general seem to claim to really enjoy the game and want it to stay ranked, even though they are aware that it can be abused without any real consequences.

Since we don’t have any better solutions, just turning a blind eye to this is not necessarily the wrong approach in my opinion. As long as the majority of the players are still honest about their games and are still having fun, well, I don’t see the need to take it away from them.

Typical play session, probably. In seemingly high-end games, not really. Cheaters end up with clogging top spots after all.
Hence I asked active high ranked Arena players which play more and are likely to meet cheaters much more often.
This is neither a random decision nor nuking out of spite.
In fact, I spotted a blatant cheater holding #1 trophy for a certain game over several seasons.
But I didn't bother because literally nobody there wanted to shut it down yet.
Admins and devs try to communicate with users and THEN make the final decision.
It's more like an earthquake. Tension builds up underground, then reaches the threshold and BOOM! Everything's gone.
Sometimes it's apparent from overall player pool (like Chess and word games).
Sometimes the discontent is noticeable among top players (this time).

Ultimately, Arena mode is for serious competition.
If it cannot attract competitive players, it is of no use. Typical games can be still played in normal mode.
If the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted?

[Yasten]

You can kick cheaters if you create in normal mode too

[ufm]

You can kick cheaters if you create in normal mode too

Unless all players collectively redthumb cheaters without playing against them, they continue to cheat nevertheless and stay in the top.
Also, I mentioned an influx of cheaters. Yes, even if you redthumb some cheaters personally fresh new cheaters may appear again.
At least in normal mode they mostly stop playing after reaching a certain spot (usually after getting rank trophies).
But in Arena EAS resets happen and trophies are awarded after each season, actively attracting cheaters.

In short, 'a competitive mode which cannot prevent unfair competition' fundamentally doesn't make sense.
However, even though its basis is flawed, Arena mode and ranking system plagued with engines may survive...
Unless it reaches the breaking point. Sorry, this decision will not change. Seems keeping them does more harm than good now.

[ufm]

New updates will be applied soon (probably after Spiel week).
However, this major update will break ongoing games.
Please refrain from creating turn-based games which are unlikely to end before the update.