Word Checks During Game

[JackHH]

The developer recently added a popular feature to allow users to check words during the game. I can see this being popular and useful, especially for foreign language players, or scenarios where there are differences between US Scrabble and British Scrabble.

However, I feel this feature is a mistake that will damage the integrity of this wonderful game in the long run:
- We had several historical issues with cheaters especially when arena mode and ELO was enabled
- Allowing mid game checks (even not on your turn) opens the door to users thinking its ok to refer to dictionaries/solvers etc while playing (it strictly is not!). Over time it will slowly increase the number of users who get into the habit of using an anagram solver to help assist them with creating words.

Hardback is my favourite board game of all time and I am immensely grateful to this website and the developer for making it available. I feel like I am able to play it here in an environment competitive enough that I feel a sense of achievement in having reached an 800+ elo. Adding the word check, feels a bit the beginning of turning the game from something we can use for proper competition, into something that is strictly just for fun and not serious at all.

It would be great (at bare minimum) if we could have an option in game setup to disable in game word check for the game. Even better (in my opinion) would be to have "Strict mode" and "Relaxed mode":
- Strict mode: No in game word check, max 3 retries per turn, skip turn if clock overruns
- Relaxed mode: Allow in game word check, unlimited retries, no skipping turn.

With these options I even see potential to bring back arena(?) subject to being able to have arena for real time only games with a very fast turn clock.

[MrBeardy]

I would agree with the above save for one addition: where you add a letter during your turn this ought to give you more time to work with eg 15 seconds per letter or something as to go for the big bonuses you do need time to play with. This will particularly matter in the strict case. It might be worth starting a bug report/improvement suggestion in the bug report/dev area of this gets enough traction.

[quietmint]

Adding a game option for word check is fine. We did this for "view your deck" house rule which was also a popular request that caused some controversy.

Automatically skipping a player when the game clock runs out is interesting. It's a difficult problem because BGA expects the players to handle this manually by kicking their opponent from the game after the clock expires. There's no built-in mechanism for me to trigger something automatically at the moment the clock overruns, but I'll do more research to see what workarounds are possible.

We already have a game option to limit invalid word attempts, and checks done with the new feature already count against this limit for your next turn. I think you're proposing to basically simplify the options and bundle several together under "relaxed vs strict" (one game option would control 4 things: word check, attempts, automatically skip, and deck visibility)? This idea sounds fine to me, but I expect the players won't agree? Do we still need to give individual control of each option, in addition to the bundle? (It could be done with 3 choices: Relaxed "bundle", strict "bundle", or custom is like today where you choose each thing individually)

[MrBeardy]

My reading of it was he thought casual games benefit from flexibility to set each option individually but tournament and arena games should have the strict bundle set. Personally I wouldn't want to see the current flexibility removed from casual games and I don't play arena but having strict timing would seem sensible there. I do support the ability to turn off the checker in games though. I can see times it would be useful.

Great to see a Dev involved in the game maintenance btw. Some other BGA games feel like they have been abandoned leaving holes. Bravo!

[quietmint]

Version 220905-1559 adds a game option to disable the new word lookup feature (it is enabled by default).

- Allowing mid game checks (even not on your turn) opens the door to users thinking its ok to refer to dictionaries/solvers etc while playing (it strictly is not!).

Just to be clear, the rules do not prohibit using a dictionary during the game. There's no problem with validating whether a word you thought up is accepted by the dictionary. However, this is completely different from using a solver to do all the work for you. (Then again, I don't see the point of playing the game at all with a solver since the main puzzle here is trying to create words ).

I'm curious what others think about your "strict mode" suggestion -- namely, a game option where your turn gets automatically skipped if you run out of time thinking of a word.

[Krystaka]

I suggest a further parameter option to permit/prohibit the use by any one player of any entire word more than once. In the election of prohibition, the use of the root more than once would be acceptable, so long that the entire word was different eg. run/runs/running etc. The choice becomes significant from mid-game onwards. With a long word providing high ink+remover renewal, it is possible to repeat a high-scoring word several times for an easy win. Not being a programmer, however, I have no idea as to the viability of providing such an option.
In general turn-based gaming, I believe parameter choice is the way forward. It is useless to argue rules and morality in an online game. The most effective path is to provide options whereby the game administrator may decide the character of the game to be played, giving others the choice to join or not join.

[FamilyAbraham]

I'm curious what others think about your "strict mode" suggestion -- namely, a game option where your turn gets automatically skipped if you run out of time thinking of a word.

I'd be in favour of having this as an option, it's super annoying on the (rare) occasions when someone ends up basically ignoring the time limit. Yes I could vote to eject them, but I would much prefer to finish the game and skip just the current turn

[JackHH]

I suggest a further parameter option to permit/prohibit the use by any one player of any entire word more than once. In the election of prohibition, the use of the root more than once would be acceptable, so long that the entire word was different eg. run/runs/running etc. The choice becomes significant from mid-game onwards. With a long word providing high ink+remover renewal, it is possible to repeat a high-scoring word several times for an easy win. Not being a programmer, however, I have no idea as to the viability of providing such an option.
In general turn-based gaming, I believe parameter choice is the way forward. It is useless to argue rules and morality in an online game. The most effective path is to provide options whereby the game administrator may decide the character of the game to be played, giving others the choice to join or not join.

I think this suggestion probably originates from a sense of frustration because it's happened against you before a couple of times? This is just part of the game and it shouldn't be changed. If a player gets to the point where they can repeat a high scoring word over and over, then they've achieved the objective of the game.

As a suggestion, there are other things you can try to make this not happen:
- Block opponents from getting romance cards by buying them yourself. A common way to build the "Parrot Deck" engine is by heavily using romance to trash down to a small deck
- Buy and use timeless classics. Then your opponent has to sometimes use up your letter too which is less predictable for them
- Considering buying mystery cards with the jail feature so that you can block your opponents from getting the letters which help them achieve the parrot tactic by jailing them.
- Set your preferences to favour "Short games" to 40pts
- Set your preference to favour only playing weak players

[ufm]

I think this suggestion probably originates from a sense of frustration because it's happened against you before a couple of times? This is just part of the game and it shouldn't be changed. If a player gets to the point where they can repeat a high scoring word over and over, then they've achieved the objective of the game.

This. If you somehow allowed parroting, the game is already over. It's a valid strategy in many deckbuilding games.

[ufm]

- Strict mode: No in game word check, max 3 retries per turn, skip turn if clock overruns

Probably solved by viewtopic.php?p=120550