Community consensus / unwritten rules about blocking?

[ManonIronteeth]

The goal of TTR as written in the rules is to make more points than your opponents, if this can be done by blocking, why not using it ?

But the rules don’t say to block. That’s just a conception that players have come up with themselves. And then they, like you, are trying to justify your pettiness and inability to play sportsmanlike by saying it helps you get more points. But it doesn’t, it just keeps the other player from getting points while you make an enemy of them.

If you block me I’ll red thumb you all I want.

Is there any rule that blocking is forbidden? No? Then it's just an allowed strategy.

Ok but even as a strategy your prior comparison of it to chess is not equivalent. A strategy is not the point of the game and neither is blocking. It is done in a malicious manner and that it what is unsportsmanlike.

[Sysyphus]

The difference between a good player and a great player is in the ability to play with bad tickets and/or a bad hand. Most players can win with a good hand, not everybody can win with a bad one. Blocking in a 2er is a lever that you can use to mitigate the luck of your starting combo.

A top player could lose 40 arena points if losing to another "Elite" player that is way lower ranked. It would require 30 wins a row against the same kind of players to recover from that loss. Without blocking allowed you are not given any chance to perform at the highest level.

The problems that I see :
- there are lots of players in the TTR arena
- lots of players can make it to the Elite league, even with a 100-point ELO.
- the gap between the 700 ELO players and 500 ELO players is already ginormous skill wise, I let you imagine the gap between a player who is 100 and a 700 in an Elite Arena game - because you are paired way more often with a lower ELO player than a higher ELO one.
- the difference of expectations for the game are also ginormous, leading to that misunderstanding.

We need way many more levels in Arena to pair the players relatively to their skill. Or, for example, you need to allow the top 100 player of a season to fight for the title in the next arena season with a system of promotion/relegation.

The 4 player Arena is the same. We are at the point that top players are just playing strings of games to gain potentially 1 to 3 Arena points/game... Whoever times their streak the best in the last 3 days is the arena winner. That's honestly not very fun, nor very challenging.

There have never been unwritten rules in any games or any sport that hold : just practice to be better...

[thg0724]

Above all, I agree we shouldn't get mad at each other! Don't get mad at me for taking the route that you need or for grabbing the color train cards that would make your goals more easily achieved. I won't get mad at you if you don't block me or otherwise make accumulating points more challenging.

The nature of the game makes it different from playing golf. We are competing for the same resources: train cards and routes. In golf there isn't a limited pool of balls that everyone must use, nor are there rules that prevent two players from using the same fairway or green. Balls that are in the way are marked and moved rather than left as an obstruction. The game rewards the longest continuous train, relative to other players, rather than give every player a bonus for 25, 30, 35, 40, or 45.

This is not like playing a round of golf where you might just be competing against your own handicap or trying to achieve individual goals that have nothing to do with the people you are playing with. Playing "with" rather than playing "against".

My point is that some TTR players do see the game as similar to playing a round of golf and trying to achieve individual goals. And who is to say that they are wrong?

Part of the big debate here does, I think, boil down to whether you see the game as playing "with" other players or playing "against" other players, as you put it.

But I think the real disagreement, which we can't seem to get beyond, is that some players see the game one way, other players see it the other way, and both camps think the other is simply wrong, doesn't understand the game, and is irrational, unreasonable, or unsporting. I think we could benefit from simply acknowledging that those in the other camp simply see it differently and that's perfectly fine, equally valid, and just not a view we happen to share.

As I said before, we can use the "presentation" option to signal to potential players what kind of game we're looking for.

[james1974]

sometime blocking happens because certain links are in high demand, and this is part of the game, sometimes it is malicious

like when an opponent in a 2 player game guessed i need to go to Miami, and took Miami to new orleans, new Orleans to Atlanta and Atlanta to Miami, none of these places on his destination.

definitely a tactic

[thg0724]

Suppose it is towards the end of the game and you have recently drawn a new destination and then played Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I happen to hold three orange and have nothing else pressing at the moment. Is it "malicious" for me to build Las Vegas to Salt Lake City?

sometime blocking happens because certain links are in high demand, and this is part of the game, sometimes it is malicious

like when an opponent in a 2 player game guessed i need to go to Miami, and took Miami to new orleans, new Orleans to Atlanta and Atlanta to Miami, none of these places on his destination.

definitely a tactic

[dhnyny]

Suppose it is towards the end of the game and you have recently drawn a new destination and then played Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I happen to hold three orange and have nothing else pressing at the moment. Is it "malicious" for me to build Las Vegas to Salt Lake City?

I would say it is certainly not malicious because you get points and deny your opponent the opportunity to get points and that's the whole object of the game.

But it really should be obvious by now to everyone who is on this and the other threads on the same topic that there are simply irreconcilable differences of opinion about blocking. It really baffles me that people don't seem to understand that there are two competing views of blocking and that both are defensible. I should, of course, move on and stop commenting on these arguments that go nowhere because people can't see any view but their own as legitimate. (And I'm probably as guilty as everyone else is of this.)

[thg0724]

I'm relatively new here, maybe I am partaking in a discussion that has happened over and over again, but it's new for me! (My understanding is that Ticket To Ride is also relatively new here, so maybe it hasn't taken place over and over again...yet.)

In case there was any doubt, I don't have a problem with different people playing the game for different reasons. I do recognize that everyone's goals may not be the same; I understand it is possible to get enjoyment from the game while not trying to utilize all legitimate means to win.

My problem is with the use of words like "malicious" to describe what I think are legitimate tactics or the suggestion that I am practicing poor sportsmanship by engaging in this tactic. I think it is poor sportsmanship when someone leaves a game because they are frustrated by being blocked.

I once saw someone quit a game of Scrabble after they played "WASNT" and faced a challenge. Leaving a game of Ticket To Ride because someone engaged in blocking seems on a similar level.

Suppose it is towards the end of the game and you have recently drawn a new destination and then played Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I happen to hold three orange and have nothing else pressing at the moment. Is it "malicious" for me to build Las Vegas to Salt Lake City?

I would say it is certainly not malicious because you get points and deny your opponent the opportunity to get points and that's the whole object of the game.

But it really should be obvious by now to everyone who is on this and the other threads on the same topic that there are simply irreconcilable differences of opinion about blocking. It really baffles me that people don't seem to understand that there are two competing views of blocking and that both are defensible. I should, of course, move on and stop commenting on these arguments that go nowhere because people can't see any view but their own as legitimate. (And I'm probably as guilty as everyone else is of this.)

[ManonIronteeth]

I play Simple Games and not Arena because I want to have fun. I’m playing to win but not in the same way as if I were playing Arena mode. In Arena I would be fine with someone blocking me, it makes sense to do whatever possible to secure your win.
In a Simple Game, doing something malicious such as blocking all the routes into a city I need is not fun. If someone does this multiple times you bet I’m going to say screw it I’ll take the -10 karma loss if the game is less than 50% and I don’t want to play with you anymore and a personal opinion red thumb on top of it. If it’s close to finishing then I just play it out as quick as possible and give you that red thumb. Go play Arena if you want to be hardcore and malicious like that, not in a Simple game.

I'm relatively new here, maybe I am partaking in a discussion that has happened over and over again, but it's new for me! (My understanding is that Ticket To Ride is also relatively new here, so maybe it hasn't taken place over and over again...yet.)

In case there was any doubt, I don't have a problem with different people playing the game for different reasons. I do recognize that everyone's goals may not be the same; I understand it is possible to get enjoyment from the game while not trying to utilize all legitimate means to win.

My problem is with the use of words like "malicious" to describe what I think are legitimate tactics or the suggestion that I am practicing poor sportsmanship by engaging in this tactic. I think it is poor sportsmanship when someone leaves a game because they are frustrated by being blocked.

I once saw someone quit a game of Scrabble after they played "WASNT" and faced a challenge. Leaving a game of Ticket To Ride because someone engaged in blocking seems on a similar level.

Suppose it is towards the end of the game and you have recently drawn a new destination and then played Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I happen to hold three orange and have nothing else pressing at the moment. Is it "malicious" for me to build Las Vegas to Salt Lake City?

I would say it is certainly not malicious because you get points and deny your opponent the opportunity to get points and that's the whole object of the game.

But it really should be obvious by now to everyone who is on this and the other threads on the same topic that there are simply irreconcilable differences of opinion about blocking. It really baffles me that people don't seem to understand that there are two competing views of blocking and that both are defensible. I should, of course, move on and stop commenting on these arguments that go nowhere because people can't see any view but their own as legitimate. (And I'm probably as guilty as everyone else is of this.)

[thg0724]

It's not "malicious" to play by the rules and play to win.

Arena games are only available in two-player at the moment; suggesting all serious play take place in Arena is silly.

I play Simple Games and not Arena because I want to have fun. I’m playing to win but not in the same way as if I were playing Arena mode. In Arena I would be fine with someone blocking me, it makes sense to do whatever possible to secure your win.
In a Simple Game, doing something malicious such as blocking all the routes into a city I need is not fun. If someone does this multiple times you bet I’m going to say screw it I’ll take the -10 karma loss if the game is less than 50% and I don’t want to play with you anymore and a personal opinion red thumb on top of it. If it’s close to finishing then I just play it out as quick as possible and give you that red thumb. Go play Arena if you want to be hardcore and malicious like that, not in a Simple game.

[andi330]

I was just complimented(?) on my aggressive blocking in a game. In reality, I wasn’t trying to block that person at all, it’s just that we had very similar paths we needed to take to get the locations we needed, and I happened to get the tickets I needed faster than they did. I was also going for longest train. Did it seem like I was deliberately blocking them? Maybe. But it wasn’t that I was setting out to block the roads they needed. It’s also harder in 2 player mode of course because you can’t use the double tracks which closes up areas.