Conceding whenever, in games of 2.

[Ze Monstah]

Hi.

I would like to ask who else thinks that the 50%-progress conceding limit, for games of 2, is too high.

I personally feel that when both players are strategy-wise decent (or at a similar level), the luck is the one that establishes the majority of things.
And a high-enough number of times, when one player starts with only 3-resource birds that have no use neither for bonuses nor end-of-round goals (or any other similar hard-to-digest start) while the other player starts with cheap birds that are easy to build right away in order to get a strong engine going, I feel that it's a bit sadistic and counter-productive to be forced to play for nothing until 50%.

I personally just lay eggs without actually laying, when I feel there is no chance of success, and wait for the 50% to kick in.

There are not so many games where this feeling settles in, and one might say that pessimism might have a lot to do with this, but I really think that in games of 2 (all games, but particularly Wingspan), a player should be free to concede whenever.
The disadvantage might be that the other player may feel the experience is ruined if the game is not played at least 50%.
But I don't feel that it is a symbol of disrespect for the other (already decent) player. At least, I don't find it disrespectful when others concede on me. Just... "I find this game already lost, I'll move to the next game" kind of feeling.

What do you people think?

[Jellby]

Conceding at 50% is a BGA-wide "feature" or policy. What's up to each game's developer (I believe) is defining when the "50%" is reached, it's not necessarily linear with the number of turns or rounds.

[Ze Monstah]

Yes.

[paramesis]

Conceding at 50% is a BGA-wide "feature" or policy. What's up to each game's developer (I believe) is defining when the "50%" is reached, it's not necessarily linear with the number of turns or rounds.

That is correct. In a game of Wingspan there are a fixed number of normal turns: 26 per player, and the progression in this implementation is (or should be) linear based on that. The 50% mark is reached at the beginning of the first player's penultimate turn of round 2.

The parenthetical "should be" is because there is a bug in which the progression jumps ahead a few percentage points over the course of a player's turn, then jumps back. This will be fixed in the next release.

I didn't find anything in the BGA release notes about it, but my understanding is that the 50% rule is to inhibit illegitimate use of multiple accounts for ELO boosting.

[Ze Monstah]

I didn't find anything in the BGA release notes about it, but my understanding is that the 50% rule is to inhibit illegitimate use of multiple accounts for ELO boosting.

I think I see.
If 2 players played for kingmaking, then what I ask for (the ability to concede whenever) would make no difference between a game of theirs and a game of mine where I feel I have no chance of winning and want to end it from the start.
And by playing 50%, there would also be more evidence if some kingmaking-sort-of reports were set on those 2 players.

It makes sense, seeing this from this perspective.

[asmallcat]

Conceding at 50% is a BGA-wide "feature" or policy. What's up to each game's developer (I believe) is defining when the "50%" is reached, it's not necessarily linear with the number of turns or rounds.

That should just be removed for all 2 player games. When one player concedes, the other wins! Who cares how it happens? Why is forcing someone to play a game to the halfway point when the result will be the same the standing policy?

I 100% understand why people can't concede from 3+ player games - it will often break the game, so there should be a penalty for doing so. But when you concede in a 2 player game, the other player wins, presumably the goal they were striving for in the first place anyway (co-ops excluded).

[kloaf11]

Conceding at 50% is a BGA-wide "feature" or policy. What's up to each game's developer (I believe) is defining when the "50%" is reached, it's not necessarily linear with the number of turns or rounds.

That should just be removed for all 2 player games. When one player concedes, the other wins! Who cares how it happens? Why is forcing someone to play a game to the halfway point when the result will be the same the standing policy?

I 100% understand why people can't concede from 3+ player games - it will often break the game, so there should be a penalty for doing so. But when you concede in a 2 player game, the other player wins, presumably the goal they were striving for in the first place anyway (co-ops excluded).

Someone above you posted the reason. Which is a fairly valid one. Elo boosting

[Jellby]

Conceding is only possible with 2 players, so removing the 50% restriction for 2 player only would mean removing it for all cases

[Ze Monstah]

Conceding at 50% is a BGA-wide "feature" or policy. What's up to each game's developer (I believe) is defining when the "50%" is reached, it's not necessarily linear with the number of turns or rounds.

That should just be removed for all 2 player games. When one player concedes, the other wins! Who cares how it happens? Why is forcing someone to play a game to the halfway point when the result will be the same the standing policy?

I 100% understand why people can't concede from 3+ player games - it will often break the game, so there should be a penalty for doing so. But when you concede in a 2 player game, the other player wins, presumably the goal they were striving for in the first place anyway (co-ops excluded).

If 2 players played for kingmaking, then what I ask for (the ability to concede whenever) would make no difference between a game of theirs and a game of mine where I feel I have no chance of winning and want to end it from the start.
And by playing 50%, there would also be more evidence if some kingmaking-sort-of reports were set on those 2 players.

[paramesis]

Without the 50% restriction, it is trivially easy to create a table with a sockpuppet account and have that account concede immediately, and to do this repeatedly (or worse, with a script) until your main account reaches #1 ELO ranking or at least a very high plateau. This was apparently enough of a problem frustrating legitimate competitors and taxing BGA's resources that the 50% progress countermeasure needed to be implemented.

If cheating the ELO rating system seems like a pointless waste of time, that means you're reasonable. Rules need to account for the behavior of unreasonable people.