Board Game Arena

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?

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.

Yes.

Jellby wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 14:21 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.

paramesis wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 15:45 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.

Jellby wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 14:21 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).

asmallcat wrote: ↑07 February 2023, 22:54

Jellby wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 14:21 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

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

asmallcat wrote: ↑07 February 2023, 22:54

Jellby wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 14:21 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).

Ze Monstah wrote: ↑04 February 2023, 16:23 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.

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.