Malo77 wrote: ↑17 February 2024, 12:12
I think most problems comes from a mix of people playing at different skill level and/or different mood and expectations.
There should be more options.
There already is chill and relax: "friendly" mode (without points)
There are missing:
- a grand master level 900+
- a way to select players level more precisely with a range like 650-750
- chats / no chat option
- an arena for pure competitive players
- earning at least 1 point when perfect game is achieved
- display used conventions: sometimes people use different or more advanced conventions not everybody knows
Obviously, BGA agrees with "chill and relax" being the friendly mode, given their change from calling it "training mode" to "friendly mode". But at the end of the day, it's still precisely that: a training mode. No risk, no return, no nothing other than spending time repeating rote actions. Bonus: you're stuck being Hanabi tutor if the other people at the table are new to Hanabi, because friendly (training) mode has no time limit — and that means even if you're the greatest Hanabi teacher with the patience of a saint, you did not sign up to spend your lunch break chilling playing Hanabi teaching a newbie all the conventions. Or all the rules of how avalanche and black even work to begin with.
Just because someone wants to play at a "chill and relaxed" mood, doesn't mean they don't want points to be part of that. When you play Hanabi with close friends (actual friends, not someone you friend requested on BGA and don't actually have conversations with), you're not going to throw a fit and quit being friends with them because y'all had a losing streak that cost you both -50 or -100 points each. You had fun, y'all tried your bests, and sometimes the card draw stuffs every single 2 at the bottom of the deck and makes it literally impossible to complete perfectly (and without being perfect at master level, that means you're losing ELO). Same deal for people who want to play without having to fuss about the wins or losses — they enjoy the rise in points if they win together in a chill room, and they accept the loss of points if they don't have that perfect game. But that doesn't mean they want a boring game where they gain or lose nothing — what kind of time spent is time spent dully?
As for the "missing" things:
- grand master level 900+: 1) ruins ELO privacy that prevents the phenomenon of "prejudice and discrimination on sight" that is extremely prevalent because we're all humans. 2) moot point because let's be real, there'll always be a request after this for even higher ELOs. 3) ELO levels are consistent throughout BGA — and NO non coop game is going to benefit from this (in fact it'll just be adding yet another unachievable tier to the list) because MOST competitive games on here don't even have ONE player that's reached master level most of the time. This only benefits Hanabi, literally. (Unless there are other coop games that have an ELO system that makes losing ELO possible)
- precise ELO range selection: 1) same as point 1 above. 2) otherwise a good idea in theory, but what are you gonna do when "omg these players' ELO's are inflated, they're at 650-750 ELO even though they don't know anything about finesseeee"? 3) would table hosts even use this filter?
- chats / nochats: doubtful that BGA has a way to enforce this or will within the next couple or few years: Narabi has a table setting called "advanced mode" — part of this is a rule that says "no chatting allowed", but on a technical implementation level, players are still able to freely chat during these tables and this rule can't be enforced, only respected by player will.
- arena for pure competition players: the fact that you're suggesting this at all for a "cooperative game" is a huge red flag but to humor you: 1) who is supposed to be the loser you take ELO from? 2) what you really want is a ranking system to compare ELOs on 3) literally the solution is to just make a BGA group where the screening criteria is to have 900+ ELO, have someone monitor this daily or weekly, and then limit tables to this group. simultaneously will be easier to track who has higher/highest ELOs among this group. make a spreadsheet for them, even. 4) on a technical level, not gonna be possible unless all coop games also get arena access lol
- earning at least 1 point for perfect games: 1) there is a way to do that. it's called deigning to play with players that are 500 - 700 ELO points below or above you. 2) if you could earn 1 point for ALL perfect games, your ELO would be inflated. ELO is a device to measure your skill level, or at least tell others about your approximate skill level — once your measure stabilizes (commonly around 700-900 ELO), it rises if your skill increases. that's the basis of ranks too — listing who has better or worse skills and showing that change when rankings change. if a 900+ ELO player can get someone with at least 500-700 less ELO than them to win a perfect game with them, at their level, that's skill. and as "competitive Hanabi players" like to behave, if a 900+ ELO player gets a perfect game with a 900+ ELO player, that's not skill, that's a given. 3) otherwise your only option is to beg the Hanabi dev(s) to change the ELO system to ensure all wins result in a gain and all loses have no penalties — Narabi, Similo, Bandido, are a few that follow this type of "ever upwards only" coop ELO system. It would reduce the angst for failing games drastically, honestly.
- display used conventions: if you mean as part of the UI when playing, great, fantastic idea. but the table settings do already offer a lot of not really used "conventions" — if you're talking about specific "techniques/moves" that people use that fall under some general umbrella of "super advanced finesse because it's built upon the fundamentals of finesse", the notes area exists to set table expectations where you can write out exactly what advanced moves are expected to know. some people do bother using this notes area, but most are too lazy to. or perhaps don't have the power to since they can't host the table.
alternatively, i say BGA should implement a thing like among us and
many many other lobby making games where the table host has the right to kick a player
in the middle of the game. solves everything, really. don't like my rules, get out of here then. reshuffle their hands and tiles into the deck again. whether the kicked player loses karma or elo or both, idk, not my problem to figure out that balance there. and if it's a malicious table host, then ban them from hosting privileges. win win.