tom wrote:
so it should be pretty hard to get booted automatically unless you disappear for 4 days without setting a vacation period.

The bummer thing that I noticed when adding the new boot stuff to the Help the other day was that this statement is not necessarily true... If I disappear for 2 days, get auto-skipped, come back for 5 days but never hit my turn in that game, then disappear for 2 days, then I get auto-booted.  While it is somewhat seen as 4 days in that game, it may not be a simple straight 4 days. 

Hopefully it's not a scenario that will happen much, or that when it does the player will be too upset by it.  I still think your system is good and I don't have a solution to the above scenario :P

Why not just make it 3 auto-skips in a row to get booted instead of 2? Waiting 2 days at a time (for the other players in the game) isn't all that bad, really.

Fair enough.

It seems the new approach greatly reduces the potential for ill-consequences.  So, I ask the following out of curiosity rather than concern.  What is the rationale for auto-boot?    It seems that if you replaced auto-boot with an immediate ability for any player to force-boot, you'd accomplish the same thing but allow control of the game to remain in the hands of the players.      I've been in games where people forgot to set vacation or got delayed returning from their vacation.   We knew the person was on vacation and just waited a few more days.  With auto-boot, it seems you're out of luck.    I'm trying to figure out what problem auto-boot solves.    Is the goal to prevent a build-up of unfinished games on the server?  (probably not since it isn't applied to every game)... or is it just to put a little pressure on people to keep games moving because they know the computer will be unforgiving about enforcing the boot-time?  

Actually... good points. I can't think of an answer. And I can't think of anything wrong with this suggestion:

It seems that if you replaced auto-boot with an immediate ability for any player to force-boot, you'd accomplish the same thing but allow control of the game to remain in the hands of the players.

I think the entire rationale for auto-boot is inertia. In other words, there isn't any.

The rationale for having auto-boot was to get rid of all the horrible confusion relating to the different host boot / vote boot / direct player boot periods and to have one seamless system for automation turn skipping and booting for ranked games.

The main advantage autobooting has over allowing players to direct boot is it gets rid of the animosity related to players booting other players to get a positional advantage in the game.

An additional benefit is that all public ranked games progress automatically without getting stalled. We'll see how the current system goes, so far I think it's working ok but I'm happy to review it once it's been place a few weeks.

I think the option works nicely, when it works. I am in a game with a 15 minute auto skip, and it isnt working. Its not a huge deal since it just turned into a regular game. All in all, its is a huge improvment over the other site, also I like how there isn't a penalty if you do get booted, other than your win/lose percentage drops.

I am very much in favor of an auto boot system.

I am totally opposed to a player boot system.

I have noticed very few idiots playing these games, consequently all players can therefore figure out if they can meet the turn time requirement.  If the answer is NO don't sign on to play.  That's simple. 

If you can forsee that if this happens and that happens and of course none of it would be "your fault" then you want Tom to protect you from your poor judgement.  We're all big people now, so no whining allowed, just admit you goofed up and got booted.  Take it like the Man/Woman you are supposed to be not the wuss you are sounding like.

The concept that players know best is ridiculous.  First of all none of us are mind readers, regardless of how often you say to yourself and others, "I know exactly why he did that...  I know how he thinks in those situations.. etc"  all BS.  No matter what you might think you know what is best for someone else, worse yet all the other players in the game you don't know what is best nor what everyone really thinks about the guy who keeps not playing on time.  The bottom line is the guy who doesn't play within the time allotted is rude and inconsiderate of all the other players.  Most importantly it is almost guranteed that if you do or do not boot one guy but you did so to another someone is going to end up really irritated and guess what--evidence will show, obvious favoritism on the booter's part or on the part of those who did not boot.  I have played enough to know that most of the time in open games, ranked games and tournaments I haven't ever played with more than 1/2 the people so how could I possibly know whether he should or should not be booted.  I have hosted enough tournaments to say unequivocally that frequently those that have to be booted need it on their first few turns and many in their first game.  So, who is going to know that guy? 

The greatest advantage to an auto boot system is the fairness and equity it represents.  Certainly you can make an auto boot system so draconian few would ever support it.  When I read the comments of experienced players who have played 10,000 + turns I know they can come up with a palatable solution that we all can support and be happy with. 

I looked at Tom's list of new things/enhancements in What I did last summer and said to myself, "Great, where do I sign up."  I felt that way for a couple of reasons, first Tom has been making pertinent, well reasoned comments and suggestions on the Warfish Forum for years.  His performance as a player is amazing and unmatched and that doesn't happen without a deep understanding of how to play the games and a very complete grasp of the subtlety of each game.  Last and most important Tom said, "...so please let me know if you find anything and I'll turn around a fix asap."

I checked out that last comment.  First of all lo' and behold there was the Forum deeply hidden on the Home page right next to boards and rankings.  Well, I thought this should be interesting he sure as shoot will get lots of comments.  And he did and does and best of all he keeps replying and making changes.

So, I vote for giving Tom feedback and depending on him to come up with an Auto Boot system that most of us most of the time will be very satisfied with.

That's quite a rant!

I've never had a game where I wished for auto-boot. The only time I get annoyed is if someone habitually takes 5 days between turns. I will often take turns 5 or 6 times in a day, however I often do take off for the week-ends. A game I am in skipped me because I took two days. I guess this is okay.

But I hate to have a game where I take all my turns several times a day in a game, and then find I got booted by the computer close to the end of the game because I hit 48 hours.

If people continually hit that cap in one game then I find it aggravating. If I'm playing any number of the people I am familiar with from the other site, I know they often take their turns on time, and sometimes something comes up. I don't think they are inconsiderate for not taking their turn for a few days, so long as they don't hold that game up constantly and consistently.

SUGGESTION:

Unrelated to the rest of my post above - can we make the turn timer a little more exact? I logged on, saw it had been my turn for a day but could not finish the turn and came back a few hours later and had been auto-skipped. I'm sure there's a way to find out exactly how long it had been my turn (usually I would use the HISTORY hint hint) but I want to see without multiple clicks how long until I am skipped or booted in a week-end scenario where I can't always check for turns.

In the meantime, I shall just be frustrated when I finish turns Friday night and find out I am skipped or booted by Monday morning.

Ah - and for those of us who are "week-end off"'ers, 2 days or 15 minutes seems pretty limited option-wise. I'm used to cushy 5 days until someone other than the host boots me, but being able to select 3 days would be more convenient for when I happen to be away from internet land on a week-end (yes, when I'm visiting the folks, I don't even have dial-up).

So, lets start at the top and state the problem we're trying to fix with skips/boots:

The Grand Problem

Some people want to play as if they are at a table with the other people so that their games will move on almost continuously. Other people play as little as once or twice per week. Most people are somewhere in between but plenty near either end of the spectrum. When players from these different groupings join games together, there is friction regarding the pace of the game.

The Current State of the Fix

Currently, gamers can start games with autoskip settings of 2 days or 15 minutes.  This creates a stratification of games which allows people to join games that better suit their expectations.

Consequences (In Order of Severity)

1. A large demographic of people are likely being ignored. (The people who play casually, login infrequently, don't post in the forums, and who just leave the site when booted rather than leaving feedback). To these people, 15 minutes & 2 days appear as Fast and Faster.
2. Even the commuter core, the people who are online 8+ hours a day 5 days a week, are ending up skipped or booted from 2 day games when they go home for the weekend.
3. The Lightning set still aren't finding their games to go fast enough. Everyone else finds their games to go too fast. No one is happy.
4. People start Lightning games that don't fill up in a reasonable amount of time and the host/early joiners may no longer be available when it does start; and are skipped/booted without taking a turn.
5. Lightning games still don't finish fast enough and people must leave before their conclusion; being skipped, booted, and altering the outcome of the game.

Potential Solution

More granularity, but not too much. This gives better separation of games to better match the styles of play. Too many options will simply confuse the matter. We probably want settings for:

Live - Everyone is expected to be at their computer, logged in, and not leaving until the game is done. 5 minutes to start a turn, the remainder of 10 minutes to finish it. 1 auto-skips in a row, or 2 total in a game, then an auto-boot.

Daily - This serves the people who are at a every day (weekends included), but may fear their boss coming into the office, accommodates the end of the work-day or the start of a 3rd shift job, need to sleep at night, or otherwise. The majority of turns taken in this setting will probably be counted in hours or less, but offers some flexibility for the real world. 24 hours to start and finish a turn.  2 auto-skips in a row, or 3 total in a game, then an auto-boot.

Casual - Covers most everyone else. Allows for you to go home on the weekends or to get busy with other things in life. 5 days to start and finish a turn. 3 auto-skips in a row, or 4 total in a game, then an auto-boot.

None - No autoskips/boots. After 10 days, players can vote to manually boot a player so that an abandoned game can eventually move on.

The added granularity should address consequences 1, 2, & 3.

Host Terminate - All games still in the join phase can be terminated by the host. This should keep the join phase from outlasting the game hosts ability to play in a game. Other players should be free to leave at any time in the join phase. (I don't want to give the host the ability to just leave, as it will probably be abused by people starting games they don't intend to play. I can think of at least one certain author who would probably do this in order to increase exposure of his maps -- especially once reviews and sales are in place).

Terminate/Leave should address consequence 4.

Tough Shit - This is gonna happen. Live with it.

This is how I think consequence 5 should be handled.

Caveats

The time setting for a game needs to be EXCEPTIONALLY clear on the main listing (queue), and on the join game screen. More than just an icon. Change the color of the background of the row in the queue table for each. And keep the icon.

The queue box on the home tab should have filter checkboxes along the top with only casual checked as the default. When checking one of the other options, a popup should appear explaining the setting (with a "Do Not Show This Again" option so people don't have to see it every time they change their settings). Tooltips should also contain the info for a mouseover on each box.

Unintended Consequences of Proposed Fixes

Confusion. Too many options is proven to make people less happy with their decisions and to confuse & overwhelm them. This may not be so many options as to make that a problem, or the benefits outweigh the risks. Thoughts?

Rankings. Do we adjust how each timeframe is scored or represented in the rankings? Could the rankings be unfairly affected? Do we make it so that only Daily games count as ranked?

Separation. Can the population support all these options yet? Will all the "None" games sit in the queue for 2 weeks while it waits for people who play that style that want to play that particular map with those particular settings to come around as infrequently as they do? Will a majority of Live games end up terminated because the join phase lasts longer than the host anticipated the whole game to? Is there any solution to this other than a larger community?

Others?

How many games did you get booted from while typing all that up?

RiskyBack wrote: How many games did you get booted from while typing all that up?

Didn't get booted from any games, but I did get fired for lack of productivity... ;)

Cramchakle wrote:

 

Rankings. Do we adjust how each timeframe is scored or represented in the rankings? Could the rankings be unfairly affected? Do we make it so that only Daily games count as ranked?

I have wondered about rankings being "unfairly affected", especially when seeing 7 player games in which 6 players were Booted.   That's more of an outlast than outwit game.  But to make it only Daily games would be bad IMO.

Cram - that sounds a lot like where we started off with the boot settings, i.e. 1, 2 and 5 day turn times (although added lightning mode granted).

I definitely see the point about weekenders going away Friday night and being booted Sunday night, that's definitely a bad thing. I'd propose maybe the default longer boot time go up from 2 days to 3 days to fix this. Any longer than 3 days away from your PC and you should be using up vacation time.

Currently hosts can delete Lightning mode games at any time during the join phase and any other players can decline the game to exit it at any time during the join phase - I don't think this should be extended to regular games as it can easily be abused by hosts wanting to avoid playing other players for some reason. I don't think it's very user-friendly either to find games you have joined being deleted without warning.

I'd be keen to avoid any changes along the lines of '5 minuts to start your game then 10 minutes to finish it' - it should just be 15 minutes to complete your turn otherwise it just gets confusing. I agree though that the current 15 minute lightning mode time may also need tweaking - maybe 15 mins to take your first turn then 5 minutes per turn thereafter?

I also want to retain some form of autoboot for ranked games to ensure they don't stagnate.

keep the ideas coming, I'm sure we'll get there in the end :)

tom wrote:

Currently hosts can delete Lightning mode games at any time during the join phase and any other players can decline the game to exit it at any time during the join phase - I don't think this should be extended to regular games as it can easily be abused by hosts wanting to avoid playing other players for some reason.

Isn't this what the Enemies list is for?

Enemies list only restricts non-Premium members from joining your games (at least that's the way I read it).

i still think if you're on here that much (daily) but intend to take the weekends off; then you need to rethink things (unless you don't have a puter at home, then i'm just sorry).

- take the flippin 15-30 minutes ONCE during the weekend. if you can't get to your computer for that measly time (hell you got to take a shit sometime don't ya?! ;^P ); then the skip deals with you. sorry.

- if you're planning on being at your in-laws who don't have a computer, VACATION mode ppl. or deal with the skips.

personally my family knows i play these two sites (WG & WF) and that i 'have to make my moves'. i tend to make sure that on the wknds i move at least once per day. its not hard to do right when i get up or right before i go to bed.

Is there some way that maybe people could specify their playing type? Maybe in settings there could be some options, and a 'weekday warrior' couldn't be skipped from 5PM Friday to 8AM Monday.

Or maybe just an extra vacation-type option where you can select each weekend if you'll be available or not.

In general I'm kind of on Weathertop's side with this, if you absolutely can't get to the computer at all for the weekend, use up some vacation time for the Saturday, and that will extend the turn time enough to get to Monday morning.

bengaltiger wrote: Is there some way that maybe people could specify their playing type? Maybe in settings there could be some options, and a 'weekday warrior' couldn't be skipped from 5PM Friday to 8AM Monday.

Or maybe just an extra vacation-type option where you can select each weekend if you'll be available or not.

In general I'm kind of on Weathertop's side with this, if you absolutely can't get to the computer at all for the weekend, use up some vacation time for the Saturday, and that will extend the turn time enough to get to Monday morning.

I don't like that idea and I'm normally way less active on the weekend.

Setting Vacation doesn't actually extend your time, your Turn Timer still increased like normal, it just means you can't be booted while on Vacation.