Allow undo request on your move

Currently you can ask for an undo after you have made a misclick and it is your opponent’s move. But once they play their move, which can happen quickly, you can no longer ask for an undo. You should be able to ask for undo on your move, and if the opponent grants it is undoes their last move and your last move. This is how undo works on other servers. To workaround this you have to resort to the chat box, but this is fraught with difficulties like people not seeing the chat, speaking different languages, and taking a long time, see the examples below.

To pre-answer some possible objections I have encountered before:

  1. “But it’s not fair to ask for undo once you have seen opponent’s answer” For beginners Go may be a point-and-click adventure game in which every move comes as a surprise, but this is not true for more experienced players. The move to punish a misclick is usually obvious and does not provide useful information to the misclicker. Plus they can always decline.

  2. “People can request undo too much and be annoying”. This is not changed by allowing undo request on your move, it’s already possible. But as a separate feature it would be good if after multiple undo requests in the same game the choices were: Accept, Decline, Decline and auto-decline future requests. Some other servers have this feature.

  3. “I don’t like undos, misclicks are your own fault” As is you right, and you can decline. This feature is about using the language agnostic features of the site, rather than the unreliable chat box, to ask for undo. A separate feature to disable undos as an option when creating a game is also a good idea.

  4. “Use submit move button mode to avoid misclicks”. The presence of this mode does not prevent improvements to the undo feature. As for why to not use submit move button mode: it’s a pain on mobile to keep scrolling from the board resized to fill screen to the the submit button, plus as the submit move button is in the same place as the pass button you can end up with a new form of misclick of mispassing when you lag or mistakenly double-tap.

Example 1
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:24] Player1: My move was a misclick, undo please.
[13:25] <-Player1 lost on time->
(Player2 either didn’t see the chat or ignored it, perhaps was in Zen mode)

Example 2
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:24] Player1: My move was a misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player2: Ask undo then
[13:24] Player1: I can’t ask undo on my move
[13:24] Player2: Yes you can, the undo button is below the board
[13:25] Player1: It doesn’t appear when it is my move, so you need to ask to undo YOUR move, I give that undo, and THEN I can ask for undo!
[13:26] Player2: Oh okay, OGS is pretty weird huh
[13:26] < Player2 asks undo >
[13:27] < Player1 lost on time >

Example 3
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:24] Player1: My move was a misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player2: Ask undo then
[13:24] Player1: I can’t ask undo on my move
[13:24] Player2: Yes you can, the undo button is below the board
[13:25] Player1: It doesn’t appear when it is my move, so you need to ask to undo YOUR move, I give that undo, and THEN I can ask for undo!
[13:26] Player2: Oh okay, OGS is pretty weird huh
[13:26] < Player2 asks undo >
[13:27] < Player1 gives undo >
[13:27] < Player1 asks undo >
[13:27] < Player2 gives undo >
[13:28] Player1: Thanks
[13:28] < Player1 plays intended move >
[13:28] < Game continues >

Example 4
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:24] Player1: Do you speak English?
[13:24] Player1: Sprechen sie Deutsch?
[13:25] Player1: Parlez vous Francais?
[13:26] Player1: Hablas Espanol?
[13:27] Player2: О чем ты говоришь?
[13:27] < Player1 lost on time >

Example 5
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:25] Player2: 你怎么不玩 [Why aren’t you playing?]
[13:25] < Player1 loads up bing translate >
[13:26] Player1: 我是只喜欢吃圣诞树的炸兔子 [I am a fried rabbit who likes to eat christmas trees]
[13:27] Player2: lol

Example 6
[13:23] Player1: Misclick, undo please.
[13:24] Player1: Hello???
[13:25] Player2: 你怎么不玩 [Why aren’t you playing?]
[13:25] < Player1 loads up google translate >
[13:26] Player1: 我没有按一下,请撤消您的举动,以便撤消我的操作 [I made a misclick, please undo your move so I can undo mine]
[13:27] Player2: 什么 [What?]

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So funny. Yes of course and with all the subsided options you suggest.

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The thing I don’t like from the examples, and the one difference I can see about asking for an undo request on your own turn, is that you can let your time run down while waiting for your opponent to accept the undo and what do you have to lose?

If the player believes that the misclick is bad enough that they don’t want to play on with it in the game they can let their own time run out pressuring the opponent into accepting the undo, using their time instead to convince them and presumably get that time back if the undo is accepted.

This is kind of the case in the examples except of course either the player is low on time or it’s blitz/rapid of some sort.

If the undo can only be asked on the opponents turn, the opponent can decide on their own time to accept. If they play a move they haven’t accepted it or haven’t seen the undo, although I believe there was a new feature to make undo requests more visible now. Wish: Better Noticeable Undo Requests - #84 by benjito

I think just learn to play on with the misclicks, or learn to avoid making them is the best. I do agree with 4. the submit mode being a pain on mobile. Double click to play might be better, at least a lot of other apps for servers like tygem, WBaduk and Pandanet actually zoom in on the board on the first click and then the next click selects the move or some variant of that.

I also find it a pain playing on mobile except for correspondence on OGS, so I usually use pc for live games. I should try another live game though, although I’m not hopeful, because I doubt I have a bigger phone screen than the last few times I’ve tried.

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The thing I don’t like from the examples, and the one difference I can see about asking for an undo request on your own turn, is that you can let your time run down while waiting for your opponent to accept the undo and what do you have to lose?

I don’t get the logic here, with the current workaround of asking for undo in chat, your time also runs down and then runs out. I’d actually say that the fact your opponent makes the decision to give undo or not on your rather than their time is an advantage and nicer to your opponent. At the moment it’s a bit of an imposition on them to ask for undo, particular in a fast game. Some servers pop-up a modal dialog box “Your opponent wants to undo” but that’s quite a problem in a blitz if the clock keeps ticking (and even if the clock pauses you should have a grace period to regain concentration and move mouse back to relevant board area).

If the player believes that the misclick is bad enough that they don’t want to play on with it in the game they can let their own time run out pressuring the opponent into accepting the undo, using their time instead to convince them and presumably get that time back if the undo is accepted.

The fact my time will (and often does) run out doesn’t seem to pressure my opponents to respond to the current “ask in chat” design. You don’t get the time back after an undo.

there was a new feature to make undo requests more visible now

Yes, the ? is an improvement, but still easier to miss than a modal dialog box, a banner below the board (not above as you don’t want to visually shift it) or a change in background colour.

a lot of other apps for servers like tygem, WBaduk and Pandanet actually zoom in on the board on the first click and then the next click selects the move or some variant of that.

Yes, I like this design.

I also find it a pain playing on mobile except for correspondence on OGS, so I usually use pc for live games. I should try another live game though, although I’m not hopeful, because I doubt I have a bigger phone screen than the last few times I’ve tried.

I can play multiple blitz games on my (fairly large) phone without misclicking with single tap to move mode, the touchscreen fidelity is pretty good, it’s just occasionally a misclick happens.

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I would find this feature helpful. Not because I ask for lots of undos, but in my friendly virtual club matches, there are occasionally points where we need to go back but it is only obvious once I play my move. I don’t think this use-case is in the spirit of the undo request, but nevertheless it would speed up the reversal.

This feature should probably be accompanied by a “Deny undo request” button. This would also be helpful for clearing the recently added “?”.

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Although one wouldn’t need this extra button as is now. In theory one would also need to block being able to repeatedly use this undo request.

Well at the moment, if it’s my turn and I make a move either to deliberately ignore an undo request or just because I didn’t see it, I need to be the one to decide to initiate the undo again. If the opponent can ask for an undo on their turn, you probably have to sit and watch the opponent let their clock run down and possibly debate with you all the while with this “undo requested” is on the screen, and possibly the new ‘?’ on the move.

You are right that the opponent could still debate about the request and let their clock out the way it is. Maybe it’s not so different, maybe it’s subtly different.

The undo system might need extra features in any case.

Yeah it feels like it’s not too much hassle to undo a few moves as is, is it? Especially if it’s friendly and/or teaching games potentially. The person whose last stone was played undos their stone placement.

Hmm, I’ve given a bunch of undos before and thought I would recover my time at least, say if I had to think about the move, or maybe I didn’t notice the request right away, since we’re going back to the opponents move and you’re letting them undo. Is time never recovered in any cases?

In a wonderful lands where only matters fairness and the search of the divine move, giving back time would be wise. But given the fact that players did engage in a game with some limited global time it may be not.

Not too much of a hassle at all. Just saying I would see this as a net improvement to my experience.

It sounds like your biggest issue with the proposal is the opponent running out the clock trying to force the undo. I feel like this would be resolved by the “Deny” button. If an opponent continues to fuss, that becomes moderatable activity.

No one needs this, I agree. However, with the undo requests becoming more prominent (as they should be) I think it would be nice to just say “no” and revert to UI to it’s usual state.

I agree. I think denied requests should prevent the opponent from asking again.

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It’s not a strong objection really either. It probably won’t change much for the average player, and maybe it’ll make people’s life easier with the change

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Well your opponent can always refuse the undo if they think you’re behaving like that.

Fair point. I don’t think I really had a very good objection, even at the time, but rather just exploring some possibilities.

I suppose functionally, it’s probably easier to be able to ask for an undo on your turn, than to have to explain to your opponent how to offer an undo, if they haven’t done it before.

As in if one player is able to offer undos regardless of whose turn it is, and the other player can choose to just accept it.

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Also can we have a click but wait 3 seconds before confirming unless I’m running out of time?

Is that substantially different to either of the alternate options of

image

Well it is what it is I think it’s a slight improvement on one click to move.

If I understand your suggestion, then you’d always lose 3 seconds even when recapturing a simple ko, or responding to a forcing move.

I guess you can simulate it by using the submit-move button option, and just count to three in between playing the stone and pressing the submit button.

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Or with the double click to submit also.

I’m not sure I understand how. What happens if I change my mind within three seconds?

All issues related to undo request can be easily resolved …

by eliminating the function of undo. :sweat_smile:

All health problems can be eliminated by death.

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