Automatch ("Quick match finder") is very frustrating to use

OGS Development
#1

Yesterday I did help a new user (new to the game and new to OGS) to find a correspondence game. (I want to add that I also don’t know OGS very well yet myself.)
I selected 9x9 and just hit the “Correspondence” button in the “Quick match finder” (using default settings) and thought, this would actually get us a new game rather quickly.
After quite a longer wait, a new game was created but the opponent canceled the game right away - apologizing for mis-clicking on “Correspondence” in the quick match finder.
So I just initiated a new auto-match request as I did before (as the server unfortunately lacks a feature to automatically re-post the original auto-match request in such a case).
Then the same scenario (just without the apology) happened again!
And then again!
And again.
And again.

No kidding!

And then, after searching for a simple 9x9 beginner game for almost a day (!) with lots of manual fiddling and notification mails and stuff, I got really frustrated!
Then I realized that the auto-match request didn’t show up in the list of available game requests. Which triggered the idea to post a custom game request myself. And - surprise! - I had a new game pretty quickly.

I guess my question is this: Is the auto-match feature broken or am I missing something here?
Isn’t it the very purpose of a “Quick match finder” to easily and quickly find you a new game?

As I said, this experience was really frustrating and is probably very detrimental to attracting new users.

Thanks for any insights you might share!

1 Like
Make quick matches the primary way of finding matches
#2

It looks to me like your experience could mostly be blamed on the opponents cancelling their games… I’m not really sure how we could solve that problem.

Often people resign games against opponents without an established rank. We don’t like that behaviour, since new users should get a chance to play games as well, but unfortunately there isn’t much we could do about it either

I think the “Custom Game” option usually has better results indeed, since a user accepting your request knows they will be playing a player without a rank, and thus has no reason to cancel. Perhaps it makes sense to place the automatch matches in the same games list, since that could indeed speed up the process.

I’m not sure if this would be a feature that makes people happy: I assure you there will be people who don’t realise a new request is being sent out, and who will leave their computer / the website, only for their next match to be greeted with an absent opponent.

2 Likes
#3

Thanks for your response!

Absolutely!
Actually my expectation was that a custom game is just a game request with more specific settings compared to an automatch request and all requests will be matched with each other and create a new game if matching. It’s confusing for me that different users can basically look for the same game but the server isn’t bringing them together (if this is how it works).

Related to re-posting a game request if the opponent cancels immediately after the start of the game:
Imagine a user who just initiates one (or even multiple!) correspondence game request(s), logs off and just wants to play a game of Go as soon as possible - and really isn’t interested in having to fiddle around with the server at all. That user wouldn’t even want to get a notification if another user accepts the request and cancels the game right away. An option to re-post game requests if games are canceled right away would be very helpful in this case.

#4

What I’m saying is, the thing you consider to be helpful may be annoying to others. Making changes like this always results in people complaining, since one cannot please everyone.

I personally would not prefer if OGS would automatically renew the request when an opponent cancels the game. It’s no effort at all to just create a new challenge (since settings are remembered).

#5

You are certainly right that you can’t please everyone. And it would also be unnecessary for the use case of normal and blitz games where you sit in front of your client and wait for your game to start.
In the correspondence case however, where you submit your game request, go offline and wait for a mail notification, it would be a great option. And note that I’m saying option - so you don’t have to use it.

2 Likes
#6

I agree that this would be great. Just recently I set up a correspondence custom game and left it there for someone to start off. It was rather much later that I remembered it and find it had been accepted and cancelled.
Since I set up a correspondence game I think it would be fine for me to get a game at some point even if one or more people accept and cancel in the meantime. They would be better than me having to go back and check if my game was cancelled and then having to set up another one exactly the same…

2 Likes
#7

FritzS: Not really a solution to your problem, but I like the ladders because you can send challenges and the player must accept. If they just resign or timeout, at least you move up the ladder and people higher up tend to actually play the games. Big downside is other players challenge you and you must accept those (up to 3).

#8

That’s not exactly true. They can cancel the game and it gets annulled instead of making a move, just like happens elsewhere. There doesn’t seem to be any rule against doing that that I can find. There’s another thread where I asked about this. I’ll look for it.

Edit: This one OGS Ladder Rules - #5 by yebellz

I guess it’s like resigning in that you move up above them, but I was thinking of resigning as more of playing the game for at least a few moves then conceding in some way for some reason as opposed to cancelling :slight_smile:

What I mean by not exactly true, is that they don’t have to accept, by way of playing. They “accept” in that the game is created but not in that they must play or lose rating. Just they get bumped a spot off the one they were in in the ladder.

#9

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