Feature request: Not Open For Challenges flag

I would like a checkbox in the profile/settings, default off, “Not Open For Challenges”, which would stop other users from sending me a game challenge (for all users, not blocking individual ones). Reasons:

  1. I don’t want to play more games (I’m only here to play a particular person)
  2. I don’t want a notification at top right for something I will always decline
  3. I don’t want to waste other people’s time challenging me, or disappointing them when I decline
  4. I don’t want to waste my time declining
  5. I don’t want to enter into a chat with them “Why won’t you play me? etc etc” after I decline

(I looked through the profile/settings pages and couldn’t find it, did I miss it? Other servers like IGS and Fox have this flag).

11 Likes

Nice idea… might even be simple enough to throw together on the front end alone…

You did not, we don’t have this feature (yet)

6 Likes

If you do decide to implement it, could it be ternary? Don’t challenge me, default, and please send me challenges because I’m available to play? Obviously the last two are just cosmetic, but it could be useful if someone wants a game.

That’s what the play page is for.

2 Likes

Fair enough.

As far as I understand it, that would mean that you could locally “ignore” challenges, but the other side will not know you are not available to play, right? That would not seem optimal to me… Or is the existing API enough to achieve that?

2 Likes

I could be erroneously over simplifying the situation, but I believe it should be possible for a prospective challenger to be alerted that the user isn’t accepting challenges…

2 Likes

I would expect the Challenge button on the little user popup when everyone clicks my name to be missing/disabled (maybe disabled with tooltip “This user has disabled challenges” best).

4 Likes

I wrote a text on my profile page saying that i’m only accepting correspondence games, which has worked incredibly well and its really rare for someone to randomly send me challenges for non-corr games. As a quick fix while waiting for better solution, you could try having some simple “do not send challenges” text on your profile.

4 Likes

This is a feature that I actually like how Pandanet (IGS) implements.

Given the particular nature of OGS as a server, may I suggest that this feature comes with two check boxes, something like

Available for Challenges? ☑ Live games
☑ Correspondence games
5 Likes

Maybe this would be even better?

Available for Challenges? ☑ Blitz games
☑ Live games
☑ Correspondence games
3 Likes

Maybe, it’s up to the devs really, to decide what is more practical or impractical to implement.

If they decide to give it a go, I have no preference over what you or I suggest.

2 Likes

I don’t see a way that we could implement this in the front end alone and have it function as expected.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems like the best we could do in front end would be something like a device specific setting that doesn’t really prevent challenges but automatically declines them while a user is logged in and is not accepting challenges. We’d need API support for anything more useful than that, I think.

1 Like

I see how depending on implementation it could be unfavorable… But I do not think this is an issue.
Don’t ignore, reject.

Lets think about what is happening.
Player A wants to play Player B
Player B would not like to be bothered.

We can (current):
Let A set a notification to B, who will then have to ignore or reject it while being ever so slightly annoyed.

Or we could (proposed)
Let A send a game request to B, who has preemptively rejected all such requests.
On A’s end the game will be reject in EXACTLY the same way as it was previously.
On B’s end, he will avoid an extraneous notification to dismiss

Both situations feel the same on A’s end, auto reject adds utility for B.

I would be great if A could be told that it was not even an option to challenge B… But is not a requirement. The current situation offers no explanation either, and DOES offer the possibility B will simply ignore rather than reject leaving the proposal in limbo and A uncertain if a game is about to pop up.

2 Likes

We do not have the same interface or flow as IGS though. IGS presents you with a list of players on the server in order of rank so you can find your rank and challenge someone instead of making generic challenges (I realise they support both, but they are set up for direct challenge to be common), OGS does not really do this player list, we lean much more heavily on automatch and open challenges.

Status alone likely would not facilitate a significant change in direct challenges, you would likely need a better way to view active/logged in users… however even their OGS webpage style that many keep open differs again from IGS launch our application for go style.

Additionally, a semi common complaint about OGS can be the time it take to be matched for live games… do we really want to thin the pool of players out amongst more systems for game finding?

As stated above, it seems a simple auto reject option may be the best route, instead of blowing this up into something completely beyond the original scope that will never be completed.

3 Likes

I think you are misrepresenting what’s being asked here. For reference:

Also, as you said, most games here are brokered either by open challenge or automatch. Adding this feature wouldn’t do much on the way of decreasing that.

I believe the reason Uberdude asks for this is because he is often spammed by people that go out of their way to challenge him specifically (because he is high-ranked) and, to add insult to injury, they get pissed if he explicitly rejects them or ignores them. Is that a huge issue? Maybe not, but it is an issue, at least for him and—I would guess—other high-ranked players as well.

In this case, I sympathize with his desired not to be harassed.

4 Likes

as you said after the quote… this feature is not relevant to the vast vast majority of game challenges. He spoke about it in chat and my initial response was that there are so few direct challenges, and it does not start automatically, and you can block any user sending repeat challenges.

But I do hate notification spam, and find it reasonable to ask not to be notified about something ( we already have a settings section for just that). So fair enough… I don’t think I am representing his question in anyway, let alone miss :stuck_out_tongue: I am reframing and offering that we can in fact quickly and easily deal with the impetus of his request, exact details of implementation t.b.d.

1 Like