Ladder time limits

Ladder time limits are currently 1 day added per move with a maximum of 3 days, while tournaments have 1 day added per move with a maximum of 7 days. Can we move ladders to the same 7 day maximum? I always play very quickly, but I like to be able to save a bit of time for when I am away for a few days. 3 days is way too short, and I recently lost two ladder games because of it. I see no upside to having it that short, especially in ladders, where you are immediately dropped off the ladder on a timeout.

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There was a poll about ladder time settings, and most (VERY most) of people voted for faster timing (3+1->3).

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Well, that will mean I won’t play any ladders b/c three days is too short for me … but I guess they can do well w/o me :smiley:

(edited because it apparently was misunderstandable)

I know, I participated in that discussion. I already explained then why it was a bad idea to lower the cap. Software design by democracy is like design by committee, except you can generally at least expect committees to be composed of people knowledgeable on the subject. Most people have no idea how the parameters impact Fischer time.

The original discussion was the result of people complaining about ladder games taking too long. This change does not solve that problem, but it does introduce a new problem, where people who are active and genuinely interested in participating run into time-outs more easily.

Yes, I found your post. You are absolutely right (mathematically). I think most of people understands what effect maximum time has. I mean, total time increased is Number_Of_Moves * 1d which is much more then starting 7d… So, 4 days more only increases time per move by 4d / Number_Of_Moves ~ 30- 20min, which is (almost) absolutely irrelevant. However, many of people does not play very often, and their games (which would last for months) finish in few weeks after they time out. Just as example. Especially for 19x19 board… Also, fast timing makes people take ladder games more serious, and they try to play faster, which also decreases game duration a lot.

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So ladder games still don’t finish in few days, but now are played only by fast players so they finish much faster.

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You say that like it is a good thing?

Time-outs should mainly hit people who have stopped going to OGS, not people who are actively playing and interested in participating in the ladder. It is never a good idea to have a “feature” that needlessly upsets your active users.

It is simply impossible to guarantee that a correspondence game at 1 day added per move will finish quickly, and if people want that guarantee, they should play live games, or at least correspondence games that have a much much lower increase than 1 day.

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Can you explain why? Is it really so terrible that games may take up to 150 days instead of up to 145 days?

If you are away for a few days, you can always activate vacation.

One thing that should probably be implemented are group ladders with custom times.

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No. That means new OGS is not so good for people who liked old, correspondence OGS and slow games anymore. OGS has evolved to a great, active server and is no longer ideal place for people who want to play calm and slow. Of course they can, actually, but I am talking about ladders and tournaments. I don’t say that like what i want or like, is just so. Personally, I like the way things are going, but I understand some people don’t. Again, they do, but games become faster etc. which can cause them some problems (as you said). Servers like DGS are still great for slow playing… However, we have both live and correspondence tournaments, live and correspondence rank etc. So, why not have slow and fast ladders? At least, site ladders could have 2nd, slow, version. Or just 4 days difference is not enough to make entire new ladder? I don’t see this as an ideal solution, it is just a suggestion. :smile:

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Yes, I could. Or OGS could make its software better and not require users to activate vacation for very short periods of being away.

I don’t see why you feel it is necessary to make OGS less user-friendly with a change that has absolutely no benefits.

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Please, don’t talk about OGS like it has bad software. Developers are doing everything to make it better, and, honestly, they are doing it great. Let’s suggest for new feature: auto-vacation, activates 1h before you time out from a correspondence games. Also, it would be good to have a choice on this option (maybe someone prefers to save their vacation time, rather then activating it every time when they are about to time out…?).

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If OGS doesn’t want correspondence games, they should stop offering correspondence games. But to deliberately cripple them in order to drive off people is weird.

But I really don’t think that that is what OGS is doing. I think they have simply made a bad change with good intentions. A change that has no positive effects for anyone, but that does needlessly make OGS less user friendly.

And since they’ve generally improved OGS’s user friendliness by leaps and bounds, I can’t really imagine that that was the intention.

I’m not. I think OGS has done great, and is hugely improving all the time. But it is not perfect, and there are still ways it could be improved further. I am just suggesting one.

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It isn’t necessary and I don’t feel so, I am sorry if I explained my opinion so badly they you understood it so… :frowning:
I just say most of people now prefers fast games, and some other people may not like it but you can’t avoid everything: there are always going to be some people who don’t like something.

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I agree.
So we have 3 suggestions now: auto vacation and double ladder, or simply return to old timing. Lets see what other people think…

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Yeah I didn’t explain that so good… I agree, OGS doesn’t want to become only live server. And no one is trying to eliminate correspondence games. “Bad change with good intentions”? Good intentions - yes, but we were the ones who wanted that change. Most of people wanted faster games - we got faster games. As i can see, no one complains about too long games anymore, so looks like the change was good. Now we have to deal with new problem: to fast games… That is kind of magic circle, you can’t get out of it. Today someone wants faster, tomorrow someone else will ask for slower…

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Did we? I’ve not seen any statistics about how much faster the games got. Or more specifically, about how rare long games are. Because I don’t think the people complaining were complaining about games taking 5 days when they wanted 3 days, I would think they were complaining about games taking months. Did those games go away?

Well, I never saw anyone complaining about too long games before the change either, but perhaps those complaints went through the chat when I wasn’t there, or through JIRA when that was still active, or via email or whatever. Anyway, I have no insight into the relative amount of complaints.

Just to clarify: I don’t want slower games. I usually finish ladder games quickly, sometimes within an hour if my opponent is online. What I want is a reasonable cap that allows unexpected life events to take you offline for a few days without immediately losing games. I think 7 days is reasonable, while with 3 days it is entirely possible for the unexpected to bite you.

The downside to auto-vacation is that it means that when someone stops playing on OGS altogether, it may still take more than a month for their games to time out. If people plan to be away for a week or more, they should just activate vacation.

No, it’s that I (currently) prefer slow over fast, and there are (work) weeks for me where three days are simply too short. All in all I almost only play correspondence because of similar reasons: not really enough time (or, consequently, calmness in my head) to play live.

@trohde: Ok, so you’re probably responding to ST000MA then? I’m suggesting to increase the time cap back to a more reasonable 7 days.