It would be great if OGS profiles supported a “Preferred Color” option with 4 choices:
Black
White
Random
No Preference
For any games that are currently automatic color determination (like ladder challenges), if both players prefer opposite colors they would both get their preferred color.
For any games where one player has a Black/White preference, and one player has a “No Preference”, the player with a preference gets his color.
For games where both players prefer the same color, or when one or both players prefer Random, both sides are randomly assigned a color in the same manner that automatic works now.
I don’t like this. It sounds nice but the implementation would just add more clutter to the matchmaking.
EDIT:
Actually this is only relevant in “even” games. I’m not quite sure how “automatic” works if two 4 kyu players are matched.
Does it give white to the stronger rating holder? what if rating is also the same (ok this would be insanely rare).
In non even games and “automatic” I think stronger player always is white (as it should be)
Automatic color should give the player with more rating points white. (Not randomly.)
The case that both players have the same rating is virtually non-existent.
On a slightly related note, I believe that currently when a new game offer is created with the ‘no handicap’ setting, the color remains on ‘automatic’ by default, giving black to the lower ranked player.
When I was getting used to OGS, I found this behaviour to be misleading (like the thing with byo-yomi where the last period is actually the one with 0 remaining).
Isn’t the majority expectation that ‘no handicap’ would be the same as ‘even game’ by default, i.e. with random colours?
Sounds very nice but so much trouble and UI waste for so little feature.
I would prefer a simple one button that says “Your colour” next to it and the graphics on that button would be a stone and when you click it there is four different modes(graphics). Black, white, yingyang with a question mark on it(random) and perhaps yingyang with gor text on it(automatic as gor = go rating).
I am well aware that “no handicap” and “even game” are not the same things, thank you very much.
The player might find this out the hard way by choosing “no handicap” in the (already quite loaded) Open Challenge dialog. OGS then goes “Alright, no handicap - here, have white against this weaker opponent. What, you meant to play with random colours, as is usual in games without handicap? Too bad, you should have said so! <trollface>”
Aside from OGS playing pedantic wordplay tricks on its users, chances are that you wouldn’t even notice the skewed nigiri unless you had this experience several times (as I did). If I wanted to play a specific colour, I’d go and look for the colour option. It is not natural for anyone to go look for a way to set it to random.
I’m sorry about the directness of my previous post
The intention was not to imply that you implemented the drop-down defaults like this on purpose, or if you did, that it was your most serious and ultimate attempt to create the final and-the-users-will-like-it open challenge dialog to end all open challenge dialogs.
I also see the kind of idea that the two options are separate and how it can seem appropriate to code them as they are.
After my previous post was obviously misunderstood, this one was supposed to get the point across with more vigor
Making oneself clear is hard, especially on the internet. Case in point: I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say in the second half of your last post.
Edit: @trohde and I have taken our banter to PMs. To clarify, we’re not angry at each other
