Private vs Ranked

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1

Why are private games and ranked games mutually exclusive?

When setting up a custom or computer game they can be either private or ranked, why not both?

Jim

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Just speculation…

Perhaps ranked games are not allowed to be private, so that the player’s history of games that establishes their rank is kept public. For the cases where players misbehave in order to distort their rank, having all ranked games be public makes it easier for others to spot it and report it.

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3

Just opinion: I don’t like this. I’m totally happy for the game itself to be public if rated. What I’m missing a lot is a way to play rated games while having a private game chat.

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4

Why not just use the DM for things that need to be private and the game chat for what has to do with the game?

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5

Good point.

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You have a very good point. It just does not occur to me that players can misbehave on a computer controlled game.

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Multiple reasons:

  1. the game chat is permanent
  2. using the game chat is less effort - fewer clicks
  3. the game chat is less intrusive - exchanging messages while sending moves is just a very natural method of chatting while playing with friends

Of course you are entirely right that everything works ok as it is, the options are there. But for me the option to make just the chat private would be a significant improvement.

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I think the vast majority of players are well behaved, but with such a large population, a small fraction of cheaters and trolls are bound to exist.

I imagine that some players might abuse AI games to distort their rank, hoping that since it is an AI game, their misbehavior would be less likely to be noticed and reported.

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If it’s too sensitive to be shared, why the need to discuss it during the game (especially if it’s a live game) and have a record of it?

(Just for the sake of the argument, not actually arguing)

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On that point, if one were to notice a rated game that wasn’t scored properly (which could change the result), who should be the person to report it? The players in the game, any observers or future people that stumble across it?

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Is there a strong reason to play ranked games with friends? In my experience, friends who want to play private are also somewhat averse to playing ranked anyway

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‘Need’ is definitely too strong a word. With sensitivity there is a huge grey area. I definitely don’t need to exchange credit card details in a game chat. But just friendly conversation with a friend (or sometimes even semi-strangers) can easily make me identifiable in real life. Now, I’m not so super paranoid (just a bit), so I largely ignore this problem. But I would feel better if I knew I wouldn’t have to worry even with a higher paranoia level.

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Fair point. With a specific person I have in mind I like to play ranked, because I think that helps the ranking system a bit. I play mostly correspondence, that other person plays mostly live and blitz. I think there are fairly divided player pools and such rated games across those pools might be useful. So you can see: I have a reason. Is it a strong reason? I guess not.

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14

I think the general guideline is “report to the mods when you see something” (from within the game), as a central reference point. And they can take it from there.

I have reported a game between two complete beginners (loud loughs in the background), and the moderator I think also had a scoring guidelines chat with them, to help them learn about the system.

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I believe that a significant portion of cheating and misbehavior ends up going unreported. The victim in the game might not even know about the report feature, or they might misunderstand something about the interface to not see that they have been cheated, or they might just feel that they shouldn’t bother with reporting cheaters and just simply move on.

However, it is very useful to have all cheating instances reported to the moderators, since if problems remain unreported, the misbehavior may persist for much longer and affect more victims.

Thus, I think that if a third party (observers or future people that stumble across a game) notices misbehavior in a game, then they should definitely report it, if it is apparent that the issue has not already been addressed (e.g., a ranked game that has not already been annulled and does not have a note in the chat box from a moderator that has examined it).

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Hi there, beginner question: what’s the meaning of ranked games? I’d say not-ranked are not accounted for when defining a player’s rank, but I couldn’t find clear info

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Yes it is simply whether a game counts towards your rank or not. Ranked games can only be played with opponents within 9 ranks of you and unranked can be played with anyone.

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18

Thank you @BHydden

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19

Do tournament games between players of >9 difference (example) not actually count as ranked, or is this a loophole?

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I believe that’s a loophole… I probably meant 9 ranks for open / direct challenges…

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