I would like to point the attention to the strict policy around disconnections, which make it fairly prohibitive to play blitz games on online-go.
While I do understand that disconnections are a distracting factor during a game and may not be taken too lightly, the “let the timer run” is severely punishing during blitz games, making ogs the harshest environment among the go servers for blitz players.
If changes were made, which I would like to suggest, I would gladly come play more consistently on the ogs server. However as blitz games consist of the majority of my go routine, I will have to change servers for now.
I know OGS has some wiggle room for disconnections, but there is a limit (otherwise folks would be mad about people not timing out!). What do the servers you plan to move to do?
The other servers (basically all) have a maximum of 3 times disconnection per game policy in which one could reconnect within 5 minutes without consequences on the time left on the clock. This would at least cover for a lag or two occuring during a game.
I am asking for the possibility to disconnect and reconnect, even just within a couple of minutes, without having the timer already run out (at the moment in a 10 seconds/move game, a disconnection = guaranteed loss on online-go)
Edit: I forgot to mention the servers I plan to use instead. Fox/KGS/Pandanet/Tygem.
Are you serious? In a game where players might be playing 5s/move do you think it’s reasonable to have your opponent wait up to 3x5minutes during a single game?
I think OGS is more likely to attract blitz players by not having that kind of open to abuse system.
I’d add that even if we set abuse aside, it’s a bit annoying for the opponent that has to wait 5 minutes staring at the screen, because if he moves and you suddenly reconnect, then he’ll be the one timing out before he goes back to the computer.
On KGS, if a player disconnects, then the game is marked as “unfinished”. There is no need for any player to stare at the screen, the game will only resume if both players agree to resume it. Resuming a game works pretty much like starting a new game, with one player sending a “resume game” challenge to the other, and the unfinished game is picked up where it was left off.
On GoQuest, you do have to wait when your opponent disconnects, but it’s something like thirty seconds, not five minutes. It can be stressful if you really have only a few seconds left on your clock and have to wait, but it’s only thirty seconds.
That being said, I’m not sure how this could work for OGS, since players don’t need to be “connected” to play on OGS. For instance, if I use the third-party android app, I can play a full game without appearing online.
I can’t see any reason why any disconnecting is necessary at any time.
This is different to timeout.
At OGS we strongly discourage timeout (abandonment) of games, especially live games (where the opponent is actively waiting for the next move), BUT I believe that moderators understand that timeout is an expected result in a blitz game.
This is a loophole, I think we should fix it. There is no reason why the third party apps can’t honour the connection protocol, it’s just that we currently don’t force it.
KGS don’t follow the kind of asian servers policies.
They rely on fairness between players to resume the game but as a side effect, you may end with lost won games and a bad stamp on you if you have a poor connection. In fact the reverse as the intention of the policy.
If you can’t understand it, it means you live in a country where internet connection is stable at all times.
I am speaking from a personal point of view: although I enjoy playing blitz games, my non-perfectly stable internet connection makes it impossible to play on OGS, while on other servers it’s manageable.
As punishing as it may seem to you, if you actually manage to come back to the game in time before the opponent leaves, or reach out to your opponent in order to finish the game on a second date, may it only be 3 games out of 10, you won’t lose them all 100% of the times as is the case of OGS at the moment.
I had a poor connection some time ago. A bunch of won games were never resumed by my opponents and after a while kgs system considered me as a regular escaper, giving instant forfeit victory as soon as i disconnected.
At least OGS is clear, let you manage your connection problems and time choices instead of inflicting you double punishement as KGS.
I hope the best for you there.
I suffered from the exact same issue a lot on OGS and I have seen it happen many times to other people while I was watching streams, even in pro games on OGS, pros complaining about it on-stream. It isn’t an issue for just blitz: if you lose connection close to the end of your byoyomi, you can lose a byo or even time out in live games as well. There is almost no lenience towards connection problems. Note that OGS is much wonkier than most other servers, which makes lenience towards technical issues more of a must.
I would assume that the team is aware of this disconnection issue on the server but it is very hard to fix, therefore lower on the priority list than it should be. I’m very surprised that the existence of a problem regarding timeouts due to technical issues is denied altogether. Maybe there was some recent fix regarding this that I’m unaware of?
I play on fox and goquest and don’t suffer from the same issue at all, despite using the same connection.
I suggest you consider skipping Tygem because they have “features” like getting ai assistance during games in return for membership fees etc. That server is going downhill. KGS escaper policy allows people to stall games almost indefinitely when they are losing and salty, so I found it very frustrating to play there, but if your only criteria is lenience towards bad connection, it might suit you.
I believe a new clock system was being rolled out last year which was more lenient towards intermittent connection issues
in the sense that it was supposed to take into account latency information. I remember at the time testing whether we could complete ludicrously fast blitz settings for 9x9 on beta like 5s + 1s Fischer
and I’m not a blitz player, I tend to timeout on fast games, but with practice I could.
That’s not to say there isn’t possibly some bugs. I know for instance in some of my longer games of 30m+15s Fischer or 1h+5x30s I will run into some “error submitting move” problems, possibly a couple of times per game, and of course it’s awful when it happens if you’re in byo-yomi or living on increment, but it hasn’t been too bad for me personally.
Again that’s not to say that people don’t have connection issues or connection issues don’t exist, but more so that hopefully some things are still playable with reasonable connections and latency.
Happy to try some more 5s+1s games with people if they want, but you might have to give me a few warmup games to not timeout I have to get into the frame of mind of planning ahead and clicking when it’s my turn quickly.
(I wasn’t sure I got the feeling people were denying existences of connection issues - but maybe I’m just glossing over things while reading, or this is some issue from before this thread)
I have to get into the frame of mind of planning ahead and clicking when it’s my turn quickly.